A Feverish Man Watches the Original Star Trek on Thanksgiving

The episode opens on Psi 2000, which looks like a miserable place to hang out. The crew is here to pick up some scientists who have been studying the planet. There's some talk about the planet collapsing in on itself, or something, which becomes important later.

Spock and some dude named Joe beam down to find everyone in the research facility is dead. This seems to happen so often in Star Trek I almost think it would be a surprise to beam down and find everyone okay.

Spock

So everyone's okay? No one has been exhibiting any strange behaviors? No one has suddenly died from a mysterious disease?

Scientist

Everyone's been doing great! Oh, well, except Steve, he got the flu last week.

Steve

Yeah, but I took a couple of Advil and feel fine now.

Spock

Fascinating.

If I ever get into cosplay I'm going to do a lot of the original Star Trek because it would be so easy. I love the pattern on the away team's biohazard suit... things. They don't look like they'd keep out an angry swarm of hornets, much less microbial life.

No you fool! Don't take off your glove!

Have you never watched Star Trek? This is always, always how some exotic disease ends up being brought up to the Enterprise, mysteriously infecting the whole crew and nearly destroying the ship!

Damn you Lieutenant Junior Grade Joe Tormolen! Damn youuuu!

Nooooooooo!

And now I am terrified by mysterious red liquids that ooze out of walls and leap sideways towards human hands.

"The Naked Time"? Really?

Also I'm going to shoot the typesetters for their quotation mark usage.

The away team return to the ship and go through "decontamination", which apparently involves the rhythmic pulsing of yellow lights. They're examined by Doctor McCoy, who gives them a clean bill of health despite being baffled by Spock's 240 pulse and very low blood pressure.

Actually, hold up, the crew has been together for a while and McCoy has never bothered to read up on fundamental Vulcan physiology once? Come on, you're supposed to be a doctor!

Joey flips out from the mysterious disease and takes a knife to Sulu and Riley. He has this monologue about self doubt, humanity's purpose in space, very blah blah blah.

I'm not convinced Sulu is watching the knife in Joey's hand.

Before we get any further, I need to explain something: I am a huge fan of George Takei. I did fourth grade biography reports on him and met him at the opening of the Common Ground exhibit at the Japanese American National Museum. So if I focus a bit on Sulu's role in this episode, I hope you understand why: George Takei is awesome.

They fight.

Did I mention George Takei is awesome?

Joey is stabbed with the butter knife, causing his shirt to suddenly explode with magenta ink.

I really like the careful choice of shirt color here. It was very easy to follow the, uh, "well choreographed fight sequence" since it basically boiled down to blue shirt versus yellow shirts.

But here's the thing that really gets me: there are a bunch of other people in the rec room, and they just watch the whole thing go down! People, someone go get security or something! The man has a knife in his hand, he's yelling, threatening, clearly deranged. No, no, you're right, you're in the middle of some 3D checkers thing, that's cool.

Even after Joey's stabbed no one stands up to get a medic. Riley, the furthest person in the room from the intercom, runs across to call for medical help.

Really, people, really.

Okay, okay, I get it, the producers would have had to pay those extras a lot more if they had speaking lines, and Star Trek was budget-strapped enough as it was. But still, let me Nerd Rage for a bit.

Joe dies on McCoy's operating table, though his woulds were not that serious.

One of the weird things about watching the old series is the lighting. Every indoor scene is exquisitely lit with deep, controlled shadows. Makes you wonder how anyone got anything done, stumbling around in the half-light.

Meanwhile, Riley and Sulu are showing signs of infection, which at this point are communicated to us with excessive hand wiping and an ominous, shaking sound.

Sulu sneaks off, abandoning his post. He tells Riley he's off to go work out or something.

If you don't know, George Takei came out in 2005, but it seems most Star Trek fans were aware he was gay for a while.

Kirk

That's not good enough.

McCoy

Well, we're doing everything that's possible.

Kirk

Bones, I want impossible checked out, too!

It strikes me that most of Kirk's leadership consists of demanding hilarious things from his crew.

Honestly I zoned out somewhere around here. I think the point was Riley turned into a drunk Irishman and infected Nurse Chapel, but I was trying to decide whether I wanted green bean casserole enough to drive to the store tomorrow to get the ingredients.

Oh my!

Suddenly out of nowhere Sulu leaps out with a rapier and starts swashing at other crew members.

These other crew members don't look threatened at all. One of them looks like he hasn't woken up yet.

When JJ Abrams' reimagined Star Trek came out I squee'd to find Sulu confessed his combat skills consisted of fencing. This episode is why.

Sulu leaps onto the bridge.

And meanwhile Riley has taken over Engineering and locked everyone out!

There's some dire plot device thing happening right now, like the planet is collapsing causing sudden changes in the magnetic field and the Enterprise is spiraling down towards the planet and is going to be destroyed in like twenty minutes, but I honestly couldn't give a damn about that right now. I just want to watch Sulu fence some more.

I'm not even going to. Enough people have talked about Star Trek's falling out of chairs thing before.

But apparently this whole planet collapsing thing is serious. And more and more of the crew are falling to the disease.

Scotty, being awesome, is crawling around in Jefferies tubes attaching... things... to... things... for some reason.

And McCoy is running tests on Sulu.

Sure. Tests.

Spock stops by Sick Bay to help McCoy's analysis (okay, okay, enough of that now). The doctor's gone off to "the lab", so Spock ambiguously opens a channel to "the lab".

Spock

Lab. Lab respond please, Spock here. Lab!

Okay, this is a major research vessel. What lab? The geological lab? The biopsy lab? The astrophysics lab? The Internet tells me the Constitution-class Enterprise had no less than fourteen science labs. (Seriously, I just Google'd "how many science labs does the Enterprise have" and the first result had the answer.) And Spock wonders why he gets no response.

Also Nurse Chapel wants to jump Spock.

Chapel

Mr. Spock, the men from Vulcan treat their women strangely. At least people say that.

I was pretty sure I didn't want to think about that.

Then I remembered all about pon farr and realized Star Trek is really weird.

The disease hits Spock quickly. He stumbles off, his normally calm composure visibly breaking down bit by bit. Spock collapses into a chair and is overwhelmed with regret for never being able to express his love for his human mother.

As cheesy as Star Trek is, something about this scene really works. Nimoy was a solid stage actor before playing Spock, and his classical background resonates here.

Also I just really like the idea of Emo Spock. All clad in black and Hot Topic. All listening to AFI and Fall Out Boy. All writing poems about how he bleeds green.

The crew reclaim Engineering from Riley, and Scotty discovers Riley has completely shut down the engines. It will take at least thirty minutes to get them spun up again, but the Enterprise will be destroyed in eight! This is where Scotty delivers one of his most famous lines.

Scotty

I can't change the laws of physics! I've got to have thirty minutes!

And McCoy… uh, McCoy has discovered a serum that cures infected crew members. You see:

McCoy

It's water! Somehow on this planet water's changed to a complex chain of molecules. That's how we missed it. It passed from man to man through perspiration. Once in the bloodstream it acts like alcohol. Affects the centers of judgement and suppresses self control.

This doesn't even.

You know what? I'm done. I'm done with this episode. Sulu isn't fencing anymore, the plot has just gone off, and I'm ready to go to sleep.