Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

 

A blog post I wrote back in July 2018, Kimberly Guilfoyle: Fall of a LEGend has had an inexplicably long life, frequently appearing among my Top 10 most viewed posts over the last EIGHT (?!?!) years.  

As of today, it's sitting at #1.

No doubt fueled by Kimberly Guilfoyle's notoriety surrounding the recently exposed alLEGed scandal and her subsequent resignation as the United States' Ambassador to Greece, no doubt tarnishing her LEGacy.

Well, never let it be said that I'm So Glad My Suffering Amuses You Inc. doesn't know which side of the digital toast is getting buttered so here we are with....

Kimberly Guilfoyle: The LEGend Continues To Fall

Here's a LEG up on what's going on with  Kimberly Guilfoyle.

In the run up to her being confirmed to be as Ambassador to Greece, Guilfoyle alLEGedly solicited bribes from a Trump donor named Eric Deters to pay off her $100,000 American Express bill.

Well, I says alLEGedly but the screen captures of her texts with Deters seem to be LEGitimate and pretty straight up about what she was trying to do.

In returns for such largesse, Guilfoyle promoted herself to Eric Deters as a LEGitimate point of access to all sorts of lever of power within Trump world.   

Now Donald Trump will put up with a lot but ilLEGally seeking personal profit from a position of government power and influence? Only Trump is allowed to do that.

So with a word from der Führer,   Kimberly Guilfoyle has resigned as Ambassador to Greece, a sad denouement to the LEGacy she began building during her LEGendary run on Fox News.  

Her LEGal team is trying to preserve her LEGacy by claiming Deters owed her money and she was trying to collect it but I'm not sure she has a LEG to stand on.

Eric Deters has his own thoughts about that which he expressed in an interview on CNN.  “Well, I’m going to be suing those lawyers, that law firm, and Kimberly Guilfoyle here in Kentucky. It’s gonna be fun.  I do not owe any money to Ambassador Guilfoyle, and that’s why I’m going to sue ’em for defamation.”

Is this the end of the LEGend of Kimberly Guilfoyle? Or is determined to prove herself too LEGit to quit and persevere and redeem her LEGacy?

If there are any developments in the ongoing tale of Kimberly Guilfoyle's LEGend, I will be sure to give you a LEG up on what will be I'm sure her LEGitimate efforts to save her LEGacy.

__________________________________

For all you perverts that come her for the Kimberly Guilfoyle posts, thanks for propping up my blog numbers but c'mon, this blog has so much else to give.  

Tomorrow: comic books! 

The day after that, Your Friday Video Link merges SPORTS with MUSIC! 

On Saturday, the weekly Movie Time post looks at an old Italian horror film where scantily clad woman are tortured in an ancient castle. You Guilfoyle pervs might like that one, maybe? 

But I don't want my LEGacy as a blogger to be known for Kimberly Guilfoyle LEG posts.  

The Envy Of the World

 One of the hot button issues for this year's mid term elections is the status of health care, our access to it and our ability to afford it.

You may hear Democrats propose Medicare for all or some form of single payer health insurance.

This causes Republican to get their knickers in a knot, defiantly opposing any such plan like they have in Great Britain or Canada or dozens of other civilized countries around the world.

Republicans will protest "American health care is the envy of the world and going to a system like Canada will result in crowded waiting rooms and long waits for service."

Last week I had occasion to be caught up in the machinery of "the enny of the world" and spent nearly a whole day in a crowded waiting room with a very long wait for service.

First of all, it was not for me. My father in law John had a medical emergency and had to go to the hospital. Mandy, my brother in law's wife, had taken him there at 10:00 AM.  She stayed with him as long as she could but had to attend to her husband who was having his own medical problems to deal with.  

So I took up the baton at 2:30 PM.  

John had two interruptions in his wait, one for an X-Ray and another for a CT scan.

Otherwise we wiled away the hours in the waiting room of the envy of the world. 

It felt like we were in some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

Sitting on one side of us was a wizened old woman, small and frail, hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for someone to help her. 

I'm sure she took some comfort in that she was receiving medical care from the envy of the world. Poor woman could be stuck in Canada where their health care system would leave her  hunched over in a chair, frequently hacking up something into a bag and incessantly moaning for---oh, wait a minute.

On the other side of John and I was a young man, his breath coming in gagged gasps and gulps, pleading for help that wasn't coming.  

A male would be patient staggered into the men's room near where we were sitting. A moment later, another man went in and came back out to ask if anyone worked there could help, there was man lying on the bathroom floor.

A security person opened the men's room door and I heard him say, "Dude, you can't lay on the bathroom floor like that."

I'm gonna hazard a guess it wasn't exactly this guy's idea of a good time. 

A nurse happened by and told the security guy, "We need to help this man."  

The hapless patient was helped from the floor into a wheel chair and was brought out of the rest room to receive immediate medical attention a spot to wait in the crowded waiting room.

Surrounded by these huddle masses yearning to be able to breathe and be relieved of their afflictions, my father in law missed few opportunities to remind me of his displeasure with these circumstances.

If I had a nickel for everytime he said "This is ridiculous", well, I wouldn't be rich but damn, that would be a lot of nickels.

John has been to me a mostly affable individual but in this situation, he was hardly that at all.  It was like dealing with an irritable toddler.

Except the irritable toddler was not wrong.

Periodically to appease my father in law, I would get up and chat with somebody.

The people I spoke with were very kind and patient... and absolutely useless. God bless 'em but they were overwhelmed with whatever was going on beyond those waiting room doors. 

Such is the burden of working for a health care system that is the envy of the world.

Eventually, John got to meet with a doctor at 6:30 PM.  Yes, 8 and a half hours after his arrival, he was finally getting a consult with a doctor about the dang problem that brought him there to the envy of the world.  

After getting a handle on what might be wrong with him and what he needed to do next, John was discharged at around 8:00 PM.  

I had to get firm with him about trying to discharge himself before the hospital staff came around with the paperwork.  That was not fun.  

Our exit took us through the waiting room that 8:00 PM still looked like some kind of over crowded bus station is some third world country.  

The wizened old woman was still out there, sitting under a blanket. She may have been dead for all I knew.

Finally at rest in the embrace of the envy of the world.  

*****************************

There's more to the story of my father in law's medical emergency but that is a tale for another time.   

Tuesday TV Touchbase Too: Hudson & Rex

I've posted in this space about the fascination Andrea and I have for the Canadian TV series Hudson & Rex.

The series is a buddy cop police procedural about detective Charlie Hudson who rather not have to work with people and his partner who is not people.  

Charlie Hudson and Rex fight crime in the Canadian city of St. John's, Newfoundland.  

We came to this show for the dog. Rex may be a German shepherd but his breed is actually "100% Good Boy!"  

But we stayed because of John Reardon as Charlie Hudson with an curmudgeonly vibe coupled with a boyish charm and those deep piercing eyes.

No, I am NOT gay! Why do you keep asking that?

While we came to Hudson & Rex to gush over the dog, we became attached to the whole gang in the St. John's Police Dept. Major Crimes Unit: tech nerd Jesse Mills, tough but compassionate boss Joe Donovan, sexy smart forensics expert Sarah Troung.  And of course Charlie.

The audience (and Rex) were pulling for Charlie and Sarah to become a thing.  And they did! 

Then John Reardon got cancer and had to take time off at the start of season 7. He went through treatment and got better. He was cleared to return to work. 

But the show wrote out Charlie Hudson and replaced him with Mark (no relation) Hudson played by Luke Roberts.

We all do, Rocky! We all do.  

Then wonder of wonders, we got some glorious news.  As our son Dean put it, "You got your boy back!"  

John Reardon was coming back to Hudson & Rex as of season 9.   

Andrea and I were excited to hear the news.

We of course had questions.

• Where has Charlie been?
• What are the circumstances behind his return?
• How will Sarah react?
• How will Rex, having spent a year with a different partner in Mark Hudson....

...how will Rex react to having his old partner, Charlie Hudson, back once more?

We figured we would have to wait a year to find out before Hudson & Rex season 9 came to American television.

But I didn't want to wait!

The ninth season of Hudson & Rex premiered on the Canadian television network Citytv on October 5, 2026.  

The day after I was scrolling through You Tube hoping someone might post some clips or a review or something.

What I found was...   

Yes, I found something beautiful.

The full complete episode 1 of season 9 of Hudson & Rex.

Oh my God! 

Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God! 

OH!

MY!

GOD!  

I told Andrea and I thought she might give some morality lecture that this may be illegally downloaded or some shit like that so we shouldn't watch it.  

Her reaction? 

"We gotta watch that QUICK before You Tube takes it down!"

So we did! 

Back story:

Charlie Hudson was written out of the rest of season, off on a mission to save his brother in South America. Or it may have been Mexico. 

Season 7 ends with news that Charlie was shot and he fell in a river.  His body was not recovered and was presumed dead.

Next, season 8.  With Mark Hudson instead of Charlie.  We didn't watch season 8.  Why?

You know why.

Now, season 9.

A man in a hoodie is skulking around St.John's. The mystery man has a meet up with Joe Donovan and Rex.  But someone tries to shoot Joe but Rex knocks him out of the path of the bullet (Yay!) into an oncoming car (whoops!) 

Joe's in the hospital and the Major Crimes gang is trying to suss out what happened.  Joe is keeping quiet on who he was supposed to meet. Joe has a secret but it's not his to reveal.  

The man in the hoodie shows up at the hospital and Rex senses, I don't know, a disturbance in the force or something?

Rex tracks the hooded man to a stairwell and the man pulls back his hood and...

OMG! It's Charlie!  

Rex is licking and sniffing at Charlie! 

OMG!  Rex remembers Charlie!! 

I'm not crying! You're crying! No, you shut up! 

Charlie is not ready to reveal himself to people and signals Rex to stay quiet and return to Mark and Sarah.

OK, there is a LOT going on so try to keep up. Or if you're satisfied with "A lot of shit is going on down", skip this next part.

• Charlie returns to a hotel room he's sharing with a woman and her son.  
• The woman is Maria, Jack's wife and the boy is their son, Hako.
• The woman was a bookkeeper for a drug kingpin in Belize and was looking to get out from under the mob. 
• Jack sent a USB chip in a picture frame to Charlie that contains evidence that will bust the kingpin and his cartel.  The picture (of Jack and Charlie as kids) should be in Sarah's house. (She has moved out of the place she and Charlie moved into at the start of season 7.) 
• Jack is the one who was shot and killed.  
• The corrupt authorities in league with the cartel switched identities and threw Charlie into prison where he stayed for a year before breaking out and sneaking Jack's wife and kid out of Belize and into Canada.
• The cartel have killers in pursuit and one of them has already taken a shot at Joe Donovan so Charlie is very keen NOT to involve the Major Crimes team, especially Sarah.

Working solo, Rex tracks Charlie to the hotel.  It's a circuitous route from the hospital that involves Rex taking the bus BY HIMSELF.

REX RIDES A BUS!!

And Mark Hudson has tracked Rex and now the two Hudsons meet up.

Charlie enlists Mark's help to get into Sarah's house without Sarah knowing to retrieve the picture frame.

Sarah is not easily fooled. She's too smart. Maybe smarter than Rex! 

Sarah is surprised to find Charlie is in her house and NOT dead.

There's a big damn hug with a swell of romantic music. It's a sweet moment.

Here! Watch it yourself! 

But the joy of seeing Charlie is NOT dead gives way to a little bit of anger.

How many people knew Charlie was alive BEFORE she did?

• Joe Donovan knew?
• And Mark? Well, that was just in the last hour.
• "And Rex? You knew?"  The dog avoids eye contact. 

Charlie insists he was only trying to keep Sarah safe.

Sarah counters, "Since when am I a wilting flower??!"

We have seen Sarah kick all sorts of ass so yeah! 

Oh boy! This is going on a bit. OK, long story made short:

Bad guy with the cartel abducts Maria and Hako and Charlie has to turn over the USB chip in exchange for their release.

Bad news: the bad guy gets the chip.

Good news: Major Crimes made a copy of it and Interpol is already on the case to bring down the kingpin and his cartel.

Mister "I gotta do this on my own" did need a little help from his friends after all.  

Maria and Hako are safe but will need to stay under witness protection elsewhere in Canada.

Charlie Hudson thinks his long nightmare is behind him and he can go back to being a detective with the SJPD.  The police chief says not so fast. There's a process to get Charlie up and running again to be a cop.  Officially, Charlie Hudson is dead.

Meanwhile, when given a choice to go with Charlie or Mark, Rex chooses....

Sarah.  Who is emotionally spent and not sure what to feel or think. And Rex knows when a human is going through some shit. 

And the credits roll.

WOW! That was a lot! 

Did it all make sense? No, I had a lot of questions about who knew what and when and the whole timeline for Charlie, Maria and Hako and it starts to unravel if you poke at it too much.

But I do not care! 

The season premiere of season 9 of Hudson & Rex does a lot of damage control and the emotional beats when Charlie first reunites with Rex and Sarah are powerful and just what we needed.

The ending is not tidy and the status quo is far from being re-set. Both Charlie and Sarah have been through their respective corners of hell for a year and it will take time to sort that all out.

And Rex has had a whole year with another partner, Mark.

OK, having spent an episode with Mark in it, I have to say Mark Hudson does not seem like a bad person. He's a good guy and he's a staunch defender and partner of Rex and...

Fine! Fine! We still hate Mark.

________________________________

That is that for this week's the Tuesday TV Touchbase Too:

Next week,we check in with our other crime fighting dog for the season 1 finale of Blue Skies.

Plus the return of Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage.  

Until next time, remember to be good to one another and try to keep it down in there, would ya? I'm trying to watch TV over here.  

 

Ubu is glad Charlie Hudson is back! 

Don't ask Ubu to ride a bus by himself.  

Tuesday TV Touchbase: The ABC's Of TV Watching

 

Today's Tuesday TV Touchbase is about TV shows that all happen to be on ABC. 

Scrubs

The 2nd season of the revived series is underway.

Dr. John "J.D." Dorian might be older now and the new Chief of Medicine at Sacred Heart Hospital but the weird fantasy sequences continue.  J.D. is trying to navigate how to mentor and guide the new batch of newbies.  New head resident Grant is kinda of weird so most in line with J.D.

Also taking up J.D.'s time is caring for his old mentor, Dr. Perry Cox who has a chronic and potentially life threatening condition.  J.D. has put his career as Chief of Medicine on the line to make sure Perry's treatment is covered by insurance.

Turk, Sacred Heart's Chief of Surgery, is still full of swagger but that may be belying an eroding confidence as aging chips away at him.  His relationship with his interns and with his wife Carla keep reminding him he's not as young as he used to be.

Elliot is kicking all sorts of ass as a doctor. In episode 3 of season 2, Elliott diagnoses the cause of a woman patient's chronic pain that had flummoxed all the woman's other doctors.  But is Elliott's success as a doctor coming at the expense of any kind of personal life?

OMG! I'm making this show seem like a soap opera. Yeah, there's some drama but the Scrubs is still a comedy and still LOL funny.

Abbott Elementary

And we're back for season 6 after the school narrowly avoided closure at the end of season 5.  

Gregory Eddie is now Vice Principal and while he can be effective (he scores new A.C. units from the district), he still has a lot to learn.  It's Principal Ava Coleman who has to school Gregory that he got suckered by a A.I. chat bot that Gregory hired to teach his old 2nd grade class.

Still trying too hard to be cool, Janine transforms her class into an ersatz Rainforest Cafe which yeah, the kids do love but it's set up that proves predicatably fragile under the stress of a class filled with too many students. 

I'm kind of bugged by the Flanderization of Jacob as being too earnest and too gullible. Anyone this stupid in Philadelphia should've been murdered by now.

Celebrity Wheel Of Fortune

Season 7 has started and damn it! Andrea and I just finished season 6.  

Celebrity Wheel still prompts the following questions:

• Who is that person?
• Wait! That person is still alive?
• Has this person ever actually seen Wheel of Fortune?  
• Seriously? Who is that person?

Jimmy Kimmel Live

Andrea and I are among the people helping destroy late night talk shows by not watching the shows but following the clips on You Tube.  And we make a practice of catching up on Jimmy Kimmel's monologues which are smart, insightful and very funny.

It's always fun to hear Jimmy's last nicknames for Donald Trump such as:  

• Teddy Doze-evelt 
• Blob the Builder
• Uncle Scam 
• Don Whoreleon 

Also Jimmy's been promoting his beloved sidekick Guillermo Rodriguez who has had a remarkable run on....

Dancing With the Stars

Again, not watching the show but we are keeping up with Guillermo Rodriguez who is partnered up with professional dancer Witney Carson.  

This dancing duo is nothing short of miraculous.  

1) Witney is 5 months pregnant

2) Guillermo can't dance.

But damn, son! The dude is trying. 

Judges scores persistently keep Guillermo and Witney at the bottom of the rankings but this unlikely duo has captured America's hearts and voting by the viewers keep Guillermo and Witney on the show.  

Could Guillermo and Witney actually win this thing? 

Guillermo has his haters but Jimmy Kimmel came to the defense of his li'l buddy.

Dancing! Schmanzing! Who cares? Guillermo and Witney are bringing us JOY and we have so damn little of that these days. 

Anyway, that is that for today's ABC themed Tuesday TV Touchbase.

But we're not done! 

Later today, it's the return of the Tuesday TV Touchbase Too!

A show that Andrea and I thought we would have to wait a year or more to see.

Lo, there came a miracle and we got to see it sooner.

(Could it be?)

Season 9

(Don't tease me like this!)

Episode 1

(OMG! OMG! OMG!  Is it..? Is it...? ) 

Hudson & Rex 

(IT IS!!!) 

The return of Charlie Hudson! 

More on that in today's second post.   

Are You Not Entertained?

 

"Are you not entertained? 

Are you not entertained? 

Is this not why you are here?"

Maximus Decimus Meridius, Gladiator (2000)

Last week, I wrote a post about my feelings on the death penalty in the wake of the botched execution of Christa Pike.

By the way, Christa Pike has been discharged from the hospital and is back in prison awaiting whatever happens next.

Her lawyer is arguing to get her sentence changed from death to life without parole. The state took it's shot. It missed. Let's do something else.  

There are forces arguing that hey, Christa was prepared to die. The victim's mother was promised Christa would die. Why disappoint everyone? Let's try again.

Hey, alleged Christians arguing in favor of trying to put Christa Pike death a second time: I think God might be trying to tell you something.  

While we are out here trying to have a debate about the death penalty and whether or not it's a good idea, Pete Hegseth is positively giddy over the prospect of televising an execution.

Pernicious Pete introduced a new "Department of War" logo last week.

Any similarities to Hitler and his Nazi regime are:

1) an unfortunate coincidence

2) an unintended awkward comparison

3) entirely the whole goddam point! 

So Pervert Pete this week announced the Pentagon would live stream the execution of Nidal Malik Hasan.

In November of 2009, Hasan, a former U.S. Army major and psychiatrist, entered Ft. Hood and began shooting up the place, killing 13 people and wounding 33 others, all in the name of some godforsaken Islamic radicalization. 

Hasan was tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

Whatever my ambivalence about the death penalty, if you gotta have one on the books, maybe this is a good one to use it for?

Last week, Donald Trump signed off on having that death sentence carried out by firing squad.

Parsimonious Pete thinks this sounds like too much fun to keep it on the down-low and said the execution will be livestreamed. 

Hegseth could barely contain his glee when announcing this was going to take place. 

By all means, check your calendars to confirm we are in the year 2026, the first part of the 21st century and this motherfucker wants to bring back executions to the public square. 

Let's find out what retired Army Staff Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford has to say about this.

Lunsford was one of those 33 people who got shot and did not die.  He took seven bullets that day. If anyone has a right to an opinion about this, it's this guy.  

“To show the whole thing without it being censored for the general public, for me personally, I don’t agree with that."

J.D. Vance ran as hard as he could from this idea. “If it’s ultimately livestreamed, I’m not going to be watching it.”

Several Congressmen (including Republicans) have declared the idea of livestreaming the execution as barbaric and reflecting poorly on America.

Prickly Pete seems to think making the execution available to the public will serve as a deterrent, communicating that what happened at Ft. Hood in 2009 is unacceptable and must never happen again.

God, this guy is such a moron.

What will happen, you motherfucking piece of shit, is that clips from the livestream will spread across the globe as a recruitment tool, to radicalize even MORE deranged people to seek martyrdom and put even more people at risk.

Well, as long as Poopy Pete is entertained!

*************************************

Yeah, Donald Trump had a busy week of bullshit but I'm too tired to cover it all.

I'm gonna let Dave Columbo do the heavy lifting on all that.

Star Trekking: Star Trek - The Original Series - Season Two - Part One

Welcome to another edition of Star Trekking, my weekly blog post for my Star Trek fandom.  

For the 60th Anniversary of Star Trek, I did some posts looking back on Star Trek - The Original Series - Season One:

Part One

Part Two 

Part Three 

Today we kick off my look back on Star Trek - The Original Series - Season Two.

Like I did with season one, I'm not doing a comprehensive list of the entire season.  

There are some episodes I barely remember.  ("Friday's Child")

And there were episodes that just plain stunk. (I'm looking at you, "The Omega Glory".)  

The criteria is if I watched it, I remember watching it and I liked it, I'm going to put down some words about it.

We're going to start with "Amok Time".  

This episode establishes some perplexing principles around the sex life of Mr. Spock. 

• Spock does not get horny all that often.
• When he does, he gets SUPER HORNY! 
• He will throw soup at you! 
• And if he doesn't get laid, he will die! 

Spock has entered a Vulcan phase of life called "Pon Farr"

No, Pon Farr, not Jamie Farr! 

Anyway, Spock is all sorts of moody, cranky and some other 3rd thing and Dr. McCoy's diagnosis is if Spock don't get him some, he's gonna die.

To cure him of his Pan Farr, the Enterprise needs to get Spock back to Vulcan where he can hook up with his fiance, T'Pring.

T'Pring has other ideas.

T'Pring has been banging with a Vulcan dude named Stonn who T'Pring prefers to Spock and so wants to break off her engagement to Spock.  

Which apparently involves a ritual combat known as the kal-if-fee. But instead of Stonn, T'Pring chooses another to combat Spock, Capt. Jim Kirk.  

Caution:  the kal-if-fee is to the death! 

It is a ritual overseen by T'Pau, a renowned matriarch who inexplicably speaks in quasi Shakespearean/King James Biblical lingo.  

"Thou hast made a challenge. Does thee accept?"  Stuff like that.

And after several minutes of hot, sweaty, only as gay as you want it to be grappling, Spock kills Kirk. 

SPOCK: Why the challenge, and why you chose my captain as your champion.

T'PRING: Stonn wanted me, I wanted him.

SPOCK: I see no logic in preferring Stonn over me.

T'PRING: You have become much known among our people, Spock. Almost a legend. And as the years went by, I came to know that I did not want to be the consort of a legend. But by the laws of our people, I could only divorce you by the kal-if-fee. There was also Stonn, who wanted very much to be my consort, and I wanted him. If your Captain were victor, he would not want me, and so I would have Stonn. If you were victor you would free me because I had dared to challenge, and again I would have Stonn. But if you did not free me, it would be the same. For you would be gone, and I would have your name and your property, and Stonn would still be there.

SPOCK: Logical. Flawlessly logical.

T'PRING: I am honoured.

SPOCK: Stonn. She is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true. 

(Translation: this bitch be crazy and will make your life hell.)

Seriously bummed out that he killed the Captain and his friend, Spock returns to the Enterprise to find out Kirk is actually still alive. 

Spock greets the news with the brightest, happiest smile you ever saw.  

A smile that launched a thousand ships and a plethora of gay themed fact fiction.

Spock ❤ Kirk =  Spork?  

Hey, wasn't Spock supposed to get laid or the Jamie Farr Pon Farr would kill him? 

Here's how Spock explains what happened.

SPOCK: When I thought I had killed the captain, I found I had lost all interest in T'Pring. The madness was gone.

WE ❤ SPORK! 

For a race that extols the virtues of logic and science,  Vulcans do seem to be caught up in a lot of rituals and superstitious nonsense.  

Here is a partial list of media outlets with their assessments of "Amok Time".   

• 1996:  TV Guide ranked "Amok Time" No. 2 on its list of the 10 best Star Trek episodes.
• 2012:  The A.V. Club ranked this episode as one of top ten "must see" episodes of the original series.
• 2018: Collider ranked this episode the second best original series episode.
• 2019:  CBR ranked this episode as one of the top 8 most memorable episodes of the original Star Trek.
• 2024: Hollywood.com ranked Amok Time at number 7 out of the 79 original series episodes.
• 2026:  Me, I would probably rank "Amok Time" in my Top 10 original Star Trek stories.  

Over a 30 year span, it does seem that "Amok Time" stands the test of time.

Next up on review of Star Trek season 2 is "The Changeling"

Nomad is a device of nearly unlimited power that has taken 4 billion lives in the Malurian star system and is on endless quest to exterminate all biological infestations.

And only the Enterprise stands in it's way. 

Nomad elects not to destroy the ship and crew because it detects it's "Creator" is on board.  

NOMAD: You are the creator, the Kirk. The sterilisation procedure against your ship was unnecessary.

KIRK: What sterilisation procedure?

NOMAD: You are the Kirk, the creator. You programmed my function.

MCCOY: Tell me what your function is.

NOMAD: My function is to probe for biological infestations, to destroy that which is not perfect. I am Nomad

What the hell is going on? Well, here's the deal, sparky.

Nomad started off a deep space probe created by Dr. Jackson Roykirk and launched from Earth in the 21st century.  Contact with the probe was lost and it was presumed the probe had been destroyed.

What happened is the Earth probe encountered an alien probe and the two devices merged giving us the Nomad now roaming the halls of the Enterprise. Nomad has the power to destroy worlds and has used it too.  

And that devastating power is held in check by Nomad's perception of Capt. Jim Kirk as it's creator, Dr. Jackson Roykirk.

Kirk's control over Nomad is hardly complete and as Nomad roams around the ship, curious about these biological organisms his creator allows to infest this vessel, Nomad causes some trouble.  

Nomad attacks Uhura, draining her memories. 

Scotty lunges to protect Uhura from this menace* and winds up getting killed by Nomad for his trouble.

*Because he loves her so? Holy retcon! See Star Trek: Strange New Worlds "Tomorrow's Enterprise".

Don't worry, Uhura and Scotty will get better.

Kirk's losing his leash on an increasingly unstable Nomad. If he can't figure out how to stop Norad here and now, it will destroy the Enterprise and continue on it's merry way, killing planets. 

It's time for that classic Star Trek trope: Kirk turns a computer against itself.  

Nomad's mission: sterilize imperfections without exception.

Kirk points out that Nomad itself is imperfect.

1) Nomad made a mistake thinking Captain Kirk is its true creator Jackson Roykirk. 

2) He has not sterilized itself as an imperfect thing.  

Nomad starts sparking and buzzing from all the contradictions it's forced to calculate. The Enterprise crew beams the metal menace into space where it 'SPLODES!  

"The Changeling" is not a great episode and credulity is mightily strained in order to cobble together a raison d'etre for Kirk's control over Nomad.

But the idea of a Earth space probe merging with an alien probe to become a stronger, more powerful and incredibly dangerous thing was good enough to use again.

It's the basic plot behind Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  

Rounding out today's post is "Mirror, Mirror".

Some cosmic hoo-doo causes the transporter to go kablooey and sends Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura to swap places with their counterparts in another universe.  

An evil universe.

A universe of evil.

We know it's evil because Spock has a goatee.

A goatee of... EVIL! 

It's like how can tell in Community if it's regular good ol' Abed or the Evil Abed from the Darkest Timeline.

Evil Abed has a goatee... of EVIL! 

Anyway, back to Star Trek...

So Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura have to navigate an Enterprise where treachery, torture and murder is just the way things are.  Kirk has to tap dance as fast as he can to keep anyone from realizing he's not Evil Kirk without actually killing anyone.  

Meanwhile Scotty is skulking about trying to reverse engineer the cosmic hoo-doo that sent them to this fascist porn flick and send them back to their Enterprise. 

Evil Spock might be evil but he's still Spock and too damn smart not to realize that something, as the humans say, is up.  

Uhura is fending off advances from Evil Sulu and damn, girl! Uhura can hold her own on the Evil Enterprise.

Scotty is able to technobabble a solution to their predicament but time and resources are tight so nothing can go wrong.

Something goes wrong: Evil Spock confronts our intrepid quartet at the same time Evil Sulu tries to stage a mutiny.  There's a fruckus in which Evil Spock is severely injured.  Even though the window for getting out of this godforsaken universe is about the close, McCoy insists on staying to save Evil Spock's life. 

This moment of compassion compels Evil Spock to help the four escape and promises Kirk that perhaps there is a better, more logical way than serving the evil empire.

Back on their Enterprise, Kirk, McCoy, Scotty & Uhura discover that their evil counterparts were immediately exposed and detained. 

SPOCK: It was far easier for you as civilised men to behave like barbarians, than it was for them as barbarians to behave like civilised men. I assume they returned to their Enterprise at the same time you appeared here.

KIRK: Probably. However, that Jim Kirk will find a few changes, if I read my Spocks correctly.

MCCOY: Jim, I think I liked him with a beard better. It gave him character. Of course almost any change would be a distinct improvement.

KIRK: What worries me is the easy way his counterpart fitted into that other universe. I always thought Spock was a bit of a pirate at heart.

SPOCK: Indeed, gentlemen. May I point out that I had an opportunity to observe your counterparts here quite closely. They were brutal, savage, unprincipled, uncivilised, treacherous, In every way, splendid examples of homo sapiens, the very flower of humanity. I found them quite refreshing.

KIRK: I'm not sure, but I think we've been insulted.

 

If you are from an evil universe and wanna be sure no one confuses you with your lame, pathetic "good" counterpart, you can use this:

Your Evil Abed Insta-Goatee! 

Neither Star Trek nor Star Trek: The Next Generation would revisit the so-called Mirror Universe again.... at least on TV.  There's a ton of tie-in books, comics and stuff.

But the Mirror Universe would be revisited on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.  Hell, they installed a frickin' revolving door to the place.  

And the MIrror Universe would be instrumental to some plot points in Star Trek: DIscovery. 

OK, that is that for this week's look back at the second season of Star Trek, the original series.  

Next week, we will continue this retrospective with another implacable machine of DEATH, more back story for Mr. Spock AND Capt. Kirk.

And if we have time: Tribbles! 

Live long and prosper, y'all!  

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

TREK meets TREK!

It's another edition of the Dropping Names as Jonathan Frakes and Brent Spiner sit down for a chat with William Shatner.

I know you're all excited that Riker and Data chat with Kirk about cool stuff.

It's better described as two old guys talk with another even older guy about old guy stuff.  

Thanks again to  Chrissie's Transcripts Site for the script excerpts.