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Podcast Enterprise: S2E12 The Deadly Years

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When this episode opens, you have the USS Enterprise in orbit around Gamma Hydra IV, and you have Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, a Lieutenant Galway, who’s a new character for this episode and Hansen Chekov, they are beamed down to this planet and they’re there for a routine resupply mission.And on this planet, there is a, there is an experimental colony, which is headed by a certain Robert Johnson, who is supposedly 29 years old.

Now, when they beamed down on this planet, Kirk and the landing party find Absolutely nobody. The area is deserted. There are some buildings, but there’s nobody, so they decide to split up and examine what’s going on.Chekov enters one building, finds an extremely old dead man, and he loses his marbles a little bit. He calls out to his captain. He comes running out in absolute fright. And because he is so frightened, the rest of the landing party go into that building and they find this old man. And McCoy, after he does an examination of the dead body, reveals that this person died of natural causes of extreme old age.Now this is very puzzling for the landing party and for Kirk because none of the colonists on Gamma Hydra IV were above 30. So who is this old person? Now While they are deliberating this, an old man and an old woman come into the building and he reveals himself to be Robert Johnson and he says he’s 29 even though he’s extremely old and his wife, Elaine, he says she’s 27 and they’re not in good shape.So They’re taken back to the Enterprise.

Now, on board the Enterprise, Elaine dies of old age and Robert Johnson also dies of old age, because they are just so old and there is something that is causing accelerated aging in both of these characters. And apparently all the other colonists also died of this sort of accelerated old age.Kirk convenes a meeting in the briefing room to try and figure out what is going on. You are introduced to a new character called Janet Wallace, Dr. Janet Wallace, who is supposedly an old flame of Kirk’s. They try to, They try to figure out what exactly is going down on that planet. They hit a dead end, but as time goes on, they find that they themselves are subject to the aging.And each of the characters is affected by this aging process in a different way. So McCoy, he’s growing old very fast and he’s becoming very cranky. Spock is growing old and he’s feeling very cold and he’s not able to take the low temperatures on board the Enterprise. Kirk is becoming a little senile, and that is a big problem, because there is also a Commodore aboard the Enterprise, a Commodore Stocker.He wants to go to Starbase 10.

Now, because of this aging process, this aging problem, basically, and how it’s affecting the crew, Kirk cannot go to Starbase 10, despite Commodore Stocker’s protests. Everybody’s growing older and older. The most affected seems to be Lieutenant Galway, who’s aging much faster than everybody else, despite being 10 years younger than Kirk. They’re constantly trying to find out why this aging disease has afflicted them all. Nothing seems to be happening. Kirk gets more and more senile. He gets, He gives orders, he forgets he he has given those orders and he gives those orders again. And then just as they get and then They are also very close to the Romulan neutral zone, which means it’s very dangerous.

You cross the line and the Romulans will attack and Kirk is trying to keep it together.He’s not able to and finally Spock finds that there is some sort of radiation on Gamma Hydra for that is causing this aging process, but by now Commodore Stocker has had enough. He’s watching the Captain go senile from this aging disease. He’s watching the rest of the crew members get old. The landing party.I mean Only Chekov has not been affected and they don’t know why.

Commodore Stocker decides that he wants to take over the Enterprise because Kirk is so inefficient right now. And as he does so, he convenes a disciplinary hearing to remove Kirk from his position.Spock is also not in a condition to take over the Enterprise, so Commodore Stocker, who has absolutely no field experience, decides to commandeer the Enterprise. And that turns out to be an absolute disaster because he has no idea how to deal with the Romulans.

He directs the ship to go right into the neutral zone.They’re attacked by Romulans. And while this is happening, Kirk is panicking down in the sick bay because he’s old. He can’t do anything. He’s got arthritis due to old age. He’s senile. And at the same time, his mind is clear enough to realize that his ship is being attacked and there’s a green horn at the helm.And this is when they find out why Chekov wasn’t, wasn’t affected by the aging disease.

It’s because of adrenaline. Spock, despite his age, somehow manages to produce a serum. This serum is injected into Kirk so that he can recover and become young again. And it works with, Although the injection of that serum looks very painful, Kirk, however, manages to recover. He goes back to the bridge and relieves Commodore Stocker of his disastrous command and gets the Romulans to stop attacking with a very clever ruse involving a bluff and a carbomite device and a bomb blast, which doesn’t really exist.

And this episode ends with Commodore Stocker finally acknowledging that he’s well aware now of what a starship can do with the right man at the helm.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E11 Friday's Child

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When this episode opens, you find the USS Enterprise approaching the planet Capella IV. They are going to this planet so that they can negotiate with the alien Capellans for their mineral Topaline which is basically something that is used for their life support for the life support systems this planet capella four has an abundance of it and The mineral has to be mined, but to get to that you have to negotiate with the Capellans first.

And now these are, these people are a very war like kind of violent race of huge humanoids and it’s very difficult to deal with them and to negotiate with them, but Captain Kirk wants to do it anyway. He approaches this planet, he beams down and he also has a lot of issues with the Klingons because they want the Topaline as well.

So when he beams down to this planet, he finds a Klingon already there. Now, The catch here is that, McCoy has already been to this planet and he knows some of the ways of the Capellans, which Kirk does not know. But before they could do anything once they beam down there, one of the red shirts is killed, and this is how the episode starts.

You have conflict almost immediately where one of the members of the Enterprise is killed. Now, after that, the Capellans, being who they are and being this martial and very difficult to deal with group of people, decide to confine Kirk and the landing crew, including Spock and McCoy to this tent. It’s a little hard for them to gauge what the Capulans want at this point.

They are waiting there when this woman brings in some food and Kirk almost accepts it, but he is not, but then McCoy persuades him not to because that will lead to further complications. They meet with the High Teer or the leader of the ten tribes of Capella, who listens, he’s an elderly person who listens to them, but they can’t really negotiate with him because of the Klingon, who seems to get along much better with the rival of the chief of the Capellan tribes.

And Kirk and, long story short, Kirk and the landing crew find themselves in all sorts of skirmishes. The current Teer of the Capellans is threatened to be overthrown by this younger and brash, more brash individual who calls himself Maab. He gets along quite well with the Klingon, apparently, which is bad for everyone concerned.

The Klingon named Kras is the Klingon representative on Capella 4. He gets along quite well with the rival. of the current rival to the current Teer of the Capellans, who is called Mab.

And he creates all sorts of trouble for the earth people because he understands apparently the ways of the Capellans much better than the earth people do. And the Capellans do not want silly things like medicine and education. They want war all the time, and so especially with the rival to the current Teer assuming charge after a bloody coup

Kras has a better chance at getting the mining rights and get securing the mining rights for the Klingons. Kirk, after much confusion and after a lot after the current Teer is murdered by the rival and the Capellans find themselves with a new leader, Kirk and the landing crew find themselves in a lot of trouble.

First off, the consort of the previous Teer. They find themselves with her and on the run towards a certain group of hills and they have to go there, find the cave. She’s pregnant. She’s about to give birth. She does not get along with McCoy who wants to help her. And at the same time back in orbit with Scotty in command, the Enterprise is lured away from orbit by a distress call from an S. S. Dierdre, but as Scotty discovers later, the S. S. Dierdre is not in that quadrant, and this was a fake distress call from the Klingons, apparently, and they try to waylay the Enterprise and create trouble up there in space, and Kirk and the landing crew down here, along with Spock and McCoy, they have to deal with this woman called Eleen, who is a Capellan.

A search party consisting of the Klingon, Kras, and the Capellan, Maab, as well as all of the other Capellans have been released to search for Kirk, destroy them, and just get rid of their presence from Capella.

Kirk and Spock manage to somehow outwit this hunting party that has come after them. Krass reveals his true colors and turns himself against the rest of the Capellans. They manage to convince the Capellans to accept this alien’s Is that the widow of the previous year, alien’s son as a new leader of the Capellans. It’s all quite complicated. And basically the Capellan, mob who has been nothing but a pain for the Earthman up to this point, decides to sacrifice, sacrifice himself so that the Klingon can be brought down. Ultimately, there’s a new baby leader for the Capellans.

A mining treaty is secured, and, Kirk and the crew are back in the Enterprise, and the Klingons efforts to kind of thwart their for the efforts of the toward the diplomatic efforts of the Enterprise and the federation is completely thwarted and they’re able to get the mining treaty and the mineral that they needed for the life support systems.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E10 Journey to Babel

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, you have the USS Enterprise orbiting the planet Vulcan. This is where Spock also grew up. they’re waiting for a Vulcan ambassador Sarek to board the Enterprise. There are already 114 delegates on board and this is to take them to a third planet.Where they want the United Federation of Planets to gather and decide whether they want to admit a planet called Coridan into the Federation.

Coridan is a planet with a lot of dilithium crystals, vital for space travel, and they have a lot of it giving them Federation membership will allow them to have protection, Keeping these di lithiums crystal safe.However, it also throws a wrench into the plans of smugglers.

Sarek the Vulcan boards the Enterprise. He has a human wife called Amanda, and it is revealed that he is actually Spock’s estranged father. His mother, Amanda is a sweet woman . However, she is having a bit of trouble dealing with Vulcan logic and emotionless behavior. Spock apparently joined Starfleet, which his father did not want him to do. His father wanted him to continue the tradition of remaining on Vulcan and focusing on Vulcan science instead Spock chose otherwise, and that is partly what has caused this estrangement.

And as the delegates are now all on the ship, they find that there is some sort of attack coming in from outside from a ship moving at warp 10, which means it is much too fast for the Enterprise to pursue or fire at it moves too quickly and none of the phases hit this particular ship. So as that is happening, You also have all the delegates come to the common room of the Enterprise and they’re having food and you find a lot of alien races there. One particular alien race, the Tellarites, two of them, the Tellarite ambassador approach the Vulcan Sarek and try to get into an altercation with him.Regarding the planet Coridan, it doesn’t work out that well. And you are also introduced to a rather martial and savage alien race called the Andorans. They are blue with antennas on their heads. They are also not particularly friendly. Now, as all of this is happening, you find that something is going wrong within the Enterprise, because it seems that there are signals coming from within the Enterprise that are communicating with that fast moving ship outside.And then, you have the tension between the delegates. And while all this is happening, Kirk finds that he’s stabbed by the Andoran.

There are two of them, the ambassador and his associate. The associate attacks Kirk and he’s injured. And then it also turns out that the Vulcan Sarek has something wrong with him.Basically there is something wrong with his cardiovascular system and he gets equivalents of heart attacks continuously. Now the only way to save him is for Spock to give blood to him. Captain Kirk has also been injured. There is some intrigue about the ship. They are being attacked by this outsider ship and Spock has to assume command.

He refuses to give a blood transfusion, which his father so desperately means because duty comes first. And he holds on to that belief, he holds on to that belief so strongly that he becomes unreasonable, holding Vulcan logic over everything else, and his mother is infuriated with him.And what happens is, now, if the Vulcan ambassador dies, it will be a problem. Also on a personal level for Spock, in spite of him pretending that it has no effect on him. Kirk decides to get up, go to the brig, and pretend that he’s okay so Spock relinquishes command and gives his father the blood transfusion he needs.The enemy ship pursuing them starts to attack, they have to play dead and try to disable the ship.

They find out that one of the Andorans, the one that had attacked Kirk, is actually not an Andoran.He’s some sort of an interloper or some sort of an impersonator. And the ship has been communicating with him the whole time. One of his antennas is fake. Maybe both of his antennas are fake.And there is a receiver in one of those antennas. They bring him to the brig for Kirk to deal with him. They find that he is part of a smuggling ring. Now the issue is how to stop that alien ship and bring some sort of peace so that Corridan can be admitted into the Federation peacefully.Kirk decides to have the Enterprise play dead so that the smuggler ship slows down, which it does, and then they fire at it and disable it.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E09 Metamorphosis

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: when this episode begins, Kirk, Spock and McCoy, they’re taking Federation Commissioner Nancy Headford back to the Enterprise. She is sick with Sakuro’s disease. A very rare and Potentially fatal disease that she’s got and she must be treated for it. So Kirk is taking a back to the USS Enterprise.

However, on the way, Galileo gets accosted and they encounter a phenomenon that looks like a cloud of ionized hydrogen.

And it’s, there’s something seriously wrong with that encounter. And the Galileo is yanked to this planet into the Gamma Canaris region.And there they come to a planet they meet a young man who calls himself Cochrane.

He’s lonely seems to be the only individual on that planet, which is a bit of a problem because there’s no other life form apparently in that place. And then there’s an issue with Nancy Hedford because she’s sick.

She needs treatment and she also begins acting very erratically and McCoy has to sedate her, I believe, because she needs to be kept under control so that the sickness does not worsen. Now the issue is, there is something else on this planet with Cochrane, some sort of sparkly mist.It can be pretty hostile. It does go out of its way to attack Kirk, Spock and McCoy, if it deems them to be a threat to Cochrane.

And this is not an ideal situation. They’re trapped here. They can’t get out of there. Cochrane doesn’t tell them much about this entity there’s a communication barrier. And eventually, what happens is they find out that this Cochrane, even though he looks young, He’s several centuries old, and he is the creator of the warp drive that all the ships use for their interplanetary travel.

And this mist like entity, is what is keeping him alive.And it seems to care for him in some strange way. One thing leads to another, and Kirk decides to use a translator to try and figure out how to communicate with this entity, they find that this thing is female.

It has feelings and through the Universal Translator, it manages to communicate with them and tell them that she feels for Cochran, she wants him to stay there, she doesn’t want him to leave, but he, on the other hand, is going mad with loneliness, so there has to be a compromise.

And basically that compromise comes in the form of Nancy Hedford, who still has the disease. She has to be cured. And this entity decides to possess Nancy Hedford. And then she stays there as a companion to Cochrane and that’s how this episode ends.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E08 I, Mudd

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

When this episode starts, something is wrong because there’s a new crew member aboard the ship, Enterprise. Dr. McCoy does not like Norman. Norman is very odd. Spock, of course, does not notice because Norman is cold and emotionless and Spock likes that.But Dr. McCoy knows that there’s something wrong with Norman.

Dr. McCoy’s suspicions are not entirely unfounded, because Norman goes into the engineering section, he tampers with the controls, he takes over the ship’s controls, puts them on some sort of an automatic drive, so that it goes straight towards a particular planet.Nothing that Sulu on the bridge does can alter the course of the Enterprise, and now Captain Kirk is very worried because they are supposed to be somewhere else and they’re going into another direction. And Norman seems to be a lot stronger than the average human. He makes his way to the bridge, he talks to Captain Kirk, and he says that they’re going to a particular planet.Captain Kirk has no business stopping the ship from going to that planet. And any attempt to change course, or to override the controls that Norman has programmed into the ship, will result in the ship’s destruction, and Spock confirms that this will happen. Therefore Kirk cannot do anything but wait for those four solar days that it takes to reach this planet that Norman is talking about.And Norman also reveals that he is an android during this time.

He’s not human. And that’s why he’s been behaving odd all this time. Now when they get to this peculiar planet, Norman, who has deactivated himself, reactivates himself and says that Kirk, Chekov, Uhura, McCoy and Spock must beam down to the planet.Everybody else must stay aboard the Enterprise. And if they don’t do what he says, again, he threatens them with engine destruction and various other forms of destruction. So Kirk decides to beam down.

Once they are there on that planet, they find themselves in a network of tunnels which are habitable for humans.And they meet up with an old nemesis of his called Harry Mudd. Now, this character actually appeared in a previous episode. He’s back. He’s a smuggler. He’s a criminal. He’s a thief. And he’s also extremely entertaining. What we learn now is that Mudd has captured this planet. He has kept all of these androids as servants.There is some technology here that allows him to create more androids. He creates more and more androids, mostly females, so that he can have some fun with them.

But, this scheme of his has backfired because the androids have decided that he’s a very interesting human specimen, and they want to study him, and they want to use him to lure more humans to this planet, so that they can study them also.And to Mudd’s amusement, he manages to capture Captain Kirk and the Enterprise, and not just some random ship. There were a lot of coincidences there. The androids start revealing themselves more and more.

They are completely logical, placid, they cannot be swayed this way or that and as Dr. McCoy says, they are physically and mentally perfect. Nothing can reach them. They are created by some sort of an alien civilization apparently from the galaxy of Andromeda. They study the humans and then they decide that the humans are too violent and impulsive and therefore they will serve the humans and bring them under control.Eventually that turns into, they will serve the humans and bring the galaxy under control, much to Kirk’s alarm.

This also affects Mudd because he becomes a prisoner of the androids as well. They find him as illogical as the rest of the humans, and Kirk, to escape this prison that they find themselves in, must come up with something creative so that he can literally short circuit those androids and work their logic against them.And to do this, towards the end of this episode, what we see is that Kirk employs certain illogical ways of dealing with the androids. He talks about being in captivity and then being happy while he’s in captivity. He tells the androids that humans must work themselves to death to be happy and all sorts of nonsensical dialogue follows after that.And Norman is something of a conduit for all of these androids.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E07 Catspaw

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis:

Captain Kirk is worried. The USS Enterprise is in orbit around the planet Pyris 7 and there’s something wrong because a landing party has gone missing on that planet.The landing party has Sulu, Scott, and Crewman Jackson. They’re not able to communicate with them, and there’s some sort of subspace interference, so Uhura has not been able to contact them.

They get a message from Jackson, who’s promptly beamed back onto the Enterprise.There’s a voice coming from his throat, but he’s dead. Kirk realizes that there’s a problem down there on that planet, and he must have himself, McCoy, and Spock transported down there and try and figure out what’s going on. He leaves de Salle in charge of the Enterprise. And these three, they decide to go down and investigate what has happened. So now while they’re down there, they find that this planet is totally wrong. First off, there is mist where there shouldn’t be mist.

And there’s a lot of fog where there shouldn’t be fog.There are echoes of voices, and then they find three heads floating and screaming at them and talking about curses. Jackson, even though he was dead, warned them about being cursed. And now, down there on the planet, they see these three floating heads of witches, who speak very melodramatically.They also warn the Enterprise of a curse of dying and they should keep away from that planet. But Kirk and the landing party decide to investigate They navigate the fog. They find a big, huge medieval type castle.

They enter the castle. They find a cat, a black cat. Very witchy looking cat. They follow the cat, the cat leads them here and there, and then ultimately, without them really realizing what is happening, they find themselves in a big huge hall, facing an individual called Korob.He’s dressed like a wizard, he has a wand in his hand, he’s able to talk to that cat. Korob is some sort of alien entity, who thinks that he has understood humanity or he wants to understand humanity.

He thinks that showing them castles, wizards and cats and some sort of witchery will entice them.He also calls them honorable for some reason. He talks about loyalty and being very forthright. He attempts to tempt the landing crew with some food, which they do not eat. Then he loses his cool a little bit and tries to tempt them with gemstones. Again, they’re not impressed with that. The cat goes out of the room.It comes back as a woman who calls herself Sylvia. She is apparently the collaborator of Korob. And she has some sort of an evil streak to her. She has these three men imprisoned. This is the second time they’re being in prison, they find that both McCoy and Sulu have been hypnotized and they’re no longer on their side.

They’re on the side of those two aliens. The aliens have some sort of telekinetic power and they also have the ability to override your free will and make you do what they want you to do.Kirk and the landing crew must find a way out of here. McCoy is also captured and brainwashed and turned against them. Korob is very disturbed by Sylvia’s evil nature. She tells Kirk that she is experiencing sensation for the first time. She’s also infatuated with Kirk.Then she realizes that Kirk is returning her affection by trying to get her wand for some reason, because that is a transmuter that changes the environment. And both of these aliens are dependent on those transmuters. They have to use those transmuters and create an environment that is suitable for them.

They also are here apparently to study humanity. Kirk manages to fool Sylvia by pretending to be affectionate with her.She realizes it a little too late, and Kirk and Spock are returned to the dungeons. They manage to get out of there with Korob’s help. And then the cat, Sylvia is apparently able to change form. She’s able to take on the form of that cat. She tries to threaten them. Kirk and the crew somehow through some sort of mind trickery, they manage to evade her.

He gets that transmuter wand that she’s been using. That is the device that has created the castle, and that is the device that allows Sylvia and Korob to change shape. It is the device that has created some sort of a hospitable area within that planet.

He destroys the transmuter, and then what happens is the castle disappears, the torture room disappears, the dungeon disappears, everything disappears, including the forms that Sylvia and Korob have taken. Now, because they have lost their forms and the transmuter has been destroyed, both of those aliens who resemble tiny puppets, they fall over and die, and Kirk and the crew are able to go back to the Enterprise.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E06 The Doomsday Machine

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: When this episode opens, you have the Enterprise with Lieutenant Palmer at the communications console, receiving some sort of a distress signal from across space. And it seems to be from a distress beacon of a starship. But they can’t make anything out of that distress signal because of heavy subspace interference. But she does figure out the word Constellation. And so the Enterprise must find the source of this distress signal, and then they enter a star system called L370. When they enter L370, they find that the sun is intact, but all seven planets have been destroyed.

And they cannot figure out why those planets have been destroyed, because only a supernova or a star explosion can cause such a destruction. There seems to be nothing of the sort there. So they cross L370 and they go over to L374, which is the next star system. And there they find except for the two planets closest to the sun, all the other planets have been destroyed. They also find the source of the distress signal and that is the USS Constellation, which is basically a sister ship to the USS Enterprise. Kirk gathers a small landing party and along with Scotty and Dr. McCoy, transport over to the USS Constellation and try and figure out what happened here.

He leaves Spock in command of the Enterprise. Now when Kirk transports himself to the USS Constellation, they find that the ship has been almost completely abandoned. There’s nobody there. It seems that everybody left of their own volition or they were kidnapped, something of that sort. They also find that the captain of the USS Constellation is still on board. This is Commodore Decker. He’s in a state of shock. Which means that Dr. McCoy has to somehow revive him using a hypospray. And when he does that, Commodore Decker is in a state of absolute trauma. He’s not able to talk properly, but eventually, Kirk figures out that there is some sort of a planet killer running around destroying planets and solar systems. It leaves the suns intact, but it destroys all the planets that it comes across. And then it uses the debris of those planets for fuel. As to what happened to the crew of the USS Constellation, Commodore Decker had them transported down onto the third planet of the system of L374, and the third planet was subsequently destroyed by the planet killer, which is why Commodore Decker is in a state of absolute shock and trauma.

To have him treated, Kirk sends Dr. McCoy and Commodore Decker back into the Enterprise. Now this is where things get a little interesting because Commodore Decker wants to have this planet killer destroyed, and the Enterprise, much to its shock finds that the planet killer has returned to L374. Apparently it is because they are there and this machine, the planet killer is a machine and some sort of robot. It’s a doomsday machine designed to destroy everything in its wake. It has detected the Enterprise and it has come back into L374. And here Commodore Decker, he uses his power and his slightly deranged mentality to assume command of the Enterprise.

He wants to destroy this thing called the planet killer. He can’t do it because the Enterprise does not have the technology to pierce the pure neutronium hull of this machine. Kirk, meanwhile, is trapped on the Constellation. He gets Scotty to somehow rig the engines and get them working. Commodore Decker wants to take the Enterprise and ram it into the Planet Killer’s throat. He wants the Enterprise to destroy by going into the thing’s maw. This is where… Spock has to use his powers and relieve him of duty by exciting suicide because you’re not supposed to use a starship to commit suicide. He uses that clause in the federation regulations and relieves Commodore Decker of his post and re assumes command of the Enterprise once more.

Commodore Decker is still unhinged. He goes down to the shuttlecraft hangar. He picks up a shuttlecraft, takes it to the planet killer without authorization, and he literally rams the shuttlecraft into the maw of the planet killer. He doesn’t do much damage, but there is some slight energy drop in whatever emanations the planet killer has been giving out. Kirk uses that information to turn the Constellation into some sort of a bomb. He has to time it perfectly. He has to take this Constellation, ram it into the planet killer’s throat and detonate it. And he also has to get out of there within a 30 second margin, which is all very dicey, but he pulls it off, gets back to the Enterprise and the planet killer’s destroyed completely because of that detonation.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E05 The Apple

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: We have the US’ Enterprise orbiting a planet called Gamma Trianguli VI, and a landing party has beamed down on the planet’s surface. This landing party has Spock, Kirk and Chekov.

There’s a new character called Martha Landon and a lot of red shirts, at least three or four of them, and McCoy. They go down to this planet and it looks a lot like a peaceful garden of paradise, except for the fact that the sky is a violent orange, but we shall ignore that for now. In any case, they’re down there, they’re examining this planet. The temperature is a very beautiful 76 degrees Fahrenheit. Everything is very temperate. There’s a lot of greenery. It’s very lush. It’s beautiful. But as is a case with planets like these, there are always hidden secrets. As they wander, one of the red shirts is killed by a peculiar plant that turns in his direction and fires darts at him.

It kills him instantly. And then now Kirk is disturbed because there is danger on this planet and it’s not as peaceful as it looks. Kirk has already lost a man. Scotty reports from the ship that something has gone wrong with the ship. The ship is losing power from the anti-matter pods, and they’re not able to use the transporter to get the ground crew back onboard the ship, and this is a problem. So, while this is going on, Kirk and the crew have to stay down there, examine the planet, and Spock also reports that there’s some sort of humanoid following and they have to figure out what that is, and they have to find a way to stay down there and stay alive while Scott does whatever repairs he can do on the Enterprise in space.

Spock finds a peculiar rock that looks strange. It looks attractive. There are multiple colors on it, but as he tosses it aside, he finds that it explodes like a landmine and things go quickly downhill from there because more red shirts are killed with these landmines and then they find that there’s a village nearby that they should not interfere with according to the prime directive, but they may have to anyway. They find the humanoid trailing them and Kirk gives him a punch, which makes him cry, for some reason. This humanoid is a strange looking, coppery skinned person with white hair and a pair of antenna sticking out of his neck and a lot of war paint. And this humanoid is apparently a speaker and a listener of some entity called Vaal, which controls the planet. And they also learn that Vaal can control not only the humanoid, but he also controls the weather.

He can change it in the blink of an eye. Kirk and the crew, they go to this village. They find a group of very strange and childlike people who thinks Spock’s name is very funny. They try to integrate with the people there, but it’s very difficult because there are so child like there are no children there. So obviously there are a lot of things missing. It’s feeding time for Vaal. They want to go and see what this Vaal is. Vaal is a stone snake head that’s dozens of feet tall with a yawning, gaping mouth. The villagers of this planet go in there, give Vaal some sort of nourishment and keep it active.

And then Spock finds that there are a lot of subterranean frequencies coming from under the planet’s surface and it’s spread out over a large area. So they come to the conclusion that Vaal is some sort of a computer. It is not only draining the Enterprise’s power, from down here. It has also kept the villagers in some sort of fugue for about 10,000 years, and there’s been absolutely no change in that civilization for about 10,000 years. It’s a stagnant civilization. And now because of these outsiders, the villagers start picking up different, more bold habits, like they have no concept of love or romance, and then they find Chekov and the ensign kind of getting very friendly with each other, and then they try to mimic that, which makes Vaal very angry because he has forbidden all such interactions.

And he gives orders to Akuta, who is his listener, to have the landing party killed. But of course, these villagers have no idea how to kill anybody. They kill one red shirt because the red shirts have to be killed. One red shirt is killed. That’s the last of the red shirts. Everybody else is not a red shirt. The villagers look physically very strong, but they’re absolute weaklings. They cannot handle any sort of pressure. Their temperament is childlike. So the landing crew of four or five manage to overpower these people. They keep them in a hut and then they go to Vaal to try and deactivate it.

And Kirk with a little technical knowhow and some wizardry manages to get Scotty from the Enterprise to fire phasers at Vaal, forcing Vaal to drain all his energy, trying to defend itself. And then short circuit itself, which is, which is a very short scene towards the end. Then they go back to the Enterprise and all as well. And the, basically you have Kirk and McCoy as usual, trying to rag Spock, who’s naturally very confused because he does not understand human humor.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E04 Mirror, Mirror

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: So what we have here is when this episode begins, you find that the USS Enterprise is orbiting an alien planet, Captain Kirk, Scott, Dr. McCoy and Uhura down there on the planet. They’re trying to negotiate something with the alien race that calls themselves the Halkans. They’re talking to the Halkan council and they’re trying to get access to their dilithium crystals.

So now the Halkans have this peace policy that is taken to the absolute extreme, and they’re not giving the dilithium crystals to the federation because they believe that the dilithium crystals will eventually be used to harm somebody. And according to them, the loss of even one life due to something that they did cannot be tolerated.

So they’re not giving them the dilithium crystals. There’s also an ion storm happening around that planet and it is hitting the Enterprise. And so Kirk and the crew, they have to get back on board. While they’re trying to use the transporter to get Kirk and the crew back on board, something happens, there’s a power surge.

Kirk and the landing party appear in the transportation room. They disappear completely. And then they reappear somewhere else, apparently wearing different clothes. And they find themselves facing the transportation room crew along with Spock who has a beard. This is all very confusing for Kirk and the landing party.

They also find that this place where they are in it is very much like the original Enterprise, but it’s also different. There is some sort of a salute that they must adhere to, everybody salutes them in a strange way, unlike the Enterprise that they’re used to. They also find that the people here are quite cruel.

And it doesn’t take long for Kirk, Scotty, McCoy and Uhura to realize that they’re actually not on their own Enterprise. They’re in a parallel universe. And this happened because of the ion storm striking the Teleporter machine at the time of their transportation back into the ship.

And now here the problem is they have to find their way back home. But it’s difficult to navigate this new Enterprise because everything is actually barbaric. Cruelty is a norm. Officers ascend in rank by assassinating their superiors. It’s very difficult for Kirk to actually control the ship and here also, they’re on a similar mission to get the dilithium crystals from the Halkans, their counterparts from the parallel universe were on a similar mission to get the dilithium crystals from the Halkans, but here, since the Halkans aren’t giving them the crystals, they’ve been ordered to destroy cities and destroy the entire civilization, and then take these crystals by force, which is not something Kirk wants to do. He still gets along somewhat with the Spock of this universe.

He’s almost assassinated by Chekov. There’s also a lot of trouble with Sulu, who’s a security chief here. With some conference with Scotty, McCoy and Uhura, they decide to somehow get themselves back into their own universe. They have to use the ship’s power to divert that power to the transporter machine and get themselves teleported back at a particular time.

And then they find that they have just about half an hour to do it. Kirk also has to deal with a lot of other things because his counterpart in the parallel universe appears to have this wife mistress kind of woman. And she shows him some things about his cabin, including a sort of device that anhilates his enemies, and then one thing leads to another.

Spock in the parallel universe somehow discovers that the Kirk onboard the Enterprise is not the real Kirk, and then he has to take care of him because it’s going completely against the wishes of Star Fleet command of this parallel universe. And eventually what happens is they manage to rig the power systems of the parallel universe Enterprise, put everything in place to have themselves transported back home. And then they also find an unlikely ally in the Spock, the bearded Spock of the parallel universe because, despite the cruelty around him, again, he does have some integrity, some loyalty towards the captain.

He’s willing to listen to Kirk, even though that is not the Kirk he’s used to. And Kirk somehow tells him to kind of instigate a revolution so that this universe is a lot less cruel and then their places are swapped and they find themselves back in their original setting.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E03 Changeling

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: when this episode begins, you find that the USS Enterprise is en route to the Malurian star system.

They’re responding to some sort of distress call, but when they get there, they find that there’s no one to answer to their arrival or to greet them because according to Spock, there is no one there. Everybody has died out. And it’s a peculiar situation to be in because there were some 4 billion Malurians.

All of them have disappeared. And then what happens is they spot something in the far distance, the shields snap on. Some sort of an energy attack comes towards the Enterprise and reduces their shielding by 20%. Spock says that the ship can survive some Three or four more of those attacks and after that the shields would come down and they’ll be completely destroyed and these attacks keep coming.The shields keep coming down. They lose their warp power and Kirk decides to finally try and communicate with whatever is attacking them. It seems to be a small object just about a meter tall and about 500 kilos.

Kirk tries to talk to it. The thing responds in some sort of odd binary that they cannot decipher in the beginning, but putting this binary through the computers, they managed to convert it into English.And then they find this robotic voice talking to them, asking them whether they can leave the ship, interacting with them in a very odd way. And then Kirk decides to kind of stop this attack. These attacks from continuing because this object is apparently able to also absorb photon torpedoes. Kirk decides to take this object into the Enterprise.At first, they think it’s some sort of miniature spacecraft with miniature aliens inside. But once the thing comes aboard, they find that it’s a floating machine of some sort and it identifies itself as Nomad.

Kirk, when he hears his name, he puts two and two together and he remembers that there was an old earth probe called Nomad.It was supposedly lost in space, but apparently it isn’t because it’s right in front of them. And then this Nomad has some very odd ideas. It wants to disinfect, it wants to cleanse biological infestations as it calls it. It’s very unreasonable, difficult to talk to. And it also wants to know the point of origin of the Enterprise, which is Earth.And Kirk does have trouble dealing with this entity, particularly since the Nomad’s memory banks are damaged. And it somehow comes to the conclusion that Kirk is its creator.

So here we have another problem and It’s also something of an advantage because the only reason the Nomad isn’t wiping the Enterprise out is because it thinks Kirk is its creator.But then as things go bad, the Nomad becomes more and more erratic. It starts killing people. It starts disintegrating people. It goes to the engine room and decides that the engines are inefficient and then tries to, I don’t know, reset the engine so that the ship goes much faster than it was made to go.And then Kirk makes it slow down but ultimately what happens is it goes up to the bridge hearing Uhura sing through the intercom. It wipes Uhura’s memory because it, I don’t know, through its odd logic it doesn’t like Uhura singing, it wipes out her memory. And then it also kills.

Scotty, who tries to stop it from attacking Uhura. This is where we see that the Nomad also has some peculiar capabilities because once it is fed the biological records of humanity and Scotty’s physiology, it’s able to resurrect. Scotty, then you now you know that it’s a dangerous thing. It is dangerously unstable. It figures out that Kirk is not actually its creator and that it’s made a mistake.It goes back to the engine room decides to switch off the life support system so that it can turn the Enterprise into a more efficient system, then go to earth, destroy everything there, because according to its own warped programming, its duty and function is to destroy all by imperfect biological infestations, and according to it, all biological entities are imperfect.So now towards the end, what happens is Kirk uses his logic. He manages to short circuit it.

He convinces it that it has made errors of its own, and therefore it is an imperfect creation on its own and it must self destruct. Eventually what happens is Nomad activates self-destruct protocol and then Kirk and Spock manage to put it into the teleportation room.They have it transported out into deep space where itself destructs and then the Enterprise is safe again.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Continue reading