Kirk, Spock and Bones beam down to Planet Truckasaurus on which a scientific expedition was studying the environmental effects of gray spray paint and a couple of truckloads of pool sand on a Paramount sound stage. The men and women are all dressed in the multicolored jumpsuits that are so popular in the far-off distant future as well as with retro Sixties James Bond henchmen. I wonder given the difficulties their wardrobe choice presents if they even bother with bathrooms up in outer space and down in volcano lairs or if everybody just gives up and goes straight for the Depends.
The science crew are all dead and have been arranged around the unrealistic set to look like Jonestown, if those cult people were wearing jumpsuits and were up in space. For some reason there is something that looks like the blackened and smoking ruins of an old stereo system in the middle of the carnage, and I think that maybe they were listening to Led Zeppelin and got too close to the stage. Will mankind ever learn that Zeppelin rocks?
The only survivors of the expedition are a bunch of ugly kids in 19th century ladies bathing costumes. One of them is Felix Unger's daughter.
An interesting 23rd Century sociological fact is revealed: in the future, kids have two parents each. Take that, current inner city 80 to 90% out-of-wedlock birthrates!
The children are taken aboard the Enterprise where the homely nurse who got her job because she was married to the homely producer feeds them pudding, and I catch Bones taking a quick glance at William Shatner's toupee. No fooling.
When the kids are alone they utter a magical incantation that summons an alien who looks like the fat, green ghost of Thomas Jefferson but wearing the giant blancmange costume from the science fiction episode Monty Python where giant blancmanges played tennis. Blancmange Thomas Jefferson says he's the kids' friend, but I don't like the way he tries to lure them into the back of his ghostly van with promises of Snickers and Wii. It's a good thing they're full of pudding, and he goes away.
The ugliest kid is a creepy ginger wearing the most bizarre of all the 19th century bathing costumes. He goes up on the bridge and discovers that Kirk and Spock are watching TV and are about to make a startling discovery on the colored plastic casino chip recordings they brought up from the planet. The ugly ginger kid makes an emphatic rude hand gesture and the Enterprise's TV reception goes out. There is no explanation at any point during the entire program of how the rude hand gesture that is repeatedly employed has given the ugly kid the ability to knock the tinfoil off the Enterprise's rabbit ears or how, moments later, it can be used to hypnotize Sulu into flying off to Planet Disneyland.
Frankly, I'm less interested in the explanation for the magic rude hand gesture than I am in the security crewman extra who's hanging around in the background staring straight at the ugly ginger kid the whole time but who doesn't think anything's odd when the TV goes out as soon as the ugly ginger kid makes the rude hand gesture or how Sulu flagrantly disobeys orders and takes off from the planet after the ugly ginger kid makes the exact same rude hand gesture moments later. For a minute I think that these red shirt security guys are the biggest morons in law enforcement, but then I think of the cops here in town like the one who ran naked through the nursing home or the one who shot another one in a blind panic and got a medal for it and I realize maybe this red shirt isn't so incompetent or unlike real-life after all.
"Yes, captain, I do not dispute that they rock. However, it was illogical to invite Great White to perform at the annual Starfleet WACs and WAVES rave."
Kirk and the others figure out that there were space pirates or something at some point on Planet Truckasaurus and even though they have been dead for a long time they vowed to return someday. Yaaarg, me hearties! Or something ridiculous like that. Who knows? God help me, I thought Planet Gangster was stupid.
Down in engineering, a different kid makes a different rude hand gesture. Hey, kid. Up yours with bells on.
Kirk goes to the bridge and the ugly kids chant and Blancmange Thomas Jefferson shows up. The kids make a rude hand gesture that makes Uhura look old, but not as scary as she was when she actually was old in the movie where she did the naked fan dance. For some reason she's got a mirror glued to her console. I guess it's because she's a girl, and you know how hard it is to pry them away from the mirror even in outer space, am I right fellas?
The kids also make a rude hand gesture that makes Sulu see cartoon knives from a Bugs Bunny cartoon flying at the ship. Seeing cartoon knives scares Sulu into being a worse actor than usual.
It seems to me that Kirk and Spock have had reason as well as ample opportunity to isolate these kids or at least to punch them in their smug little kissers, especially when the evil Blancmange Thomas Jefferson shows up, but instead Kirk just stands around and watches until the little brats rude hand-gesture into submission every bridge crew member one-by-one.
Spock gets rude hand-gestured into disobeying Kirk's orders, but manages to fight off the hypnosis somehow. Kirk gets rude hand-gestured into acting like a sissy and nearly Frenches Spock in the elevator. The terror of almost kissing Leonard Nimoy snaps him out of it, and Kirk butches back up again, more or less.
On the bridge, the ugly ginger kid in the 19th century ladies bathing costume is in Kirk's seat. Felix Unger's daughter is there too. Kirk picks them up and rattles them around a little, but a less ridiculous plot doesn't fall out.
Kirk has Spock play a casino chip of the chant the kids sang earlier to summon the blancmange pirate ghost man. Dogs know the difference between sounds coming from TV and those in real life, but the super-intelligent alien Thomas Jefferson Blancmange ghost comes a-runnin' like I used to as a kid when the Stooges were on. Maybe his hearing was damaged when the science crew's stereo blew up way back at that rockin' Led Zeppelin show at the beginning of the episode.
Kirk says he's going to show the kids what the blancmange truly looks like. He plays a casino chip of them and their parents playing space volleyball on the planet with the gray spray paint and the pool sand next to a giant wart. It looks like the wart is the only structure on the planet, and if everyone was piling in there to sleep at night I wonder if the kids might not be better off in the back of the van of the glowing green pervert who taught them the magic rude hand gestures.
The glowing green blancmange-man wants to fly the ship to some planet that has lots of people on it who he can hypnotize so he can take over Planet Poland or something. I don't know, and I haven't really cared for fifty minutes. All I know is that for a dead member of an extinct alien race who's been locked on an isolated, uninhabited planet for eons, he sure knows his way around the modern-day galaxy.
The kids cry and it gives Thomas Jefferson acne. Then they cry some more and gives him Elephant Man. Then they cry some more and it gives him Wicked Witch, and he melts away.
Bones shows up and I wonder: where the hell has Bones been?
Kirk orders the ship off to Starbase Something. He felt kind of bad earlier in the episode when he beamed two crewmen into outer space and killed them when he thought they were still orbiting Planet Truckasaurus, but he doesn't seem too worried about the landing party he's abandoned back on the planet to which the green ghost of fat Blancmange Thomas Jefferson Pirate is probably heading back right now, and pretty mad I'd imagine, ye scurvy Starfleet knaves!
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