Review: Star Trek (1973-1974) [11-16]

"The Terratin Incident" (5/10)
Shit, a gas cloud. That can’t be good. Bones has gotten way too mouthy. There’s that damn “jury-rig” phrase again!
--Well, they tried a little harder. The animation on Cepheus looks interesting, they use some new camera angles, and the script is tightly plotted for being an “everybody shrinks” story. In fact, the writing is really strong in general. Is it a rejected script from the live-action show? Who is this gent? *looks up Paul Schneider* Oh SHIT he wrote “Balance of Terror!” … oh and “The Squire of Gothos.” But still!

"The Ambergris Element" (2/10)
The WHAT? Running a specimen retrieval gambit, the away team pisses off a monster and Spock and Kirk somehow get lung-fucked. Like Neelix! And a red shirt survives!
--This episode has elements of the John Smith/Pocahontas story, with an incredibly uninteresting progression of events ending in a violation of the Prime Directive. I’ll tell ya one thing: it’s good to know that fishwomen still possess boobs.

"The Slaver Weapon" (5/10)
Spock takes us on a journey through a short story full of big ideas and Stasis Box politics. Yes. I don’t even want to know what a “soft weapon” is.
--They get Spock down pretty well here, in the sense that he fucks up yet another command gig. Not that it wouldn’t have happened under Kirk’s watch too but c’mon, give the guy a win some time. The episode makes a couple of dumb decisions in the execution department, of course, but it ends up being another one that’s goddamn impressive, given the show it’s in.

"The Eye of the Beholder" (3/10)
After battling a series of monsters one after the other like assholes, the away team is captured by some giant snails. Is EVERY woman Nurse Chapel?!
--Another Galactic Zoo episode masquerading as something else until the last ten minutes. I’ll give that a difficult problem is established for the characters to overcome, and they do it somewhat cleverly. I’d rather they funnel that ambition into the universe they’re portraying. “Wait a minute! You… you… Hey!” Nailed it again, Bones. I’m glad you didn’t suffocate comically.

"The Jihad" (3/10)
Ready your asses for xenophobia sublimation and some obvious religious parallels. Are the birdmen… Jews?
--A Dirty Dozen style team goes on a tightly-regimented excursion to basically recover an artifact that proves the existence of god. It’s not as exciting as it sounds. Unnecessary plot twist ensues. I really wanted this one to be better, too. Don't ask me why.

"The Time Trap" (3/10)
Why is it that the Enterprise is the one that gets stuck investigating all of the disappearances? Why are there so many of them to begin with?
--They used the same character models from “More Tribbles, More Troubles” for the view-screen, but the Klingon captain looks different when we see him in his ship. The animation is incredibly shitty all over the map. Eh, who cares at this point, I guess. The plot of this one is like the Voyager episode where everyone is trapped in that void and trying to work together to get out, only here there is an annoying all-powerful mediator (cabal). You know how I adore those. I’d also complain about the awfully convenient way in which there is no racial overlap in the so-called randomly assembled void committee, but… Orion slavegirl…