Xav Watches Star Trek S1E1 "The Man Trap"

The title of this episode is horrible. "The Man Trap"? Is it because it is about a woman who seduces and traps men? The feminism in me feels strongly against it. Oh! And then there is Lieutenant Uhura...When she appears, I cheer because she represent to me a strong black female character, but her first lines made me shudder. Spock talks to her scientifically, and Uhura says she does not want to speak about work, but she wants to speak to Spock about love and romance. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It was like the show was saying women only have Love on their mind, and this is compounded by the fact that women seem to only play the role of beauty in the film, where it is the men who care about serious matters. I hope that changes swiftly. Besides the shallow portrayal of women, however, the Man Trap is really an incredible episode.

The Star Trek Enterprise has a mission to go to a remote planet to check on the health of an archaeologist and his wife. Only Leonard McCoy, the Doctor of the ship, knows the Archaeologist's wife, and the two had quite the romance when they were young. It makes for an interesting story, and we also meet Captain James T. Kirk, played by the infamous William Shatner. I did not find anything strange about Shatner's performance skills at all. He seems to be a competent captain with the best interests of his crew in mind. Also, he is somewhat of a Casanova, I believe, which is charming. Not that I find him particularly attractive, but I mean he holds a Casanova role in the show.

We also meet Sulu in this episode, which I found fascinating. Like I said in an earlier blog post I have never seen Star Trek, so it was nice to see George Takei acting. I know George Takei from his social media presence, and he is amazing, and I love being able to see him on screen. It somewhat surprised me that Sulu was the botanist on board. I knew him to be the pilot. I suppose later in the episode we find that Sulu is the pilot, but I guess he also grows alien plants too.

We also see red shirts for the first time. However, none of them die. Surprisingly yellow and blue shirt crew members die. Perhaps that is a trope that simply has not started yet.

I don't want to spoil the plot, so I will just say that it is a sci-fi murder mystery who-dunnit, where we the audience knows who did it, but we watch as the Captain, the Doctor, and Spock try to figure it out.

All in all, I loved the episode. I would give it an 8 if it were not for several plot holes and inconsistencies, so I would give it a 7, but the ending felt so satisfying with them drifting off into space that it feels like an 8, but then I remember the shallow portrayal of women in the episode and it returns to a 7 again.

7 out of 10.