Scotty: On Robbie Burns Day, replicator mysteriously only produced haggis or vegan haggis
Bones:Secretly replicates plomeek soup when he thinks Spock isn’t looking because he actually really likes it
Jim: After drinking alien wine, attempted to replicate entire corn maze because “I miss Iowa, Bones”
Chapel: Got into philosophical argument with replicator over why it could produce a chocolate sundae, but not a chocolate Tuesday or Wednesday. Replicator had existential crisis and required repair
Sulu: “What do you have?” “A replicated knife!” “NO-”
Chekov:Prefaces every replicator order with “Russian,” whether the food is specific to Russia or not
Spock: Secretly replicates peach cobbler when he thinks Bones isn’t looking because he actually really likes it
Jim (again): Fell asleep in Mess Hall with arms lovingly cradling 17 orders of replicated mozzarella sticks
Uhura: Just uses the replicator according to regulation; what’s wrong with you people
Trek-Tracks: Calls food synthesizer a “replicator” when the term wasn’t used until TNG; doesn’t care and will not be taking criticism at this time ;)
Star Trek TOS AU where everything is the same except Kirk decided he liked the nickname “Plum” better than “Bones”
(also the series only lasted 20 episodes because Bones…er, Plum, couldn’t take it anymore and strangles Kirk and that’s what the episode “Court Martial” is actually about)
For all its “Bonk bonk on the head,” and “No blah blah blah,” I think we overlook the fact that Miri actually does a pretty good job of presenting each of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy with what turns out to be a worst-nightmare scenario, given what we find out in canon.
Kirk has to convince a group of children to stop resorting to violence and mob mentality before they starve to death. He tells them there’s only six months of food left, if they don’t let Starfleet help.
“And the little ones. What’s going to happen to them after you’ve gone, after you’ve turned into creatures like Louise? Oh, they’ll still be here, but not for long, because the food’s all gone. You’ve eaten it. Maybe six months left, that’s all, and then nothing left to eat, nobody left to take care of them. They’ll die, too.”
Kirk has seen children starve.
Spock, by virtue of his unique heritage, doesn’t seem affected by the disease. This gives him an advantage. However, he’s a carrier, and unless they solve the problem, he can’t go back to the ship. Not only that, but if the problem is never solved, Spock could conceivably be left completely alone.
“I am a carrier. Whatever happens, I can’t go back to the ship, and I do want to go back to the ship, Captain.“
Spock’s heritage puts him between worlds in a liminal space, out of place on a parallel Earth, not successful enough to go back to the ship.
McCoy’s caught in a race against time to find a cure. It’s a disease that will cause “great pain,” make each one of them lose their humanity, and will make him violate his Hippocratic oath.
“Only a matter of time before we all go mad, destroy each other, till the last of us finally destroys himself.“
The worst part is when he believes he’s almost got the cure, but the communicators that would let them contact the ship have been stolen. The concoction could very well be “a beaker full of death.” He’s so close, and yet so far. If that sounds familiar, remember that McCoy was unable to save his own father, releasing him from his own extreme pain - only to find out that the cure had been found, just too late.
MCCOY: We can’t wait for those communicators any longer. SPOCK: We must. The vaccine could be fatal. MCCOY: The disease certainly is. How long do we have left? Hours, minutes? How much longer do you want to wait?
McCoy performs an essentially suicidal action, choosing to end it for himself, one way or another, just so he won’t be too late one more time.
Something unusual happens in the TOS episode Return of the Archons. Instead of using his signature nerve pinch, Spock punches a guard in the face.
It’s so out of character that even Kirk comments on it.
Why does he do it?
Here’s a theory.
In the episode, Bones gets mind-controlled (again) by the collective, and completely loses his individuality and personality. Even though Kirk has seen it happen to two other people already (Sulu and O’Neil), it’s easy to tell that he only really gets truly upset once Bones is “absorbed” - he’s trying everything he can think of to get Bones to snap out of it, including shaking him physically.
Spock’s watching the whole time - seeing Kirk lose it a bit clearly affects him as well.
As he’s being taken away, Kirk pleadingly asks Spock to try to “work on” Bones, and after a frustratingly bland conversation with the doctor, Spock tries what looks like a mind meld - he doesn’t like this version of Bones either.
Spock completely fails to break through to Bones. It’s hard to capture in a screenshot, but if you look carefully in the episode, you can actually see the muscle in Spock’s jaw twitch with frustration when he announces that there’s nothing he can do for Bones because the control is too powerful. He honestly thought he was going to be able to save him, and he’s pissed that he can’t.
When both Spock and Kirk are saved from mind control and continue to plot, we see the most uncharacteristic and disturbing reaction from Pod Person Bones yet - not just extreme placidity, but outright anger and murderous violence. Kirk has to put him in a sleeper hold to subdue him, not wanting to harm his friend, but even this pains him: “Doc, I don’t want to hurt you…Aw, Doc,” he says.
(By the way, Kirk only calls Bones “Doc” when Bones is under the influence of mind control, to create psychological distance from himself. It’s a technique he uses in other contexts, too - in Operation: Annihilate!,he only starts calling Peter “my nephew” instead of “my brother’s son” when Peter is no longer in danger of dying.)
Spock, again, is watching all of this and trying to rein in his feelings about the whole upsetting situation.
So when the very next thing they do is confront the guards who took each person away to be mind-controlled, instead of doing a nerve pinch, Spock just cold-cocks the guard with his fist.
“Isn’t that somewhat old-fashioned?” Kirk says.
Spock just looks rather satisfied with himself.
Sometimes it’s logical to allow yourself a little violence on the person who upset your captain and took your doctor away.
Why do the XO and CMO have to come down to every planet with the Captain, depriving the ship of three of its top officers at once and putting them all in constant peril?
