Star Trek: The Original Series begins
to hit its stride with What Are Little Girls Made Of? Here are
almost all the elements of what became synonymous with Star Trek:
Plenty of action and Kirk being willing to jump into bed with just
about anyone or anything in order to save the Enterprise, all wrapped
up in a thought provoking science-fiction wrapper. The only thing
missing is the spirited bickering between Spock and McCoy; for some
reason, McCoy is completely absent in this episode.
Phaser fight! What
more could you ask for in a Star Trek episode?
Unfortunately, What Are Little GirlsMade Of? also features something that was over-used in Star Trek: The Original Series: Kirk using rather simplistic logic to
discombobulate supposedly sophisticated artificial intelligences.
One has to wonder if the original programmers of all these
computerized villains that Kirk dealt with during Star Trek's three
seasons ever passed Computer Science 101; when Kirk started pushing
their buttons, the artificial intelligences that the Enterprise's
crew encountered usually ended up revealing themselves to be just
about as sophisticated as Joseph Weizenbaum's Eliza.
What are little girls
made of? I'd certainly like to know since I'd like to make me some
of this! I'm referring, of course, to the naughty looking brunette
with the barely there outfit, not the Lurch look-alike with the
shaved head
What's particularly annoying in this
episode are the contradictions inherent in what ultimately causes
Roger Korby, Nurse Chapel's fiance and the episode's villain, to
immolate himself and his delicious little fembot assistant, Andrea,
at phaser-point; Kirk manages to manipulate Andrea and Ruk, Korby's
hulking brute of an android bodyguard, into acting in emotional,
almost human, ways and he even points this out to Korby to refute the
latter's claim that an android society would be free of human foibles
and the mayhem that often accompanies them. However, Korby's stated
reason for killing himself and Andrea is that neither of them is
human, Andrea because she is simply an android (albeit an incredibly sexy one) and himself because the human Korby died a long
time ago, leaving behind a robotic copy that ostensibly carries his
soul. Given that what triggers Korby's act of murder-suicide is
Andrea throwing herself at him offering him her love (a decidedly
human act), it's difficult to understand his reasoning.
But maybe that's the point.
After all, murder-suicide is hardly the
act of a rational man and maybe Roger Korby's irrational reasoning
was intentional.
Maybe.
Kirk prepares to open
up a can of whoopass on a homocidal android using a...giant stone
dildo?!?! How the hell did this make it past the censors?
