A Guest blog by Mindless-Droid and Siblings

This week’s classic Star Trek episode is By Any Other Name unfortunately the last part of season two is still unavailable on the official site but the episode synopsis is here.

Answering a distress call from a small planet the Enterprise encounters aliens from the Andromeda galaxy who have been sent to this galaxy to find worlds to conquer. The Kelvans incapacitate the landing party and take over the ship so they can make the return trip to Andromeda and complete their mission.

Spock using a Vulcan mind trick (I had to) tricks one of the Kelvans into believing they have escaped. When she opens the cell the landing party escapes but is quickly captured by the Kelvan paralysis field. Although the escape attempt fails costing the life of one of the crew Spock has learned through the Vulcan mind probe that the Kelvans are not human but immense beings with hundreds of tentacles who have taken human form.

The Kelvans alter the Enterprise to make the intergalactic voyage and after making it through the barrier reduce most of the crew to small cube like blocks leaving only Kirk, Spock, Scotty and McCoy. Spock recalling more from the mind meld hypothesizes that the Kelvans having taken human form have also taken on human senses and emotions that they may not be able to handle. Using this to their advantage the crew targets each of the Kelvans for sensory overload. Scotty introduces Tomar to the different spirits of the galaxy including some very old scotch. McCoy tells Hanar that he is malnourished and injects him with stimulants. While Kirk targets Kelinda and Rojan with the help of Spock to get Rojan jealous. After a brief fight Rojan Realizes that having taken human form his crew has changed and will be unrecognizable to the people of his world. Rojan relents and agrees to Kirk’s proposal to send a robot ship to Kelda with a peace proposal from the Federation and returns the ship and crew to Kirk.

Not a good start for a landing party two red shirts.

How did the Kelvans know what a perfect human would be?

How did Rojan know to pick the two crewman with the red shirts on?

Rojan is right about Kirk caring more for his crew then himself.

Rojan killing Yeoman Thompson in front of Kirk was just plain evil.

It’s funny after Spock tells the others what he saw during the mind meld that the Kelvan are really immense beings with a hundred tentacles and Kirks only concern is them operating the turbo lift.

Another episode before the warp 10 limit was thought up.

Never liked the whole barrier at the edge of the galaxy thing it would have to envelope the whole galaxy 360 degrees around if it didn’t why don’t they just go over it space is three dimensional although the re-mastered effects are cool.

That’s why the Enterprise crew is regarded as the best in Starfleet.

Love the music as the Kelvans neutralize the crew.

Yum Play-doh food.

Scotty’s got a new drinking buddy.

Why would Tomar let McCoy inject him with something?

Of course Kirk goes to see the alien girl, and once again I can hear McCoy in Star Trek VI “What is it with you anyway.”

Scotty: “I found this in ganaroom…err gammaer…” Tomar: “What is it?” Scotty; “Well it’s hmm its green.” There is a shout out to this scene in an episode of the Next Generation. In Relics Scotty returns. He is in Ten Forward and does not like Synthohol so Data gets a flask out of Guinan’s regular liquor and Scotty asks what it is and Data says “It is green”.

I want to play three dimensional checkers.

Spock is good at pushing Rogan’s buttons.

Little screw up when Scotty throws the “green” bottle you hear it smash but when he collapses in the door way you can see it laying on the floor at his feet.

Someone go wake up Tomar.

Brother: I think Kirk should have blown up the Enterprise. His hesitation seems uncharacteristic to me. Admittedly, when he threatens to destroy his own ship it’s usually in a fashion designed to get him his way in a situation, and that probably wouldn’t have worked here because the Kelvans would simply have frozen everyone rather than negotiate. Yet, we know that he IS in fact willing to destroy the Enterprise, and the threat presented here is nothing less than the complete conquest of the Milky Way Galaxy. And he is waaaay too happy to be seducing that woman. Why did he wait so long to steal her belt-clip-on-thingy? I guess it was important they all acquired them about the same time… And the moral of the episode is, Human vices are a lot of fun, but a definite weakness, I guess. Oh, one final thought, does anyone else think that sending a drone ship to the Andromeda Galaxy is courting disaster? Has Star Trek history been written as to what happens 600 years from now? (300 years for the drone to arrive, 300 more years to discover the Kelvans response.)

Sister: I basically agree with everything Brother just said, though I suppose I imagine that Captain Kirk is more hesitant to allow the Enterprise to be obliterated while his crew is still aboard. Perhaps this leads to an interesting discussion about whether he would have refused to allow the self-destruct sequence to finish in “Let That be Your Last Battlefield.” Ah, I found this quote on the Memory Alpha page for this episode that should not have been cut from the televised version on MeTV, “Do you not agree that this is a better thing for them than exploding the ship as you engineer had thought to do? We detected it, of course. Tomar has devised a mechanism to prevent any further tampering. Please accept your situation, Captain. It will make things much less painful.” Why do we need more commercials per show now compared to then? Rant, rant, rant, rant, rant, rant, rant.

While all of the Kelvans were quite calm to begin with, Hanar, (the Kelvan man wearing brown for those of us who can’t absorb the names of all the only-in-one-episode characters) comes across almost like a robot at first. Perhaps this was done on purpose to highlight the change brought about through McCoy’s injections.

Speaking of Bones, if I find myself on the Enterprise then hopefully someone else will explain how to use the food machines, because that was a far from thorough demonstration on his part. 😀

Random fact: The white shapes the Kelvans reduce the humans to are called, “dodecahedrons,” which is a word for a solid figure with twelve faces. However, if you wish to get more precise and technical with the word you use to name the shape, then apparently you can call them, “cuboctahdrons,” thus assuring that the person you are talking to knows that you are describing a poly-hedron whose faces consist of six equal squares and eight equal equilateral triangles. Or possibly just assure that they have absolutely no idea what you are talking about.