Return To Tomorrow

** (2 stars out of 5)

Sargon in Captain Kirk's body makes the face I make when I have to watch "Return To Tomorrow"!

Oh, it's not that bad! (It's pretty bad.)

It starts with dead people on a dead world and meanders around from there. Less 'The Walking Dead' but 'The Wandering Dead'. So, there's this dead world, see...

"And I am as dead as my planet." intones Sargon. He's the disembodied alien consciousness who calls mankind his children and asks for their help- or they will perish, too!

(He's guessing about the children part: he died half a million years ago but he DID get around AND he never used protection...)

Possibly they colonized Vulcan? Sargon doesn't know, and their records were destroyed in their 'Ultimate Crisis'. They survived their Nuclear Power Era, but not their Godlike Era. And Sargon seems to be bluffing about the perishing part. Or threatening? Maybe senile? Your guess is as good as mine.

There are three consciousness receptacles (Giant Ping Pong Balls) containing Sargon, his love Thalassa and his former enemy Henoch. Because they don't want to be Giant Ping Pong Balls, they ask to borrow the bodies of Kirk, Dr. Ann Mulhall, & Spock.

With their rented fingers they will quickly construct robot bodies far beyond human comprehension! Then they will give the fleshy bodies back... plus information on warp engines the size of walnuts, medical marvels, and suchlike. 'Does your kind possess the knowledge of... The PVR?'

"A simple transferrence" says Kirk at the conference table.

"Quite simple," McCoy chirps. "Happens every day."

Kirk ignores him and gives a rousing lecture on taking risks.

"Risk is our business. That's what this starship is all about." Kirk's impassioned speech is the final word: the body swap is on. Just ignore the metabolic strain, the moral indecency, and the monumental risk.

Seconds into the endeavor, Sargon & Thalassa are kissing with Kirk and Mulhall's lips. Henoch likes his powerful body. He wonders out loud why Vulcan never conquered Earth. Everybody is too polite to wince or bat an eyelid or ask him not to be so creepy. Henoch immediately sabotages the medication meant to keep Kirk alive, and erases Chapel's memory of this plot to assassinate Sargon. Oh, how could this possession have gone wrong?

The android bodies don't seem all that advanced to me: basically department store manikins with no sense of touch? Sure, they're strong and they run on a drop of jelly, but they only last a thousand years? That seems like chump change after the claims of the Androids on planet Mudd. Sargon is content to move among the living and teach them, but Henoch goads Thalassa into rejecting that load and KEEPING their stolen forms! 'Try and catch me, bitch!'

"Can robot lips do this?" Thalassa asks, as she seemingly kisses Kirk to death. Uh, yes. Yes, they can. On Mudd's world and Exo III.

Thalassa offers McCoy his Captain's life if he will merely stay silent and let her keep Ann's. When the Doctor refuses to 'peddle flesh' Thalassa doles out psionic pain, but fortunately she can't go through with killing him.

Sargon (having faked his death & Kirk's death) is pleased with her choice not to be a killer... so, naturally they conspire to kill Henoch. Uh... anyway...

They pop Spock's mind into Christine's head like beef into a boyardee, then trick Henoch into thinking Chapel has killed Spock's body. Henoch leaps out of the "poisoned" Vulcan- and goes wherever disembodied killers go. Hang out with Redjac, maybe.

All this kissing and killing having been too much temptation, the Big S and his beloved kiss one last time and pass unafraid into oblivion together.

So... no walnut warp drives then? Thanks for NOTHING, you cosmic jackholes.

Seriously, what was the point of all that? Spock makes a nasty villain but I venture that nobody learned nothin'. Write in. Tell me I'm wrong. Also, explain the title. Who returned to tomorrow? Is it just something you write on an envelope if you didn't like the contents? If so, please "Return "Return To Tomorrow" To Tomorrow".