Podcast

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!

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Books n Stuff Podcast: S2 Episode 05 - Meet Author-Editor Dr. Pallavi Narayan

Note - This summary was written by the AI module in Descript online software and not by me

Introduction:

Hello readers and book enthusiasts! Today, we have an exciting blog post for you based on an intriguing podcast episode. In this episode of the “Books N Stuff Podcast,” we meet Dr. Pallavi Narayan, an author and editor extraordinaire. She joins host Bala to discuss her incredible journey in the world of writing and publishing. So, grab a cup of coffee and get ready to be inspired!

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Podcast Enterprise: S2E02 Who mourns for Adonais

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 first of all, you find that Scott is flirting with a new ensign on the bridge. Her name is Carolyn Palamas.He seems to have an interest with her, which is something very new. We haven’t seen that before. After that, we learned that the Enterprise is en route to a planet called Pollux 4. And as they near the planet, some sort of an energy field crops up and it takes the shape of a giant green hand.

And it holds the Enterprise in place.And this energy field is so powerful that the Enterprise cannot move, it cannot fire, it cannot break free. And as Spock notes, this energy field, even though it looks like a hand, it is not made of any sort of organic matter. It is not a living thing. It’s just plain energy. So this is very confusing because what sort of an entity can create that sort of an energy field and then they find a certain figure come up on the viewing screen. It’s just a head but it looks human it’s got a laurel wreath on its head and it claims to be Apollo and as the Greek god Apollo and it’s not going to let the Enterprise go.

So Kirk and a small landing crew including the Ensign, the new ensign, have to teleport down to the planet where they’re met with this strange muscular huge man who claims he’s the greek god Apollo he lays claim to the ensign Caroline and he’s interested in her and he takes her away and she is obviously taken in by him also. He wants the landing party to stay back on Pollux 4. And he also wants all of the crew aboard the Enterprise to come down and make themselves slaves to himself.

He believes he’s a God and it seems that he is a God and Kirk somehow reasons that he probably is the actual Greek God Apollo. And he believes that these beings, all of these gods, are actually some sort of space travelers that came to earth a long time ago and sort of bedazzled and primitive inhabitants of the planet and took on the guise of gods.By the end, they find that Apollo is very very capricious he’s got some sort of a lightning bolt from his fingertip he can destroy things he can kill people but each time he does something to that effect. He weakens.

And this is noticed by Chekhov. Long story short, what happens is somehow Kirk and the others have to get out of this planet.They have to have the Enterprise released. So basically, they have to get away from there. They have to prevent the rest of the crew from getting enslaved by this character. And Kirk decides the only way to do that is to try and turn Ensign Carolyn against Apollo. And her loyalty will be tested. Therefore he tells her something and finally she sees the truth and she spurns Apollo.That makes him go into a meltdown.

And Spock from the Enterprise out in orbit discovers that it is possible to punch some holes into that energy field and fire the phasers. So they discover that the temple where Apollo is lodged has some sort of energy source, and if they fire the phasers there, they’ll be able to destroy that temple and Apollo’s energy.

They do that, they’re released, and Apollo becomes heartbroken, he cannot have any more followers, he says, and he disappears. It’s some sort of a death, as we understand, but not exactly, and he disappears. And they go back to the Enterprise, free from this entity that they don’t really understand.

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: S2E01 The Amok time

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, what we find is that Dr. McCoy is very worried about Spock and he tells Kirk that there’s something seriously wrong with Spock. He’s not eating properly, he’s irritable, and he’s almost nervous to use the doctor’s words and there’s something wrong and nobody can figure out what it is.And Kirk and Dr. McCoy actually witness Nurse Christine Chapel taking some soup for Spock and Spock, throwing it out with some choice abuse for Nurse Chapel.

Now Spock has his pride and he is not going to tell Kirk what the issue is. But he does tell Kirk that he wants to go to Vulcan and there is something on Vulcan, his home planet that will cure him.But he absolutely refuses to tell Kirk what it is. The Enterprise already is on route to a planet called Altair VI, and this is for some sort of ceremonial event that’s happening there. And Star Fleet command has insisted that the Enterprise go there.

They cannot change course, but Spock insisted they change course.Over the course of time, he also manages to convince the bridge that the captain has given orders to change course to Vulcan. And there’s a lot of back and forth and a lot of humor there. But then Kirk finally confronts Spock and demands, orders him to tell him what is wrong with him. And the issue is there’s some sort of a mating season for Vulcans and Spock is in the throws of it and he can’t control it.He must go down. He must get back to Vulcan and have a marriage ceremony held.

Otherwise there’s going to be a lot of problems. And his wife, or the woman that’s supposed to be bonded to him is called T’Pring. Nobody else knew that. So finally, Kirk with a lot of thought he decides to go to Vulcan. And there, there’s this elaborate ceremony for Spock, and the marriage ceremony has to take place.But this woman T’Pring, she’s pretty devious. She decides that she doesn’t want to accept Spock directly. She wants a champion in his place and she chooses Kirk of all people. So now Kirk and Spock have to fight each other to the death. Spock is completely out of his mind with all of his emotions taking over.Kirk doesn’t know what to do exactly.

For one thing, it’s very hot on Vulcan, and for the other, it’s the atmosphere is so thin that he can’t breathe and he is losing this fight. So McCoy injects him with something. Kirk is knocked out and it looks as though Spock has won, and then T’Pring reveals a bombshell that she never wanted to marry Spock in the first place.There’s another Vulcan that she wants to marry, and she devised all this nonsense so that Spock releases her basically.

Or even if he doesn’t release her, she can have an affair with this other guy. So Spock decides not to marry her. They get back to the Enterprise. He’s in temporary command of the Enterprise, but he doesn’t want temporary command because he believes he’s killed Kirk. And then what happens is, we’ll discuss this in detail, but what happens is Kirk is not dead. Spock is very happy.

He shows emotion for the first time, for about half a second, and, yeah, everything is back to normal by then because now whatever was bothering him, Spock is gone with, with the fight and everything.Kirk is alive and all is well.

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: S1E29 Operation annihilate

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: The USS Enterprise is approaching the planet Deneva. Captain Kirk is actually very nervous at this point because there’s something wrong with down there in Deneva, and Uhura is not able to communicate with the people there, and his brother is also down there.

And Spock very helpfully says that there’s some pattern of mass insanity that has been jumping from planet to planet, and now it’s going to be on Deneva. And Kirk is naturally very worried about this. There’s no response to their calls. While they’re approaching this planet, they find that a small ship, a Denevan ship is flying towards the Denevan sun, which is very hot, and then it gets very close to the sun. It disintegrates, but not before the Enterprise picks up an exclamation where the person on the Denevan ship says he’s free, and whatever it is, it’s gone. He’s free and he dies.

That’s it. So now, the issue is they have to get down on Deneva and with a small landing party. When Kirk teleports down there, he finds that the place is more or less deserted. It’s supposed to be a hugely populated planet, but there’s nobody there. However, they go down there, they look for people, and then, it looks like some people are coming out to attack them, but they don’t want to attack them, but they’re being forced to attack them against their will.

It seems they’re being controlled by something else or someone else We don’t know at this point. Kirk eventually finds that his brother is dead. His sister-in-law is acting crazy. His nephew is unconscious. So the sister-in-law and nephew, they take them back to the Enterprise and there they find that the sister-in-law is being controlled by something in her body.

She’s trying to tell them what went wrong on Deneva, but she’s not able to because something is choking her from within. And she starts screaming. Things go from bad to worse. Eventually she passes away, but they have to find out what is going on Deneva. So Kirk and the landing party, they return with Spock and they try to find whatever this infestation is, the source of this infestation.

And then they come across these icky, plasticy looking huge, pink colored creatures that are sticking to the ceilings and walls and making weird noises. One of them attaches themselves to Spock, and from then on he is also infected. He undergoes excruciating pain. He tries to talk, but this thing tries to prevent him from talking.

It’s controlling his thoughts, it’s controlling his emotions, but through his sheer Vulcan physique, he’s able to push down the pain and control whatever it is this thing is trying to do. The Enterprise must naturally now try and dissect these parasites. Parasites that are infecting people and turning them insane.

And they find that it’s some sort of brain cell or those creatures are some sort of loose brain cells of a creature that we never really see. They’re flying all over the solar system infecting people from planet to planet, bringing them down.

Driving them insane and through a lot of trial and error, to cut a long story short, they find that the only way to kill it is to throw intense light at it. So that’s the only way it can be killed. There is no other way of getting rid of it. It is resistant to almost everything. So the sample that they have in the lab, they take it to a chamber and subject it to that light, which I believe is 1 million candles per square inch intensity.

So when they do that, they find that the thing is dead. So naturally now Spock has to be cured and Spock being Spock decides to have himself cured without protecting his eyes from the intense light because the people down there on the planet cannot have that sort of protection. So he goes into the chamber, they switch on the light, and he goes blind.

And then after that, very conveniently they find that they don’t have to throw the full spectrum of light at the creature, just the ultraviolet light. So seed satellites are released all around the planet that release high intensity ultraviolet light, and the creatures are killed restoring order to some extent, and I’m sure we are gonna talk about this later, but Spock does regain his sight.

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: S1E28 The city on the edge of forever

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:  The Enterprise is orbiting a planet they know nothing about and it’s on red alert because there are these time distortions that are causing all sorts of issues for the Enterprise.

And the ship was shaking this way and that. So what happens is something happens to the navigation board the helm console, and it shorts. And because it shorts, there’s some sort of electrical shock on Sulu, he falls over and Captain Kirk, he decides to send for McCoy. So when Dr. McCoy comes to the bridge, there’s still these time distortions and Captain Kirk and Spock, they’re trying to figure out what this is, and Sulu is lying on the ground. So Dr. McCoy injects him with something called Cordrazine. You’re supposed to give very little of it because it sort of stabilizes the body and brings down the heart flutter or something like that, he says.

And so that’s what he does. He injects Sulu, who then wakes up with a silly smile on his face, but he seems okay. And then while this goes on, after he injects, Sulu with the Cordrazine, McCoy comes forward, there’s another time distortion. And this time it’s pretty violent. And so what happens is McCoy falls forward, injects himself with a huge dose of Cordrazine, and that’s it.

He goes insane, completely insane. He starts screaming about killers and assassins. He doesn’t want Kirk or Spock to come anywhere near him. He doesn’t trust them. His face goes the shade of red. And then screaming, he runs out of the bridge and he somehow goes into the teleportation room.

He knocks out the operator, he teleports himself to that planet. And apparently all of these time distortions as Kirk and Spock figure out by then are coming from that planet. And there’s a particular spot in that planet that is causing all of these time distortions. And McCoy has gone there on his own.

So what happens is now that they have lost the doctor and the time distortions are causing other issues for the ship, a small landing party including Kirk and Spock, they decide to teleport down to the planet wherever McCoy went to so they can try and figure out what’s going on here.

So when they go down there, they find some extraordinarily old ruins that are, I don’t know, millions of years old, I think. And there’s an arch like creation that’s looks like a stone arch and it looks vaguely like plastic also in my head. And they find that this thing, it talks and it calls itself the Guardian of Forever.

It’s some sort of an ageless computerized, but not computerized being that can play and replay time and you can use it as some sort of a time travel portal. And by this time, McCoy has also reappeared. He comes back, and this is a in perfect timing. The Guardian of Forever decides to show them a history of Earth and McCoy jumps into the visuals of that, and he has transported himself into the past.

And then Kirk and the landing party realized that the Enterprise has disappeared because apparently McCoy has gone back into Earth’s past. He’s changed something and now history is different and the only way to bring it back to normal is for Kirk and Spock to go there themselves to whichever time period McCoy went to and try and fix things.

They figure out where McCoy disappeared to. They transport themselves through that Guardian of Forever, back to Earth’s past. They find themselves in a mission run by a very intriguing woman called Edith Keeler. And they try to blend in and sort of do work for her and take advantage of her hospitality until McCoy appears, and so that they can prevent him from doing whatever it is he’s doing that changes its past and so that the Enterprise can also come back. Kirk also gives Spock the orders to create a computer out of nothing, which he has to do with all the primitive tools. And like he says, stone knives and bear skins. He has to use all of that to somehow create a mnemonic computer.

He does that and then they find that the event that actually causes a change in earth’s history is the death of Edith Keeler herself. So either she lives or she dies. If she lives. Earth’s history is altered forever, and we can talk about it, Bala, because if she lives, for some reason, Nazi Germany wins World War II.

Now if she dies, that event can be prevented. So McCoy is a catalyst here because he is the individual who somehow prevents her from being killed. What happens basically is that she must die, and Kirk has been growing close to her. He doesn’t want her to die, but he comes to realize that if he allows her to live, all sorts of things are going to happen.

And as it is observed in this episode, if Edith Keeler lives millions would die where they didn’t die before. So they have to let things play out. They find McCoy and after a while, McCoy comes back to normal. Kirk decides to take Edith Keeler out for a movie. He leaves her there. When he realizes McCoy is back and he’s normal, he goes to talk to McCoy, and then Edith Keeler decides to follow Kirk and the car hits her and Kirk has to allow that car to hit her because otherwise history is pretty much destroyed and they have to go.

And that event, her death allows them to come back to their own time.

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: S1E27 The alternative factor

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:

Okay, I’m gonna have a bit of trouble summarizing this anyhow, let me try. So what happens here is when this episode opens, you have the Enterprise approaching an uncharted planet, and they know nothing about this planet. It seems to be an Iron-Silica type planet, and it’s the only one in that quadrant.

As the Enterprise approaches this planet, everything winks out for a few moments. You know, everything blinks in and out, and there seems to be some sort of non-existence as Spock and Kirk discuss and everything winks out of existence, and then everything comes back into existence.

So while they’re discussing this, they also find that there’s some sort of life down there on that planet, or more specifically, there is one life, one person down there when there was no life there before. So, and it also because of this winking in and out of existence, it seems that Star Fleet command is worried about an alien invasion or something of that sort, some sort of invasion status.

And they want Kirk to investigate. They also want the Enterprise to be bait. So Kirk decides to beam down to that planet. And try to figure out what this singular life form may be. He finds a man called Lazarus and he has something like a UFO, some sort of contraption, some sort of spaceship type thing that looks like a UFO.

Lazarus mumbles something to Kirk and he falls down a cliff and he’s taken back to the Enterprise and into the sick bay where they find that he rants and raves about monsters and some sort of creature destroying civilizations. And the Enterprise must help him stop it, and it all gets very confusing at that point, even for Kirk.

So eventually what they find is that…, okay, what we see is that Lazarus also seems to wink in and out of existence. There are scars on his forehead that appear and then disappear, and his nature theoretically keeps changing. But he’s still insane throughout and for some reason, to cut a long story short, he’s taken to the bridge.

He learned something about what is going on. He wants dilithium crystals of the Enterprise to try and cut through space time, go into a parallel universe, and stop himself. And then Kirk is outraged at this idea. Eventually, Lazarus does manage to get the dilithium crystals. He wants to fit them into that UFO type craft of his, which he claims is, I don’t know, it travels between time or it travels between universes. He says both. He wants to go from this universe to the other universe and stop himself, but in a fisticuff that follows kirk falls through the wormhole and finds himself in the parallel universe. He meets the other version of Lazarus who’s supposed to be very sane.

And then with that Lazarus’s help Kirk somehow tricks the Lazarus in our universe to go into some sort of fugue plane, some sort of limbo where they fight each other for all eternity. Back to you, Bala.

Oh boy. I don’t know how you managed to summarize that, but, but it did make a lot of sense already.

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: S1E26 Errand of Mercy

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: The Enterprise has received communication from Star Fleet Command, and they’re asked to divert their route to Organia, which is a Class M planet and the only Class M planet in this area.

And it’s also disputed area. Why it is disputed is because the Klingon Empire is expected to attack Organia and Star Fleet Command and the Federation, they have been trying to negotiate with the Klingons, but that is broken down. And now Star Fleet Command is afraid that there will be a surprise attack on Organia and based on what information the Federation has, it seems that Organia is a very backward and primitive planet, and they need to be protected from a potential Klingon attack. Captain Kirk gives certain orders to Sulu and he puts him in charge of the Enterprise. He beams down to Organia with Spock as second in command.

They beam down there and that’s when they find that Organia is a bit of a strange place. It looks primitive. There are some purple goats and there are some people shepherding them. And there’s this castle in the distance and what? Purple or green goats, I forget.

Anyhow, colorful goats. So basically what happens is none of the Oregonians seem to be surprised that Captain Kirk and Spock have beamed down in their midst. Logically they should be surprised because they are a primitive race, but they’re not surprised. Captain Kirk and Spock, they’re greeted by Ayelborne, who was supposed to be part of the Council of Elders.

It seems that Organia does not have any sort of ruling council, but they do have a Council of Elders. So basically what happens is Kirk feels like banging his head against the wall because the Oregonians will not listen to him regarding the Klingon attack. They’ll do absolutely nothing. They keep smiling, they do nothing.

They try to comfort Kirk and tell him that nothing is going to happen and everybody’s safe and nobody is going to attack Organia. And what eventually what happens is the Klingons do attack, they appear, and you find this rather fascinating Commander Kor, who barges into the Council of Elder’s room. He is quite impressed with Kirk, I think, because he tries to make him a liaison. And Kirk here is pretending to be an Organian and not a very convincing one. And basically Kirk is still trying to save the Organians from the Klingons. He’s trying to outwit the Clingons. The Organians don’t want to be saved. The Klingons are getting irritated with Kirk’s interference, especially after he blows up a munitions depot and the Klingons finally capture Kirk, put him in a certain cell and then Ayelborne for some reason, or somehow he manages to get Kirk out of there.

He just sashays into that cell and gets Kirk and Spock out, and that’s when they realized that something is not right with the Organians. See, they are not what they seem. They seem to be a little different. And finally, when the conflict really comes to a boiling point, and war is being threatened and Kor is a threatening Kirk and Earth and the Federation.

And Kirk is threatening Kor right back and talking about order and justice and again, trying to convince the Organians. It is revealed that the Organians are not going to allow any of them to fight. This is because they’re actually incorporeal beings of pure thought that are millions of years ahead of both humans and Klingons, and they’re not going to allow anybody to fight.

Their powers are too great. They can appear and disappear in many places at once. And finally, they force both the humans and the Klingons to make peace before telling them to leave the planet.

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: S1E25 The devil in the dark

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: On the planet Janus VI, a mining colony, the miners have deployed a security detail to the underground caves.

And everybody’s afraid because apparently there’s something that comes out of those tunnels. It creates more tunnels, it comes out and it kills miners. And 50 people have been killed already. So when the teaser ends, you find that one more person has been killed and nobody knows what is doing the killing.

And they’re also expecting the Enterprise here. So by the time the Enterprise arrives, so many people have died. And Captain Kirk, Spock and McCoy, they beam down to this mining colony. It’s underground. And The head of this colony, Chief Vanderberg, he is really worried about this.

It seems that whatever this creature is, it burns him to a crisp and there’s very little left of the body after the creature is done with them and nobody knows what it is. And after Spock talks to him a little bit, it seems that this creature started attacking them after they opened the tunnel to the lower levels. So there’s some sort of connection there. And Spock also notices that there are these silicon nodules that the miners have been collecting. Chief Vanderberg says that they are useless, trinket type things, there’s no value to them.

So that’s all very peculiar. Eventually what happens is that the creature attacks again, and even Kirk closes some security officer to this creature, and it seems that it has a pattern to its killing. And McCoy also discovers that this whatever this monster is, it’s not exactly setting the it’s victims on fire.

It’s using some sort of corrosive acid, and this acid is so strong that it’s able to bring down walls and the creature soon realize is quite intelligent. It manages to attack or it manages to break its way into the nuclear reactor and it takes a pump from there so that the reactor is going to go super critical.

Everything is a huge mess. Kirk has to find a way to attack this creature, surround it, kill it, and free the miners because they’re also mining something very important, which we will talk about. And then as things do, Kirk comes face to face with the creature, and it’s very surprising because the creature is not what they thought it was.

It’s a silicon life form for one. It calls itself Horta secondly, and it seems to want something. And there is where you see Spock using the mind meld with an alien creature. He finds that it’s a she. She’s trying to defend her nest and her eggs. Those silicon nodules that the miners kept finding and destroying were actually her eggs.

So she was trying to defend her territory and eventually what happens is, they find a way to work together with Horta so the miners can mine for the Pergium or what the element that they’re looking for. And this Horta will help them. They’ll live in mutual coexistence and that’s how it 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!

Continue reading