“The
Magicks of Megas-Tu”
Air
Date: October 27, 1973
Mom
Title: “Meet the Devil”
The big bang originated
at the center of the Milky Way?
Right, sorry, it’s a
cartoon. Moving on.
Suuuuure they were.
More likely the Trelane
like Lucien and his Andromedan compatriots used their reality altering powers
to move the Enterprise safely away from the barrier that is still impossible to
penetrate.
It’s all mechanisms
we’ve seen before. The place works on
desires like the soon to be revisited shore leave planet, and the beings there
are basing situations out of Earth’s past.
Clearly, there is a
giant lesson the Andromedans are teaching the Enterprise crew…we’ll find out in
theaters someday.
It is a true sign of the
era this episode was created in that all Earth history is kept on 8mm film and
punch cards. Who knows? Maybe the Eugenics Wars finally proved the
danger of storing all data on some kind of magnetic medium and a return to
these items looms ahead.
“Once
Upon a Planet”
Air
Date: November 3, 1973
Mom
Title: “Return to Shore Leave”
The stories that revisit
live action episodes all feel like they have more “meat” on them. This is
probably due to the halved run time of the cartoon compared to the Original
Series. Not needing to spend as much energy on set up allows the story to go to
more exciting places.
What do you know? The Shore Leave planet is run by a
super-duper computer built by an ancient alien race of which the keeper was the
last member of. It’s linked to the
Andromedans too! Much like everything
else in the Star Trek universe, the playground was built with absolutely no
safety features.
As always, it’s the top
guys beaming down to deal with the issues.
However, the two Enterprise “Old Guys” are the ones proving their worth via
areas of expertise. Bones once again has
a shot that can completely mimic sickness. Scotty not only instantly knows
what’s been done to the Enterprise by the planet’s computer, but sometime since
the live action series has finally installed seat belts on the chairs on the
bridge.
A few educational points
from this episode:
Amanda used to read
Lewis Carroll to young Spock. Considering
she was a teacher from Earth living in a culture that would prize logic
puzzles, that’s fairly unsurprising.
“Mudd’s
Passion”
Air
Date: November 10, 1973
Mom
Title: “Harry has a Real Love Potion”
Just knowing Harry Mudd
is going to be in the episode adds comedy to the crew’s interactions with each
other. Roger C. Carmel, fortunately
returns for a third time as the spacefaring rogue, as no one else could do the
character justice.
It’s a shame he was
never tapped to record some of Mudd’s in between adventures that are only
referred to in his Trek appearances. They sound hootfull.
Though he doesn’t know
the love potion works (Maybe they’re made of Troyan tears?) Harry shows he’s as
good at bluffing as Kirk is. Either
that, or chalk Nurse Chapel’s buying into his suggestion to give Spock an intergalactic
Spanish Fly up to women once more doing poorly in this series.
Scotty, of course
compares the effects of the potion to a giant hangover.
You old dog, you.
As with most Saturday
morning cartoons, there is a moral:
Remember, kids: Love makes you stupid.
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