Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews L

This is one of my posts where I “review” Star Trek episodes. I will be giving each one a star rating. I sometimes will make some comments about non-political parts of them that I like or don’t like. I’ll sometimes use the issues raised in the episode to discuss similar issues in real life. And I will sometimes simply high-light the progressive politics of ST. ST is in-line with the three original themes of this blog, as I explain in the first ST post where I offer some general thoughts about ST.

I have been more or less ignoring this- the need for me to become familiar with The Original Series. In general I don’t like much of what I’ve seen. In any case, I am now watching it and will be doing reviews of those episodes. I will be giving pretty low scores, probably no higher than three stars out of five- I just don’t like TOS.

Lastly. multi-culturalism is such a pervasive theme in ST that I only comment on it when it goes beyond the norm (i.e. inter-species partners).

“Spock’s Brain” See this for a plot summary.

For some odd reason, I had trouble figuring out an important aspect of this episode. That is, is Kirk being sexist when he talks about the low level of intelligence of the women? At one point it’s suggested that, because of the “Controller” that takes care of the women, their brains have atrophied through lack of use- so it probably isn’t sexist, although it sounds like it here and there.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Enterprise Incident” See this for a plot summary.

There is one bit of politics. We see, for the first but not last time, that women do okay among Romulans, as the officer in charge of a group of three warships is a woman.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Paradise Syndrome” See this for a plot summary.

This is another ST episode about American Indians and aliens. I have mixed feelings about such episodes, but don’t remember any info about how American Indians feel about them (I also don’t have any info on how the aliens feel about them : )). This one is based on the idea that aliens took some members of three tribes that were in danger of being wiped out from Earth and settled them on a very Earth-like planet.

I give it two stars out of five.

“And the Children Shall Lead” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it one star out of five.