The show starts with Kirk, McCoy, Chekov and Ensign Expendable materializing amid some crazy alien fauna that looks like it was mugged off a flamingostrich. For a terrifying moment I'm afraid we're being prepped for another horrifying Uhura naked fan dance but, thank God, the Klingons show up and smack Kirk in the kisser and take the Enterprise crew members captive instead.
The head Klingon is named Kang, but no one says where Kodos is.
The Klingons blame Kirk for destroying their ship that was in orbit and Kirk says he didn't do it, but the Klingons don't believe him. I wonder why no one thinks that maybe it might be the handiwork of the suspicious ball of floating light that's hovering ten feet away wearing a pair of dark sunglasses and reading an upside-down copy of Mind Manipulating Alien Monthly.
Kang says he's going to torture the captives one by one, and if Ensign Expendable didn't fill up his space-pants with a couple of photon torpedoes at that moment he hasn't been keeping up with the red shirt landing party death stats posted weekly on the bulletin board outside the ship's 24-hour morgue.
Lucky for Ensign Expendable, Chekov jumps the line and demands to be tortured first, so the Klingons put a deck of playing cards on his cheek and he rolls around in the pool sand on the Paramount sound stage shrieking like they're ripping his accent out by the roots without Novocain.
Kirk secretly signals Spock up on the ship that there are Klingons in the pantry, and before you can say "why not just leave them on the planet so there won't be any trouble like, for instance, the Klingons trying to take over the Enterprise?" Spock beams them aboard and temporarily captures them.
The glowing light in the sunglasses comes aboard too, but it's whistling so nonchalantly with its arms behind its back as it floats away that no one bothers to ask for its passport.
Instead of putting his prisoners in the brig, which seems to make sense to me when dealing with a violent race of bloodthirsty killers, Kirk sets them up on the lido deck near the mahjong tables and all-you-can-eat ice cream sundae bar. Before Kirk can question them, the stacks of sugar cones and the volleyball net somehow miraculously turn into swords and the Klingons battle the Enterprise crew members all the way back to the cupboard between the lap pool and the shuffleboard court where the spare deck chairs are stored.
Up on the bridge, the floating sparkling light has switched into a false mustache so no one thinks to question it when, after it floats past whistling, there's suddenly a cinder block on the gas pedal and the ship is flying almost as out-of-control crazy as the SUVs of those women who daily nearly run me down while yapping on their cell phones instead of paying attention to the damn road.
Kirk orders the engine room secured but Scotty, who allegedly knows every rivet on the Enterprise, forgets that the engine room has two floors. Chief Engineer Genius neglects to lock the door to the upstairs apartment and the Klingons waltz in off the fire escape and take over the joint. Scotty and the couple of guys who escape at least manage to knock out two Klingons outside the engine room doors. We were told that there were only thirty-eight Klingons and an equal number of Federation crew, so I figure dragging off those two unconscious Klingons to the brig would be a good first step in depleting their numbers. I'm ashamed to admit that I wouldn't make much of an outer space naval officer like Scotty, who makes the brilliant command decision to run away and leave the unconscious Klingons lying on the floor outside the engine room door so they can wake up and rejoin their pals.
On the bridge, Spock talks to the computer. The. Com-pu-tore. Answers. In. That. Stilted. Woman's. Voice. That. All. Futuristic. Com-pu-tores. Have. Okay, so com-pu-tores are annoying in the future. You're telling me Facebook Timeline isn't a million times worse?
Kirk gets mad but then stops being mad and stares at his balled-up fists saying, "Look at me! Look at me!" but since he doesn't finish with "I'm wearing a cardboard belt!" I figure he's probably not auditioning for the role of Max Bialystock in the ship's production of The Producers.
Oy vey, I thought I hit rock bottom with Joan Collins.
We learn that the diphtheria chrysanthemums that power the ship have eight space minutes of life left in them before the ship is left adrift forever. But never mind that, because downstairs Chekov is sexually assaulting a Klingon chick with zebra eye makeup. Before anything good happens, Kirk jumps out of the broom cupboard and punches Chekov in the head. Probably because sexually assaulting alien babes is the captain's job.
The floating blob of light shows up again but this time it forgot its fedora and Groucho glasses in the men's room, so it's busted. Kirk and Spock say it thrives on hatred and that it manipulates events to keep the violence going. I wonder in exactly what year between now and the 23rd Century Hamas and its BBC mouthpieces turn into glowing balls of light.
Kirk says he has to transport directly into the engine room so that he can talk peace with the Klingons. Scotty says that's nearly impossible because he could materialize inside a deck or a wall. So they can send people as streams of energy miles away to unexplored terrain with pinpoint accuracy, but a couple of dozen yards within a ship that has been constructed to exact specifications down to a fraction of a millimeter is tricky stuff.
Kirk shows up in the engine room, and so does the glowing ball of light. It floats around the ceiling like it owns the joint while it gets the head Klingon to sword fight with Kirk (no, I will not go for that easy joke, and get your mind out of the gutter).
Kirk throws down his sword in an act of faith that, were this real life and not two minutes from the end of a TV episode, would mean Spock's first act as captain would be to get McCoy to stitch the head back on for the funeral.
Spock says that "good spirits" will make the mean light bulb go away, so the reluctant boys from St. Klingons who are bashfully studying their shoes on one side of the engine room come over and ask the boys from Federation High to dance. It's a Starfleet mixer! The band plays, Scotty spikes the punch, Kang and Kirk throw back their heads and laugh and the glowing light wallflower floats off to pout and cry into its pillow and wonder why that pulsar from Alpha Centauri never called for a second date.
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