Elaan of Troyius

DVD, Star Trek S3 (Elaan of Troyius)

This was one I remembered. And not particularly positively. About some Egyptian-looking woman that they transport, and she causes trouble. It was actually rather entertaining. You get aliens, with the title lady, her bodyguard and the turquoise-skinned Ambassador Petri (I had seen a picture of him before and was disappointed to find he wasn't an Andorian as I expected), who were good guest spots. You get the first proper look at a brilliant Klingon battlecruiser, a space battle (quite good for the series' standards), all the main characters part of the team, including Nurse Chapel (even if she does once again coo about love matters!), and a clever solution in the form of the common crystals the Dohlman wears turning out to be Dilithium.

The biggest question however, is: what happened to the Organians, that powerful race that stopped a war between the Klingons and the Feds? Either something has happened to them so they can no longer prevent violence, or there is a range to their power and the ships are too distant to be affected. (Or option 3, which would be that the writers forgot about all about them, but we won't mention that!). The funny thing is that Kirk and crew expect damage and danger, when they should have expected the Klingons to be unable to follow through with the attack. So maybe this kind of confrontation isn't the first. Previously, and since the Organian Peace Treaty came into effect, the aliens have been subverting planets and causing indirect mischief so it makes an exciting change to find they can literally fight it out again.

It's good to see Mr. Sulu after he missed out on the first episode, although I did notice a couple of mistakes to do with him, Chekov and the viewscreen. At one point we see them, cut away to Kirk, then it's back on their station, but Lieutenant Hadley is in Sulu's chair. Then in another scene Hadley replaces Chekov. For a moment I wondered if he's just left his station, but it cut away and then back and Chekov was back! Then again we know how fast these Starfleet types are in getting out of their seats. If someone is within one metre and heading towards it, they're springing out of it like a jack-in-a-box. Chair etiquette must have been a course at the Academy. They no doubt have knockout party games there, with musical chair champions.

Talking of which, Mr. Leslie has to leap out of his so Elaan can be shoved onto it. She was great fun, and Kirk was even better, standing up to her atrocious behaviour. I liked that part of the episode more than the romance. I thought that was simply a whim the Dohlman had had, or a ploy of some sort, but it seemed she really did come to respect and love him. And it was a story about getting on with people and being courteous, a message of a lot of Trek.

The Klingon ship was design perfection, not easy when so many ships have seemed clunky or plain rubbish next to the good ship Enterprise, but at last we have one to hold it's own in the visuals stakes.The characters are well used, Spock gets to sit in the Captain's chair, but doesn't take over the episode, Scotty is in it more, and even Uhura is glimpsed away from her station (plus: we get to see her quarters!), Sulu and Chekov are resolutely in place, and McCoy gets the occasional scene too. The episode, fittingly, doesn't end with an uproarious laugh, after Kirk is left still in love with Elaan, who accepts her obligations and duty because of him. Spock, for once agrees with McCoy, and they sail on to the next adventure.

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