Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan- And The Number of The Counting Shall Be Six

Before we jump into Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan, a few words about the original TV series. It was for a large part responsible for creating modern-day sci-fi and every space tale since its premier owes a debt of gratitude to Gene Roddenberry. There was simply nothing like it on TV before it came out, but what is truly remarkable about the series is this...

Today, multiracial casts are commonplace. In fact, a show which doesn't include minorities is bound to be called out for it. But, Star Trek hit the air in 1966. The Civil Rights Act wasn't even signed until 1964. And, four key cast members are members of a repressed group. When Sulu, the Japanese man, first took the helm, it was 21 years after World War II. Uhura is both black and a woman. During the third season, Kirk kisses her for the first televised interracial kiss. Spock is mixed race when many states ban interracial marriage. And, the world is terrified of the nuclear threat from the USSR, when Chekov, the Russian, joins the cast for the second season. This inspired casting was what the series was all about.

Unfortunately, Chekov was a moron and he really proves it in Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan. When the story begins, Chekov is serving as the first officer on the Reliant looking for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis device and they think Ceti Alpha Six is a good candidate. During the series, Kirk dropped Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan off on Ceti Alpha Five. Chekov was on the Enterprise at the time and remembers the incident clearly. Between that episode and this movie, the real Ceti Alpha Six blew up making Ceti Alpha Five uninhabitable and adjusting its orbit so that the Reliant mistakes Ceti Alpha Five for Ceti Alpha Six. (We won't discuss the physics of planetary explosion, its subsequent effects on planetary motion, or the convenient timing of such events other than to say it strains credulity.) Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-deep breath-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan takes advantage of Chekov and his captain's mistaken visit to the surface to escape and get wrathful.

All Chekov had to do to prevent all of this was to successfully count to six. Spock and all those researchers die because Chekov is incapable of counting numbers that require more than one hand. Ceti Alpha Six wasn't Pluto. This wasn't some technical change in designation. There used to be six planets in the Ceti Alpha system and now there are five. There should have been debris from the explosion as well. If they had just noticed something odd and rather obvious, like the fact that there was a missing planet, they would have proceeded with more caution and Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-gasp-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa-snack break-aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan wouldn't have had his opportunity.

Of course, this isn't the only movie were single digit counting has proven problematic...