Shelby Cadwell
- Jul 14, 2018

Sci-Fi Saturday #4

Welcome to Sci-Fi Saturday, a new column that is devoted to all things science fiction: film, television, comics, novels, video games, and local Metro Detroit events. If there is a topic you'd like to see covered in an upcoming column, email us at kinoclub313wsu@gmail.com!

This week I watched episodes 6 through 8 of the 1st season of ST:TOS - "Mudd's Women," "What Are Little Girls Made Of?," and "Miri." In "Mudd's Women" the Enterprise intercepts a rogue spacecraft that flies into an asteroid field and is destroyed, but not before the "crew" are beamed to safety. Said crew includes Harcourt Fenton Mudd, a gregarious space pimp, and his three lovely ladies, Ruth, Magda, and Eve. It is revealed that the women are actually quite homely but are on that Venus drug ish, which "enhances" their feminine features. But, like, I'm not even as cute as the ugly version of these women, soooo... There is also some shit going down with lithium crystals, but that's pretty marginal to the important stuff (the ladies, duh). In the end it is revealed that Eve is actually able to morph from like a 5 to a 10 through sheer force of will. Share your secrets, girl. Overall this episode was pretty demeaning to the aesthetically unendowed, such as myself, and otherwise not that interesting. 6/10 for the episode, but 10/10 for the ladies' outfits, which may or may not have been inspiration for the early 2000's R&B girl group Blaque:

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" also served up some hot ~lewks~, which I'll get to in just a second. Mainly the episode is about Kirk and Nurse Chapel beaming down to a planet where Chapel's long lost fiancee, Dr. Korby, is up to something sneaky. Korby has discovered androids built by an ancient race and has decided that human life would be pretty rad if everyone was replaced by an android duplicate. He tests this theory by "duplicating" Kirk. Too bad he didn't watch "The Enemy Within" or he'd already know that if you copy Kirk the fake version is always destined to be a total douche. Anyway, real Kirk isn't into Korby's plan to literally dehumanize all humans and fights back against the doctor and his loyal minions - two androids named Ruk (aka Grandma Lurch) and Andrea (aka Siri 1.0). In the least shocking twist so far this season, it is revealed that Korby himself is an android. DUN DUN DUN.

This really wasn't my favorite episode - I'd give it a 6/10, but will bump it up to a generous 7.5 for the following reasons:

1) Kirk's very phallic rock weapon, wielded in a very yonic cave:

2) Ruk's lovely nightgown, which I can only assume he borrowed from his linebacker-sized grandma:

3) Andrea the android, because DAYUMMMMM:

Ok, I literally don't even know where to start with "Miri." I get that it's an established thing at this point in the series that ALL women have to show some level of attraction to Kirk. I get that. But does that rule have to extend to prepubescent girls as well? I guess I should provide some context, though, before I get into how messed up this episode is. Basically, the Enterprise finds an Earth-like planet (or maybe an alternate timeline Earth, I don't know) where there are only children. The crew discovers that a life-extending experiment gone wrong wiped out all of the adults on the planet while causing extremely slow aging in the children left alive. Bones estimates that the children are actually around 300 years old, even though they haven't even hit puberty yet. When the kids *do* reach adolescence, the same plague that killed off the adults begins to affect them as well. The crew contracts the virus and has limited time to find a cure - to save both themselves and the children. The premise is fine, and for the most part the execution is fine, too. My problem is with the creepy-ass vibe between Kirk (who is ostensibly trying to be nice and fatherly) and Miri, who is clearly attracted to him. Sorry, Captain, but the "she's *actually* 300 years old" excuse isn't going to hold up in a court of law.