Another Nutty Star Trek Review

This week's Star Trek began with the Enterprise swinging by the planet Vulcan to pick up some bigshot ambassador and his wife in order to ferry them to a space conference on planet United Nations.  There's an exciting problem with some other planet somewhere, you see, with different warring faction laying claim to zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

Oh, I'm sorry.  I seem to have dozed off for a minute. Pretty much like I did when they explained it on the show.

Apparently everybody wants the mineral rights to some planet that is so utterly fascinating and vitally important to the plot that we never actually get there for the entire episode.  From what I gleaned before I lapsed into my coma, it sounded like they mined beryllium spheres on Planet Interesting, and because of this everybody from Marvin the Martian to Robby the Robot wants to take over the joint.  The Federation doesn't want a war that might disrupt their miniskirt and moral preening trade, so Kirk is charged with schlepping a pack of feuding delegates to said space conference.
      
The Vulcan ambassador turns out to be Spock's estranged father.  The ambassador's wife is Spock's mother.  She's also the mother from Father Knows Best, but no mention is made of Marcus Welby.  She has Marge Simpson hair and Eva Gabor's wardrobe from Green Acres.  Spock's father is mad at him because Spock didn't go to the prestigious school he picked out for the little ingrate.  Anger, disappointment, embarrassment.  Way to suppress those emotions, Spock's dad.

There's a reception for all the visiting dignitaries onboard the Enterprise, and the make-up department really went all out for this episode.  It looks like they spent a buck ninety-five at the novelty shop down the street for all the way-out alien creatures.

At the reception, two gold-painted midgets wearing fezzes put bobbing Styrofoam in their drinks and a guy in a pig costume picks a fight with Spock's father.  (One of the midgets would later go on to become the midget in High Plains Drifter.)  Later, the man in the pig costume is killed and stuffed up a tube and Kirk has his shirt off for no reason.  McCoy examines the man in the pig suit and finds that his neck has been broken.  Spock explains that "Talia Shire" is a technique used to break necks on Vulcan.  I find this interesting because on Earth it just breaks mirrors.

All of a sudden Spock's dad, now the prime suspect in the murder, has a convenient terminal disease that can only be cured by dramatic music and harebrained plot twists.

In sickbay, Bones and Spock study a pile of plastic casino chips from the Golden Nugget, demonstrating that in the future medical information will be taken back out of computers and stored on large multicolored plastic chips where it belongs.  Spock's dad has a rare blood type and he needs surgery and a transfusion, and the only Vulcan on the ship with compatible blood is the ensign who slops out the space toilets on deck 12.  Just kidding.  It's Spock!

All of a sudden the Enterprise is being pursued by what I at first think is a glowing Spirograph wheel, but which I realize at the end of the show is actually production company Desilu's cartoon logo.  Even more all of a sudden and in a bizarre edit that comes out of left field, Kirk is abruptly down in some hallway somewhere and in the middle of a pitched battle with a guy with blue skin and a white wig.  Kirk knocks out Papa Smurf, but not before Papa Smurf smurfs him in the back with what I'm pretty sure is the same ketchup-covered knife from last week's episode.

With Kirk laid up, Spock can no longer participate in the operation to save his father because he has to run the ship, so the mom from Father Knows Best slaps him in his Vulcan kisser.  Downstairs, Kirk wakes up in sickbay wrapped in a sash of sparkly Bounty paper towels.  Kirk tells Spock he's fine, he didn't need those kidneys after all, and relieves him of command so that he can go save his father.  Spock, who we are repeatedly told is a genius, falls for it.

McCoy operates on Spock's father with no mask, gloves, surgical gown or, at first, anesthetic for Spock.  He must have blown all of sickbay's budget on those casino chips.  Up on the bridge, the Desilu symbol has chosen that moment to attack, so Kirk orders some red shirts to bring up Papa Smurf who, I think, was also in High Plains Drifter, although not in blue paint or a white wig.  In the 24th century, prisoners are allowed to wander away from their escorts and are, interestingly, not even made to wear handcuffs.  Kirk was stabbed in the back, but for some reason he keeps holding onto his arm.  In light of McCoy's sloppy surgery, maybe the doctor broke a needle off in Kirk's arm.

It turns out Papa Smurf is really the one who killed the guy in the pig costume so that his people could take over Planet Interesting.  Whew, they really had me going with that whodunit.  I thought it was Spock's dad for sure!

Upstairs, Kirk has the ship play dead and blows up the Desilu symbol while downstairs McCoy saves Spock and his dad.  McCoy then orders Kirk back to bed, and no mention is made of the staph infection he probably gave them all.  In space, no one can hear you sue for malpractice.