Star Trek: The Original Series S01E01, The Man Trap.

Summary: A well done creature feature. An empathic, telepathic, salt-craving, shape-shifting alien is let loose upon the crew.

The Good: My God, the characters are immediately interesting in this, even the ones who only get a few minutes of screentime, like Sulu or Uhura; Kirk is a badass already; way more morally complex than its pilot (much discussion of extinction and survival); connects the events of the episode to actual character beats.

The Bad: A scooch racist (not bad for the time, I guess?); the salt-craving thing and the fact it takes them so long to figure it out is kinda dumb.

The Review: This is a surprisingly assured debut episode for a TV show. I know that they had a couple of pilots to practice first, but this still feels much more fully formed than many other debut episodes I can think of from TV history. The characters already feel like they have a confident working relationship with each other, and although the props and sets and almost everything else about the show is very dated to the modern viewer, the sense of a world being built is wonderful. I am impressed by the show’s confidence as well, jumping straight into a full-blown space adventure with nothing but the introductory voice-over for establishment.

The character work is incredibly on point, establishing how alien Spock is to the human characters (albeit in some really weird ways that probably read better in the 1960’s than they do today), showing Bones’ sense of regret over a past love, and placing Kirk firmly in between the two. The core dynamic that people remember the series for decades later is already on display in the very first episode ever to air. Bones as impulse and emotion, Spock as cold calculation, and Kirk perfectly balancing the two elements in one commander. Kirk seems confident and in control  already, and even the side characters get some good moments. Sulu has a really weird plant that is clearly someone wearing a fuzzy glove, Uhura is passionate, and Janice…Well, Janice can tell the gender of plants, evidently. Sure, why not.

Once they beam down to Bones’ ex-girlfriend’s science station, things get very weird very fast. Things are obviously wrong, and the sense of tension is built pretty well. Some good Invasion of the Body Snatchers-inspired ‘they walk among us’ stuff, and the ending is surprisingly powerful. Most of the time that DeForest Kelley is given dramatic material to work with, it’s usually pretty good, and the ending of this episode is no exception. All in all, this is a surprisingly assured debut for the show, despite its lack of connection to any other established canon.

The Score: 

(for more information about star ratings, see the ‘About’ page)