Monday, February 11, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Goofball Review of Goofball Star Trek Episode "That Which Survives"
At the start of this week's Star Trek I was reminded of those kickballs
we used to try to kick up on the roof in grammar school. Evidently
those suckers had a lot more bounce than we thought, because at least
one of them cleared the solar system. The Enterprise flies up to Giant
Planet Kickball Floating in Space which Spock says is the size of
Earth's moon. I figure it's probably not one of ours after all, because
we couldn't have pumped that thing up with a bike pump by the end of
recess.
Kirk thinks Planet Kickball is a spooky ghost planet because it shouldn't be there, it should be in the closet at the end of the second floor hallway with the half-deflated basketballs and the tangled volleyball net from 1957. He decides to beam down to investigate with Sulu and Bones, and he orders Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse to meet them in the transporter room.
As they are beaming down, a chick in a purple genie costume appears in the transporter room and kills the ensign who is running the beamer. But wait! What foul feline fiend is this? Could Captain Kirk have a clawed criminal cat-astrophe on his paws? Watch out, Enterprising souls, for this purr-fect purveyor of perilous pandemonium is none other than that villainous vixen...Catwoman! But...oh, wait a second. Everybody hold onto your hairballs, because she's the least interesting one after Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt.
As soon as Kirk, Bones, Sulu and Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse arrive on the planet, the Enterprise is thrown out of orbit and vanishes. Sulu thinks the Enterprise blew up and suggests that men in certain dire situations resort to actions they ordinarily wouldn't to fulfill certain -- you know -- needs.
After a quick survey, they find that there is no water on the giant kickball, and all the plants are poisonous. Not to worry though, since they'll soon have a Thanksgiving dinner's-worth of dead geologist to eat a la a South American soccer team.
Genie Catwoman shows up and talks to Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse for ten minutes before he suddenly recognizes her as the woman who murdered that guy in the transporter room eleven minutes before. Either a.) he needs glasses, b.) he needs to survey his own head for rocks or c.) there must be one whole crapload of genie Catwomen in purple bikini pantsuits wandering around up there in outer space.
In a shocking twist that no one could have seen coming, Catwoman kills Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse. I'm stunned. I was sure he'd make it to the movies.
Later, at the "he's dead, Jim" after party, Bones says that each one of the geologist's cells were scrambled like a milkshake and that this is a cat-egory of meowing medical malfeasance not cat-alogued before. Why, it's a virtual tabby-la rasa.
Upstairs, the Enterprise has been sent a thousand light years away, probably because Spock put a woman in Sulu's place at the helm and we all know what gals are like with that whole sense-of-direction thing. Am I right, fellas? (Oh, lighten up, Bella Abzug...I'm building to something for the last episode.) This one looks like a leftover witch from the Halloween episode and demonstrates her respect for Spock by rolling her eyes, making "pfft" noises and standing in front of the viewscreen and insisting he talk about his feelings during the best part of the show.
Scotty says the ship doesn't feel right, so he sends his assistant in his pajamas out front to pop the hood. The assistant meets the chick in the purple bikini pantsuit who kills him like she killed the ensign in the transporter room, then vanishes into a dot like a TV turning off. I think that's a pretty good idea right now, but I decide to stick with it anyway.
Back on Planet Kickball, Kirk thinks the joint is artificial and might be hollow, and I assume we viewers aren't supposed to remember the last hollow planet they were on where Bones thought he was dying so he got married, but then he got better and gallantly ditched his wife of five minutes and took off so fast that all he left behind was a Bones-shaped puff of cartoon dust.
Kirk says they should sleep in shifts and tells Sulu to take the first watch. Kirk fluffs up a Styrofoam rock as a pillow and Sulu hikes around a corner and about a hundred miles away to keep a lookout. How all these tactical geniuses survived more than two minutes let alone three seasons and six movies against the Klingons is beyond me.
The chick in the purple bikini pantsuit shows up again, and Sulu tells her, "I don't want to have to kill a woman." That's not all he doesn't want to have to do with a woman.
Catwoman touches Sulu's arm and he screams that she's a yucky girl with cooties. Kirk jumps in between them to valiantly get felt up by the hot babe. Catwoman grabs him but for some reason when she touches Kirk she doesn't milkshake his cells like everybody else's, so she disappears in a TV dot while some sexy "La-la-laaaaa!" singing screams over the soundtrack. I wonder why if she can appear and disappear at will, she just doesn't appear right next to Sulu and scramble his cells.
Back on the Enterprise, Scotty says the chick in the purple bikini pantsuit has set the ship to blow up in 15 minutes. The show still has 32 minutes left, so I guess the last 17 minutes will just be scenes of Sulu's post traumatic stress from being touched by a girl intercut with images of floating space debris.
On Planet Kickball, Catwoman comes back for Kirk this time. It turns out each Catwoman who appears can only kill one guy at a time, which is why Kirk didn't get milkshaked before when she grabbed his goodies. Sulu's melted shoulder is mysteriously better with no explanation whatsoever, and Captain Courageous bravely hides behind Sulu and Bones while Catwoman tries to grab him. It occurs to me that this is probably the first time that Kirk has run from a hot babe, and I wonder what exactly happened between him and Sulu during those scenes where the show cut back to Spock and Scotty on the Enterprise. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Up on the Enterprise, Scotty feeds yellow crackers to the computer. Spock talks to the com-pu-tore! Then Scotty sticks tools down his underpants like Sandy Berger with top secret documents. Apparently the advanced technology for constructing a so-called "tool belt" was lost to mankind sometime during the Great Handyman Wars of the 2120s, so the only place to shove your screwdriver now is down your underwear.
Unlike William Shatner in an earlier episode, both Scotty and Spock pronounce "sabotage" correctly, so that's nice.
Down on Planet Kickball, a Styrofoam wall rolls away and Kirk, Bones and Sulu decide it's a good idea to walk single-file into secret cavern on a poison-plant kickball world where their ship may or may not have blown up and Catwomen in bikini pantsuits keep popping out from behind the nearest molecule to kill them. What could possibly go wrong?
On the Enterprise, Scotty is trying to fix the ship with a giant lipstick, but it sticks. Then it unsticks and he shoves it in the toaster and everything is fine.
Back on Planet Kickball, Kirk and co. have found a secret computer room dedicated to producing Catwomen in purple bikini pantsuits. This time three of them show up in a special effects-laden finale that will leave you baffled. Although I figured it out. (Spoiler Alert! Lee Merriweather has been triplets in real-life all along, like that magician movie with Wolverine and Batman. End spoiler!)
There is now one Catwoman programmed to kill each of the landing party, so Kirk decides to play the worst shell game in the history of the universe. Kirk, Bones and Sulu jump around waving their arms like the puppets in Team America, thus confusing their attackers. This is probably the absolutely most moronic decision he could make under the circumstances, since running around in circles around the three Catwomen would only serve to confuse the attackee. Each Catwoman knows who she's after, and has announced it to the room, so running around in circles absolutely will only confuse the guys from the Enterprise. If, for instance, the Dionne Quintuplets show up in your living room with a murderous glint in their Canadian eyes, don't start doing laps around the sofa. If Yvonne says she's going to kill you, stay put and keep your eyes locked on her rather than risk mixing her up with Annette.
Luckily Spock shows up with a ray gun and shoots the plastic box glued to the ceiling and all the Catwomen vanish in a puff of sexy "la-la-laaaa!" music.
It turns out that Catwoman has been dead for a million years and the plastic box on the ceiling was just sending out projections of her to kill intruders because it was taking a nap and it was sick of the Space Girl Scouts ringing Planet Kickball's doorbell every five minutes with their damn mint cookies. Or something. I don't know. Who cares?
Kirk thinks Planet Kickball is a spooky ghost planet because it shouldn't be there, it should be in the closet at the end of the second floor hallway with the half-deflated basketballs and the tangled volleyball net from 1957. He decides to beam down to investigate with Sulu and Bones, and he orders Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse to meet them in the transporter room.
As they are beaming down, a chick in a purple genie costume appears in the transporter room and kills the ensign who is running the beamer. But wait! What foul feline fiend is this? Could Captain Kirk have a clawed criminal cat-astrophe on his paws? Watch out, Enterprising souls, for this purr-fect purveyor of perilous pandemonium is none other than that villainous vixen...Catwoman! But...oh, wait a second. Everybody hold onto your hairballs, because she's the least interesting one after Julie Newmar and Eartha Kitt.
As soon as Kirk, Bones, Sulu and Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse arrive on the planet, the Enterprise is thrown out of orbit and vanishes. Sulu thinks the Enterprise blew up and suggests that men in certain dire situations resort to actions they ordinarily wouldn't to fulfill certain -- you know -- needs.
After a quick survey, they find that there is no water on the giant kickball, and all the plants are poisonous. Not to worry though, since they'll soon have a Thanksgiving dinner's-worth of dead geologist to eat a la a South American soccer team.
Genie Catwoman shows up and talks to Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse for ten minutes before he suddenly recognizes her as the woman who murdered that guy in the transporter room eleven minutes before. Either a.) he needs glasses, b.) he needs to survey his own head for rocks or c.) there must be one whole crapload of genie Catwomen in purple bikini pantsuits wandering around up there in outer space.
In a shocking twist that no one could have seen coming, Catwoman kills Senior Geologist Inevitable Corpse. I'm stunned. I was sure he'd make it to the movies.
Later, at the "he's dead, Jim" after party, Bones says that each one of the geologist's cells were scrambled like a milkshake and that this is a cat-egory of meowing medical malfeasance not cat-alogued before. Why, it's a virtual tabby-la rasa.
Upstairs, the Enterprise has been sent a thousand light years away, probably because Spock put a woman in Sulu's place at the helm and we all know what gals are like with that whole sense-of-direction thing. Am I right, fellas? (Oh, lighten up, Bella Abzug...I'm building to something for the last episode.) This one looks like a leftover witch from the Halloween episode and demonstrates her respect for Spock by rolling her eyes, making "pfft" noises and standing in front of the viewscreen and insisting he talk about his feelings during the best part of the show.
I don't like the way Captain Kirk keeps dressing me with his eyes.
Scotty says the ship doesn't feel right, so he sends his assistant in his pajamas out front to pop the hood. The assistant meets the chick in the purple bikini pantsuit who kills him like she killed the ensign in the transporter room, then vanishes into a dot like a TV turning off. I think that's a pretty good idea right now, but I decide to stick with it anyway.
Back on Planet Kickball, Kirk thinks the joint is artificial and might be hollow, and I assume we viewers aren't supposed to remember the last hollow planet they were on where Bones thought he was dying so he got married, but then he got better and gallantly ditched his wife of five minutes and took off so fast that all he left behind was a Bones-shaped puff of cartoon dust.
Kirk says they should sleep in shifts and tells Sulu to take the first watch. Kirk fluffs up a Styrofoam rock as a pillow and Sulu hikes around a corner and about a hundred miles away to keep a lookout. How all these tactical geniuses survived more than two minutes let alone three seasons and six movies against the Klingons is beyond me.
The chick in the purple bikini pantsuit shows up again, and Sulu tells her, "I don't want to have to kill a woman." That's not all he doesn't want to have to do with a woman.
Catwoman touches Sulu's arm and he screams that she's a yucky girl with cooties. Kirk jumps in between them to valiantly get felt up by the hot babe. Catwoman grabs him but for some reason when she touches Kirk she doesn't milkshake his cells like everybody else's, so she disappears in a TV dot while some sexy "La-la-laaaaa!" singing screams over the soundtrack. I wonder why if she can appear and disappear at will, she just doesn't appear right next to Sulu and scramble his cells.
Back on the Enterprise, Scotty says the chick in the purple bikini pantsuit has set the ship to blow up in 15 minutes. The show still has 32 minutes left, so I guess the last 17 minutes will just be scenes of Sulu's post traumatic stress from being touched by a girl intercut with images of floating space debris.
On Planet Kickball, Catwoman comes back for Kirk this time. It turns out each Catwoman who appears can only kill one guy at a time, which is why Kirk didn't get milkshaked before when she grabbed his goodies. Sulu's melted shoulder is mysteriously better with no explanation whatsoever, and Captain Courageous bravely hides behind Sulu and Bones while Catwoman tries to grab him. It occurs to me that this is probably the first time that Kirk has run from a hot babe, and I wonder what exactly happened between him and Sulu during those scenes where the show cut back to Spock and Scotty on the Enterprise. Not that there's anything wrong with that.
Up on the Enterprise, Scotty feeds yellow crackers to the computer. Spock talks to the com-pu-tore! Then Scotty sticks tools down his underpants like Sandy Berger with top secret documents. Apparently the advanced technology for constructing a so-called "tool belt" was lost to mankind sometime during the Great Handyman Wars of the 2120s, so the only place to shove your screwdriver now is down your underwear.
Unlike William Shatner in an earlier episode, both Scotty and Spock pronounce "sabotage" correctly, so that's nice.
Down on Planet Kickball, a Styrofoam wall rolls away and Kirk, Bones and Sulu decide it's a good idea to walk single-file into secret cavern on a poison-plant kickball world where their ship may or may not have blown up and Catwomen in bikini pantsuits keep popping out from behind the nearest molecule to kill them. What could possibly go wrong?
On the Enterprise, Scotty is trying to fix the ship with a giant lipstick, but it sticks. Then it unsticks and he shoves it in the toaster and everything is fine.
Back on Planet Kickball, Kirk and co. have found a secret computer room dedicated to producing Catwomen in purple bikini pantsuits. This time three of them show up in a special effects-laden finale that will leave you baffled. Although I figured it out. (Spoiler Alert! Lee Merriweather has been triplets in real-life all along, like that magician movie with Wolverine and Batman. End spoiler!)
There is now one Catwoman programmed to kill each of the landing party, so Kirk decides to play the worst shell game in the history of the universe. Kirk, Bones and Sulu jump around waving their arms like the puppets in Team America, thus confusing their attackers. This is probably the absolutely most moronic decision he could make under the circumstances, since running around in circles around the three Catwomen would only serve to confuse the attackee. Each Catwoman knows who she's after, and has announced it to the room, so running around in circles absolutely will only confuse the guys from the Enterprise. If, for instance, the Dionne Quintuplets show up in your living room with a murderous glint in their Canadian eyes, don't start doing laps around the sofa. If Yvonne says she's going to kill you, stay put and keep your eyes locked on her rather than risk mixing her up with Annette.
Luckily Spock shows up with a ray gun and shoots the plastic box glued to the ceiling and all the Catwomen vanish in a puff of sexy "la-la-laaaa!" music.
It turns out that Catwoman has been dead for a million years and the plastic box on the ceiling was just sending out projections of her to kill intruders because it was taking a nap and it was sick of the Space Girl Scouts ringing Planet Kickball's doorbell every five minutes with their damn mint cookies. Or something. I don't know. Who cares?
Friday, February 8, 2013
Errors in Steven Spielberg's "Lincoln"
I just read that somebody found an error in Steven Spielberg's
"Lincoln." Only one? They weren't watching carefully enough. Here are
a few more:
--Lincoln wore actual stovepipe hat, not one constructed from mashed potatoes
--Did not write Gettysburg Address on back of "1941" shooting script
--Lincoln was shot by assassin, not eaten by mechanical shark
--John Wilkes Booth was not captured by Zorro after thrilling six minute action set piece
--Civil War had more to do with slavery, less with keeping Jefferson Davis from capturing Ark of the Covenant
--Pinkerton detectives not aided by young Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
--Lincoln's actual anthropomorphic teddy bear companion had less foul mouth
--Fewer gremlins at Pickett's Charge
--M&M's not Reese's Pieces was official snack food of War Between the States
--Aliens landed on White House lawn in March 1861 not April 1861 as depicted in film
--Guns digitally erased from daguerreotypes for Civil War 20th Anniversary Special Edition
--Lincoln's last words were not, "Abe L. phone home."
--Lincoln wore actual stovepipe hat, not one constructed from mashed potatoes
--Did not write Gettysburg Address on back of "1941" shooting script
--Lincoln was shot by assassin, not eaten by mechanical shark
--John Wilkes Booth was not captured by Zorro after thrilling six minute action set piece
--Civil War had more to do with slavery, less with keeping Jefferson Davis from capturing Ark of the Covenant
--Pinkerton detectives not aided by young Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson
--Lincoln's actual anthropomorphic teddy bear companion had less foul mouth
--Fewer gremlins at Pickett's Charge
--M&M's not Reese's Pieces was official snack food of War Between the States
--Aliens landed on White House lawn in March 1861 not April 1861 as depicted in film
--Guns digitally erased from daguerreotypes for Civil War 20th Anniversary Special Edition
--Lincoln's last words were not, "Abe L. phone home."
Thursday, February 7, 2013
New slogans for Burger King:
Let's Giddyup to Burger King!
Hi-ho, Savings!
Burger King: Didn't You Always Kind of Suspect It?
Because Greyhound Meat Was Too Stringy!
Try Our New Barbecued Fetlocks!
I Feel Like Horse Meat Tonight!
If There's a Horseshoe in Your Burger, It's Free!
We Hope To God You Don't Ask What's In the Fries!
Eat At Burger King Tonight: It Just Makes Horse Sense!
Home of the Whinnier!
Burger King: A Lot of Love In Every Burger, and Substantially More Horse!
KING RICHARD III: A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse. And a delicious order of piping hot fries!
They EXEUNT to Burger King
Hi-ho, Savings!
Burger King: Didn't You Always Kind of Suspect It?
Because Greyhound Meat Was Too Stringy!
Try Our New Barbecued Fetlocks!
I Feel Like Horse Meat Tonight!
If There's a Horseshoe in Your Burger, It's Free!
We Hope To God You Don't Ask What's In the Fries!
Eat At Burger King Tonight: It Just Makes Horse Sense!
Home of the Whinnier!
Burger King: A Lot of Love In Every Burger, and Substantially More Horse!
KING RICHARD III: A horse, a horse! My kingdom for a horse!
CATESBY: Withdraw, my lord; I'll help you to a horse. And a delicious order of piping hot fries!
They EXEUNT to Burger King
Sunday, February 3, 2013
Goofball Review of Goofball Star Trek Episode "The Mark of Gideon"
The plot of this week's Star Trek is thinner than a double-decker Karen
Carpenter/Lara Flynn Boyle sandwich on gluten-free helium bread.
In the opening scene, the Enterprise arrives in orbit around Planet Giddyup. We're told it's a paradise, but for some reason the Giddyuppians won't let anyone actually see how idyllic the joint is. No one on the Enterprise is suspicious that this "no flash photography, please" rule maybe means the place ain't as swell as Giddyup claims. Giddyup also claims that their basement is as clean as a whistle, their garage isn't crammed full of broken skis and used car batteries, and that they've Swiffered the whole planet, even the tippity-tops of those hard-to-reach mountains.
Only one person is permitted to beam down, so of course a non-vital senior officer with diplomatic credentials is sent to represent the Federation. Oops. Wait. Nope. It's Kirk.
Spock recites the coordinates that the Giddyuppians have sent like he's reading farsighted Kirk the number to the White House switchboard or McDonald's corporate headquarters. I'm sure the fact that they've just had Spock tell us a series of numbers a mile-long won't have any bearing on anything later on in the episode.
Kirk beams off the Enterprise but materializes back in the transporter room of what appears to be the Enterprise. There is no one on the ship and just as Kirk begins to panic that he won't have anyone to bang this episode, a crazy babe in a wrapping paper dress dances up the corridor. Crisis averted.
The crazy chick says her name is O'Donnell and she doesn't know how she got there or where she came from. If she's looking for an abstract physiology lesson, boy did she ever pick the wrong guy to ask where babies come from.
All of a sudden we're back on the real Enterprise. Everyone is still there at their blipping, bleeping consoles, including some guy in a blue shirt who sits in Spock's chair with his arms crossed like a seat-warmer at the Oscars doing nothing for the whole rest of the episode. This guy's getting a check from Starfleet and Paramount for doing nothing all day long. And I think I saw him lugging a block of WIC cheese onto the turbolift at the end of the show.
The Nazi Diana Ross and his baldheaded Supremes who run Giddyup tell Spock that Kirk never arrived, but promise they'll conduct a ruthless, door-to-door search for him in every attic from here to Amsterdam.
Back on the fake Enterprise, the ship appears to be zooming through space, so to address the problem of a missing crew and a runaway ship, Starfleet's greatest captain shakes the crazy broad, makes out with her, shakes her some more, then takes her to his quarters to play some Barry White and show her his ceiling mirror. Okay, yes, this one actually is a hot babe, but Kirk doesn't even try to contact Starfleet. I'd probably fiddle with the knobs on the radio first.
Twenty-four minutes in I realize that if William Shatner didn't pause for fifteen seconds between each word, this episode would be ten minutes long.
Kirk is convinced this is his ship, even though we now know that it isn't. Wouldn't there be at least one stain on one console somewhere on the ship where his coffee mug sat without a coaster that has been there since he took over as captain but which he notices is now suddenly mysteriously missing? How would the Giddyuppians who built the fake Enterprise with plywood and glue out in the backyard know every little chip and ding and stain that might be on the ship, let alone what books Kirk has in his quarters, how many wig stands Chekov owns and which Vulcan Justin Beiber poster Spock has hanging on his wall? And how would they have access to Kirk's log voice recordings? Couldn't he try to play them back only to find out they no longer exist and begin to realize that this isn't his ship after all? Nah, Kirk doesn't bother to check any of those things since he's too busy making out in front of the window with the chick he just met.
All of sudden a bunch of leering creeps in green unitards are peeking in on them. Kirk, whose crew is lost and whose ship has been hijacked, is too busy making out and doesn't notice them. Is there something that's the opposite of Viagra, because this guy needs the maximum strength dosage. How about Flintstone's chewable vitamins with Sarah Jessica Parker's Hee-Haw donkey face on them?
The Nazi leader of Giddyup allows Spock to beam up a baldie Supreme from the council chamber, then back down again. Spock realizes that the numbers Space Hitler gave this time don't match the coordinates he gave the first time for Kirk to beam down to. And here I thought they were just reading twenty numbers at the start of the show just to kill time.
Kirk hears drums pounding on the ship and says they sound like a thousand heartbeats. Then he makes out with the chick he just met again and this time he sees the unitard peeping toms staring in the window at them. Then the alien chick who he's just met and who he's been making out with the whole episode gets sick. I'm surprised I don't see any rampaging cold sores. Then she passes out.
The Nazi leader of Giddyup walks out a door like Allen Funt, but at least he's not doubled over and wiping his eyes from phony laughter. We learn from Space Hitler that the Giddyuppians built this huge, elaborate, multistoried working replica of the Starship Enterprise because they wanted Kirk to sneeze on the chick.
Giddyup was a paradise, Space Hitler says, until everyone stopped getting sick and started living forever. Now all they can do is march around shoulder-to-shoulder in unitards and look in each others' windows. They wanted Kirk to get the girl, who is Space Hitler's daughter, sick with terminal genital warts so that she could spread them to the whole planet and everyone can die. Ah, so it's the OVERPOPULATION episode of Star Trek, where we humans here in the far-off distant 1960s past on Earth need to learn to stop making babies or we'll eventually be stuffed in a unitard and forced to look in a window at horny William Shatner.
Let me think.
No, Sarah Jessica Parker is still worse.
Kirk wants to spend a couple of days flying around the planet shoveling IUDs out the shuttle bay door, but the Nazi nixes the idea and says they really have their hearts set on this mass-suicide thing. It's a shame they don't listen to Kirk, because if anyone in the galaxy is an expert on not getting broads knocked up, it's James T. Kirk.
I wonder why if the Giddyuppians can build a starship on the surface of their planet good enough to fool a starship captain, they didn't build it up in the air and fly off to another planet in it instead of settling on mass suicide. I also wonder who is making all those unitards they're wearing, since we're told there's no room to do anything on the whole planet but stand shoulder-to-shoulder next to other people. Tailors have to be sitting down somewhere to make those unitards on their Singer sewing machines. And they must be eating stuff, so there must be farmland. And why if they can build a perfect replica of a starship, don't they at least think to build their buildings...I don't know...up? It seems to me that very tall buildings in major cities and a fleet of ships ferrying pioneer settlers to other nearby planets would be preferable to voluntarily infecting your entire world with a dose of Kirk's jambalaya of 1001 exotic alien social diseases.
Spock shows up with his whistling transistor radio. He beats up Blue Man Group and beams Kirk back to the real Enterprise, even though we're told earlier in the episode that the Giddyuppians block everything with planet-wide shields.
On the Enterprise, Bones cures O'Donnell and wonders why he only had two lines these past two weeks.
The disease is dormant in O'Donnell, but she's still a carrier, so she beams back down to Giddyup to set up a kissing booth at the state fair so she can French-genocide down the population and everyone can live happily ever after except for the quadrillions of people who Captain Kirk, because he now knows the plan, indirectly murders with his Romulan gonorrhea.
In the opening scene, the Enterprise arrives in orbit around Planet Giddyup. We're told it's a paradise, but for some reason the Giddyuppians won't let anyone actually see how idyllic the joint is. No one on the Enterprise is suspicious that this "no flash photography, please" rule maybe means the place ain't as swell as Giddyup claims. Giddyup also claims that their basement is as clean as a whistle, their garage isn't crammed full of broken skis and used car batteries, and that they've Swiffered the whole planet, even the tippity-tops of those hard-to-reach mountains.
Only one person is permitted to beam down, so of course a non-vital senior officer with diplomatic credentials is sent to represent the Federation. Oops. Wait. Nope. It's Kirk.
Spock recites the coordinates that the Giddyuppians have sent like he's reading farsighted Kirk the number to the White House switchboard or McDonald's corporate headquarters. I'm sure the fact that they've just had Spock tell us a series of numbers a mile-long won't have any bearing on anything later on in the episode.
Kirk beams off the Enterprise but materializes back in the transporter room of what appears to be the Enterprise. There is no one on the ship and just as Kirk begins to panic that he won't have anyone to bang this episode, a crazy babe in a wrapping paper dress dances up the corridor. Crisis averted.
The crazy chick says her name is O'Donnell and she doesn't know how she got there or where she came from. If she's looking for an abstract physiology lesson, boy did she ever pick the wrong guy to ask where babies come from.
All of a sudden we're back on the real Enterprise. Everyone is still there at their blipping, bleeping consoles, including some guy in a blue shirt who sits in Spock's chair with his arms crossed like a seat-warmer at the Oscars doing nothing for the whole rest of the episode. This guy's getting a check from Starfleet and Paramount for doing nothing all day long. And I think I saw him lugging a block of WIC cheese onto the turbolift at the end of the show.
The Nazi Diana Ross and his baldheaded Supremes who run Giddyup tell Spock that Kirk never arrived, but promise they'll conduct a ruthless, door-to-door search for him in every attic from here to Amsterdam.
Back on the fake Enterprise, the ship appears to be zooming through space, so to address the problem of a missing crew and a runaway ship, Starfleet's greatest captain shakes the crazy broad, makes out with her, shakes her some more, then takes her to his quarters to play some Barry White and show her his ceiling mirror. Okay, yes, this one actually is a hot babe, but Kirk doesn't even try to contact Starfleet. I'd probably fiddle with the knobs on the radio first.
Twenty-four minutes in I realize that if William Shatner didn't pause for fifteen seconds between each word, this episode would be ten minutes long.
Kirk is convinced this is his ship, even though we now know that it isn't. Wouldn't there be at least one stain on one console somewhere on the ship where his coffee mug sat without a coaster that has been there since he took over as captain but which he notices is now suddenly mysteriously missing? How would the Giddyuppians who built the fake Enterprise with plywood and glue out in the backyard know every little chip and ding and stain that might be on the ship, let alone what books Kirk has in his quarters, how many wig stands Chekov owns and which Vulcan Justin Beiber poster Spock has hanging on his wall? And how would they have access to Kirk's log voice recordings? Couldn't he try to play them back only to find out they no longer exist and begin to realize that this isn't his ship after all? Nah, Kirk doesn't bother to check any of those things since he's too busy making out in front of the window with the chick he just met.
All of sudden a bunch of leering creeps in green unitards are peeking in on them. Kirk, whose crew is lost and whose ship has been hijacked, is too busy making out and doesn't notice them. Is there something that's the opposite of Viagra, because this guy needs the maximum strength dosage. How about Flintstone's chewable vitamins with Sarah Jessica Parker's Hee-Haw donkey face on them?
"My God, whatever these ghoulish creatures are, they are truly horrifying specimens."
"Yes, especially the fat one in the wig and the yellow velour circus shirt."
"Yes, especially the fat one in the wig and the yellow velour circus shirt."
The Nazi leader of Giddyup allows Spock to beam up a baldie Supreme from the council chamber, then back down again. Spock realizes that the numbers Space Hitler gave this time don't match the coordinates he gave the first time for Kirk to beam down to. And here I thought they were just reading twenty numbers at the start of the show just to kill time.
Kirk hears drums pounding on the ship and says they sound like a thousand heartbeats. Then he makes out with the chick he just met again and this time he sees the unitard peeping toms staring in the window at them. Then the alien chick who he's just met and who he's been making out with the whole episode gets sick. I'm surprised I don't see any rampaging cold sores. Then she passes out.
The Nazi leader of Giddyup walks out a door like Allen Funt, but at least he's not doubled over and wiping his eyes from phony laughter. We learn from Space Hitler that the Giddyuppians built this huge, elaborate, multistoried working replica of the Starship Enterprise because they wanted Kirk to sneeze on the chick.
Giddyup was a paradise, Space Hitler says, until everyone stopped getting sick and started living forever. Now all they can do is march around shoulder-to-shoulder in unitards and look in each others' windows. They wanted Kirk to get the girl, who is Space Hitler's daughter, sick with terminal genital warts so that she could spread them to the whole planet and everyone can die. Ah, so it's the OVERPOPULATION episode of Star Trek, where we humans here in the far-off distant 1960s past on Earth need to learn to stop making babies or we'll eventually be stuffed in a unitard and forced to look in a window at horny William Shatner.
Let me think.
No, Sarah Jessica Parker is still worse.
Kirk wants to spend a couple of days flying around the planet shoveling IUDs out the shuttle bay door, but the Nazi nixes the idea and says they really have their hearts set on this mass-suicide thing. It's a shame they don't listen to Kirk, because if anyone in the galaxy is an expert on not getting broads knocked up, it's James T. Kirk.
I wonder why if the Giddyuppians can build a starship on the surface of their planet good enough to fool a starship captain, they didn't build it up in the air and fly off to another planet in it instead of settling on mass suicide. I also wonder who is making all those unitards they're wearing, since we're told there's no room to do anything on the whole planet but stand shoulder-to-shoulder next to other people. Tailors have to be sitting down somewhere to make those unitards on their Singer sewing machines. And they must be eating stuff, so there must be farmland. And why if they can build a perfect replica of a starship, don't they at least think to build their buildings...I don't know...up? It seems to me that very tall buildings in major cities and a fleet of ships ferrying pioneer settlers to other nearby planets would be preferable to voluntarily infecting your entire world with a dose of Kirk's jambalaya of 1001 exotic alien social diseases.
Spock shows up with his whistling transistor radio. He beats up Blue Man Group and beams Kirk back to the real Enterprise, even though we're told earlier in the episode that the Giddyuppians block everything with planet-wide shields.
On the Enterprise, Bones cures O'Donnell and wonders why he only had two lines these past two weeks.
The disease is dormant in O'Donnell, but she's still a carrier, so she beams back down to Giddyup to set up a kissing booth at the state fair so she can French-genocide down the population and everyone can live happily ever after except for the quadrillions of people who Captain Kirk, because he now knows the plan, indirectly murders with his Romulan gonorrhea.
Sunday, January 27, 2013
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