The outlook is bleak. This week’s episode was “The Mark of Gideon,” an improbably stupid examination of overpopulation. The only positive comment I could muster was a Settlers of Catan reference, so watch at your own risk.
I got a head-start on “That Which Survives,” and I’m starting to flounder. When the season opened we had “The Enterprise Incident” and “Is There In Truth No Beauty?” But it’s been months since then. Is there anything left to look forward to?
Wondering where the ’60s went? Just look at that screencap. This week’s Star Trek Re-Watch is “Elaan of Troyius,” a kind of cross between the Helen of Troy story and Antony and Cleopatra–only with skimpier outfits and even more chauvinism. Hoorah!
The Thanksgiving weekend has made me fall behind on so many things… Let’s see–there have been two new Star Trek Re-Watches over at The Viewscreen: “Day of the Dove” and “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky.” The former is kind of like an afterschool special (war is wrong!), while the latter has some gorgeous sets and a nice McCoy story but weak motivation and plotting. Coming up tomorrow: “The Tholian Web.”
The week leading up to Thanksgiving was Harry Potter-themed, incidentally. It was my sister’s sixteenth birthday and I promised to make her a cake. I enjoy making fun cakes so her request for a Harry Potter-themed one (white cake, strawberry icing–yay for parameters) had me in a tizzy1. A real challenge! I cycled through so many ideas–a Hogwarts crest? A caketopper of Neville and Nagini? But in the end, my fondant wound up too soft for a cake-topper, my experimental strawberry cake came out too dense and weird, and my food coloring was so shockingly pastel that at 10pm (after a full six hours of baking and decorating) I had to scrap the cake and start from scratch. The last thing I wanted was to give her a Cake Wreck. I was too ambitious. This time I used the fondant only for little decorations, and settled on the horcruxes as decorative elements around the HP logo. Can you identify them?2 Read more »
Flimsy plotting, self-contradictory logic, and some truly low-budget setpieces all make this week’s outing–”Spectre of the Gun“–a mediocre effort. That said, the surrealist art direction (from the red sky to the unfinished buildings) and delightfully hammy Western vibe are charming in their own way and worth the viewing.
It did make me want to watch some good Westerns, though…
Another winner this week with “Is There in Truth No Beauty?” Diana Muldaur pulls off both a fabulous wardrobe and an exceptional performance as a blind woman (spoilers don’t count for a 40-year-old show).
I really enjoyed this one–it was elegantly executed, thoughtful, and moving. The directing, however, is such that the above screencap is one of the better shots of the episode. (What, you don’t like your cameras behind people all the time? Who needs to see the full screen?)
This week in “And the Children Shall Lead”: possessed kids kill their parents and try to take over the Enterprise. The worst thing I can say about it is that I had very little to say about it–apparently it was an attempt to remake “Miri” (which suddenly looks better than I remember it…), but of course anything Fred Freiberger touches turns to hackery and we get adventures in babysitting instead. You can read our review over at The Viewscreen.
Eugene also wrote about the rumors floating around for the next Abrams Trek movie. Supposedly an old villain will get recycled, ho-hum. Is anyone surprised? For my part I just hope the next movie ditches the action schlock-fest for something more thoughtful and meaningful.
Eugene and I have a new re-watch of “The Paradise Syndrome” over at The Viewscreen. If the screencap above doesn’t tell you all you need to know, I can’t imagine what I could add. Read it here.
If you were planning to tune out for Season 3, don’t! “The Enterprise Incident” was outstanding and a welcome splash of color on the bleak vista that awaits us. It also features one of the strongest female characters in the original series. (I know that sounds like a low bar, but trust me.)
The review is up over at The Viewscreen.
Hi everyone! I know it’s been a long, cold, lonely winter (summer? fall?), but the Star Trek Re-Watch is back–at it’s new home, TheViewscreen.com! We’re kicking things off with the third season and the most universally reviled episode of them all: “Spock’s Brain.” We watch it so you don’t have to! But you should watch it, so we don’t feel so alone…
We’ll also have a special “Spock’s Brain“-themed bonus content of the secret variety available in the next few weeks, so stay tuned to our new site. We’re really proud of it and hope you’ll join us there.
…not really. I went on vacation, which meant becoming very behind on blogging in general. But in the meantime I’ve posted a number of things to Tor.com:
Re-watches for “The Immunity Syndrome” and “A Private Little War” are both up. The former I’ve already forgotten–it was that unmemorable–while the latter was easily the most gender-regressive episode of the series so far.
Also up is the most recent re-watch, “Return to Tomorrow,” a really stunning episode that I had never heard of before. And in lieu of a re-watch this week, my personal favorite post of the entire Re-Watch blogging series: instructions for how to make a tribble. Not exactly a re-watch, but hopefully a lot of fun.
And finally: I wrote a brief tribute to the Apollo 13 mission on its 40th anniversary. Unfortunately I’m a month late with that news, but it’s better late than never! It’s definitely time to re-watch Apollo 13. Hollywood needs more competency porn.
Uncategorized | Torie | 
January 24, 2011 12:00 pm | 
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