1785

Amazon Prime has it.

1786

Ah, well in that case maybe I’m back in. I guess we’re close enough to the end that we could start discussing what’s next, if anything. At least get a feel for what the interest level might be.

1787

I actually have kinda more interest in it than most other things simply because its been so damn long since I’ve seen any of the animated series. Maybe 20+ years.

1788

Original Series (2 more episodes)
Animated Series (2 seasons)
Star Trek: 25th Anniversary (video game), starring Kirk and the crew
Star Trek: Judgement Rites (video game), starring Kirk and the crew

We discussed that in 2018, hopefully that’s still the plan. I played 25th Anniversary back in 1992, and I loved it despite not knowing anything about Star Trek, not having seen the TV show or movies. So i’m really curious to how it will be now that I am familiar. And I own Judgement Rites on GoG.com as well, but I’ve never played it.

Or, we could watch the original series movies first before we get to the games?

Star Trek I-VI
Star Trek: Generations - the death of Kirk
Star Trek Reboot, Into Darkness, Beyond?

1789

I think we should do the OG films before the games.

1790

I’m down for some whacky animated if it’s on Prime.

1791

Sure, I’m down with OG films before the games.

When I tried watching the Animated Series back in 2018, upthread, here was my reaction.

Hopefully I will find more of interest now that I’ve been through all of Star Trek up to this point.

1792

Really, the animated discussions will go fast. We could cover at least two per week, since they are only half hour shows. Could probably go faster than that, even, if people want, because many of them are…superficial.

1793

I’m going to give you my objection, though it’s not a strong one: it makes more sense chronologically to do animated series -> computer games -> movies. The animated series uses a few unused scripts from the original series, so it makes sense to look at it as an extension of the TOS. The two computer games were actually designed as being seasons 4 and 5 of the original series, filling out the Enterprise’s five year mission. And then the original motion picture of course picks up with Kirk having been out of the captain’s chair for some time.

Anyway, if that’s not what folks want to do I’m not going to have a hissy fit about it, I’ll go with majority rule or what makes sense for everyone. But that’s the way I see it.

1794

I’m agnostic. My thoughts on the OG films first revolved around real life chronology.

1795

Zarabeth be rockin’ her furs. Just sayin’.

Next one is pretty interesting! A dual story, a couple of interesting locations, and a not quite time travel story.

1796

No argument there.

1797

The moment when she took off her heavy jacket, for a split second it seemed she had nothing on underneath. Star Trek knows how to titillate for sure.

1798

Mariette Hartley was in damned near every popular TV show of the time. Her IMDB is a stroll through memory lane of TV in the 60s and 70s.

1799

She was in Sam Peckinpah’s first major studio release in 1962.

1800

I think she has that “girl next door” thing going on majorly. She’s Mary Ann, not Ginger.

1801

She was a Roddenberry favorite, returning in his pilot for Genesis 2, joined by a second navel.

1802

Looking nothing like Mariette Hartley age 30! I’m still struck by that.

I recently ran across her playing against type as a physically abusive mother in an episode of Emergency!* And for a few years it seemed she was on every channel several times a day, thanks to a series of ubiquitous Polaroid ads with James Garner.

*Surprisingly fun watch—and not necessarily hipster-ironically. Very dated in all kinds of ways, and there’s usually at least one howler of a scene per episode, but a weirdly cool cast, and a hoot overall.

1803

She was also great in a really fantastic episode of The Rockford Files. Makes sense, Garner always wanted to work with people he’d known, worked with before and liked.

1804

Ok, so “All Our Yesterdays” is our episode for discussion this week. I really loved this episode. The Enterprise arrives at a planet whose star is about to go nova. They find that the planet has possibly been evacuated, perhaps? There’s one last person left, a librarian and his copies who are minding a library that keeps an archive of their knowledge, and a time machine (Atavachron) that lets him send people into the past after he’s “prepared them”.

McCoy starts browsing Ice Age 26 and starts laughing over the little creatures antics. Kirk starts watching old episodes of Wagon Train, and Spock tries to peer over the shoulder of the librarian to try to figure out what an Atavachron is. Meanwhile, Kirk hears a random woman’s cry for help and immediately steps through the Atavachron and into a 3 Musketeers set. Spock and McCoy try to follow him and end up in an ice age period. Enjoyable antics follow.

I have to admit, this really tickled me, this whole concept. Your star is going nova, and you don’t have the ability to locate to a different planet, but you do have time travel technology, so you send everyone in your civilization to a point in your past. The convicts get to go too, but they get sent to an ice age. I wonder what rules of time travel are being observed here. Wouldn’t this level of interference change the future? The people sent back seem to mostly be blending in and not trying to change anything. Maybe there’s a set of rules they follow? Not to say that there’s much they can change from what we see there.

Still, I like this as a mental exercise. If what our genes want is to be passed forward to successive generations, by going into the past, that’s still being accomplished. You’re still passing on your genes and having children. They’re just more and more likely to be absorbed into the knowledge and culture of whatever past era they’ve gone to. Possibly procreating with your ancestors actually.

But wait, that’s not all! This episode is secretly about a couple of other things too. Mr Spock finally finds love? If you just told me that premise, I’d think it would be so boring. Just two Vulcans being really formal with one another. But no, Spock wasn’t prepared properly, he went into the past and reverted to base-instincts Spock who feels passionately about this woman he loves. I think this really worked for me in large part due to the casting and Nemoy’s excellent work here. As mentioned upthread, Ms Mariette Hartley is not just hot, she has a “girl next door” look, so you can also see Spock actually giving up Starfleet and actually settle down with her here in this Ice Age era. Since this is the second last episode, as a viewer of this episode in March 1969, I could conceivable believe that this is the last goodbye for Mr. Spock, and it is one that I would have been happy with actually. If you’re going to devolve to your baser instincts, finding passion and love is not a bad way to live out the rest of your years.

There’s other things in this episode, but I’ll wait for further posts to follow up on those things. But these two were the main themes that I loved in this episode. If this had been the last episode of the series, never to be seen again, it would have made a pretty good finale actually. An episode about living your future by escaping into the past.