1.12 — “The Time Trap”
Plot: While investigating a strange sector of space, the Enterprise is ambushed by Klingons, who want to fight, just because. As things start to heat up, the Enterprise accidentally follows a Klingon battle cruiser through a time anomaly into a “Sargasso Sea” of space ships trapped in a pocket of time. Kirk must find a way to escape, without falling victim to the treachery of his Klingon co-prisoners.
Thoughts: Opportunities for nitpicking abound in this very under-developed story. For starters, we are told at the very beginning that the Delta Triangle is a place “in which a high number of mysterious disappearances of starships have been recorded since ancient times.” Um, by whom? Ancient times? Isn’t it still just the 22nd century?
Also: look, I haven’t gone on this rant since TOS 1.18 — “Arena.” But the writers should really get straight what warp drive means. It takes the ship 10 seconds to travel to the position where the Klothos recently fired on it, at Warp 8. To the best of my understanding, every Warp level above 1 represents exponentially increasing increments above light speed. Yet the Klingon was previously within phaser firing range. H’mm.
There are some good things here. I love the Sargasso Sea graveyard of dead space ships. I believe I had a Fantastic Four comic that ripped off this concept when I was young. The council with all the races–Orion, Tellarite, Andorian, Vulcan, Gorn–is pretty awesome. This is also the first episode of Star Trek to feature a scene on board a Klingon spaceship (although we’ve been inside Romulan vessels twice).
There isn’t even a half-assed explanation, however, for any of the strange phenomena that appear in the episode. Not even Spock’s solution (“Lets put the power of our ships together!”) makes the slightest bit of sense. The concept of having to learn to work together with Klingons in order to save both crews was done far better in TOS 3.7 — “Day of the Dove.” It just doesn’t feel like they are trying very hard on this one.
2 of 5 dancing Orions.
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