It was with a heavy heart that I started this article. I found out from my mother that her older sister, my beloved aunt who has been battling health problems for a number of years now, is on a ventilator in the hospital. According to my uncle, it’s only a matter of time now.

As I clicked on my Netflix, I was hoping that this episode would be like many of the ones to come before–so ridiculously ludicrous that it would bring a smile to my face. As I read the short summary provided by Netflix–“The crew of the ENTERPRISE find themselves shrinking after being bathed with radiation”, I did smile a little. It sounds totally preposterous but not out of line with the way the animated series has been going so far. Also, I realized that that this is episode 11 which means I’m exactly halfway through the series run by this point.

The episode starts off, predictably, with Captain Kirk making a log entry. They are coming up on what’s left of a burned out supernova called Arachna (which is Greek for “spider”, oddly enough). Their mission this time around is to provide Starfleet with an updated survey of the radiation and how much it’s expanded since it went supernova. Spock is at his station, giving the captain a report about how the supernova has entered a cycle of strong emissions. Uhura is instructed to send the information to the nearest starbase, while Kirk sits there and looks all..captain-y. However, she’s getting some interference on subspace, which is definitely not a Good Thing (tm Martha Stewart). Uhura states it could possibly be a signal, but she doesn’t recognize it and it’s coming from a star called Cepheus (another name taken from Greek myth; Cepheus was the father of Andromeda – you know, the one who was kidnaped nightly by the demon Calibos in the classic Harryhausen film Clash of the Titans).

Kirk feels the need to investigate, you know, just because he can and stuff. Uhura puts the transmissions coming from the star’s single satellite (the source of the interference) on speaker… and it sounds vaguely like whalespeak. Spock says the signals are random though, and may even be beyond their ability to receive them. However, there is one signal that is recognizable… IF you still accept that something called Intersat Code (which hasn’t been used for 200 years) is still workable. Dude. Of COURSE it is.

Apparently, the code-word being transmitted is “Terratin”. But what does it MEAN? The computer doesn’t know (and neither does Google. The closest it comes to is “terrain”). So Kirk feels compelled to go find out what the hell “Terratin” means. Is it a warning? An invitation? A dessert made with flaming brandy? Nobody knows… so let’s go poke at it with a stick… er… a phaser. Bones, always the voice of reason, asks if Kirk REALLY means to abandon the mapping mission for what’s probably going to turn into a wild goose chase.

“Nooo… of COURSE not. But… dude! They sent the message twice! We’ve TOTALLY gotta check it out.” says Kirk. Hooboy. Here we go again. He instructs Spock to continue trying to decipher the meaning of the word “Terratin” while Bones grumbles this is probably a waste of time, but you’re the captain, Captain.

The next shot is of what looks to be a pale blueberry floating in space. I assume this is the satellite of the Cepheus star. According to the computer, it’s a class M planet with a molten core, but not much else is known about it. The most likely answer for the radio source is volcanic eruptions from the surface, which is totally crystalline. The next thing we see is what looks like some rather large, uncut diamonds with a crude satellite mounted right in the center. I’m betting even money THAT’S where the radio transmissions are coming from. Suddenly, blue lights start hitting the satellite, and as Kirk orders Sulu to put the ship into orbit, Spock calls out there is a disturbance… as if suddenly a billion diamonds cried out in horror and were suddenly silenced. Oh wait..no. That was the Alderbarrans and Star Wars IV. Sorry. I got my sci-fi franchises mixed up there for a second.

The disturbance passed right through the ship, and Spock wants to delay going into orbit until he can analyze the shit out of it. Sulu reports that all instruments are functioning and everything is working the way it’s supposed to. Mr. Arex says that sensors haven’t detected anything abnormal either. So everything MUST be just fine, and Scotty says the warp engines are purring like kittens. According to McCoy, everything in sick bay is kosher too. The gossamer mice (who are transparent… that’s so weird. See-through lab animals) are showing no signs of shock or any other stress for that matter. So what could possibly be wrong?

The X-waves (which Wikipedia informs me, the nonscientist, are localized solutions of the wave equation that travel at a constant velocity along a given direction. Like I know what that means) which passed through the ship seem to be harmless enough, according to Kirk. Spock continues with his analysis while Arex puts the Enterprise into a parking orbit so they can sweep the planet with their sensors. Sensors don’t show them anything they don’t already know: the planet has a crystalline surface fractured by volcanic vents and lava flows. There is ash and smoke suspended in the oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere… most likely from the volcanic eruptions. No big whoop… that happens here on Earth too whenever Kileaua, Popocatepetl or any other of the other dozen or so active volcanoes blow their tops. Suddenly, Arex draws back in horror, covering his eyes. The ship is surrounded by a yellow light coming directly from the planet. You know this ain’t gonna be good.

Every member of the bridge crew turns bright white, as if they are being surrounded by a powerful light. Everywhere on the ship, people are starting to glow and shimmer. Something is happening, but what? Down on the surface, the blue light striking the satellite gets stronger and a volcano shoots lava and smoke high into the air.

The light surrounding the Enterprise goes dark. Kirk asks for damage reports from all decks, all sections to make sure that everyone is OK. Nobody reports any injuries and the ship SEEMS to be fine, though Sulu’s only using impulse power. Spock says that the wave bombardment is continuing though it IS greatly reduced. The deflector shields are ineffective, however, and there’s even more trouble down in the engine room: the warp drive is totally shot and the impulse drive isn’t in such good shape either. Oh… shit.

Spock notices that the fracturing of the dilithium crystals is in a spiral formation, similar to long-chained molecules. How very curious, considering dilithium molecules are some of the hardest, most rigid things known to man. Suddenly, a redshirt named Gabler hollers from the far side of engineering. The tools are too large, far too large in fact, for anybody to handle. Scotty can’t quite believe what he’s been told, so he goes to check it out for himself. Kirk in the meantime asks Spock if he’s slouching, and Spock is offended by the idea. He’s never slouched in his life… he was probably born sitting rigidly upright. But then, he was about to ask Kirk the same thing… it seems as if he’s smaller somehow than he normally is.

Before Kirk can answer though, a nervous-sounding Officer Briel calls out on the ship’s comm system from the mess hall. Everything – tables, chairs, food – it’s all suddenly much too large for any normal human. Some of the women are panicking because their hairpins are falling out and their jewelry is much too large for their ears or fingers or necks. As if they’d all been suddenly gigantisized… or all the humans had shrunk down to Lilliputian dimensions. My favorite thing is when they pan through the mess hall and we see a blue-shirted crewman with this giant handlebar mustache and a flat top staring into his oversized coffee cup, as if he can divine the reason for this mess from it.

Back on the bridge, Uhura calls this the “most incredible thing” and the ship is expanding, getting larger. Thank you Miss Obvious. Now how do we fix this problem? Since there is an equally good possibility that not only has the entire crew shrunk but that they may be continuing to shrink, they’d better leave orbit and get back into open space where the chances of them continuing to be affected by this problem are lessened. Right-o, Captain. Sulu zooms them out of there on impulse power, while Kirk and Spock figure this mess out. Unfortunately, they don’t have quite enough power to make it. The ship continues to be bombarded by Spock’s mystery waves and the crew continues to shrink.

As if this wasn’t bad enough, they don’t even have enough power to send off an emergency message to the nearest starbase. They’re stuck out there, alone and shrinking more as time goes on. Starfleet can’t save them, so once again it’s up to the Holy trinity (Spock, Kirk and McCoy) to pull their asses out of the fire. Spock continues to study the waves hitting the ship, but they’re complex, beyond anything he’s ever experienced in his lifelong study of scientific matters. Scotty reports they’ve fixed things as best they can, but they’re going to run out of power, and soon. Kirk tells Uhura to decrease the frequency of the mayday signals and Mr. Arex complains he can’t do visual scans anymore because he can’t reach the opticals.

Arex isn’t the only one having problems. Uhura practically has to climb up onto the comm panel to reach the buttons and dials she needs. There are people who have said that a Spock/Uhura romance isn’t cannon, and maybe it isn’t, but there’s a definite look of interest on Spock’s face as he watches Uhura’s mini-dress ride up, revealing her shapely legs and molding even more closely to her butt as she climbs up the comm panel to reach things. Mrrow.

Kirk calls down to sickbay, and McCoy says he MIGHT just have something. He says that they are indeed shrinking, even though their weight is the same. The atoms are just contracting and getting smaller, not disappearing. He’s never seen anything like it, and things seem to be getting worse. Spock starts to monologue about how this could go on ad infinitum, when Nurse Chapel interrupts him to say that all their lab animals have gotten out because they got too small to be contained by the mesh of their cages. What was once big enough to be mistaken for a see-through possum, is now small enough to fit into the palm of the hand.

Then Spock notices something: Nurse Chapel’s titanium bracelet has remained the same size, though she says it could be a necklace now thanks to her shrinking size. He notes that their uniforms, made of something called Xenylon has also shrunk, rather than remained the same size… as have the coral decorations in the fish tank. But the rocks, meteoric in origin, are exactly the same as they were. Strange. Bones surmises this means only organic matter has been affected by the shrinking rays. It seems to be winding the double helix of organic DNA ever tighter, which is part of why they’re shrinking. The tighter it winds, the smaller they get. Kirk asks how tight they can be wound, and Bones tells him that once they’re wound as tight as they’re gonna get, they’ll stop shrinking. Ah. Now this is something Spock can understand: figures and calculations. Off he goes, eager to be doing something useful instead of standing around wondering why they’re all shrinking.

Kirk makes a log entry. In approximately half an hour, they’ll be too small to operate any buttons or controls on the ship, as they’ll be only about a fingernail’s length tall (I’m assuming they mean a MAN’S fingernail length and not a woman’s as those can be several inches long). Kirk tells the crew to continue to do what they can to operate the controls since there’s nothing they can do about the shrinking. Sulu bursts out that there IS something they can do… fire phasers at the planet! Kirk retorts that it won’t do any good, and it’ll waste power besides. Sulu whines that it doesn’t do any good to sit and wait for their own demise, they have to do SOMETHING. As he’s whining, Sulu gets knocked to the floor by the dial which sets how long phaser fire will last (sort of like an egg timer), breaking his leg in the process. Good thing is, at this size, it will only take a single tooth pick, broken in half, to serve as the splint.

While Kirk and Arex help him down to sickbay (how on earth did they reach the controls for the turbo lift? Or did they climb down a Jefferies tube?), everybody gets back to their station (as best they can). Down in sickbay, Bones (hefting a diagnostic tube-y thing from his tricorder that’s the size of a couple of steel drums stacked on top of the other) says that more and more fall injuries are coming in as people get smaller and the risk of falling off something or jumping down from something gets higher.  McCoy doesn’t know how he’s going to fix this, but Nurse Chapel has an idea. She’ll just go and get the laser designed to heal the middle ear and knit Sulu’s bones back together as if she were using the laser she normally would use in a situation like this.

Unfortunately, however, in retrieving the small laser (which looks like a watch battery), she falls into the fish tank. Kirk goes to rescue her, using a needle and thread to fish her out since he can’t reach the top of the fish tank on his own. Which leads me to think… this is the 24th century… so who the hell has a needle and thread just lying around, especially in sick bay? I mean, I thought they were past using that kind of barbaric technology to put people back together by that point, but maybe not. Or maybe Christine was just fixing the hem of her skirt. Who knows? Lucky for her though that it was just lying there, waiting to be used. Kirk jokes that she shouldn’t be climbing any more heights, and Christine, dripping and annoyed, tells him at least she saved the miniature laser.

McCoy goes to work on Sulu’s leg, and Sulu says he can feel the bones knitting together. Being both Japanese and a Starfleet officer though, he takes the pain stoically, and he doesn’t even say “ouch”. Spock tells the captain that he’s finished his analysis and they are going to be reduced to one sixteenth of an inch high. That’s awfully tiny! Kirk asks him to calculate the geographic center of the wave emissions, since it’s as good as place as any to beam down, and before they get too small to operate the controls that is. Scotty asks how many are beaming down (I love that the communicator is the size of compact car now, compared to Kirk). Kirk tells him, “Dude. Just me.”

Kirk beams down to the planet. It’s their last chance to solve this problem and he’s assuming there’s an intelligence behind the wave emissions. He’s got to go now, before they shrink too small to do anything to save themselves. Spock rigs a tiny little communicator and tells him it may be difficult to beam the captain back up.

“Dude… just get me down there so I can save our asses,” says Kirk.

Before he beams down, Spock asks if the transporter will beam him back up the size he’s at, or if it’ll beam him up normal size. Kirk says he doesn’t know. He just has to get down there so he can see if there’s something behind that wave pushing it out into space. I find it comical that it takes a team of three or four men, pushing as hard as they can, to move the transporter controls up and beam Kirk down.

Down on the planet, all is chaos. There are light beams streaking across the surface like a giant musical scale. Volcanoes are erupting. It was all I could do to not start singing “Bad Moon On the Rise” (or, if you want to be juvenile about it “Bathroom on the Right”). Kirk pulls out his communicator, and it’s tiny. It seems that the transporter beam returned him to normal size once he landed on the planet. He radios Spock with this information and Spock tells him the wave emissions have ceased. Kirk starts to reply, but a volcano just behind him starts to erupt and he’s knocked from his feet. His communicator, which was dropped when he fell, is covered in lava which destroys it and cuts Kirk off from the ship.

Kirk gets to his feet and dodges the hot lava rain (this prompts my brain to start humming “Singin’ in the Rain” for some reason) as he tries to find a place that’s safe for him to hide. But lava is all around him, and the look on his face when he sees it coming right at him is priceless. It’s just incredulous. Suddenly, there is a close-up of his eyes and you see him turn his head, spotting what looks to be like some sort of an alien city. You can almost hear him say, “I bet I can find the answers to what I need in there!” and so he takes off, barely ahead of the lava.

But the alien city turns out to be smaller than he thought… the tallest tower only reaching his waist. Before he can find out what’s going on, he’s beamed back to the ship (Scotty set a ten minute timer before Kirk left). Damn. Cut off before he could get any satisfaction… ain’t that always the way?

Kirk is beamed back on to the ship and he’s normal sized, thank Bob for that. But the transporter room seems to have been abandoned… or has it? He calls out for Scotty and Spock but they are nowhere to be seen. In fact, the whole ship seems empty. Where did everybody go? Suddenly Kirk, furrowing his brow, spots something on the floor. Scotty (and apparently the rest of the crew) have shrunk to the size of an infant’s pinkie nail. If he’s not careful, he could squash somebody like a bug. Scotty covers his ears… Kirk’s normal speaking voice is incredibly loud. Scotty tells the captain that the bridge crew were trying to man their posts when they were beamed away mysteriously. I bet it has something to do with the miniature alien city Kirk saw on the planet.

Kirk tells everyone on the ship to move to the far bulkhead and sends a message to the inhabitants of the planet:

“Dude, turn us back to normal or we’re gonna blast your butts out of existence. NOW.”

There’s a response on the viewscreen. Hey, look… it’s a Munchkin! Okay, so it’s not a Munchkin. It’s the leader of the Terratin people, who’s forbidding Kirk to destroy them. I doubt he took them seriously with that squeaky voice, however. I would’ve had a hard time not laughing my butt off. The man tells Kirk he is the “mendant” of the city, equal in command to Kirk, and his people are a very proud people indeed. And these Terratins don’t suffer fools lightly or say they’re sorry for their actions. They are pint-sized badasses who do as they please. However, in this case, the mendant is sorry and he’s willing to replace the ruined dilithium. He says they did try to communicate to Kirk that their adopted planet is in its death throes, however. Kirk asks where the bridge crew is, and the mendant says nothing except, “Sorry. We totally had to attack you to get you to hear us.”

“Dude… where the HELL is my bridge crew?” repeats Kirk, clearly annoyed.

Arex and Sulu appear on the viewscreen, telling him that they were beamed down with the Terratin’s own transporters. The camera pans right to show some more Terratins as well as the bridge crew, all apparently in good health. Spock informs him that the Tarratins are the descendants of an early lost colony, which is why they have the technological knowledge they have (like transporters, star ships, etc). The colonists named the planet “Terra Ten” (not Terratin).

Kirk says there has never been such a thing as Earth colonists as small as a sixteenth of an inch high. Ah… but there’s an answer for that. Apparently spiral-shaped epsilon waves are natural to that planet and caused them all to shrink. After a period of years, it became a genetic mutation. The mendant says his ancestors were too small to be rescued, since nobody could see them at that size, and they had to make out the best they could. Unfortunately, although they had never asked for help from outsiders before, they didnt’ have a choice in this case because the planet was blowing up.

“Dude… you almost caused us to LOSE our SHIP!” Kirk protests, and the mendant admits he’s not very good at asking for help. But in this case they’re between a rock and a hard place. He wants Kirk to save as many of the Terratins as he can. Uhura says they had no other way to reach them, besides making them tiny. Aww, isn’t that just the cutest thing? Not.

Too bad, says Kirk. He tells the bridge crew to grab as much dilithium as they can hold so they can be beamed aboard as soon as possible. They’re given the largest crystals in the city and brought back up to the Enterprise. Uhura says it’s nice to be back onboard… and her proper size for a change. Kirk orders all personnel to the transporter rooms, he’s going to beam them down and then back up again. Which reminds me of a song I heard as a kid, about how the noble Captain Kirk had five hundred men. He beamed them up to Enterprise then beamed them down again. And when they’re up, they’re up. And when they’re down, they’re down, but when they’re only halfway up they’re nowhere to be found.

Spock tells him that the Terratins, to make up for their grievous mistake, are making a shitload of dilithium available to the Enterprise. The crystals may be small, but they should do the trick until they can obtain larger ones.

Down on the planet, the eruptions continue and there’s an earthquake causing a large canyon to open up… and it’s heading right for the Terratin city. The mendant asks a redshirt if he should prepare his people to be rescued, or should he tell them to prepare for their own destruction rather? Cue the dramatic music and a head-on shot of the Enterprise hanging in space, nacells spinning wildly at full speed. Sulu reports the helm is very responsive and Uhura chimes in saying that subspace radio is now operative. Not only that, but Starbase 23 is responding to their hails!

Kirk tells Arex to get them the hell out of there.

“But… but… the people on the planet? What about them?” Spock asks.

Kirk tells Sulu to aim phasers at the city and Spock, predictably, raises an eyebrow at this incredibly illogical behavior. He’s going to blow them the hell up, but why? Sulu fires on the city… and this has the odd response of causing it to be beamed up to the ship. It looks like a doll house sitting there on the transporter pad. Kirk peers through a device he calls a “macroscope”, only to see the mendant of the Terratins staring back at him. Hi!

Kirk informs the Terratins they’re going to drop them off on a planet called Verdanis which is much like Earth. Well, at least they have a plan. And the Terratins are grateful… they don’t have any way to thank them for saving them from the destruction down below. The mendant names Kirk and his crew honorary Terratins, and Spock quips, “We came close to making it more than ‘honorary’.” Ha ha ha. Fade to black, cue the end credits.

Most episodes so far have been hard to watch because they have been groaningly terrible. This one wasn’t quite as bad, which gives me hope for future episodes. Maybe as the series goes on, the stories will get better and the writing will become less abominable? I hope.