mylittleredgirl | LAW & ORDER: Wacky Space Edition

Remember the good old days of every other Star Trek series where ships could just roam about space willy-nilly, minding their own business, doing Warp 5.8 in a 5.3 zone and the ol' NCC's wouldn't even pull them over for a sobriety test? Good times.

In this, the third episode-by-filming-order-not-counting-The-Cage-because-apparently-the-DVD-makers-don't, we open mid-chase scene, and go on to learn the following:

Things that are apparently illegal in the Federation: Space-piloting (your very own, non-Starfleet ship) without a license. Flying (your very own, non-Starfleet ship) without filing a flight plan. And perhaps most importantly: Not responding when Kirk wants to talk to you.

Things that are apparently totally okay in the Federation: Drugging women and selling them to jackasses on isolated planets. Though really, drugging totally willing, vain, naturally whorish women, while still immoral, is a bit more forgivable.

Speaking of totally willing, vain, naturally whorish women: First use of the fuzzy-lens-for-pretty-women! When they beam on board, there's the greatest moment of the episode:

Scotty: *stares*
McCoy: "Amen to that, Scotty."

Eve, the blonde weirdo who thinks Kirk is in love with her though he seems rather "meh" on the matter, reminds me a lot of Crazy Captain Hernandez of the NX Columbia. She reminded me of her because of her facial features, actually, although thinking the captain of the Enterprise is in love with her while he's rather "meh" about it is another good comparison.

Speaking of drugs, I couldn't stop snickering about how the ship is running on lithium. I mean, I get that lithium is one less lithium than dilithium, and it's also somewhere early on the periodic table, and the NX-01 Enterprise didn't even have crystals, but really, every time the lithium crystals burn out I'm going to be snickering about how the lights are flickering because their bipolar ship is off its medication.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd: Das Boy realized for the first time that he's dressed, earring and all, like a gypsy, because Stereotypically Gypsies Rip People Off. No clue what sort of accent he's going for, though, because he sounds hilariously like a leprechaun. HARCOURT FENTON MUDD, could you be more awesome? (The answer: Yes, and I'm pretty sure it's going to involve Norman Coordinating.)

Spock: Let's talk some more about how Spock is awesome. WHY don't any other Vulcans ever smirk!? Because Spock spends this entire episode obviously mocking everyone to himself. Harry Mudd calls him "Vulcanian." I'm sorry no one ever used that in Enterprise, because I'd kind of love the idea that people might say that as a racial slur. Das Boy also points out that Mudd can tell on sight that Spock isn't a full Vulcan and indicates that Vulcans can choose to feel emotion -- which means that pretty much from Day 1, the plan has been that Vulcans have emotions that they repress, and that this idea was not just developed later for crazy spore purposes.

Navigators: Let's also talk about how much the Enterprise's navigators suck. In three episodes, we've had one turn into a god-like being and attempt to kill the captain, one turn into such an epic spaz that Kirk actually LEAVES HIM with the SCARIEST FUCKING ALIEN OF ALL TIME, and one who can't push buttons when there are hot women on board. I've always kind of wondered what happened to people who graduated at the bottom of their Academy classes (since every character we know graduated at the top), and here's your answer: NAVIGATORS. CHEKOV, SAVE US SOON PLEASE.

Scotty: Scotty does not suck. At all. In fact, we wonder if Scotty ever, at any point, does anything to make anyone dislike him, because so far he has just wandered around the ship smiling beatifically at everything. He still doesn't have an engineering set, so the going theory is that his job is not to fix the engines so much as to wait in the turbolift until he has a reason to report to Kirk that Engineering, wherever it is, is having problems.

McCoy: They amp up the weird a bit with him in this episode. He wears a pinky ring, for one thing. He also has an incredibly strange conversation with Kirk that's basically: "My medical scanners go... bleurrrp!" and Kirk's all "Bleeurrrp, you say?" WEIRD. However, the first McCoy & Spock (or McCoy/Spock, depending on how you swing) interaction is here, and FABOO. Spock: "The fact that my internal anatomy differs from yours pleases me no end." Spock 1, McCoy 0.

Ship > Everything: Harry Mudd knows it, dude, and repeats it three or four times to Eve, the weird blonde Captain Hernandez one. However, given that Kirk burns out every system on the ship (including the lithium) chasing down a shuttle for various minor apparently-the-future-is-a-police-state activities, we learn the important corollary that when something pisses Kirk off, Making A Point > Ship.

Red Shirts Running Death Count: 0! But the clock is ticking, because there were at least three of them in this episode, and all of them were very much alive.

WTF Prop of the Episode: LIE DETECTOR. With the voice of Majel Barrett and some seriously crazy sin-curves, the all-knowing, all-seeing lie detector makes everyone use their full names and helpfully announces, without being asked, that the Starfleet officers around the table are totally horny. I think there's a really good reason why this technology gets shelved before TNG. Can you imagine if somebody used this during a negotiation with aliens and your own ship's computer gave away all your secrets?

Things McCoy is Not: He didn't get one of those lines in this episode. However:

Things Kirk is Not: A paragon. Your self-awareness quotient is high, Jim Kirk.