Star Trek: TOS 2.11 - The Deadly Years

Review 39 - Episode 40

The One where they all get really old, really fast.

I'm not going to spend long on this episode as it's mostly rather dull and has a lot of filler. Yet another high concept idea - what if the crew aged incredibly fast. How would they act and what would happen to the ship?

Well, not a lot really. Kirk, Spock, Bones all start getting old. Scotty as well, but he seems to age faster and is missing from most of the story. The trouble is, once they start making mistakes and getting senile, they have to stand down. It's common sense. But the episode still has 2 acts to fill, so we have this ridiculous situation of Kirk looking like an absolute idiot who can't remember orders and may put his ship in danger, but refuses to go. They then have a mock trial to see if he's fit and hear testimony of ALL the scene's we have just watched. God, you can see them really dragging this out. I don't think for a minute Kirk would want to stand down, but he would if he thought his ship was in danger. He's supposed to be old, not a fricking stubborn old asshole.

Speaking of which, Chekov is unaffected for some reason, yet all he does is moan that he has to have tests , while his ship mates are about to die. Seriously, he moans the entire episode. Talk about priority's.

The answer is a bit dubious as well, simply that he was scared and ran out like a girl seeing a dead body and got adrenaline pumping. Kirk then gets young and saves the day from 10 (!)Romulan ships who are about to destroy the Enterprise, brought in by a desk jockey commodore who ordered them into the neutral zone. This was quite good to watch, even if Kirk still doesn't apologise for earlier.

There are a few other weird things. Kirk looks far younger than the rest and I suspect there is some vanity on Shatners part going on here. Also, a random love interest called Wallace has a Love of older men, so Kirk still has potential to get a lay!

I did like the continuity of the Romulans and the Neutral zone and also the nod to the corbomite maneuver. It's also weird seeing them old as by Star trek 6 , they're not far off these ages. But this was a interesting idea stretched out well beyond it's potential.

2/5

Overall Star Trek Franchise Rating so far: 117/195