In the fourteenth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>, WHAT THE HELL??? Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of ableism and torture.\u00c2\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n
JESUS, WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT. This felt abnormally brutal for\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>,\u00c2\u00a0and it was an\u00c2\u00a0experience<\/i> to watch. Let me start off by saying that this episode\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s treatment of mental illness is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 well, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s clearly meant more as something that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s entertaining more than anything else. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a problem, the entire episode is framed terribly because of it, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know that I can say much about it that doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t feel reductive or super obvious. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 all mental illness cured with a single drug?\u00c2\u00a0Really?<\/i> That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not how mental illnesses affect the human body! Plus, this episode heavily suggests that people who are mentally ill do.. well, all of this. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a bit much to take in at times because there seems to be little morality in any of these characters, and just because you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got a mental illness doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean that you suddenly abandon all sense of right and wrong.<\/p>\n
And holy shit, this is\u00c2\u00a0ruthless<\/i> from beginning to end. Even if you accept that the ending of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whom Gods Destroy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153happy,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the journey to that point is\u00c2\u00a0horrifying<\/i>. Garth of Izar is\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 shit, how do you describe him? He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s delusional, first of all, convinced that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the Master of the Universe, and he proceeds to utilize his sadism against Spock, Kirk, and Governor Cory without remorse. To him, this is akin to a game, one where he can simply conquer the universe by force. But the state we see him in is not something that suddenly came about. We learn from Kirk how Garth turned against Federation standards because he was sick of feeling subservient. He wanted to be in control of\u00c2\u00a0everything.\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>What\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s particularly messed up about this is that he became who he was because of the generosity of the Antos people, who taught him the skills he needed to shapeshift. So, after dealing with an injury due to this rescue mission, what does he do?<\/p>\n
He orders his crew to commit genocide and they mutinied in response.<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a ridiculous and horrifying, undoubtedly so. There\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no point during this episode that Garth ever feels sympathetic, and I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think he should be. He toys with Kirk and Spock, all so he can get aboard the Enterprise<\/i> and wreak havoc. But there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no moment that feels quite so upsetting as Marta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate. She\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also portrayed as being weird because she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s got some unnamed mental illness. (Which is another problem I have with this episode; the lack of specificity is frustrating.) For a moment, it\u00c2\u00a0seemed<\/i> like she was willing to turn against Garth, but it ends up being a ruse just so she can stab Kirk? Because I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know? I guess she really wanted to impress Garth? See, the problem is that she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not given any characterization beyond being quirky.<\/p>\n
That doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t mean her death didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t affect me. Look, this show isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t afraid of death, but it often feels a lot more sanitized than what I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m used to. So I expected there to be some cutaway or some trick or some plot twist where Marta survived and then NO NOPE\u00c2\u00a0WHAT THE FUCK SHE JUST BLEW UP ON THE SCREEN.\u00c2\u00a0WHAT THE<\/b><\/i> FUCK<\/b>. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something I genuinely did not expect from this show, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clear attempt to show us just how serious Garth is. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll kill again to get what he wants. But he doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t get the chance to do so again, thanks to Spock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s craftiness. HOW GREAT IS THE SCENE WHERE THERE ARE TWO KIRKS. I mean, it kinda doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make sense to me because I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m pretty sure Spock would have been able to figure out which Kirk was real in like 5 seconds. Right???<\/p>\n
Regardless, this episode was thrilling at times, baffling at others, and kinda fits perfectly in place with the parade of strange that has been season three. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like the writers are just throwing everything at the screen, just because. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not\u00c2\u00a0terrible<\/i> all the time or anything, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a bizarre experience for me. This is sort of what I expected the\u00c2\u00a0first<\/i> season of this show to be, not the last one. Still, I really am having a good time watching this. (And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m quietly getting more and more excited for\u00c2\u00a0The Next Generation<\/i>. IT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S SO SOON.)<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Whom Gods Destroy\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the fourteenth episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek, WHAT THE HELL??? Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[614,616],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-4323","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-the-original-series","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4323"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4323\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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