Jeremy is back! And he’s come bearing gifts, which may or may not include our improving our stodgy introduction and his singing voice. Piqued interest peaked!
In spite of the baffling consensus on the internet that this 48-minute episode of The Original Series is among the top ten of most highly regarded TOS episodes, we proceed to delightfully tear this doozy to shreds. Join us, won’t you?
Kirk is one of the last survivors who can identify a mass killer, who lurks among a Shakespearean troupe aboard the Enterprise.
Netflix
The episode doesn’t make much sense in terms of plot, character, and logistics. So, there’s this infamous Kodos, who, as a response to the crisis, murdered 4,000 people in order to ensure another 4,000 could live. There was a food shortage or something and Kodos was the decision-maker. He then apparently disappeared, leaving only 9 people who could identify him, even though there’s a photo of him in the Starfleet database. Okay… but what about the remaining 3,991 people? Did they just not see him? Were they already dead?
Another perplexing detail is why Kirk insists on keeping his obsessive hunt for Kodos from his crew. Nothing he does opposes his Starfleet duties or the Prime Directive. There are even occasions where he endangers the crew in his pursuit of Kodos.
In the sequence where a phaser has been rigged to explode, Kirk reveals that the laundry shoot doubles as an explosives disposal. The entire ship shakes violently after the phaser detonates “safely” in the bowels of the laundry. Yet another detail we didn’t know about the Enterprise.
The episode seemingly follows the aesthetics and storytelling methods of theatre, where if there are two characters engaging in private conversation, any parties not meant to hear… just don’t hear, as opposed to them leaving the scene or being distracted elsewhere. Shakespeare is a theme throughout the episode, so perhaps this method was intentional. It just felt so awkward and confusing.
The robotic computer voice of the Enterprise, aeons from the dulcet voice of NextGen’s computer, is quickly compared to Strong Bad of early 2000s fame, and then of the Dalek from 1960s-2020s fame. Is it wrong one half of this podcast hasn’t seen a single frame of “Dr. Who”? Maybe we should fix that.
In response to the actions of Kodos, the discussion culminates in an exploration of the trolley dilemma, where it’s revealed every member of the podcast is a Thanos sympathizer. Only naturally is it inevitable one of us invokes Spock’s adage, “The good of the many outweighs the good of the few.”
