indefinite articles

Episodes viewed: “The Conscience of the King,” “Balance of Terror,” “Shore Leave,” “The Galileo Seven,” “The Squire of Gothos,” “Arena,” “Tomorrow Is Yesterday,” “Court Martial,” “The Return of the Archons,” “Space Seed.”

Star Trek portrays a future in which America has taken over space, albeit a very miniscule sliver of it. Though it took another world war and a new technological Dark Age to get there, by the 23rd century American democracy has crawled from the ashes to claim its rule. A new, interstellar United Nations has come into being in the form of the United Federation of Planets, a tightly organized military-industrial complex conveniently, and comfortably, headquartered in San Francisco. Life is peachy.

The acclaimed reboot of Battlestar Galactica is hailed for presenting the cosmos as the dark, hostile wasteland that it probably actually is – a fresh perspective that has birthed the next generation of Trek naysayers. But I say piffle – despite all of the technobabble, Trek isn’t really about space. It’s a moral play with our galactic destiny as a backdrop, using humanity’s newfound peace as a means to examine how it purged its darker elements, and to unearth ones that still exist beneath the surface.

And what better way to do that than with a smorgasbord of awesome villains?

What I’ve noticed about the rogues gallery of Trek 1.0 is that it’s generally free of adversaries bent on expanding their empire via blunt destruction, a la Deep Space Nine’s Dominion or the feared Borg. This can either be chalked up to Gene Roddenberry’s reluctance to tackle the Cold War in any visceral fashion while it was at its height, or it could just be because they didn’t have the budget. Either way, this particular stretch of episodes unveiled a stately, diverse slate of iconic Trek foes.

Trek’s very first Romulan looks a hell of a lot like Spock’s dad.

Introduced in the episode “Balance of Terror” – the first Trek episode to deal with the fog of war, and the first featuring any real action – the famously reclusive Romulans are a military might and a relic of the war-ravaged days of humanity’s first foray into space. They are genetically identical to Vulcans, with the divide between them and Spock’s race being circumstantial – whereas the Vulcans embraced logic, they instead fell victim to their own emotions. Their function in the series is purely as political allegory, meant to emphasize the arbitrary historical forces that keep nations from attaining common ground.

It is essential that Trelane somehow play a role in J.J. Abrams’ upcoming Trek film solely so that he can be played by Mark Ruffalo.

Trelane, a considerably more lighthearted foil for the USS Enterprise, is a powerful alien who traps the ship’s crew in a castle designed to resemble 19th-century England. Hundreds of light years from our solar system, his telescope has captured a dated image of “your lively little Earth,” and his candles that don’t emit heat and his disdain for habeas corpus indicate a misunderstanding of humanity’s past on both a technical and a theoretical level. Luckily for the Enterprise, his trickery tanks when his parents show up.

The spiritual midpoint between Star Trek and Mighty Morphin Power Rangers.

The reptilian Gorn are proof that Trek is capable of eliciting pathos for an alien species no matter how ridiculous the make-up. In possibly the series’ most balls-out thrilling 50 minutes to date, Capt. James T. Kirk and a Gorn captain are forced into battle on an artificial planet to fulfill the bloodlust of an unseen alien race, as judgmental as they are peaceful. After throwing a few rocks, Kirk realizes that Knowledge Is Power! and channels his inner MacGyver, concocting a primitive chemical projectile to subdue the scaly beast. The Gorn helpless at his feet, Kirk opts for mercy, and the two predictably both go free.

Khan, prior to his transformation into a walking Moby-Dick reference.

Whereas the nemeses discussed so far represent 20th-century humanity only in an abstract sense, Khan Noonien Singh is distinct in that he literally is one of us. The head of an elite group genetically enhanced to ensure that their pectorals gleam like diamonds, Khan represents mankind’s capacity for self-destruction. Khan and his genetic super-soldiers killed countless millions of people during the Eugenic Wars in the 1990s, then shot themselves into space in hopes of being awakened in the distant future for a repeat performance.

After failing to strong-arm the Enterprise beneath his sultry sway, Khan inks a deal with the Federation in which they sign over a crappy planet to him that just happens to be lying around. The lesson: If you want Federation real estate for free, all you have to do is try to murder a Starfleet officer. Either way, anyone who has seen the cinematic follow-up to the episode knows that this doesn’t work out in Khan’s favor.

The preponderance of villainous figures in this latest cluster of Trek episodes comes as a breath of fresh air – centered on the human spirit as it may be, the series is still science fiction, and there can only be so many episodes about designing and selling women before I throw up my hands and beg for some phaser fire. Klingons are still nowhere to be seen at this point, but it’s nonetheless clear that Roddenberry’s vision of the future had already evolved. The final frontier is no longer merely curious – it’s dangerous.

Notable upcoming episodes: “Errand of Mercy,” “The City on the Edge of Forever.”