To boldly have things happen to you

I got counterpoint of my own, I said, and you can’t help me out.
So take your meditations and your modulations and ram it up your snout . . . .

– Who am I jivin’ with this Not Actually “Cosmik Débris”?

Monitors three,

Let her be.

It is one thing, to get caught out in the rain in July.  Quite another, in November.

– Porridger’s Almanack (Breakfast of Ganglions)

Last night I watched “Return to Tomorrow” from Season 2 of Star Trek (first broadcast 16 Feb 1968).  Spoilers Follow.

And, by the by, file this squarely in the My Quibbles Notwithstanding, a Thoroughly Enjoyable Show file.

It is not merely that the screenplay is another Deus ex machina deal, but that all the action is on the part of the aliens, which is to say that the screenwriter’s marionette strings may not be showing, but you know they’re in the background through the whole show.  All of the ‘activity’ of the crew of the Enterprise is passive, because all the power is in alien hands.  Kirk gives a stirring speech asking for the crew’s assent at one point (and, nice writing, too).  But since our understanding is, they’re in the alien’s hands, whether they like it or not, Kirk’s rousing speech amounts to a plea that everybody just like it, to the degree they can (“Bones” to a somewhat lesser degree than everyone else).  Because both Kirk and Spock are going down to the planet, Kirk doffs the con to Sulu – which has enormous dramatic potential for Geo. Takei, only not so much, as they’re in the alien’s hands (see above).  The episode is also a vehicle for having Kirk smooch an attractive female crewmember while physically controlled by an alien, and then being sheepishly not-quite-embarrassed when he “comes to.”  The drama of the story winds up coming from disunity among the aliens;  and one of the aliens dies – and the crew of the Enterprise are doomed as a result, only – surprise! he’s not really dead.

One of the undoubted pluses to the episode, however, is in giving Leonard Nimoy some more range with Spock, as the Science Officer is a vessel for the Wicked Alien.

End of the Spoiler Zone

A few hours prior to watching me some Star Trek, I took, what I seldom do take, a draught I.P.A., and in excellent company.  Regardless of what some may suppose, it is not every day that I enjoy a Goose Island I.P.A. at the Hub Pub, and in the company of someone who – right there in sight of a puzzled bartender – mimes scraping reeds, but whose miming is jolly convincing.  Now if only Meredith can get Dan to do the work on the reeds, now that he has the imitation down so pat.

(We don’t really hold much of any hope, there.)