|||[Boldly Going]||| Star Trek: The Original Series—Season Two: Ep. 2.19 “A Private Little War” – (Original air date: Friday, February 2, 1968)

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Before I get started, I just wanted to write that, yes, I realize it’s been over two years since I’ve published one of these “Boldly Going” entries. Here’s the thing: if anyone reads the previous entry and then this one, they’ll never realize there were two years between the two. Plus, TOS is timeless. In a very real way, since it’s been fifty-six years since the episode first aired, this post has taken its sweet time to get here.

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Welcome to my rewatching of the original 79 episodes of the series that launched the franchise. Below are the bulletpointed notes I jotted down while watching “A Private Little War.”

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• On this date in history, the British rock band Jethro Tull performed in concert for the first time (at least under that name).
• On this same night, NBA great Wilt Chamberlain may or may not have achieved professional basketball’s only double-triple-double (so far) while playing for the Philadelphia 76ers against the Detroit Pistons. While Chamberlain holds a multitude of records, this isn’t officially one of them because some stats weren’t being recorded in ’68.
• “Green Tambourine,” by the Lemon Pipers, was the #1 single in the US. “The Mighty Quinn,” by Manfred Mann, was #1 in the UK.
• For reasons I can’t begin to explain, I remember “Quinn” more fully than the other one. And I just found out that it was written by Bob Dylan.
• Coincidentally, Dylan also wrote “Tambourine Man,” the best-known version of which was performed by The Byrds. This is not the same song as “Green Tambourine” although it does have the word tambourine in it. Everything is connected.
• The original writer on this episode, Don Ingalls, chose to put the pen name Jud Crucis on this one after Gene Roddenberry made changes to his script that he didn’t agree with. Many believe the name Jud Crucis was Ingalls’s play on the phrase “Jesus Crucified,” although Ingalls himself said it was based on “judicious crucis,” a type of medieval combat-by-champion.
• As the teaser begins, Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy is on a planet’s surface sampling the local vegetation, which isn’t meant to be a euphemism for anything. Captain James T. Kirk contacts the doc over communicator, and McCoy asks for about thirty additional minutes. He’s discovered some interesting organic compounds.
• Also not a euphemism.
• By the way, the name of the planet is Neural. We know this because it was in the original script, but it was never said aloud on the television episode. I was better off not knowing the name. Neural is a stupid name for a planet.
• Earth is also a stupid name for a planet that’s 70% water. Wiser men than I have suggested the name of our own planet should be Ocean. Just sayin’.
• Kirk and Spock are elsewhere on the same planet. Mostly they are occupied with setting up the plot of the rest of the episode.
• Spock has seen the large tracks of a local ape-like creature called the Mugato. Kirk says the prints are several days old, so there is no imminent danger. Kirk knows all about the Mugato, we find out, because he completed his first planet survey on this same planet as a brash young lieutenant.
• Spock remarks that the planet is quite Earth-like. Kirk agrees, although the inhabitants stayed in their “Garden of Eden.” No fighting among themselves, using only bows and arrows for hunting. “Remarkably peaceful and tranquil,” Kirk says.
• Let’s stop here for a couple of extraneous comments. First, the Mugato has been named, so following Anton Chekhov’s Principle the creature will be more than a few old footprints before the episode is over.
• More on the Mugato: the creature was called a gumato in the script. This is also how it appears in the credits. DeForest Kelley, our very own Dr. Leonard McCoy, had trouble pronouncing gumato, so the creature became the Mugato instead. Technically, a mugato, even though we know there’s only one, right?
• Contrary to popular rumor, which I just started, the name clamato was never seriously considered.
• Second extraneous comment: In an era where secular humanism supposedly rules the day, the “Garden of Eden” comment hits my ear all wrong. Perhaps Don Ingalls was a more religious man than Gene Roddenberry. Makes sense if the “Jesus Crucified” pen name connection is true.
• So, returning to our light application of backstory, this trip to Neural is a nostalgic journey for Kirk, who was here years ago. He remembers the planet’s inhabitants as a primative, peaceful sort. Therefore, this memory must be instantly despoiled. And, it is.
• Kirk and Spock discover a group of dark-haired indigenous folk planning to ambush an approaching group of blond hunters. The dark-haired brigands are carrying long-barreled flintlock rifles.
• When I began this rewatch, the first observation that I scribbled in my notebook was: “Bad blond and brunette wigs.” As it turns out, that was how I remembered this episode, mostly.
• “Bows and arrows, Captain?” Spock says in his characteristically dispassionate way that still manages to drip with sarcasm.
• “Villagers with flintlocks?” Kirk says, incredulously. “That’s impossible. They hadn’t progressed nearly that far.”
• The blond hunters are, in fact, carrying bows and arrows, unaware that their firepower is outmatched.
• More backstory from Kirk. “One of those men walking into ambush is Tyree,” he says. “The friend I lived here with.”
• As Kirk draws his phaser, Spock reminds his captain that use of their phasers is expressly forbidden.
• Kirk throws a rock instead, which causes one of the brunette wig-wearing villagers to discharge his weapon. This alerts the blond wig-wearing villagers, including Kirk’s old friend Tyree.
• A mad chase ensues. The brunettes are after Kirk and Spock. The blondes are after the brunettes. It’s the Circle of Life. There’s always a group with different colored hair.
• It is problematic that we’re going with the unsubtly racist trope that blonde=good and brown=bad. Did Joseph Goebbels get a screenwriting credit on this one?
• Spock is shot in the back by one of the brunettes as he and Kirk make their way quickly back to McCoy’s location. Dr. McCoy had heard the commotion earlier and prepared the USS Enterprise to beam them up, which it does after Spock is wounded. End of teaser.
• As Act I begins, Nurse Christine Chapel and Dr. Joseph M’Benga are waiting in the transporter room as the Holy Trek Trinity materializes. Along with McCoy, these two begin treating the injured Spock.
• This is the first appearance of M’Benga, although I understand the character lives on in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, portrayed by a new actor, of course. The original version of M’Benga was played by actor Booker T. Bradshaw, who would go on to become a television writer for series such as Planet of the Apes, Diff’rent Strokes, and Columbo. He passed away in 2003 at 62 years of age.
• Dr. M’Benga would appear in TOS only once more, in Season 3’s “That Which Survives.”
• By the way, even though M’Benga’s first name was “Joseph” in a purchased-but-never-produced TOS script written by Darlene Hartman, it didn’t become canon until SNW. So, only recently. In separate Trek novels, his name was given as “Geoffrey” and “Jabilo.” In my personal head canon, his full name is Jabilo Joseph Geoffrey M’Benga.
• I suppose I should mention that Dr. M’Benga is a black man. That’s not something that would necessarily require comment today, but was something of note in 1968. Star Trek was progressive and groundbreaking in many ways.
• There were other black actors on TOS—I mean, besides Nichelle Nichols as Uhura. Percy Rodrigues, a Canadian of African-Portugese descent, played flag officer Commodore Stone in the Season 1 episode “Court Martial.” William Horace Marshall, an African-American from Indiana, was Dr. Richard Daystrom in Season 2’s “The Ultimate Computer,” and later was both Blacula in the movies and The King of Cartoons on Pee-wee’s Playhouse. Oh, and Don Marshall was Mr. Boma in the iconic “The Galileo Seven.”
• Bob Dylan was correct that the times were indeed a-changin’. It was probably too little, even then, but it was something. I’m only surprised that William Shatner didn’t insist upon Kirk having the first gay interracial kiss with M’Benga.
• By the way, William Horace Marshall’s cousin was the late Paul Winfield, who would go on to play Captain Clark Terrell in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (still my favorite Trek movie) and also the alien Captain Dathon in the iconic TNG episode “Darmok.” If you factor Trek into your game, it’s amazingly simple to play “six degrees of separation” with any two actors. Don’t challenge me on this, please.
• Back to our transporter room drama. McCoy orders a pressure pack, and then says, “Lucky his heart’s where his liver should be, or he’d be dead now.”
• That Bones, always so cynical, sarcastic and blatantly racist.
• In the midst of this activity, Uhura announces a red alert. A Klingon vessel has been detected in their vicinity. Kirk excuses himself to the rest of the officers in the transporter room. Concerning Spock’s status, he says only, “Bones?”
• “I don’t know yet, Jim,” McCoy responds. Then Kirk heads for the bridge.
• If you’re keeping score, here are a few of this episode’s plot points so far. One, the indigenous people of Neural seem more technologically advanced than they should be. Two, Spock was wounded with a flintlock rifle and his prognosis is still uncertain (although I think he will pull through). And, three, there is a Klingon vessel nearby.
• Lots of stuff happening, but we’re still on the hunt for an actual story here.
• On the bridge, Mr. Chekov and Uhura assure the captain that the Klingons haven’t spotted them. Chekov is keeping a planet between the two ships, and Uhura is eavesdropping on their communications.
• Kirk takes down the ship’s warning level to yellow alert. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott says they should be able to hide for a while but may have to take the ship out of orbit to keep it up for long.
• Kirk contacts sickbay and Dr. McCoy brusquely responds with a “McCoy here. I’ll call you soon as I know anything. Sickbay out.”
• A wound from a 17^th century projectile weapon appears to have stymied 23^rd century medicine. This is just a show: You should really just relax.
• When Kirk says that the arrival of the Klingons means that they have broken the treaty, Scotty reminds the captain that this isn’t necessarily so. The Klingons have as much right to scientific missions on the planet as they do. Scotty is “woke.” He’s also playing the devil’s advocate role that Spock would be playing if he wasn’t currently laid up in the infirmary.
• Kirk says, “Research is not the Klingon way.” The evidence from future Trek episodes doesn’t seem to bear this out. Plus, it comes across as a bit racist in the way Kirk says it. It’s like suggesting that all Asian people can’t drive and all Americans are loud, brash and rude.
• I’m not sure why everything in the episode is striking me as racist this time around. It can’t be just because Dr. M’Benga was introduced. That would be racist.
• Kirk ponders aloud about how the planet’s inhabitants have managed to progress so much since he left thirteen years ago. When he left, the villagers had barely learned to forge iron. On Earth, twelve centuries passed between iron and the development of the flintlock rifle. Seems an unlikely leap in just thirteen years.
• Scotty points out that a flintlock would likely be the first firearm the natives would developed naturally. He makes a good point. Why flintlocks? The Klingons could have given the inhabitants machine guns or thermal detonators and lightsabers (hey, it’s only a matter of time before Disney purchases Paramount as well).
• Kirk snaps, “I did not invite a debate.” He promptly apologizes and makes the excuse that he’s worried about Spock, and that he’s also worried about his old friend Tyree on the planet. He leaves the conn to Scotty, saying that he’ll be in sickbay.
• In sickbay, the good doctors M’Benga and McCoy have done all that they can for the injured Spock. It turns out that Dr. M’Benga interned on a Vulcan ward, so Spock couldn’t be in better hands. A fortunate coincidence.
• Kirk tells McCoy that they are transporting back to the planet. He needs McCoy’s help in determining if the Klingons have legitimate research interest in the planet’s organic potential.
• “And if that’s not it?” McCoy asks.
• “Then I need help,” the captain says. “Advice I can trust as much as Spock’s.” Apparently, he doesn’t like taking advice from Scotty.
• McCoy wants to stay with Spock to ensure he’s on the mend, but Kirk pulls rank and orders the doctor to accompany him. The captain also asks Scotty to inform ship’s stores that he and the doctor will need native costumes.
• Scotty is worried that the Enterprise will have to break orbit to avoid being seen by the Klingons. If that happens, they will be out of communication range with Captain Kirk and Dr. McCoy. They set a time for a rendezvous.
• By now, you’ve become story savvy. If a character is worried about something happening, worried enough to say something about it aloud, then it’s probably going to happen. Right?
• We’re not at the act break yet, but we’re getting an oddly placed Captain’s Log.
• “Captain’s log, stardate 4211.4. Keeping our presence here secret is an enormous tactical advantage. Therefore, I cannot risk contact with Starfleet Command. I must take action on my own judgment. I’ve elected to violate orders . . . and make contact with planet inhabitants here.”
• On the planet surface, Kirk and McCoy are dressed like the other hill people. When in Rome . . .
• McCoy reminds Kirk that Starfleet orders concerning this planet are noninterference. Both McCoy and Spock treat the captain like an unruly child at times.
• Kirk says it was his survey from thirteen years ago that made the recommendation that they not interfere with normal social development on the planet. What he’s not saying is that since the noninterference order originated with his work, then he should be able to casually break the rule. I’m certain that it would be unwise to pattern your behavior after James T. Kirk if you wanted to climb up the ranks in Starfleet. Or anywhere else in real life.
• I’m beginning to see the shadowy shape of an actual plot in this episode. Our stalwart Starfleet officers are here to make sure the Klingons aren’t doing anything underhanded, while interfering with the indigenous peoples’ natural development as little as possible. Maybe this will be one of those more cerebral science-fiction episodes, where ideas are more important that melodramatic action.
• Nope. Kirk is almost immediately attacked by a mugato. Or The Mugato. We never really see another one, do we?

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• A brief aside about this mugato creature: stupid costume, a man in an ape suit with a rhinoceros horn on his head and some sort of spikes on his back. My memory of this episode was that it was a ridiculous costume. The reality is even worse, especially with the higher resolution on modern televisions and viewing devices.
• The bite of the mugato is poisonous. Kirk is bitten, of course, and McCoy uses his phaser to disintegrate the big ape. McCoy can’t contact the Enterprise because—as Scotty so subtly foreshadowed—the ship has moved out of communication range to avoid being seen by the Klingons. The doctor gives the captain an injection that will prolong his life for a few hours, but there is no known antitoxin for the mugato poison.
• Kirk tells McCoy to contact Tyree. His old friend will know what to do.
• It seems that the hill people are already there. Bones pleads with them to help. He seems more characteristically angry instead of supplicating.
• “Blast it!” McCoy says. “Do something! He’s dying!”
• Then Kirk passes out, taking us to the end of Act I.
• As Act II begins, the injured Kirk is taken to a cave. Since the captain is incapacitated, Bones has to make his own log entry to keep us up to speed.
• “Medical log, stardate 4211.8. Kirk is right about the people here. Despite their fear and our strangeness, they’re compassionate and gentle. I’ve learned the hunter Tyree is now their leader. He is expected to return shortly with his wife, who they say knows how to cure this poison. My problem. The captain is in deep shock. I must keep him warm and alive until then.”
• If you’re keeping score, flintlocks and mugatos are currently tied in the Starfleet officer injury contest. At the moment, our captain and first office are both on the disabled roster.
• Kirk’s old friend Tyree, now a village leader, emerges from hiding with his wife Nona. Nona has some strong opinions about obtaining “firesticks” to achieve a balance of power with the bad ol’ brown-haired people. She is a proponent of mutually assured destruction, which is making me start to believe this is an allegory for the nuclear arms race. Tyree thinks this playing around with guns will pass and peace will return among the villagers.
• In this exposition-laden exchange, Nona reminds him that she is a kahn-ut-tu woman. All the men want her because through her they become great leaders.
• A kahn-ut-tu woman is some sort of witch, or perhaps healer or priestess. Tyree thinks he’s with Nona because she cast a spell upon him. She does nothing to dispel this notion. Instead, she rubs some leaves on his skin, reminding him of their night of madness when they camped by the lake.
• Apropos of nothing, one anagram of kahn-ut-tu is “thank-u-tu,” which sounds very polite.
• The leaves apparently have a psychotropic—even aphrodisiac—effect upon Tyree, who is suddenly very amorous as a member of the blond tribe interrupts, telling Tyree and Nona about the stranger who is dying from a mugato bite.
• Nona heads for the camp, telling the messenger to bring Tyree along when his head has cleared. Maybe not a witch or priestess. Instead, she’s a drug dealer.
• Back at the cave, McCoy uses his phaser to heat the rocks next to where Kirk lies. Nona sees him doing this without his being any the wiser. The phaser is a next-level “firestick.” You can see the gears turning behind her eyes.
• When Tyree returns to camp, head cleared, Nona interrogates him about Kirk. Tyree tells her that he promised Kirk his silence. During his time on the planet, Kirk became his “brother.” Nona says that as Tyree’s wife, she would be Kirk’s “sister,” and she can promise silence as well. But she insists she needs to know what kind of man Kirk is for her magic to be effective.
• Nona is essentially telling her husband that if he doesn’t spill the beans, she is going to let Kirk die. I’m beginning to think she’s not such a nice person.
• Back on the Enterprise, Nurse Chapel is holding Spock’s hand in sickbay. Dr. M’Benga enters the room and tells Chapel not to let the low medical panel readings bother her. He’s seen this before with Vulcans. He insists it’s their way “of concentrating all their strength, blood and antibodies onto the injured organs. A form of self-induced hypnosis.”
• The nurse asks the doctor is Spock is conscious. He says he is, “in a sense.” M’Benga supposes that Spock even knows that Christine Chapel was holding his hand.
• The doctor leaves on this note. You see, Christine dropped Spock’s hand the moment the door to sickbay opened. But Dr. M’Benga is showing her, and us, how observant a man he is. She grumbles that a good nurse always treats her patients this way.
• Whether this was the intended effect or not, the light-hearted exchange between Chapel and M’Benga makes it seem that Spock is now in less danger than the captain on the planet below. Maybe we can stop worrying about the first officer.
• Back at the cave, Tyree and Nona enter. After introductions (Nona introduces herself as “Tyree’s woman”), Nona pulls out a wriggling mahko root from her bag. Dr. McCoy seems more surprised than he should at seeing a moving plant. I’ve seen moving plants, and I live in the real world.
• Tyree cuts his wife’s hand, and she wriggles like a mahko root herself as she holds the root in Kirk’s mugato bite with her bleeding hand. She delivers some inane chant while Tyree beats a drum. Then she collapses across Kirk’s bare chest, exhausted from her writhing exertions. The mahko root is shriveled up.
• After dosing her husband with an aphrodisiac and bragging about how all men want her, it’s difficult not to see this all as a metaphor for sex. This whole sequence stinks of magic to me. I would have preferred it if she had just had sex with him.
• Anyway, Kirk is suddenly cured. There aren’t even any scars. McCoy naturally wants to learn more about this miraculous mahko root, because he is a man of science and can’t abide by magic in his science fiction either.
• Yay! Captain Kirk is all right. Tyree says, in an offhand way, that the stories about Kirk now being in Nona’s thrall because of the ritual are merely legends. And here’s where we get our act break at the end of Act II.
• It seems I was wrong about Kirk being in worse shape than Spock. As Act III kicks off, Kirk is back in fighting form and wants to talk to Tyree about the villagers with their new weapons. Tyree wants to talk to his old friend about it as well. He prevents Nona from following them, because this is obviously men-talk.
• Remember, this is a world where flintlock rifles represent an impossible leap in technological progress. Not an enlightened planet, even if Nona is one of the first feminists.
• Back on the Enterprise, the medical panel readings on Spock’s bed are going crazy. Dr. M’Benga says that this is normal. He tells Nurse Chapel to call for him immediately if Spock shows any signs of consciousness. He also says that, after she’s called him, if Spock speaks do whatever he says.
• “Do whatever he says?” Chapel parrots.
• “Yes,” Dr. M’Benga says. “That’s clear enough, isn’t it?”
• Wow. Patronizing and a bit chauvinistic, proving that a television series can be progressive while perpetuating the toxic patriarchy.
• Back with Tyree and Kirk. Tyree tells his old friend that the “firesticks” first appeared about a year ago, and that he’s seen the people of the other village assembling them. McCoy asks Tyree if he’s seen any strangers among the villagers. Tyree has not.
• Tyree says he can take them to the village, but the mugatos travel at night also. Kirk killed one, but its mate will be somewhere nearby.
• Nona tells Kirk that she knows he has weapons stronger than the firesticks. She wants him to use their technology to help his friend and brother Tyree kill their enemies. Kirk explains what we’ve come to know as the Prime Directive to her.
• McCoy suggests that if the Klingons have helped the villagers, then they may have to do something. Two wrongs may not make a right, but three lefts certainly do.
• Kirk and McCoy accompany Tyree to the brunette village. It’s a nice-looking village, with tiled roofs and armed guard patrols. Kirk uses a wrestling sleeper hold to take out the guard.
• Inside the building, a Klingon named Krell meets with a brunette villager named Apella. I’m going to assume that’s a surname and that his first name is Ock.
• Krell gives Apella some advice on what to do with a hill woman captured in the morning raid, then gives the villager another flintlock rifle, with some “improvements.” He says that the next time he comes, the guns will have rifled barrels so that they will shoot further and straighter. I guess I’ve been using the word “rifles” before the firearms have earned that distinction.
• Kirk and McCoy discover evidence that the Klingons have been assisting the villagers in weapons development. The pig iron they are using is carbon-free, something the village forge wouldn’t be capable of producing. I don’t know what all the evidence is, but our Starfleet officers are convinced. They use their scanners to record it all.
• They also hear voices outside and choose to hide. Krell and Apella enter the set. Apella is interested in this “rifled barrel” thing Krell was talking about. Krell, meanwhile, is promising the villager that one day he will be rich beyond his wildest dreams and also a governor in the Klingon Empire.
• While these two men are talking, McCoy’s tricorder makes a high-pitched noise, alerting the Klingon and brunette to their presence. A fight ensues, first with Krell and Apella, who are easily defeated, and then they are met at the door by two additional armed men. Which leads to our act break.
• Act IV begins as a continuation of the previous scene. It’s a false cliffhanger, of course. Kirk and McCoy overcome these two new opponents as easily as they did Krell and Apella, and then they flee the village. Men fire their flintlocks at them, but with the unrifled barrels, they couldn’t hit the broadside of a barn unless they are shooting at Spock.
• Speaking of Spock, he revives enough to ask Nurse Chapel to strike him. She does, and he is miraculously cured. Vulcans are a strange lot.
• Back at Tyree’s camp, Kirk is teaching the blond villagers how to use firearms. McCoy objects to arming the blondes on general principles. McCoy also reminds Kirk that Nona has claimed the kahna root ritual holds Kirk in her thrall, which Kirk rejects as superstition. Kirk says that it is necessary to maintain the balance of power between the two camps. As the Klingons provide increasingly advanced weapons, Starfleet will have to match it with Tyree’s people. They talk about how this was done in twentieth century Earth in Asia. Are we talking about Vietnam again? If so, how is this a good thing?
• Spock returns to the Enterprise bridge as it re-enters orbit. Chekov tells him that the Klingons haven’t spotted them, but that it looks like they’re beaming someone up.
• We’re not through with Nona, it seems. Kirk finds her near a babbling stream, where she has been bathing. Nona brags that he came to her because she willed it. She has him smell the fragrance of the same plant she used on Tyree earlier. It is an aphrodisiac of some sort and has the same effect upon Kirk that it had on Tyree. Of course, it couldn’t take much with a lothario like Kirk.
• Tyree, armed with the flintlock (by Kirk, no less), is nearby as Kirk and Nona kiss. Isn’t that the way it always is? He can’t bring himself to shoot his friend, though. Instead, he drops his weapon and leaves the scene, resigned to being a cuckold.
• Since potential antagonist Tyree is removed from the scene, a mugato is brought back on stage instead. You remember the mugato. Man in a bad ape suit. Kirk draws his phaser to fend off the creature. Then Nona hits Kirk over the head to steal the phaser. She’s a piece of work, this one.
• When Tyree returns to his village without his weapon, McCoy orders him to take him back to where he dropped it. They discover the dazed Captain Kirk, still reeling under the effects of the Spanish Fly plant as well as his new concussion, and Kirk, in turn, discovers that Nona has absconded with his phaser.
• To what end? Nona has taken the phaser to the enemy camp. She wants the brunettes to take her to Apella, who will be strong enough to know how to use the phaser. When Kirk, Tyree and McCoy show up, the brunettes are sure that Nona led them into a trap. The treacherous Nona is stabbed to death. Tyree, his battle lust awakened, beats the man who killed his wife to death with a rock, raising a little Cain in this Garden of Eden.
• Tyree wants more weapons to escalate the fight with his enemies.
• Kirk talks to Spock over the communicator. McCoy seems surprised that Spock is alive, but then adds: “I don’t know why I was worried. You can’t kill a computer.”
• Uh, James T. Kirk can kill a computer just by talking to it, or singing his version of “Rocket Man.”
• Kirk tells Spock to ask Scotty how long it will take him to reproduce a hundred flintlocks.
• On the bridge, Scotty says, “I didn’t get that exactly, Captain. A hundred what?”
• “A hundred serpents,” Kirk says. “Serpents for the Garden of Eden.”

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Ugh. Some heavy-handed emphasis on a non-secular metaphor. I don’t blame Don Ingalls for taking his name off of this one. By now, you’ve figured out that this isn’t one of my favorite episodes. It is, in fact, in my bottom three of the Season 2 episodes. Unfortunately, there are episodes that rate even lower coming up. I’m not a huge fan of Season 3.

Firewater’s Garden-of-Eden-and-Adam-and-Eve-Metaphors-Are-Tired-Science-Fiction-Tropes Scorecard: 2 Stars.

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Join me next time when we’ll discuss the episode “Return to Tomorrow.” It’s a little better.

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