Star Trek: "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

Massive Ted Cassidy, who portrayed "Lurch" on the old "Addams Family" TV show, stars here as a giant Kanamit-type character who is, in actuality, a killer cyborg. Kirk and Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett-Roddenberry) beam down to Ye Olde Star Trek World to examine the inside of a D&D cavern and get two Red Shirts (Vince Deadrick, Budd Albright) killed. They're there to check up on Dr. Cory (Michael Strong), who came here, oh, a long time before just to examine the remains of the "Old Ones'" (borrowed obviously from H.P. Lovecraft, as this episode was penned by none other than Robert Bloch) lost civilization. Seems the Old Ones were particularly adept at making life-like cyborgs that are indistinguishable from human beings.

This process involves a bare-chested, strapping Jimmy T. being strapped down to a revolving table while a cyborg thing that looks like it was molded together from cake icing takes on his general appearance. This isn't painful and doesn't require even one tortured yell from Shatner, nor even one of his famous pregnant pauses (utilized as a strategy to get additional screen time).

Andrea (Sherry JAckson), a total cyber hottie in a sexy little cross-strap outfit, gives El Capitan a huge smooch but is better at wasting android ass with a zap phaser that shoots out like rainbow bolts borrowed from an old X-Men comic. (Hey, it was the Sixties. All the hippies were tuning in fried crispy as a value pack from KFC; which, incidentally, my mother used to mollify me with when I was an infant, as they cost, in 1982, around ONE DOLLAR. No wonder I grew up with body issues.)

Evil "Enemy Within" Kirkborg beams up to the Enterprise but has a certain "AI Are Dumb as Dogs" flaw in that he mouths off to Spock, referring to him (ahem) as a "half breed." Spock realizes, in his infinite Vulcan wisdom, that something is indeed wrong with Jimbo, and it just isn't the fact that he's not "Woke." (Kirk had this shit planned, dig?)

Anyway, Cory is not what he seems, and, in the end, everybody dies. (Well, Kirk and Chapel seem to make out okay.) The funny thing is, is that this science fiction is, like all science fiction, steadily evolving into science FACT.

We have humanoid robots now with AI brains that can hold conversations with you as if they were "just average folks." One example is the astounding Ameca, who seems (at least to THIS author) to be modeled on a woman but who is supposed to represent a sexless (as well as raceless) neutral cyberbabe alternative. Ameca is creepily impressive, with lifelike facial expressions and an ability to speak every language, engage in conversation, remember who you are, pout when he/she becomes offended, and draw an abstract sort-of kitty cat. She/he is a helluva doll, babe.

Scientists (those Fools and Magicians) are steadily working on adapting brain tissue as "living computers," and perfecting flesh-like, biologically grown, "skin" to place over the mechanics of their super-intelligent, talking toys. We live in a Neuromancer reality now, one that is quickly surpassing the dated sci-fi entertainment of the past sixty-odd years.

"WALGM?" is an episode that begs the question (as, ultimately, ALL "Star Trek" does), "What makes us human?" What, indeed, gives us value, separating us from the lower primates as well as the high-technological terrors that mimic us, that we build ourselves in "Our Image." Are we dooming and damning ourselves with our God-like hubris? Can we accept a future of artifice, of replicants out of Blade Runner? Where does love begin and end in such a world?

I still don't know the answers to any of these questions. Nor do I know the answer to the titular question as to what little girls are comprised of. However, I can guess that, whatever it is, it sure never liked me.

Ho-hum.

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" - Star Trek Sci-Fi Channel Special Edition

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