By 
Title: The Time Trap
Airdate: 11/24/1973
Plot Summary
The Time Trap begins with the Enterprise is investigating a “Bermuda Triangle of Space” when being pursued by three Klingon ships forces them into the area. They and the lead ship, commanded by Captain Kor, disappear and reappear in a mysterious null area of space filled with abandoned ships. They find a concentrated population on one ship, and both captains are whisked away to meet with a Council of various aliens who are trapped there.
Unable to escape because of the eventual drain of all higher power systems, they have formed a peaceful coalition, the Elysians, and insist the newcomers obey their rules.
The Klingons fail in one attempt to escape the area, but Spock determines that the two ships together might succeed if they operate in tandem. Reluctantly, Kor agrees but prepares to sabotage efforts. He has his mate plant a bomb during a social party between the two crews. The two ships linked together manage to escape, but Scotty and Spock find the bomb and jettison it just before the Klingon ship breaks away.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is willing to put aside his previous hatred of Kor to work with him. He gets a bomb put in his computer panel and nearly gets the Enterprise blown to smithereens for his troubles.
Logical
Spock gets all buddy-buddy with the Klingons, but it’s all a ruse so he can touch them long enough to get a telepathic sense that they were up to no good.
He’s Dead, Jim
Bones decides to ask a Klingon woman to dance and causes a fight that nearly torpedoes the entire escape plan. Dude, time and a place.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is most affected by the vertigo from going into the pocket universe. He also supports Spock’s plan on working with the Klingons.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura mentions that sending the message to Starfleet would take weeks, letting us know that communications, while much faster than Warp travel, still can take a while depending on how far away you are.
Nichols also provides the voice of the Orion girl and the weird telepath. She does a good job of making the voices distinct.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty does his usual bang-up job of getting the two ships to work together as well as keeping the engines running as long as they can.
Takei also gets to play a Klingon commander at the beginning.
Three Arms Are Better Than Two, Ya Fuzzy Face
Arex mans his station silently.
Getting Animated
We get another appearance of Kor, though sadly, we don’t get John Colicos to voice him.
The pocket universe idea, where a bunch of ships are strande,d is revisited again in Voyager. Unlike this episode, where all races learned to work together, there it was basically a Mad Max-like wasteland with everyone for themselves.
They did a good job of having representatives of various different races. Human, Romulan, Vulcan, Tellarite, Andorian, Gorn, Orion, one of the shape shifters from a few episodes ago, and even one of those Infinite Vulcan plant dudes. Given that time moves slowly here, there’s no reason any of those couldn’t have been there.
Technobabble
Apparently, bombs now come in pill form! At least that’s what it looked like.
Those darn dilithium crystals can’t handle the pocket universe. I swear those things are really fragile when the plot calls for them to be.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
The Time Trap is a typical lost in a place we can’t get out of episode. You should just accept your fate, but of cours,e our crew gets out because they are just that awesome. I find it difficult to believe that no one in this place thought, “Hey! We should try TWO ships instead of one!”
Still, you get the tension with the Klingons, which is always good. Of course, they were up to shenanigans. Spock even sensed it, but it took the telepath in the colony(?) to figure it out and warn them at the very last minute. Why they allowed the Klingons to be able to have somewhat free rein on the ship is anyone’s guess. What if Bones didn’t let his bone think for him, and they weren’t able to start the fight to distract everybody, allowing the Klingon woman to plant the bomb?
The Time Trap itself isn’t that bad, and the concept is good. I just wish some of the execution had been just a little tighter. I did like the idea that the council wouldn’t interfere with them trying to escape. They would only act if either of the new ships broke the law, which they laid out pretty clearly. Even when it was broken, they still showed mercy, which was nice.
It has a lot going for it, but it’s undercut by some dumbness on the writer’s part. Oh well, it’s still better than NuTrek.
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