So, the kid wanted to watch Star Trek.

I guess yesterday the commercials for CBS’s new ST series reminded him that he’d heard of the TV shows and movies, but hadn’t seen any.

So tonight we watched 2 episodes of the original series on Netflix. Reactions below.

Actually, before we watched those 2 episodes, we started out with what Netflix lists as S1E1, but by their numbering (I am not enough of a Trek fan to know if this is canon?) it was actually the pilot, “The Cage”. I was clued in when the intro was in a cheesy lettering using Helvetica with a goofy toy-ish model of the Enterprise, and none of Shatner’s iconic voice-over. When I realized it was the pilot episode with Captain Pike, I backed out, partly because I wanted his first impression to be with the “real” cast but also because he was nervous that the whole thing would be scarey, and I remember being creeped out by that one when I was a kid.

So we started with “The Man Trap”. I was a little concerned with the title that it would be more misogynistic than it actually was, but the “man trap” in question turns out to be a shape (and gender) shifting alien creature. I was also concerned the paper maché rocks and unrealistic special effects would make him think the whole thing was dumb and he’d never want to watch it again. But he not only didn’t think it was hokey, he was freaked out enough after a few minutes that he spent most of the episode glued to the TV, hiding behind me on the couch. I guess something about the psychological tension the actors pulled off sold it to this 9 year old. After it was over, he wouldn’t take a bath alone, and I hung out in the bathroom facebooking while we chatted. (It was actually kind of nice).

After his bath, it was still far from bedtime, so I said we’d watch another half an episode. We ended up watching the whole episode “Charlie X”. And man, this one was like walking into a minefield.

If you want a full tear-down, this site’s recap covers it better than I intend to. But as a quick summary, it features:

  • Uhura singing an semi-satiric ode to Spock while he accompanies her on a weird-ass Vulcan harp.
  • Captain Kirk awkwardly giving a lecture to a teenage boy on why it’s not OK to slap a woman’s ass as she walks by (and utterly failing to get his point across)
  • Said teenage boy (with telekinetic powers) vaporizing said object of his teenage lust when she turns him down. He also turns another girl into a lizard and ages another woman 40 years, both just for looking at him wrong.

Now, what knocked me out was, despite all those standard-at-the-time gendered assumptions that permeate the whole series, (and talks I expect to have in the future about how Kirk’s behavior is not necessarily OK), was that there was a pretty clear moral of the story: the way this kid was acting was utterly unacceptable. He’s presented as a toxic mix of godlike powers + adolescent hormones + lack of maturity. Kirk —despite his stumbling awkward inability to use his big boy words to say this initially– eventually tries (and fails) to get him to understand that growing up means that you can’t always get what you want when you want it, and that if a woman you are interested in isn’t interested in you, you can’t force it, you just need to back off. Honestly, this episode could be re-made without much material changed, and the MAGA crowd would howling about its political correctness.

Kirk’s strategy to deal with him through 80% of the episode is “be the alpha male and he’ll respect you”. This ultimately doesn’t work, and it’s only a deus ex machina that saves the Enterprise in the end (and even restores the female crew member the kid vaporized (still in her pink one-strap nighty, of course)).

My kid’s reaction to the second episode? Not as interesting or scarey as the first (or perhaps my running commentary ruined it for him?).

His overall reaction: “this show doesn’t seem to have much of a storyline”. I explained to him: this is how TV used to be. Series didn’t have multi-episode storylines, each show was a self-contained story, and they normally could be watched in any order because you knew nothing that happened in the show would change its basic situation or main characters. This was a revelation for him, like how phones used to have cords.