Enterprise Flashback: E²

Star Trek as a franchise has run for so long that you can't fault it too much for recycling similar plots across its many different series. After all, you can retell stories to some extent, since it's often the characters that make the difference. But since character is a chronic deficiency for Star Trek: Enterprise, I felt the episode "E²" fell short of the Deep Space Nine episode it most resembled.

The Enterprise encounters a copy of itself which traveled back in time more than a century. Populated by descendants of the crew we know, they have roamed the Expanse for generations, waiting for the moment they'll catch up with the "present," where they might help their ancestors in their mission to save Earth.

I understand the appeal of a good, old-fashioned time paradox for a science fiction storyteller. I get why Star Trek: Enterprise would want to throw a stand-alone curve ball just as it pulls up on the end of the highly serialized season three. What I don't get is why the writers would attempt to repackage one of the best Deep Space Nine episodes, "Children of Time," without having anything truly novel to contribute. That episode was built around the same premise of Our Heroes meeting their time paradox descendants, but it more deeply explored everyone's personal reactions to that. The commitment seemed deeper, with the Deep Space Nine crew bonding much more with their descendants than anyone seems to here. And crucially, Odo's priorities in that story made for a weightier ending.

There is at least one unique story line that Enterprise highlights in its version of the premise -- the relationship between Trip and T'Pol. An old T'Pol is still alive aboard the duplicate Enterprise (a fact I wouldn't have revealed right away), and she advises her younger self to embrace her emotions and pursue the relationship. The advice comes right as younger T'Pol has decided to pull away from Trip, and is a fun way of swinging to "will they" in long-running "will they, won't they?" between the two.

But then I think the writers make a mistake in understanding what's interesting about this whole concept. Just because Trip and T'Pol's relationship is central, the script makes their son Lorian a central character. The episode cares a lot about his redemption -- how he failed at a chance to end the Xindi threat, and will go to any lengths not to fail again. It's a choice part for guest actor David Andrews, and he plays it well -- but I really don't feel why I'm supposed to care. We don't actually know Lorian, and he will (spoiler, I suppose) cease to exist by the end of the episode. So I can't invest much in his redemption while potential plot threads about the Enterprise crew get short shrift.

We get one scene in which Travis Mayweather and Hoshi Sato speak briefly about what they've learned of their descendants, but it barely gets into why he wants to know so much and she doesn't. Reed is the writers' punching bag yet again, as we learn he has no descendants -- though instead of actually exploring the emotions of that, it's played for a laugh. The implications of Phlox's polyamory barely gets a mention, and we don't explore Captain Archer's feelings at all. Does he regret any actions he took that might have caused this whole mess? Does the loss of his own father factor at all into the way he approaches his descendants? Wouldn't it be nice to explore any of that?

They might have had time to do that, had the writers not felt the need to keep the Xindi threat current. This episode serves up more than one scene of classic villain monologuing between Xindi characters, as they argue about the evidence Enterprise gave them in the last episode. It hardly seems necessary to me; if you're going to have a story diversion, then embrace the diversion, and don't tread water with these extraneous scenes.

Other observations:

• With Spock looming large over the portrayal of any half-human, half-Vulcan character, this episode charts another course. Lorian embraces emotion rather than rejects it, and seems to have found an effective balance. 

• Time travel rules in stories can never be airtight, but things feel especially porous here. When the two Enterprises fight each other, wouldn't any damage to the one in the present threaten the existence of the one from the past? And while T'Pol does ask how can they remember the other Enterprise once it ceases to exist, hanging a lantern on it doesn't answer the question.

• Speaking of that battle -- Archer gets the upper hand by using the transporter to beam critical equipment off the past Enterprise to hamper its operation. Seems like this should be a go-to strategy in any ship battle, once the shields are down.

• BIG SPOILER FOR THE ENTERPRISE SERIES FINALE. Lorian reveals that his father Trip died when he was young. The writers seem to have a thing with killing Trip off for an emotional pop.

The story threads about Trip and T'Pol do work here. But I feel the phantom limbs of all the other character stories they might have explored, were they not overly focused on Lorian's arc, or Xindi bickering. I give "E²" a B-.

Derry Girls (and Boys)

The start of this week brought us the end of the new TV series It: Welcome to Derry. (At least, the end of season one, of a possible three.) The prequel series takes the "a monster comes once every 27 years" premise baked into the two It movies and jumps back into the 1960s -- a different group of kids must face the terrifying force that hunts the town of Derry, Maine. Meanwhile, the general of a nearby military base seems to be aware of the evil creature, and is going to great lengths to track it down.

Welcome to Derry is a more complicated show than you might expect, and my feelings about it are equally complicated. The "prequel problem" looms large over the story: you know exactly where the story is heading. And yet arguably that isn't so big a deal? The horror genre isn't necessarily one to surprise its audience with unpredictable endings, especially not once a film becomes a franchise. The thrill of watching is to feel your skin crawl with well-executed suspense, get surprised by a perfectly-timed jump scare, or to recoil from a grisly visual. Put simply, horror is often about the journey more than the destination, so knowing the ending -- in this case, that the monster is going to live to fight another day -- might not be a dealbreaker.

Still, Welcome to Derry tries to replace the surprise it can't give you in the end with a number of other surprises along the way -- often zigging whenever you expect it to zag. Episode one delivers a truly shocking subversion of audience expectations. Other "twists," like the decision to withhold the appearance of Pennywise the Dancing Clown until deep into the season, feel less successful to me. Regardless, there are enough thrills in each episode to pull a horror fan along.

Three aspects of the show are especially well executed. Foremost is another round of superb casting. It's hard enough for a movie that calls for one important young character to find the right child actor. The 2017 It movie caught lightning in a bottle by casting multiple excellent child actors. Welcome to Derry pulls off this magic trick once again -- though the evidence would suggest that a large part of the credit should go to director Andy Muschietti, who helmed both movies and half of this show's eight episodes. He clearly knows how to capture great performances from young actors, and it's good that this prequel story plays to that strength.

Another highlight of Welcome to Derry is a particular event that happens deep into the story. It's been a long time since I read the original Stephen King novel It. I'd forgotten (though online fans are there to remind you), that three "interludes" in the book tell short stories of things that happened the last three times that this monster emerged from hibernation. The show runners of Welcome to Derry have said they hope for a three-season run in which those three events each anchor one season. In this first season, that event is a powerful reminder of an often-forgotten theme of King's book: that the evil people do can be just as terrible as that of an imagined monster. If the writers were secretly building their entire season to one pivotal sequence, they certainly nailed it when they get there; the events of the penultimate episode, "The Black Spot," are haunting in a way that has nothing to do with the supernatural.

Finally, speaking of Stephen King, Welcome to Derry delights in sprinkling references to the writer's other works. From playful mentions of Shawshank prison to taking a character from another novel and making him a major player here, Welcome to Derry is full of fun Easter eggs. And I'd wager, being only a casual fan of Stephen King, that plenty of other connections slipped by me without notice. 

But eventually, that "prequel problem" is going to rear its ugly head. The show contorts mightily to convince you that you don't actually know how this story might end... and that it doesn't matter if you do. But despite a final episode with a big showdown on an epic scale... the ending of Welcome to Derry is a bit unsatisfying. How could it not be, when it has to tee up both the movies it spawned from and potential future seasons of the show?

Still, I feel like knowing that is just part of the contract of sitting down with Welcome to Derry in the first place. So in the end, and overall, I felt I'd been entertained and rewarded for my time. I give the show a B+. I suspect most people who would like it are already well aware of it -- but for what it's worth, I'll give a gentle nudge to any people out there sitting on the fence.

Dead Letter

After enjoying the two previous Knives Out movies, there was no way I'd miss out on the third Benoit Blanc mystery from Rian Johnson, Wake Up Dead Man.

Catholic priest Father Jud is sent to a small town, where the local preacher, Monsignor Wicks, leads his flock in a stern, Old Testament style. Wicks constant needling of Jud fosters animus between them... so when Wicks is murdered, Jud seems the obvious suspect. But the odd "locked room mystery" circumstances of the death attract the interest of detective Benoit Blanc, who discovers motives for murder all throughout the congregation.

Rian Johnson has been on quite a mystery tour of late, not only with Knives Out, but with the superb television series Poker Face. Wake Up Dead Man is the first Benoit Blanc movie to arrive after Poker Face, so it's possible that the way I received this new movie has been altered by the experience of 22 episodes with Natasha Lyonne. I do feel there are three key ingredients in the Knives Out recipe: a twisty murder plot, a large ensemble cast of big actors there to play, and a dash of social commentary. The ingredients are all there in Wake Up Dead Man, but I feel like the measurements have been substantially tweaked.

Knives Out was woven through with "upstairs-downstairs" commentary about class and means. Glass Onion turned up the heat on the rich even more. But Wake Up Dead Man is (almost) mainly about its religiously-themed message. It has a lot of ground to cover about organized religion vs. faith, the kind of people who wield religion for their own personal aggrandizement, and in particular how these issues intersect with Catholicism. The subject is ripe for a takedown, and I have no problem with this franchise putting another lever of power in the spotlight with this movie.

But I think it comes at the expense of that second aspect of the Knives Out formula: the ensemble cast of big actors. Oh, they're here, to be sure: Josh O'Connor is far more the lead than Daniel Craig, and he's surrounded and supported by Glenn Close, Josh Brolin, Mila Kunis, Jeremy Renner, Kerry Washington, Andrew Scott, Cailee Spaeny, Thomas Haden Church, and Jeffrey Wright. But where the first two Knives Out movies were full of fun characters I could see actors lining up to portray, I just don't feel there's much juice to be squeezed from most of the people in this story. Where Knives Out and Glass Onion seemed to offer everyone at least one moment to chew the scenery, Wake Up Dead Man feels almost disinterested in developing many of its characters -- to a degree where people seem like suspects only because they're portrayed by someone famous.

The effort that might have been spent on characterization goes instead to developing the mystery. Wake Up Dead Man has by far the most convoluted plot of the three Benoit Blanc mysteries. To explain how would probably give too much away -- and such pains were taken to hide the truth that I'd feel monstrous to spoil it. I'll just say that you'll probably enjoy the movie more if you don't expend much mental effort trying to solve "whodunnit" and just go along for the ride.

All of that probably sounds like I didn't enjoy Wake Up Dead Man very much -- but that's not at all the case. Really, it's that the prior two movies set a rather high bar for entertainment, and I feel that you really have to get into the weeds to differentiate and rank them. This movie has plenty of laugh out loud moments, a few triumphant monologues, some wonderful visual imagery, and an especially great performance from Josh O'Connor. It's enjoyable. I just enjoyed it less than Knives Out or Glass Onion. And it's possible, if I'd not been hearing about critics praising this as possibly the best Knives Out movie, that coming without heightened expectations wouldn't have soured the experience at all.

As it stands, I give Wake Up Dead Man a B. It's well worth watching, especially if you've liked either of the previous movies. But if you've heard any of the hype, maybe tamp it down a bit.

Star Trek Flashback: The Menagerie, Parts I and II

Halfway through the first season of the original Star Trek, the production found itself over budget, behind schedule, and in serious danger of failing to meet its network order. A clever solution was found. Gathering dust on the shelf was "The Cage," the original series pilot, unable to be shown due to its almost completely different cast of characters. But if that episode could somehow be packaged inside a "modern" episode, the footage could be saved. Thus was born Star Trek's only two-part episode, "The Menagerie."

Enterprise is summoned to a starbase by celebrated captain Christopher Pike, only to discover such a summons would have been impossible: after a horrible accident, Pike has been confined to a robotic chair and can communicate only through a blinking light. Before that mystery can be solved, a larger one appears: why has Spock mutinied?! He abducts Pike, steals the Enterprise, and locks it on course to the one planet forbidden by Starfleet: Talos IV. When Spock is put on trial, his defense revolves around the one prior journey to that planet over a decade earlier... and ultimately reveals his loyalty to his previous captain.

If you've watched "The Cage" recently (which I have), it's difficult to watch "The Menagerie" without a finger poised over the fast forward button. It truly is one new episode and one old episode shuffled together. Indeed, "Part II" has so little new footage in it that I feel it could hardly stand on its own for the sake of a separate review. So here, I'll just take on both parts, and set aside any comments that would apply only to "The Cage."

"The Menagerie" is really a clever idea, only possible because of Spock's presence in the original pilot. It comes at just the right time in season one, after we now know Spock well enough to be utterly mystified about his reasons for hijacking the ship. Kirk is emphatic: if Spock says they received a message to come visit Pike, that's what happened. McCoy is surprisingly even more certain that Spock could not be duplicitous, exposing the trust beneath their constant sparring.

It's fun for the audience to watch Spock take control of the ship. Of course, it demands his technological savvy, and a battery of faked messages he has prepared. It demands stealth (even if it strains credulity when he "sneaks" right by some technician who is looking right in his direction). It demands strength and a trademark Vulcan neck pinch (even if Spock illogically throws the guy around a bit before incapacitating him). Only Spock could carry out something this elaborate, and that only adds to the feeling that he must have a very good reason.

To jump to the end: he does. It is a great testament to Spock and his usually-repressed human half that he cares deeply enough for Captain Pike to risk his own career (and very life; I'll get to that in a moment) to give Pike a chance at happiness. It's possibly hard to square all this against the "needs of the many" Spock of later years, but it tells you just how much this relationship means. (And is one of the factors that makes spin-off Strange New Worlds such a joy to watch; it cares about establishing deep relationships like this, among all its characters.)

The extent of Pike's "locked in" state feel a bit extreme. It works well for the story, but also shows a lack of 1960s imagination; even current technology allows people similarly immobilized and confined to a wheelchair to be more communicative that this. And then there's Star Trek's penchant for over-inflating the stakes. It's not enough that going to Talos IV is dangerous, it has to be the one act in the Federation for which you can get the death penalty. (Yet also, some starbase commodore can just waive that rule if he wants to.) Also,"Part I" ends with Kirk being in hot water too, even though that plot thread isn't picked up in "Part II" at all.

A late plot twist makes no sense to me at all -- it turns out that the Commodore Mendez who accompanied Kirk to the Enterprise was never really there, but an illusion placed in everyone's minds by the Talosians. If it's possible for the Talosians to reach across light years with their powers to this extent, then they're more powerful than it's possible to contemplate. (And "General Order 7," forbidding contact with Talos IV, seems laughably moot. Maybe that's why the real Mendez can just waive it.) If the Talosians can do all this, then why does Pike have to be brought to them for them to use their mental powers to restore him to his pre-accident self?

Other observations:

• There isn't a lot of time for character beats in this episode outside of Spock's story -- but McCoy's flabbergasted reaction when Spock surrenders to him is a good one. 

• When footage from "The Cage" plays in such close proximity to new footage, you can't help but compare all the changes to production that are "similar, but different": uniforms, colors on the sets, lightning changes, and more. 

• They really shouldn't have left in the shot where Spock smiles at the noise-making plants on Talos. It's just not consistent with the character he became. 

• It's some kind of film "Inception" when the people at the trial are watching a TV of Talosians watching TV of Pike on the planet surface. (Add it us watching it on our TVs for yet another layer.) 

• Part II opens with a kind of "previously on" package that isn't actually a "previously on" package, as Kirk, Spock, and Mendez pose theatrically and Kirk narrates via log entry what happened last episode.

• Part II has such a low budget that a line of dialogue explains Spock's trial will be a "closed hearing" -- covering why the people who attended in Part I (like Scotty and McCoy) aren't around anymore. 

• Most of the new footage in Part II is useless interjections that just restate the plot of "The Cage" as we're watching it. But I had to laugh at the shot that follows the line about human males being unable to resists Orion women: a shot of Captain Kirk.

• One shot they do cut from "The Cage" is the moment when Vina is given the illusion of her own Christopher Pike. Cleverly, this lets them use the footage later as though it's the real Pike now on the surface of Talos IV.

If I were making recommendations for someone watching the original Star Trek, I'd actually suggest they skip "The Cage," so they could come to "The Menagerie" as audiences in the 1960s did: seeing it as two new episodes of television. It's basically impossible for me to see it that way. So rather than grade "The Menagerie, Part II" as some bottom-feeding "Shades of Gray"-type flashback episode with little new footage (and most of what's there not making any sense), I'll give it an "N/A" -- and grade the whole of "The Menagerie" a B-.

We've All Been Robbed

I'm not the sort of person who is usually moved deeply by the death of a famous person. But yesterday's news about the death of Rob Reiner and his wife Michele hit differently. It was the kind of news you feel like you couldn't possibly have heard correctly the first time -- and that's before you get into the horrible circumstances, that the two were murdered in their home. But that awful end is hardly necessary for Rob Reiner's passing to feel like a major loss.

It can be difficult for a generation to know how much of its own pop culture has currency to other generations, but Rob Reiner's work spanned a few. In particular, if you ask the average movie fan in their 40s or 50s what their favorite movie is, there is a significant chance you're going to get as the answer either the Reiner-directed The Princess Bride or This Is Spinal Tap. (You could go deep on what the preference between the two says about a person, but that's a topic for a less sad day.) Both loom large in 1980s pop culture, and both have continued to play well to new audiences years later.

But Reiner wouldn't have needed either towering achievement on his resume to be a notable director. Writer Stephen King has found a few go-to collaborators in his career, but Reiner was one of the first: in directing both Stand by Me and Misery, he showed a mastery of two strikingly different tones in King's catalog. Without Reiner, we certainly would never have had The West Wing, since Reiner's direction of A Few Good Man and The American President are what built the audience for Aaron Sorkin's dense, often-imitated writing.

And for "often-imitated," look no further than the foundational rom-com When Harry Met Sally...

Those are just the highlights of Reiner's directing career. As a producer, he was a founder of Castle Rock Entertainment, which gave us City Slickers, The Shawshank Redemption, Before Sunrise (and its sequels), The Green Mile, Miss Congeniality, and many, many more. Oh, and a little television show called Seinfeld.

Then there's Reiner's acting career. He was convinced that playing Meathead on All in the Family would be the first line of his eventual obituary, though he went on to put in memorable appearances in plenty of movies (directed by others and himself).

Reiner's death feels like a big one because it's kind of impossible to imagine anyone who is even vaguely aware of film and television of the last several decades who doesn't know any of his work. What I can imagine is a lot of fans firing up one (or more) of his movies this week.

Enterprise Flashback: The Forgotten

With "The Forgotten," I feel that Star Trek: Enterprise had backed itself into a narrative corner. It did the best it could in the situation, but the results are still something of a "filler" episode near the end of the season-long story arc.

Captain Archer must explain to Degra everything they've learned in the Expanse, and convince him that the long-term plans of the Sphere Builders will be as devastating to the Xindi as everyone else. Meanwhile, Trip struggles to write a letter to the parents of a crew member who was killed in the recent attack by the reptilian Xindi, and T'Pol continues to struggle with emotion after her use of trellium.

In so many stories, there comes a point where one character has to recount information to another that the audience/reader/listener already knows. A book will often dispatch this with a short sentence: "Jane explained everything to Bob." A movie or television show will often cut away to a scene in a secondary plot. That is the situation where Star Trek: Enterprise finds itself here between Archer and Degra. And yet, persuading a long-time nemesis to actually switch to your side is not the sort of story development that should happen entirely off-screen. So we have to see Archer's attempts to persuade... even if that means walking the audience through back story it already knows.

On the plus side, we are talking about 19 prior episodes of season three -- and if you watched it week-to-week at the time, it unfolded over more than half a year. The audience itself could probably use more of a refresher than a brief "previously on" package can deliver at the start of the episode. On the other hand, this won't be the last "re-cap" of the season; if Archer is successful, all he will get is Degra's promise to take him before the Xindi council... where he will have to explain all of this yet again.

So what this episode really needs is a B-story. Better yet, an A-story that can take up more screen time than what's essentially going to be a massive exposition dump. The writers of Enterprise were smart enough to know this, and also clever enough to seize an opportunity that Star Trek rarely takes: mourning the death of a "redshirt." Thus, after "Damage" (an episode that uncharacteristically shows Star Trek dealing with the physical aftermath of a battle) we now get this episode (which will uncharacteristically deal with the emotional aftermath).

"The Forgotten" opens with a speech from Archer at a memorial service for 18 fallen crew members, and transitions from there into Trip's episode-long struggle to write a letter to the family of one of them, crewman Taylor. It's soon established how little sleep Trip has gotten in recent days, teeing up that he begins to imagine seeing and talking to Taylor. That leads to a strong scene, exploring Trip's guilt as he imagines all the things Taylor would say if she were really there. And the subtext behind it all is well-conceived: that what Trip is really struggling with is not having properly mourned the death of his own sister.

Unfortunately, this scene (and the story line as a whole) is compromised in two ways. First, the sudden concern over crewman Taylor seems hollow; we never met her before she was killed, and it's hard to retrofit emotion onto someone we don't really know. Second, the "previously on" package at the top of the episode gives the game away by reminding us of the death of Trip's sister. We know the whole time what's really got Trip so worked up. So even as the episode takes care to slowly expose the truth through Trip' clashes with Degra and conversations with T'Pol, we know where it's all headed. And when it does get there, and we hear the letter Trip finally writes Taylor's family? It's good for the story, as we can tell he's finally coming to terms with his own loss. But it doesn't feel like it would be much comfort to Taylor's family; it's all about Trip!

Of course, Star Trek: Enterprise has always been on its strongest footing when in action-adventure mode. An episode about exposition and feelings alone isn't going to cut it. So we do get two separate calamities to deal with. First is a plasma leak exploding on the outside of the ship, requiring a spacewalk to repair. The CG figures walking along the hull don't look entirely convincing, but the sequence is otherwise well-realized with good sets and clever lighting effects. Then, a reptilian Xindi ship arrives, and Degra is forced to firmly choose sides and attack his own people. It's unfortunate that the moment Archer finally does persuade Degra is kept off-screen for suspense, but the action that follows plays well.

Other observations:

• Family Guy creator and massive Star Trek fan Seth MacFarlane makes a brief cameo appearance. (With just one line of dialogue, I think?) This didn't scratch the itch. Not only will he appear one more time on Star Trek, but he would go on to create and star in his own Star Trek homage, The Orville.

• The writers never tire of making Reed look terrible. Sure, he lays his life on the line to try to save the day in this episode... but that comes after he can't even do something as simple as open a panel. (I know, it's heat-warped, and that's not his fault. But could they not once have Trip fail to do something?)

• For all the scenes in Trip's story line that are meant to stir emotions, I find the most effective moment to be when T'Pol confesses her envy of humans: they can give in to emotions without being overwhelmed as Vulcans are.

This episode's heart is in the right place, but there's no way around the burdensome exposition it's saddled with. And Enterprise is hard-pressed to excel at character-based drama when it has done so little to build audience empathy for its characters over three seasons. I give "The Forgotten" a B-.

Star Trek Flashback: The Corbomite Maneuver

"The Corbomite Maneuver" is a pivotal episode for the original Star Trek, showcasing exactly the kind of captain that James T. Kirk can be. And fittingly, it was the first regular episode of the series ever produced following its two pilots. Unfortunately, because of the extreme number of visual effects it called for (and the impossible production schedule), it wasn't finished to air on television until the tenth episode.

The Enterprise ventures into an alien civilization's space, and is forced to destroy a threatening probe in self-defense. This in turn summons a massive spaceship whose captain, Balok, threatens to destroy Enterprise. Kirk tries a desperate deception to save his ship... and that turns out to be just one test he faces.

You can imagine how things might have gone with the original Star Trek writers. They've finally begun the series, and now behold, "here's the kind of story we'll get to tell every week!" Then immediately, they discover that it's completely impossible to tell this kind of story every week on a 1966 television budget. But at least this episode does exist as a monument to what might have been, walking so that modern Star Trek with its extensive CG and sets with AR walls could run. (Plus, the "re-mastered" version of it stays largely faithful to the original vision, though with added interactive light from the alien spacecraft reflecting off the Enterprise hull.)

Episode director Joseph Sargent is extremely ambitious with the camera in this episode -- as though he's trying to find new camera angles for a show that's been around for 50 episodes already. Look for an eye-catching crane shot in the opening scene that tracks from Spock's panel to the helm, and a later sequence that follows behind Kirk as he steps out of the turbolift onto the bridge. There's also extensive lightning tricks used on the bridge to imply the spinning Q-bert cube on the viewscreen without having to show it as often. This sort of time-consuming stagecraft would also prove to be too much for a show that needed to produce a staggering 29 episodes in its first season, and became quite rare after this.

Star Trek is still finding its way at this point. The Enterprise is very much a military ship. Leaders bark orders (and then Spock tells someone off a minute later for raising their voice). We also seem a long way from deciding who the important secondary characters aboard this ship will be. As much as this episode is about Kirk's ingenuity and ability to bluff, it's equally an episode about Lieutenant Bailey. McCoy and Kirk argue about whether he was promoted too early. He has a complete meltdown on the bridge, but then is given the most unearned of second chances, an opportunity to become a diplomatic envoy -- complete with the implication that he'll one day come back to the Enterprise. It might have been nice to give that story line to someone we'd eventually come to love. (Yet at the same time, I don't think I would have liked the show making such a Malcolm Reed out of a main character and then expecting us to like them later.)

But neither is this episode striking a completely different tone than what would emerge. "The Corbomite Maneuver" is foundational Captain Kirk, showcasing the improvisational command style that would last all the way through the Star Trek movies two decades later. Spock is already a clear fast friend with Kirk, playfully asking why he bothers to seek opinions when he's made up his mind. McCoy's first appearance (in filming order) also strongly establishes that character, as he wields his medical authority over Kirk perhaps too zealously, and grouses about what duties are not in his purview (though he hasn't quite got the "I'm a doctor, not..." formulation yet).

The ending is also classic Star Trek, through and through. The implacable enemy we've faced is revealed to be benevolent and friendly. Driving home this message is an iconic puppet and a very young Clint Howard (collecting his first of multiple Star Trek series). The casting of a child is great fun -- even if there is bit of unintentional comedy in the fact that he wants nothing more than to take the landing party on a tour of his ship. (It gives big "wanna come to my room and see my toys?" energy.)

Other observations:

• After his physical, Kirk just takes off walking around the ship shirtless and sweaty. And while there is then a moment about him deciding he has time to change... he knows what he's doing.  

• This "First Federation" seems like the Borg in reverse or something. First, they show up with a tiny cube. Later, they arrive in a giant sphere. 

• Spock makes the odd observation that the stern, unyielding Balok reminds him of his father -- planting an early seed for the character of Sarek that would eventually appear.

• What a weird, of-the-time episode this is for Yeoman Rand. Kirk complains about having been assigned a female yeoman (of all things!). But then she comes through in a crisis later... by showing up on the bridge with fresh coffee she brewed with a phaser after the power went out.

"The Corbomite Maneuever" manages to find a lot about Star Trek that in retrospect feels essential to the franchise. But it also focuses too much on the minor (and annoying) character of Bailey, and feels quite slowly paced at times. Overall, I give it a B-.