Star Trek: TOS, S1E2 - Charlie X

       Charlie beams aboard the Enterprise with a bevy of red flags. After Kirk offers his escorts from the Antares some relaxation time with the ship's "entertainment tapes" (we all know what he's referring to), he sees them off and ignores the gaping stares of his newest crew member. Charlie is a hormonal teenager and it takes him seconds to latch onto the ship's favorite blonde yeoman Rand. He does everything but drool and, as is her usual personality glitch, she gives him dirty looks for daring to be new. Something tells me Rand spent most of her time at the Academy laughing about less fortunate students at her lunch table...hair that high has to be earned.

       Ignoring the weird eye-crossing vibes Charlie gives off during his tantrums, he's good at creeping people out and making unsettling miracles happen. After Uhura uses music to make fun of Spock to ease the romantic tension in the room, she turns her sights to teasing Charlie who uses his unexplained powers to silence her right up. No one apparently thinks it's off-putting and they let Charlie have free reign of the ship. Suffice to say, it takes a captain to yeoman discussion to let everyone come to the agreement that Charlie could be the next Carrie at the prom. Considering Rand seems like the type to dump the bucket of pig's blood on the stage during her Academy days, she surprisingly made the grown up call. Charlie sucks at Vulcan chess and he sucks at talking to people.

      Kirk gives Charlie the talk on consent and tries to teach him to fight which only ends up getting a crew member sucked into the seamless abyss with those Carrie powers. With the original Antares ship destroyed and everyone over the feral-child-turned-angsty-teen, it's an all out battle. We already know that Charlie was left alone on a planet when he was three but, at seventeen, he's never gotten past the annoying toddler phase. It turns out that the resident aliens of his former planet, the Thasians, gave him super magic psychic powers without the whole Spider-man "with great power" speech. There's no way they can dump him on another space colony now.

      Charlie goes on an all-out rampage: he electrocutes Uhura, drives Spock into poetic insanity, makes Rand disappear, rapidly ages a young woman, and literally turns a laughing crew member into a faceless monstrosity. He outright sucks. Kirk figures out that Charlie's powers have a limit and they drain him with the plan of total sedation. This might have worked if the Thasians didn't show up Wizard of Oz style as a giant green floating head. Their ship has come to take Charlie and everyone is relieved. By everyone, I of course mean the viewers as he made it a very uncomfortable hour. After he gives an impressive performance that honestly shows they casted well, Charlie is sent back to the aliens who raised him to live in a society without love. Big deal, most modern Americans experience the same thing. In the end, yeoman Rand walks around the bridge in her night gown crying, once again making everything about her. What's the moral here? Be careful of hitchhikers because they could have strange powers that ruin your whole day.