A Non-Trekkie's Perspective - Star Trek Series 2

So, having watched and enjoyed the first series of Star Trek I was very keen to get into the second. First thing I noticed was a slightly different opening credits with DeForest Kelley now billed as part of the starring cast. Which is wonderful to see as he is often one of the highlights of any given episode.

Series 2 Episode 1: Amok Time

The series started very strongly with Amok Time. In this episode Spock reached a frenzy of lust that drove him mad and would eventually kill him and had to be taken to Vulcan to meet his pre-arranged mate. He then has to fight Kirk in Mortal Combat and it has the most epic battle music ever. This was a strong start as it revealed new information about the Vulcans and put Kirk and Spock's friendship as the main focus of the episode.

The next largely memorable episode was Mirror, Mirror wherein Kirk and the landing party are transported to a mirror universe where the Federation is evil and Spock has a beard. This gave the cast a good chance to play around with their characters and let us see them in different ways.

For some reason the one episode they chose to do a follow up to from the previous series is perhaps the worst one of series 1. I, Mudd sees the Enterprise crew once again meet Harry Mudd, this time on a planet with robots set to serve them, who will perhaps not let them leave. This was surprisingly good and fun considering the tripe it was a follow up to.

Series 2 Episode 8: I, Mudd

Other episodes I would definitely say are worth talking about include Obsession where Kirk is Captain Ahab in the first of, what I'm lead to believe, will be many Moby Dick analogues in Star Trek. This gave William Shatner a chance to do something different with Kirk, making us question his reliability as a result of his obsession.

Then The Trouble With Tribbles offers a nice comedic episode where the ship becomes overrun with adorable balls of fluff who multiply ridiculously quickly, but are really "no Tribble at all"...

By far the best episode of the series, however, is Patterns of Force wherein Kirk, Spock and Bones find themselves on a planet that has somehow modeled itself after Nazi Germany. This was a good mystery, an interesting look at the characters and actually gave something of a balanced look at Nazi Germany as actually having some good traits before the madness sets in and it leads to deaths.

Series 2 Episode 21: Patterns of Force

Overall I am still enjoying Star Trek, however I felt the second series was slightly less impressive than the first as I seem to remember less of the episodes, however the ones that I do remember are top notch and really make up for some of the less memorable ones. I very much look forward to continuing on into Series 3.