androids Archive

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Requiem for Methuselah”

– February 10, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Requiem for Methuselah”
Written by Jerome Bixby
Directed by Murray Golden

Season 3, Episode 19
Production episode: 3×21
Original air date: February 14, 1969
Star date: 5843.7

Mission summary

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to planet Holberg 917G in search of pure ryetalyn, the only known cure for a deadly outbreak of Rigelian fever on Enterprise. If they can’t secure this maguffin and process it in four hours, McCoy says “the epidemic will be irreversible.” They certainly don’t have time to investigate the life form that Spock’s tricorder registers on the supposedly uninhabited planet, nor is it a convenient moment for a floating robot to wobble over and fire a blue laser beam in their general vicinity. But these things happen, so what are you going to do?

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Tags: amnesia, androids, Brahms, da Vinci, dancing, emotion, fully clothed man-wrestling, Galileo, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, loneliness, loyalty, mind meld, really old people, robots, sexbots, waltz

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Return to Tomorrow”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– May 20, 2010 1:38 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Return to Tomorrow”
Written by John Kingsbridge
Directed by Ralph Senensky

Season 2, Episode 19
Production episode: 2×22
Original air date: February 9, 1968
Star date: 4768.3

Mission summary

Enterprise is drawn to an unexplored star system by a strange distress signal…or is it? The signal doesn’t seem to exist, yet it’s affecting Uhura’s channels—but there’s definitely something, maybe, trying to get their attention and… Oh look! There’s a planet up ahead. It’s a formerly-Class M planet now with a dead atmosphere, and completely lifeless. Or is it? A voice speaks to the crew using only the power of his mind; he identifies himself as Sargon, and directs them to kindly park their ship in orbit. Kirk’s understandably hesitant since the planet’s dead and all, but Sargon’s invitation is ominous, if not compelling: “And I am as dead as my planet. Does that frighten you, James Kirk? For if it does, if you let what is left of me perish, then all of you, my children, all of mankind must perish, too.”

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Tags: alien possession, androids, body-swapping, diana muldaur, hot alien loving, love triangles, Spock-blocking

Star Trek Re-Watch: “I, Mudd”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– February 18, 2010 9:09 pmPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“I, Mudd”
Written by Stephen Kandel
Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 2, Episode 9
Production episode: 2×12
Original air date: November 3, 1967
Star date: 4513.3

Mission Summary:
A new crewmember, Norman, has come aboard the Enterprise, and he stiffly greets Doctor McCoy and Spock in the hallway. Bones has a bad feeling about him—and since he’s the emotional core of the show, so do we.

MCCOY: There’s something wrong about a man who never smiles, whose conversation never varies from the routine of the job, and who won’t talk about his background.
SPOCK: I see.
MCCOY: Spock, I mean that it’s odd for a non-Vulcan. The ears make all the difference.

Norman makes his way to Auxiliary Control, where he silently karate-chops the crewman there and inputs a new course direction. Sulu can’t override it, and Security can’t seem to find Norman, which is shocking considering he’s taller than even Nimoy and looks like a giant among elves. Norman makes his way to Engineering next, knocking out poor Mr. Scott and reconfiguring the matter-antimatter pods into a trigger relay (yada yada SCIENCE!) that will destroy the ship if they try and override it. He then heads to the bridge, where an angry Kirk demands to know who he is and where they’re now inexorably headed.

Norman says in stilted pauses that “we” require the Enterprise, and reveals a circuit panel on his abdomen, complete with blinking lights: he’s an android! He then crosses his arms and turns himself off for the duration of the flight.

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Tags: androids, beautiful robot women, distinct lack of half-naked man-wrestling, Harry Mudd, I, lovable rogues, Mudd, rascals, what's wrong with this future again?

Star Trek Re-Watch: “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– April 28, 2009 4:36 pmPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
Written by Robert Bloch
Directed by James Goldstone

Season 1, Episode 7
Production episode: 1×09
Original air date: October 10, 1966
Star date: 2712.4

Mission summary
The Enterprise arrives at planet Exo-III in search of Dr. Roger Korby, a famed archaeologist who disappeared there five years ago after discovering underground caverns on the freezing planet. More importantly, he’s Nurse Chapel’s fiancé, which is why she’s on the bridge anxiously awaiting word from the surface. They don’t expect to make contact with Korby because two other expeditions have already failed to locate him, but the third time’s the charm; he answers their hails with an odd request. He asks Captain Kirk to beam down alone, as he has an important discovery to discuss with him. Spock is puzzled, but Kirk is willing to give the “Pasteur of archaeological medicine” (which means he translated some old Orion medical records) the benefit of the doubt. When Korby finds out Christine Chapel is on board, he agrees to let Kirk bring her along.

Things get off to a rocky start. Kirk and Chapel beam down, but Korby isn’t there. Worried about the change in plans, Kirk orders some decoys beamed down from the Enterprise. Security officer Rayburn stays behind at the landing site, while Matthews tags along as they explore the extremely well-lit underground caverns. Instead of taking the lead, Matthews falls behind the others, looking around him nervously as though he expects something to happen to him at any moment.

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Tags: alien machines, androids, evil doubles, improvised weapons, Lovecraft, skimpy costumes