[TOS] Charlie X

TOS Season 1, Episode 2 (Netflix: S1 E3): Charlie X
Rating: 1
It’s hard not to compare the main theme of this episode with Where No Man Has Gone Before, and Charlie X isn’t nearly as good. It’s comprised of mostly awkward, unintentionally funny scenes, and most of the time leaves you feeling awful, mostly for Janice, but also for the rest of the crew and even Charlie at the end. It was interesting to see Kirk try to act like a father figure, but it wasn’t enough for this episode to win me over.
Read more about it at Memory Alpha
Perhaps a similar episode to Voyager’s “Q2”
Check out related art here and here
Watch episode here
Notes:

Spock seems to get irritated a few times in this episode. I wonder if they had really ironed out his character

Looks like things are about to get goofy

Yup

File Under: Star Trek Jam Band

There is a lot of Janice in this episode, with her crazy basket hair

File Under: Grace Lee Whitney (Janice)

Charlie has to ask Kirk why you don’t slap girls. This seems to be a really tough question for Kirk. It’s hard to believe this episode was mostly written by a woman.

File under: D.C. Fontana

“we see Kirk beating Spock at chess through his ‘illogical’ strategy. I’m not a master, but I’m pretty sure chess doesn’t work like that.” -Zack Handlen (of A.V. Club)

The first time he did the eye ball thing it was a little creepy. Then it happened ten more times.

What kind of friend is Janice, trying to hook up Charlie with this girl? What exactly could she have told her friend about Charlie? “I’ve only really run into him twice, but he slapped my butt, somehow got creepy pictures of me, and then snuck a card down my shirt. Do you think you’d be interested in him?”

“You smell like a girl” – Charlie

 

Kirk comes up with an incredibly risky plan that no one would have any reason to think would work.

It worked out!

Stay tuned, we’ll be discussing this episode more next week in our “Second Episode Conundrum” article.

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