By 
Title: The Pirates Of Orion
Airdate: 9/7/1974
Plot Summary
When Spock is stricken down by a disease fatal to Vulcans, the Enterprise is to meet a freighter with a load of drugs that provides the only cure, but Orion pirates attack the ship and Kirk must track down the Orions and the drug before it is too late.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk does a great job of dealing with the Orions, knowing they’ll double cross him. He was perfectly willing to let this go just to get the drug but they double crossed him. Now they’ll have to deal with the treaty being broken instead of just dealing fairly.
Of course he does need Bones to point out the obvious solution when the Enterprise can’t get to where the drug is fast enough to have another ship meet them in the middle, thereby cutting the time needed for travel.
Logical
Spock is a grumpy patient.
He’s Dead, Jim
Bones is genuinely worried for Spock and does everything in his power to keep him alive until the Enterprise can get the drug. Once Spock is cured, he can’t wait to mock him for his green blood which admittedly nearly killed him where a human wouldn’t have such issues.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu pilots the ship and notices that the asteroids are all basically floating bombs.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura does some comm stuff.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty, seeing Kirk is in trouble, decides to beam up the dilithium before Kirk and Orion. You prick.
Three Arms Are Better Than Two, Ya Fuzzy Face
Arex gets a lot more to do since Spock is incapacitated. He takes over the science station as needed and relay scanner data.
Getting Animated
When Spock keels over, Bones and Kirk react. Then Kirk immediately notifies sickbay of an emergency. Even though McCoy is RIGHT THERE. then McCoy calls from sickbay even though he’s standing right next to Kirk. Another example where the animators believed continuity was for pussies.
The big add is the first time we see Orion males. Kind of? They are blue instead of green and kind of jerks. Orion women were well established (and how!) but males had never been seen. In Journey to Babel it was unclear if the fake Andorian was an Orion or just a mercenary.
In Enterprise it’s established that Orion slave women just did that to pretend they weren’t the actual power behind Orion. They have some pheromones that pretty much makes the men do whatever they want. I thought it was an early version of woke but after seeing how much money dumb men pour into OnlyFans, I think they may have been on to something.
Speaking of Babel, it’s quite well referenced in this episode. The Babel Resolution created a neutrality for Orion. So they aren’t a part of the Federation officially and also don’t ally with the Klingons or Romulans or whoever else. Piracy however would break this treaty, apparently. If Kirk didn’t need the drug so badly, this incident would’ve broken it. As it turned out the Orion was stupid so he ended up breaking it anyway.
I expect TuxedoCat to show shots from Lower Decks regarding blue vs green Orions in the comments. Maybe they were different as they kept pronouncing Or-ee-ahns rather than Oh-RI-ons.
Technobabble
Orions have crap ships and weapons. This sort of tracks with Journey To Babel where the ship seemed better than it was because it was a one-way trip.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Well after a mini-break, it’s time to start with Season 2 of The Animated Series. I was going to try to start on Monday but that was my birthday so suck it. Made you wait a little longer.
Season 2 starts out fairly well as I rather liked this episode. While it doesn’t really track with what we know about Orions, being mostly pirates and a criminal civilization, it does make them a bit more than that by making them a world with treaties and laws and whatnot. The typical Trek portrayal of just a bunch of pirates is fine but a little one-dimensional. Alas we can’t really call what we see as canon.
But if you can get past that, it’s a nice little cat and mouse game with the ticking clock in the background in the form of Spock’s illness. Kirk does redeem himself somewhat from Requiem For Methuselah as when the ship came down with a illness like here, he spent most of the time trying to have sex with a fembot. While the illness is mostly resolved by the start of this episode, Spock comes down with a particularly nasty strain and he does whatever he has to in order to save him.
Of course he doesn’t trust the Orions any farther than he can throw them and acts accordingly, out maneuvering them to get the cure and the dilithium not to mention holding them accountable for their bullshit. One wonders how Orion/Federation relations went from there. Of course the Orions pretty much had disappeared by the TNG time so I felt like they were very under utilized. Of course Andorians, Tellarites, and even Vulcans seemed to be somewhat forgotten in those various series until Enterprise.
It’s a little paint by numbers but it’s executed well enough. Everyone has a part to play for the most part and it was especially nice to see Arex doing more than just sitting at his console.
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