A Guest Blog by Mindless-Droid

This week’s classic Star trek episode is The Cloud Minders. A botanical plague has broken out on Merak II and the Enterprise is sent to Ardana for zenite the only element that can stop the plague before it destroys all life on the planet. Arriving at Ardana Kirk is thrust between the two sides of the planet the Startos City Dwellers who occupy the cloud city and rule over the planet and the Troglytes who live and work in the mines. The Troglytes have hidden the zenite and are demanding they be given equal status with the people of Stratos. Kirk must find a diplomatic solution to the conflict in order to obtain the zenite and save Merak II before time runs out.

Another so-so season three episode. The original story by David Gerrold was changed quite a bit. In the original version Kirk was stuck between three different sides. The Stratos dwellers and two factions of the miners one following a militant leader and one a Martin Luther King type leader. The planet was a main supplier of Dilithium crystals in this version and Kirk’s solution was to get the sides to the negotiation table in order to continue the supply of crystals. In the end he accomplishes this and tells McCoy that they are talking and it will soon come to an agreement but Bones is concerned how many people will continue to suffer and die till then.

In the course of doing research on this episode I read that had Star Trek Enterprise went on to a fifth season they were going to do a prequel story to this episode. Now that would have been interesting throw in that they were going to do the Earth/Romulan war and that fifth season could have been very compelling. Like all my favorite shows though it gets canceled.

Why is everything cured by some rare mineral from one specific planet you would think they could make the stuff?

“That’s their cloud city…” was George Lucas watching this in the sixties?

Stratos looks too small for a cloud city more like a cloud apartment complex.

The dry river basin is the Hadramawt Plateau dry river basin in southern Yemen, taken by astronauts on the Gemini IV mission in 1965.

How did they get Droxine’s costume by the censors of the time?

The Sentinel’s costumes are really, well they look like bed sheets with funny hats.

A one of a kind internal Spock monologue.

Spock seems a little too interested in Droxine.

Droxine: “Intellectually Vulcans are as highly evolved as Stratos City dwellers.” Well someone thinks awful highly of themselves don’t we now.

Vanna the troglyte leader tries to take Kirk hostage and Kirk is Kirk after disarming her. “What is it with you anyway?” and does anyone on this planet, I mean in the clouds wear a full dress?

Wait how does Droxine know about Vulcan biology and why is Spock talking about it with her when he didn’t even want to tell Kirk about it in Amok Time? Continuity people.

I’d rather have seen them dealing with the plague. Another episode where the background story would seem more interesting. The Enterprise battling a planet wide plague with time running out now that would be dramatic.

Droxine is quite naive and quite annoying.

With the way the High Advisor and the Stratos city dwellers run the planet how did Ardana get in the Federation in the first place?

For a people who claim to be so enlightened the Stratos city dwellers sure are ignorant.

Kill Kirk. How would Plasus explain that his sentinels killed a Starship captain really how did Ardana get in the Federation?

Wait, how did McCoy get Zenite so easily after Plasus threw Kirk off planet?

No one else figured out that Zenite gas was dangerous but McCoy just comes up with it in a couple of hours.

Nobody could figure out that masks may help the miners even just from regular dust and debris or did the Ardanans know all along and just let their prejudice blind them.

Is Kirk really violating Starfleet or Federation law trying to help the Troglytes? Shouldn’t the Federation demand that Plasus institute reforms or lose Ardana’s Federation membership.

When Kirk and Vanna escape why do they walk to the transport pad why not just have the Enterprise beam them down?

The re-mastered shots of Stratos are a nice addition.

Plasus really is a tyrant.

How does Spock single out Plasus from all the other Stratos City Dwellers?

Well I guess Droxine has a tad bit of sense asking Plasus why they don’t question their methods.

With all the technology like I don’t know shovels they still dig Zenite by hand and is the whole planet made of Zenite since they dig anywhere and if so why not just send down some red shirts scope up some zenite and off to Merak II.

Those are rubbery rocks. You can tell when Kirk pushes Plasus into the wall and they bounce.

Kirk under the effects of the gas acts like his evil half from The Enemy Within.

So Kirk can’t take some old guy with bushy eyebrows?

Kirk did the Picard maneuver before it was cool.

That’s not a lot of Zenite to cure a whole planet and don’t they have to refine it.

After all that Plasus is still a jerk.

Well at least Droxine seems to have gotten the point sort of.

Geek moment I like that they made the impulse engines glow in the re-masters.

No red shirts were harmed during this episode.

A Guest Blog by Mindless-Droid

This week’s classic Star Trek episode is The Way to Eden. A group of space hippies steal a spaceship and try to find the mythical planet of Eden. The Enterprise intercepts the ship and beams the hippies on board. The group is led by Doctor Sevrin a once great scientist who has gone insane. Also in the group is the son of the Catuallan ambassador which is in a delicate relationship with the Federation and Starfleet orders Kirk to handle the group with kid gloves not wishing to cause a problem. After finding out that Sevrin is a carrier of a deadly disease Kirk has him quarantined. His followers distract the crew with a jam session (Yeah I know) and free Sevrin who then takes over auxiliary control and sets course for a planet that Spock after doing some research believes to be Eden. Eden also happens to be in Romulan space.

Upon arriving at the planet Sevrin activates a sonic weapon to immobilize the crew. Sevrin and his followers escape to the planet in a shuttle craft and Kirk deactivates the sonic weapon before it can kill the crew. Spock scans the planet and finds no evidence of animal life on the planet. Upon beaming down to the planet the landing party finds Adam dead and that the planets plant life has high levels of acid and the fruit is deadly. Eden is no paradise. The remaining hippies are rescued from the shuttlecraft but Sevrin in his insane state refuses to believe that Eden is deadly and escapes from the landing party climbs a tree and eats some of the deadly fruit killing himself.

This was not one of the best episodes and it just seems that somebody decided that they needed to do a hippie episode. This is another of those episodes in which the backgrounds of the characters and the planets are more interesting and would have made for a better episode especially Doctor Sevrin. How can they give him those ears and say he is a scientist in acoustics then not explain it or his background further. I think focusing more on his background story and what lead him to this point could have been more interesting. Catualla is another of those alien worlds I wish we could have actually seen.

Seems Chekov takes Kirk’s place in getting the girl of the week. Actually Irina was supposed to be Joanna Doctor McCoy’s daughter in the original script and Kirk was supposed to take his usual spot in falling in love with the girl of the week. The episode was rewritten so much that D.C. Fontana who penned the original draft requested that they use her pseudonym “Michael Richards” in the credits.

I like the re-mastered Aurora nice little ship.

Why drag the Aurora with the tractor beam till it explodes when they could easily get closer and stop it.

Lieutenant Palmer from The Doomsday Machine on communications.

The re-mastered space shots in this one are really cool too bad the episode isn’t as good.

Herbert Herbert Herbert oh shut up.

Why do they all have a hardboiled eggs on their shirts?

Pavel Andreievich Chekov well at least we get Chekov’s full name here.

Can we just hit the annoying space hippies with Phaser stun and be done with it? Oh right the one is an ambassadors son.

Okay we get it Sevrin is insane but I wish we would have gotten to know the character before this episode and why he became insane that seems like a much more interesting story.

The Vulcan harp is really a cool prop.

Way to go Chekov give up the ships secrets to the pretty girl.

I keep thinking Irina is going to say new-clear-ar wessels.

What is it with you any way Chekov?

They came up with twenty third century hippie slang.

That’s got to be the lamest red shirt guarding Sevrin that he was so easily dispatched.

I guess Eden had to be in Romulan space to make this episode at least a little dramatic.

Nice re-mastered shot of Eden with the double moon.

I really wish some Romulans would have appeared it would have made this episode watchable.

Chekov is always the one who gets injured. Walter Koenig has that great scream.

The dead guy’s finger moved. Oops.

Galileo II nice touch now Galileo Seven that was a great episode.

I don’t think any red shirts were killed in this episode just stunned. The one guarding Sevrin should have been killed for zoning out so easily to the music.