Friday 10 September 2010

Episode 3.14 "THAT WHICH SURVIVES" Review


This review is very late due to a couple of issues that meant I had little free time to write it, and because I just plain dislike this episode and had a very hard time coming up with a review that didn't sound like slamming it endlessly.

An away team made up of Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and a dead man walking investigate a mysterious moon. Mysterious due to various Earth-like traits despite being only a few thousand years old. Just before transporting down an odd woman in skimpy clothing warns them against it, then kills the transport officer before vanishing. Thus begins an overlong and uninteresting mystery episode.

Amusing Quote: "What is it, Jim?" "A planet that even Spock can't explain." (McCoy and Kirk easily cataloguing the universe by what the pointy-eared one doesn't know about it.)

On the moon, considerable tremors toss the cast around a bit, and hurl the Enterprise away int deep space. Seemingly abandoned, the landing party try to prepare shelter and food, a quickly thwarted plan when it revealed that everything is poisonous. Trying to understand the odd nature of the planet, they scan and detect numerous odd readings, including a powerful life form which swiftly dispatches the spare cast member by "exploding the cells of his body" no less!

Amusing Quote: "I am for D'Amato." "Lucky D'Amato." (Losira and D'Amato a moment before he realises how unlucky he is.)

The moon is revealed to be entirely artificial. Meanwhile the Enterprise, under Spock, begins the long journey back.


The second act consists of the odd woman appearing on the Enterprise to kill an engineer and sabotage the starship, and soon after reappearing on the planet to kill Sulu! Kirk heroically stands in her way and is unharmed by her touch, which leads to some roundabout dialogue where the woman Losira says she doesn't want to kill, but has to. She insists she is protecting a station, but that no-one lives there now. She vanishes, but Kirk and co. follow tricorder readings to the underground door.

Act three sees the Enterprise in peril by Losira's antics, basically it will explode by technobabble if not fixed by technobabble.

Scotty fixes it. Moving on.

Amusing Quote: "I don't need a bloomin' cuckoo clock!" (Scott, discussing useful engineering crisis tools.)

The final act has the landing party breach the station, and play schoolyard games to avoid duplicates of Losira from touching them for a while.

Spock turns up and shoots the computer.

And that's it. We get a dialogue by the original Losira in a message meant for her long-dead species, and everyone goes home having learned an important moral lesson!

Positives: Very bloody little.

Negatives: Almost everything. This episode is slow, tedious and filled with the cliches for which Star Trek is accused. Techno-babble is prominent for once, and the lost civilisation card is played yet again. But this episode just feels like padding, creatively speaking. Losira is undeveloped, and the laughable hopping around the crew do to avoid her touch is just sad. Frankly, this episode is just sad.

Overall: I find it unavoidable to do anything but mock this episode. Season three is oft' considered the weakest of Star Trek and episodes like this are the reason why. The plot just isn't substantial enough or interesting enough.

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