My Trek of the Stars, Part 2: The Corbomite Maneuver

Guest Starring: Clint Howard, Anthony Call, Ted Cassidy, Eddie Paskey, William Blackburn

First, the Lowdown: The Enterprise is menaced by a gigantic IKEA-made starship and its dippy looking commander.

So, no shit, there’s the Enterprise doing stellar cartography when all of the sudden its path is blocked by a SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM! It obviously imposes some kind of threat to the ship, at least that’s what the theme music and acting would have you believe, but quite frankly it looks more like the Wisdom Cube from Aqua Teen Hunger Force (don’t ask it about the time it ate boiled peanuts.)

Captain Kirk, in a marvelous display of restraint tries every which way he can think of to maneuver the ship around the offending rhomboid, but the SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM! is about as determined to intercept the Enterprise as those annoying survey guys are in a mall. To make matters worse the SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM! starts to spew out radiation. Having had enough of the SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM!, Kirk orders the thing destroyed before it starts wallpapering the Enterprise with copies of The Watchtower.

Satisfied that the peril is done with, the Enterprise continues on with the same menial task that they performed before. Kirk, unimpressed by the whiny Lt. Bailey’s slowness in response to his commands, orders the crew undergo attack simulations to improve their reaction time.

Things are going swell until all of the sudden an even bigger alien object shows up on their front door. This one now looks like an escaped chandelier from The Inn of Tomorrowland. The alien ship is MEGA-HUGE, however, so the crew takes a few moments to gape at it – with the exception of Bailey who just wets his pants quietly to himself. The ship calls itself the Fesarius and its commander, Balok, lets the Enterprise know that he is incredibly pissed off that they destroyed his SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM! Spock during all of this, manages to generate a visual of Balok, and he looks like a hydroencephalic version of the Crypt Keeper. (Then again, it could be Spock’s attempt of making light of their adversary. Kinda like drawing a picture of the bill collector that’s haranguing you on the phone as a magic, talking butt. “Look at me! I’m a talking butt! And you’re past due on your credit cards!”)

Kirk tries to tell him that the Enterprise was just minding its own business until that pesky cube started saying shit about their mama, so naturally they’re gonna pop a cap in anything that steps up to them. Balok dismisses their claim with a, “Oh no, you di’nt!” immobilizes the ship and tells them they have 10 minutes to make peace with their maker before the Enterprise is destroyed. Bailey reacts in a manner consistent with all trained professionals during times of crisis: he craps in his hand and begins throwing it at the other members of the bridge. Kirk tries pleading with Balok, but the stern alien commander is as intractable as Bill O’Reilly coming onto a wardrobe mistress.

By now, the Enterprise has pissed away all but three minutes of their remaining time. When Kirk asks Spock for advice on their predicament, he compares their situation to a game of chess – summing up that they are royally en passanted up their castle. Not one to take failure lightly, Kirk gets Balok on the horn again and makes vague threats. He tells the fugly alien that they have a super secret device made of Corbomite that will, in effect, turn the Enterprise into rubber and the Fesarius into glue. Kirk also adds that the word “gullible” cannot be found in the computer’s online dictionary.

Balok responds with “It is TOO in the dictionary, and if you look up the word ‘dipshit’ it’s got a picture of YOU under it, Kirk.” But also concedes that, while he does not believe the Enterprise is really capable of possessing a super-secret, uber-huge, explody thing, he doesn’t want to be on the receiving end of that hell, either so orders a tug vessel to tow the Enterprise out to his home turf, where they will imprison the crew, destroy the Enterprise, and then pee on the ashes while they watch.

The tug vessel is miniscule in comparison to the gaudy thing that is the Fesarius, so Kirk orders that they shear away from the alien ship’s tractor beam, which not only frees the Enterprise, but also disables the tug so completely that it can’t send for help. Seeing his big chance, Kirk assembles a boarding party of himself, McCoy, Spock, and Bailey (probably to use as a body shield if things went wrong.)

After being transported onto the other vessel, they find Balok, in all his fugliness – and he’s a puppet. In the next room, they are humbled before the chilling visage of the real Balok – and it’s Clnit Howard! The hideous, snaggle-mawed, troll invites them to chat and offers them all a glass of Tranya, which as anyone who’s been to a sci-fi convention can tell you, is nothing more than Tang made with pure grain alcohol. Balok explains to the Enterprise that he had used the whole setup to divine their true motives. He also states that he had to use the puppet to intimidate them because they wouldn’t have been afraid of lil’ ol’ him. (Apparently there are no mirrors on his ship.) Kirk feigns understanding, which is probably all he could do to keep himself from picking up the misshapen midget by his ankles and dashing him on the floor. Balok also tells him that he is lonely and desires some kind of companionship to accompany him on his journey, so that the two cultures can learn more about each other. Instead of referring Balok to Craigslist, Kirk instead volunteers Lt. Bailey, probably to relieve the rest of the crew of Bailey’s incessant whining.

Things to look for in this episode:

The SPINNING CUBE OF DOOM!: No matter how hard they try to make it so with music and reaction shots, it’s not threatening. I kept expecting one of the Smurfs to come out of it.

The Fesarius: Seriously, it looks like the Krell machine from Forbidden Planet.

Balok: It’s bad enough he starts out being a dippy-looking alien that sounds like a really pissed off Don Pardo, but then to have him turn out to be Clint Howard? That kid could ugly paint off of walls.

What is McCoy not today? A moon-shuttle pilot. Because it’s the future ‘n all.

And what about Spock? Spock’s main job seems to be to creep the hell out of the crew: first by bringing up the visual of Balok, then by informing the captain that the Enterprise is essentially screwed by using a chess analogy. Someone should explain the concept of esprit de corps to him.