So, a few weeks ago, I was catching up on the most recent season of The Big Bang Theory, because I love me some geeky sitcoms. I'm cheerfully watching next to my twin brother when this happens:

Sheldon: Do you remember what happened in the Star Trek episode "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield?"
Me: Wait. That's the next episode that I'm watching.
Leonard: Uh, Captain Kirk activated the self-destruct sequence and threatened to blow up the Enterprise and kill them both unless he gave in?
Me: DUDE. They totally just spoiled Star Trek for me!
Twin: It's been off the air for, like, forty years.
Me: Yeah, and I haven't watched it yet. I am not amused*

The moral of the story is that you're never safe from spoilers, and you'll get them in the most random places.

Anyway, I watched "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," and I demand to know what the third season has against decent television. I kept having to pause to psych myself to keep watching, because I kept getting so bored. I've realized that being really boring is the general theme of season three.

I miss season two. Things were good in season two.

( This isn't funny. This is pretty much just me spending a couple thousand words hating this episode. )

It totally hasn't been a year since I last watched an episode of Star Trek. It's been, like, 10 months. And in my own defense, the last episode I watched was "The Empath." FEMINIST RAGE, y'all. One female character and she has no voice and is treated like an object. SO MUCH RAGE.

But, yeah, last night I watched "Elaan of Troyius," which had three female characters with speaking lines! And one of them stabbed people! It was pretty awesome. Granted, none of the female characters spoke to each other, but I've come to expect that from Star Trek. I WILL TAKE WHAT I CAN GET.

( Containing my feminist rage and my amazing changing tenses )

Yesterday I sent several emails almost like a responsible adult. It was slightly less mature of me that I did it all while still wearing my pajamas in the middle of the afternoon.

I am a winner.

Today I got my hair cut to around my ears, because that's actually the length I prefer it.

Also among my list of accomplishments is watching another episode of Star Trek. This wasn't so bad, though, as it was actually a decent episode. I'm wondering if that's because Chekov spends most of it restrained to a biobed and Kirk spends most of it unable to speak.

Anyway.

( Also, I've learned how to make screen caps of the episodes. Fear me. )

Anyway, so. Day of the Dove.

( have I ever mentioned how much I don't like Chekov? )

After several days worth of distractions, I watched the next episode of Star Trek.

( randomly: Spock/Uhura is among my many ships. FYI. )

So I watched The Paradise Syndrome last night, at 11 pm after drinking a giant mug of coffee.

Because I make awesome life choices.

So let's see what I can remember of the episode.

( See Spock. See Spock angst. Angst, Spock, angst )

So. "Spock's Brain". That happened.

First, though, I'm gonna bitch about cbs.com. See, last summer I was watching the first season of Star Trek off of the website. I stopped when I got the dvds. Now, I don't have the third season on DVD, so I went back to the website. They have completely redesigned it to be as annoying to navigate as possible. It's now got a video that plays automatically (the last episode of the series). Beneath the video is a box that shows four episodes. And by "four episodes", I mean "as many as four versions of one episode, but at least two versions of two episodes". The episodes in the box are the last two of the series. If you want to find a particular episode, you have to click through the 62 pages to find it. Last summer you could click between seasons, or, if you wished, view the most popular episodes. To find "Spock's Brain", I used the search feature on the site and I found four links for I assume the full video for the episode, but no indication as to what the differences between the four videos are (I understand one remastered and one as originally aired, but what about the other two?). And then there were the over 4000 other hits for Spock's Brain. So I look forward to changing visual quality throughout the third season as I click random links. I am also going to have to look up an episode list for the third season, because I don't know all the episode names off the top of my head and to hell like I'm clicking through Star Trek, four videos at a time, just to find what comes after Spock's Brain.

My point: I want the third season on DVD so bad omg.

( On to the episode itself )

Yesterday I watched another episode of Star Trek. It sadly lack amoebas, nazis, and gangsters.

Instead, it had the cold war.

For a while I had been "but where's the moral of this story? This is clearly a story that's working towards a moral." and then the American Flag and commies showed up and I was all "AH! A moral approaches!" And I learned that the American Constitution applies to everyone, including Godless Communists.

Apparently.

I'm not sure I believe it, but I'll take their word for it. You know, whatever.

Really, the more important thing is that in this episode our beloved Captain Kirk seemed to actually believe in the Prime Directive. He was all "DUDE. You interfered with the natives? That's less than cool." And Spock pointed out that it was actually pretty criminal. McCoy said something about survival, but I'm not sure I trust Bones to not be an idiot about things.

I call him an idiot with greatest love and respect, you realize.

And the evil!captain was all "Kirk, you know you want to interfere. It's so much fun! And it's not like you haven't done it before". And you would think that if you were going to interfere with an alien culture and give them phasers and such, you would also teach them how to bind prisoners properly.

And the evil!captain sets Bones to the task of finding immortality while Kirk gets to fight some big strong natives and Spock gets to watch like the voyeur he is.

And Bones considers grabbing a weapon to attack his guard, but he is caught. He grabs a drink, though, because he doesn't believe in an action going to waste.

Kirk and Spock escape their prison and go and rescue Bones. They crash through the door* and knock out the guard and go "Bones! We're here!" and Bones doesn't even blink, because that's how he rolls.

Bones: Whatever. You guys be over there and do thrilling space heroics. I'll be over here doing science.
Kirk: And how is the science going?
Bones: Well, I found out everything I needed to know. We're not dying, we're not risking the ship, and alcohol is yummy. That last one is an ongoing experiment. It requires constant testing.
Kirk:... okay? So you found immortality?
Bones: Fuck, no! Immortality doesn't exist, you moron. Jeez. The natives live so long because it's their natural life span.
Kirk: ... wut?
Bones: You want to live forever? You can try a healthy diet and regular exercise. You might not get forever, but you'll get a while.
Kirk: ... I think I hate you a little bit.
Bones: Eat your veggies is my point.

So there are the Yankees who are big, tall, and blond, and there are the commies who are Asians wearing fur coats. Because they're communists, you see. Yeah.

And there are holy words! The holy words being the declaration of independence and the constitution and maybe the national anthem, I'm not sure. All of these American, of course.

It's what could have happened after the Cold War, see. There would have been confusion and a loss of ourselves.

And we apparently would have lost the separation of church and state as well. I really wish that when Kirk was explaining the real truth about the constitution he would have brought up that they've been confusing political documents with the Bible.

Speaking of the Bible, I'm impressed that they had an exact picture of Spock there to represent evil. And that the evil!captain knew about that picture.

Do Bible's often have pictures of Vulcans in them? My Bible has no pictures at all. This saddens me.

And then there is a fight where Kirk rolls around in the arms of another man and Spock puts a thrall on an innocent women and makes you wonder about that whole demonic thing.

Then Sulu comes down and that moral is made clear and you wonder if anyone is ever going to bring up Kirk's tendency to break the Prime Directive. "A Private Little War", anyone? I think "Return of the Archons" had some Directive breaking, too. And "The Apple"?

Really, though, I think the most important question of the episode is "Why was Sulu in command?" I mean, Kirk and Spock where off of the ship, sure, but where was Scotty? I thought he was third in command? I thought that was established? Is Scotty drunk again? 'Cause if he is, he should have the decency to let the rest of us know.

Because a drunken Scotty is a hilarious Scotty.

*they knock and distract the guard, actually, but whatever