Very good episode, involving the crew picking up a teenager that has survived alone on a planet that he shouldnt have been able to, and trying to teach him how to interact with others. During the course of the journey it becomes obvious he has powerful psychic abilities, and is as unstable as any teenager…

Very enjoyable, with the lovesick Charlie mooning about after Yoeman Rand, and then getting more and more frustrated with everyone and doing odd assorted things to people (he turns a girl into an iguana, or makes people’s faces turn into a formless, empty piece of flesh). He doesn’t kill any red shirts though (though he makes a guy in a red judo suit disintegrate into thin air). We also get Uhura singing a song making fun of Spock whilst he plays a harp, and Kirk, topless and wearing red tights in the weirdest gymnasium I’ve ever seen.

This story structure (a powerful being having psychic control over the enterprise, ending with a very, very well-known twist that everyone knows from Star Trek) was used several times in the original series, with Charlie X and The Squire of Gothos being the most well-known examples of this particular story.

Very enjoyable episode. To put it in our list of best first

1. Charlie X
2. The Man Trap

Wiki Entry: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Man_Trap

Reasonable, but not outstanding, episode, chosen by the TV executives as the one to open the series. There’s been debate why they chose this, as it’s not quite as exciting as some of the other early episodes they could have gone with, but it’s serviceable, and has some decent dramatic tension. One thing that is really outstanding and surprising about this and the other early episodes is how much they’re getting right – the whole Kirk/McCoy/Spock dynamic is in place right from the get-go, and this episode shows them off nicely. It also has Uhura doing quite a lot of lines, and setting her character up in an interesting way. She baits Spock about being tired of hearing the word ‘frequency’ and starting to feel like part of the equipment. I liked that little scene.

We also see Yoeman Rand and Sulu off the bridge – Sulu has got some weird plants, I can tell you.

And whilst some crew members die, none of them are wearing red

I’m watching the new remastered version of these series, and they do look quite spectacular – this is a nice restoration.

I’m not going to score these ones, I think I’m just going to start putting each and every episode into my favourite order, highest first, and I’ll ignore the Pike-centric pilot that was never aired. So to start:

1. The Man Trap

Electra Glide in Blue

A movie that seems to be considered as part of the whole “great movies of the 70s” block, but it seems overrated. Robert Blake is absolutely solid and rather great in the central performance, and there is some great cinematography, but some of the scenes are bloated, pretentious and silly. The worst is a scene where Blake’s new boss takes him to meet his woman, who by coincidence Blake is seeing…and what ensues is a scene that feels like a poorly written attempt at Tennessee Williams’ dialogue done in an overheated way.

Bits of this movie were tiresome, but some of it was interesting, and it feels somewhat like a version of Easy Rider done from a cop’s perspective. Those bits I liked.

Probably one to see, but not one to revere.

The Perfect Host

David Hyde Pierce (Niles from Frasier) is a guy who is about to give a dinner party, who gets duped by an armed robber/thief on the run to let him in, get fooled by him whilst he cases the joint, then he takes over before the guests arrive.

However all is not what it seems. It turns out the host is a complete lunatic, and the apparent alpha-male in this setup become the underdog.

This is a terrific little movie. DHP is fantastic as essentially a psychotic Niles, tending to guests that aren’t there but who he can see plainly, whilst the thief (Clayne Crawford, who definitely has a young Ray Liotta vibe) is confused, then scared, then angry.

It’s a black comedy. I laughed out loud several times; when the thief reveals his bleeding foot and DHP says ‘I can clean that up’ and gets a cloth, and when the foot is lifted to him, DHP starts cleaning the floor; when the thief gets shown the host’s insane home movies; when the thief is left heavily drugged, but floating in the pool buoyed up by floats. It’s all so bizarre and nutty.

I also liked how, several times it looked like it was about to go down a very dark road (think ‘Misery’) but in fact it doesn’t do that, and is better for it.

The third act doesn’t quite work for me as you find out the whole movie is based on a somewhat ridiculous circumstance, but overall I enjoyed it a lot. I particularly liked the final scene, which was something of a homage to the end of Silence of the Lambs, I think.

Spiritually, the film it most reminded me of was the 1972 version of Sleuth, with a touch of Misery, Norman Bates, Sunset Boulevard and Whatever Happened to Baby Jane thrown in.

Overall recommended, for adults.