handwaving mumblemumble Archive

Star Trek Animated Series Re-Watch: “The Survivor”

– June 9, 2011 12:00 pmPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“The Survivor”
Written by James Schmerer
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 6
Production episode: 22005
Original air date: October 10, 1973
Star date: 5143.3

Mission summary

Enterprise rescues a one-man vessel damaged in a meteor “swarm” on the edge of the Romulan Neutral Zone. They are shocked to discover the ship is registered to Carter Winston, a famous philanthropist who has been missing for five years. When they beam him aboard, they confirm his identity.

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Tags: big heads, emotional women, evil doubles, galaxy quest, handwaving mumblemumble, hentai, loneliness, love conquers all, redskirt, romulans, shapeshifters, stupid women, The Man Trap

Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch: “The Lorelei Signal”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– June 2, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“The Lorelei Signal”
Written by Margaret Armen
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 4
Production episode: 22006
Original air date: September 29, 1973
Star date: 5483.7

Mission summary

Enterprise tempts fate by visiting an unfamiliar region of space where Federation ships have been disappearing for the past 150 years. A hot tip from the Klingons and Romulans reveals that ships disappear like clockwork, every 27.346 “star years,” give or take.

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Tags: handwaving mumblemumble, immortality sucks, nurse chapel rocks, premature aging, psychokinesis, sexism, sexy ladies, singing, transporter magic, uhura rocks

Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch: “One of Our Planets is Missing”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– May 31, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“One of Our Planets is Missing”
Written by Marc Daniels
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 3
Production episode: 22007
Original air date: September 22, 1973
Star date: 5371.3

Mission summary

Starfleet Command has commissioned the Enterprise to investigate a cosmic cloud heading through the Pallas 14 system. Over 800,000 km across and half as deep, the cloud is immense and unlike anything the crew has ever seen. It seems to move intelligently, and sets its sights on the planet Alondra. Before they can say “horta,” it rapidly engulfs the planet Alondra and breaks it into tiny pieces. Soon it’s changed course and heads directly to a new target: Mantilles, the Federation’s most remote inhabited planet, with over 82 million residents. Do they warn those people so that a handful can escape? Is it worth it to risk full-blown panic? They decide to let the governor, Bob Wesley, in on the threat. It’ll be up to him to decide who lives and who dies.

As soon as the message is sent, however, tendrils from the cloud reach out and wrap themselves around the Enterprise.

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Tags: cosmic clouds, handwaving mumblemumble, heavy stuff, mind meld, moral complexity, scotty being awesome, Scotty works a miracle, seances, space bulls, Spock is a Jedi, Spock-blocking, spockblocking, tough choices, wonders of the universe

Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch: “Yesteryear”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– May 26, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“Yesteryear”
Written by D.C. Fontana
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 2
Production episode: 22003
Original air date: September 15, 1973
Star date: 5373.4

Mission summary

The Enterprise crew is assigned to help a bird creature and a woman historian with their survey of Federation history via Harlan Ellison’s^TM Guardian of Forever, but they somehow end up altering the timeline. Again. Whoops!

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Tags: andorians, emotion, emotional Spock, handwaving mumblemumble, parallel universes, silhouettes, time travel, vulcan

Star Trek: The Animated Series Re-Watch: “Beyond the Farthest Star”

Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

– May 24, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: Animated Series Re-Watch

“Beyond the Farthest Star”
Written by Samuel A. Peeples
Directed by Hal Sutherland

Season 1, Episode 1
Production episode: 2204
Original air date: September 8, 1973
Star date: 5221.3

Mission summary

The Enterprise is on a star-charting mission near Questar M-17 when strange radio transmissions persuade Kirk to investigate. Since no good deed goes unpunished, a hypergravitational mumblemumble draws the tiny ship full speed into the dead star’s surface. The ship manages to change its trajectory enough to avoid impact and achieve a standard orbit, but once in orbit our heroes are surprised to find another ship orbiting with them. This new ship isn’t sleek and modern, but tentacled and organic-looking–a kind of pod ship. It’s the source of the radio transmissions. Spock discovers that they’re much too late to help. The pod ship has been there, drifting, for over 300 million years.

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Tags: alien clouds, alien machines, alien possession, green aliens, handwaving mumblemumble, immortality sucks, loneliness, space douches

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Requiem for Methuselah”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– 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: “That Which Survives”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– January 27, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“That Which Survives”
Written by John Meredyth Lucas
Story by Michael Richards
Directed by Herb Wallerstein

Season 3, Episode 17
Production episode: 3×14
Original air date: January 24, 1969
Star date: Unknown

Mission summary

Enterprise is in orbit around what appears to be a “ghost planet,” a planetary body lousy with vegetation despite the fact that it’s only a few thousand years old. Its mass and atmosphere resemble Earth’s (of course), though it’s only the size of Earth’s moon. The crew can’t turn down an opportunity to dig deeper into this mystery and explore “a planet that even Spock can’t explain,” so Captain Kirk, Dr. McCoy, Sulu, and Senior Geologist D’Amato prepare to beam down.

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Tags: abandoned civilizations, computers, emotion, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, hollow planet, loneliness, loyalty, matter-antimatter, purple, reverse polarity, rocks, sexy ladies, stranded, transporter malfunction, viruses

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– January 13, 2011 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Let That Be Your Last Battlefield”
Written by Oliver Crawford (Story by Lee Cronin)
Directed by Jud Taylor

Season 3, Episode 15
Production episode: 3×15
Original air date: January 10, 1969
Star date: 5730.2

Mission summary

Enterprise is on an important humanitarian mission to decontaminate Ariannus, which has succumbed to bacterial invasion that will kill billions of people without their timely intervention. But a funny thing happens on the way to the planet: they encounter a damaged Starfleet shuttlecraft which was jacked from Starbase 4. The lone pilot is injured and unable to respond to their hails, so they bring the shuttle onboard. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock meet it at the hangar deck with a security team and a man in blackface stumbles into the corridor. But wait! He collapses and rolls over to dramatically reveal that the left side of his face is white!

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Tags: batman, boring, civil rights, computers, flimsy premises, fully clothed man-wrestling, Galileo, godlike powers, handwaving mumblemumble, prejudice, progress, war

Star Trek Re-Watch: “Wink of an Eye”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– December 16, 2010 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“Wink of an Eye”
Written by Arthur Heinemann (story by Lee Cronin)
Directed by Jud Taylor

Season 3, Episode 11
Production episode: 3×13
Original air date: November 29, 1968
Star date: 5710.5

Mission summary

Enterprise visits scenic Scalos in response to a distress call. While Mr. Scott keeps the captain’s seat warm, Kirk takes a landing party to investigate the source of the transmission, a seemingly abandoned Scalosian city. Ship’s sensors seem a little buggy, and although Uhura can see the Scalosians on the viewscreen, she can’t see the Enterprise team standing at the same coordinates. Meanwhile, the landing party doesn’t see anyone either, and Dr. McCoy’s scanner doesn’t register life–not even the insect Kirk hears buzzing around his head. Spock’s eyes and years of training tell him there was an advanced, humanoid civilization here, and he must have better apps on his tricorder than McCoy:

Instrument readings indicate life-forms, but of a highly unusual and intermittent nature. They have no discernible form or location. A most puzzling phenomenon, Captain. I shall have to study it further.

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Tags: alien substances, bad coffee, breeding, computers, fully clothed man-wrestling, handwaving mumblemumble, life support, malfunctions, sexual harassment, sexy doom, space perverts, unfiltered water

Star Trek Re-Watch: “The Tholian Web”

Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

– December 2, 2010 8:00 amPosted in: TOS Re-Watch

“The Tholian Web”
Written by Judy Burns and Chet Richards
Directed by Herb Wallerstein and Ralph Senensky (uncredited)

Season 3, Episode 9
Production episode: 3×09
Original air date: November 15, 1968
Star date:5693.2

Mission summary

On the Enterprise bridge, Chekov and Sulu look like they regret whatever they had for lunch, but it turns out that space itself is disagreeing with them–Spock reports that it’s “literally breaking up.” Kirk is used to bad breakups, but this is causing all sorts of wonky sensor readings and the warp engines are inexplicably losing power. Then Chekov notices a ghostly ship ahead on the main viewscreen: the U.S.S. Defiant, a Constitution-class Federation ship which has been missing for three weeks. In this case they can only trust what they see with their own eyes, because sensors indicate their sister ship isn’t actually there. There’s no response to hails, so there’s only one thing to do–beam aboard to check things out.

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