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Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 15, Episodes 29 & 30: Operation-Annihilate!/ Catspaw

Star Trek - The Original Series, Vol. 15, Episodes 29 & 30: Operation-Annihilate!/ Catspaw

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Star Trek Halloween Special with Bonus Episode!
Review: REVIEWED ITEM: Star Trek® Original Series DVD Volume 15: Operation: Annihilate!© / Catspaw©

OPERATION: ANNIHILATE!© PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:

Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: Facing and living with the consequences of one's choices and decisions

Historical Milestone: The first and last appearance of Captain Kirk's closest relatives

Expendable Enterprise Crewmember ('Red Shirt') Confirmed Casualty List: None

REVIEW/COMMENTARY: 'Operation: Annihilate!' (or 'The Attack of The Omelet Creatures' as I like to call it) isn't one of my more fave eppies. But even so, it does have its moments of cheesy charm. This particular outing is especially notable for yet another example of the recurring 'Spock's-Vulcan-biology-explaining-his-miraculous-recovery' plot gimmick. He gets attacked and infected by an omelet-creature, yet manages to control his pain much better than any mere human would. He even manages to suffer 'permanent' blindness and recovers from it, all during the episode's last ten minutes! More proof positive that Spock is the Timex' of Star Trek'-- he takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'!

Final note: Ain't it spooky how Captain Kirks' dead brother looks kinda like that General Mortars guy from Loaded Weapon 1'? The resemblance is uncanny!

CATSPAW© PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:

Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: The downside of cultural acclimation / The power of illusion

Notable Gaffe / Special DEfect: Probably the silliest-lookin' alien marionettes ever made for network TV pop up here in the final scene! The strings that manipulate these little pipe-cleaner ETs are quite visible!

Historical Milestone: Star Trek's first Halloween special!

Expendable Enterprise Crewmember ('Red Shirt') Confirmed Casualty List: One dead

REVIEW/COMMENTARY: Trek-Or-Treat! Heh, get it? Okay, okay' I apologize for the lame joke. C'mon, lighten up, people! Speakin' of jokes, this particular Trek outing is one of the series' sillier displays of sci-fi cheesiness! 'Catspaw' is so chock-full of Halloweeny goodness, even recent newcomer Pavel Chekov gets into the holiday's spirit by wearing his Official Monkees' Fan Club wig on the bridge! And Spock's Namor The Sub-Mariner' costume is simply faboo! Speakin' of Halloween and costumes, didja know that the mask Michael Myers (no, not Mike Myers from Austin Powers', silly!) wears in his horror flicks is actually a William Shatner mask with the face painted white? True story! Sadly, the hair on Myers' mask is ten times more realistic than the hair on William Shatner's head! Yeah, I know'that last remark was a low blow. What's it to ya?!

But enough of the jack-o-lantern hijinks'it's time to goof on this eppie's sillier moments! One particularly preposterous scene is Kirk's hand-to-hand battle with a zombiefied Sulu whose martial arts 'skills' leave quite a bit to be desired (oh my!)! Actually, Kirk's fightin' prowess is somewhat laughable as well. And let's not forget the ol' tried-and-true Captain-Kirk-seducing-the-female-antagonist-in-the-hope-of-freeing-his-ship gimmick! When he starts to turn on the charm, the object of his manly wiles just can't say no! Sheesh, some guys have all the luck'

'Late

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: The Star Trek Halloween Special with Bonus Episode!
Review: REVIEWED ITEM: Star Trek® Original Series DVD Volume 15: Operation: Annihilate!© / Catspaw©

OPERATION: ANNIHILATE!© PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:

Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: Facing and living with the consequences of one's choices and decisions

Historical Milestone: The first and last appearance of Captain Kirk's closest relatives

Expendable Enterprise Crewmember ('Red Shirt') Confirmed Casualty List: None

REVIEW/COMMENTARY: 'Operation: Annihilate!' (or 'The Attack of The Omelet Creatures' as I like to call it) isn't one of my more fave eppies. But even so, it does have its moments of cheesy charm. This particular outing is especially notable for yet another example of the recurring 'Spock's-Vulcan-biology-explaining-his-miraculous-recovery' plot gimmick. He gets attacked and infected by an omelet-creature, yet manages to control his pain much better than any mere human would. He even manages to suffer 'permanent' blindness and recovers from it, all during the episode's last ten minutes! More proof positive that Spock is the Timex' of Star Trek'-- he takes a lickin' and keeps on tickin'!

Final note: Ain't it spooky how Captain Kirks' dead brother looks kinda like that General Mortars guy from Loaded Weapon 1'? The resemblance is uncanny!

CATSPAW© PRELIMINARY BRIEFS:

Moral, Ethical, and/or Philosophical Subject(s) Driven Into The Ground: The downside of cultural acclimation / The power of illusion

Notable Gaffe / Special DEfect: Probably the silliest-lookin' alien marionettes ever made for network TV pop up here in the final scene! The strings that manipulate these little pipe-cleaner ETs are quite visible!

Historical Milestone: Star Trek's first Halloween special!

Expendable Enterprise Crewmember ('Red Shirt') Confirmed Casualty List: One dead

REVIEW/COMMENTARY: Trek-Or-Treat! Heh, get it? Okay, okay' I apologize for the lame joke. C'mon, lighten up, people! Speakin' of jokes, this particular Trek outing is one of the series' sillier displays of sci-fi cheesiness! 'Catspaw' is so chock-full of Halloweeny goodness, even recent newcomer Pavel Chekov gets into the holiday's spirit by wearing his Official Monkees' Fan Club wig on the bridge! And Spock's Namor The Sub-Mariner' costume is simply faboo! Speakin' of Halloween and costumes, didja know that the mask Michael Myers (no, not Mike Myers from Austin Powers', silly!) wears in his horror flicks is actually a William Shatner mask with the face painted white? True story! Sadly, the hair on Myers' mask is ten times more realistic than the hair on William Shatner's head! Yeah, I know'that last remark was a low blow. What's it to ya?!

But enough of the jack-o-lantern hijinks'it's time to goof on this eppie's sillier moments! One particularly preposterous scene is Kirk's hand-to-hand battle with a zombiefied Sulu whose martial arts 'skills' leave quite a bit to be desired (oh my!)! Actually, Kirk's fightin' prowess is somewhat laughable as well. And let's not forget the ol' tried-and-true Captain-Kirk-seducing-the-female-antagonist-in-the-hope-of-freeing-his-ship gimmick! When he starts to turn on the charm, the object of his manly wiles just can't say no! Sheesh, some guys have all the luck'

'Late

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Operation: Fun!
Review: These are two good, mind bending, whoa what was that kind of episodes. The special effects were bold for the time., and quite fun to watch.

On the DVD, the sound quality is excellent and the picture quality is equally good.

Now for the fun stuff: In Operation: Annihilate! Mass insanity has hit planet after planet and no one knows why - and its up to the Enterprise crew to save the galaxy. My only quibble is that if these "one celled organisims" were so obvious here on Deneva, how come no one else could have "picked them up"? It's a little like "No, we don't have any water but we have starships" kind of things...

And in Catspaw, Ghosts, Voodoo, and witches haunt an away team. My favorite part was when our trio (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) are in chains, Kirk says to McCoy "Bones", and we see next to McCoy a skelleton. Someone has a big sense of irony!!!

Overall, the great episodes with the superb DVDs, not to mention seeing Checkov for the first time on DVD, makes for a great buy!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A BIZARRE COLLECTION OF TREK EPISODES!
Review: Volume 15 of The Star Trek TOS DVD series should be noted to have the last episode filmed in season 1 and the first episode filmed in the second season. However these episodes are some of the most bizarre episodes to ever grace the series.

OPERATION-ANNILATE! was the last episode in season 1. It closed the 1966-67 season with a bang. Making sure that fans would tune in for the second season for another collection of Star Trek Adventures. OPERATION - ANNILATE'S plot was a very good one as a notorious space bacteria that travels from system to system killing everything in it's path has crossed path with the USS Enterprise. The bacteria has travelled to a planet by the name of Deneva killing Kirk's brother Sam and his wife. As the bacteria begins to consume yet another system it is up to Kirk and the crew to stop it. The episode is very well written and despite the fact the the bacteria organisms look like novelty store vomit this episode is one of Trek's less cheesier outings.

CATSPAW was the first episode filmed in season 2 but the seventh the air (partly because it had a Halloween like concept). Anyway this was not a good start to the second season. The setting is great, the warlock characters are interesting but the plot was really stupid! If this episode was supposed to be some sort of spooky thriller it failed miserably it came out more like a campy episode of Batman or The Monkees! However it should be noted that this episode marks the debut of Lt. Pavel Chekov in his ridiculous Monkee-esque wig. The very idea that network executives tried to make Chekov a Davy Jones clone is insulting to both Star Trek Series and the viewers. Thankfully the wig would be ditched after a few episodes.
CATSPAW is one of the lesser Trek episodes of Season 2.

I still recommend this DVD cause it is still classic Trek. It contains one great episode and one bad one. Keep in mind that CATSPAW is bad but it is still watchable but I find it very bizarre but of course Trek has bizarre moments. Mildly recommended.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A BIZARRE COLLECTION OF TREK EPISODES!
Review: Volume 15 of The Star Trek TOS DVD series should be noted to have the last episode filmed in season 1 and the first episode filmed in the second season. However these episodes are some of the most bizarre episodes to ever grace the series.

OPERATION-ANNILATE! was the last episode in season 1. It closed the 1966-67 season with a bang. Making sure that fans would tune in for the second season for another collection of Star Trek Adventures. OPERATION - ANNILATE'S plot was a very good one as a notorious space bacteria that travels from system to system killing everything in it's path has crossed path with the USS Enterprise. The bacteria has travelled to a planet by the name of Deneva killing Kirk's brother Sam and his wife. As the bacteria begins to consume yet another system it is up to Kirk and the crew to stop it. The episode is very well written and despite the fact the the bacteria organisms look like novelty store vomit this episode is one of Trek's less cheesier outings.

CATSPAW was the first episode filmed in season 2 but the seventh the air (partly because it had a Halloween like concept). Anyway this was not a good start to the second season. The setting is great, the warlock characters are interesting but the plot was really stupid! If this episode was supposed to be some sort of spooky thriller it failed miserably it came out more like a campy episode of Batman or The Monkees! However it should be noted that this episode marks the debut of Lt. Pavel Chekov in his ridiculous Monkee-esque wig. The very idea that network executives tried to make Chekov a Davy Jones clone is insulting to both Star Trek Series and the viewers. Thankfully the wig would be ditched after a few episodes.
CATSPAW is one of the lesser Trek episodes of Season 2.

I still recommend this DVD cause it is still classic Trek. It contains one great episode and one bad one. Keep in mind that CATSPAW is bad but it is still watchable but I find it very bizarre but of course Trek has bizarre moments. Mildly recommended.


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