Operation -- Annihilate! (Star Trek TOS - S1E30)

[Hailing Frequencies Open]

On this episode Treks and Tangents, we break down Operation -- Annihilate!. Also known as the episode where Star Trek decided, “What if the villains were just… really gross?”

These flying brain parasites look like someone weaponized spoiled jellyfish, and somehow they only get worse the closer you look.

Kirk’s racing to save a planet, Spock volunteers for a very questionable science experiment, and meanwhile… Sam Kirk gets the most casual send-off in Starfleet history: left behind in his lab like he’s just part of the set dressing.

Saving the galaxy: easy.
Family funeral services: apparently, not so much.

[End Transmission]

Transcript

Intro/Turbolift Tease Recap

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Hailing Frequencies Open and welcome aboard Treks and Tangents. I'm your co-host Brian.

SPEAKER_02 0:15

And I'm your co-host Jackie. I'm your Star Trek newbie who checks off on tangents.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

And I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the tangents back on track. Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode, and this week we watched Star Trek, the original series.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Season one, episode 29, Operation Annihilate. Welcome back, everyone.

SPEAKER_01 0:39

The season finale of season one of the original series. It's wild.

SPEAKER_02 0:47

I can't believe it's already like we already watched all these.

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah, we hidden on it a little bit last episode with the upcoming season finale, but it's here now. So last episode of season one, it's been a journey. It's been interesting. Ultimately, from my perspective of season one, it's kind of been a interesting rewatch of the first season, especially the earlier episodes when the show is trying to find its identity, find its own pacing, and kind of establish itself. Looking back on some of those moments where you just kind of go, uh, that's not gonna be something that sticks around in Star Trek for very long. It's been interesting to revisit some of those moments, which aren't all gone. We'll continue to see that throughout the rest of the original sea series, and we'll also see that in later series as well. So, but it's been fun.

SPEAKER_02 1:45

That's interesting, because I'll I just kept noticing how the uniforms kept changing ever so slightly, and then how the props changed. I guess I was more observant of like the tiny things, but I also had no idea what I was supposed to be watching anyways, because I was just watching it for the first time.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Yeah. So, but thank you everyone for continuing to come along on this journey with us. Thank you everyone for continuing to listen, liking, subscribing, and following along. Uh, thank you all that have been commenting. Always fun to engage in discussion with our fans. Always happy to discuss the episodes and thoughts, and always interested in hearing what you guys think as not about the show, but about Star Trek itself. That's always been fun to continue to engage with.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

I mean, we should probably make like a fill in your own starship crew and have that be for like next season.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

That might be an interesting thought, a way for people to fill in their own rankings. So definitely something we'll talk about uh when it comes time to rank this episode and round out the season. Talk more about that then, of course. But let's just kind of jump into the episode by revisiting the turboliftees from last week. Oh no. The last turboliftees for the season. That's where we gave Jackie the title of this week's episode, and Jackie, without any other information, tried to guess the plot of this week's episode. So, computer, for the last time this season, what was Jackie's turbolift tease last week?

SPEAKER_00 3:34

Jackie's Turbolift tease to end the season was unbeknownst to them. The Enterprise is being hunted by a very angry, mean, rough alien species that we are yet to learn about, and that it is their orders to destroy the Enterprise.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

So, Jackie, how accurate do you think your turbolift tease was?

SPEAKER_02 3:52

We should just like have a glittered party because I almost got it. In what way? We meet an angry, rough alien species that we have yet to learn about.

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Okay, hold on. Firing on pistons. How are they angry? Because they're gross and attacking humans. That's not angry.

SPEAKER_02 4:13

They were yelling. They made the they made the poor humans so upset.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

I would say that they made the humans upset. The moment I think you're thinking of is when they first encounter the humans on the planet that they were yelling, but they were yelling for the crew to stay away and to leave, which wasn't really the aliens doing that, that was the little bit of humanity breaking through. But in any case, so they're angry, they're rough.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

Well, they made the poor humans be in pain. So I think that would be kind of angry when they're trying the human is trying to explain what's happening, and then the alien is just like poke, poke, poke. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 4:57

But then you said that they wanted to destroy the enterprise.

SPEAKER_02 5:01

Well, I I I missed that part, I didn't get that part really. So I mean they wanted to take over the enterprise.

Initial Impressions

SPEAKER_01 5:09

Yes, which is different than wanting to destroy the enterprise. Destroy, take over. We'll give you a C minus this week to round out the season. But what did you ultimately think of this episode?

SPEAKER_02 5:22

I was so grossed out. They are kind of gross, so gross. And then they had like this like mushy s uh the sound they made. Uh I uh no, I closed my eyes.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

Yeah, they're gross, but in another way, they're also just incredibly comical. This is an example, I think, of practical effects that don't pull it off very well. Like a flat breast implant that they colored. Breast implants a good way to describe it. I kind of thought they just resembled the old gags of fake vomit.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Where it's just kind of molded plastic that looks flat and it's got all the little edges around this the edge that maybe you're supposed to cut off, but if you cut it off, does it make it look worse? So gross. And then they don't really do anything. I mean, even when they shoot them with the phaser and they fall off, it's they're just dropping them from off camera, flopping down onto the ground. It's like then it's like uh foam. Yeah. They are kind of gross. It's an interesting concept.

SPEAKER_02 6:33

Yes, it it was interesting, and then when they got to the point where like Spock figured out what it was, and then he and Kirk are like doing mental gymnastics to figure out that this is from a galaxy far, far away. I'm like, oh goodness.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, but and then in the end, though, there were some super problematic pacing issues. The fact that we get all the way to the end, they discover the solution, and then we have to go through this weird little sidetrack of Spock and losing his sight for a total of five minutes. Again, an interesting concept, McCoy not fully diagnosing or providing a solution that causes harm, and that could have been interesting to explore, but not in the last half of the fourth act of the episode that ends the season.

SPEAKER_02 7:30

Well, I was like, why couldn't we wait the five minutes for Nurse Chapel to come running back in to go, wait, look what I found.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Yeah, we'll talk a little bit more later on about the urgency in which they act and how that structures the plot and whether that was necessary. But yeah, ultimately, fun episode.

SPEAKER_02 7:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

Maybe not the best episode to be the bookend to the season, is what I'll say.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

I'm with you right there because we learn about a family that Kirk has, not like his own family, but his brother. We it would have been nice to learn about them maybe like a few weeks ago. Sure. And then like that buildup, and then another like cliffhanger. Like, I don't know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

Just not gonna not gonna be a top-tier episode for the season. And that's okay. They don't all have to be top tier.

SPEAKER_02 8:32

We have learned that at least with this season, they don't kind of go in order with progression of getting better or worse. Like they're just kind of like throwing it about, like, oh, we'll do this one next.

SPEAKER_01 8:44

Yeah. So ultimately, my first impression revisiting a fine episode for Star Trek. It's hurt more by the fact that it's the bookend to the season and not necessarily something else. I think it would have ranked higher for me and been a better episode if this was mixed in with the rest of the episodes, and we would have picked another episode to be the bookend.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

I mean, even after our rock eating monster or before uh last week's episode, that was fabulous.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Oh, you're talking about the Horta from The Devil in the Dark.

SPEAKER_02 9:20

Like it could have been good back then, but yeah, I think it could have ended the season with the last episode. We I just love that one.

Treking Through the Episode

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Yeah. Well, with our thoughts out of the way for the last time this season, I think I'm just gonna keep doing that. Bum bum bum. What Jackie, why don't you walk us through the episode? Okie dokie.

SPEAKER_02 9:40

So we're on the bridge, and Spock is trying to teach everybody that he has a theory of the planets going in order of being like mass insanity taking over. And he shows like this picture graph of planet after planet, like a a line, a line graph that these planets are being taken over, and everyone's going into mass hysteria, and then the not like super fast after each other, it's gradual.

SPEAKER_01 10:18

Hundreds of years, I think. I think the first recorded instance they say is like 200 years ago.

SPEAKER_02 10:25

Right. Well, he found all that information, and then he made this graph, and the last one being only two years ago, so that would be kind of recent. So in theory, in his graph, he is showing that the next planet is is called Dinevah. And when asked about it, McCoy is very firm in his belief that he like this just because it's happening, it doesn't have to be like a certain reason. They just happen to be in line.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Which I don't buy. I mean, there's too much evidence for coincidence to say that there is some causality from this trajection of of space madness.

SPEAKER_02 11:11

Right. I wonder if he's just trying to be like the devil's advocate, you know, like Spock, you're not always right, dude.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

Funny we never hear about space madness anymore. If you think back to the beginning of the season, there was all of this emphasis on the psychological impact of people serving in space on a starship in close quarters, and space madness was a actual diagnosis that people could suffer from.

SPEAKER_02 11:37

Oh, like cabin fever?

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Well, yeah, if you go all the way back to some of the previous episodes, like one of my personal favorites, the one that you didn't like so much, the naked time, is everyone started to go a little bit crazy with that heavy water drunkness.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

You're right.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

They were just kind of pointing it out to be like space madness. So we don't really hear you just said space madness, and it just made me think we don't really see them trying to accuse anyone of being afflicted by space madness anymore this far into the season.

SPEAKER_02 12:10

Well, they took care of it back in episode number four. You know, Sulu got to do his dancing and his, you know, sword fight, so done. Yeah. But anyways, McCoy is like, that can't be the only reason. And then while they're all up, so the graph is like where Yura sits, and they're all looking at the graph, and then Sue interrupts to report, like, whoa, there's a single-manned vessel in front of us, and it's heading straight for the sun. Like, can we like what's up with that? And then when asked, he says that they're too far away for the chapter beam to like pull them back, and Yhura is trying to call them, and the pilot isn't answering. So the vessel is all by itself, just going straight towards the sun. And as soon as he like gets right up near the sun, we hear the pilot like just be super happy that he finally escaped something, and that he's free, and then he's like gobbled up by the sun and he's burned up.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

Yeah. Very haunting, I think. I think that's I think that was one of the the peak of the opening to this episode is that moment and the the emotion and the way that that line is delivered by the actor is is one of no fear, completely contrasting the situation that he's in. I don't know, just a good moment for the opening for me. Makes the opening without it, I think it's kind of a flat opening.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

No, I totally agree with you. And what we learned later on, this pilot is free of pain and all kinds of sensation of that's negative. And so he kind of like, even though he went too close to the sun, he at least died happy.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Right. We'll talk about how that's problematic, but in any case.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

So then now, since we just saw that pilot burn up, Kirk's like, do a 180 and get out of there so we don't get burned up burned up either.

SPEAKER_01 14:26

Right, because this whole time the enterprise has been chasing the ship into the sun, getting dangerously close to it.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

And so we're going away from the sun, and since the next planet in line was Dineva, McCoy is like, hmm, Kirk, doesn't your brother and his family happen to live on Dineva? And then dun dun dun intro.

SPEAKER_01 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:53

See, I kept on hearing Deneva.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

It might be Deneva.

SPEAKER_02 14:56

When you look at I want to call it Deneva too, but it's like a long Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

I don't know. Well, as we've made abundantly clear on this show, we care very little about proper pronunciation, and we will absolutely butcher the names in the name of entertainment. So Dneva is what we're gonna call it.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

So we come back and we're still on the bridge, and we hear Kirk's log, and we learn that Dineve was colonized over a century ago, but it seems to already have been taken over by the mass insanity. Then Kirk comments on how Dineve is one of the most beautiful planets in the galaxy. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:39

We don't see any of it, but okay.

SPEAKER_02 15:42

So Spock, Scotty, and Kirk are all discussing the recent history of Dineveh. They're interrupted by Yahara, who is happened to have a transmission from that very planet. It's like the planet's ears were ringing. It's a woman and she's begging for help. And then Kirk is like trying to talk back to her, but the transmission stops. And then Kirk is like, Yahara, get her back on the on the horn. We gotta see what's up. And Yahara has to say firmly that she cannot, the woman stopped broadcasting, so she can't contact because Kirk is like really like amped up. Like, come on, Yahara, get a hold of them. But she can't.

SPEAKER_01 16:26

Yeah, and Kirk in this moment identifies that this is probably his brother's wife who is on the planet, and he says, Yes, McCoy, I do have family on the planet, my brother Sam, his wife, their son, my nephew. I think Kirk is not really identifying the voice based on the sound of the voice, but because they're trying to use this private transmission channel, which is clearly his own family's identification, you know. So instead of trying to reach anyone on the planet, at the same time they were trying to reach, just dial the phone number for his own family.

SPEAKER_02 17:10

And so we also learn that Sam is a research scientist. So that's interesting. But now we're in the transportation room and Kirk has put together a landing party to check on everybody down on Dineveh. And before we go, we're gonna put our phasers on stun because we don't know what we're walking into or beaming into.

SPEAKER_01 17:32

Yeah, pretty standard. Put it on stun so you don't accidentally kill someone.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

And so just before they go, Spock tells everybody that the amount of people on the planet, little activity is recorded, like he cannot hear anything that's going on. He his sensors are b are are flat, and so still be aware. And Yahara still can't contact anybody, but let's still go. And they have a yeoman going with them, and Kirk, this is the first time I've ever heard him tell a yeoman, make sure you get everything trans, like, write it down.

SPEAKER_01 18:08

Yeah, so identifying. We've questioned in past episodes why is a yeoman going down? Why do we have an extra person going down that doesn't seem to do anything? This is, I think you are correct, the first instance the show identifies or provides that role for the yeoman, calls it out, hey, you're going down and you're just going to use the tricorder to record everything. You focus on that so that we can focus on other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:37

And I find it also odd that in this episode, this yeoman does a lot of talking. Like everyone else has been silent.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

She's getting her guild rate for the day.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

So boom boom boop. Now we are on Dineveh. We've seen the yeoman. We have Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and security gentlemen. And so as they get put back together after they've beamed over, they are super confused because nobody is in sight. And we've learned that there's over a hundred thousand people in this city, and on top of that, there's a one million on the planet totally, and no one again is visible. I mean, if this big planet is the most beautiful, nobody's enjoying it. But then Spock says, Well, I see that they're all inside their buildings, so at least everyone's accounted for.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

Yeah, also slightly interesting to point out, not problematic by itself, but interesting to point out that even though we only see the parasites on that one set, they have to be numerous and also hanging out in the buildings. And it's just interesting that no one is picking those up on their scanners, they're the scanners from the ship, the tricorders on the ground. They are completely invisible to their sensors.

SPEAKER_02 20:04

And yeah, we have no idea where they are either. Like they're just landing in the open area. One could be next to them.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

Yeah, it would have been interesting to interject in this moment when they're making the conclusion or the observation that everyone is hiding out in the buildings, it would have been a cool time to have Spock maybe bring up that, hey, we also detect numerous unknown life forms or unknown signals coming from the same buildings as the humans, and they're so intermixed with the human signals that our ship could not determine or pick those up from orbit. But while that we're on the ground and we're so close to them, we can at least see them.

SPEAKER_02 20:47

That sounds like yeah, that would have made much bigger sense. So as they're looking around and they're chatting, we hear a group of men coming down a sidewalk and they're yelling, get away, we don't want you, we don't want to hurt you. And they have clear clubs, they're like plastic tubes, but clear.

SPEAKER_01 21:10

Yeah, they not and they're not tubes, they're solid plastic, so they're rods, but got it, but they're clear, like that was so weird. Yeah. No idea what they were. I hey guys, dig into the tech manuals and comment on the episode. Tell us what those rods were.

SPEAKER_02 21:28

So they're acting aggressive, but they're saying like protective words, like, please leave. We don't need you here, be safe, save yourselves, we're already dead, kind of sorta. And then so Spock like notates the attitudes are different from their actions, and McCoy is having his little readings, and his recording is showing these people are in a stunned state, their nervous system is violently stimulated. When they should just be like calm and collected. And then they hear a woman screaming in a lab. Well, I guess they're presuming it's a lab, and they just run to it. So then we pop into the lab and we see Arelian, who we learn is Sam's wife. She's screaming while holding like a metal, a flat piece of metal with handles, and she's putting it on the wall. And we learn later she's trying to close up a vent, what looks like.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

Interesting, and she's screaming, they're coming, they're here, being extremely she's terrified. She's terrified, she's slightly delusional, she's not making a lot of sense. Interesting that she's actively because you have to she's infected with these um parasites, and so they then they're causing her pain. And it's interesting that she's able to not follow their instructions. But again, so let's let's go on a s let's go on a little tangent here because we're starting to get into it. Do the parasites actually end up controlling the humans, or do they simply tell or provide the impulse of what they want the humans to do and they force the humans to comply by making them experience pain?

SPEAKER_02 23:22

I think what you said is what's happening because when they save her, quote unquote, and she's back on the Enterprise, she says that we are their arms and lengths.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Right. So they're not controlling them telepathically, they're not even really controlling them, they're just forcing them to do what they want by inflicting pain.

SPEAKER_02 23:45

And they're all wrapped up in their spinal cords and like they're literally putting themselves where their tendons and whatnot are.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

And which makes sense because when Spock is able to suppress those feelings of pain with his half-Vulcan mind, they don't have any other way to get him to do what they want. Right. Okay. At least that's what I think. Okay. No, it makes sense. Hey, we've broken this down far more than the writers have.

SPEAKER_02 24:19

So So McCoy runs to her. Well, first Kirk like grabs her and is like, let go of this. Wait, we don't know what's wrong with you, but come come over here. And Abellion is like, Who are you? Because she didn't recognize him at first. And then finally she's like, Huh. And so McCoy gives her a tranquilizer to calm her down. And then while she's like unconscious over yonder, we see that Sam, Kirk's brother, is dead, and their little boy Peter is unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Right. We'll assume that he's unable to with he whatever pain levels they were inflicting on him, he's just made him pass out. Yeah, he's unable to ex he's unable to stay conscious through that. No, no fault to poor Peter.

SPEAKER_02 25:14

So McCoy then beams both Peter and Aurelia back up to Enterprise so he could take care of them.

SPEAKER_01 25:22

Yep. Leave Sam there. Well, Sam is already dead. Sam's dead. We don't need to put him up in in orbit in the morgue to do a memorial service.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Maybe on the side, uh, McCoy grabs some cells or whatever. Sure.

SPEAKER_01 25:37

Sure, let's let's pretend. Let's pretend.

SPEAKER_02 25:40

So then Spock notices that the metal thing she had was in fact part of the ventilator. And she was trying to keep something out. But we still don't know what is harming the colony. And then Kirk demands answers.

SPEAKER_01 25:56

Yeah. Kirk's very emotional throughout this episode because his family is directly affected. So playing playing to a side of Kirk that we don't normally see because we didn't know we had a family up to this point. We see Kirk make some very emotional decisions, but I think a lot of the times it's been um directed toward a sense of duty toward friendship and a duty of being a white knight and protective toward women. But this is the first time we're gonna see Kirk actively act out and respond to this situation where family is directly involved. A different side to the character.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Well, I mean, we like when our characters are continuously grown and we get more depth instead of just big bad, you know, captain.

SPEAKER_01 26:46

Most of the time.

SPEAKER_02 26:48

So we leave the planet and we are back on the Enterprise with McCoy and the sick bay, and we're relating, we're waiting on lab results, but he does tell Kirk that both Aurelian and Peter are in extreme pain. And Aurelian has such a high pain tolerance that the tranquilizer he's had to like do it twice, and she still keeps waking up. And Kirk goes to her and he like he tells her that Sam is gone, but Peter is alive, and then he pleads for her, please tell me what is going on. And she's like in this delirious loop, because I mean she has the parasite going on, she has McCoy's trinks going on, like craziness, and she just starts saying like they came eight months ago, and a visiting ship from Ingram B brought these things to them.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Right. And if you go all the way back to the opening when they're describing this path of madness before they do anything else, uh Ingram B was the last planet that the madness was observed and was the last stop before the Denivin system.

SPEAKER_02 28:04

And she goes on to say that the evil things do use the planet's inhabitants as their arms and legs. Right. And she's like in extreme pain again and fighting to tell Kirk all of this. And McCoy then tells Kirk that every time she answers a question about what's happening, she's fighting pain. It's like the parasite is like gouging her every time she tries to say what's happening.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Right. Specifically, the parasites are aware of the fact that she's divulging information about them and they're trying to force her to be quiet by inflicting pain upon her. Which is interesting. That gives now we have a little bit of insight to the parasites and that they have a slightly higher function than just baseline parasites. Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 29:00

And sadly, she's been fighting so hard, she finally succumbs to whatever parasite is harming her, and she passes away.

SPEAKER_01 29:11

Right. And then they immediately beam her body back down to the lab so that it can be on top of Sam. Because as we learned, let's not bring any of the dead bodies up to the Enterprise. You gotta get rid of the dead bodies immediately. I'm of course being sarcastic. None of that happens. No, because they have to, you know, use her for tests. There we go. I think my little head can inside track was a lot more dignified than just Jackie's, well, now she's now she's an experiment.

SPEAKER_02 29:41

Well, McCoy vows to do all he can to make sure that Peter, Kirk's nephew, is saved.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Doesn't become an experiment.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

But it's so weird because Kirk never says my nephew, my brother, my sister-in-law. He just says Peter as my brother's son.

SPEAKER_01 30:03

Yeah, that's an interesting thing that I noticed as well.

SPEAKER_02 30:06

Right?

SPEAKER_01 30:07

Yeah, it's very much Kirk using language that distances his relationship to these people.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Maybe so he can stay focused that he needs to do a job and not be too emotional. Maybe I don't know, I just topped that up.

SPEAKER_01 30:23

The other explanation is that he feels no actual connection to them, but we know that's not true because he's so emotionally invested in this. It's an interesting observation.

SPEAKER_02 30:34

Yeah, the moment he said it, I rewound it like three times. Am I did I just hear that right? So now we just beam back to Dineva.

SPEAKER_01 30:42

Because the rest of this party from before is still down on the planet. When they went up with Sam's wife and Sam's son, it was just Kirk and McCoy. Spock and everyone else is still down on the planet. They continue to make observations.

SPEAKER_02 30:57

Yes. We got two parties going on. So Kirk immediately asks Spock, What have you found while I was gone? Like, report. And Spock says they haven't seen any other people, only the people they stunned earlier, and they're already gone. Because when those four men came with those rods, they stunned them and left them there when they found Aurelian. But since then, now they're gone. And Scotty tells Kirk that they hear a strange sound and we're gonna just go check it out, but you arrived, so why don't you go with us? So Kirk tells them all to turn their phasers to tier three because they know that the creature, whatever they're looking for, can kill people.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Or at least infect them, which would be also a problem.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

True. So three is like killing?

SPEAKER_01 31:51

Sure. Let's not go on a tangent about phaser settings this week.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

Okay. So well, it's more than stun.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

There we go.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

So the group now, they just wander into I call it like a garden in a hallway, because in most like fancy buildings, they always have like that walkway that's beautiful in the middle. So that's what I'm envisioning where we are walking and following the noise to. So it's a dark, fan beautiful place, you know, cool and dark, and so gross. All these like square, semi-square breastplants, yeah. Breast implants are attached to the wall, attached to the sides, on the floor, and they're just making this weird, like sucking sound. It's just gross.

SPEAKER_01 32:45

So go ahead and go ahead and describe this sound, Jackie.

SPEAKER_02 32:48

I'll do what the captioning said. It said sickening, suck.

SPEAKER_01 32:53

Okay. So that is definitely more accurate. Everywhere else you look when you look at the breakdown, even on uh memory alpha, they describe it as a curious buzzing noise. No, that no, it is a it is a it is a space whoopee cushion. It is a wet fart sucking sound. Yeah, so gross.

SPEAKER_02 33:18

It it is it is gross, and it's flush-colored with like a red dye curlique in the middle. Right. So gross.

SPEAKER_01 33:26

And for yeah, clarification, we laugh when we say it looks like a breast implant, but it is not uniform in shape. It does No, I was just saying it had like that that uh feeling. Yeah, but it is a blob, it does very much look like a someone went nuts making fake vomit.

SPEAKER_02 33:45

Yes. They had fun, the art department was like, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:49

Yeah, and in this moment when they find them, even the yeoman that's with them goes, it doesn't even look real.

SPEAKER_02 33:54

It's like that's her first speaking point.

SPEAKER_01 33:57

No shit, yeoman. They look fake as hell. I do kind of I really hope that someone inserted that line as a direct comment toward the props that are used for the these parasite aliens, because it really just made me laugh in the moment, like, yeah, it really doesn't look real.

SPEAKER_02 34:17

Oh, maybe this is like to bring the the viewer back because everyone's going, I hope so. So then they all like skip their phasers and they some are kneeling, some are standing, and they just like shoot the whatever gross one they're pointing at. We don't really know. And then poof, they fall down, and then they're looking at it. Even Spock's tricorder doesn't recognize what it is. So like Spock suggests, why don't we risk it and take it onto the enterprise for research?

SPEAKER_01 34:52

And I'm on the couch going, no. No, no, let Peter die and experiment on him. It's safer.

SPEAKER_02 34:59

Well, I saw it one of them like fly, like a bat. So I was like, no. Yeah, like a bat, like a frisbee. Well, you know, like the creature bat.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

There's I guarantee you there's some there's some cast members off camera just chucking them.

SPEAKER_02 35:14

So they all turn to leave, like they're just leaving. Hello, something these are gross and harming people, but let's just walk away. So they turn around and start walking out. Oh, sorry, I forgot to add, Kirk said instead of taking one on board, why don't we just try to trap one and check later? So I think that's why they were gonna leave to find materials to trap it. But still they're not like watching to make sure no one is following them. So they are leaving and Spock is last in line, and one of those ugly things attacks Spock.

SPEAKER_01 35:52

Yeah, it like flies up and attaches himself onto his back. Spock obviously is in pain, he kind of stumbles, Kirk rips it off of him and catches him and is like cradling him on the ground, is like, are you alright, Spock? And then and then we fade out. And for those of you keeping score, this is our first commercial break. Yes, we haven't skipped over anything, we just had that much happen in the first act of the episode to cram in. Again, huge pacing problems with the episode. Act two and act three are a little bit quicker, and then boy, do we just shove everything in at the at the end. So it's weird.

SPEAKER_02 36:38

So we're on the Enterprise, all of us have been backed, and in the sick bay, McCoy and Nurse Chapel are like doing surgery on Spock, but he is fighting the anesthesia and keeps waking up. And they don't know if Spock is fighting them or if he's fighting the creature that is in him, because they've seen that whatever this is has like spiraled into the body. They could only they didn't know what was happening with the Relian, but because they're doing surgery on Spock, that's how they figured it out. And when they show Kirk later on what it is that is inside their body, it's like a dry onion ring in a specimen jar. Yeah. It's like, okay. And he's like, this is in everybody, and sadly, McCoy is unable to move everything, remove back to the surgery. McCoy is unable to remove everything in Spock's body, and he just decides to close him up. And Nurse Chapel is like, What?

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Yeah, there's this weird little scene back and forth between McCoy and Nurse Chapel where Nurse Chapel is just like, What do you mean close him up? And McCoy's like, Don't question me, just do it. It leads nowhere to the rest of the episode. They could have easily removed this argument.

SPEAKER_02 38:02

Well, they probably could have removed every part of it and just show that I don't know. Like we already learned about the puncture wound. We already knew it was around them.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

We could have gotten the sample of the parasite from Aurellion. Aurelian and an autopsy. Yeah, we really could have just jumped straight to Spock restrained on the sick bay table and jumped ahead to that.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

The sick bay tables do not look comfortable at all.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

It's like a bed. Yeah, it's a little weird.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

So then we are now we're jumping back and forth, like the again, the sick bay and bridge. And in sick bay, Spock is now out of his anesthesia, and when he sits up on on the bed, like his whole face, it could have just been what he looked like that day, but he looks super swollen. Right. And he keeps saying no. And he ignores Nurse Chapel's calls, and he just runs out of sick bay. We're assuming he's going to the bridge because he's delirious. Like Nurse Chapel's like, What's wrong with you? And he ignores her, but he keeps saying no, like he's arguing with something in his head. And then Spock bursts onto the bridge and he pulls poor Sulu out of his chair and is like murmuring, must take the ship, must take over. And it takes four to five men to gain control of him. And Kirk even has to like get out of the way because I would imagine Spock is trying to do the Vulcan pinch to like get people off of him.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Yeah, it's a great fight scene on the bridge. It's well choreographed. There's a lot of action that goes into it. None of it appears cheesy.

SPEAKER_02 39:53

No, no.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Like I can't really identify any moment where like you watch some of like the original Batman is kind of what I think of as the benchmark of these choreographed fight scenes. And some of those are so cheesy where they throw a punch and they're six inches away from the face of the person they're punching, but they go flying backwards. So the way that they choreograph this fight, go back and rewatch it again. I think it's great how they don't really do a lot of punching. It's a lot of tussling, it's a lot of throws. One of the best fight scenes, even though it's brief, in the entire season.

SPEAKER_02 40:31

Well, I don't think they're they don't want to harm him. They just want to get him back into bed. Right. Like, calm down, honey.

SPEAKER_01 40:38

Right. And Spock isn't really trying to win a quote unquote fight. He's literally so focused on just gaining control of the ship.

SPEAKER_02 40:47

Exactly. And then Nurse Chapel runs in and she gives a sedative to McCoy to administer to Spock. And then now Spock can go back to Sick Bay, and why don't we use security restraints this time?

SPEAKER_01 41:02

Yeah, probably a good idea.

SPEAKER_02 41:04

So we're back in Sick Bay, and McCoy is showing Kirk how much pain Spock is actually in. And he's had the screen off, and when it turns on, it's like through the roof. And McCoy is explaining that this would seem to be is making the people mad, like all the pain that they're in. So but Spock is like, I can totally be back to work. I'm strong. Like I'll just will the pain away. I'm a Vulcan.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

Re-watching this, I don't really buy it. I mean, this whole this whole next series of events, even knowing the outcome, I don't really know that this is accurately portraying that Spock is in control versus the parasite has one control over Spock. So I asked the question in the beginning: do we think it is telepathically controlling people, or is it just breaking them with pain? And so they give in. It's it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 42:04

It it kind of makes for a problem with this next series of events, but So McCoy asks, so if you are have so much control over this because you're a Vulcan, what about that human side? And so there's like no answer. But he jokes about the human side being an inconvenience, and so like, ha ha ha ha, stay in bed, make sure you rest, and then they leave him, they leave him alone. And Spock is like, I got this covered, I can win. There's no more pain, quote unquote.

SPEAKER_01 42:38

Yeah, there is no pain, there is only Zool. What is that a reference to?

SPEAKER_02 42:45

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

Uh okay, we'll add Ghostbuster to our list. Oh, I've seen that then. You've seen that then the original.

SPEAKER_02 42:52

The original, yes, yes, that makes sense now.

SPEAKER_01 42:55

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:55

Yes, I yes, I've seen it. We'll take Ghostbuster off the list. I've seen the original multiple times. So they leave him because you know, he will follow the rules. But Spock just like pops the security things off the restraints and walks out after Kirk walks out, also.

SPEAKER_01 43:17

Right. So then we get a long scene where Spock is broken out of the restraints in Sick Bay. He goes down to the transporter room, he's carrying this specimen case to presumably to try to capture one of these parasite creatures. And in the transporter room is Scotty and another transporter technician. And at first, Spock tries to play it cool, and he's just like, I'm gonna beam down to the planet, and Scotty's like, No, no, no, Kirk says that no one is to beam down without his permission. And Spock then just tries to fight his way through. He nerf pinches out the technician, throws Scotty around, but Scotty makes Manages to get a phaser onto him and says, I will shoot you, I will knock you out. They call Kirk down to the transporter room. And ultimately they just let Spock talk his way out of it and let Spock beam down to the planet. Spock kind of explains that, well, I'm already infected, they can't do anything to me, so I'm just gonna beam down to get one of these creatures that we can experiment on. And they let him.

SPEAKER_02 44:27

Because he also tells him he's gained control of the pain. So it'd be no issue.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

And we're just believing him. We're just ignoring the fact that Spock has just attacked two members of the crew, and everyone's not leaping to the conclusion that this parasite creature is in control of Spock. Exactly. Like you're not supposed to nerf pinch your friend. Yeah. So I just, yeah, it's a weird moment where, or I don't know, I wouldn't I won't call it a flaw, but I mean maybe they're going, well, at least he's not trying to take over the ship, let him beam down. But how do we know he's not trying to get one of those parasites back up to the Enterprise to unleash upon everyone?

SPEAKER_02 45:08

True, and I think that's why McCoy is so upset at Kirk to allow him to go down because McCoy is like, WTF.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

Yeah, kind of a plot problem there.

SPEAKER_02 45:18

So Spock is now on Deneva, and he immediately when he arrives, a Davinian is trying to fight him, and Spock fights him off and goes directly to where he that hallway garden and stuns one of the gross, gross creatures, and just like bends down and I don't know where these prongs came from, but they're giant and clear. And he just puts it right into that red box he had and he turns around to go back to back to Enterprise. It looks like that red box came from a Lego set. Like it's so funny. So now we're back on the Enterprise surprise. And Spock has gone directly to a lab. There's so many places that I learned on this episode.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Yeah, this is gonna be the laboratory in Sick Bay. This will be the first time that we do see it on camera, but this is a part of Sick Bay, it is McCoy's personal lab that he does all of his testing.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Oh, that's super cool then. So he like puts his friend, the creature, in this glass jar. It looks like coffee maker, because it has all these dials above it. And he welcomes Kirk and McCoy in to see what he found. Like it's McCoy's lab, but welcome in. And McCoy immediately starts to scan Spock, like to check to see, are you okay? And Spock's like, stop doing that, let me tell you what I found. But McCoy is still concerned. Anyways, back to the creature, Spock has determined that these gross things are individual cells that belong to a larger brain.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Which is just kind of their way of tying in this idea that they control the other people. Again, it kind of is in conflict. If they're all connected as a brain, there's no I I'm stuck on this idea that they're not controlling them telepathically, they're controlling them by pain. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 47:27

Maybe both, because I get your point now.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Because if they're all connected and they're all acting as one brain and they're all they're parasites, so they're all acting in unison. I guess that's maybe a way to explain why everyone who's infected has one goal, and that is to either build or capture a ship so that they all can get on the ship and they can go to the next planet. Yikes.

SPEAKER_02 47:49

And then Kirk is like going off on more tangents, like this far, far away galaxy that this is a bigger creature. Like, I don't understand either.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

Yeah, it's kind of a way for them.

SPEAKER_02 48:01

Like blah blah blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_01 48:02

Yeah, they're trained to be like, well, it came from outside of our galaxy, and it's just like we don't need to know any of this, dude.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

So then Kirk's like, well, fine then. You have an hour to tell me what it is and how we go about it.

SPEAKER_01 48:16

How we go about killing them and stopping them and saving all the people on the planet. And then McCoy scans Spock again and he's like, Stop it. Yeah, Spock's like, dude, I'm fine, leave me alone.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

So one hour later, Kirk comes back to see what they've done. And he stops by McCoy and Nurse Chapel first, and he honestly says he can't figure out what to do. He's used radiation, he's used heat, and he's afraid that if he does anything, he's just going to burn up the nephew and spot.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Right. Whatever they can do to kill this creature will also kill the host.

SPEAKER_02 48:56

And then we learn that Enterprise has 14 science labs and the best equipment, and Kirk is very upset. So while we're in the conference room, we hear over that there's a new log, and this is where Kirk is like fighting with himself. He's like, I don't know what to do if I just worry about what I have up here. I only have two to worry about, but if I can't fix what's what this thing is doing, then I have to kill a million people. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:26

That's gonna be ultimately the solution that Kirk settles on.

SPEAKER_02 49:31

But then in the conference room, after he just said that in the vlog, he says, I'm not going to kill anyone, and you two, you know, figure it out. And then just like you said, the spacing, so now we're back in Kirk's quarters, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are talking about everything that they've tried. And then they're like, wait, the Denivan who got away, who died in the sun, must have figured it out because he was so happy once he got like right in front of the sun and then it must have killed the creature.

SPEAKER_01 50:05

Right. And this is gonna be besides plot holes. This actually, I think, was a very cool kind of sci-fi detective moment where they it didn't drag it out. It was like something must have happened, something by going to the sun caused him to rid himself of the influence of the parasite. Ultimately, what they're gonna come to is they realize that because they've tried everything, they've tried heat, they've tried radiation, and they can't figure it out, and then they come to the conclusion that it's light. It's the fact it has to be that the sun is so bright and he's so close to it that it's the light that causes, and they also are able to then go, yeah, that's right, and that's why all the humans are hanging out inside of the buildings because it's darker in there.

SPEAKER_02 50:51

It's and all of them were in that dark hallway.

SPEAKER_01 50:54

Yeah, and and I mean, even when you look at when they're outside, they're kind of kind of not really, but they're kind of sticking to the shadows, they're kind of sticking into the shade. And so I think it kind of a cool kind a cool moment to just kind of tie that back to the beginning instead of having the pilot of the spaceship flying into the sun is kind of a throwaway moment.

SPEAKER_02 51:17

So I totally agree. And they come up with this thing about one million candlelights.

SPEAKER_01 51:23

Okay, it's a way to it's a way to measure light.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

So they do the experiment, and wow, it did kill the creature. Right. But the three that were standing there had to wear special goggles. Like when you go tanning, I don't go tanning, but when they lay in those sunbeds, you gotta wear those tiny goggles on your eyes.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Yeah, so specifically they've got this isolation chamber that they can use to expose and create this bright environment to mimic being exposed to the light from the sun. And I do have it in my notes. It's a little odd. I mean, okay, safety first, let's put on the goggles. But even later, when they do this experiment on Spock, the lights get brighter in the lab. What's the point of this isolation chamber if it's just letting the light bleed out everywhere? Makes no sense.

SPEAKER_02 52:14

It's light, it can escape and go wherever it wants. So Spock is like, now you could try it on me. And they're like, but what about your eyes? And there wouldn't be one million pairs of goggles that we can make, so what's gonna happen? And Spock's like, that's okay, I'll just do it. And then if it works, it works. If it doesn't, it doesn't. But why don't we just not wait for the specimens that McCoy took and gave to Miss Chapel to do other tests on? Why don't we just throw you in there right now?

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Yeah, got a problem with that, but also I will say for problems with pacing, kind of great that this all takes place within the conversation because they originally are talking about, well, we have to try it on someone. Who are we gonna try it on? McCoy and Kirk are kind of sweating about going, well, Mr. Spock makes the most sense, but we don't want to experiment on him, and then Spock volunteers. That all takes place in what, like 30 seconds?

SPEAKER_02 53:14

Yeah, he well, he knows he has to do it, or else Peter and poor Peter's unconscious.

SPEAKER_01 53:20

Right. And so I kind of appreciate for the show for the pacing that they just kind of got on with it and they didn't have to like have the debate and then go to Spock, and then we had to have a conversation with a logical Vulcan who is trying to come up with other ways. It just kind of happened. The only way it could have been more perfect is if you cut Kirk and McCoy out of the whole conversation and you just start with Spock walking back into the room going, It worked, let's do it on me, let's go, boys.

SPEAKER_02 53:49

Yeah, and then when Spock goes in, McCoy is like, he is the best first officer. Like, aw, if he dies, we're gonna be losing him.

SPEAKER_01 53:59

Spoiler, Spock doesn't die.

SPEAKER_02 54:02

Yay! But they just had to make sure, you know, those two always are like picking at each other. I thought it was very cute to add that. And so Spock comes out, he's like, Yay, I feel great, no parasite, but I can't see.

SPEAKER_01 54:18

Right. So to speed it up, we get some we get a very condensed scene where Spock is blind, everyone's concerned for Spock. Nurse Chapel comes running in and says that she was able to verify the results of the experiment, and it turns out they didn't need white light or visible light, they just needed UV light. And so they could have just exposed Spock to your tanning bed analogy, is a great analogy. They could have just exposed him to UV light, which would have killed off the parasite infection in Spock and not have blinded him. Side note, it would have severely tanned him or sunburned him, and we'd have other problems, but we can talk about that later. But then there's also this whole thing about McCoy being super regretful, and I'm sorry, I used a treatment to cure a patient, but I still caused the patient harm. He was really upset, yeah. Again, this would have been a fantastic side plot to explore, not in the last bit of the episode. Totally.

SPEAKER_02 55:28

So Kirk is super upset, but they continue on with their planet, they string all these satellites together and direct it at the planet. But while the lights are going, aren't the the people are still inside, so how are they getting these this life-saving light?

SPEAKER_01 55:46

Well, I have no idea. The other thing to consider is the fact that the shuttle pilot from the very beginning that cures himself by flying into the sun, how is he being exposed to UV radiation? The ship would have filtered all of that out. Even a view screen that we have as the quote unquote window on a starship would be filtering out UV light like windshields in cars, because it's not a direct window outside, it's a television that's projecting an image that's being recorded by a camera, or many cameras in this case, but so there he wouldn't have been exposed to UV light either. If they were constantly being exposed to the UV uh light waves or waves in space, they'd all be dead from cancer. So I don't know how any of this science works.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

But it worked, yay! But by golly, no more, no more gross creatures killing uh making people crazy.

SPEAKER_01 56:51

And suntans for everyone.

SPEAKER_02 56:54

And so they, you know, tell uh Kirk and Spock everything worked, and then now we're on the bridge where Kirk asks the yeoman to start a message for Starfleet, and then she interrupts him by looking up, and Spock and McCoy walk onto the bridge. Like Spock walks right up to where he's supposed to be, and he's like, Thankfully, the Vulcan sun is super bright, and we Vulcans have a third eyelid to help shield the sun's brightness, and he called it Spock compared it to a human's appendix. Right.

SPEAKER_01 57:33

It's weird. It it's so weird. Yeah, it this is odd.

SPEAKER_02 57:38

What did Spock know before he went in?

SPEAKER_01 57:40

Yeah. And yeah, this whole idea of Vulcans having this inner eyelid as a way as an adaptation to their own bright sun, and it's not mentioned going into it. So let me ask you this. Do you like the fact that Spock regains his sight and we wrap up that plot line before the end of the episode? Or would you have liked to have seen that carried over to another episode? As kind of a hey, end of the season, cliffhanger going into season two. Does Spock regain his sight?

SPEAKER_02 58:14

That would have been good because I didn't think that there was a cliffhanger at all. Like it ended, and I was like, wait, what am I gonna expect for next next season?

SPEAKER_01 58:23

Yeah, and it it that's partially the way television was, I think. But yeah, it's again just this weird little side plot thing that they toss in at the end of the episode that kind of would have been better as its own thing or introduced earlier.

SPEAKER_02 58:40

And then Kirk's like, well, Spock, you know, regaining one's eyesight is usually an emotional thing for you know most people. Are you sure you didn't feel anything? And then he said, Yes. My first view was that of Dr. McCoy bending over me. That was my reaction. And then McCoy teases back how he doesn't have an appreciation for beauty, you know, they just you know kick back and forth. And then Kirk leaves and Spock, you know, let's lay a course to Starbase 10. And then while McCoy is over with Kirk discussing Spock's weird eyes, and hey, maybe not tell him that uh I said he was the best in the fleet, and Spock swings around, he says, Thank you, Doctor. And then Kirk's like, You were worried about his eyes, and you forgot about his Vulcan ears.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 59:32

And then it ends.

SPEAKER_01 59:34

It's and I I I like the little banter at the end. This is an episode that it pulls it off well. I think it's good well scripted, it's a good way to end the episode uh this time. I think they pull it off.

SPEAKER_02 59:45

Yeah, and it was really, you know, cute.

Final Thoughts

SPEAKER_01 59:48

Right. But roll credits. So, Jackie, what are your final thoughts for season one, episode 29, Operation Annihilate?

SPEAKER_02 59:59

I really liked it, although I wish the last half would have been longer than the first half. Pacing issues for is that yeah, like it just maybe not all the science, like weird one million candles times two eyelids, I don't know. Like that, maybe we didn't need, but more something.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:21

Right. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

I I I think my statement at the beginning stands up. It's the idea of it's a fine episode. It has a couple problems, but we can overlook that, but it would have, I think, gone over better if we had injected this episode into the middle of the season and picked. I'm judging it based on the fact that from our viewpoint, it is the season finale of Star Trek. That is that is a different thing in 1967 than it is in modern day television. True. I fully acknowledge that. But I I like to think our podcast views the the series through our viewpoint of 2006 as we record this. We are not trying to put ourselves into the position of an audience in 1967. We're not asking if this was good 1967 television, we're asking if this is entertaining in 2006. So the fact that it is the season finale weighs more heavily on it and impacts it more than just the episode itself. It's fine. We could have had better.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:35

I mean, I think a simple swap of last week's The City.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:40

The City on the Edge of Forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:42

Like that could have been the fun the finale, and then that would make me as a viewer be like, yeah, season two, what are they gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:49

Well, and we also could have, while you don't have to have an exact cliffhanger, yeah, coming out of the season, that's probably the city on the edge of forever is the episode where Kirk probably suffers the biggest heartbreak. Yeah, he really liked her and she died. So what if we just ended with that, where the season ends with Kirk having to work his way through that heartbreak, and we come back to the next season to see if he's worked through it.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:15

Oh, like he's hugging McCoy because he has to save McCoy, and the car accident happens, and then roll credits.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

Yeah, that would have been awesome. That would have been a good season ending.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:25

Not that I didn't want her to die.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:27

No, Jack. No, you did. Jackie's like, another experiment. Let's cut her open.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

Bring her back to life, Frankenstein.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

Right. So, Jackie, I'm looking at our quotes. Why don't you give me your quote, your favorite quote from the episode?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:42

Easily, for me at least, is pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled. And it's Spock to McCoy when he's talking about being infected by the parasite. And I live this every day, and I think that's why it resonated with me. Um, chronic pain is terrible, but if I let myself sit and, you know, cry over it, then it just gains more power. But if I fight and make myself get up and do something, then I'm at least able to push it to the back of my head and do those dishes that I've been putting off. All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

Well, I have the same quote.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:26

Well, you told me that when I was, you know, in my midst of pain too.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:30

Yeah. And I mean, yes, it is a very powerful quote. It's also one of the few quotes to the episode that is memorable. It's not a very quote heavy episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

I'm sorry, I do love it when uh Scotty says, I'll make you go to sleep.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:45

Yeah, that's good too. So those are gonna be our final thoughts to the episode to wrap it up and our quotes. Don't forget over on our Patreon, we are gonna record our Star Note bonus episode free for all of our Patreon followers, uh, where we kind of take one or two topics and we dive a little deeper into the episode. I think this week's Star Note is going to address why was there such urgency in all of these actions? Why did we have to rush the experiment? Why did we have to immediately jump to the conclusion of well, we just have to kill everyone on the planet and so forth? There's some problems with those thoughts that I think we'll get into. So join us. I already have it rolling through, like I have an answer for you already. So join us over on our Patreon after you're done listening to this episode and check out the bonus episode this week and check out all the past bonus episodes. Again, free for all of our Patreon followers. You don't have to pay a dime to get access to those bonus episodes, but you do have to follow our Patreon.

Tribble Tidbits

SPEAKER_02 1:04:50

And leave some notes and you know, share all that great jazz.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:54

But I do have some triple tidbits, which is what we indirectly call our fun facts to the episode or just interesting facts to the episode. And why do we call them triple tidbits, Jackie? Because they're amazing, and I'm sad they were not shown that. And because tribles are both uh a curse, a blessing, fun, interesting. So they're like glitter. Exactly. Awesome. Episode first airing April 13th, 1967. Kirk's brother Sam is just portrayed by William Shatner. If you zoom in on Sam's dead body when they roll him over, it's Shatner wearing a fake mustache. We're gonna pause here and we're gonna show Jackie.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:40

Yes, I totally missed it. I was busy admiring Arelian's jumpsuit.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:46

That is definitely William Shatner wearing a mustache. They were really close brothers. Very close brothers. There's lots of reused set pieces and props in this episode that you can find if you look. Jumping back. You can find Bailock's lamp device from the Corbin Mite maneuver in McCoy's lab. The Neural Neutralizer Chair from Dagger of the Mind is the chair that Spox sits in this episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:12

I saw that.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:13

I didn't notice that. Inside the light chamber. The chairs from Chief Vandenberg's office in the Devil in the Dark are found in Kirk's Sam Kirk's office. They're just painted pink. So lots of reused props and sets are popping up in this uh in this episode.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

Well, it saves on the budget.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:34

Yes. On the official blooper reel, I'm told I went looking for it. I couldn't find it in my search, but on a blooper reel, there is a shot when the parasite is flying and attaches itself to Spock's back. There's a blooper where it goes flying and it accidentally attaches it to Spock's butt. That would be funny. So I couldn't find it. I don't know if they reacted to it or if it's just an unused blooper, but thought I'd throw it in there. The creatures are officially named. They are named Blasto Neurons. They're trying to sound like it's cancer. They it's not mentioned in the episode, but they after Star Trek had its run, and as they came out with like fan publications or publications for fans, they came out with a book for fans. It was called the Starfleet Medical Reference Manual. Oh my goodness. It's just fanfic. It's a real book. It's just fan fiction. It's just it's just lore in book form. Uh came out in 1977, but it is mentioned these parasites, and they do give them that name. I'm gonna look it up after this. The I I looked it up, you can get it for like less than 20 bucks used.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:52

That's insane.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:53

I know. At some point, we're probably gonna have to start building a library of Star Trek stuff. Oh my gosh. The original script that was written did not have the solution being exposure to UV light to kill the creatures. In the original script, the Enterprise tracked down the home planet of these creatures, and they blew up the planet with like super missiles. Again, it's an early script, so the details are vague, and that would have killed off all of the creatures on the planet, which somehow cut off the source for the rest of the creatures, which then caused the rest of the creatures to die. Again, that idea that they're all a hive mind.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:33

Yeah, and they're part of the brain. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:35

But if they're from another galaxy, that would be impossible for the Enterprise to get to in a timely manner. I don't think the original script went into too great a detail as to how they found the original planet. So that whole idea was scrapped and they used the uh UV light as the solution. My l my last triple tidbit for the episode: the haunting voice of the spacecraft pilot that's flown into the sun is voiced by Leonard Nimoy. That's awesome. Great, great performance. Again, that moment of the ship flying into the sun, tying into the realization and discovery of the exposing of the creatures to the UV light, my favorite part of the episode. So I think it was cool that he that Leonard Nimoy was the one who delivered that line.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:23

So both Leonard and William got to play two people.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:27

That they did. Those are going to be your triple tidbits this week. But now we get to our episode ranking, our final ranking for the season. This is where we pretend the episode is a member of our crew for a fictitious starship, and we assign a Starfleet rank to the episode. A higher rank means not only we were more entertained by the episode, but we think the episode is a more valuable member to our crew. A lower rank, of course, means we were less entertained by the episode, and the crew member episode is more disposable for our crew. We have our lower ranks as our enlisted, starting at the bottom, and ensign, which would be the worst episode we could watch. We have lieutenant junior grade and we have lieutenant, we can have an unlimited number of enlisted officers on our starship, and then we have our officers themselves, the lieutenant commanders, we can have seven, we can have five commanders, one captain, and one admiral. And if none of that made sense to you, again, we also post a graphical representation of our rankings over at our Patreon, patreon.com slash treks and tangents, and we update those every Wednesday, the day after the episode goes live. Those are also free for everyone to view. We both chose the city on the edge of forever as our admirals as our top episode for the season. We also both have our captains as the devil in the dark.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:15

So yes, I love my little horta, and then I love uh the city one. I can't ever say it. The city on the edge of nowhere.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:24

Or the edge of forever.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:26

Yeah, forever.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:27

I always want to say the city on the edge of tomorrow because it's time traveling. But um, and I'm sure if you go back, I'm sure someone will catch me at some point referring to it as tomorrow instead of forever. But it's just how it like flows. But as in this case, for this episode, the season finale, what rank do you assign Operation Annihilate?

SPEAKER_02 1:11:50

Well, I like how my grid looks like a shoe on Tetris. So I'm gonna add I just can't get over those aliens. So I need to put it eh as Lieutenant Junior grade. I I wish there was more of the second half, like chatter and how we're gonna fix it, and less of how we're gonna focus on these aliens and how gross like they're gross, like they went out of their way to make them have this terrible sound. Like I still hear it in my head. Like the sucking and the yeah, I'm I'm over that.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:27

Okay, so Lieutenant Junior grade for this episode. I'm sorry, season finale. For my ranking for the USS Cosmic Shark, I'm gonna be close for different reasons. I'm gonna assign this the rank of lieutenant and round out my lieutenant rankings.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:46

You have a better touch than me.

Turbolift Tease

SPEAKER_01 1:12:49

Yes. Uh as as far as the episode goes, again, let's not ignore the the plot holes of exposing an entire planet to UV radiation and what that would do to the human body. But besides that, I do enjoy space horror. I think that Star Trek should explore more episodes that has space horror. I would like to see that more. But also combine the fact that these props are so unrealistic, even the yeoman on set is referring to that don't look real. Can't ignore that. The pacing issues, again, it'd be a fine episode, and it is a fine episode. It would fit better in the middle of the season, I think, and it just kind of is a disappointment for the bookend, the season finale, but ultimately fine. It was entertaining to watch, not one that I would go back and rewatch. Lieutenant is gonna be my rank to round out the season. Looking at IMDB as of this recording, Operation Annihilate currently ranks a 7.5 out of 10. People like those crazy ugly things. I think that's an average ranking for IMDB. I think that's gonna be the average. I would be surprised if it was an eight or higher. So again, it's entertaining. It's not groundbreaking. But that's gonna wrap up our rankings this season. Again, we'll post a graphical representation on Wednesday, the day after this episode goes live, showing a full breakdown of every episode this season and how we ranked it over on our Patreon at patreon.com slash treks and tangents. We'll be back next week to trek through another episode and start a new season of Star Trek the Original Series. Super exciting. And we'll do as we always do. We'll have Jackie give her turboliftees or elevator pitch to the next episode's plot. I'll give Jackie the title of the next episode, and Jackie with no other information will give a brief pitch as to what she thinks the plot's gonna be. Let's hope I do better this time. Next week's episode is entitled A Mock Time.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:05

This episode will be about one enterprise crew member by themselves, and they're going to have to go through a personal like journey. And on this journey, it's gonna be like a like they're gonna find something about their soul, and but doing it alone is not fun, and Kirk and McCoy are gonna s you know force their way into it, because who knows? We might have a new character, season two, episode one, and we are going to help this character be a success at this journey, and then we're all going to come back home and chat about it as we go on to the next journey.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:54

And tune in next week to see if Jackie's guess is correct. If you want more show information, you can find and directly support us on our Patreon, patreon.com/slash treks and tangents. Again, we have our free Star Note bonus episode every week. We have our graphical representation of our rankings. We have once a month diving into an episode of the Star Trek animated series. We have all of our test episodes that we recorded on Fringe and Stargate SG1 to prepare for the podcast. And our April Fools one. We have our April Fools on our Patreon and elsewhere episode where we dived into con air. So we're always looking for new ideas for the Patreon too. So if there's something you guys want to see, we can absolutely take suggestions from the audience if you want us to try something different. Let us know. Happy to always consider suggestions. Or even a different thing to watch. Right. That might be fun. You can also follow us on x.com at trucks underscore tangents. We're on Instagram and Blue Sky at Trucks and Tangents. But Jackie, where can people find you? And what are you up to?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:10

I'm hanging on Instagram mostly at Jaboom J I B B O O M. I have everything on there. I have fashion for the mid-sized gal, fashion for the disabled, makeup, disability advocacy, my music. I play the tuba and the flute. And also all about my service dogs and show how they're doing.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:38

Alright, and you can watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch.tv slash piratepoundtown. On YouTube, I post video games and other random content on my main channel, PiratePoundtown, and I've got a side channel on YouTube for coin collecting and other hobby material at Pirate Treasure Hunting. I post socially on Blue Sky at PiratePoundtown, and I can be found on Instagram under Pineapple Cannibal. Links to all social media can be found in the episode description. Thank you everyone for tuning in to this week's season finale. Hope you had fun like we did, and we'll see you next week for a new season. Be sure to wear sunscreen when you're out dancing. End transmission.