PRIMITIVE SCREWHEADS

Science Fiction Sunday 429

The Night That Panicked America isn't really a science fiction movie but it is about an important SF event. It's a 1975 ABC TV movie about the CBS radio program. It's Halloween Eve 1938 and Orson Wells is adapting the HG Wells novel War Of The Worlds on the Mercury Theater On The Air radio program. As the movie starts we follow the people at the radio station as they get ready to broadcast. After the broadcast gets under way we switch between the production in the studio and several different groups of people as they react to the program. Sadly people thought it was real and not fiction. It caused some good amount of concern among the citizens and a hullabaloo at the station. The response by the police was funny but scary for the actors and in the end it became known that the news media pumped it up out of proportion. There's a so-so documentary on the event called The Day That Panicked America. It's main attraction is the wealth of  pictures of the people involved. You are better off reading the Wikipedia page to get a good idea of what happened. I always admired it as a clever production that was a tad too clever for some. Howard Koch was the main writer of the script.

I fondly remember hearing the broadcast for the first time. It was sometime in the early 1970s that I had bought a record with the hour long program. I'd read about the broadcast in a 1970 book called The Panic Broadcast. I bought the book and went looking for a copy of the broadcast. It was in the first record store that I  visited. Since I was prepared I didn't run into the streets and make a fool of myself. I used to read a lot of film books in those days. Nowadays I rely on the Wikipedia and such. 

This monument is located in Grover's Mill, New Jersey. It's where the Martian's landed in the program. I like that they put that up for people to find.

The Night That Panicked America has a script by Nicholas Meyer and Anthony Wilson. Some might recognize Nickolas from his best selling Sherlock Holmes novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Before he wrote TNTPA Nicholas wrote Invasion Of The Bee Girls and Judge Dee And The Monastery Murders. Both are entertaining but the latter is a bit better. The Judge Dee is adapted from Robert Van Guilk's novel of the same name. That's a series I like quite a bit, they're on my re-read list.

The year after TNTPA he wrote The Seven-Per-cent Solution, which was followed by Time After Time and Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. I didn't watch much of the rest of his work, I did see the two other Star Trek films he worked on, and a couple of other projects like Tomorrow Never Dies, but most of it was drama and I rarely make the effort to chase those sorts of things down. Nicholas has a writing credit, on the IMDb, for 1 episode of Star Trek: Discovery.

Joseph Sargent was the director. I didn't know much of anything about him but I read on the IMDb that I've seen 3 of his other films: Colossus: The Forbin Project, The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three and Jaws, The Revenge. He directed some TV at the start of his career, episodes of Lassie, Mr Novak, Gunsmoke, The Man From Uncle, The Invaders and others. Most of the films he directed were TV movies. He died in 2014 after nearly 50 years in the business.

Star Trek Season 2

I just wrapped up the 2nd season of the original Star Trek today. I got the Blu-ray's when they got cheap and have been watching a disc or so a week. I'm watching the show with the original effects option. I had watched the whole series a while back and the DVDs I watched had new effects inserted. It was fun to see the old effects and I enjoyed the shows all over again. I'll have to switch to the new effects the next time I see them.

I wrote long posts about the season back in 2012. You can read those by clicking the Star Trek Season 2 link in the CATEGORIES column.

Star Trek Season 1

 

I got the BluRay of Star Trek - The Original Series when it came down to below 70 bucks for all three seasons. I'm watching the version on the discs that have the original effects. The Bluray discs let you switch back and forth between the original effects and the re-mastered effects that were done about 10 years ago. They did a nice job on the new effects and in general the episodes look great. I borrowed the re-mastered versions from Netflix and watched them back in 2012. The DVDs don't have the original effects so it's been nice to see those. When I watched the DVDs it was the first time I'd seen them in 2-3 decades.

I'm enjoying the series all over again but can't imagine posting big long posts about them all over again so I'm linking to those posts below and adding Star Trek and Star Trek Season 1 in the Categories list. You can click on that link and see the same posts but in a backward order. I wish Typepad had a way to reverse the posts so that Disc 1 came first but not enough people much have asked for that. I'll do the same for the other seasons when I get to them.

Season One is on 10 discs in the DVD version but only 7 in the Bluray version. Here's the original posts on the original series.

Discs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

Star Trek S3D6

   

The Cloud Miners was the 74th episode shown and it aired on February 28 1969. Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet Ardana to pick up some Zienite. It's needed to stop a plant plague on another planet. The material isn't there when they arrive and our guys get captured by the miners. All the posh citizens live up on the floating city. Jeff Corey, the leader, comes to the rescue. They chase the miners off.

   

Jeff takes Kirk and Spock up to the floating city and shows them around. The society is very segregated. All the thinkers and policy makers live in the sky and all the miners are kept in the dirt. Turns out the miners aren't happy with their dirty lot in life. There's a revolution brewing and Kirk and Spock get caught up in that. They stop the revolution peacefully enough, Spock figures out the mystery of the mad miners, and the miners cough up some of the Zienite. Two planets saved on one trip. That's Star Fleet efficiency, huh? A plot close enough to some of the other episodes in the series not to get many points for originality but it was still ok to watch. Jeff Corey was good. He'd play a Shadow controlled character on Babylon 5 nearly 20 years later. I wondered if Joe S. remembered him from Star Trek when he was casting the part for B5. 

   

 In The Savage Curtain the Enterprise is looking at a planet with a lot of volcanic activity when Spock gets some odd scan readings. Abe Lincoln appears in the view screen, then comes on board the ship. Is he real? Everyone likes him and he convinces Kirk and Spock to beam down to the planet with him. They meet a Vulcan who introduces himself as Surak. He's the Vulcan who started the current Vulcan civilization. Spock is sure he's not real. A big rock guy appears out of a pile of rocks and tells them they have to fight four villains to the death. What a dick, huh? The rock guy represents a planet that wants to see which way is stronger, Good or Evil, so it's a Battle to the Death. You know how that's going to come out don't you. Some of these aliens sure aren't very imaginative. I guess it comes with being dicks. 

   

On the planet Sarpeidon some of the guys get stuck in time in All Our Yesterdays. A sun is about to go supernova and the Enterprise stops by to see if they can offer help to the citizens. When they get there all the people are gone. There's only the black robed librarian who tells them he knows about the trouble with the sun, not to worry, he's leaving to join his family right away. What the landing party doesn't know is the planet's inhabitants have all gone back in time. They plan to live out their lives in different places and times on the planet. This is instead of leaving the planet and having their race continue. It seems like a dumb idea but who am I to judge.

   

Kirk runs right into the time machine when he hears a scream. You'd think Star Fleet would train his ass better but I guess the writers forget. Spock and McCoy, not trained any better, run right into the time machine. The guys get trapped in an ice age with Mariette Hartley. Spock reverts to the more savage Vulcan of his civilizations past and falls for her. Kirk, having wound up in a more recent past, saves a lady from some big hatted ruffians. He gets arrested and tossed in jail for wearing weird clothes. He meets a man from the future who fills him in on the time program and helps him return to the present. Kirk then helps Spock and McCoy return to the present. Poor Mariette has to stay in the past and poor Spock is all alone again. It's another sad episode that was still pretty entertaining.

   

Turnabout Intruder was the last episode and it was to air March 28th 1969 but President Dwight Eisenhower died that day. The episode didn't air until June 3, 1969 when the show returned to the air. Captain Kirk gets his body stolen by a woman who he had dated while they were in the academy. Dr Lester wanted to be a Star Ship Captain. She felt the fleet had a gender bias when she was turned down. Now she's got her chance but after taking over Captain Kirk's body she screws up one command decision after another. Eventually the crew figures out what's happened and revolts. The process is reversed and the Kirk unit returned to his own body again. It wasn't that great a note to end the series on.

There was a letter writting campaign for the renewal but the next season never happened until the fans started doing them. I'll be getting to those sooner or later. I guess I found the shows in the third season mostly watchable but not as good as the first and second seasons. Repeated plots would be my most common complaint. Sometimes the story was weak and the dialog the same. Without Roddenberry to watch over the day to day the end product suffered. Even with those are mostly minor complains. The episodes of Star Trek were more consistantly entertaining than the episodes of The Starlost that I had been watching recently. Seeing the shows nearly back to back made the weaknesses in The Starlost really stand out. There's no doubt that the likebility of the characters on Star Trek really helps gloss over the blemishes in any of the weaker episodes. There's another Star Trek disc with The Cage on it. I'll be getting to that soon.

Star trek S2D8

   

The 8th and last disc of season 2 has only three episodes on the disc. The first of them is The Ultimate Computer and it was first broadcast on March 8 1968. The 53rd episode was written by D C Fontana and it was based on a story by Laurence N Wolf. The Enterprise is ordered to a space station under command of Commodore Wesley. It looks like a big mushroom, huh. The Enterprise is to participate in some simulated war games with four other Federation star ships. The Enterprise will leave most of it's crew on the space station and have a new computer system installed to run the ship's functions. Doctor Daystrom is the designer of the computer systems found in Federation Starfleet ships like the Enterprise. His new computer, the M-5, is the bomb. It can control of many functions on the ship; eliminating crew positions and thus the danger to human life. Spock is impressed but Kirk and McCoy are doubtful. William Marshall plays Daystrom, some of you might remember him as Blacula or the King Of Cartoons.

   

Of course we know that new computer programs and war games are a bad mix and things go horribly wrong. Many people die when a ship is blasted by the M-5. The Enterprise nearly gets blasted to oblivion by the remaining star ships. Poor Daystrom, he's gone nuts and he nearly kills everyone trying to defend his computer. Luckily Kirk talks the M-5 into shutting down because it's killing people when it was supposed to be saving them. If only that had worked on Skynet.

    

March 15 saw Bread and Circuses air. The Enterprise discovers the wreckage of the SS Beagle, a Federation survey vessel, missing for 6 years. They follow the debris to an unexplored planet and discover a Roman society living there. They intercept a tv broadcast of Roman style gladitorial games. One of the fighters in this "to the death" match is identified as a crew member of the Beagle. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down and are quickly captured by some slaves that have escaped the Romans. They live in caves and that older guy is their leader Septimus. Ian Wolfe played Septimus and he would return in a different role in the third season. He started working in movies in 1934, did stage work before that, later he did a lot of tv. He worked until 1990 dying a couple of years later at age 96.

    

Kirk talks the ex-slaves into taking him into the city so he can find the Roman leader. They get captured by the Romans soon as they get to town and tossed into a cell. They have to fight on tv with the Enterprise watching. The Roman leader is the captain of the Beagle. Upon arriving planetside he killed his way to the top. There's a bunch of fighting and eventually they get out of that predicament. The episode was written by the two Gene's, Roddenberry and Coon.

   

Episode 55 was Assignment: Earth and it was first aired on March 29 1968. After travelling back in time to 1968 the Enterprise intercepts a tranporter beam from a planet a 1000 light years away. It's Gary Seven and Isis the cat. Robert Lansing plays Gary and an uncredited cat plays Isis. Gary tells Kirk that he must get to earth and complete his mission. Gary needs to do something to a missile that is going to launch soon. Kirk doesn't quite believe him and when Gary escapes he follows taking Spock along.

    

Gary has a nice office with a computer that uses the same flashing light panel that they used for the M-5. They reuse a lot of props and this is one that I read will show up in other episodes next season. I'll be keeping an eye out for that. Teri Garr plays Gary's secretary. That's quite the dress, huh. She doesn't know that Gary is an advanced human come from outer space to help the earth people. Kirk and Spock dress casual but they get caught anyway. Kirk eventually trusts Gary and lets him scare the humans into being more careful with their nukes. This episode was a pilot for a spin off series that never got made.

Mostly an entertaining bunch of shows, though the Roman thing is kind of a repeat plot. There are only three episodes on this disc and the extra space is filled with three short interview featurettes. Life Beyond Trek: Leonard McCoy; Kirk, Spock and Bones: Star Trek's Great Trio and Star Trek's Divine Dive: Nichelle Nichols. All are entertaining and worth a look. For some reason I enjoy people talking about the stuff they made. We all know that there was a letter writing campaign after this season, the ratings were falling, there was talk of cancellation. It got picked up for a third season and I'll be getting that started soon enough.

Star Trek S2D7

   

Return To Tomorrow was first broadcast February 9 1968 and it was the 49th episode broadcast. The Enterprise gets a call from someone on an uninhabitied planet. Kirk and Spock beam down with McCoy and spacebiologist Diana Muldaur. They meet Sargon who is one of the three surviving members of his race. They have been disembodied energy beings for 500,000 years. Their planet had a great war that destroyed their civilization. The best minds were collected, put into balls, and stored. Sargon wants to borrow bodies to build himself a cyborg so he can go visit the galaxy. Soon as he gets control of the Kirk unit he's not so ready to give it back. The other two surviving entities get put into Spock and Muldaur. Kirk gets some kissing, but sadly, he's not there to enjoy it. Sargon is defeated and everyone gets back into their own bodies by the end of the show. It's the first mention of the concept that some alien race had been through the Star Trek Galaxy and seeded people which evolved into the races we know today. It explains why so many of them are humanoid and why Spock can have a human mom.

   

Patterns Of Force has the Enterprise head for planet Ekos. They are looking for a Federation researcher, John Gill, who has gone missing. When they get there the ship is attacked by a missile with a nuke on the end of it. That shouldn't be. The natives of the planet were much more primitive. Turns out that Gill had given them some advanced technology and introduced them to Hitler's National Socialism. Even Spock agrees that it was a well run country but he wouldn't want people to live like that. Now the Ekosians are space traveling Nazi's who are bent on destroying their neighboring planet Zeon. The Ekosians Final Solution is to send a war fleet to destroy Zeon. Kirk and Spock try to put a stop to that but they get captured and loose their shirts. They escape and meet a woman Nazi who is part of the resistance. They sneak in to the Nazi HQ and free Gill. He renounces the Nazi leader and recalls the fleet. Gill is shot and dies after saying how sorry he is. Too late now. Hopefully the Federation and the two planets will be able to repair the damage. It's a tough old place in space, no one needs Nazis on top of that. This episode was never shown on German TV when the series was first aired there.

   

In the February 23rd episode, By Any Other Name, the Enterprise responds to a call from an uncharted planet. There they meet Rojan and Kelinda of the Kelvan Empire. They come from the Andromedia Galaxy and their ship got damaged when they went through the Galaxtic Barrier at the edge of the our Galaxy. They have special belts that give them great powers and cover up their real appearance. They capture the landing party and take over the ship. Rojan plans to use the Enterprise to return home. A trip that will take 300 years in the Enterprise. The crew is turned into while multi-sided shapes so they won't bother anyone.

   

In order to save the crew Spock and Kirk fight back. They use the newly forming human emotions that come with the Kelvan's new bodies to their advantage. Scotty gets one of them so drunk he passes out. Kirk smooches up the woman Kelvan and creates some jealousy in Rojan. Eventually Kirk and Rojan fight. Kirk explains that they Kelvan's are growing more human and that in the 300 years it would take to get to their home planet they wouldn't be able to live there as they would be too alien. Rojan agrees and they head back to the nice planet they were stranded on before. Kirks sends a robot ship with a message to Kelvan. Another episode where they meet some powerful aliens and teach them a thing or two. They use that plot a lot. Jerome Bixby wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with D C Fontana. Marc Daniels directed. I didn't remember much about this episode but I did remember the multi-sided shapes that the crew get turned into. I wonder if the Federation pays out hazard pay.

   

March 1 1968 saw the broadcast of The Omega Glory. The Enterprise finds the Federation ship Exeter orbiting Omega IV. The Exeter is empty and the logs say they got a virus on the ship that killed everyone but those that made it down to the planet. On the planet Captain Tracey has sided with the Kolms against the Yangs and broken the Prime Directive by giving them phasers. Seems like that rule get bust a lot.

   

They figure out that the planet had a very similar development to the Earth and the Yangs are Yanks and the Kolms are the Chinese Communists. Kirks stops the fighting and gets the two groups thinking about peace. This was written by Gene Roddenberry and it's pretty heavy handed but memorable. I remember the plot points, but not the details, from seeing it when it was new.

It was a fairly fun disc to watch. Good batch of stories though a bit repetitive on some plot points. It must have been hard to come up with a completely new idea each week and people can only handle so much newness.  

Star Trek S2D6

   

The Gamesters of Triskelion was broadcast January 5 1968 and it was the 45th episode. In orbit around Gamma II to check out an unmanned research station Kirk, Chekov and Uhuru beam down to the planet but instead wind up on Triskelion. They are forced to fight for their lives against some other prisoners. Once again the crew has become the plaything of some superior being. Aren't there any nice aliens in that universe? Man, space is a harsh. I like the fighting area set. Nice floor.

   

That guy in black is the main slave Galt. Nice collar, huh. Galt is played by Joseph Ruskin who had parts on 4 ST series. Original, Extra Crispy Deep Space Nine, Voyager and Enterprise. I actually haven't seen many of the last three series and I haven't got any plans to check them out. At least not yet, perhaps when I run out of new Sf programs to check out. Galt runs the fight club that's really just a pastime for the three colorful brain blobs, called Providers, in a glass dome 1000 meters below the surface of the planet. That's Kirk talking to them. They need something to do, since they can't go anywhere, and they like betting on the fights. Spock finds an ion trail that leads him to the planet but soon as they get there the Providers lock their asses in place. Kirk bets the Providers he can beat their best. If he wins the fighters go free; the Providers stop their game and help the slaves get a society going. If Kirk looses he'll provide them their entertainment and not make a fuss anymore. Not sure why the Providers would even go for that but they do. Gamblers are stupid I guess. Kirks wins and the Enterprise takes off. This is one episode that I do remember watching. It was fun to watch again.

   

January 12 1968 saw A Piece Of The Action debut. I remembered this one too. I mean gangsters in space, come on! One hundred years before the Enterprise stops in at Sigma Iotia II another ship, the Horizon, had stopped there. The Enterprise finds the Horizon still orbiting the planet but it's beem empty a long time. The Enterprise is contacted by someone on the planet and Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to find a world that looks like Earth in the 1920's. The Horizon had left a book about 1920's American gangster mobs and the people on the planet had turned that book into their way of life. The Wikipedia entry about the episodes likens it to a Cargo Cult. It's pretty silly no matter what you call it. There's a lot of running round and some laughs before Kirk eventually grabs the two main bosses and takes over their operations. He makes a deal that gets the Federation a cut of the action. Back on the Enterprise Kirk tells Spock that the Federation's cut will go to programs to help the Iotians get civilized. I thought this episode was more played for laughs than anything. It's a pretty goofy story that was written by Gene L Coon and David P Harmon. The director was James Komack. He would go on to create The Courtship of Eddie's Father and Chico And The Man.

   

A week laterThe Immunity Syndrome was on tv. I really don't remember it. I probably watched it. Uhuru recieves a distress call from the Intepid, a Star Fleet ship filled with Vulcans, then Spock gets a shock. He says the ship and the crew are dead. Star Fleet calls and says they've lost contact with the people on the planets of Sector 39J. That was where the Intrepid was. Now we know something is up. The Enterprise gets there and finds all billion people are dead. Then they encounter an 11,000 mile wide Space Amobea. It's killin' everyone it comes near.  Of course they go right inside, plant an anti-matter bomb, then run away. Boom! Problem solved. Mostly a pretty good episode.

   

A Private Little War was broadcast February 2 1968 and it was written by Gene Roddenberry. On Neural Kirk observes that the formerly bow and arrow armed villagers now sport musket rifles. The hill people still carry bows. Turns out the dirty Klingon's are pokin' their dirty fingers in the pie. Poor Mr Spock gets shot with one of those muskets and there's green blood on him. They get him back to the ship and it's touch and go there but I know not to worry. He won't die until the second Star Trek movie. Knowing the future is cool. Kirk's arms up the hill people to restore the balance of power. There's a lot of talk about the Federation's Prime Directive. No interference with the internal developement of an alien civilization. Circumstances don't always lend themselves to sticking with the PD. What are you going to do, huh. Arm some locals to keep the peace. Kirk isn't too happy with the arms race he's worked out. Sometimes the episodes don't always have a happy ending. Mabye that's a good lesson to be learned. Another one that I liked.

Star Trek S2D5

   

The Troubles With Tribbles is the only episode of the original series on the disc. It's one of the more iconic episodes in the series. It was written by David Gerrold and it was broadcast December 29 1967. The officials at the K7 Space Station call the Enterprise in to guard a shipment of Quadrotriticale. It's a hybrid wheat that is headed for Sherman's Planet. Kirk isn't too happy to be guarding some wheat but the top brass want to make sure it gets there and that the Klingon's don't interfere. Sherman's Planet is up for grabs according to the Organian Peace Treaty. The wheat might swing the balance into the Federations favor. The Klingons show up and Scotty gets into a bar fight when they insult the Enterprise. That Scotty, huh, the captain gives him some grief for that.

   

Uhuru buys a tribble from Cyrano Jones, an intergalactic trader, and brings it on the ship. Everyone likes petting them and soon there are too many to count. They are born pregnant which seems to save a lot of hassle with growing up and dating and all. The critters get into the wheat and thanks to them we find it was poisoned. Scotty redeems himself with the Captain by transporting the tribbles into the departing Klingon ship. Klingons don't like tribbles and the feeling is mutual.

The rest of the disc is packed with extras. The first item is the Star Trek animated episode More Tribbles, More Troubles. It was written by David Gerrold and it picks up the story a bit after the original series episode ended. The Enterprise encounters some Klingon's chasing Cyrano Jones in a little ship. They rescue him and find the Klingons are mad at Cyrano because of the tribbles. They also want back the Glommer, a tribble predator, that Cyrano stole. Kirk won't give him up and he tries to settle things down so he can get that wheat to Sherman's Planet. Pretty silly. I hope to see the rest of the series in the future when I get past some of the stuff that's piled up a bit. I'm pretty sure I haven't seen too many of them before. There's a commentary by David Gerrold on the animated episode.

The Deep Space Nine episode Trials + Tribble-ations is the next item on the disc. Folks on the space station go back in time and visit the Enterprise. They use CGi to put the DS9 crew into the old Enterprise. I never saw this episode of DS9. I never followed it after the 1st season. I just wasn't that fond of the storyline. There are two featurettes to fill up the rest of the disc: Writing Two Legends and An Historic Endeavor. Both were pretty entertaining.

Star Trek S2D4

   

Friday's Child is the 40th episode and it was broadcast on December 1 1967. It was written by D C Fontana and directed by Joseph Pevney. She wrote 6 episodes and he directed 6 episodes. The Enterprise is stopped at Capella IV where Kirk is trying to get the natives to sign a mining contract. That's them in their native garb up there. The like fighting for fun and have some dangerous traditions. The Klingons are lurking in the woodwork trying to sway the tribe to sell them the mining rights. There's a fight and the leader, Akaar, is killed and replaced. The new headman Maab likes Kirk because he was more fearless than the weak Klingon. Things turn dicey for the landing party when they stop Maab from killing Julie Newmar. She's playing Akaar's wife and she's pregnant with his child. Maab wants to bump them off since the kid would be the real heir to the throne. About this time Scotty gets called away by a distress signal. Turns out it was the Klingons. He returns to the planet only to get into a fight with a Klingon warship. They are right bastards those Klingons. McCoy delivers the baby and keep Julie from killing it. Maab is killed by the Klingon who's speared to death. Julie takes over the tribe until Akaar's son grows up. She signs the mining contract and names the baby after Kirk and the Doctor. Later on the ship they tell it to Spock. - "The child was named Leonard James Akaar?" "Has a kind of a ring to it, don't you think, James?" "Yes. I think it's a name destined to go down in galactic history, Leonard. What do you think, Spock?" "I think you're both going to be insufferably pleased with yourselves for at least a month... Sir" Pretty silly, huh. Much of the episode was shot at Vasques Rocks. They shot a lot of Star Trek there.

   

The Deadly Years has the Enterprise visiting Gamma Hydra IV to resupply the research station there. When they beam down they find everyone gone but a real old couple. They claim to be in their 20's. On board the ship they die in sickbay. Soon Scotty turns up there much older than he was. The landing party starts aging rapidly. It's a bitch getting older. They soon figure out what is the cause and how to cure it. Glad I'm not going to any of those alien planets. Who knows what you might catch there. It's another episode directed by Joseph Pevney. He does a good job.

   

Obsession was #42 aired, the 47th produced, and broadcast December 15 1967. I would have been 14 then. The Enterprise is scouting planets for minerals when Kirk smells something. The landing party is attacked by a cloud. It was a creature that Kirk had run into 11 years earlier. He was on a ship that was attacked and most everyone died. He feels he didn't fire fast enough to kill it. Turns out phasers don't do much to the critter. It's a cloud. It sucks the hemoglobin out of people and they die. That's some cloud!

   

That Mr Checkov looks pretty determined, huh. Just aping the Captain I guess. Kirk becomes obsessed with hunting the thing. Doctor McCoy thinks he might be going over the edge. There's a crewman on board the Enterprise who is the son of the Commander of the ship that was attacked by the creature 11 years ago. The commander died  and Kirk thinks the son might want some payback. Kirk brings him along to hunt the critter but the son doesn't fire fast enough and a man dies. The creature attacks the ship and is scared away by Spock's green Vulcan blood. They follow the creature to the planet where Kirk had originally encountered it. They blast it with an anti-matter bomb. Kirk and the son had argued over who is going to be the bait to lure the creature to the bomb. Both manage to beam out in time. Sure are a lot of powerful creatures in that galaxy.

   

Wolf In The Fold was the 43 episode broadcast and it aired on December 22 1967. Robert Bloch wrote the script and Joseph Pevney directed. The Enterprise is at Argelius II when Scotty become the suspect in a murder. He was drinking and while walking the beautiful dancer home she is stabbed and he doesn't know what happened. We didn't see either. Did he do it? Of course he didn't. There's a pretty good bit of court room drama and more murders before the powerful energy being is revealed. It had assumed human form so it could kill women. Didn't like them. It might have been Jack The Ripper on Earth. They kill it with the transporter. Scotty is freed and the ship goes off on it's next assignment.

Another good batch of episodes. I'm not finding any of them to be too annoying or anything like that. I'm liking the characters for the most part and the scripts usually are intelligent and well written. No extras with 4 episodes on the disc.

Star Trek S2D3

   

Here's another goofy one. Catspaw, the 36th episode, was first broadcast on Oct 27 1967. It was written by Psycho writer Robert Bloch. The Enterprise is parked around Pirus VII and Scotty, Sulu and a third crew man have been sent down to the planet surface. Only the third man returns, dropping dead in the transporter room, and eirie voice comes out of his dead mouth warning Kirk to leave this place. He joins Spock and McCoy down on the planet where they encounter some creepy looking gals who warn them off. Not listening the guys continue on only to find a giant gothic castle covered in smoke or fog.

   

They enter the castle and soon enough the guys are chained to a wall by a bald alien. Korob, the bald guy, and Sylvia seem to have some magical powers as they make food and gems appear. They have the Enterprise trapped in a force field and they toy with the crew. Kirk figures how to defeat the two annoying aliens by smashing the electronic device they use to create the illustion around them and the aliens die without it. Kind of sad for them but, hey, they were assholes for the most part. So many aliens often are, ever notice?

   

A new crew member takes over Engineering and hijacks the ship in I, Mudd. The episode was originally aired on November 3 1967.  There's some fighting as the new crew member beats up all the guys in Engineering. Turns out he's an android and his job is to take the ship to an unknown planet. They beam down to find Harcourt Fenton Mudd holding court over a planet full of androids. Roger C Carmel returns as Harry Mudd.

   

The androids are there to terriform the planet and they are happy to help Harry but they don't want him to leave. He wants to steal the Enterprise and escape but that doesn't go well. The androids have decided to take over the galaxy to better serve the humans. Spock figures out how to combat that take over and they reprogram the androids to go back to fixing up the planet. Kirk won't take Harry with them. He's left on the planet with the android replica of his annoying shrill nagging wife. 500 of them and they can't be shut off. Poor Harry. He deserved it anyway.

   

Metamorphosis aired on November 10 1967 and it was the 38th episode broadcast and the 31st produced. It's got Glenn Corbett and Elinor Donahue as guest stars. Corbett is Zefram Cochrane who created warp drive in 2063. This is about 200 years before the time the Enterprise is cruising around the galaxy and about 150 years since Cochrane disappeared. Elinor Donahue plays an ambassador that is being transported in the shuttle to the Enterprise. She was on Fathers Knows Best (1954-1960) when she was a kid. She was still working in 2010. The shuttle is pulled down to a planet where they meet Zefram Cochrane. They figure out who he was and wonder at his apparent age, he tells them he was made younger by the energy being that lived on the planet. He calls it The Companion.

   

The energy being has fallen for Cochrane and won't let them leave the planet. Elinor has Sakuro disease and could die if they don't get to the Enterprise soon. Spock figures out a way to disable the energy being and that almost works. Kirk tries communicating with it and that gets them further ahead. Then the energy being merges with Elinor, cures her disease, and she stays with Cochrane on the planet. Weird, huh.

   

Elinor's Father Knows Best mom, Jane Wyatt, plays Spock's mom on the next episode of the second season. Journey To Babel aired on November 17 1967 and it was the 39th episode broadcast. The Enterprise is transporting various Ambassador's to a meeting. They stop at Vulcan to pick up the Ambassador and his human wife. Mark Lenard plays Sarek and he appears colder toward Spock than you'd expect a Vulcan to be. Kirk asks Spock if he wants to visit his parents while they are there. Spock tells him that the Ambassador and his wife are his parents. Kirk learns that Sarek didn't approve of Spock's joining the Stafleet. Nearly 20 years later he's still being a dick about it.

   

Sarek gets sick and needs some of Spock's green blood. Before the procedure starts Kirk is attacked and laid up in sick bay. Spock can't take the chance of going into surgery when he's in charge. Kirk pretends to be better and orders Spock to sickbay. A plot is uncovered and the Enterprise is attacked and disabled. They play dead and blast the alien when he gets close. Things get back on track and Sarek and Spock now have grown closer. I vividly remember the scenes with all the alien ambassador's from when this was new. I didn't remember the details but all those costumes and makeups are pretty memorable. DC Fontana wrote the episode and it was a pretty good one.

All in all a pretty good bunch of episodes with a nice variety of stories.