2x22 By Any Other Name

[8.7/10] There’s an old expression that goes, “Never argue with an idiot -- they’ll bring you down to their level and then beat you with experience.” I think that’s the unofficial motto of “By Any Other Name,” and I love it! My favorite Star Trek episodes (in any series, not just the original one) are often the ones where the crew encounters some seemingly intractable problem, and the solution isn’t just some “reverse the polarity” mumbo jumbo or a matter of blowing up the big power source, but something clever and unexpected. Star Trek, at its best, is very much a show about lateral thinking.

And what I like about this episode is that it’s pretty much one-half impossible threat and one-half clever solution. The Kelvans are legitimately frightening as antagonists, partly because of their immense power and partly because they seem so nonplussed by everything that Kirk and company do.

There is a calmness to Rojan, a sense in which he’s just doing his job and following typical Kelvan procedures that sets him apart as a worrying villain. He doesn’t threaten Kirk or launch into cackling monologues. Instead, he’s matter of fact about what’s happening and what’s going to happen. He seems to see the use of force as not even a necessary evil, just a dull, required demonstration, motions he has to go through to fulfill his mission.

And yet, when he reduces a pair of redshirts to little gray polyhedrons, it’s a display of the Kelvan’s power, something that is notable, but not terribly striking in a show where the main characters have been transmuted in some way shape or form on a semi-weekly basis. But when he picks one of them up and crushes it like chalk in his hand, it’s strangely disturbing, a single life blinked out with grasp of a hand.

Again, it sets the Kelvans apart from the other myriad beings with god-like powers the Enterprise crew encounters. They almost seem bored by this whole thing, not understanding why Kirk doesn’t just kowtow to them and get it over with. The captain tries all of his usual tricks: having someone play possum, karate chopping his way out of prison, and even offering the diplomatic solution, but the Kelvans will hear none of it, basically taking over the whole damn ship with only five people and few hiccups.

It’s enough for Spock and Scotty to consider a suicide mission rather than let this threat go any further. Now it comes at the midpoint of the episode, and there’s a whole season to come, so we can be pretty sure it won’t come to that, but the fact that they look for the usual “blow up the bad box” solution, the “let’s just jam their frequency” solution, and the “let’s incapacitate anything that moves” solution and nothing works, to the point where they’re willing to go out in a blaze of glory, ups the stakes for the threat the Kelvans pose.

Stubborn, semi-noble Kirk can’t go through with it, of course. Instead, with the help of the Kelvans, they break through the “negative energy barrier” (whatever that’s supposed to be) and start on the path to the Andromeda galaxy. What’s shocking is that once that leg of the trip is complete, the Kelvans start using their magic belt buckles to turn the whole damn crew (save for Kirk, Spock, Bones, and Scotty -- the “essential personnel”) into those fragile polyhedrons. It’s genuinely chilling.

Then, suddenly, the episode makes a turn toward comedy and somehow the tonal shift absolutely works. I love the turn in the logic here. The Kelvins are massive, many-limbed creatures who are devoid of most perception and emotion, but have confined themselves to human bodies for use of the Enterprise and thus are vulnerable to human frailties they’re not accustomed to. Using those to get to the Kelvans is a genuinely clever way for our heroes to defeat them, and it’s lots of fun too!

It’s not exactly complicated or heady, but I was tickled pink at Scotty using his ability to hold his liquor to conquer one of the Kelvans by drinking him under the table. I don’t know if this is the first mention of Saurian brandy, but it’s a minor thrill to see it regardless. Plus, the “it’s...it’s...it’s green” line has an echo in The Next Generation which I enjoy, and seeing Scott sacrifice a beloved old bottle of scotch in the name of incapacitating the Kelvans is a hoot too. There’s some great comic acting from both Doohan and the Kelvan he’s paired with, with plenty of laugh out loud moments.

Kirk’s solution -- as always -- is to seduce the scantily clad alien woman. His encounters with Kalinda (boy, they weren’t trying too hard with the alien names on this one) are the usual Kirk “what is this thing you call love” shtick. But regardless, there’s actually some witty and amusing in their back-and-forth (“We do it because we like it.” “The literature?”) and it’s pretty entertaining.

Bones and Spock have their duties too. Bones injects one of the Kelvans with some serum that makes him angry (which, come to think of it, is kind of playing with fire when they have magical, obliterating belt buckles), and Spock stokes the fires of jealous in Rojan after he sees Kirk and Kalinda “apologizing” (aka kissing).

Again, it’s a clever resolution to this challenge -- that by briefly turning themselves human, the Kelvans have made themselves susceptible to baser pleasures and pains they’re not used to. It allows the four senior officers of the Enterprise to get under their skin, to the point that there are scuffles and shouting matches and the Kelvans realizing that they would be subjecting themselves to this for 300 years to the point that they would be almost unrecognizable to themselves when they complete the journey.

But that’s the beauty part, with those human frailties come other facets of being human, like being touched and a little flattered that after doing terrible things, you’d still be welcome as friends. It glosses over a few things, but the ending, where Kirk offers to make them a part of the Federation and let them colonize the planet where they met, fits with the notion that by becoming human, the Kelvans do things that humans do (at least in the Star Trek universe) -- learn to think differently and embrace the new and different.

It’s a smart twist in the story, and a way to resolve the seemingly impossible odds against our heroes in a way that makes it feel earned. Between that, and the seamless twist from terror to comedy, “By Any Other Name” stands with some of the best episodes of Season 2.