How Friday Video Link: Gilligan's Island the Band

 

We're about a week out from Halloween where you get to put together a costume and dress like somebody else.

On the subject of dressing up as someone else...

Your Friday Video Link this week are some short clips of a very unusual cover band, Gilligan's Island the Band.  

This band performs dressed up like Gilligan, the Skipper, Mary Ann, Ginger and all the rest of those wacky castaways.

The sound quality may be a bit sketchy but they really look a lot of fun. 

We're back tomorrow with Movie Time as we continue our Halloween countdown of really bad movies.

Thanks for popping by and remember to be good to one another.

Dave-El's Spinner Rack: Legion of Super Heroes#1

DC Comics is giving this another go.

Legion of Super Heroes#1

I guess I'm giving this another go as well.

But I have been burned by this sort of thing before.

This Legion of Super Heroes#1 does not have an actual "Legion".  Not  yet.

Set a thousand years in the future where the very idea of "Super Heroes" is against the law, this issue is about world building.

And what a complex and intriguing world being built by writer Joshua Williamson and artist Hayden Sherman (with the always brilliant coloring by Tamra Bonvillain, perhaps my favorite colorists working in comics today).   

In most tellings of the LSH origin, the story sets up the idea of the Legion with 3 super powered teens saving the life of R. J. Brande, the richest man in the universe. 

In this tale, Brande is already dead and 2 super powered teens are investigating his murder.

• Querl Dox (in past comics was known as Braniac 5, here he's called Braniac 1 of 5) 
• Tenzil Kem (who in the classic comics was Matter Eater Lad)

Querl and Tenzil could leave things to the quasi-fascist government and their masked police force but who trusts them to get to the truth. 

Williamson knows the toys in the Legion toy box but he's playing with them differently.  Querl and Tenzil may be different from the versions I've known in past versions of the Legion but they're also imminently recognizable.  

In addition to Querl Dox and Tenzil Kim doing a cool "buddy cop" routine as they probe Brande's murder, we check in elsewhere on some characters who have been the fundamental foundation of previous incarnations of the Legion and may well be again.  

Telepathic Imra Ardeen on Titan, a moon of  Saturn.

Rokk Krinn whose magnetic powers are employed in athletics to keep his family out of the harsh mines of his homeworld and out of poverty.  

Garth Ranzz has electrical powers and like a lot of kids imagine, super powers means being a super hero.  With a shrine at home to history's greatest hero, Superman, Garth dons a mask and costume to go out and fight crime. It's not going well.

If one comes to Legion of Super Heroes#1 expecting to see the Legion of Super Heroes, well, this issue may be a bit of a disappointment.  But crafting a wall built story with gorgeous art goes a lot way to belying any such concerns.

I'm willing to give this a shot and I like what I see coming out of the gate but I remain cautious: I have been burned before.

Wow! It's been seven years (Seven?!?) since Marvel's golden boy Brian Michael Bendis came to DC with a grand plan to revitalize and restore the Legion of Super Heroes to prominence once more.  

After about 2 years, the Bendis Legion sputtered to a close, ending not with a bang but a whimper.  Dreams of the LSH restored to glory dying in ignominy.  

That was a hard one to take.  

• I first came to the Legion of Super Heroes in August 1974 in the pages of Superboy#205.
• I was there in the heady days of the Levitz/Giffen "Great Darkness" saga that began in the summer of 1982.  
• I was there in the descent into madness that was the "5 Years Later"/Post Crisis time jump of the 1990's. 
• I was there in 2010 when Paul Levitz returned to recapture the glory years of the Legion only to see it fizzle out by August 2013.

I've been lifted up by the exploits of the Legion and I have been burned.

But I'm still hoping...

I'm trusting Joshua Williamson to do better by my beloved Legion.  

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Next week is Comic Book Retro 50. What comic books did a young Dave-El buy in October 1976? That trip down memory lane will happen in 7 days.  

America Last

What? Another political post? Yeah.

I am very disturbed by the rapidity of America's collapse in the face of unprecedented betrayal.

Monday I wrote a post about Donald Trump's capitulation to Russia AGAINST the interests of the country Li'l Donnie is supposed to lead. 

The fallout from Trump's actions over this past weekend continues to unfold and the situation has only gotten worse since I made my post on Monday.  

Trump has essentially allied America (against it's collective will) with Vladmir Putin and Russia.

• Trump agreeing to buy diesel fuel from Russia.
• Trump revoking the bi-partisan sanctions package passed by Congress.
• The Trump administration cutting off Ukraine's access to U.S. intelligence to protect itself from Russian attack.
• The Trump White House throttling back the process speed of Ukaine's access to Starlink which Ukraine uses to guide it's drones. (The White House is blaming Elon Musk for the Starlink throttle back; Musk is blaming the White House.)   

What comes next?  Putin has proposed a meeting of himself, Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping to hammer out an end to  to the Russia–Ukraine war.

Notice who is NOT invited to that confab.

Xi does not have a dog in this fight but China would still stand to gain from an America with reduced influence and power, a certain outcome if Trump abandons Ukraine and everything our country is supposed to stand for. 

If Li'l Donnie actually takes the bait and agrees to this arrangement, the betrayal will be total and real.

• The betrayal of Ukraine, an erstwhile ally, handing over a sovereign nation with a democratically elected government to a hostile invader led by a dictator.
• The betrayal of America's ideals invoked upon our founding 250 years ago,  to seek the benefits of freedom and democracy over the iron grip of the tyrant.  
• And the betrayal of Donald Trump's own rhetoric. America First? Capitulating to Vladmir Putin exposes Trump as what most of us already could see, that Trump, is weak, a coward, a sniveling man child seeking validation from stronger men.

Trump would demean the United States to standing in line behind Russia.

Behind China.

Behind Europe which is figuring out Trump (and sadly by extension) America is not to be trusted.

America First? Ha! 

Ultimately, Trump has devolved this nation to America Last.

Tuesday TV Touchbase: Blue Skies and Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage

Today's post is about a cop show about a detective who rather not have to work with people and the partner who is not people.  

Which sounds like Hudson & Rex.

But it's not.

Andrea and I finished up season 1 of Blue Skies, a cop show about a National Park Service detective (Jodie Larsen) who rather not have to work with people and the partner (her dog Blue) who is not people.  

Over the course of the season, we found out Blue's former human companion was ex-military, like Jodie.  When that human died, Blue went off in search of another human and found Jodie.

How exactly Blue came to Jodie's front door is not explained.

I still think Jodie's dead mom guided this canine companion to her daughter's home, knowing she needed a friend.

There is nothing to support this supernatural theory.

Speaking of Jodie's dead mom...

The season long arc surrounding her mountain climbing death is resolved. No, Mom was not murdered but her fall was connected to her investigation into a someone who was murdered and the subsequent conspiracy to cover it up. 

Jodie's dad and her possible love interest Ryan have been investigating this mystery on the down low, away from Jodie. 

Jodie, a trained police detective, is not happy she was kept out of the loop but she moves on a brings the case to a close.

Set in the environs of a national park, Blue Skies is certainly a pretty show to look at it.  And Blue the dog is just so frickin' adorable.

But the writing on this series is so perfunctory and the acting so flat.  Blue Skies is a pleasant enough diversion of TV viewing but it's no Hudson & Rex.

Speaking of which....

Our luck held out for a second week.  Episode 2 of Hudson & Rex season 9 got posted and the drama continues to unfold.

Joe is still in the hospital recovering from being hit by a car and the police chief as put Sarah in charge of the Major Crimes Unit.

Sarah is also still being frosty towards Charlie.

Jesse confronts Sarah about this and Sarah makes it plain she's just not prepared to deal with this.  She grieved for a whole year thinking Charlie was dead. Everything can't just snap back to the way it was before.

You know, I get that but girl, I still think you owe Charles a conversation at least.  There is so much sadness in those beautiful eyes of his.

QUIT ASKING IF I'M GAY! Can I not as a straight man objectively assess that another man has beautiful eyes?

By the way, we're down one Hudson.

Mark Hudson apparently has a on-again/off again relationship with a woman in Halifax named Laura who is now pregnant (after an on-again moment) so Mark's leaving St. John's to make that relationship work.

The moment at the end of episode 2 when Mark says good-bye to Rex and Rex looks sad about is so... so...

No. Dammit! No, we don't. 

As one Hudson goes, another returns.  

Charlie Hudson completes his re-certification.

His gun test on the artillery range: 6 shots, dead center. 

Charlie's eyes are sharp as well as beautiful.

I'M NOT GAY!! 

Charlie's psych eval goes well enough but we and the psychiatrist can both sense that he's got a lot of trauma to process.

And he's going back to work with Major Crimes with a girlfriend who is not his girlfriend and is now his boss?

I hope our luck holds out and we get episode 3. 

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Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage is back for it's 3rd season.

Apparently the tire store is doing well enough for Georgie to pull $2500 out of petty cash to bail Connor out of jail.

Things are still tense between Georgie and his mother because Mary Cooper has the temerity to date Fred Fagenbacher, the epitome of evil amongst tire store owners.  

But Fred has been very kind and gracious towards Mary. Is he really trying to be a better person like he claims or is this just long range fuckery to get back at Georgie?

I've got a bad feeling it's the latter but I hope it's the former, especially after Mary gives Fred a big damn kiss.

Mandy still has her TV job doing the weather and fluff pieces.  She does a feature on a prize winning pig owned by Wade, the old dude who was a frequent customer at Mee Maw's gambling room on Young Sheldon.

Georgie & Mandy's First Marriage continues to be kind of just OK for me.  I still think Montana Jordan as Georgie was a better actor when he was younger on Young Sheldon. 

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 $ Game Show Side Quest $ 

Musician Lisa Loeb went to the bonus round TWICE on last week's Celebrity Wheel of Fortune and solved the puzzle TWICE and won $100,000 for charity TWICE! 

Lisa was up against 2 other female musicians I've never heard of before and do no remember after. Sorry to... whoever they were.  

I was here for Lisa, still rockin' that sexy librarian vibe.

It's been 32 years since Lisa Loeb debuted with her hit song "Stay" and I think it's terribly impudent of her to not age.

The music video for "Stay" was directed by Ethan Hawke who HAS aged a LOT since 1994.  He presented a category on Jeopardy last week.

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Coming up on future editions of the Tuesday TV Touchbase:

• We're back to the MCU with VisionQuest.
• A quick pop in on new Law & Order
• The return of Happy's Place
• And sooner or later, I will finish season 2 of Batman: Caped Crusader

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.   

Enemies Of America

 As you know, whenever I write a post about Donald Trump, there is a sacred screed that I include in virtually every one of these posts.  

All bubble-blowing babies will be beaten senseless by every able-bodied patron in the bar.

NO, not THAT sacred screed.

THIS one!  

Let's all recite it together. 

Donald Trump is a  lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, narcissistic, small-minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!

Amen! 

For today's sermon, my children, I want to focus on the word "treasonous".

"Treason" is a word that gets tossed around a lot.   Mostly by Donald Trump.

Here is the basic formula der Führer applies to the word "treason".

• You say something bad about Donald Trump.
• Trump equates saying something bad about Trump has saying something bad about America.
• Saying something bad about America means you are an enemy of America. 
• Being an enemy of America is an act of treason.
• Ipso facto: being mean to Trump is treason.

What is the definition of treason other than hurting Li'l Donnie's widdle feelings?  

Treason is the crime of betraying your country, government, or sovereign, especially by trying to overthrow the government or helping its enemies.  

Consider that last part: "helping it's enemies".  

Would it be a given that helping an enemy of America would be an act of treason?

And who, pray tell, are the enemies of America?

Anyone who is not acting in the best interests of the United States. 

Keeping all of that in mind, let's consider the following sequence of events.

Donald Trump makes a deal with Russia to purchase diesel fuel purportedly to offset the rising cost of diesel in the United States.

This is illegal.  There are various laws, rules and sanctions in place forbidding anyone from buying fuel from Russia.

These various laws, rules and sanctions are in place to address Russia's assault on Ukraine. 

Points of order that all of us out here understand: 

• The war between Russia and Ukraine began when Russia attacked Ukraine.
• The war between Russia and Ukraine continues because Russia won't stop attacking Ukraine.

Vladmir Putin is of the mindset that Ukraine belongs to Russia and it's Ukraine's fault the war continues because it keeps fighting back against Russia.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump is irked that the war between Russia and Ukraine continues because Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelenskyy won't make a deal.  

Zelenskyy would very much like to make the following deal: 

• Russia stops attacking Ukraine

Putin's idea of a deal is as follows:

• Let Russia destroy Ukraine.
• Ukraine needs to be cool with that.

Now most the world looks at this mess and sees what most intelligent people see: one country attacking another country.

And most of the world comes to the same conclusion: that is wrong.

And most of the world figures it would be a good idea to help the country being attacked anyway we can.

And hence we get the various laws, rules and sanctions in place forbidding anyone from buying fuel from Russia.

Because Russia would take that money and buy more missiles and tanks and shit to attack Ukraine.

And what Russia doesn't use in Ukraine, that can go towards helping another country with their own intractable war.

Wanna guess what that country is? Here's a hint: it begins with the letter "I" and ends with "RAN".  No fair peeking.  

So Donald Trump makes a deal to buy diesel fuel from Russia because diesel fuel costs too damn much.

Point of order: the reason diesel fuel costs too damn much is because of the war that Donald Trump started with Iran. A war that won't end because Trump says Iran won't make a deal.

Iran would very much like to make the following deal: 

• The United States stops attacking Iran. 

Trump's idea of a deal is as follows:

• Let the United States destroy Iran.
• Iran needs to be cool with that.

By the way, guess where Iran gets it's shit from to keep fighting back against the United States. I'll give you a choice:

• IKEA (some assembly required) 
• Dollar General stores (they're everywhere!) 
• Russia 

Yes, the answer is Russia. (I gave you a little hint a few paragraphs back.)   

Are we sensing a pattern here?

Let's go back to the definition of treason.

Treason is the crime of betraying your country, government, or sovereign, especially by trying to overthrow the government or helping its enemies.  

Donald Trump's actions are doing fuck all to help Americans.

• Our goddam grocery prices are UP!
• Our fucking gas prices are UP!
• Our frickin' unemployment is UP!
• Our collective blood pressure is UP! 
• We are all FED UP with all this bullshit! 

On the other hand, Donald Trump's actions are a boon to a man who is actively working against the interests of the United States. 

Li'l Donnie has always leaned towards Putin.  Trump once stood on a stage next to Putin and took Putin's word over facts given to him by his own government.

One of the few people who had a shot at possibly reminding Li'l Donnie that Putin is not really his friend but our enemy was Sen. Lindsey Graham.  

But then Graham died and the only voice in his ear talking to him about Vladmir Putin is...  Vladmir Putin.  

Congress in a rare overwhelmingly bi-partisan move passed the Lindsey Graham Russian Sanctions Act, a bill designed to impose steep tariffs on countries that import large amounts of Russian oil and energy products and was promoted as way to halt the flow of funds fueling Putin’s four-year war against Ukraine. Trump signed the bill into law.

Several congressmen speculated that Trump would ignore the law.

And sure enough...

On Friday, Trump signed an executive order to suspend that law "in the national interest".

Why it's in our national interest to aid a war mongering dictator attack a sovereign nation and it's democratically elected government?

That stupid diesel deal that Trump thinks will lower diesel prices?

Point of order: the diesel we'll get from Russia in one month  will supply approximately half of the diesel the United States uses in ONE day. 

Who cares? Trump looks like he's doing something about high diesel prices.  Bonus points if it helps his good buddy Putin get some extra dough to end that pesky war with Ukraine which Trump thinks is Zelenskyy's fault.  Because that's what Putin wants Trump to believe. 

Donald Trump has done more to help Vladmir Putin than he has for most of the citizens of the United States.

And why is this? Because.... and say it with me: 

All bubble-blowing babies....

NO, not THAT one! THIS one!  

Donald Trump is a  lying, petulant, bullying, unintelligent, sociopathic, dishonorable, treasonous, gutless, moronic, heartless, soulless, slimy, loathsome, vile, incompetent, psychotic, crooked, disgusting, reprehensible, revolting, horrible, malicious, obnoxious, hateful, narcissistic, small-minded, despicable god damn, motherfucking piece of shit!

Amen! 

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Thanks to Politico.com for the cartoons.  

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

And we're back with more Star Trekking, my weekly blog berth for my Star Trek fandom.  

This is week two of our look back at season 2 of Star Trek, the original series.

These posts are not meant to be objective or comprehensive.

The criteria are as follows:

• I watched it 
• I remember I watched it
• I enjoyed it when I watched it 

For this week's post let's start with "The Doomsday Machine".

The Enterprise Is running down mystery: a trail of destroyed planets, entire Star systems, reduced to rubble.   

What destroyed them and why?

And where did it get to?

While on the prowl for this unknown "planet killer", the Enterprise detects a distress signal from the USS Constitution*, adrift in space, severely damaged.

*The Constitution is a sister ship to the Enterprise so the special effects crew can save some money on designing a new ship and just bust out a spare Enterprise kit, relabel it and mess it up a bit.  

Kirk, Scotty, McCoy and a salvage crew beam over to find the ship occupied by one person, the ship's commander Commodore** Matt Decker.  

**Why is this dude a "commodore" and not a "captain"? I have no idea but it will allow Decker to pull rank later and I'm getting ahead of myself.

Decker is distraught and traumatized as he tearfully relates his encounter with the large space faring engine of destruction.   

DECKER: We tried to contact Starfleet. No one heard. No one! We couldn't run.

KIRK: What happened to your crew?

DECKER: Oh, I had to beam them down. We were dead. No power, our phasers useless. I stayed behind, the last man. The Captain, the last man aboard the ship. That's what you're supposed to do, isn't it? And then it hit again and the transporter went out. They were down there, and I'm up here.

KIRK: What hit? What attacked you?

DECKER: They say there's no devil, Jim, but there is. Right out of hell, I saw it.

KIRK: Matt, where's your crew?

DECKER: On the third planet.

KIRK: There is no third planet.

DECKER: Don't you think I know that? There was, but not anymore. They called me. They begged me for help, four hundred of them. I couldn't. I couldn't.

Leave it to Spock to suss out some deets on what Decker and his ship encountered.

SPOCK: She was attacked by what appears to be essentially a robot, an automated weapon of immense size and power. Its apparent function is to smash planets to rubble and then digest the debris for fuel. It is, therefore, self-sustaining as long as there are planetary bodies for it to feed on.

DECKER: That thing is on the way to the heart of our galaxy. What are you going to do about it?

MCCOY: We're going to do is get you back to the Enterprise.

DECKER: Oh, no, I stay here. I'm not leaving my ship!

KIRK: There's no ship to leave. It's a dead hulk! We'll take her in tow. I'll stay onboard and get her ready. You go back to the Enterprise with the doctor and let him help you.

DECKER: It's just that I, I, I never lost a command before.

Is it too much of a spoiler to say that Decker will soon aim to get a command back.

The planet killer is located and the Enterprise moves towards it. Refusing to sit this out quietly, Decker rushes to the bridge and assume command with a new plan.

Instead of shooting the planet killer with phasers from the Constitution, he will now shoot it with phasers from the Enterprise.  

Yeah, it's not much of a plan, I know.

By the way, Kirk's still stuck on the Constitution. Transporter problems, wouldn't you know.  

All Decker accomplishes is get the planet killer's attention and just a glancing power blast from the machine is enough to incapacitate the Enterprise.

Good job breaking it, Decker! 

That's enough koo-koo for Cocoa Puffs to convince Spock to relieve Decker of command. 

Leaving the bridge, Decker steals a shuttle (seriously, no one ever thinks to lock these things) and flies it down into the great machine, intent to blow it up from the inside.

It doesn't work.

But it's not a bad idea. It just needs a bigger bang.

Kirk decides to ram the Constitution down this planet killer's throat.  If Scotty can get those damn transporters back on line.

But he better hurry. The planet killer is swinging around for another go and this time, the Enterprise will not survive.  

Long story made short: the Constitution goes boom inside the planet killer and it goes dead.

And Scotty beams Kirk out of there with a split second to spare.

A lot of classic Trek Tropes at work here:

• the transporter doesn't bloody work when you want it to but it will work when you need it to if you're in the opening credits.  KIRK:  Gentlemen, I suggest you beam me aboard...
• Scotty wrench wrangling in a Jeffries tube banging out a last minute miracle.
• The "bad admiral" (in this case "commodore") who is bat shit crazy but usurps power to make everyone's life hell.

FUN FACT: the producers had hoped to get film noir legend Robert Ryan to play Decker but he was "unavailable" (or IMHO, "too big a name to do your little science fiction make believe show").  

ANOTHER FUN FACT: the character of Will Decker in Star Trek: The Motion Picture was the son of Matt Decker.  

AND THIS FUN FACT: Dave-El does not know what the word "FUN" means.  

"The Doomsday Machine" did not receive an onscreen follow up in any incarnation of a Star Trek TV show or film.  But the Star Trek: TNG novel "Vendetta" depicts the original Planet Killer as a prototype for a weapon designed to combat the Borg.  

Several media outlets rank "The Doomsday Machine" among the top all time episodes of Star Trek.  

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After last week's post led us to explore Vulcan sex habits with "Amok Time", this week we get another peek into Vulcan culture as Spock is reunited with his parents in  "Journey to Babel"

Enterprise is transporting Federation ambassadors to a conference on the planet Babel to discuss the admission of the Coridan system into the Federation. 

Among the ambassadors include Andorians and Tellarites and representing the planet Vulcan is Sarek.  Joining Sarek is Amanda, "she who is my wife."  

Sarek and Amanda are Spock's parents.  

There's a lot going on:

• Spock teaches McCoy the Vulcan salute.

• Things are frosty between Spock and Sarek. Seems the father did not approve of his son's Starfleet career aspirations.  
• There are efforts by Kirk and McCoy to get Amanda to cough of some goss on Spock's childhood to embarrass  Spock.  Spock refuses to be taken down by any awkward tales of his childhood. 

• Relationships within the ship are super tense and culminates in an ambassador being murdered.
• Things are tense outside in space where a mysterious space craft is following the Enterprise.
• Sarek has a medical condition that is threatening his life. McCoy can fix it but needs a blood transfusion from Spock.

BUT...

• Kirk is attacked by an Andorian who brutally stabs him, leaving him out of commission and Spock in command.

Spock will not relent his command responsibilities to participate in the medical procedure that will save his father.

His very human mother Amanda is kind of pissy about this.

• She married a Vulcan.
• She lives on Vulcan.
• She's been impregnated by a Vulcan.

Does she not understand how Vulcans work? 

Kirk convinces Spock he's OK enough to resume command so Spock will do McCoy's medical thing to save Sarek.    

Kirk is NOT that OK and promised McCoy he would step aside once Spock was in sickbay to help his dad. 

BUT....

This is when the mysterious ship that's been shadowing the Enterprise opts to attack. 

Long story made short: the attacking ship is destroyed, the conspiracy against the Federation is exposed (the "Andorian" who attacked Kirk was not an Andorian) and Sarek survives his operation. 

Which leads to a very amusing exchange.

AMANDA: And you, Sarek. Would you also say thank you to your son?

SAREK: I don't understand.

AMANDA: For saving your life.

SAREK: Spock acted in the only logical manner open to him. One does not thank logic, Amanda.

AMANDA: Logic, logic! I'm sick to death of logic. Do you want to know how I feel about your logic?

SPOCK: Emotional, isn't she?

SAREK: She has always been that way.

SPOCK: Indeed? Why did you marry her?

SAREK: At the time, it seemed the logical thing to do.

I've always loved that last line from Sarek.

Not to be outdone, McCoy gets to take charge over Kirk and Spock. Past being able to fake being well, Kirk is getting wobbly.

KIRK: Bones. (starts to collapse.) No, no, I'm all right

(McCoy helps him onto a bed.)

MCCOY: If you keep arguing with your kindly family doctor, you're going to spend your next ten days right here. If you co-operate, you'll be out in two.

SPOCK: Doctor, I'll return to my station now.

MCCOY: You are at your station, Mister Spock.

KIRK: Doctor McCoy, I believe you're enjoying all this.

SPOCK: Indeed, Captain. I've never seen him look so happy.

MCCOY: Shut up. (to Kirk) Shh. Shh! (to camera) Well, what do you know? I finally got the last word.

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I actually came late to this next particular episode, having missed it in the perpetual reruns of my youth: "Obsession" 

Captain Kirk's current crisis is informed by his past.

Eleven years prior while serving on the USS Farragut, Kirk had an encounter with an alien entity, a cloud like being capable of inflicting painful death.  

The entity killed the ship's captain and most of the crew. Over the intervening years, Kirk has been weighed down by guilt.  Not just guilt over having survived but also guilt about his hesitation before firing on the creature.  

Guilt feeds into anger and obsession.  When the creature returns and begins killing again, Kirk is determined to track down the creature and kill it once and for all.  

Kirk is a ball of tension and frayed nerves, losing his temper and lashing out at the crew. He keeps pushing the ship and the crew past their limits to track the creature and ultimately destroy it.  This is Kirk's driving purpose and nothing else matters.  

Encounters with the entity have not gone well with members of the Enterprise crew winding up injured or dead.

Spock and McCoy are both very concerned about the captain's extreme behavior, the consequences to the ship and to the crew and begin to speculate on his fitness for command.

Mind you, Kirk is not under an enemy's mental control or replaced by a shapeshifter or a multiversal doppelganger.

Captain James T. Kirk is in fact Captain James T. Kirk and he's dealing with some shit.  And admittedly not dealing with it very well.  

It seems Spock and McCoy are not the only ones wondering what's going on with Kirk,  

Captain's log, stardate 3619.6. One of the men in critical condition, the other is dead. And I, I am now even more convinced that this is not only an intelligent creature, but the same which decimated the crew of the USS Farragut eleven years ago in another part of the galaxy. 

Both Spock and McCoy are doubtful of this, and I sense they also doubt my decision to stay and fight the thing. Why am I keeping the ship here?

Long story made short: Kirk is able to corner the creature into a trap and set off a bomb to finally destroy it.

But the real battle all along was with himself and his decade plus guilt over what happened with the Farragut and it's crew.  

What makes "Obsession" work is less the conundrum of how to find and stop the cloud entity and more about Kirk's very human need for redemption and retribution balanced against his responsibilities as captain to protect his ship and his crew.  

This episode poses an interesting challenge for the erstwhile infallible Capt. Kirk, a threat not from out there but from within.

Next up is the pièce de résistance of vintage Star Trek, "The Trouble With Tribbles"  but you know what, this post has gone on long enough.

We will pick up with the Tribbles on next week's Star Trekking.

Until then, remember to be good to one another and to live long and prosper.  

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

Movie Time: Bloody Pit of Horror

We continue our desperate drive towards the dire dreaded date with destiny known as Halloween.

And hand in hand with that we continue our morbid march through movie monstrosities of questionable quality and taste.

Last week's movie was pretty damn bad.

This one may be worse, folks! 

It's... Movie Time!  

Mama Mia! Guardati dagli orrori d'Italia! 

Yes, beware the terrors of Italy as we journey down the corridor of time to 1965 to descend to the depths of unspeakable danger and death to be found in the....Bloody Pit of Horror!

The movie begins with an ending. A red garbed figure is led down into a dungeon in shackles. 

This is the vile fiend known as the Crimson Executioner and he is to be condemned to the same fate experienced by his victims.

His crime: having a private torture chamber. Torture is fine if you're doing it for the government or better yet, the church. But on your own time? That's frowned upon.

The Crimson Executioner is placed in an iron maiden and the door is slowly pushed closed as dozens of sharp spikes plunge into his flesh and he slowly and painfully bleeds out in his coffin of torture and death.

Centuries later....

The place: an ancient Gothic castle, a large and foreboding edifice located in the desolate Italian countryside.

The players:  

• writer Rick
• publisher Daniel Parks
• secretary Edith
• photographer Dermott 
• five young models who don't get names

The players have come to the place, presuming the castle to be deserted, to use it as a location to shoot pictures for a horror photo novel.

But the place is not deserted as it is occupied by one more player to our dread and diabolical scenario.  

The master of the castle, former actor Travis Anderson.  

Recognizing Edith as his former fiancée, Anderson reluctantly agreed to let the group stay in his castle with one very crucial condition: stay out of the dungeon.   

But there's some really cool scary shit down there, perfect for getting some great photos of scantily clad models reacting in terror to instruments of torture.

So the gang heads down there anyway.

Which pisses off Anderson something fierce.

He succumbs to madness as he does the mask of... The Crimson Executioner.  

Check out the unit on that guy! 

Look, it's not that I want to look at the Crimson Executioner's junk but it's right there.  

Anyway, the Crimson Executioner scampers around the castle cornering the hapless interlopers into various death trap torture devices.  

Like the dude chained to a bed while a rack of sharp nails slowly descends from above.

Or the woman who is tied up in a spider web to be consumed by a giant spider that is mostly assuredly not a giant rubber prop but a legitimate monster of death.  

Basically, Anderson traps everyone in various devices designed to inflict slow torturous death on his victims.

Much like the O.G. Crimson Executioner in the movie's prologue, Anderson will meet his end on a torture device known as the  "Lover-of-Death" which inflicts the victim with poison for a slow and agonizing death

Only Ricky and Edith survive this escapade of terror in this... Bloody Pit of Horror. 

The "Hey, Isn't He Related To...?"  Dept.

The role of Travis Anderson, the new model Crimson Executioner was played by Miklós Károly "Mickey" Hargitay, a Hungarian-American bodybuilder and alleged actor.  

Mickey and Jayne 

Mickey married actress Jayne Mansfield and became the adoptive step father of Jayne's daughter, Mariska Hargitay, the same person who plays Olivia Benson on NBC's Law & Order: Special Victims Unit.   

Where she investigates sex crimes that frequently involve torture dungeons not unlike those used by the Crimson Executioner.

Plot twist: Mariska grew up thinking Mickey was her biological father, not discovering until her  twenties that her biological father is Nelson Sardelli, Brazilian-born singer, actor, and comedian of Italian descent

I know this is a lot for a side quest but I think this is more interesting than the movie subject of today's post.

Regarding his role in Bloody Pit Of Horror, Hargitay admitted he "wasn't any more of an accomplished actor than a taxi driver", but thought he still provided a good performance in the film.

Yeah, about that.

While torturing his victims, Hargitay has the Crimson Executioner jumping up and down like a kid on Christmas morning. The way he runs around his dungeon, scurrying from victim to victim with unrestrained glee, it was hard to take him seriously.  

Yeah, he's a sadist who gets off on the pain of others but come on. For all the terror experienced by his victims, this Crimson Executioner is more camp than cruel.  He is less the master of this Bloody Pit of Horror and more it's court jester.  

Next week on Movie Time, the movies ain't getting any better.

We've got a sex crazed serial killer on the loose in a movie written by the co-creator of Doom Patrol and Guardians of the Galaxy.

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Tomorrow, we're going Star Trekking as I continue to explore the 2nd season of Star Trek.