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Rocket your D&D 5E and Level Up: Advanced 5E games into space! Alpha Star Magazine Is Launching... Right Now!

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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DreadPirateMurphy" data-source="post: 2922766" data-attributes="member: 20715">Well, after looking at the poll results, I decided to go and take a look at the old original Star Trek episode Space Seed.The PlotThe Enterprise comes across a ship adrift in space, far from any destination or normal travel route.  When they transport over to the ship, they find it filled with cryogenic sleep chambers.  The leader of the mysterious ship awakens, but he requires medical care to survive recovery.  One of the Enterprise's historians falls in love with him, and after he is revealed to be Khan Noonien Singh, the most dangerous of the supermen who started the eugenics wars, she helps him take over the ship.  It is up to Captain Kirk to escape and take back the ship with help from the repentent historian.  Kirk then strands the supermen on a habitable world, and the historian goes with them.ImpressionsRicardo Montalban is just as commanding a presence here as he will prove to be in the second Star Trek film.  He is utterly believable as a ruler used to being obeyed and taking what he wants.  He is definitely an amazing antagonist, to say the least.The show has a lot of little historical bits that provide details on the history of the Star Trek universe.  This episode comes out and states that World War III and the Eugenics Wars are the same thing.  It happened in the 1990s in that universe.  Obviously, the 90s were considered far in the future back when the show first aired.The original Star Trek hasn't aged well in a few other ways.  The special effects were perfectly passable for the time, and you can overlook the plethora of blinking lights, toggle switches, and other technical background details that seem odd in the 21st century.  What is harder to ignore is the rampant sexism blatantly displayed.  The female historian falls for Khan in about 32 nanoseconds, and falls at his feet when he commands.  At a formal dinner, the two crew waiting the table are both women.  Despite the ideal of equality, the reality on the screen seems almost prehistoric.Finally, the resolution, while great in that it setup the movie The Wrath of Khan, doesn't really make a lot of sense.  A group of 20th century dictators flees the Earth and is discovered in the future.  Are you more likely to put them on trial or set them down on a planet where any passing spaceship might be captured for an escape?  The only explanation is that Kirk sees some of himself in Khan's attitude...though one questions if Starfleet would share his opinion.Still, compared in context with the other episodes from the 3 original seasons, Space Seed is clearly one of the superior episodes.  If you ignore the hallmarks of 60s television, then you have a nice episode with a great antagonist played by a great actor.  Rated within the context of TOS, I would give it five of five stars.</blockquote>

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