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the original crack
I am tearing joyfully through Star Trek! I am fascinated. (Yes, thank you, Spock, you can stop providing my internal narration now.) I don't know exactly what switch flipped in my brain to make me suddenly mainline TOS; when the reboot film came out last year, I loved the hell out of it, because it was a genuinely fun movie, and I had enough fannish osmosis and cultural inheritance to ping on pretty much every one of the callbacks -- but I read a couple of fics, watched part of The Naked Time on YouTube, and wandered off on my merry way.
Now I can't even fathom not finishing The Naked Time. It's one of the greatest things I have ever seen, not comparatively but on some weird absolute level where I sit in a joyful daze, wondering how the hell this ended up on my screen. Whatever switch has been flipped, it's been flipped hard, and I am really, really enjoying watching my fannish inheritance.
I'm also enjoying it on two levels. One of the levels is the one where I watch it with what I call my Little Kid Brain. My Little Kid Brain, weirdly, doesn't usually work for children's movies; it works for things that are not necessarily aimed at children at all, but are so fucking absurd that I have to shut off critical/cynical brain functions in order to enjoy it. And Star Trek suddenly becomes amazing: it doesn't matter that there's no science in the science, that the walls are made of Styrofoam and cardboard, that the tribbles are inanimate fluffballs that cost a penny a pop, that internal logic is often completely fucked (which is why Spock spends a lot of time looking mildly pained at the proceedings) -- because it's pure idfic on screen! There is hurt/comfort and mind control and so much crying and unnecessary dramatics and ridiculous-looking aliens! My Little Kid Brain loves this shit.
The second level is my fascinated-by-fandom level. Obviously there's overlap here, because I am having the pure weird enjoyment of witnessing the first instances of, oh, Aliens Made Them Do It and sexpollen and sci-fi mind control and all that tasty goodness, and sometimes I can't actually believe they managed to get this stuff onscreen, let alone in the '60s. It's just fun spotting all the clichés and having that vertigo moment of realizing that, no, these aren't clichés. They started it. It's wonderful.
And, on that note, highlights of this crazy show:
The Naked Time: The One Where Sulu Fences Half-Naked and Spock Has ~Emotions~
Every fandom needs this episode. Every fandom. A short list of things I loved best about it: lots of Scotty!; Uhura was the only sane one, OF COURSE; half-naked foil-wielding Sulu!!; the total wtf of the throwaway time travel at the end; the Sulu-and-Uhura exchange where Sulu says "I'll protect you, fair maiden!" and Uhura, without missing a beat, responds, "Sorry, neither." I love Uhura SO MUCH when they give her actual things to do.
A short list of things I liked least about it: OH GOD CHRISTINE CHAPEL HONEY I KNOW YOU WERE POSSESSED AT THE TIME BUT PLEASE DON'T HAVE HUGELY AWKWARD SCENES WITH SPOCK. (My ability to handle what is done with the women on this show is ... variable. Mostly I want to hide from any scene with women unless it has Uhura, and sometimes those are hit-or-miss too.)
On the other hand, Chapel's hugely awkward scene did transfer ~emotions~ to Spock, which resulted in basically the best scene ever. I am really attached to Spock already, because I found his breakdown incredibly difficult to watch; it was one of those clutching-my-face scenes, which is pretty much what I live for when I'm watching something. And then he comes out with a line about how when he feels friendship for Jim, he is ashamed, and I basically dissolve into mental keysmashing. HOW IS THIS ON MY SCREEN. And then they hit each other a lot, and ... apparently when Spock beats Kirk up, he gets better. Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up. Make sure you have a safeword, kids.
In conclusion, that was one of the greatest ridiculous things I have ever seen.
Mirror, Mirror: The One Where Spock Has A Goatee and I Approve of the Ridiculous Costumes
Nothing is as great as The Naked Time, but I have to say, Kirk in hideous v-necked gold lamé with shoulder-tassels comes pretty damn close. I'm probably doing it wrong, but I kind of love the Crazy Space Pirates aesthetic of the mirror universe. The sashes! The ... belly shirts, oh Uhura, I'm glad you're still able to kick ass when you're being sexually harassed by Evil Sulu and his Scar of Doom.
Mostly, though, because we all know why I'm really watching this show, SPOCK. I love how mirror Spock is in love with evil Kirk and doesn't want to kill him! I love how our Kirk doesn't care if mirror Spock is evil, because he can't let a Spock die! I love how he tries to convince mirror Spock to start a revolution, because ... maybe the episode was trying to imply that Spock would actually start one? But I'm pretty damn sure that the second evil Kirk gets back, they're nuking the hell out of that planet, having kinky evil sex, and probably airlocking evil Chekov for afters. Sorry, our Kirk.
(I loved evil Chekov, by the way. AWW, BABY BESTER. I felt, in fact, way less nervous around him than usual; whenever Chekov is just being his adorable self, I am waiting, waiting I tell you, for him to start force-choking and politically scheming and threatening people with guns. So evil Chekov was a bit of a relief.)
And at the end Kirk talks about knowing his Spocks! Spock/Kirk/Spock y/y?
Journey to Babel: The One Where Spock's Parents Are Kind of Dicks and I Love Amanda's Pink Boa
I am sad that TOS Sarek is not even a fraction as awesome as reboot Sarek. On the other hand, I sort of dug Amanda and her RIDICULOUS COSTUMES, OH MY GOD. I loved her and Kirk sort of awkwardly bonding over their Vulcan husbands. Also, I love how Sarek and Amanda sort of glided around the ship, touching fingers. Way to PDA all over the Enterprise, guys.
This was the episode where I realized I was finding the whole show extremely engaging. I don't even have to do that thing I did when watching old school Doctor Who, where I'd watch a minute and then pause to write things up in order to keep from going mad; no, here I'm watching entire episodes and writing about them afterwards. I am hypnotized by Spock's eyebrows and Shatner's strange line deliveries, I think. But seriously, this episode I was actually worried when Kirk was injured. What is this madness.
Also, Bones is growing on me, like some kind of cranky fungus. Break the fourth wall more, McCoy!
This Side of Paradise: In Which Spock Grins a Lot. Also Probably Other Stuff Happens, But I Was Distracted. And There is Sex Pollen.
The most important thing I have discovered during this episode: holy god, Leonard Nimoy has the most infectious smile ever. I mean, I think Spock's grin was made about a thousand times more amazing by the fact that the merest twitch of facial muscles signals ~important emotions~ so seeing him grin is like an EXPLOSION OF VULCAN FEELINGS, but -- I don't even know if I want to see him smile more, but I kind of cherished it.
This whole episode genuinely fascinated me, though. And, okay, bear with me, it made me think of something: Narnia. Specifically, The Last Battle. The Last Battle completely freaked me out as a child, not so much because it was about the APOCALYPSE AND THEY ALL DIED, oh god, but because of what happened after. The story ends with all our beloved characters reuniting and gallivanting off on beautiful adventures, young and happy and forever reaching further perfection, and, as I said, that freaked me out. If they're not striving for anything, if they have no real purpose, how can they be genuinely happy except in a blind and creepy way? I understand that this was pretty much the opposite of Lewis' point, but that was still what I got out of it, and that is why I have huge irrational affection for This Side of Paradise. I'm not entirely on board with the whole execution -- for example, I'd be happy if Sulu could've snapped out of it without immediately beating the crap out of the nearest ensign -- but I loved, loved that when the leader of the colonists woke up from his fuzzy spore-induced happiness, his immediate reaction was "My god, we spent three years doing nothing! Three years wasted!" And I loved that it's not specifically anger that saves you, but just any strong emotion. (Of course for Spock, homicidal anger is still the ticket. Kirk, you're lucky he didn't strangle you in this universe.) Kirk's last word on the subject, that this time they weren't kicked out of paradise but chose to walk, makes me insanely delighted. THIS IS WHAT I WANT OF ALL NARRATIVES.
I just -- wow, way to accidentally hit a lot of my philosophical narrative kinks. And to think that I just watched this one for thesexhappiness pollen.
On the other hand, the last last word on the subject was Spock announcing that for the first time in his life, he'd been happy. My heart breaks a little. It's okay, Spock, one day you too can go to Aslan's Country and have emotions.
Patterns of Force: In Which Spock Has Green Welts. GREEN WELTS. Also There Are Nazi Aliens or Something, Whatever, I Was Distracted Again.
This one has actualfax Nazi aliens! I am mildly amused and completely fascinated.
I watched this one on a rec that promised shirtless Kirk and Spock, and I did, in fact, like it in large part on the strength of half-naked Spock, although I turned out to be compelled not by his torso or whatever, but by the fact that whipping him resulted in green welts. I couldn't stop staring. I kept wanting him to turn his back to the camera! I think my weird specific kinks are showing, but I guess they are okay. (On the other hand, I am not sure what they are! Was I fascinated because they were beating up Spock? Because he was so damn stoic about it? Because there were so many welts? Because Spock is an alien and his were OMG GREEN? Probably the answer is all of the above.)
Also very much worth note: Daras, the woman of the episode, was AWESOME, both by Trek standards and by absolute ones. She didn't even attempt a romance with either Kirk or Spock, her soft-filters were basically nonexistent, she was utterly convincing as a capable double agent, and when the Enterprise crew left, they not only basically left her in charge without any fuss, but the writing convinced me that she should be in charge. A++, episode.
Plato's Stepchildren: So Much Mind Control! Also, Giant Chessboards
My Little Kid Brain loved that one, because my Little Kid Brain is all over anything that is thirty straight minutes of mind control that forces beloved characters to do horrible things against their will and nearly kill each other. And holy crap, in this episode, Aliens Almost Make Them Do It! I could have forgiven this episode a lot of sins if they'd just worked with what they had and made Kirk and Spock kiss, but no, they beamed down Uhura and Chapel and put this episode firmly in Oh God Do Not Want!! territory, because I writhe in pain every time Chapel makes awkward declarations at Spock, and I writhe in pain every time Uhura is forced to utter "I'm scared, Captain!" and there was both in this one.
For the record, though: if you see any TOS vids that feature the characters dancing on a giant chess board, this is the episode it's from.
The Menagerie: In Which There Is Pike, And I Want to Know Why the Fuck Anyone Likes It At All
I am under the impression that people actively rec this one! I want to know WHY. Okay, what I would like to see: an episode where Spock, for no-really-I-swear-they're-logical reasons, pulls that clever mutiny; that whole bit was amazing. I would even afterwards be willing to watch the Trial of a Time Lord bits, provided that the evidence plot was actually about Spock and that the main emotional thread of the episode was that Spock had mutinied against Kirk and things were awful. So I was on board for most of the first half!
The thing is, though ... holy crap, I am glad the original pilot was not picked up for series. I don't know if it was Pike's actor, if the writing was twice as hideous as usual, or if I am just Stockholm-y about Kirk at this point, but whatever the case, I hated flashback Pike. I think it may have had a lot to do with the oh-my-god-how-can-they-be-fifty-times-as-awful-as-usual gender politics -- I don't even want to talk about Vina, the Eve-stand-in woman in that episode. I can't even decide which was worst: that she will be anything that he wants her to be! she lives only to please him! those other women are competition and must be stopped! or that she elects to stay behind on the planet of the awful dispassionate hallucination-giving aliens because, horror of horrors, she's not beautiful. Remember, girls, if aliens rescue you from a spaceship and give you reconstructive surgery that causes you to age and have lopsided shoulders, you have NOTHING TO LIVE FOR.
And then we learn that, in the future, advanced medicine has only really succeeded in turning Pike into Davros! Spock's apparently compassionate solution is to have him live a life of illusion manufactured by his creepy alien captors; I recoil in horror and, when Kirk and Spock figuratively pat each other on the back for a job well done, I suddenly like both of them a hell of a lot less.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go scream into a pillow, watch reboot!Pike's scenes again, possibly watch This Side of Paradise again, and then write reboot fic about Spock staging a mutiny. And then, maybe, I will feel better.
Turnabout Intruder: Bodyswap and Genderfail, Two Tastes That I Was Not Surprised Went Together Here
I ... liked this one despite itself, I think. I knew going in that anything where the premise was "Kirk and an evil woman in search of power switch bodies, hijinks ensue" was going to be pretty much fifty solid minutes of fail, so I was braced for it. (Also, nothing will ever be as bad as Vina. Not even Janice Lester.) That said, it was pretty bad. I mean, I knew better than to hope that William Shatner could adjust his performance enough to not be William Shatner, but I was looking forward to seeing a lady get decent amounts of screentime while playing Kirk! No such luck, though: she's unconscious for large stretches of episode, and when she is conscious, she gives mostly calm choice remarks and lets Lester-as-Kirk's frothing do the rest for her.
But I liked it anyway! I mean, I liked it in large part because I love bodyswap episodes even if they're not well done, but frankly, I liked it mostly for what it could have been. And by "What it could have been," I mean "I really want to write this episode as a reboot plotline now." I mean, my god, I could fix a lot of the things that are horribly wrong with Dr. Lester -- for instance, bullshit Starfleet doesn't allow women to be captains, so I could give her a motivation that is ... basically the same, namely that she didn't qualify in terms of aptitude for captaincy, and that she has a personal rivalry with Kirk, but if it isn't about her being a woman -- and if there's more Chapel and any Uhura at all -- it loses a hell of a lot of the skeeviness. Then, once she's captain, she makes genuinely incompetent command decisions rather than, oh my god, being 'hysterical,' fuck you Scotty. In this universe, Bones is the one who twigs that something is horribly wrong; Lester doesn't have any minions, or compunctions about killing Kirk herself; and Kirk is torn between getting his captaincy back and being distracted because, dude, he has BREASTS!! Meanwhile Spock is horrified to discover that he'd actually rather have real-Kirk than fake-Kirk as his commanding officer. It could be so great, and as is fairly obvious, I spent most of the episode not actually watching the episode but taking copious mental fic notes.
And on that note, I'm putting a brief hiatus on my watching, first because I'm also trying to do about five other things at the same time, and second because I clearly need to write that fic right now.
In terms of what I have taken away so far -- apart from the ficcing urge, quelle surprise --is that I have discovered is that Spock is one of my favorite characters ever. I was going to try figuring out where in the continuum of Favorite Character Traits he was, and then I realized that Spock is extremely intelligent, pretty weird, reads fairly queer, isn't strictly human, and is terrible at talking about emotions, and ... well. He was even evil that one time! I think Spock and Methos and Eleven should hang out. They'd have a good time. I bet Spock would love their historical anecdotes. Anyway.
Writing writing.
Now I can't even fathom not finishing The Naked Time. It's one of the greatest things I have ever seen, not comparatively but on some weird absolute level where I sit in a joyful daze, wondering how the hell this ended up on my screen. Whatever switch has been flipped, it's been flipped hard, and I am really, really enjoying watching my fannish inheritance.
I'm also enjoying it on two levels. One of the levels is the one where I watch it with what I call my Little Kid Brain. My Little Kid Brain, weirdly, doesn't usually work for children's movies; it works for things that are not necessarily aimed at children at all, but are so fucking absurd that I have to shut off critical/cynical brain functions in order to enjoy it. And Star Trek suddenly becomes amazing: it doesn't matter that there's no science in the science, that the walls are made of Styrofoam and cardboard, that the tribbles are inanimate fluffballs that cost a penny a pop, that internal logic is often completely fucked (which is why Spock spends a lot of time looking mildly pained at the proceedings) -- because it's pure idfic on screen! There is hurt/comfort and mind control and so much crying and unnecessary dramatics and ridiculous-looking aliens! My Little Kid Brain loves this shit.
The second level is my fascinated-by-fandom level. Obviously there's overlap here, because I am having the pure weird enjoyment of witnessing the first instances of, oh, Aliens Made Them Do It and sexpollen and sci-fi mind control and all that tasty goodness, and sometimes I can't actually believe they managed to get this stuff onscreen, let alone in the '60s. It's just fun spotting all the clichés and having that vertigo moment of realizing that, no, these aren't clichés. They started it. It's wonderful.
And, on that note, highlights of this crazy show:
The Naked Time: The One Where Sulu Fences Half-Naked and Spock Has ~Emotions~
Every fandom needs this episode. Every fandom. A short list of things I loved best about it: lots of Scotty!; Uhura was the only sane one, OF COURSE; half-naked foil-wielding Sulu!!; the total wtf of the throwaway time travel at the end; the Sulu-and-Uhura exchange where Sulu says "I'll protect you, fair maiden!" and Uhura, without missing a beat, responds, "Sorry, neither." I love Uhura SO MUCH when they give her actual things to do.
A short list of things I liked least about it: OH GOD CHRISTINE CHAPEL HONEY I KNOW YOU WERE POSSESSED AT THE TIME BUT PLEASE DON'T HAVE HUGELY AWKWARD SCENES WITH SPOCK. (My ability to handle what is done with the women on this show is ... variable. Mostly I want to hide from any scene with women unless it has Uhura, and sometimes those are hit-or-miss too.)
On the other hand, Chapel's hugely awkward scene did transfer ~emotions~ to Spock, which resulted in basically the best scene ever. I am really attached to Spock already, because I found his breakdown incredibly difficult to watch; it was one of those clutching-my-face scenes, which is pretty much what I live for when I'm watching something. And then he comes out with a line about how when he feels friendship for Jim, he is ashamed, and I basically dissolve into mental keysmashing. HOW IS THIS ON MY SCREEN. And then they hit each other a lot, and ... apparently when Spock beats Kirk up, he gets better. Well, I'm glad we've cleared that up. Make sure you have a safeword, kids.
In conclusion, that was one of the greatest ridiculous things I have ever seen.
Mirror, Mirror: The One Where Spock Has A Goatee and I Approve of the Ridiculous Costumes
Nothing is as great as The Naked Time, but I have to say, Kirk in hideous v-necked gold lamé with shoulder-tassels comes pretty damn close. I'm probably doing it wrong, but I kind of love the Crazy Space Pirates aesthetic of the mirror universe. The sashes! The ... belly shirts, oh Uhura, I'm glad you're still able to kick ass when you're being sexually harassed by Evil Sulu and his Scar of Doom.
Mostly, though, because we all know why I'm really watching this show, SPOCK. I love how mirror Spock is in love with evil Kirk and doesn't want to kill him! I love how our Kirk doesn't care if mirror Spock is evil, because he can't let a Spock die! I love how he tries to convince mirror Spock to start a revolution, because ... maybe the episode was trying to imply that Spock would actually start one? But I'm pretty damn sure that the second evil Kirk gets back, they're nuking the hell out of that planet, having kinky evil sex, and probably airlocking evil Chekov for afters. Sorry, our Kirk.
(I loved evil Chekov, by the way. AWW, BABY BESTER. I felt, in fact, way less nervous around him than usual; whenever Chekov is just being his adorable self, I am waiting, waiting I tell you, for him to start force-choking and politically scheming and threatening people with guns. So evil Chekov was a bit of a relief.)
And at the end Kirk talks about knowing his Spocks! Spock/Kirk/Spock y/y?
Journey to Babel: The One Where Spock's Parents Are Kind of Dicks and I Love Amanda's Pink Boa
I am sad that TOS Sarek is not even a fraction as awesome as reboot Sarek. On the other hand, I sort of dug Amanda and her RIDICULOUS COSTUMES, OH MY GOD. I loved her and Kirk sort of awkwardly bonding over their Vulcan husbands. Also, I love how Sarek and Amanda sort of glided around the ship, touching fingers. Way to PDA all over the Enterprise, guys.
This was the episode where I realized I was finding the whole show extremely engaging. I don't even have to do that thing I did when watching old school Doctor Who, where I'd watch a minute and then pause to write things up in order to keep from going mad; no, here I'm watching entire episodes and writing about them afterwards. I am hypnotized by Spock's eyebrows and Shatner's strange line deliveries, I think. But seriously, this episode I was actually worried when Kirk was injured. What is this madness.
Also, Bones is growing on me, like some kind of cranky fungus. Break the fourth wall more, McCoy!
This Side of Paradise: In Which Spock Grins a Lot. Also Probably Other Stuff Happens, But I Was Distracted. And There is Sex Pollen.
The most important thing I have discovered during this episode: holy god, Leonard Nimoy has the most infectious smile ever. I mean, I think Spock's grin was made about a thousand times more amazing by the fact that the merest twitch of facial muscles signals ~important emotions~ so seeing him grin is like an EXPLOSION OF VULCAN FEELINGS, but -- I don't even know if I want to see him smile more, but I kind of cherished it.
This whole episode genuinely fascinated me, though. And, okay, bear with me, it made me think of something: Narnia. Specifically, The Last Battle. The Last Battle completely freaked me out as a child, not so much because it was about the APOCALYPSE AND THEY ALL DIED, oh god, but because of what happened after. The story ends with all our beloved characters reuniting and gallivanting off on beautiful adventures, young and happy and forever reaching further perfection, and, as I said, that freaked me out. If they're not striving for anything, if they have no real purpose, how can they be genuinely happy except in a blind and creepy way? I understand that this was pretty much the opposite of Lewis' point, but that was still what I got out of it, and that is why I have huge irrational affection for This Side of Paradise. I'm not entirely on board with the whole execution -- for example, I'd be happy if Sulu could've snapped out of it without immediately beating the crap out of the nearest ensign -- but I loved, loved that when the leader of the colonists woke up from his fuzzy spore-induced happiness, his immediate reaction was "My god, we spent three years doing nothing! Three years wasted!" And I loved that it's not specifically anger that saves you, but just any strong emotion. (Of course for Spock, homicidal anger is still the ticket. Kirk, you're lucky he didn't strangle you in this universe.) Kirk's last word on the subject, that this time they weren't kicked out of paradise but chose to walk, makes me insanely delighted. THIS IS WHAT I WANT OF ALL NARRATIVES.
I just -- wow, way to accidentally hit a lot of my philosophical narrative kinks. And to think that I just watched this one for the
On the other hand, the last last word on the subject was Spock announcing that for the first time in his life, he'd been happy. My heart breaks a little. It's okay, Spock, one day you too can go to Aslan's Country and have emotions.
Patterns of Force: In Which Spock Has Green Welts. GREEN WELTS. Also There Are Nazi Aliens or Something, Whatever, I Was Distracted Again.
This one has actualfax Nazi aliens! I am mildly amused and completely fascinated.
I watched this one on a rec that promised shirtless Kirk and Spock, and I did, in fact, like it in large part on the strength of half-naked Spock, although I turned out to be compelled not by his torso or whatever, but by the fact that whipping him resulted in green welts. I couldn't stop staring. I kept wanting him to turn his back to the camera! I think my weird specific kinks are showing, but I guess they are okay. (On the other hand, I am not sure what they are! Was I fascinated because they were beating up Spock? Because he was so damn stoic about it? Because there were so many welts? Because Spock is an alien and his were OMG GREEN? Probably the answer is all of the above.)
Also very much worth note: Daras, the woman of the episode, was AWESOME, both by Trek standards and by absolute ones. She didn't even attempt a romance with either Kirk or Spock, her soft-filters were basically nonexistent, she was utterly convincing as a capable double agent, and when the Enterprise crew left, they not only basically left her in charge without any fuss, but the writing convinced me that she should be in charge. A++, episode.
Plato's Stepchildren: So Much Mind Control! Also, Giant Chessboards
My Little Kid Brain loved that one, because my Little Kid Brain is all over anything that is thirty straight minutes of mind control that forces beloved characters to do horrible things against their will and nearly kill each other. And holy crap, in this episode, Aliens Almost Make Them Do It! I could have forgiven this episode a lot of sins if they'd just worked with what they had and made Kirk and Spock kiss, but no, they beamed down Uhura and Chapel and put this episode firmly in Oh God Do Not Want!! territory, because I writhe in pain every time Chapel makes awkward declarations at Spock, and I writhe in pain every time Uhura is forced to utter "I'm scared, Captain!" and there was both in this one.
For the record, though: if you see any TOS vids that feature the characters dancing on a giant chess board, this is the episode it's from.
The Menagerie: In Which There Is Pike, And I Want to Know Why the Fuck Anyone Likes It At All
I am under the impression that people actively rec this one! I want to know WHY. Okay, what I would like to see: an episode where Spock, for no-really-I-swear-they're-logical reasons, pulls that clever mutiny; that whole bit was amazing. I would even afterwards be willing to watch the Trial of a Time Lord bits, provided that the evidence plot was actually about Spock and that the main emotional thread of the episode was that Spock had mutinied against Kirk and things were awful. So I was on board for most of the first half!
The thing is, though ... holy crap, I am glad the original pilot was not picked up for series. I don't know if it was Pike's actor, if the writing was twice as hideous as usual, or if I am just Stockholm-y about Kirk at this point, but whatever the case, I hated flashback Pike. I think it may have had a lot to do with the oh-my-god-how-can-they-be-fifty-times-as-awful-as-usual gender politics -- I don't even want to talk about Vina, the Eve-stand-in woman in that episode. I can't even decide which was worst: that she will be anything that he wants her to be! she lives only to please him! those other women are competition and must be stopped! or that she elects to stay behind on the planet of the awful dispassionate hallucination-giving aliens because, horror of horrors, she's not beautiful. Remember, girls, if aliens rescue you from a spaceship and give you reconstructive surgery that causes you to age and have lopsided shoulders, you have NOTHING TO LIVE FOR.
And then we learn that, in the future, advanced medicine has only really succeeded in turning Pike into Davros! Spock's apparently compassionate solution is to have him live a life of illusion manufactured by his creepy alien captors; I recoil in horror and, when Kirk and Spock figuratively pat each other on the back for a job well done, I suddenly like both of them a hell of a lot less.
If you'll excuse me, I have to go scream into a pillow, watch reboot!Pike's scenes again, possibly watch This Side of Paradise again, and then write reboot fic about Spock staging a mutiny. And then, maybe, I will feel better.
Turnabout Intruder: Bodyswap and Genderfail, Two Tastes That I Was Not Surprised Went Together Here
I ... liked this one despite itself, I think. I knew going in that anything where the premise was "Kirk and an evil woman in search of power switch bodies, hijinks ensue" was going to be pretty much fifty solid minutes of fail, so I was braced for it. (Also, nothing will ever be as bad as Vina. Not even Janice Lester.) That said, it was pretty bad. I mean, I knew better than to hope that William Shatner could adjust his performance enough to not be William Shatner, but I was looking forward to seeing a lady get decent amounts of screentime while playing Kirk! No such luck, though: she's unconscious for large stretches of episode, and when she is conscious, she gives mostly calm choice remarks and lets Lester-as-Kirk's frothing do the rest for her.
But I liked it anyway! I mean, I liked it in large part because I love bodyswap episodes even if they're not well done, but frankly, I liked it mostly for what it could have been. And by "What it could have been," I mean "I really want to write this episode as a reboot plotline now." I mean, my god, I could fix a lot of the things that are horribly wrong with Dr. Lester -- for instance, bullshit Starfleet doesn't allow women to be captains, so I could give her a motivation that is ... basically the same, namely that she didn't qualify in terms of aptitude for captaincy, and that she has a personal rivalry with Kirk, but if it isn't about her being a woman -- and if there's more Chapel and any Uhura at all -- it loses a hell of a lot of the skeeviness. Then, once she's captain, she makes genuinely incompetent command decisions rather than, oh my god, being 'hysterical,' fuck you Scotty. In this universe, Bones is the one who twigs that something is horribly wrong; Lester doesn't have any minions, or compunctions about killing Kirk herself; and Kirk is torn between getting his captaincy back and being distracted because, dude, he has BREASTS!! Meanwhile Spock is horrified to discover that he'd actually rather have real-Kirk than fake-Kirk as his commanding officer. It could be so great, and as is fairly obvious, I spent most of the episode not actually watching the episode but taking copious mental fic notes.
And on that note, I'm putting a brief hiatus on my watching, first because I'm also trying to do about five other things at the same time, and second because I clearly need to write that fic right now.
In terms of what I have taken away so far -- apart from the ficcing urge, quelle surprise --is that I have discovered is that Spock is one of my favorite characters ever. I was going to try figuring out where in the continuum of Favorite Character Traits he was, and then I realized that Spock is extremely intelligent, pretty weird, reads fairly queer, isn't strictly human, and is terrible at talking about emotions, and ... well. He was even evil that one time! I think Spock and Methos and Eleven should hang out. They'd have a good time. I bet Spock would love their historical anecdotes. Anyway.
Writing writing.