It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single man in possession of a great intellect must be destroyed before he destroys us.

It’s becoming clear that Star Trek is being very gentle with us. We kept the weirdo on the ship for the last two stories, but in the second we made him super-powerful. This week we’re on a different planet, but to keep us comfortable, the crew are still dealing with super powerful weirdoes. Specifically, it’s one of Kirk’s oldest friends, a low-level telepath called Gary Mitchell, who gets his brain expanded and gets to stare into space for large stretches of time.

Happily, there’s another weirdo, who manages to be both female and not quite a victim simultaneously. Elizabeth Dehner is pretty exciting stuff for Star Trek — she’s clever, in control (well, initially), and even gets to wear pants.¹ Meanwhile, both her not particularly sneaky rescue of Mr Loonie and her ultimate competence once again highlights just how useless the crew of this ship seem to be.

I’ll give Spock props for being right about killing the genius from the get-go, even if it does seem like it might just be a self-fulfilling prophecy.² But then they all seem happy to leave the only other psychic exposed to the whosawhatsit in charge of guarding the one they’re currently terrified of. In fact, despite Dehner having clearly been exposed to the same stuff as Mitchell, no one seems to give a shit about her. Their sexism may have been amusing previously, but now it comes close to getting them all killed.

Despite this, the story’s undoubtedly the most involving so far. Part of this is the heightened action; Kirk gets all heroic and refuses help as he attempts to sneak up on his omnipotent friend. Oddly for such a seemingly stupid plan, he’s successful; or at least, he manages not to fail before someone else helps him. Crucially, he gets to show off his manly chest for the second week in a row when his shirt gets torn during the battle. Let us not forget Sun Tsu’s wise words: “Attack him where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected, remove your clothes whenever you can feasibly do so.”

1. Actually, all the girls wear pants this week, and apparently it’s because this story was made first. It would seem that the network was offered copious displays of space-legs to lull them into ordering a whole series. ↩
2. The crew continue to act oddly surprised every time he acts typically Vulcan. McCoy might as well keep on saying “My god, you’ve still got pointy ears!” ↩

This entry was posted by the illustrious Tom Charman on Monday, June 1st, 2009. It concerns such pressing issues as Star Trek, tv. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.