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How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

By Derek Dean
Posted at December 25, 2004 - 9:15 PM GMT

See Also: 'How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth' Episode Guide

Captain's Log: Let's play a game where we list the episodes or movies that the current events duplicate.

Spock: A probe just scanned Earth...
Kirk: Star Trek IV.
Spock: ...and sent a message into the depths of space.
Kirk: Conspiracy.
Spock: The ship that sent the probe is heading for Earth.
Kirk: Um, Best of Both Worlds?
Spock: It is crystalline.
Kirk: Datalore.
Spock: It's trapped us in a bubble.
Kirk: Catspaw? Remember Me?
Spock: Sigh. Why are we doing this?
Kirk: Why does Homer play the saxamaphone?
Spock: He doesn't.
Kirk: Exactly.

Running Bear: Kulkukan!
Kirk: Oh, great. A Chakotay episode.
Running Bear: He is the winged serpent god of the Aztecs and Incas.
Kirk: And now he's coming back to check on us? This episode is "Who Mourns for Adonais?" all over again.
Spock: At least we know that episode like the back of our hand.
Kirk: Don't you start that again.

Spock: People are being abducted by Kulkukan.
Kirk: Let me guess: McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, a love interest, and myself.
Spock: Well, Chekov isn't in TAS, so he's taking Running Bear instead. There's no time for a love interest since we've only got half an hour. And he hasn't taken you yet.
Kirk: (POOF)
Spock: That wasn't terribly surprising.

Uhura: Shouldn't we be trying to rescue the Captain and the others?
Spock: Unfortunately, we can't. For now they are at the hands of Kulkukan.

Kirk: This looks like a combination of all the ancient cultures on Earth.
Running Bear: Let's turn all the heads to the top of the pyramid.
Kirk: Raiders of the Lost Ark!
Scotty: I thought you were finished playing that game.

Kulkukan: Good job. You solved the puzzle. You can kill me now.
Kirk: Why would we want to kill you?
Kulkukan: Because you don't like me.
Kirk: Why don't we like you?
Kulkukan: Because you don't remember me.
Kirk: Why don't we remember you?
Kulkukan: Um, I don't know.
Kirk: Ha! Kirk 3, Kulkukan 2!
Kulkukan: Huh?
Kirk: Kirk 4, Kulkukan 2!

Kulkukan: Welcome to my menagerie! All these animals think they're not trapped due to my mental powers!
Kirk: The Cage!
Running Bear: That means we weren't transported to the city, you just made us think we were there.
Kirk: Still The Cage!
Kulkukan: Stop playing that game!

Kulkukan: Look at the tamed Capellan power-cat.
Kirk: What's that?
McCoy: It's what you get when you cross an electric eel and a large cat.
Kirk: I thought that would be Tiger Electronics.

Spock: Ha! We can push on the sphere in different directions and release ourselves.
Arex: Unfortunately, the ship can't be programmed to automatically break free.
Spock: Then we'll have to do it by hand.

Kulkukan: Hey! The ship broke free. Stupid ship.
Kirk: Yay! Now we can free the power-cat!
McCoy: That is without a doubt the dumbest idea you've ever had.
Kirk: You say that, but you're wrong.

Power-cat: Cats rule.
Kulkukan: No, winged snakes rule.
Power-cat: Which one of us is the hunter? And which one of us is the prey? Cats rule.
Kirk: (injects power-cat with hypospray) Let's not have another one of these arguments.

Kirk: Now that I've proven how awesome I am, why don't you let us go our own way?
Kulkukan: But you're my children.
Kirk: Perhaps you haven't noticed our bipedal, non-winged, non-ophidian form, but I highly doubt it.
Kulkukan: I was being metaphorical, you twit.

McCoy: I feel sorry for Kulkukan. What was that proverb again?
Kirk: "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."
McCoy: No, no. I meant the episode title line.
Kirk: Oh. "How sharper than a serpent's tooth?"
Spock: King Lear, Act I, Scene 4.
Kirk: Stop that. Oh, and what do you mean there's no time for a love interest?
Spock: There isn't. The episode's ending.
Kirk: Drat.
(The episode ends at Ludicrous Speed.)

THE END

Find more episode info in the Episode Guide.


Derek Dean is one of the contributors of Five-Minute Voyager, where sci-fi episodes are reduced to "fivers" of one-twelfth their original length.

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