“The
Eye of the Beholder”
Air
Date: “January 5, 1974
Mom
Title: “Psychic Elephant Slugs”
The Captain revisits his, “Riskis our business” speech, before telling everyone to “travel light” by beaming
down with all the stuff they usually bring.
On the planet is a sea
monster, amazingly not made with reused animation from the “turned into a fish”
episode. There’s also a phaser absorbing
land monster…whatever.
The primary antagonists
are elephant slugs, who behave in an amazingly Talosian like manner. (Same kind of punishment, keeping people in a
“menagerie” etc.)
Crew moments
highlighting their awesomeness:
Kirk and company bluff a
telepathic race with a fake illness.
Spock finds them
“strangely attractive.” Sorry, Uhura.
Scotty manages to
convince a mind reader with an IQ of 6000 to listen to him.
McCoy tastes water on a
new planet before the tricorder analysis is complete.
“The
Jihad”
Air
Date: “January 12, 1974
Mom
Title: “Space Heist”
A classic series thirdseason scenario, only Kirk and Spock are needed in this one.
Compressing time and
wiping memory are Andromedan tricks.
That may explain why no one noticed the “Bird Man” has been on the three
previous missions and was the only one to return alive. Then again, Kirk and Spock were chosen for
the mission not because of specific skills like everyone else, but basically
because they are Kirk and Spock.
They
also trained in zero gravity “last week.”
I do believe they did notice the recurring Bird Man thread, and weaseled
their way into the selection process.
This one’s really lumpy.
It’s nice to see the mix of aliens but most don’t actually do anything.
The Kzinti is correctly colored,
and writer
David Gerrold voices the representative from the race of cowards.
However, even the Lizard Guy points out the
padding going on in the Suicide Squad like episode he’s appearing in. They reuse the same flying creatures for the
third time, which are mechanical instead of animal or plant. Also they fill time showing the Enterprise in
the commercial bumpers when the ship is nowhere near the story as it occurs.
Season one ended weakly,
and the next season would only have six new episodes.
It’s something about the
way animated series contracts used to work. Second seasons were minimal length
to be added into the rotation of the existing stories. Mark Evanier explained this in his awesomely
amazing blog and pointed out it’s the reason it was financially better for
studios to have shows cancelled and new ones picked up, than it was to have
shows continue.
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