After watching West Virginia beat up on another patsy and Missouri handle Kansas with an excellent, bruising double-tight-end set and a passing efficiency over 93%, I watched 16 Pro games to pass the Buckeye Break. Hopefully the Oklahoma Sooners will beat Missouri so OSU can pummel the pass-less Mountaineers in the BCS Championship game in New Orleans. Or, we will get our asses handed to us by a revved up and PO’d USC at their home turf at the Rose Bowl (Coliseum of Big 10 Death). Maximus Decimus Meridius couldn’t hold the healthy John Wayne Booty’s jock strap. Good luck, whomever…
In the mean time, I found a great way to pass the Buckeye Break. Last night I watched Star Trek’s “Doomsday Machine” episode before bed — an unadulterated Classic… Wouldn’t let the wife change the channel. Look, it’s either this or the History Channel – which she calls the Hitler Channel because every time someone passes through the room, there’s a black and white still of something gruesome on.
Anyway, I deftly kept the remote moving through the bed cover layers and almost reduced myself to taking out the batteries and saying my legs were broken. She thinks I’m immature, or insane — maybe both… It’s not my fault the football games pushed it to 12:35AM… It’s difficult to argue when you have it recorded on DVR and they say, “Can’t you just watch it later?” Reply, “But, it’s almost over… only 56 minutes left.” Or, in a more juvenile manner say, “William Shattner’s better in a life time than Tyra or Heidi Klum is on Project Runway” or whatever the hell the girls watch over and over in the den. Payback, sayeth the Eggman!
Here we go. Plot Line: On their journey to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldy go where no man has gone before, the Starship Enterprise stumbles onto a distress call from one of Kirk’s academy buddies, Commodore Decker (actor William Windom — more major than a captaincy). They track the signal and plow through space debris which used to be where planets were charted. That’s strange.
Decker’s plastic model, I mean the Starship Constellation is found derelict drifting in space without any signs of life. We know that because science officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) sez so from looking into his Etch-A-Sketch. You can’t argue with the pointy-eared Vulcan because he’s smarter than everyone, is driven by logic never emotion, is cool under pressure, and has a death grip for your shoulder badder than your Uncle Lou can deliver on a sober Thanksgiving morning and a Mind Meld that would reduce Dr. Phil to tears.
Anyway, as standard Star Trek practice to determine the hostility and safety factor, the Captain (Kirk) and two other executives “beam down” and board Decker’s ship. Brilliant! This time, however, they leave Spock behind to run the Enterprise while Kirk absorb radiation or be mauled by monsters. They scour the abandoned ship.
Eventually, they find Decker in the break room hunched over in his Barkalounger disheveled with bloodshot eyes, and a small tear in his yellow polyester V-neck. He’s catatonic, because Dr. “Bones” McCoy sez so and injects Decker a shot of some kind of Go Go Juice Truth Serum that wakes him instantly. The crying Commodore spills the beans. As his ship was surveying the galaxy, they were brutally attacked by something resembling the Devil. Excuse me, “Bones,” what exactly did you shoot the Commodore up with? We can’t get a straight answer from this lunatic. Rule #28, don’t let a doctor called Bones shoot you up after a five second diagnosis. If you jump around ranting and crying, it’s probably paint thinner in your system and your going to do something more stupid THEN die.
C’Mon Decker, fess up. You’re either stealing, protecting, or wanting to kick something around with your battleship. You’re no Captain Cook looking for Bread Fruit in Polynesia to feed Jonathan Swift’s starving Irish. That’s like the aircraft carrier Nimitz patrolling Somalian waters for interdiction and slamming into Madagascar. Oops. Commodore Craig issues his public statement that, “We were on a science mission trolling for Sea Monkeys.” Anyway…
The bad guys are actually a robot – according to Spock as always – slicing and dicing planets hungry for energy on its path to destruction to survive by self-perpetuation. It has no purpose but to eat and annihilate stuff. “Stuff” is planets and lots of people live on them especially in the Rigel Galaxy. That’s bad. Some alien culture designed it and set it loose to end everything as they knew. Remind you of anyone else in recent history? My buddy Al will tell you. And, he’s smart. He has a Nobel… Kirk repeatedly refers to it as the H-bomb from millennia ago like we’re stupid – and to drive the point home — that they’d never use it, but… Nice 60’s message. You can thank Gene Rodenberry for that.
On a more sympathetic note, after Decker got the Constellation demolished, to save his crew Decker beamed the 400 people onto Planet Number Three which Spock coldly points out to Decker, “No longer exists” as Decker throws his hands into the air and screams, “DON’T YOU THINK I KNOW THAT.”
It’s understood by all that they have to stop this thing. Kirk and his staff work to fix Decker’s beat up Constellation to get to the archives because no-one can trust this raving psychedelic super-exec. They cut through magnetic interference generated by the thing, get the communications and transporter fixed “temporarily” and beam Decker out of there – to Sick Bay on Kirk’s Enterprise. But, much to Kirk’s chagrin, his pissed off buddy, Decker, is high with authority and invokes a little know Federation rule that only a space attorney and Spock know of. Spock relinquishes the helm and Decker proceeds to attack this thing that’s as big as “20 Starships” and is made of impenetrable Moldavian. No, you’re thinking of an eastern European province in the Carpathian Mountains known for its hunting dogs, not vampires. Rodenberry probably summered there as a kid or something. Whatever.
Although it sounds imposing, the robot model looks like your grandmother’s Thanksgiving cornucopia spray-painted gun metal gray and a distinctly clunky non-aerodynamic look to it. There’s great line where navigator/helmsman Sulu says to Spock, “We can outmaneuver it….” Spock replies as he looks into his Etch-A-Sketch, “Yes, but, it’s gaining on us.” Excuse me, that’s like being overtaken by a cement truck and you’re driving a Lamborghini Diablo. Better yet, it’s worse than Carl Lewis falling down as he’s getting away from Frankenstein. There’s a joke there. Really.
So, while Kirk’s fixing his buddy’s ship, Decker’s attacking the robot getting the crap kicked out of the Enterprise. Warp drive is out, shields are down, casualties are mounting. Enterprise crewmen are rolling their eyes at one another on the bridge as they fall out of their chairs in contagion. Engineer “Scotty” gets the Constellation running on Impulse Power (much slower than Warp Drive) by inverting the cross-connects (isn’t that redundant?) with a visual, but no communications. On the Constellation, Kirk gets to sit by the sideline in Decker’s Barkalounger and watch his ship get hammered. Now you know how Bill Belichek and Browns fans feel.
Decker gets the Enterprise sucked in by the robot’s Tractor Beam. And, finally, like an attorney, Spock pounces on Decker with a technicality — that “If you’re doing something that seems insane… under Article whatever of Section whatever… I can relieve you of your duty.” Ta da! About time dumbshit. Time to get a smarter Vulcan. Or, better yet, use your Sleeper Grip, wuss.
Here comes the compulsory Expendable Crew Man (ECM) in the red polyester V-neck of a Security Officer who buys the farm every stinkin’ episode. Spock casually sneers at Decker as he is helped by the arm onto the elevator by one ECM and says, “You’re relieved of your command… and you’ll be escorted to Sick Bay… for that evaluation.” Beyatch! Naturally, as they both exit the elevator, Decker has a fake lean over to cough move. The ECM takes the bait to help him up. Decker gives him a cheap body blow and double Judo Chop and drags the limp-legged ECM into a closet.
I’d have put my foot up his ass if he did that to me – Commodore or not. Couldn’t see that coming a mile away.
Hey, if a bar patron is high on PCP, do you send just one bouncer to take the starch out of his shorts — or two or more? We all know the answer. Two — after the third bludgeoned him to submission. I know, you can’t do that to a Commodore. But, wouldn’t you want to if he stole your Starship, especially after a lame technicality? And, he was your Academy buddy?
Decker swerves down the hall in exhaustion from his 5-second bout and skulks towards the shuttle hanger. He steals the shuttle and flies out of Enterprise’s aft transom hanger. Kirk conveniently gets communications back on the Constellation to say from his Barkalounger, “Who’s the idiot taking my shuttle out?” Spock pretty much says, “The same idiot that attacked the Cornucopia, errrr Devil, sir.” In a moment of clarity Decker radios Kirk and says, “I’m going to kill that thing… I’ve been ready to die since I and it killed my crew… Out.”
The shuttle banks and veers the little spud into the Cornucopia’s mouth to blow it up from the inside out like a Kamikaze. Decker makes a bug-eyed twisted facial expression, crosses his forearms over his face and it’s all over. They pan to the Enterprise where Spock says, “From my readings… it’s effects were minimal.” Kirk chimes in from the Constellation, “Maybe that wasn’t such a bad idea.”
Scotty gets the Phaser bank going on the Constellation.
So, like what Browns fans do to referees from the dog pound with flashlight batteries when they don’t like a call, Kirk pops off a few shots off at the robot from his hulk. He does so and the Cornucopia releases the Enterprise from the tractor beam which promptly gets away so it can go warn Star Fleet. Better yet, Scotty gets the communications and transporter both up.
Kirk has Scotty set an overload on the impulse engines to self destruct after Kirk throws a 30-second delay switch – then he beams out at the last second. The Constellation is eaten and it blows up in the robot’s mouth killing it. Sweet and easy – Pinocchio and Gepetto with dynamite. The finicky transporter awkwardly burps Scotty’s molecules back to form on the Enterprise as the engineer runs over to the Etch-A-Sketch to tweak the knobs into working properly.
Kirk is so golden. Except, like security in the dog pound, the robot is after him now and it’s a matter of time before he’s toast also on the crippled Constellation. But, Kirk doesn’t sweat as Spock counts down from 30 seconds as his feet are being inserted into the wood chipper. At the last second, Kirk materializes, the Constellation blows up, snuffs the robot and the crew collectively sighs.
Spock retrieves himself in the end saying to Kirk, “It will be recorded that Commodore Decker died in battle.” Kirk says, “Here, here… I just wonder if there are any more of them out there?”
The super bowl just goes an edge beyond, when the likes of buffalo bills, carolina panthers and chicago bears are playing.
