From: nebusj-@-rpi-.edu   
      
   Obsession:   
   The Plot:   
   	Kirk attempts, at any cost, to destroy a vampiristic creature he   
   met before as a young officer.  (Tivo.)   
      
      
   	So we have another of the episodes in which Kirk encounters a   
   mysterious creature that feeds on humans, and decides to kill it.  Kirk   
   gets a lot of good press for not killing the horta in 'The Devil in the   
   Dark', although that seems to be the be curious out-of-character moment   
   for him.  The salt vampire of 'The Man Trap' is killed even though it   
   would seem common commercial salt production would be plenty to keep it   
   safely controlled.   
      
   	The flying space pancakes in 'Operation- Annihilate' are killed   
   off, although the suggestion that they are parts of a mass mind seems to   
   suggest that it might be possible to communicate and reason with it.   
   It's hard to know what to reason about (``Stop killing us'' ``Who are   
   you?''), but in 24th Century Trek they'd undoubtedly try it out.   
      
   	The giant space amoeba of 'The Immunity Syndrome' is ... well,   
   there's probably little to be done about that given how lethal and   
   mindless it seems to be, although the existence of one does suggest   
   there should be a giant space ecosystem we don't see again.  (Yeah,   
   there's the giant space pancake that thought the Enterprise-D was its   
   mommy, but that's a *much* smaller creature and Team Picard really   
   couldn't handle it.)   
      
   	This is the episode to give us Kirk's history on the Farragut,   
   giving about the biggest lump of backstory we ever get on the Young   
   Kirk.  He reported Ben Finney for inattention to duty, and he survived   
   one of those many horrid events that happen to other starships.   
      
   	This also gives us our second round of The Obsessed Captain,   
   after 'The Doomsday Machine', and the first time the obsessed captain is   
   the Hero.  In this context, it's kind of amazing nobody bothers to talk   
   about Moby-Dick, but that wouldn't become lodged as the Official Star   
   Trek Indicator Of Being A Driven Captain until 'The Wrath of Khan',   
   whereupon it became just something you did with captains every couple   
   dozen episodes so that they could act all driven and borderline crazy.   
   I wonder if any of the Trek writers ever actually read Moby-Dick.   
      
   	(For all its reputation as an impenetrable lump of text, I   
   liked Moby-Dick.  It may have more information about 19th Century   
   Whaling than there *is* information about 19th Century Whaling in it,   
   but the style -- particularly in how it's mostly a bunch of little   
   chapters on different topics, most of them having nothing to do with   
   the plot which was pretty well covered by the Mister Magoo adaptation   
   anyway -- worked for me.)   
      
   	I'd always had good recollections of this episode, but in   
   watching the remastering it seemed more stitched-together than it had   
   before, possibly because they've done the exotic alien creature able to   
   kill at a touch several times before, and components like the   
   last-minute transporter rescue were *also* done already, particularly in   
   'The Changeling'.  That comes across more as padding this time, though.   
      
   	One of the elements of this -- the cloud creature charing and   
   inhabiting the Enterprise -- would be reused in 'The Lights of Zetar'.   
   Sometimes I like that episode; sometimes I don't.  When I'm in the mood   
   for it, that's a very creepy show and I feel spooked by the Zetar cloud   
   intrusion.  It is a neat gimmick, though, and it feels like it's   
   underused, although energy critters are always hanging around the   
   holodeck in the 24th century.   
      
      
   Thoughts While Watching:   
   	- Tritantium: yet another exotic material we'll never hear from   
   again except in technical manuals.   
      
   	- Spock phasers off a specimen without even starting to wonder   
   if they're living rocks again.   
      
   	- I guess the salad forks are to make this look more like   
   geology.   
      
   	- I like the modest crane shot used for sending out the raw   
   deadmeat.   
      
   	- Red alert is apparently more than just a state of bridge work.   
      
   	- They have a rendezvous in eight hours and they're prospecting?   
      
   	- Spock doesn't know the curious properties of di-kironium in   
   its previous 'natural' infestation?  His omniscience is slipping.   
      
   	- Well, at least they don't use the metaphor of a door opening   
   ... and closing ... to explain why the sensors don't pick up what   
   they're designed to pick up here.   
      
   	- They're dead!  Ignore their breathing please.  At least Rizzo   
   made it, although he would have to be re-formed as a Muppet.   
      
   	- ``What happened is medically impossible!'' Unless you use   
   something like teleporters to bring them out.   
      
   	- ``Check those record tapes.  I want your medical analysis as   
   quickly as possible.''   
   	TOM: Oh, what, now Kirk wants McCoy to do *research* on top of   
   calling people dead?  Next he's gonna want McCoy to try resuscitating   
   somebody.   
      
   	- Kirk never imagined a being which could disguise or even   
   transform itself under sensor analysis even though half the   
   nigh-omnipotent beings they encounter do that trick.   
      
   	- It's a good thing Garrovick proves important to the plot or   
   else the close-up on him as he comes out the turbolift would be really   
   odd.   
      
   	- 94 mark 7, angle of elevation 6 degrees.  What?   
      
   	- ``What was the size of the thing you saw, Ensign?''   
   	CROW: I can't really say, it's too hard to do the special   
   effects right.   
      
   	- Scott decides to take the time to screw up the engines royally   
   in a procedure we've never heard about before and will never hear of   
   again.   
      
   	- McCoy skimmed over the medical record tapes but the Garrovick   
   and Kirk connections didn't pop out?  For that matter, the important   
   points of the deaths weren't right up in the first paragraph?  Who   
   writes these reports, the Committee Against Comprehension?   
      
   	- ``Captain Garrovick was very important to you, wasn't he,   
   Jim?''   
   	TOM: McCoy's got his full Deanna Troi game on today.   
      
   	- Extended warp eight isn't so good for the Enterprise.  This   
   week.   
      
   	- It's a matter-energy creature using gravitational fields for   
   propulsion.  This is practically a festival of 60s technobabble for the   
   show.   
      
   	- Nurse Chapel gets to actually deploy psychology and   
   personality.  Shame it ends up backfiring and almost destroying the   
   ship, not to mention nearly killing Spock.  That'll teach her to have a   
   personality.  But this is the sort of thing that teaches people not to   
   use real switches.   
      
   	- ``There.  It's coming, sir.''  Someone remembered Nichelle   
   Nichols is seeing Gene Roddenberry.   
      
   	- Flushing the radioactive waste into the ventilation system ...   
   this is back in the days when a few dozen rem were good for you.   
      
   	- So now there's a time-synch thing to throw out of?   
      
   	- So, now, the first time Garrovick almost got people killed it   
   was a momentary pause which would have made no difference; the second   
   time it was an unintentional action which could easily have killed Spock   
   if the script were willing to kill a title character.   
      
   	- It's lucky for Kirk that Spock concluded the creature is about   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)