There were times that Star Trek could be
progressive. It dealt with issues such
as race and war. It even had a woman of
color as a bridge officer.
Unfortunately, she never got to command a ship during the show’s
three-year run. There were times that the
show didn’t go as far as it could have.
Then, there were times that they dropped
the ball entirely. I understand that the
times were different, but some things make me tilt my head and ask what I just
watched.
Kirk, McCoy and Scotty seem to be having
a good time on shore leave. They’re
watching women do some sort of belly dance.
Scotty leaves with Kara, one of the dancers. While Kirk and McCoy are walking around the
town, they hear a scream. Scotty is
found standing over hear dead body, weapon in hand.
We’ve all seen enough Matlock and Murder
She Wrote to know Scotty didn’t do it.
The authorities detain him anyway.
So, it’s up to Kirk and McCoy to prove him innocent, which is no easy
task. They even have someone beam down
to run a test on Scotty. Of course,
Scotty is sent to a room with her where she can mysteriously wind up dead.
So, another young lady is brought in to
interrogate Scotty. You might think that
she would wind up sequestered in a room with Scotty and wind up dead. You’d be wrong. This time, the lights go out, but there are
other people in the room when she dies.
This is where it goes off the
rails. It wasn’t Scotty, after all. It was some sort of malevolent force that was
once known on Earth as Jack the Ripper.
This force has been inhabiting men for the purpose of killing
women. And all this time Kirk and McCoy
thought Scotty had a problem with women.
I wish I was kidding on that one. I’m not.
Apparently, a female engineer gave Scotty a bump on the head. Now, he’s a full-blown misogynist. It kind of makes you wonder what passed for
progress back then.
While we’re on the subject, why leave
Scotty alone with women? If they’ve
noticed the pattern, wouldn’t it make sense to assign a security guard to
Scotty? Even if he didn’t do it, it’s an
awful coincidence. (I know that it would
ruin the surprise to have a security guard report back, but given the show’s
track record with security officers, they have an easy out.)
On top of all this, the episode ends
with the murder of an individual. To get
rid of the entity, they beam the person, with the entity inside, out into
space. No mention is made of the fact
that they had to kill an innocent person.
There’s no debate or remorse or anything. They just do it.
It’s really hard to think of this as a
good episode. It’s not particularly
scary or tense by today’s standards. I
think that it would have been a totally different episode had it been written
for one of the modern series. Come to
think of it, I don’t think any of the spin-offs ever reused the plot. This is saying something, given that there
were quite a number of recycled plots.
If you’re looking to watch all of the Star Trek episodes, this is one
you’re just going to have to sit through.
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