The Corbomite Maneuver: Season One Episode Ten

So we've got a pretty big problem here. This episode has far more Uhura than we've had in recent stretches, but she says almost NOTHING but "Hailing frequencies open," and she says it more than five times. They may as well have just reused the clip of her saying it. Very disappointing.
Uhura aside, however, this episode was actually completely awesome. It had most of the things I look for in Star Trek: everyone hanging out, McCoy cracking wise, and Kirk erratically shifting between obnoxious anger at his subordinates and eerie, heroic calm. Just give us more Uhura, already. The people demand it!
So the gang is exploring a previous-unexplored part of the galaxy when they suddenly come upon an enormous screensaver. The navigator, a frustrated dude/humor columnist named Dave Barry, tries to maneuver around the cube, but it keeps following them! It keeps getting closer and closer, and Spock decides he needs Kirk's help with this one. But where is Kirk?
Oh, just being shirtless in another room, whaling on his glutes with McCoy. No, seriously, he's having his physical, and obviously he's in perfect health, except that he could stand to lose a few. But no time for that now, he's gotta go deal with Rubik and his Kube. Also, McCoy cold drops a "I'm a doctor, not a..." bomb, which was exciting. On Kirk's way out, he throws a towel over his towel, which, paging Xzibit.
On the bridge, tensions are running high as Dave Barry is campaigning to be Barry Goldwater's running mate, which is to say, he wants to explode things first, ask questions later. Spock makes Vulcan fun of this brash young paduan, and Sulu cracks up laughing, probably because he just read Dave Barry's column about this experience ("Dave Barry Does Star Trek"). Kirk decides to call a meeting in the War Room.
I don't think we've seen the War Room yet, but I think Thomas Schlamme got here first because we have an awesome tracking shot around a long table with technology and seriousness. Kirk decides to try to evade the QB, which Dave Barry doesn't like, but eventually the kewb begins emitting so much radiation (!) that either Kirk will need to explode it or Erin Brockovich will need to get involved. So they explode it.
Spock is like, "Hey Kirk, you think that cube thing is something to worry about?" and Kirk's like "Nah. Fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling."
Kirk is chilling in his quarters, letting McCoy yell at him about how chubby he's getting lately ("At this rate, by the time we get to the movies, you'll be completely bald!"), when we reach another Workplace Inappropriate Situation. Yeoman Rand (Rand is my Norm - when she shows up, you just want to shout her name) walks in and serves Kirk a salad (because of his health). I want you to look at this picture and tell me what you see:Now, I ABSOLUTELY do not want this to get inappropriate. I promise Rand is not serving Kirk an HJ. It looks like that, and that's funny, but we're here to be serious and talk about Issues. According to Wikipedia, "In the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, a yeoman is a rating usually with secretarial, clerical, payroll or other administrative duties." The act of serving salad and placing a napkin in the captain's lap (which is what is happening in this picture) does not strike me as secretarial, clerical, payroll, or administrative. Am I wrong here? I'm not saying Rand needs to call Jackie Chiles and file suit against the Federation, but at the very least she should be able to say, "Sorry, Peter Sagal, that's not my job." Right?
Anyway, salad be damned, because now the Enterprise is coming up on a new foreign object - an enormous glowing death star. Looks like Spock was right, AGAIN. They try to communicate with whatever this thing is, but Dave Barry is having bluetooth problems, so they finally settle on asking Uhura to do her job (just step back, guys, stop asking Dave Barry to do what you know Uhura can). Finally they get through and get threatened like crazy by Balok, who is kind of upset with them for destroying his Rubik's Cube before he could solve it. Kirk attempts to explain that they didn't know what its deal was, and radiation, but Balok is having none of it and decides to scare them even harder by showing them his most recent Halloween costume.
Seriously, when I saw this, I was like, "Come on, Star Trek, this thing is obviously rubber." This episode has some really stellar effects (see: the cube, and the death star), and I was surprised that they would show us an alien that looked like this. But it does make some sense that in a galaxy where interplanetary travel is common, it would be considered pretty rude to accuse an alien you've never seen before of being a Halloween costume. I get why no one brought it up. But eventually they would wish they had!
Balok tells them that he's gonna kill them in eight minutes. Things get extremely tense, no joke. Kirk wastes some time trying to talk Balok out of it, and wastes even more time delivering extemporaneous speeches to his crew on teamwork and responsibility and winning one for the Gipper. Eventually Spock mentions chess to Kirk, which gets Kirk thinking about games, then he talks about poker with McCoy, then he thinks about bluffing and decides to give it a shot. He tells Balok that his ship is made of corbomite, which will kill Balok if Balok tries to kill them. A risky move, since everyone knows that corbomite is just a mispronunciation of the material you freeze Han Solos in, but Balok seems to buy it. He says they're going to tow the Enterprise to a nearby planet to check out this corbomite situation. Kirk has the Enterprise resist, eventually breaking Balok's ship, meaning it will just sit in outer space until its crew dies. Problem solved, right?
WRONG. Kirk decides they need to save the people onboard this hostile ship. Look, we all kid Kirk here, and he's a good sport about it, but this was the most Hawkeye Pierce-ish I've ever seen him. Because you know what? They SHOULD help this crew. Teamwork. Responsibility. Let's win one for the Gipper.
Kirk, Dave Barry, and McCoy beam aboard Balok's ship, and something's fishy. Scotty tells them that based on his readings, they will need to duck a little bit in the transporter. They comply, and look hilarious, and Scotty definitely takes a picture with his cell phone while they're not looking. They beam aboard Balok's ship, and pretty much the very first thing they see is Balok -- OR IS IT? It isn't. It's a rubber dummy, just like we suspected all along! When your show occasionally uses fairly low-tech special effects, you can always keep your audience guessing about whether or not what they see is meant to look cheap or not. As it turns out, Balok is not a terrifying green monster at all! Balok is actually a small child who looks a little bit like Andy Taylor's son. The idea of Balok being a child is definitely scarier than this cloaked Roger Smith. Balok offers the boys a drink, and it turns out this whole thing was kind of a test (hardcore test, dude), and now he wants to initiate a cultural exchange with the Enterprise. "I want to learn how to grow hair on my face, and you want the secret to eternal youth" is not how it is phrased but it is definitely what everyone was thinking. Before Baclintok can even finish the word "exchange" Dave Barry says, "Hey, can I live with you guys forever? I kind of hate Kirk and Spock and want to party with babies forever." You just know he's planning his next hilarious book ("Dave Barry Takes On Adult Alien Babies"), but he doesn't say so. Kirk thinks, "Yeah, maybe I'll replace this guy with a boyish Soviet," and everyone decides it's cool. The end.
This is actually a really boss episode. It is tense, and reveals a lot about the characters, and it has a very hopeful end about a world that can work without war. It just needs at least one party to be populated only by babies. And considering the life expectancies in some nations today... (DARKEST JOKE IN THIS BLOG SO FAR). But seriously, we needed MUCH more Uhura, but otherwise I have zero complaints.

Dagger of the Mind: Season One Episode Nine

Here comes another Kirk-heavy episode. What is this, The Kirk Show? Don't they know that the people DEMAND more Uhura? Well, at least Uhura's in this one, you know?
When our episode begins the Enterprise is picking up some cargo from a penal colony - the planet TantalOz. Two things to note here: 1) Why is the Enterprise picking up cargo from this planet? I thought they mainly had to explore and rescue stuff. This makes it seem like they're Planet Express. That's cool, though, I figure this is official business. 2) Opinions are divided on the efficacy of Planet TantalOz. Kirk thinks it's totally cool and forward-thinking, which is just so Kirk. McCoy says "a cage is still a cage" because he is an Angela-Davis-style prison abolitionist which is BOSS. Spock is all "Vulcans don't need prison because we have no emotions and so we commit no crimes and we must be socialist because a lot of human crimes are committed out of need" and McCoy's immediately like "Shut up Spock nobody wants to hear about your idiot Buddhist/socialist species" and we remember that McCoy is pretty racist against Vulcans for someone who hates prisons, if that makes sense (in my mind all progressive viewpoints necessarily lead to all other progressive viewpoints, which is why everyone who supports gay marriage is vegan, you know?).
Anyway we're getting off-track here. This box that the Enterprise has just beamed aboard also has an ESCAPED CONVICT in it, which is kind of TantalOz's bad, you know? Like, please make sure your boxes don't include escaped convicts before you beam them aboard a military spaceship. In the future, at least.
The Convict knocks out a couple of dudes for basically no reason until he can make his way to the bridge. Before we get to that, I just want to point something out. This dude sees the Convict running off, and calls the bridge. And look at the sign behind him:
Yes, that's right. PERSONNEL DIRECTOR. The Enterprise does in fact have an HR department. What are the duties of this personnel director? Is it exclusively hiring/firing? I'd have to assume so, especially considering what comes soon (remember this for later).
Anyway, the Convict makes it to the bridge, and we find out his name is van Gelder, and he is immediately subdued by Spock's Vulcan Nerve Pinch. Pinch'D. They tie him down and figure out that he's not a convict at all! He's an insane person who used to work alongside Tim McManus, this doctor who is running the show down on TantalOz. McManus asks for van Gelder back, and Kirk thinks that's cool, but McCoy is not so sure. He's got a weird feeling about stuff, and his weird feeling requires Kirk to investigate the prison planet of TantalOz, which is a cool way of doing things. McCoy has so much power he should just tell Kirk to abolish all prisons ever because he doesn't like them. But he doesn't, because he knows not to abuse his power, unless it can result in some Vulcans getting their feelings hurt.
But Kirk can't go down to a prison planet alone - he needs to be accompanied by a specialist:
We zoom in tight on her, so my first thought is "Dang the camera people are really into how hot this lady is." Then it is revealed that we were in Kirk's POV, and he was eye-zooming her because at the Christmas party a couple years ago (according to the internet, TOS's only mention of Christmas bah humbug) they totally hooked up. Where is the personnel director when you need hir, which is now, because Kirk is INCREDIBLY hostile toward her for hooking up with him and then continuing to exist. Her name, by the way, is Dr. Noel, because Christmas.
The prison planet looks remarkably similar to the abandoned distillery planet from "Where No Man Has Gone Before." Observe:
Fun fact: This is because it was the same matte painting, with a few changes made. Still looks beautiful, though, right?
Kirk and Noel meet with McManus, who explains that on TantalOz, criminals are rehabilitated by being convinced to forget about their past crimes and basically become new people. McManus shows them how his machine works, and it's obvious none of them saw the historical movie A Clockwork Orange, because if they had (or even read the book!) they would find something weird about this:
This guy has to stare at a flashing light for a while until everything in his mind is fixed. No Beethoven plays, but that might be because there's only one "van" per episode allowed.
Kirk keeps asking McManus questions about this system, and McManus compares Kirk to the parable of the skeptic who asks a wise man to teach him the mysteries of the universe while he's standing on one foot. Sorry, Star Trek, this is actually a Jewish story about Rabbi Shamai (the writer of this episode of Star Trek was Jewish, and supposedly snuck in Jewish stuff to his episodes, which does not explain the Christmas party), and it was super easy for Rabbi Shamai to teach the skeptic Torah. This butchering of a Jewish folktale, combined with his uncanny resemblance to the Senator from The Manchurian Candidate, makes Kirk very suspicious. Noel is not suspicious at all, but either one of them could just be trying to be contrarian because of the I-hate-you sexual tension.
Meanwhile, back on the Enterprise, Spock and McCoy are having a very hard time getting information out of van Gelder, so they decide they have only one choice: The Vulcan Mind Meld. This was apparently selected because the CBS insisted that if Spock hypnotize van Gelder, as in the original script, they would have to make clear that he is a doctor, or at least an expert on hypnosis. This was easier, and way awesomer. This is a two-Vulcan-move episode, and I am getting high on life watching it.
From this Mind Meld they learn that McManus has been running EXPERIMENTS on prisoners, including on van Gelder. They start to worry about Kirk, but transmitter reception is terrible on TantalOz. Also, has this allowed McCoy and Spock to bond a little more? I'm gonna say yes. Maybe now you learned that Vulcans are humans too, McCoy, and being a doctor necessitates not being ridiculously bigoted against your patients. I'm pretty sure it comes across in this expression:
Back on TantalOz, Kirk wants to investigate with Noel in secret. They sneak into the Chair Room and Kirk instructs Noel to try to use it to make him do things. This has the potential for intense comedy. First Noel uses the machine to make Kirk hungry, and it works. Then he asks her to push it a little more. So she uses the machine to convince Kirk that the time they hooked up at the Christmas party, they actually got more romantic than just dry-humping behind the punch table. He immediately recalls this:
But before she can remind him that this is all a fantasy, a beautiful, beautiful fantasy, McManus bursts in and turns the machine up pretty high and convinces Kirk that he's in love with Noel, and that Noel wants him to toss aside his phaser and transmitter. As he's doing it, Kirk calls Spock for help because he is Just That Tough. Kirk and Noel are sequestered in a locked room (a cage is a cage, man). Even though he's brainwashed, Kirk is strong enough to recommend that Noel climb into the A/C ducts to deactivate the planet's force fields, which would allow Team Enterprise to beam down and rescue them.
Just as she climbs in, Kirk gets called away for more brainwashing. McManus turns up the machine to 50 and is all "War is peace; hate is love," and notes how tough Kirk is. Meanwhile, in Die Hard:
Noel takes down the force field, Spock and the gang beam down, and Adams is neutralized. Then the BEST THING IN HISTORY HAPPENS.
Kirk is reunited with Noel and smooches her way hard. She smooches back, and then is like "on second thought you're brainwashed into loving me, so, uh, weird." Here's a picture of that:
Spock bursts around the corner with a phaser, ready to kick ass if necessary, and comes upon this tableau. His response:Like, "What am I gonna do with this guy?!" Kirk notices Spock, and Spock gives him one of these:
"Kiiiiiiirk." Don't tell me you have no emotions, Spock, or is WRYNESS not an emotion?
Anyway, they catch up with McManus, who's died from overexposure to the brainwashing machine, because it emptied his mind and nobody was around to fill it. McCoy gives Kirk a "He's dead, Captain," and then it's back to the Enterprise. Van Gelder is now in charge of TantalOz and has destroyed all the equipment, which makes me kind of wonder what van Gelder's system of rehabilitation is. I hope it involves helping convicts get their space G.E.D.s. Kirk ruminates on how sucky it was to be brainwashed, then tells Spock to get them the hell out of there as fast as possible, and he and Spock share a smirk, which makes me wonder if I missed a joke. Anyway, it gives us Kirk's Smug Mug:

Miri: Season One Episode Eight

This was definitely the best episode so far that doesn't have Uhura in it. Granted, that is not a competition worth winning, but this episode was seriously great. We start in with the gang responding to a distress call on a planet that seems just like Earth, but it isn't Earth, not even Planet of the Apes Earth (spoiler alert), so don't worry.
Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Rand, and some redshirts beam down to what basically looks like a ghost town from the 40s. It was actually the set of The Andy Griffith Show (both Star Trek and TAGS were filmed at Desilu, which is now Culver City Studios - fascinating information, n'est-ce pas?), and the dudes say it looks like a typical town from 1960. Um?
They come across a tricycle, which McCoy spends a ton of time TOUCHING. Like, is he remembering a dead child? And since everything about this town says, "pandemic," maybe you don't want to fondle everything that children put their butts on? I don't know, I'm not a doctor. But being a doctor is not enough to save McCoy from being attacked out of nowhere by a terrifyingly gross adolescent, whose skin is falling apart and is yelling like a little kid "Mine! Mine!" Kirk hauls off and punches him in teh face a couple of times and the kid dies (probably not from the punches).
The gang hears a noise, walks into a house to investigate, and finds a crying girl in a closet, who immediately trusts and loves Kirk and believes he can do no wrong. She's supposed to be, like 14? Whatever, no way Kirk will exploit this girl's wild hormones. Her name's Miri, btw, and Kirk thinks that's a cute name. She thinks Jim is a good name, so Harry meet Sally.
Spock is wandering around Ghost Town USA, and some little kids start totally messing with him. Spock, being coldly logical, has no clue how to deal with children (we all know someone like this, remember what that person is like when kids mess with him/her, it's hilarious). Spock immediately calls for help because he can't even get his act together.
Miri tells the gang that kids hate grown ups on this planet because a while ago all the grown ups got some kind of sickness, went crazy, got mean, started fighting EVERYTHING (hence the kid who was coo-coo for tricycle earlier) and then died. So basically what we have on our hands is a Kid Nation, and these kids would not even make it past episode one, they have done such a bad job of governing. Kirk gets super turned on by this history lesson, I guess, so he moves in for the kiss:
But before he can consummate this love, she notices that he has a gross sore on his hand, JUST LIKE ALL THE OTHERS AND I THOUGHT I COULD TRUST YOU. Kirk's not alone, of course. McCoy's got the sores, and so does Rand. Spock doesn't show it, but he's got it. McCoy drops some pretty rude green-blood jokes on Spock (he didn't even pretend it was the disease talking). They get to work researching, using technology as well as reading books and stuff, and they figure out that the planet was put together with the plan of prolonging human life, but it backfired pretty bad. Everyone past puberty dies, BOOM. Also, everyone lives for a super-long time now, so Miri's actually a few hundred years old. She just hasn't matured. Still creepy, IMO. Team Jacob.
That's when things get awesome. We get to party a little bit with Kid Nation, led by Hawkeye Pan, an ageless boy who was drafted to Korea, and also his merry band of Lost Boys:
Hawkeye Pan decides that the Lost Boys need to steal the gang's communicators, because they figure the communicators are being used for evil (rather than for communicating with the ship in order to cure the pandemic). Also, another adolescent turns up dead, sort of bringing home the severity of things for Miri, who totally wants to make a porno with Kirk (I just thought of that).
Kirk returns so he and the gang can discuss further how little time they have left to figure out this cure before dying (basically a week). They talk about the changes Miri's going to go through during puberty, and it's so Three Men and a Little Lady, if the Little Lady wanted to make out with Tom Selleck (who doesn't?). Also, Leonard Nimoy gets an idea and decides to direct Three Men and a Baby in a couple decades. Also: Kirk asks Miri to sharpen pencils while the grown ups talk, which is so appropriate. That's a great way to treat people, Kirk.
While Kirk and the gang are distracted, Hawkeye Pan sneaks in and stone cold swipes the communicators, making it much harder for McCoy to figure this thing out. Things deteriorate: everyone starts snapping at each other, and sores are popping up, and it kind of sucks. Rand has a complete freak-out session where she's like "Kirk all I ever wanted was to bang you and now we're gonna die." Kirk is like "Sorry, boo." and gives her a big Friend Hug. Unfortunately, Miri sees this and gets the wrong idea because SHE AND KIRK WERE GONNA GET MARRIED. She is so pissed she sneaks off to Hawkeye Pan and starts conspiring with him. They plan on killing Kirk and Rand, and then the rest, in no particular order, it's just coincidence, no big. The Lost Boys love this plan.
Back with the gang, Spock and McCoy think they found the cure, but they're not positive. It could be the cure, or it could kill someone. So, who knows? Also, Kirk's flipping out because Rand's disappeared (step one of Miri's plan). Miri refuses to help him, and that's when he drops some TRUTH on her: When you grow up, your heart dies. You stop wanting to play with your friends, and you get the disease, and everything becomes terrible. Basically, he wants to separate her from her daemon. He shows her a sore on her own body, and she's sold.
She brings him over to Kid Nation, to try to convince the Lost Boys to cooperate. But oh man, these kids are in no mood to listen. They yell over him and laugh and mock him and it is so funny watching him try to retain order. It's like that episode of Full House when Joey becomes a substitute teacher, if Joey was also trying to sleep with Michelle (yikes). The kids attack him, Lord of the Flies-style, but he uses that to his advantage and tells them that they're being violent, just like they think adults are, so did I just blow your mind? He tells them they have blood on their hands, and they start frantically miming washing their hands, forever. Also, everyone dies some day, and if you guys are lucky you'll starve to death before the disease gets you, and other Facts of Life.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, McCoy is so freaking bored of just sitting around waiting for Kirk to convince some children of their own mortality, he injects himself with the maybe-cure, figuring you only go around once. He collapses to the ground, so maybe not the best plan? Especially since about a minute later Kirk walks in, with the communicators. Good things come to etc. But actually the cure worked, and McCoy gets better, so it's okay. The gang bolts the planet, and they discuss that some grown ups are being sent to the planet to take care of Kid Nation, which SUCKS because they were doing so great on their own. Rand mentions that Miri really loved Kirk, and Kirk drops a bon mot on her he's clearly been saving: "I never get involved with older women." (Because Miri was hundreds of years old, recall) Then he gives us our Kirk Smug Mug, which lasts almost a solid minute without dialogue:
So this episode was great and had creepy sexual overtones and everything, but can Uhura please come back? I miss her. :(

What Are Little Girls Made Of?: Season One Episode Seven

Jesus, this episode was just all Kirk all the time. We spent the bulk of the episode underground on planet Exo III with Kirk and Chapel and some character to be described momentarily, and we BARELY get to hang out with Spock and we see Uhura briefly and that's about it. SIGH.
So we're coming in on Exo III, and Chapel's over the moon (no pun intended) because they're pretty sure they've tracked down her fiance, which was maybe the reason why she joined the Enterprise, which maybe she should have just stayed with him instead of trying to join Starfleet in order to find him, you know? I dunno. It's fine.
Apparently Nurse Chapel's fiance is named Roger Korby, which is obviously just an Exo III alias for Roger Corman, the famed cult filmmaker. According to Kirk, everyone has to read about his movies at Starfleet Academy, so he's pretty famous, and also yikes how old is he? Chapel seems on the youngish side. Not trying to judge May-December relationships here, but let's just say I was not surprised to learn that she was his student at USC Film School.
Kirk and Chapel beam down to Exo III with two dudes conveniently wearing red shirts. According to The Internet these guys were the first Red Shirts on the show to die. Sorry bros. Starfleet gets a wicked discount at the Uniform Emporium on red shirts. Everything's super cavernous and scary, so obviously one red shirt falls into a pit within like thirty seconds of arriving.
They meet Doc Brown, Corman's assistant (he would later go on to invent a device for time travel), who's like "Oh, that guy fell in the pit? He's definitely dead. Sorry, Kirk. No chance he's still alive. So freaking dead like you wouldn't believe."
We only see him briefly, but it's revealed that a HORRIBLE MONSTER CREATURE pushed Red Shirt #1 into the pit. The monster then grabs Red Shirt #2 and so just like that we're out of red shirts.

We get to know another member of this underground gang, Andrea, whose uniform is just like Doc Brown's but without a shirt underneath, because comfort I guess. Chapel's not thrilled by this development, because no woman wants to think her fiance has spent the last five years making underground movies with a lady this sexy. She probably does full frontal, you know?
FINALLY Roger Corman shows up, and as predicted he and Chapel have a real Woody/Soon-Yi thing happening, which is fine.
Kirk tries to call Spock to let him know things are cool, don't worry, but Corman's like DON'T CALL THEM BUT PS DON'T FREAK OUT EVERYTHING'S COOL I JUST CAN'T TALK ABOUT IT RIGHT NOW. Kirk's like "Sorry I don't roll that way" but Doc Brown pulls a phaser on him then so does Andrea but Kirk really casually disarms Andrea, as easily as one would signal for a check in an uncrowded diner, then shoots a hole right through Doc Brown and gets roughed up by that MONSTER from earlier. But guess what? Check out Doc Brown:
Androids? Yes, androids. Not only was Doc Brown an android, but so is Andrea and Ruk, the monster. Obviously Corman has been building a cast of androids so he can film longer hours without having to pay union rates. Also, Ruk can mimic anyone's voice, which is useful for ADR. Ruk calls Spock AS Kirk and is like "Everything's cool, Spock, don't send anybody down here, okay?" Kirk's like "Come on dude what the hell?" and Corman keeps insisting he'll explain later, but not now, for some reason.
Chapel asks, completely reasonably, "So, did you build Andrea for sex or what?" Within the bounds of Chapel's relationship with Roger Corman, having sex with a robot is considered cheating. Corman laughs at the idea, and says it would be impossible because robots don't have emotions. (Um.) To prove a point (?) he orders Andrea to kiss Kirk (EPISODE WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY WILLIAM SHATNER not really), then to slap him. Apparently Corman doesn't know that this mirrors every sexual encounter Kirk's ever had.
That done, it is time to build a Kirk roboclone. Kirk sucks in his gut a little, and Chapel can definitely see his penis. It's not clear how this device works, but Kirk has this completely brilliant idea where he spends the whole time saying rude things about Spock under his breath. Why? YOU'LL SEE. Also, here is the control area for the roboclone machine:
As far as anyone can tell, RoboKlork is exactly the same as Kirk, including having his memories! Roger Corman takes the opportunity to start explaining the situation to everyone involved. He thinks the world would be better and more efficient if everyone were replaced by roboclones, which I guess is true, but who would be around to enjoy it, you know? Why not just eliminate all of humanity and leave it alone? I dunno. Maybe I'm just not smart enough. But if you replace all your actors with robots, and your audience with robots, will anybody attend your movies? Probably not, Roger Corman. While Corman is blabbing, Kirk escapes, and attacks Ruk with a big plaster penis. Ruk pretty easily disarms Kirk, obviously, and we're back to square one.
RoboKlork heads back to the Enterprise for some scheming. Spock asks him a question, and RoboKlork repeats Kirk's offensive language from earlier, alerting Spock to the fact that this guy's a phony, because Kirk and Spock are BFFS.
Back on Exo III, Kirk has a new plan. He forces Andrea to make out with him a ton, and in doing so CONFUSES HER ROBOBRAIN. She's all "I am a robot and have no emotions, yet I want this captain inside me. Does. Not. Compute. Beep. Boop."
There's a little moving from one room to another, then a scuffle occurs, and Corman rips his hand and guess what:
Yes, that's right. Roger Corman himself is a robo-auteur. He claims he's the same as he ever was, but Chapel's not into it now. So I wonder: is she just prejudiced against robots? Would she have been cool with Corman banging a human lady on the side? I don't know how to feel about Chapel right now. Anyway, Corman and Andrea do a Robeo and Julibot thing and both phase out, so really this whole mission was kind of a big waste of time.
We end on the Enterprise (I missed you, Enterprise), where we recall that even though Spock knew that RoboKlork was a roboclone, it didn't really result in anything substantial, which is okay. Spock tells Kirk "you kind of hurt my feelings with what you made your roboclone say." And Kirk's like "I won't call you a half-breed if the situation comes up again," which is basically like saying "Shut up," and he flashes a smug mug AND THAT'S WHERE WE END. Maybe next time there will be more of our favorite characters.