Trek Thursdays: Trekking Towards Sixty #9 — ‘Take Me Out To The Holosuite’ And ‘Spock Amok’

On September 8th, 1966, an intrepid crew of explorers boldly went where no one had ever gone before on television. At that moment, Star Trek was born. A series that launched a franchise that has kept a firm grip on audiences for decades.

As the sixtieth anniversary approaches, we here at Comicon are ready to celebrate one of the greatest science fiction franchises. While Star Trek has graced the silver screen, most of its life has been on our television screens. So, that’s where our focus shall remain.

Every week through September 8th, we’ll be spotlighting two Star Trek episodes, from any and every iteration, that we feel are some of the greatest. At this point there are over 950 episodes of Trek, so it goes without saying some favorites won’t make the cut for this list of 60.

By the time your eyes are upon this article intrepid readers, I’ll be likely lounged out by the pool on a cruise ship enjoying the ocean vibes (Editor Note: Yeah, thanks, Scott). If you’re reading this after the week it came out, well I’m back on land now wishing I was still recreationally sailing on the open seas.

Life is tough, even when you’re soaring through space on a starship, and everyone needs a break sometimes. Star Trek has a history of episodes centered around the crew trying to get some R&R, usually only to run into some type of shenanigans. Plenty of those episodes are great to watch, some of them making it to some top favorite lists (like this one).

Then there are ones like Deep Space Nine’s “Let He Who Is Without Sin” which are better left unwatched and unspoken about. We see you out of character Worf and we shake our collective heads at thee.

So, let’s all take a bit of a rest and check out some of Star Trek’s best recreational episodes.

— RED ALERT: Spoilers Follow —

“Take Me Out To The Holosuite”
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Season 7, Episode 4 (10/21/1998)

Synopsis: When an old rival comes bearing a particular challenge, Captain Sisko turns to his crew and friends to answer the call. It’s time to play ball as Deep Space Nine gets pulled into a baseball game, that goes from fun to serious far too easily.

Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) loves baseball.

This factoid was displayed about the character from the very beginning of his series. A baseball was a central prop on Sisko’s desk that was often a central plot point. Who can forget the moment that Gul Dukat (Marc Aliamo) took back over the station only to find Sisko’s ball there knowing it was a message from the captain.

That said, it took quite a long time for us to actually get to see any baseball in the series. Sisko, unlike his contemporaneous-era captain counterparts, spent very little time in the holodeck, or holosuites in this case. Baseball references with him were kept to verbal mentions or the moments where players showed up because of reality altering or orb related things.

Breaking up the dire war season with a more lighthearted episode was a good call. While it might not have the character developing weight of many other episodes, this one has a soft spot in the heart because it’s just a fun feel-good affair. Yes, Sisko is a bit of an ass at times, but we kind of get it with the revelation of the past between Sisko and the Vulcan Captain Solok (Gregory Wagrowski).

Vulcans are the logical, supposedly “emotionless,” species that has introduced fans to many beloved characters over the years. Solok is not one of those.

I love it when producers and writers turn things on their head and we get an arrogant Vulcan-supremacist Vulcan to instantly hate on screen. The mistake about their emotions is one the show always tries to remind fans about, especially during the Star Trek: Voyager years. Vulcans are boiling seething cauldrons of powerful emotions who just learned how to suppress and function around their emotions. Doesn’t mean they can’t be logical emotion-suppressing assholes, and Solok proves that greatly.

Sisko is a great captain, but we get to see some good beats here with him not being a great captain. Taking the game too seriously, he forgets the number one point of things like this: having fun. How can you not love a beat where the heroes don’t actually win but still win through the joy of friendship and “manufactured triumph” as Solok calls it.

This is a highly quotable episode, with some bangers like “Death to the opposition,” “Always look behind you before swinging a bat,” “Did I forget to wear my spots today,” and “Find him and kill him!”

My favorite fun fact about this episode? That would be the fact that Rom’s actor Max Grodénchik played baseball semi-professionally before becoming an actor. Therefore, to pretend to be bad at the game like Rom, Grodénchik was batting with his left hand instead of his right. It was the only way they could make him conceivably bad at the sport. That’s the good stuff.

“Spock Amok”
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 2, Episode # (Airdate)

Synopsis: Comedy ensues as the crew of the Enterprise reaches Starbase 1 for shore leave, and Spock has to deal with some relationship issues. Crucial negotiations are on the line as Star Trek meets Freaky Friday.

Star Trek: The Original Series, naturally, originated the idea of shore leave with the aptly named episode “Shore Leave.” While that has some interesting stuff going down, it’s not that version of the Enterprise we turn our eyes to here. That honor belongs to the modern exploration of Captain Christopher Pike’s (Anson Mount) command of the legendary ship.

A body swap episode meets shore leave, wrapped up in some Vulcan relationship drama. While Vulcans might suppress their emotions, as spoken about in the above episode, they often provide for a lot of hilarity.

Ethan Peck’s portrayal of Spock from Star Trek: Discovery into Strange New Worlds has been fantastic. He’s been able to nail the coolly logical, and the sometimes very human feeling versions of the character. Here we are presented with Spock in one of his periods of conflict about his dual nature. We get a nightmare sequence playing into that duality which also functions as a dual call back. (That call back being to “Amok Time” the episode of The Original Series where Spock’s finance T’Pring (Arlene Martel in TOS & Gia Sandhu in SNW) and the episode that this one borrows naming conventions from.)

Peck and Sandhu are wonderful in playing out the mannerisms of the other as they pretend to be switched. There is a whole beat where T’Pring in Spock’s body bemoans pretending to be him as hijinks and Spock as T’Pring calls hijinks logical. Gotta love stuff like that. We also get quite a bit with Nurse Chapel (Jess Bush) and the burgeoning feelings between her and Spock.

With all the hijinks there is a lot of heart and real talk here. With Spock and T’Pring reaching some settlements in their relationships, as well as Spock sharing why being in Starfleet means so much to him, because of how much pains come from being only half-Vulcan in Vulcan society.

We also get a side plot dealing with Captain Pike and Admiral Robert April (Adrian Holmes) negotiating with a group known as the R’ongovian Protectorate, for safe passage through their space. It gives another view at how Pike thinks as a person and how he discovers the actual key to reaching the R’ongovian’s, who are employing a “radical empathy” of sorts. There’s also the somewhat fun beat with Una, or Number One, (Rebecca Romijn) and La’An (Christina Chong) learning to cut loose and playing “Enterprise Bingo.”

Sometimes shore leaves can quite a bit of good shenanigans. Just sometimes though.

Come back next week as we dive into two more of Star Trek’s greatest episodes.