50th Anniversary TOS Episode Discussion Marathon

[Nate the Great]

February 23rd, 1967, "A Taste of Armageddon"

No fiver
Transcript
Memory Alpha

No fiver? That's a surprise.

The episode:

* So this Code 710 thing means "we don't want visitors ever". I don't think that Ambassador Fox has the right to ignore it. Shouldn't Kirk report to Starfleet asking for further orders?
* So Federation citizens have been traveling to this sector near an isolationist planet and have been killed for their trouble for decades. Starfleet has chosen not to use military force to stop this, nor has the Federation chosen to stop sending civilians there after the very first murders. And now a single ship has been sent for some reason to this system, without even a "we need the planet before the Klingons or Romulans get it" bit of lipservice. Uh-huh.
* Okay, time to cover the computer war. I grant you that it's an intriguing scifi plot, but it raises unfortunate implications. Why would this need to continue for generations? Generally speaking wars do not last generations. This is starting to sound like two governments agreeing under the table to use this excuse to cull their populations and maintain their political power. Unfortunate Implications, as TV Tropes calls it.
* Even if every single person on both planets agreed to this setup, third parties did not. Like I said before, the first murder of a third party should've brought war with the Federation or a blockade of the planet.
* I laugh at this idea that Anan thought that he could trick everyone on Enterprise to beam down for "shore leave" simultaneously. During "Shore Leave" there was a schedule drawn up, you need people on board to keep everything running. And how would the locals know how to run an entire starship if nobody has even flown to the neighboring planet for five hundred years?
* "Vulcanians." Old gripe, series bible, moving on...
* Never did like the mind meld through a wall. The entire point of Vulcan mind powers is that physical contact is needed. They could've at least come up with a line of technobabble like "the stone in this wall is much like that in the Shrine of Whatever on Vulcan, I believe I can use it as a conduit to control the guard for a short time."
* Always did like Spock's "there is a multilegged creature crawling on your shoulder" line.
* Fox outright declares that the mission is more important than the ship. This sort of nonsense is why ambassadors (except Sarek, who never pulls this sort of stunt) get such a bad rap across all of Trek.

Memory Alpha:

* First use of "The United Federation of Planets", not just "the Federation." Series bible blah blah blah.
* Last use of "Vulcanian." Thank goodness.

Youtube:

* Spock's multilegged creature line.
* The Kirk speech. "I'm not going to kill today."