Star Trek episode "By Any Other Name"

"By Any Other Name"

Season 2, Episode 22.

A distress call. Two humanoids who with the touch of a button on a device on their belts make the entire landing party immobilized. They want the ship, to hijack it to the Andromeda Galaxy. The alien leader, Rojan, says that the Kelvan Empire has sent out ships to find a new galaxy to take over because within ten millenia radiation in Andromeda will make it unlivable. They take over the Enterprise with ease.

Kirk does say that they should take their problem to the Federation, that there's "no need to do this by force." Rojan says that is not their way, that they only conquer, like a big crybaby.

The Kelvans came on a multi-generational ship and it was fast enough to travel between the galaxies within only 300 years, not the thousands of years Kirk says it would take by Starfleet standards. The Kelvan ship was destroyed by that Galactic Barrier. (SIDEBAR: I am sitting here watching, thinking, the Kelvans could colonize a world with Starfleet's help and then take over, with a base world already within the Milky Way.)

"The chances are very much against" two galaxies developing two so similar lifeforms.

Spock tries to "mind meld" through the cell wall again, a trick seen in another episode.

The Kelvans turn two redshirts into some kind of ball of elements, crushing one at random, killing Yeoman Thompson.

The Kelvans are really hundred-tentacle creatures; they adopted humanoid forms to take over the Enterprise. What do they need any of the crew alive for at all if they can create new bodies, have a neural-inhibitor device, can change the Enterprise to go much much faster than Warp 10? Even if they didn't kill the crew, they could have just marooned them all on the planet. Again, Star Trek created beings way too strong and couldn't defeat them without making them out to be stupid.

They supposedly needed the crew to get through the Barrier. At no time did any of the crew left intact do anything the Kelvans couldn't have done themselves. They manage to get through the Energy Barrier at the edge of the galaxy, and now they want to neutralize the crew, turning them all into those crystal balls. Why the hell aren't Kirk, Bones, Scotty, and Spock transformed? They are supposedly considered "essential" although I never see why. (SIDEBAR: There is no ESP damage from the Barrier like in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and there is no directional loss like in "Is There in Truth No Beauty?")

Scotty gets one of the Kelvans stinking drunk. Kirk seduces the female Kelvan. Spock beats Rojan in 3-D Chess and brings out his jealousy (although they keep saying how much they hate these bodies, why would he think she was attractive?) McCoy is injecting one with drugs.

The episode that could be so cool degenerated completely. A fist fight. The bad guy, beaten, accepts Kirk's proposition to colonize a world with Starfleet's help. Oh, isn't that nice? They're all friends now. Could Starfleet monitor the Kelvans enough to prevent an invasion? I guess we'll know in 300 years.