Monday, August 1, 2011

The Return of the Archons

Today I went to the coffee shop to get some work for college done and I was successful…hooray! But while there I was given yet another reason NOT to have children. While working at my favorite Caribou Coffee in Elk River things were peaceful and calm until a lady came in with her two kids. Well to be truthful two screaming little terrors came in followed a few moments later by a lady seemed unfazed that her kids were interrupting the lives of other patrons. The woman proceeded to sit at the table drinking her latte while chatting with friends while the kids shouted, ran and loudly played with toys. I understand that people can still have a life after they have kids but they do not have the right to let their kids ruin everyone else’s lives. Now I am not a parent I will fully admit that I don’t want kids and from time to time find certain kids annoying. So I realize I am not someone to give out advice for parents, but I do have several friends with kids I adore for a couple of reasons the main reason being that they are nice, sweet and well-behaved kids and the reason is because these parents have rules when their kids are in public. People find it odd when I say I don’t really want children and they look at me with pity or like I’m from Mars. Maybe at some point I will change my mind but for right now I work with approximately 45-50 kids at work each week and those are “my kids” for the time being.

Today’s Workout:
Treadmill: 2.5miles and 330 calories

The Return of the Archons
The Enterprise is on a special mission on the planet Beta-3 to attempt to unravel the mystery of the missing ship the Archon which disappeared over one hundred years earlier. Is it just me or is this a long overdue rescue mission? It seems to me like Starfleet is working on rescues as fast as the US government is working on the budget deal. Anyway Sulu and another officer are on the planet and as the episode opens they are frantically running away from some mysterious men in brown cloaks. When Sulu is brought back up to the Enterprise he has been changed and talks about “The Body” and “Landru”. Intrigued Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a few other randoms beam down to check out the planet. The inhabitants are almost zombie like in their happiness. The landing party begins to raise suspicions immediately but find friends in a group of people who are attempting to resist this “Landru”.  They are brought to an underground hideout but are caught by the Lawmakers, the guys in the cloaks. Meanwhile the Enterprise is being attacked from the surface by an energy force that is draining the power of the ship. This is a plot device that is used time and time again during the original series episodes. Kirk and Spock hypothesis that Landru must be a computer and what do you know they are correct. They cannot simply blow up the computer though they must “trick” the computer into self-destructing itself by engaging in a series of complicated questions and word puzzles about the computer’s directive and functionality.

The episode uses another common plot device- an Earth-like planet where the residents dress in clothing from Earth’s past. This was used to cut the costs of creating a whole new wardrobe and alien make-ups. So in this episode we have the entire landing party crew looking like they are in the old west, even Spock. The funny thing here is that to hide Spock’s ears they have him wearing this odd mourning shawl/cloak. I would have put a nice ten-gallon hat on the man or a sensible bowler but, no. The picture below shows the shawl, is it just me or does Spock look like an old woman mourning a death in the family (despite holding a phaser).

No comments:

Post a Comment