YMMV / Star Trek S2 E12 "The Deadly Years"

• Accidental Aesop: You need to be young and hot to command an Enterprise. At least this is what Kirk takes as a lesson, at the end hoping to not grow old for a while yet. No wonder he has such a bad time growing old in the movies.
• Badass Decay: The first time the Romulans appeared, one plasma torpedo nearly destroyed the Enterprise. Here, a whole barrage doesn't quite bring down her Deflector Shields.
  • Clearly the Enterprise received a shield upgrade once Starfleet had some data on the plasma torpedoes. On the other hand, now the non-warp-capable Romulans are suddenly able to keep up with them?
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Compare the older versions of Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and especially Kirk to how they really turned out.
  • Not to mention that In Living Color! parody of the crew of the Enterprise in their old age.
    Kirk: Captain's Log, Stardate errr… hell, I can't remember! Our five year mission has now turned into twenty-five. We...just left the Romulan galaxy and are approaching...senility.
  • Stocker barging into the Neutral Zone to save lives only to be attacked by hostile starships from a Proud Warrior Race who don't take prisoners is remarkably similar to The Kobayashi Maru test shown in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. They even both take place in the Gamma Hydra sector! (It should be noted that this was probably a deliberate reference in the later film — early drafts of the script had Dr. Janet Wallace appearing instead of the new character of Dr. Carol Marcus.)
  • This won't be the last time a shot of adrenaline is portrayed as an instant medical cure.
• Padding: The competence hearing just covers ground that the audience is already familiar with, having seen all the events they're testifying about.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: One of the criticisms of this episode is that only the debilitating aspects of growing old are presented; there's no Aesop of Do Not Go Gentle or Face Death with Dignity. Neither does Kirk reflect on his past despite having an Old Flame from a failed romance as a main character!

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