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1967, 2267, Star Trek

“Mirror, Mirror”

I'm going to Tantalus the hell out of that goatee ...
“If Spock gets a goatee, I better get a personal guard and a captain’s woman.”

A transporter accident sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Uhura to a mirror universe where an evil Empire exists in place of the Federation. Our heroes must play the roles of their counterparts — whom our Spock must deal with back home — and search for a way back against a ticking clock and nefarious versions of the normal crew at every turn. Our heroes escape, with the help of evil Spock, who figures out who they are. Then, Jimbo goes all Jimbo and presumes to know what’s best  in a universe he’s spent like 10 minutes in. He tells evil Spock (who’s not that evil, all goatees considered) that the Empire is illogical and that he should start a revolution. Talk about unintended consequences …

My mind to your mind, my gym locker combination to your gym locker combination ...
“I need you to tell me what ‘oiling my traps’ means, Doctor.”

Why it’s important

On its own, “Mirror, Mirror” might have ended up in the Hall of Great but not Tapestry-Worthy episodes, like “The City on the Edge of Forever.” But seven episodes of second-generation Trek wouldn’t have happened if not for “Mirror, Mirror,” so, it’s a kind of a big deal. In DS9’s “Crossover”, the events of and after “Mirror, Mirror” are explained — with the transporter accident apparently a well-known piece of history in both universes. In fact, our boy Jimmy pretty much ensured that mirror-universe humans would live their lives as slaves, as evil Spock’s decision to take his advice weakens the Empire to the point where its opponents (a Klingon-Cardassian alliance) defeat it and enslave humanity. The point is never really explicitly addressed, but one wonders if the second-generation Trek producers were tweaking ’60s Trek for its anything-goes mentality (at least, for much of the time) when it came to playing god to other cultures (and universes).

mirror3
“Ohhhhhh, my.”

What doesn’t hold up

Of course, the biggest problem has to do with scope. Would things in the mirror universe be so similar to our universe — i.e., the Enterprise’s look, crew members being essentially the same, etc.? It’s the conceit that makes the episode work as it’s fun to see Spock with a goatee, etc. But it’s worth noting because it’s a real stretch. DS9’s mirror episodes incorporated fewer evil versions of the regular characters, but DS9 had such a wide array of guest characters that excluding a few but keeping most wasn’t difficult.

While “Mirror, Mirror,” mostly works with what we see on the DS9 crossover episodes, the “Star Trek: Enterprise” two-parter “In a Mirror, Darkly” creates some inconsistencies. For one thing, Vulcans don’t seem to be subjugated in “Mirror, Mirror” the way they’re later portrayed. Maybe Spock’s human ancestry puts him in a different category than most Vulcans — or maybe the Vulcans even the playing field a century later? Also, if the Empire in the 22nd century recovered a 23rd-century starship, as evil Archer and Co., did — shouldn’t the Enterprise in this episode be much more advanced? Or, are we to believe that evil Kirk is commanding the equivalent of garbage scow? Did evil Bones get his wish about mining borite?

Also, did Spock have the evil landing party stand on the transporter pads for several hours — just waiting for good Kirk and Co. to beam back? And, if he did, how did he know when to energize on his end? Did he do all the work Scotty and McCoy did to prepare for the inter-universe transport? It’s not as if there’s dialog indicating evil Kirk and Co. were sent back separately, and good Kirk and Co., end up back in their original clothes. It’s not a huge deal, but it would have been kind of cool to see Kirk look over the evil landing party and have Spock send them back where they belong. And it would have made more sense.

Final thoughts

“Mirror, Mirror” is one of the high-concept episodes of TOS that really works. It has the corny TOS trope of the good guys figuring out a problem with nothing more than extemporaneous dialog — “Something … parallel. A parallel universe!” — and it’s not really clear how else they would have made the discovery (especially without Spock there to help). OTOH, this episode might be TOS’s best ensemble piece, and each actor who has much dialog as an evil counterpart — McCoy, Scotty and Uhura’s duplicates don’t do much more than yell — really shines in dual roles. Nimoy appropriately gets a lot of love, but Shatner’s scene as evil Kirk is awesome (“Where’s my personal guard?!”). George Takei, too often relegated to exposition on the bridge, gets a good chance to stretch here as evil Sulu.

There are a lot of other, smaller points that make this episode strong — Kirk’s consort Marlena Moreau (BarBara Luna) in the mirror universe is an interesting character, and her line about “oiling” her traps is probably one of the most awesome/ridiculous things ever to sneak by the censors.

But this is an episode that’s just vintage Trek, especially vintage ’60s Trek. It’s a cool concept made to work with good acting, great music (the Spock/McCoy mild-meld scenes especially stands out) some moral righteousness and even a bit of naivete. A lot of the best TOS could be described as such.

1967, 2267, Federation, Star Trek

“Metamorphosis”

I do not have a totally parochial attitude. I do not have a totally parochial attitude ...
“I do not have a totally parochial attitude. I do not have a totally parochial attitude …”

Kirk, Spock, Bones and Federation Commissioner/Fun Chick at Parties Nancy Hedford (Elinor Donahue) crash a shuttle on a planet inhabited by a mysterious human who turns out to be long-lost creator of warp drive, Zefram Cochrane (Glenn Corbett). Cochrane, who has the appearance of the vice president of rotary club, has lived on the planet for 150 years, thanks to a mysterious entity/energy field he calls “the Companion,” which also brought the shuttle to the planet to keep him from dying of loneliness. After Hedford goes to that big negotiating table in the sky — Kirk and Co. were taking her to get medical attention for some ailment or something — the Companion merges within her body, creating a human woman, complete with an echo-ey voice! After initially feeling used by the Companion when it’s discovered to have female characteristics, Cochrane decides to live with it on the planet and Kirk and Co. hit the old dusty trail. The Big Three, as they leave, promise to keep the happy couple’s existence secret.

Can this shuttle take me to an island full of naked women?
“Can this shuttle take me to an island full of naked women?”

Why it’s important

The Cochrane backstory explains much of how humans were able to leave Earth’s solar system, though without a lot of details. The character is hugely important in “Star Trek: First Contact” and his existence is one of the linchpins of “Star Trek: Enterprise.” Meanwhile, Kirk’s dialog with Cochrane (“We’re at 1,000 planets, and spreading out”) is a key moment for the franchise and for TOS. After a first season that made Starfleet sound Earth-centric, this is an episode that opened things up. It also adds scope in that it shows that the Enterprise isn’t just some ship that randomly gets into adventures. It’s part of something MUCH larger.

We’re also shown the Metron recording device — I mean, universal translator. While I stay away from technological developments (e.g., which episode the dilithium articulation chamber debuts in), this is an instance where technology is worth mentioning. Without the UT and its Sunny D Mom properties (magic!) Star Trek would be very, very different — and far less digestible. This also is one of the few times we see the UT as an actual device.

Cochrane's bachelor pad. He can even offer you a hot bath.
Cochrane’s bachelor pad. He can even offer you a hot bath.

What doesn’t hold up

Well, for starters, Cochrane here looks nothing like Cochrane in “Star Trek: First Contact,” when he’s played by James Cromwell. There’s some speculation that the movie Cochrane was affected by radiation, which is why he looks rougher and less like a Fox News anchor in the 1996 film, and then “rejuvenated” after landing on the Companion’s little rock of love. OK, fine — I’ll give the creators that one. But Cochrane in “Metamorphosis” sure seems to ACT much differently than Cochrane in “Star Trek: First Contact.” It’s hard to believe that the drunk who invented warp drive as a way to end up on an island full of naked women — something Cochrane tells Riker in the movie — would have the “totally parochial attitude” we see here, to quote our favorite half-Vulcan science officer. Oh, and in case the idea is that Cochrane became a new man after discovering warp drive and meeting the Vulcans, an episode of “Star Trek Enterprise” has a line of dialog about how Cochrane was “frequently intoxicated” in later years.

Beyond that, Cochrane is strangely referred to as “of Alpha Centauri” in this episode. Maybe the creators, at the time, were implying that humans got to Alpha Centauri and developed warp there? But that, obviously, doesn’t square with Cochrane developing the technology in an abandoned missile complex in central Montana. Now, it’s possible that Cochrane resided on Alpha Centauri before he left for deep space, but the matter is never really addressed.

Final thoughts

It’s interesting to watch “Metamorphosis” and see how it became a foundation piece for Star Trek (inconsistencies and all) while an episode like “Whom Gods Destroy” introduces another supposedly important historical figure (Garth of Izar) who is immediately forgotten. I like to think about the creative process there: “You want to write a movie bringing back the crazy dude with different colored boots and the green girlfriend or the guy who looked like a ’50s yearbook photo who fell in love with a yellow energy cloud?”

I’ve also always had a soft spot for this episode. It’s got some great Big Three interaction, but Shatner absolutely sells the point about the expanding galaxy. It’s an important exchange and it really gives us an idea of the scope of Star Trek.

1967, 2267, Star Trek, Vulcan

“Amok Time”

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This fight is to the death. Thee should be used to that by now.
“This fight is to the death. Thee should be used to that by now.”

After behaving strangely for several days — throwing soup and stuff — Spock tells Kirk he must go to Vulcan to engage in a mating ritual, a diagnosis McCoy confirms. Kirk, never one to devalue a good mating ritual, defies orders and takes Spock to Vulcan, where he and McCoy accompany Spock to a sort of wedding ceremony. But Spock’s betrothed wife T’Pring (Arlene Martel) chooses a challenge (invoking an ancient right) and surprisingly picks Kirk as her “champion.” Figuring that the weakened Spock might be in trouble if he has to fight someone else, Kirk agrees — and then learns the fight is to the death. Spock, unable to stop himself because of his “blood fever,” goes full on after Kirk, before McCoy sneaks in an injection he says will help Kirk deal with Vulcan’s arid climate and atmosphere. Shortly thereafter, Spock appears to kill Kirk, and McCoy beams back to the ship with the body. Spock then learns T’Pring picked Kirk as a way to ensure she could be with another dude (the details aren’t that important). Back on the ship, Spock arrives in sickbay, all set to turn himself into the authorities when Kirk (alive and well) comes from behind a corner. Spock briefly reacts with joy, in a signature moment of the series, and learns McCoy actually injected Kirk with a substance to knock him out and simulate death. Then, Kirk and Spock head back to the bridge to mind the store.

Hey Spock, he's got an "aw wound." Get it?
“Hey Spock, he’s got an ‘aw wound.’ Get it?”

Why it’s important

This is the original series’ closest look at Vulcan culture and the only time we get to Spock’s home planet before the movies. The idea of a society built on logic, steeped in antiquity, is established here and we get the clear message that Vulcans work so hard to suppress their emotions because they were (and are) capable of such rage. Spock, at one point, says his “blood burns.” McCoy even says that the ordeal Spock and other Vulcans go through once every seven years might be the price they pay for suppressing their emotions most of the time. It’s interesting stuff.

We get our first idea of the look and feel of Vulcan culture, too. Some of it works, though I’m not sure why the wedding officiant T’Pau (Celia Lovsky) speaks in Old English (maybe she really digs malt liquor?). Of course, we see T’Pau nearly 40 years later in “Star Trek: Enterprise” in a well-intended and mostly successful callback to TOS. She appears in the prequel series’s fourth season as a member of a group said to understand the “true” teachings of Surak, the father of Vulcan logic (though she doesn’t speak like a she’s doing Shakespeare in the Park in those episodes, thankfully). Turns out that T’Pau’s group actually has it right and that she and others help turn Vulcan society into what it is in 23rd century Star Trek (dignified pacifists) — as opposed to Vulcans we see in the 22nd century (treacherous bureaucrats).

I just had some great plomeek soup!
“I just had some great plomeek soup! Want some?”

What doesn’t hold up

It’s a nice moment when Kirk and McCoy explain (sort of) why T’Pau is important — because it shows that the Federation isn’t all about humans (a real problem in Trek’s first season). However, it seems like Kirk would know more about T’Pau if he knew she turned down a spot on the Federation Council. In “The Savage Curtain”, where we meet a recreation of Surak, Kirk’s never heard of the guy. So, Kirk’s heard of T’Pau, but not the Vulcan messiah, whose true teachings were uncovered (in part) by T’Pau in a spiritual awakening that changed Vulcan culture and involved Starfleet? Wouldn’t this be like Spock knowing who George Washington was but only that he was the first U.S. president — and not a famed general in the American Revolution?

It’s also odd that we don’t see or hear of Spock’s parents in this episode. In the first season, he speaks of them as if they were dead, but later this season in “Journey to Babel”, they’re quite alive and on Vulcan. Maybe the rift between Sarek and Spock was the reason they didn’t attend this ceremony. Or, perhaps parents aren’t supposed to attend such ceremonies, as part of tradition. Either way, it’s odd when we learn they are, in fact, alive (and that one resembles a certain Romulan commander). The simplest answer, of course, is that the writers decided Spock’s parents were dead until “Journey to Babel.” Same sort of thing happened with Captain Benjamin Sisko’s father 30 years later, FWIW.

Final thoughts

I’ve always felt this episode was somewhat overrated. The fight scene is fine — and the music is pretty great — but such fight scenes were such a part of TOS that this episode isn’t anything close to groundbreaking. That said, as TOS tropes go, it’s not on par with exposition dialog miraculously diagnosing a complex problem, Kirk outsmarting computers or Bones’ medical pouch containing scores of day-saving goodies.

Also, while McCoy’s plan was fairly smart, it also was incredibly lucky. What if the order of the weapons used in the challenge had been reversed? If the bladed weapon had been the second one used, Spock could have easily beheaded Kirk — or bashed in his skull. Or, what if Kirk had simply passed out at a moment when Spock wasn’t attacking him? Then, what?

And, of course, T’Pau’s failure to explain the ancient ritual is a huge conceit. Would it really have been that hard to tell Kirk, before he accepted the challenge, that the fight was to the death? This flaw could have been fixed, by the way, by Spock simply being unhinged during the fight with the matter of “to the death” being vague. I know T’Pau telling Kirk the true stakes of the fight — after he’s accepted — is a thunderclap moment, but it’s too hard to swallow. It either means T’Pau wasn’t smart enough to consider Kirk wouldn’t just know that the fight was too the death or that she was too obstinate/prideful to tell him. The second option doesn’t fit with the idea that Vulcans are logical pacifists.

All that said, there are moments in this episode that I like a lot. Seeing Vulcan and the land owned by Spock’s family was pretty cool (this is an episode that really benefited from the new remastered effects, BTW). And T’Pau was certainly an interesting character. I liked her questioning of Spock’s humanness — in lines that (I believe) were sometimes cut for syndication. There are a couple other moments I didn’t love — was Spock about to seduce Nurse Chapel in his quarters when she came to tell him they were heading to Vulcan? — but Nimoy and the writing staff really did a good job overall.

The episode’s best moment, though, is when Spock asks McCoy to attend the ceremony for his “closest male friends.” It’s an important moment because it shows Spock and McCoy are not actually enemies, despite their trademark bickering. I know the surprised/happy Spock is what everyone remembers from “Amok Time,” other than the fight music that would show up again and again for the next two seasons. But Spock’s moment of vulnerability with McCoy was really wonderful.

1967, 2267, Klingon, Star Trek

“Errand of Mercy”

Kor,_2266
“By your comman — I mean, today is a good day to die.”

Kirk and Spock travel to Organia, a primitive planet about to be in the crossfire in a looming conflict between the Federation and some newly introduced baddies, the Klingon Empire. As Kirk tries to convince the Organians that they should let Starfleet establish a base on the planet, the Klingons arrive, led by Commander Kor (John Colicos), and establish a military post as Kirk and Spock are forced to go undercover (and as the Enterprise leaves orbit). With the Federation and Klingon fleets poised to begin fighting — Sulu’s in command of the ship with Scotty and McCoy apparently on Wrigley’s Pleasure Planet or something — the Organians reveal themselves as extremely power aliens, and stop the conflict from happening. This, of course, sets up decades of Cold War-style conflict between the two heavyweights, one of the key aliens in all of Trek, and bat’leths hanging over many a nerd’s fireplace.

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“Starfleet’s about exploration. But I just said I’m a soldier, not a diplomat. But sometimes, my job calls on me to be a diplomat. And my medical officer keeps saying he’s a doctor … and not a bricklayer or a moon-shuttle conductor. And one time, he said he wasn’t an escalator! Basically, I’m really confused all the time.”

Why it’s important

The Romulans technically arrived first, but the Klingons were TOS’ main bad guys, a fact that is especially true in the movies (Klingons appear in five of the six TOS films). Instead of being mysterious and enigmatic like the Romulans, the Klingons clearly have had lots of recent dealings with the Federation, as Kirk is able to describe them — or, at least, how he sees them — without much couching to the Organian leaders. Klingon bastards.

The Klingons really became the Bad Guy of the Week in Trek’s second season, whereas the Romulans only appear twice more in TOS (only once more with actual actors playing Romulans) and only briefly in the movies and never as the main bad guys. It’s hard to imagine Star Trek without Klingon-heavy moments like the final battle scene in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” or the tense scenes at the Genesis Planet in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” — to say nothing of the Klingons’ role in the next four series. “Star Trek: Voyager” is the only show without a lot of Klingon stories, despite the presence of a half-Klingon chief engineer.

And it all started on a little world called Organia.

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“I don’t like the tights you’re making me wear.”

What doesn’t hold up

Of course, the Klingons here LOOK very different than they do starting in “Star Trek — The Motion Picture”. Up until the events of the fourth season of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” this was arguably the biggest wink-wink-nudge-nudge item of the franchise, with DS9 even acknowledging it as such in perhaps Star Trek’s most meta moment in “Trials and Tribble-ations.” Later, of course, we learn that the change in appearance had something to do with Klingons’ attempts to create Super Klingons by riffing on human genetic-engineering methods. Oh, and Anakin Skywalker actually built C-3PO. Yuck.

As was the case for a lot of the Klingon depiction in TOS, the warrior race that is so concerned with honor in TNG sure doesn’t seem very honorable here. The Mind Sifter — a tool Kor uses unsuccessfully on Spock to determine whether he’s a spy — is straight out of the Romulans’ playbook. But, to paraphrase Worf in another episode, “They are Klingons, and it is a long story.”

Also, Starfleet is at its most militaristic here, with Kirk actually calling himself a soldier (not a diplomat). Was Gene on vacay on the Jersey Shore with Majel when this episode was filmed? While TOS is certainly the most militaristic series in Trek (DS9 competes at times) with lots of talk of “the service” and “braids on shoulders,” etc., “Errand of Mercy” takes it to the extreme. That’s not necessarily a problem in an episode where everyone’s worried about a war. But it is noteworthy.

Final thoughts

This is a great Kirk-Spock episode (not to be confused with a Kirk-Spock-Bones episode, which is actually a very different thing). It’s my favorite example of Spock not being an overt pacifist (talking about crimes against science) while also not being a caustic jerk (proposing to off Jim’s long-time buddy who just happens to be evolving into a god or something). Shatner also is about pitch-perfect in this episode (“Go climb a tree”) and Colicos is great as Trek’s first real Klingon. Kor’s final line about how the averted war “would have been glorious” might have laid a foundation for Klingons as much as anything else.

This isn’t a great episode, but it’s a very good one. The biggest mark against it is that the plot here is too similar to what happened in “Arena.” In both episodes, Starfleet is prevented from taking action (combat) against an enemy — and god-like beings intervene (with different details). The Organians here are somewhat more interesting because they’re posing as simple backwards aliens — which sets up the big twist when they reveal they have the power to stop the Federation and the Klingons. But the lesson that Kirk learns at the end (that humans aren’t the most powerful beings in the universe) isn’t at all new. Or, at least, it shouldn’t be.

1967, 2267, Star Trek

“Space Seed”

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“This was nice! How’s about we do it again in 15 years when you’ve gone crazy and when I’m feeling old and worn out?”

The Enterprise finds a derelict ship that left Earth in the late 1990s. On board are about 70 individuals asleep for (ahem) two centuries. The leader is automatically awakened when Kirk and Co, enter the ship and later identifies himself only as Khan (Ricardo Montalban). It turns out he is actually Khan Noonien Singh, one of many genetically engineered supermen who fought for control of Earth in the early 1990s, when most of us were watching “The Real World” or something. These supermen were defeated, but Khan and his followers escaped in the sleeper ship. Khan awakens his followers and briefly takes over the Enterprise with the help of the ship’s historian, Lt. Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue) who has fallen for him. But after Khan gets more and more brutal in attempts to turn enough of Kirk’s crew to operate the ship, McGivers helps Kirk escape suffocation. Kirk defeats Khan in hand-to-hand combat (hmmm) and then allows Khan, McGivers and the rest of his people to settle on the savage Ceti Alpha V, rather than going to prison. And everything works out just swell for Khan after that. Oh, wait …

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“You’re right, Mr. Spock. He does look a lot like Mr. Roarke from ‘Fantasy Island.’ Security …”

Why it’s important

This could have been a very good one-off episode. But Khan, of course, returns in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” and returns (in a different way) in “Star Trek Into Darkness”). Anyone who hasn’t seen Wrath of Khan who’s reading this blog is probably a statistical anomaly. But, if you are the anomaly, stop reading now. 🙂

Not long after Kirk maroons Khan on Ceti Alpha V, a nearby planet explodes, making Khan’s planet even less hospitable. For the following 15 years, he and his remaining superpeople somehow manage to survive (they played a lot of checkers) until Khan captures the U.S.S. Reliant and steals the experimental Genesis device, which can turn a dead planet into a living planet. More details on all that when we review “Star Trek: II”. After a battle with the Enterprise, Khan detonates the Genesis device in the Mutara Nebula. Spock sacrifices himself to fix the Enterprise’s engines to escape the device’s blast, setting up the events of “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”. When Kirk steals the Enterprise to retrieve Spock’s body on the newly created Genesis planet (what used to be the nebula) he encounters a Klingon vessel intent on stealing Genesis’s secrets. In the ensuing ordeal, Kirk’s son David Marcus (one of the Genesis creators who we meet in the previous movie) is killed, the Enterprise is destroyed and Kirk and Co. steal the Klingon ship and escape as the unstable Genesis planet explodes. They then take Spock to Vulcan, where he is, in effect, reborn.

And, of course, Kirk and Co. use the Klingon ship in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”. Without the ship and its cloaking device, it would have been much harder to go back in time to 1986 San Francisco to bring two humpback whales to the 23rd century to answer the call of a probe threatening to destroy Earth. Without them, Earth would have been lost.

I could keep going, of course, as the death of David Marcus plays a minor role in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country”. But you get the idea. The introduction of Khan is a major domino in Star Trek, even though the character only appears in one episode and one movie. Our apologies for the high amount of spoilers — but we figured it was important to explain Khan’s relevance .

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“Wait, what am I doing reprising the role of an Indian character played by a Mexican actor? This would only get more ludicrous if my character’s blood somehow revives the dead.”

What doesn’t hold up

There’s, of course, the issue of Khan and other supermen taking control of Earth in the early 1990s. This is one of those nudge-nudge-wink-wink moments on par with (pre-“Star Trek: Enterprise”) why the Klingons didn’t have forehead ridges in TOS when they had them starting in “Star Trek — The Motion Picture”. All that said, it’s hard to be that critical of the creators for not expecting in 1967 that people would be watching Star Trek in 1996, let alone 2014.

But there’s also some dispute regarding Earth’s third world war. Spock says the events surrounding Khan and his ilk in the late 20th century were a world war, which McCoy labels “The Eugenics Wars.” Subsequent Trek episodes and movies seem to place the third world war in the mid-21st century (at least, that’s when it ended).

There’s no real good explanation for this — unless you figure that the tampering with the timeline (starting with “Tomorrow is Yesterday” and continuing throughout the next 50-plus years of Trek) had a bigger effect than the good guys realized. I personally blame it all on Scotty’s decision to give that one dude the secret to transparent aluminum in 1986.

And, maybe, the time-traveling we see throughout Star Trek’s many episodes and films could explain even more timeline questions …

Obviously, this episode is probably the greatest illustration of the creators being overly optimistic about the progress of space exploration in the late 20th century. There’s the existence, in 1996, of a sleeper ship capable of interplanetary travel and McGivers’ line about how suspended animation was used in space travel until the late 2010s because of the time involved (a reference to the fact that ships were likely slow). That said, if anyone knows how I can get on one of those sleeper ships, I hear Vulcan is lovely in the spring. And I’d love to go skiing on Andoria.

There are even more, less obvious clues. Khan left Earth in 1996, and Kirk tells him that he’s been asleep for two centuries. Of course, the timeline established later puts this episode in 2267 — 271 years after Khan left Earth. Wouldn’t most people, in a similar situation, tell Khan he had been asleep for three centuries, or NEARLY three centuries, or even 250 years? I doubt someone in 1967 would say something that happened in 1696 took place two centuries ago …

It’s pretty clear to me (as discussed in previous reviews) that TOS was loosely intended (back in the ’60s) to take place in the late 22nd century. Fifty years ago, a Federation of Planets with Earth as a key member might have seemed somewhat plausible, by the late 2100s, if space exploration had continued at its 1960s pace throughout the rest of the 20th century. This episode, Kirk’s comment in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” that being locked up for 200 years (starting in 1969) would be about right and Gary Mitchell’s comment in “Where No Man Has Gone Before” that a poem written in 1996 was “one of the most passionate love poems of the past couple of centuries” (among other things in that episode and others) all would seem to back me up.

BTW, I don’t keep bringing this up to knock TOS. I just find it interesting to note the optimism the creators — and the adjustments they quietly made over the years when their optimism turned out to be misplaced. The adjustments start appearing early in the TOS films.

In other news, I’m constantly amazed at how much access to the Enterprise Kirk routinely gives to potential security threats like Khan and Christopher from “Tomorrow is Yesterday,” (to say nothing of Lazarus in the absolutely awful “The Alternative Factor”). This is a very different episode if Kirk doesn’t decide it’s cool for Khan to wander the ship (allowing him to manipulate McGivers) and look over the Enterprise’s technical manuals. Hell, it’s hard to imagine that Khan would have had the wherewithal to run the Reliant 15 years later if not for that knowledge.

Lastly, while some would say that Chekov’s absence in this episode doesn’t jibe with Khan recognizing him in “Star Trek II,” that can easily be explained as Chekov being on the ship but not yet a bridge officer. I note this to show that I’m not a total geek when it comes to continuity — but just wait until we get to “Voyager” …

Final thoughts

I go back and forth between “Space Seed” and “Mirror, Mirror” when asked about my favorite episode of TOS. I’m probably in a “Space Seed” mood these days, because “Mirror, Mirror” has two of my least favorite Trek tropes — exposition dialog that somehow analyzes a very strange problem with amazing clarity (the TOS equivalent of technobabble, really) and a technical solution that’s just totally ham-fisted and doesn’t make a ton of sense.

“Space Seed” isn’t perfect, but it doesn’t use either of those crutches — and it’s a great episode besides. Montalban is just amazing as Khan, and the scene where he manipulates McGivers is about as edgy as anything Trek has ever produced (it’s amazing it was on television at all in 1967). Shatner, too, is really strong in this episode. Of course, we are shown another example of Kirk in a fight to beat the bad guy for all the marbles — but while that’s cliche, it’s a believable cliche that mostly makes sense. I guess that thing Kirk hit Khan with was really, really hard?

I suppose the biggest question is, should Kirk have left Khan and Co. on Ceti Alpha V? Even if you put aside the fact that the planet became a barren wasteland after the events of this episode, Kirk’s decision could have had some pretty nasty side effects (as Spock hints at before the credits roll). What if Khan had escaped isolation and become a major threat to the Federation? Rich Corinthian leather and Chryslers for all?