Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews Q

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).

“The Cloud Minders” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about privilege. You could also mention national oppression, but privilege seems more appropriate (“elitism” is also very accurate). At one point Spock says: “this troubled planet is a place of the most violent contrasts. Those who receive the rewards are totally separated from those who shoulder the burdens. It is not a wise leadership.” You could also use the phrase “environmental racism.”

There is a scene where torture is being used. Although Kirk and Spock make it very clear they and the Federation won’t stand for that, the planet which is witnessing the use of torture by the government is IN the Federation. The torture is stopped and Kirk ends up leaving the planet when he is ordered to.

So, it is largely about inequality. At the end it appears that progress is being made, and there are moves towards equality.

I give it one star out of five.

"The Savage Curtain” See this for a plot summary.

This episode contained a lot of political or at least sort of political stuff.

At the end, there is the question, from an alien culture’s point of view (without these concepts)- which is stronger, Good or Evil?

The alien concludes that both use the same methods, and achieve the same results. In the battle that the alien had just watched, as far as I could tell, the methods were largely the same, although one fourth of Kirk’s team tried to resolve the conflict non-violently and was killed by the other side. There’s a large amount of truth that in war, most methods are used by both sides. The majority of the time, I’d say there’s no problem with that- the problems arise with things like torture and intentionally killing innocent civilians. In response to a series of sectarian murders of Catholics in south Armagh, some republicans (likely the PIRA (now known simply as the IRA)) killed 10 innocent (and possibly ANTI-sectarian) Protestant civilians. That (the "Kingsmill Massacre") was incredibly wrong (it was also the sort of thing the IRA absolutely or almost absolutely never did (there may have been about 5 times when a much smaller number of people were killed in resprisals for the sectarian murders of Catholics, but even with that, only about .2% of the IRA's operations intentionally resulted in civilian death)). As far as results go, there’s always or usually some (at the very least) large differences (I think you have a good idea of what I consider “Good” and what I consider “Evil,” so I won’t explain that here).

Some other items worth mentioning:

1) Lincoln. In general I have pretty good thoughts about Lincoln. I’m reading an article about how he was friendly to labor and got along via letters with Karl Marx. Although he wasn’t an abolitionist, he leaned in that direction for years before the Emancipation Proclamation- he often was critical of slavery and as President took some earlier steps in the direction of ending slavery.

2) There is one conversation involving Lincoln and Uhura which at first I thought was problematic in a racist way, but a friend convinced me it was was basically saying that the 23rd Century was more enlightened than the 19th Century.


I give it three stars out of five.

“All Our Yesterdays” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Turnabout Intruder” See this for a plot summary.

There are a few things I wanted to note in this review.

First, it’s said that there are no female Captains. Kirk doesn’t disagree with her on this, although we know that in ENT there was a female Captain. It seems likely that even though she was kind of wrong, there WAS a big problem with equality for women in StarFleet (looking at the main characters of all the series also suggests that problem, although it’s only a very serious problem if we assume that in the future women will be half of the military instead of a minority of it (I've been meaning to ask several women what they think about that, I might change my mind about that and assume that they WILL be about half))

There is one line that stands out- a woman says something about the “indignity of being a woman.” After looking at the definitions of the word “dignity,” I’m still not sure what she meant. It almost sounds as if she’s saying that women don’t deserve esteem or respect. I’ll be honest, I’m not as familiar with gender studies and feminist theory as I should be, but if that is what she’s saying, that’s obviously untrue, but beyond that statement I’m not sure what else to say.

We also are reminded that with one crime as an exception, the death penalty is abolished in the Federation. Connected with that, we see something sort of close to a mutiny by some officers, including Chekov and Sulu. That’s fairly inspirational.

This is the last episode of the series, and apparently they didn’t feel like doing something special. Anyway, I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews P

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).

“That Which Survives” See this for a plot summary.

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

“The Lights of Zetar” See this for a plot summary.

Overall a non-political episode, but there are a few things to mention:

1) More sexism than usual. A female StarFleet officer is frequently referred to as either a girl or a lass. Sulu makes a joke which seems to endorse thinking of women as brainless.

UPDATE 11/9/11 I think that with this post and maybe a couple others where I accused ST *TOS* of being sexist I went a little too far. I mean, there ARE two statements by kirk that are sexist, and I think the whole thing with women crewmembers wearing skirts (or dresses?) thing is sexist. But when it comes to Kirk and in this case also Scotty, referring to adult female crewmembers as "girl" or "lass" I have to wonder, how often has kirk called adult male crewmembers "boy?" I think probably rarely or never, but I'm not going to re-watch the series anytime soon, so I don't know. It is possible I'm being too harsh with the characters and writers over the use of "lass" and "girl." And I could be wrong about the skirts.

2) The idea of an electronic repository for all the knowledge in the Federation, which is open to anyone, sounds like a good idea.

3) The last members of an alien race (less than a hundred of them) whose planet died a long time ago is eliminated in order to save a StarFleet offcier from being inhabited by them, which seems reasonable.

“Requiem for Methuselah” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. But I liked the idea that Flint was immortal and had actually been many historical figures (such as da Vinci).

I give it two stars out of five.

“The Way to Eden” See this for a plot summary.

You could possibly call this episode “StarFleet versus the Hippie.” Although Spock likes them, it’s fairly negative towards the hippies.

I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews O

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).

“Elaan of Troyius” See this for a plot summary.

There is one bit of politics, bad ones, when Kirk says that except for Vulcan women, women are all illogical. Not an example of ST’s progressive politics.

I give it one star out of five.

“Whom Gods Destroy” See this for a plot summary.

There is a lot of political aspects to this episode.

The setting is a prison housing the few remaining, un-rehabilitated criminally insane. There’s not much said about what the prison is like, but there is a painless therapy machine that helps with rehabilitation, although in general it apparently makes people docile, and at the end, it seems to also destroy memories, which is very disturbing.

It centers on one prisoner, a former Captain of StarFleet. He had tried to use his ship to destroy a peaceful people’s planet, but his crew mutinied, something I find fairly inspiring. More generally he had become a Federation imperialist and used torture.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” See this for a plot summary.

This is one of the most political episodes of all ST. There are two main themes, which kind of contradict each other, at least as I see it. The first theme is of a people fighting national oppression, dictatorship, and possibly genocide. The second is of two population groups that hate each other and end up killing everyone on their planet.

Although it isn’t completely clear this is the case, it seems very likely to me that the struggle Lokai was engaged in was for a good cause and probably conducted honorably. There’s talk of slavery of his people, followed by another form of inequality (probably comparable to Jim Crow in the American South). Genocide is mentioned as a goal of his oppressors, many of whom were on the verge of seizing power and creating a dictatorship.

At one point when Lokai is educating some of the Enterprise crew about his plant, he says “you don’t know what it would be like to to be dragged out of your hovel into a war on another planet- a battle that will serve your oppressor and bring death to you and your brothers.” It seems like that line was probably inspired by looking at who was being disproportionately placed in combat units during the Vietnam War (hint- it wasn’t affluent white people). That war was of great benefit to the military-industrial complex, and, if the US had been successful, there probably would have been other benefits for some more elements of the white population.

Regarding his use of violence, Lokai has a couple good lines:

“I led revolutionaries, not criminals- I demand political asylum”

and “why should a slave show mercy to the enslaver.”

Although it’s unclear if he means slave revolts in the past when his people WERE slaves, or if he means killing civilian officials and leaders of the “Jim Crow-”type of oppression they experienced after slavery (which could possibly be questionable (the IRA rarely engaged in such attacks and I'm not sure if they were a good idea)), it’s a good line.

The first of the two lines reminds me of how IRA POWs resisted criminalization.

At one point Bele, the government official hunting Lokai, says that Lokai wants “utopia in a day” in reference to Lokai’s grivences. Lokai says something about how he wasn’t that impatient and suggested that Bele would be happy if it took one hundred thousand years. It kind of reminds me of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s “Letter From Birmingham Jail,” in which he told white Christian clergy members that there was nothing wrong with oppressed people wanting justice to develop rapidly in the very near future.

As I said there are sort of two themes that contradict each other. At least some of the StarFleet crew generally believe that Lokai and Bele are mirror images of hatred, although there are exceptions who are very open to what lokai has to say. But I believe the dominant and accurate theme is the one of national oppression. The hand-full of lines and imagery about the other theme, are, by themselves, good statements about hatred.

Lastly, Kirk once again exaggerates how non-violent StarFleet is.

In general it is a very good episode, and I give it three stars out of five.

“The Mark of Gideon” See this for a plot summary.

There are a couple of political themes that should be mentioned.

The first is this thing that the Federation and StarFleet have about not taking "no" for answer when they try to establish a relationship with alien civilizations. It’s just wrong.

There is also the issue of population growth. I’m not as educated as I could be about the subject and am going to skip it.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews N

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).

“The Tholian Web” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

“Plato’s Stepchildren” See this for a plot summary.

As the title sort of implies, a small amount of this episode is definitely philosophical. A the risk of making a fool of myself (I’m not good at philosophy) I’ll make some brief comments about that.

1) It briefly talks about plato and utopia and democracy. Apparently their idea for a perfect democracy is that anyone can do anything, as long as they are smart enough. This kind of reminds me of the idea that America is a “meritocracy,” which is very untrue, although I think I’ll skip the details on that for now.

2) This episode also brings up the issue of power and corruption. I believe that to a large degree power can (very often does) result in corruption. But I also think that with government there ar ways to keep that problem at a minimum. Checks and balances, whistle-blower protection, strong unions and more generally a strong civil society, a redistribution of wealth that will mean fewer people with the means to bribe government employees, very serious penalties for government employees accepting bribes etc.

As far as corruption outside government, I’d say some fairly similar things, plus more regulation in some areas (i.e. accounting, equality legislation, etc. (which would also apply to the Government)).

I give it one star out of five.

“Wink of an Eye” See this for a plot summary.

There’s one question that is raised in this episode. Because the Scalosians need to abduct members of other races in order to reproduce, Kirk’s efforts to stop them will result in the death of their race- that is, genocide. I’d say Kirk was right- abducting people like that is horrible, and at some point some races (the human race or alien races) just don’t survive.

On a non-political note, the Voyager episode inspired by this episode, “Blink of an Eye” is one of my very favorite ST episodes, and “Wink of an Eye” is nowhere near as good as the Voyager episode.

I give it one star out of five.

“The Empath” See this for a plot summary.

There’s kind of a political aspect to this, which is the idea that civilization requires compassion for others.

I give it one star out of five.

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.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews K

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).

“The Ultimate Computer” See this for a plot summary.

This is generally about automation of jobs that humans do. In general I believe that technology CAN be used for good in the workplace. It is probably involved in addressing some safety issues; probably is involved with addressing some environmental concerns. As far as technology that is used by the bosses to replace workers, I have mixed and mostly negative feelings about that. I mean, some of those jobs have been replaced by new jobs maintaining the new technology and such jobs probably pay fairly well (I don’t know about wages on the assembly line building this stuff). But in general, jobs replacing those terminated by technology tend to pay very little. They don’t have to be like that, but I don’t have much to say about why they haven’t been unionized- I’m very unfamiliar with organizing issues and it seems like it’s very difficult to organize unions ANYWHERE in the US today. So, I have mixed feelings about automation in the workplace.

There is another kind of automation that I want to discuss as well. That is in the military (well, the US military and I think a handful of other countries as well). My thoughts on the military in general are mixed, and right now I’m not going to go into a discussion about that, I’m just going to focus on this aspect of the military. I’m thinking of the Predator drones, armed or unarmed, and probably some other machines. If they start replacing aircraft that require a pilot inside the plane, it could make it easier for our government to launch unpopular wars, as the number of US service men and women in danger will go down. That will probably mean that a lot of people who might otherwise oppose the war partly because more and more Americans are dying, won’t oppose it. So, I’m worried about that as well.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Bread and Circuses” See this for a plot summary.

This episode is basically about the Roman Empire and sort of about converts to Christianity. I’m not very familiar with Rome or the early years of Christianity, so I don’t have much to say. This episode is certainly anti-slavery, and anti-totalitarian.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Assignment: Earth” See this for a plot summary.

First there’s some political stuff to at least mention. In general it focuses on the idea that 20th century humankind was not as advanced politically and socially as they were technologically, and how that could lead to disaster- for example a nuclear war that destroys the planet.

I also like the Gary Seven part of this episode. Long before I watched this episode, I read a ST book which focused on him. I might try to find that book.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews I

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).

“The Trouble with Tribbles” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode but a good one. Actually my opinion of it is high because of the Deep Space 9 episode which uses footage from this episode and where DS9 characters travel through time and the actors and actresses appear to interact with TOS actors and actresses. That episode’s summary is here.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Gamesters of Triskelion” See this for a plot summary.

There’s some political stuff to comment on here:

1) In one scene, it seems like Uhura is getting raped, or at least her attacker is trying to rape her. First, Kirk just keeps asking her if she’s alright. There is nothing said about it afterwards. If it was rape or attempted rape, it’s very disturbing that nothing else was said about it.

2) Kirk’s behavior towards his drill thrall is fairly inappropriate. Between that and the dialogue at the end, this episode is incredibly annoying.

I give it one star out of five.

“A Piece of the Action” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Immunity Syndrome” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“A Private Little War” See this for a plot summary.

Even though it’s a fairly political episode, I’m going to keep this kind of brief.

The first political issue is simply about war. I would say that as far as I can tell it’s horrible, but sometimes it’s necessary and justified and helpful.

The second political issue is the arming of one side in a conflict, and then someone else arms the other side in the same conflict and this escalates in an arms race and fuels war for generations. Whoever starts that would almost definitely be doing something horrible. What is the response to that? Depending on some political aspects (who can be described as oppressed?) and other details, I might reluctantly say that the other side should be given arms- at least as good as what their opponents have.

(I should also say that in a significantly different situation, one comparable to the anti-Apartheid struggle, I would also support arming a group comparable to the ANC's military wing)

In the real world I would also add that there needs to be more work in the direction of a peaceful, just and democratic planet. I generally believe that, as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “peace is not simply the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.” So, I think pursuing justice should probably be a higher priority than disarmament, but a gradual disarmament is a good (and realistic) idea, especially if efforts are made to keep arms out of the hands of people perpetrating injustice. Also, on the international stage, nations that are gradually disarming and trying to spread peace could form a mutual security coalition and in the event that one is attacked, the total armed forces of the countries would be pooled together and most used for coming to that country’s aid.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews H

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).

“Friday’s Child” See this for a plot summary.

It portrays what could probably be called a “warrior society.” There’s a lot rules, taboos, a lot of glorifying death (and death is usually a punishment for this or that) etc. Crucially there is a belief that the strong survive, and others should not survive- a fairly right-wing belief (the episode is far from a StarFleet endorsement of Capellan society).

I usually don’t bother noting inconsistencies like this, but the Capellans seem to be nowhere NEAR as advanced (technologically, socially or politically) as they should be if Star Fleet is doing business with them.

I give it one star out of five.

“The Deadly Years” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Obsession” See this for a plot summary

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

“Wolf in the Fold” See this for a plot summary.

There is one very sexist part where Spock says that women are more easily and more deeply terrified than men. Obviously not an an example of ST’s progressive politics.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews G

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).

“Catspaw” See this for a plot summary.

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

“I, Mudd” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode, although Mudd’s sexism kind of deserves to be noted. Mudd is basically the villain, so it is progressive.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Metamorphosis” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode, with one thing worth mentioning. It’s kind neat for us to meet Cochrane in TOS, considering we know about him from First Contact and kind of from Enterprise. (UPDATE 2/18/19 I guess I mean ME)

I give it two stars out of five.

“Journey To Babel” See this for a plot summary.

At one point Spock’s mom explains to Kirk that on Vulcan, men dominate the women. This is the second time we’ve heard something about that, so now I feel very comfortable saying that Vulcan society is very sexist. Should they be members of the Federation? I have mixed feelings about criticizing another culture’s treatment of women, but I think it's usually-always important to do so (I think there are good ways to do that and probably some bad ways to do it). I’m not sure if it’s something that should have prevented Vulcan from joining the Federation. I guess two factors would be: A) was the sexism codified in law, and B) was there some women’s rights organization on Vulcan that wanted their planet kept out of the Federation.

I’ve found many Star Trek episodes that talk about people with a multi-cultrual background (i.e. half human, half Vulcan, or in the real world, for example, half white, half black) and how they have trouble being accepted by one or both of the groups that they’re a part of (I guess you could say they’re part of a third group, for example, people who are half black and half white). I also remember reading that Zack de La Rocha of Rage Against The Machine experienced something similar. And (while getting my Ethnic Studies degree) I don't remember hearing or reading anything saying that this is not a problem; I have a vague memory of something supporting what I said, but I wasn’t sure of this and asked someone familiar with it if such people DO have that sort of trouble. He made me think I had an exaggerated sense of how many people experience it. But in this episode of ST, it’s again raised, in relation to Spock. I’m not saying that writers of ST episodes are experts, but I’m starting to think that I was closer to being right than my friend suggested I was.

There is one bit of socialism. At least one Federation diplomat believes that admitting a new planet into the Federation will result in the wealth of that planet being used to benefit it’s inhabitants.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews F

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).

“Amok Time” See this for a plot summary.

There’s one political part of this. At one point a Vulcan leader says something to the woman at the center of the marriage ceremony about her becoming the property of her husband. Since nothing is said about this (i.e. Kirk doesn’t say that that’s messed up) I wonder if the writers just screwed up- I mean, I’m pretty sure this isn’t mentioned in any other episode of ST (with the possible exception of later episodes of TOS). In any case, considering Vulcan is part of the Federation, this is NOT an example of the progressive politics of ST.

(UPDATE 6/18/11 This sort of thing HAS comes up in another episode of TOS and it appears that Vulcan is a very sexist place)

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“Who Mourns for Adonis?” See this for a plot summary.

There are some political aspects to this episode.

First we hear that when female members of StarFleet get married, they leave the service. I am reading a novel about the US military, and there’s something kind of similar, involving marriage and/or pregnancy. That’s too bad, especially in the context of StarFleet (obviously it’s something that changed, at the very least with Riker and Troi (of The Next Generation) (and many other characters)).

Kirk says that humanity believes, not in Gods, but in A God. It’s kind of nice to see this assertion of an Old Earth religion (I think it’s a safe assumption that he means an Old Earth religion), considering that such beliefs usually are completely absent from ST. On the other hand, he is ruling out some Old Earth religions, at least the Hindu religion, and that’s not good.

There’s also something else, something I have trouble nailing down. But it SEEMS as if there’s something sexist in this episode that is similar to something in another episode. In “Space Seed” which I discuss here, and this episode, a woman becomes seduced by the bad guy- in Space Seed she stays with him after he tries to take over the Enterprise; in this episode, it takes Kirk several minutes to talk her into helping her crew mates overcome their captor. I am not the best judge of this sort of thing but it does seem sexist- the woman is betraying them. From what I can remember, I don’t think there is a similar number of times when a man does that (if, for example, there are three times more men than women on the Enterprise, there should by now be about six men who have betrayed their crew mates for an enemy and I don't think it has happened at all).

On a non-political note, I like the idea that the Greek gods were really powerful, god-like aliens who came to earth 5,000 years ago and DID interact with humanity for some time.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“The Changeling” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Mirror, Mirror” See this for a plot summary.

This is very similar to another “mirror” episode, one that was on Enterprise. That episode, “In A Mirror, Darkly” is discussed and linked to from here. In the TOS episode, there is a reference to genocide, something which seems to happen very often to planets that cross the Empire.

At the end, the “good” Spock says that the “evil” StarFleet officers were representative of humanity.

I give it three stars out of five.

“The Apple” See this for a plot summary.

At one point, after the StarFleet crew on the planet have defeated an attack by the locals, Spock says: “The good doctor was concerned that the valans achieve true human stature. I submit there is no cause for worry- they’ve taken the first step- they have learned to kill.” I think Spock’s negative view of humanity is too negative, but occasionally or often thinking about negative aspects of the human race is a good thing (before you get the wrong idea, I am VERY interested in that sort of thing when it's specifically about, for example, the male gender, or capitalism, etc.).

I give it two stars out of five.

“The Doomsday Machine” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it three stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews E

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).

“The Devil in the Dark” See this for a plot summary.

I’m tempted to say this is a non-political episode, and I have probably left it at that with 1-2 other ST episodes with a similar story. But the stuff about trying to communicate with the creature instead of just killing it- that’s kind of political.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Errand of Mercy” See this for a plot summary.

This had a surprisingly large number of things I need to at least mention.

First, Kirk is almost bullying the Organians as he tries to get them to let StarFleet establish a presence on the planet. I mean, what he says about the differences between the Klingons and the Federation is pretty accurate, but he still sounds like a bully. He also comes off as fairly imperialistic, talking about how the Federation will help the Organians with developing their society with education and engineers, etc. I mean, in general the Federation helping people seems okay, for example helping Bajor get back on it’s feet after the Cardassian Occupation. But in this case it sounds different, and sort of offensive.

There is also some stuff about Klingon imperialism and how poorly subjects of the Klingon Empire are treated.

At one point Kirk says that an attack on the Klingons by himself and Spock will encourage the Organians to resist the Klingons one way or the other. While participating in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission process, the ANC in South Africa partly defended the armed part of it’s campaign by saying that it inspired civilians to resist Apartheid in other, non-armed ways. I think you could probably say more or less the same thing about the IRA’s campaign.

In a scene towards the end, at one point Kirk is attacking the Organians for preventing the conflict between StarFleet and the Klingons. Then the Organians point out that he is saying something pro-war and he back-peddles. This has happened with Kirk before, but in general ST pushes a message about how in general war is either horrible when justified, or completely unacceptable.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“The Alternative Factor” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out off five.

“The City on the Edge of Forever” see this for a plot summary.

One part of this is very political. It’s the issue of pacifism, especially in the context of the late 1930s with the rise of Nazi Germany. In general I respect pacifists, although there might be some exceptions here and there depending on the details. I believe that the Allied cause in WWII was more or less a good one. My thoughts on that are in most of a post I did here. So, I basically believe that when American pacifists argued against joining the Allied cause, they were wrong.

It’s a time travel episode, which helps with the star rating I’m giving it- that is, three stars.

“Operation: Annihilate!” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews D

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).

“Tomorrow Is Yesterday” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, which is kind of a surprise. Often episodes involving time travel back to Old Earth (that is, Earth in recent decades of the past and in decades of the near future) have some liberal-left political commentary. This doesn’t have that. There is one reference to an alien planet dominated by women- but I have mixed feelings about the nature of that statement. Normally I’d think it’s a good thing, to mention that women are capable of leading a planet. But there’s something about it that’s kind of sexist in this case.

I give it three stars out of five.

“Court Martial” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“The Return of the Archons” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Space Seed” See this for a plot summary.

This is the first ST episode or movie to mention the Eugenics Wars. Some of my thoughts on the issue of genetically engineered humans can be found here while discussing the first three-parter in that post (there is also some background in the plot summaries). In short I think that the Federation is right to ban genetic engineering of humans, with some possible exceptions.

This episode doesn’t really add much to what I had seen in other episodes or movies about the Eugenics Wars issue. There is a two or three book novel about the EW. I read the first one years ago and seem to have lost it. I somehow got either the second or third but don’t want to read it without the other 1 or 2. The thing is, in reference to one of those books, a former friend of mine said he thought it was racist. I can’t really say anything about those books. I am pretty sure he was referring to the fact that the villain was an Indian, and possibly-probably some other details; I would need more than that (Khan’s nationality) to agree.

I give it three stars out of five.

“A Taste of Armageddon” See this for a plot summary.

This episode has a very good anti-war theme. It’s about two planets that have waged war for 500 years using computers, kind of like a war game. When an attack takes place, people in the area of the attack are identified as casualties and are killed by “disintegration machines.” The idea behind this form of war-fare is that the civilizations will not be physically destroyed. But as kirk explains it: “Death, destruction, disease, horror- that’s what war is all about, Anan- that’s what makes it a thing to be avoided. You’ve made it neat and painless. So neat and painless you’ve had no reason to stop it.” Although it would be horrible if one or more civilizations were destroyed through war, it’d be better if there were no war at all (nothing is said about the war being just, it probably is like most wars, i.e. like World War I). Millions of people were being killed every year, and the war probably diverted at least some resources that could have been better used on something else. If they had experienced real war, the destruction and the injured people might have prodded the leaders to seek peace.

I give it three stars out of five.

“This Side of Paradise” See this for a plot summary.

There are a couple political things to mention about this episode.

1. The colonists are all vegetarians.

2. Towards the end, Kirk talks about “paradise” and wonders if humans are meant for “paradise” or meant to “struggle, claw our way up.” I believe something in the middle but leaning towards being meant for “paradise.” We will always have some degree of difficulty (i.e. natural disasters, etc.) but we can, probably in a couple centuries or so, create something pretty close to “paradise.” This reminds me of something that the socialist writer Michael Parenti said once. He said that socialism isn’t the utopia- it is the struggle to create the utopia (I’d say the latter stages of creating a utopia). And I’d say that even the utopia probably won’t be 100% utopian.

I give it two stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews C

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).

“The Conscience of the King” See this for a plot summary

A fairly political episode, but there’s little for me to quote or build upon. Kodos was, of course, comparable to a war criminal. I wonder if he might be compared in some ways with Pol Pot.

I give it two stars out of five.

“Balance of Terror” See this for a plot summary.

There is some political stuff here, basically two categories. First, when the crew of the Enterprise learn that their Romulan enemies look very similar to Vulcans, at least one of them becomes very bigoted towards Spock. Kirk makes it clear that that sort of thing has no place on the bridge.

The commander of the Romulan ship is not as positive about war as the Romulan state and many of the men under his command are.

I give this episode three stars out of five.

“Shore Leave” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“The Galileo Seven” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, but there are a couple things to comment on:

1) One of the shuttles is called “Columbus.” It’s at odds with the overwhelmingly liberal-left politics of ST.

2) Although this existed a bit in some other episodes, this one contains much dialogue where Spock’s subordinates speak dis-respectfully to him. This is usually in the form of negative comments about his dominant Vulcan half. This kind of bigotry seems to be tolerated by Spock and the other main characters.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“The Squire of Gothos” See this for a plot summary.

A very non-political episode, with one exception. Briefly Kirk asserts that StarFleet is on a peaceful mission and that they only fight when needed. This is at least almost totally true.

I give this episode two stars out of five.

“Arena” See this for a plot summary.

The story, or at least the last five minutes of it, is fairly political. Basically it’s about the same topic I mentioned in the “Squire” above. This time around Kirk is looking for a battle in space; and on the ground he comes very close to killing an alien when it wasn’t necessary. When Kirk starts acting like a StarFleet officer again, the representative of an advanced alien race is impressed and talks about a future friendship with humanity.

I give this episode 2 stars out of five.

Star Trek: The Original Series Reviews A

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).

“The Man Trap” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars out of five.

“Charlie X” See this for a plot summary.

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

“Where No Man Has Gone Before” See this for a plot summary.

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

“The Naked Time” See this for a plot summary.

There is one thing that probably needs to be mentioned- I believe this is the first episode where we hear about Spock’s mom being human (in one earlier episode it was mentioned that some of his ancestors were human, but I can’t remember which episode). This takes ST’s multi-cultrualism a bit further than normal.

I give it two stars out of five.

“The Enemy Within” See this for a plot summary.

A non-political episode. I give it two stars.

“Mudd’s Women” See this for a plot summary.

I found this to be a fairly sexist episode (although the series in general, as far as I can tell, makes some progress on this, it is still fairly-very sexist).

UPDATE 11/17/11
I wrote the following in the most recent review:

"UPDATE 11/9/11 I think that with this post and maybe a couple others where I accused ST *TOS* of being sexist I went a little too far. I mean, there ARE two statements by kirk that are sexist, and I think the whole women crewmembers wearing skirts (or dresses?) thing is sexist. But when it comes to Kirk and in this case also Scotty, referring to adult female crewmembers as "girl" or "lass" I have to wonder, how often has kirk called adult male crewmembers "boy?" I think probably rarely or never, but I'm not going to re-watch the series anytime soon, so I don't know. It is possible I'm being too harsh with the characters and writers over the use of "lass" and "girl." And I could be wrong about the skirts."

I cannot remember much from this episode ("Mudd's Women") but wouldn't be surprised if I have mis-judged it and it's writers too. Especially if the only sexism came from Mudd, who is close to a villian in this episode.


I give it one star out of five.