Star Trek: The Apple (First Watch: S2E5)

Death/hurt count:  Red shirt pollened in the face.  Er, dead.  Hendorff. Spock paralyzed, briefly.  Red shirt lightning’d to death. Red Shirt (Mallory) blown up.  Spock thrown across a clearing by walking into a force field.  (why is it bouncy?) Spock struck by lightning. 2 red shirts bonked over the head, possibly dead.

Does he ever say anything he’s not sure about?

That’s nothing like Russia.  Russia’s pretty cold.

Kirk’s “do we tell him the truth” confused face.

Kirk’s angry again.  But then, crewman killed, that’s a given.

Unexplored?  That’s not true, wasn’t there scouts that died or something?  IDK, was I not paying attention at the wrong moment?

You’re hinting super hard, but Kirk’s just like “this isn’t a pleasure cruise, someone just died.”

Theory: they end up giving them knowledge, and it breaks everything.

Chekov flirting with a red shirt.

“Mr. Chekov, I’m glad to know you find each other fascinating but we’re not here to conduct a field experiment in human biology.”  I seriously think the closest anyone’s come to “stop doing stuff on duty” like this is Gibbs smacking DiNozzo.

It explodes “Would you mind being careful where you throw your rocks, Mr. Spock?” –Kirk (btw is Spock a last name?  Do Vulcans have two names like humans some human cultures?)

Transporter doesn’t work.

Controlled panic.  But then, his people are in danger, he wants them off the rock.

…Why not shuttle?  Or were those not “invented” at this time?  I don’t—wait, no, they had the Galileo episode.  My original point stands.  And is highly logical.  Spock, an explanation if you please.

Potion?  That’s an insult, Spock.

Yes, yes, blame his blood.  That he didn’t happen to choose.

(I admit as a partial scientist my curiosity is strong about how a human and Vulcan managed to cross-breed and what the results look like since the examples from strictly Earth are not always in functional health.  Given that I’m not a breeding scientist or whatever they’re called, oh yeah, reproduction studies I think?  I’ll let it pass.)

“Just what do you think you were trying to do?” Kirk, you are such the parent here.  “I see.  Well, next time, just yell.  I can step out of the way just as quickly as the next man.”

Lecture over.

(Also, seriously, he is such a leader.  He demands professionalism, he can increase morale with his sneaky humor, he is such a dork which never appears in fic—seriously, fanboying out about prison psychologists and a vaccine specialist and given all the ancient Earth literature he can quote when plays have apparently died out [so Shakespeare’s influence is probably if not lost at least forgotten] and ancient mythologies are likewise left in the dust heap of history [hence not everyone knowing Greek mythology—just the dork, the old-fashioned guy, and the encyclopedia]…I love Pine’s performance & character arc in at least the first movie [though Into Dumbness was a mess and retrod the same character arc—again—] but there wasn’t quite such nuance of character.  There’s still a lot to unpack, but.  It’s mostly hints while acting, not every single stroke.
But you know what?  It probably would’ve been salvageable.  Say…instead of having the finding a new Vulcan homeworld, dealing with the aftermath in the next movie?  Possibly with ‘they’re trying to deal with the loss of Vulcan, and then something else happens’?  Like, I dunno.
Trying to deal with Vulcan and Romulan factions agitating for war.  Or, y’know…what about Terra Prime?  I’m looking forward to that episode once I finally get there [tho I know it’s not TOS], and if they have to stick around Earth and Go Lukewarmly Where Everyone Else in Science Fiction Has Been Before [i.e. despite having a huge awesome starship we have to have the Enterprise get hurt every movie and for some reason be around Earth most of the time] that would be an interesting storyline.  Kirk dealing with the new pressures of his job and ACTUALLY BEING COMPETENT BECAUSE COMPETENT!KIRK IS AWESOME AND WE DON’T GET ENOUGH DEPICTIONS OF THAT BESIDES THE ORIGINAL SERIES AND EVEN THEN PEOPLE DISCOUNT IT BECAUSE THEY’RE WATCHING IT WITH A DUMB BIAS INSTEAD OF LOOKING AT THE EVIDENCE *deep breath*.  And they could not have run Chapel off in a single sentence designed to make Kirk look even worse, and Pike could still be alive because HE’S AWESOME TOO AND ACTUALLY COMPETENT SO YOU HAD TO KILL HIM OFF BECAUSE YOU COULDN’T HAVE THAT.
I…argh.  I have issues with people rebooting things and making them worse especially when they established even in the first movie that they could do it pretty well.  Not perfectly, room for improvement, but pretty well.  And it’s a pet peeve when there’s enough bare bones there you can see it could be awesome, but instead they decided to make things worse.  Also pet peeve: rolling back or ignoring character development.  Character development is awesome and makes them feel more like real people and you can have some sliding backward, you can have some instances where they’re still jerks or whatever because they slip up or just haven’t gotten that far in development or are still themselves but nooooo, so many things just like to ignore character development.  Most annoying in, say, the Kelvinverse or whatever it’s called, The Avengers [Iron Man 3 was awesome because of all the character development and Whedon had a hissy fit about the way it went because he wasn’t invited and promptly erased all character development that happened] and Persona 4.
I got off track.  Man of peace, who regularly shoots first and then freaks out when aliens take control of the ship.  Who has lectures on consent and people doing their jobs and crew members being stupid and the horrors of war.  Who resorts to seduction as a weapon first [but never rarely goes through with it] and then his muscles/phaser.  Who sees women as equals and is married to his ship and is generally easygoing unless his crew are in danger/killed.  Let’s not even forget Tarsus.  Who goes within the rules and orders but will think outside the box and skirt orders if necessary [but will probably call in favors instead].  Who’s confident enough in his manliness that he doesn’t worry about it.  This man is friggin’ awesome and a very interesting nuanced character and to have people turn that into a parody and mistake that for the real thing??  It’s almost a crime.  Tiny bit Poe’s Law.)

Weather control?

Really, you needed Kirk to yell Cover?  You were all going to just stand there staring?

Did you…run to the ashes twice??

Don’t examine the flowers I wouldn’t trust any flowers

Can you read me now?

This is Jim.  He’s going to blame himself.  You know that.

Okay, it would take putting his crew in danger to get him to ignore orders.  That explains a lot.

He likes the smell of growing things.  Kirk, you should really have an Enterprise Garden.  (or maybe you just visit Sulu’s.)

Bones just watching.

Are you sensing him or hearing him?

Goes from guilt to ‘this isn’t time for that, it’s time for business I can freak out about this in my cabin later’.

Spock and Chekov arguing.  That’s funny.  It’s interesting that they didn’t even go with Spock & Bones arguing, the most obvious course of action.

Smack.  Kirk hits a guy, again.

And then freaks out when the guy starts crying.

We come in peace, take us to your leader.

Spock didn’t actually touch.

Condition red = red alert

Tractor beam?

WAIT IS THE ENTIRE BRIDGE RED SHIRTS???  Okay, no, there’s two yellow shirts.

Fired.  As in burn up in the atmosphere, because large ship = issue.  That’s accurate science.

“I hate snakes” also that vaguely looks like a Gorn.

“There seems to be a” smacked “a force field”

Female red shirt, why are you looking down a Vaal woman’s bra?  (Not that, you know, I’m anti-lesbian, but that’s kinda impolite—or worse—to someone you just met.  Also you’re kind of interested in Chekov. …Maybe it’s to make Chekov notice?  He came over pretty quick, maybe to demonstrate ‘love’ but also jealous?)

Bones, really?  “there’s no sex” “there goes paradise”?

Out of the three of you how did Kirk become the one with the most egalitarian point of view?

Everyone laughing at Spock’s name, but then, they’re ‘primitives’.

Why did you take the flower things off?  Surely that’s not polite to native society welcome…

Bones is still wearing it.  Kirk should be, but I think he’s still ticked about his crew members.  Spock isn’t, because he was “uncomfortable”?  The red shirt is.

We’ve seen lack of aging before.

Diet, temperature, the sun’s rays are all there is to aging.  (well, not quite—but I don’t know how much they knew about ROS & telomeres yet)

Attending religious ceremonies without native permission.

Bones creeping in is kind of funny.

Reciprocity.  Interesting.

“Doctor, you insist on applying human standards to non-human cultures.  I remind you that humans are only a tiny minority in this galaxy.” –Spock (insert ‘European’ instead of ‘human’ and ‘Earth’ instead of ‘galaxy’…)

An unchained environment = freedom.  Bones is like Pike on this issue, then.

“the right to choose a system that works for them” is also a good point.  Spock’s for choice.

The narrative of ‘progress’ vs stagnation.

Yeah, you’re not them.

“Gentlemen, I think this philosophical argument can wait until our ship’s out of danger.” –Kirk

10²⁰?  Yikes, that’s a lot of power.

“Everything but the kitchen sink” heheh

“Sit down and have something to eat” “that hasn’t happened yet” Got to keep up your strength and be ready for what comes.

I’d feel kind of bad for her, being forced to talk about sex when she’s not comfortable, but all she’s done is complain, so there’s that.  (that could be the writing, though, but so far there’s been differences in the depiction of women—they’re not all helpless AND THEY’RE NOT WRITING THE SAME WOMAN OVER AND OVER; see Dr. Noel from Dagger of the Mind—she’s clearly competent and also dismissive of anyone outside her field…which is actually true of a decent number of experts particularly in academia)  It’s still not perfect, but most of the women have shown themselves to be competent and perfectly capable of getting what they want, even if their desires aren’t always what they should be.  It’s sad when this is a step above some things today though.

You’re saying ‘natural’ like everything in the universe works like humans.  For all you know they’re asexual and bud, or something.

Kirk and Bones put her on the spot…and then Kirk puts Spock on the spot and they just both watch.  Sometimes you’re real ‘cats among the pigeons’ types when it comes to verbal conversations.

Hey, people read books on the subject, and stuff like that.

Actually, I’m 90% certain that without Vaal, Paradise wouldn’t exist.  If it controls temperature, and stuff…it’s probably creating the environment you see.

“Pav???”

Is her name Marta or Martha?

That’s definite action for Chekov.

Maybe it’s even more than just knowledge.  Maybe it’s truly an Adam & Eve type situation, you know, if more people existed at the same time.

And you’ll destroy Eden.

I like the symbol things.  It’s interesting.

Of course, you two might be forfeiting your lives or…something.  I don’t know what the penalties are.

“We saw the strangers do this thing.”  “You copied them?” “We meant no harm”  Yeeeah, this is Eden-type stuff.  (maybe the lightning is an Angry Angels reference.  Angels in the Bible are…weird.  Creepily enough, Bayonetta actually does a great job at depicting angels visually in the weird ways they’re described.)

Are they going to kill them?  Ohhhh boy.

That is a special stick.  What is it used for?

Of course, they’re a military group.  They’ve got night watches.

Oh, hey, I was wondering when the Prime Directive came in.  Spock just quoted it as the “Non-Interference Directive.”

“I’ll take my chances” that’s the first time he’s directly disobeyed that I can remember.

“Doctor, you have an unsurpassed talent for understatement.”

Okay, wow, Star Trek.  Whiny useless lady kicks ass.  See, why can’t we have character nuance?  Annoying characters can still end up being totally awesome.  Women can have a variety of roles, not just stereotypes.  What the hell are we doing wrong today that a show with problems from, what, fifty, sixty years ago is so much better than a lot of the garbage we’re putting out today?????

I’m going to guess she’s Security with all that.

“The good doctor was concerned that the Vaalians achieve true human stature.  I submit there is no cause for worry.  They’ve taken the first step.  They’ve learned to kill.” –Spock (ouch, but also…he’s not wrong.)

Mr Kyle’s been there before, right?

Your chair moved.

“Four hundred people had to die because I couldn’t see a warning sign.  Because I had to follow orders, always orders.”  I’ll be interested to see if that changes after this episode, Kirk.

Trust Bones.

Get it to use up its energy, too.

I like that they’ve kept the back of Spock’s shirt burnt.

You know, causing lightning also uses up your energy.  You’re getting desperate.

The field was still there.

That’s very ominous music, again.

That’s a good question, why would the computer have a tractor beam in the first place.

“Vaal cared for us” “You’ll learn to care for yourselves” that’s a little…callous.

“You’ll like it.” Not necessarily.  “You’ll like that too”

You two circling him and trolling.

(But I like that that’s how they left it, with the lingering question of ‘was that a good thing or not’?  And the odd disconnect between Kirk’s earlier doubts and the sure face he put on at the end.)