Star Trek 003: The Man Trap

3. The Man Trap

WHY WE LIKE IT: Though silly, the monster is memorable, as is its mode of killing.

WHY WE DON'T: Killing by taking the salt out of someone is ludicrous. A bad example of Trek to show first, and yet, that's what NBC did.

REVIEW: I wanted to review the pilots first, and the rest according to airdates, but Man Trap was actually the first Star Trek episode ever shown. Where No Man would air third, and The Cage would be later turned into The Menagerie. So THIS was the world's first look? It's a wonder it stayed on the air after that! A simple monster story without the "message SF" Star Trek could do best.

Never mind that the monster, though memorable, was biologically unsound. It was never established whether it was truly sentient or not, and yet it had to be to mimic real people. We're much too aware of what's going on right from the start, so there's no mystery as the crew just has to play catch-up with the audience. At the end, the monster is simply killed, which isn't very Star Trek-like, in hindsight.

And for all that, we already have the Kirk-Spock-McCoy trio working well together, and the budget is still fairly high - good creature design, expansive planet sets (despite the shaking styrofoam rocks). We also have the first of Sulu's many varied hobbies (if you don't count Astrophysics), and both he and Yeoman Rand are likeable characters here.

I'm often surprised that I like Rand given my memories of her. I wonder what the series would have been like had she been able to stay.

LESSON: Take out the tiny bit of salt we have in our bodies and we die. Don't cry or sweat too much!

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Some good character bits, but the plot itself is pretty much on auto-pilot.