“The Apple” is not one of the more memorable episodes. The title itself brought back no memories at all for me – it wasn’t until I got about 10 minutes in that I recognised what episode this is. Not a good sign.

Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, girl of the week Yeoman Martha Landon, and four redshirt security officers beam down to Gamma Trianguli VI, lush with tropical vegetation and a lurid red sky. Chekov compares it to the Garden of Eden, which was just outside Moscow. Chekov has other Eden-esque activities in mind, as we (and Kirk) notice that he and Yeoman Landon are more interested in each other than their duties. Spock says the village they detected from orbit is 17 kilometres away, so they start walking – a very long way to walk, given they have transporter technology that could have placed them right there. This lapse of reason is never explained.

As they set off, redshirt one bites the dust, thanks to being sprayed with poison darts from a lotus-like flower. Following this event, rather than beam back to the Enterprise, or beam down a botanist, or take any sort of precautions whatsoever, Kirk picks up the flower and sniffs it, and then they continue their slog through the jungle to the village. Spock finds a curious rock which he examines, snaps in two, then tosses aside – and it explodes on impact. Another flower takes aim at Kirk, and Spock pushes him aside but takes the full brunt of the darts. McCoy manages to revive Spock, thanks to his Vulcan physiology.

The party realises the Garden of Eden metaphor is strained to breaking point, and Kirk tries to beam everyone up, but it’s too late, as Scotty reports interference from an energy source located near the village. With nothing better to do, they keep walking. Redshirts two and three are annihilated when one is struck by lightning in a sudden storm, and another steps on an explosive rock. Kirk expresses his self-doubts in an emotional speech. Spock interrupts to mention that a native humanoid is lurking nearby.

Kirk intercepts the native and initiates a fistfight, but is taken aback when the native doesn’t fight back, but rather starts weeping and expressing puzzlement at being hit. Kirk reassures the native that he comes in peace. The native says he is Akuta, and is the “Eyes of Vaal”, and leads them to his village, which is populated by about two dozen people, with no children or elders. They are confused by the concepts of children and love. Vaal has forbidden them!

The natives take the crew to Vaal, which turns out to be a symbolically snake-like cave, where the natives leave offerings whenever Vaal calls. Spock decides Vaal is a machine, ruling the naïve villagers like a god. Spock and McCoy engage in a debate about whether Vaal needs to be stopped, and Kirk decides that yes, it does. But Vaal has also decided to get rid of them, telling the natives to attack the crew. Redshirt four goes down in the attack, but the crew best the rest of the villagers (including some well-aimed athletic kicks by Yeoman Landon) and then confine them to a hut. Vaal calls to be fed, but Chekov and Landon are enough to stop the villagers leaving. Kirk calls Scotty to phaser the snake-cave in its weakened state and this destroys it. They then tell the natives that life will be much better now, because they’ll be able to … um … make children now. They warp out of orbit, having interfered with another undeveloped alien civilisation.

Well, this is really a pretty weak and uninspiring episode. The multifarious allusions to the Garden of Eden are possibly the most interesting part. Vaal is a serpent, the villagers are innocent. Kirk even eats an apple conspicuously when they are resting in the village. The denouement even has Spock pointing out that Kirk has effectively played the part of Satan by metaphorically giving the villagers knowledge of good and evil. But ultimately you want some actual drama in the story, and some sensible decision making by the characters, neither of which are particularly in evidence here.

Tropes: Girl Of The Week, World Of Symbolism, In The Original Klingon, Flower In Her Hair, Red Shirt, When Trees Attack, Idiot Plot, Made Of Explodium, Death World, Phlebotinum Breakdown, Bolt Of Divine Retribution, Heroic BSOD, Perfect Pacifist People, I Come In Peace, Uncanny Village, What Is This Thing You Call Love, Cave Mouth, Cargo Cult, Deus Est Machina,
Body count: Redshirts Hendorff (killed by a flower), Kaplan (incinerated by lightning), Mallory (steps on a landmine rock), and Marple (whacked on the head by a native).

“Mirror, Mirror” is one of the all-time classic Star Trek episodes. It might feel clichéd and hackneyed now by comparison to all of its imitators, but this is really the one that started the evil mirror universe trope. And judged in those terms, it still comes up sparkling.

It begins with a landing party consisting of Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura on the planet of the Halkans, attempting to negotiate for the Federation to purchase dilithium. The Halkans are the epitome of Perfect Pacifist People, however, and refuse to sell, fearing the Federation might use the dilithium for hostile purposes. Resigned to this diplomatic failure, the crew beam up in the middle of an ion storm, which causes a transporter malfunction. (Why do they beam up during an obviously unpredictable and dangerous ion storm?) They appear in the transporter room of a ship that looks like the Enterprise, but with strange symbols on the walls. Their uniforms have changed into more stylish variants, with glitzy bits and holstered daggers, including Uhura’s showing a wide strip of torso. And then they see Spock, who has a neatly trimmed goatee. (A cliché, you say? Yes, but a cliché started by this episode!)

Of course, they are in an evil mirror universe, and spend the rest of the episode trying to deal with this and figure out a way to get home without being killed by the evil Enterprise crew. It turns out that in this universe, the senior officers recruit henchmen from amongst the lesser ranks, and jostle for promotion by assassinating their superiors. Evil-Chekov tries this on Kirk, but Kirk’s henchmen protect him and Spock places Chekov in the agony booth. Evil-Sulu meanwhile flirts with Uhura, giving us a good look at his evil scar in the process.

With the help of the ship’s computer, which has a male voice in the evil universe, Kirk eventually figures out that they are in a mirror universe and instructs Scotty to start working on rewiring the transporter system to send them home. McCoy, with nothing else to do, joins Scotty reluctantly. (“I’m a doctor, not an engineer!“) Uhura’s mission is to distract Sulu from his security console while the power is rerouted, so he doesn’t see the warning light.

We learn that in this universe, the Federation is an evil Empire, and Kirk is ordered by Starfleet to annihilate the Halkans and take the dilithium. His reluctance to do so alerts Goatee-Spock that something is amiss, and Goatee-Spock does some detective work to figure things out. Eventually he corners McCoy and mind melds to read what’s going on. In a flash to the original universe, we see the evil Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura being dragged off to the brig. Evil-Kirk pulls some extraordinary facial expressions as he rages and offers Good-Spock “credits” in exchange for his freedom – another of the occasional references to money in Star Trek.

In a subplot, Kirk finds Evil-Lieutenant Marlena Moreau in his quarters, who is his “captain’s woman”. She unwittingly acts to fill Kirk in on various aspects of this universe, including the fact that Evil-Kirk has a mysterious alien artefact secreted in his quarters that can remotely make people simply vanish from reality. It turns out Evil-Kirk has used this device to rise to Captain by simply erasing all his enemies. The question arises of why doesn’t the good Kirk have one of these gizmos in the original universe; maybe he found it but promptly handed it over to a museum. Marlena uses the device later to save Kirk from three of Scar-Sulu’s thugs in another assassination attempt.

Eventually Kirk, Scotty, and Uhura gather in the transporter room, ready to beam back to their own universe, but McCoy has gone missing, and time is running out because the hole connecting the universes is closing. McCoy appears, in Goatee-Spock’s custody. Goatee-Spock, despite being coldly logical to the point of killing people, is not particularly evil as such, and has a conversation with Kirk before agreeing to beam them home and get his own Kirk back. Kirk suggests that Goatee-Spock use the alien device to off Evil-Kirk and lead a revolt against the Empire to establish a new order of peace, and Goatee-Spock says he’ll consider it.

When they get home, there is some banter with Spock about how the evil versions of themselves were easily detectable because it’s hard for barbarians to act civilised, while it was easy for the civilised good guys to act like barbarians. Kirk then spots the good-Marlena, who he’d never met before as she was only a recent assignee to the ship, and goes to flirt with her over the closing credits.

Whew. It’s a wild ride, and an episode that keeps you glued to the screen throughout. I remembered this one as being somewhat corny, presumably because of other interpretations of the now clichéd evil mirror universe thing, but watching it shows just how well done it was in this case. It still holds up really well, and is easily one of the more intense and compellingly dramatic episodes of the series. A definite winner!

Tropes: Alternate Reality Episode, Perfect Pacifist People, Negative Space Wedgie, Teleporter Accident, Evil Costume Switch, Bare Your Midriff, Beard Of Evil, Trope Makers, Mirror Universe, I Am He As You Are He, Klingon Promotion, Agony Beam, Good Scars Evil Scars, Distaff Counterpart, I’m A Doctor, Not A Placeholder, The Empire, Exposition Beam, Evil Is Hammy, Mr Exposition, All The Myriad Ways, Evil Cannot Comprehend Good.
Body count: 2 evil crewmen henchmen killed by phaser, 3 of Sulu’s evil henchmen disappeared by the Tantalus device.

“The Changeling” is the one I always remember as the episode version of the film Star Trek: The Motion Picture. The plot is essentially the same on the large scale, so much so that it seems odd that during the film Kirk and Spock never once mention their previous experiences from this episode.

The episode opens with the casual death of over 4 billion Malurians, when Kirk responds to a distress call from a Dr Manway (leader of a research team) and arrives only to find the entire Malurian system devoid of life. An unseen ship then starts shooting at the Enterprise, hitting it with incredibly powerful bursts of energy that threaten to overload the shields and destroy the ship. Kirk fires back futilely, then when all seems lost attempts to communicate. The mystery ship responds, and both parties establish they have no hostile intentions(!). Spock says the mystery ship is only a metre long, so they beam it directly on board the Enterprise to have a chat.

It soon becomes apparent that the “ship” is in fact a robotic space probe, which calls itself Nomad. Kirk gives it a bit of a tour of the ship, leaving it in engineering. It’s interesting how Kirk’s tendency to show off vital parts of his ship to mysterious aliens of unproven intentions was never picked up in Starfleet Academy psych profiles. Uhura calls Mr Singh in engineering for a report and Singh goes off to check something, leaving the line open. Uhura displays her singing talent again while she waits, which prompts Nomad to head up to the bridge. There Nomad asks the purpose of Uhura’s singing. She is stumped, and Nomad responds by hitting her with some sort of brain scan. Scotty tries to intervene, but Nomad zaps him. McCoy declares, “He’s dead, Jim.”

Kirk confronts Nomad over Uhura, who lies unconscious. Nomad refers to Uhura as a “biological unit”. Spock gallantly comes to Uhura’s defence, saying, “That unit is a woman.” Nomad’s response: “A mass of conflicting impulses.” Nomad then offers to repair Scotty. Kirk tells Nomad to follow McCoy to sick bay; we see this from an eerie and unusual hand-held camera angle just behind Nomad’s PoV. Nomad brings Scotty back to life as if nothing had happened, but says it can’t fix Uhura, whose mind has been wiped clean. Nurse Chapel begins retraining Uhura, beginning with basic reading skills.

Kirk questions Nomad more strongly. Nomad says it is programmed to sterilise all imperfect beings and declares that Kirk is the Creator, who created it. This confuses Kirk, who is about to deny it, until Spock, checking a library computer, interrupts and declares that Kirk is the Creator. Spock pulls Kirk away and explains that Nomad is an Earth probe built by a Dr Roykirk in the 21st century, and that it now thinks Kirk must be Roykirk. This could be the only thing preventing Nomad from sterilising the Enterprise of all life.

Spock wants to mind meld with Nomad to learn more, and Kirk orders Nomad to allow it. Spock learns that Nomad was damaged and melded with an alien probe, getting their programming mixed up in the process. Furthermore, Nomad is seeking its origin – i.e. Earth – and if it gets there will probably sterilise the planet! Kirk lets slip that he is an imperfect biological unit, and Nomad goes on a bit of a rampage, disintegrating a few redshirts on the way to engineering, where it disables life support. Scotty declares that without life support they can only last— and in an interesting twist on the usual formula is cut off before he can give an amount of time. Kirk corners Nomad and tells it that it has made a mistake in thinking he is its Creator, therefore Nomad itself is imperfect and must be sterilised. This locks Nomad into a logic bomb and it blows itself up – conveniently just after Scotty beams it into space.

In the denouement, we learn that Uhura is up to college level education and will be ready to resume her role as communications officer within a week – i.e. conveniently before the next episode.

Tropes: A Million Is A Statistic, We Come In Peace, Shoot To Kill, Bring My Red Jacket, He’s Dead, Jim, Contractual Immortality, Easy Amnesia, Thank The Maker, Crazy Enough To Work, Cooldown Hug, Disintegrator Ray, Red Shirt, Electronic Speech Impediment, Logic Bomb.
Body count: Over 4 billion Malurians (off-screen, killed prior to episode beginning), Federation science team led by Dr Manway (off-screen, killed prior to episode beginning), four Enterprise redshirt security guards.

And so to episode 2 of the second season, “Who Mourns For Adonais?” No, despite the fact that this episode deals with Greek gods, that’s not a typo for “Adonis“, it’s a reference to the poem Adonaïs, by Percy Bysshe Shelley.

It begins with the Enterprise surveying the Beta Geminorum system, belonging to the star otherwise known as Pollux, in a piece of well-placed real-world stellar cartography. Approaching Pollux IV, a huge disembodied hand made of some sort of energy field grabs the Enterprise and stops it dead in space. Then a disembodied head appears and cryptically invites Kirk and selected crew to beam down to his planet. Kirk declines and tries to get the ship away, but the hand squeezes the hull, causing Scotty to complain that the hull cannae take the pressure. Apparently putting pressure on the hull – but not enough to actually buckle it – also causes a painful increase in air pressure inside the ship, as everyone clutches their ears in pain while it occurs. The head specifically doesn’t invite Spock, who it says reminds him of Pan, with the pointed ears.

Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov, and Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas beam down. Palamas is the Archaeology and Anthropology officer. It seems they have specialists in everything on the Enterprise. Earlier we saw that Scotty has a soft spot for Carolyn, but McCoy doesn’t think it’ll go anywhere because currently Carolyn is dedicated to Starfleet. She may find a man outside Starfleet and leave the service, but won’t fall for a fellow officer.

They beam down to an idyllic area which has a small Greek temple in it. The owner of the disembodied head greets them, and introduces himself as Apollo, the god of the sun. He claims to have been on Earth 5000 years before, and has now been waiting for humanity to find him again.

In a strong echo of “The Squire of Gothos“, Apollo takes a shine to the girl of the week, Carolyn, and uses his nigh-omnipotent powers to put her into an alluringly flimsy dress and begin flirting with her, while keeping the men of the landing party at bay and preventing them from contacting the Enterprise. In another echo of that episode, Kirk deduces that Apollo has a power source somewhere and that perhaps they can trick Apollo into a moment of weakness and destroy it.

Meanwhile on the Enterprise, Spock is ordering people around, including instructing Uhura to rig a subspace bypass of the jammed radio circuits to contact Kirk. We see Uhura head deep in a console, soldering circuits, showing she is a practical, hands-on crew member. Which is good, except that her elaborate hairdo is getting in the way and is in serious danger of catching fire from the soldering iron.

Apollo displays some weakness when Scotty, protective of Carolyn, incurs Apollo’s wrath and Apollo unleashes lightning bolts on him. This weakens Apollo and he vanishes for a while. Chekov likens the disappearing act to that of the cat with the smile from a Russian fairy tale. When Kirk amusedly points out that it’s an English tale, with a Cheshire Cat, Chekov sincerely responds, “Cheshire? No, it was Minsk.”

There’s a bunch of padding to make up the 50 minutes of screen time, followed by the Enterprise breaking through the giant space hand and contacting Kirk. He orders phasers fired on the temple, which destroys it, to the impotent horror of Apollo. Kirk gives a Picard speech about humanity not needing gods any more – and goes on to say they get on fine with “just the one”. Apollo sheds tears and then vanishes, following the other Greek gods who have long since given up and spread themselves to the winds of the Universe.

The episode ends without resolving the romantic tension between Carolyn and Scotty, and of course we never see Carolyn again. A rather lame episode, with recycled plot elements and unsatisfactory loose ends, although there are a few moments of drama and interest to keep it from being appalling. Chalk up yet another semi-omnipotent being in the growing catalogue of beings encountered by the Enterprise, and bring on the next episode.

Tropes: Literary Allusion Title, Shown Their Work, You Are A Credit To Your Race, Girl Of The Week, Career Versus Man, Physics Goof, Classical Mythology, Cargo Cult, Physical God, Theiss Titillation Theory, Bolt Of Divine Retribution, The Original Klingon, Padding, Patrick Stewart Speech, Outgrown Such Silly Superstitions, Death Of The Old Gods, Sufficiently Advanced Alien.
Body Count: Apollo, scattered to the Cosmos.

“Amok Time” is the first episode in airing sequence of season 2 of Star Trek. And, after the teaser, the first thing you notice is that the opening credit sequence has changed, with a modified version of the theme song, new graphics, and the addition of DeForest Kelley to the names of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. I was excited to watch this episode again, because it’s one of the true classics of the series – in fact I’d say it rivals “The City on the Edge of Forever“. It gives us our first truly deep look at Spock’s background and his home planet and culture, which turns out to be fascinating and surprising.

The teaser begins with a shot of Kirk climbing up a ladder out of a random tube and then out on to a deck, where he meets McCoy. Presumably the lift wasn’t working or something. McCoy is worried about Spock not eating, and Nurse Chapel then passes them with a bowl of Vulcan soup in an effort to get Spock to eat and notice her feminine charms. Spock tosses the soup and yells at Chapel, who leaves in tears. Spock then requests shore leave on his home planet, saying they could drop him off before the Enterprise‘s scheduled rendezvous at Altair VI “with a loss of only 2.8 light days”. I wonder how many light days it takes to do the Kessel run.

With such a reasonable delay, Kirk orders the ship on course for Vulcan. We see new crewman Ensign Chekov for the first time, in the role of navigator next to Sulu’s helm station. Throughout this episode they play a comical duet off one another which almost approaches a Greek chorus, commenting on the greater workings of the plot around them. Starfleet orders the Enterprise to make haste to Altair, where the ship is needed for a grand political display, so Kirk changes course again. Kirk then decides whatever is bugging Spock is clearly important, and orders Chekov to change course again and go to maximum speed, which puzzles Chekov because he says Spock has already ordered the course change.

Kirk confronts Spock about this; Spock does not deny it, but says he was not aware of having given such an order and says it’s possible. Kirk orders the ship back to Altair and Spock to sickbay for a medical. McCoy concludes that Spock is dying and needs to get to Vulcan within a week. Kirk confronts Spock and demands he tell him what’s going on. Spock reluctantly says it’s a matter of “biology” and, as embarrassed as a Vulcan can be, explains that Vulcans must return periodically to mate, as a biological imperative. Kirk treats this in strict confidence and tries to argue with Starfleet that he be excused from Altair to go to Vulcan – but the admiral won’t hear it and orders him directly to Altair. Kirk, naturally, ignores this order and tells Chekov to set course for Vulcan.

This conversation takes place in an interesting set, in part of sickbay, with McCoy present – perhaps his office. The good doctor seems to have an interesting collection of anthropoid skulls decorating several shelves of the room. Nurse Chapel overhears the conversation and goes to tell Spock the good news, by breaking into his private quarters while he’s asleep – apparently they don’t have security of any sort of crew quarters (or Chapel is a good lock-picker). There is a romantic tension moment as Spock thanks Nurse “my name is Christine” Chapel, and asks for a bowl of that soup.

Poor Christine is about to get her heart handed back to her, however, as they approach Vulcan and receive a message from a beautiful woman, who says she will meet Spock at the arranged place. Chapel asks who she is, Spock replies, “She is T’Pring, my wife.” For anyone who has watched the series to now, this is an eye-opening moment of shock, and the first indication that Spock has any sort of family connections at all. Spock explains there is a small ceremony and he would like Kirk and McCoy, as his friends, to stand with him. McCoy is genuinely flattered in a rare moment of camaraderie in what is usually a jokingly antagonistic relationship between him and Spock.

The three beam down and we get our first look at Vulcan. It looks hot. The sky is red – not pink like Mars, but red. The rocks are red, the sand is red (and also sparkly). Kirk and McCoy start sweating and McCoy quips that now he finally understand what is meant by the cliché “hot as Vulcan”. It’s good to see a planet that is so starkly different from the Earth-like planets they normally visit. They enter a ceremonial arena and Spock strikes a small gong, which summons a ceremonial party. T’Pring is there, with various escorts, and carried in on a sedan chair is T’Pau, a stately old woman who Kirk recognises as the only person ever to turn down a seat on the Federation Council.

The ceremony begins, with Spock walking up to strike the gong again, but T’Pring interrupts and shouts, “Kal-if-fee!” Spock lapses into a trance-like state. Kirk and McCoy are confused, but soon learn that T’Pring has invoked an ancient right, whereby she chooses a champion to fight for her hand against Spock. There is an obvious candidate in the wedding party with his eyes on T’Pring, one Stonn, but T’Pring passes him by and chooses Kirk, causing much uproar. (Her choice though is later explained and is flawlessly logical.) Kirk and McCoy confer, and Kirk explains that Spock looks weakened and would probably lose badly to Stonn, so Kirk will fight and try to knock him out without hurting him, or if Spock gets the upper hand he can resign and Spock can retain his honour. Kirk accepts the challenge.

T’Pau instructs that lirpa be brought forth. Spock and Kirk are handed incredibly vicious looking weapons, with huge curved blades at the end of a staff-like pole, weighted at the other end by a heavy metal cudgel. T’Pau then utters the best line of the episode: “If both survive the lirpa, combat will continue with the ahn-woon.” Kirk and McCoy aghast. The fight is to the death!

I’ll stop there so as not to spoil the ending, just go find a copy and watch it if you haven’t seen it before. It’s a terrific episode. There are disturbing messages about women as property, if you ignore the contexts both of when this was made and the fact that it’s depicting an alien society which is meant to be strangely different to human society – but in the context of the episode it makes sense. That can be forgiven on those grounds. And once over that hurdle, there’s nothing not to love about this episode. A strong character-driven plot, revealed character back-story, high drama, and beautiful comic relief from the new regular character who we will grow to love over the next two seasons. Man, why couldn’t there have been more like this, and fewer like… well, some of the lousy ones they made.

Tropes: Forgets To Eat, Not So Stoic, Those Two Guys, Greek Chorus, A Friend In Need, The Talk, Mate Or Die, Conflicting Loyalty, Screw The Rules, I’m Doing What’s Right, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Wham Line, Apron Matron, Grande Dame, Emotionless Girl, Double Weapon, Involuntary Battle To The Death (this episode provides the TV Tropes page image for this trope), Dutch Angle, Wanting Is Better Than Having, Fake Gunshot, Faking The Dead.
Body count: None.
(Image © 1967 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)

“Operation: Annihilate!” is the last episode of season 1 of Star Trek. It took me a while to get to this one, as I knew it would be a bit of a let-down after “The City on the Edge of Forever“. Especially since this is the episode I’ve known ever since I was a kid as “the rubber vomit episode”. But here we go!

The episode opens with Spock tracing a route through space of a mysterious plague of madness, which has been making a straight line through several solar systems over the past few hundred years (including archaeological evidence of the plague on a planet 500 years ago, before humans went into space). The next planet on the path is Deneva, where Kirk’s brother and his family live. Approaching Deneva, the Enterprise detects a Denevan ship headed straight for the sun. They are unable to use tractor beams to save the ship, as Scotty determines they are out of range by consulting… nothing other than his own psychic engineer abilities. (Really. Kirk asks Scotty if they can use tractor beams, and Scotty turns his head slightly, thinks for a second, then says, “Out of range, captain.” No need to look at a screen or gauge or anything!) They fail to rescue the ship’s lone occupant, but do hear him over the radio babbling incoherently about being “free”.

Scans of Deneva indicate the expected human population, but displaying unusually low levels of activity. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and a random yeoman and security guy beam down into a city that looks like a funky technology park campus (which it is). A small group of apparently mad citizens attacks them. After stunning these, the landing party finds Kirk’s brother Sam dead, and his wife Aurelan raving mad and son Peter unconscious. Back on board, Aurelan tells Kirk that the planet was attacked by “things”. Kirk beams back down and the party finds a group of strange creatures lurking in the shadows of a building. Spock declares them “not life as we know or understand it”. They appear to be flying rubber novelty vomits. (In fact Wikipedia says the props are slightly modified rubber vomits.) One attacks Spock.

McCoy discovers the creature has injected strands of tissue that have quickly grown into Spock’s nervous system. McCoy can do nothing to remove it, and Spock is left squirming in pain. Spock expresses a desire to be released from bed restraints in sickbay, but Kirk disallows this, having seen how the maddened humans behave. He and McCoy promptly leave, not bothering to post a guard, which allows Spock to escape and attack the transporter chief in a bid to beam down to the planet. Scotty captures him just in time. Spock says he has mastered the pain through mental fortitude and Kirk lets him go down to collect a creature for study – since he can’t risk sending an uninfected person. McCoy discovers the creature is indestructible – nothing will kill it. They speculate, with no apparent evidence, that these creatures originate from outside the Galaxy. They don’t offer an opinion, or even wonder why, they are moving in a perfectly straight line from solar system to solar system. Kirk wrestles with the moral dilemma of either killing the million people on Deneva to stop the spread of the plague, or letting it spread to further planets. He says neither is acceptable and demands a third option.

Kirk himself makes the logical leap that sunlight killed the parasite in the Denevan who declared himself free at the top of the episode. A brief experiment confirms that bright light kills the captured specimen. They then expose Spock to light equivalent to proximity to the sun, which kills his parasite, but blinds him. McCoy had raised the option of Spock wearing protective goggles, but Kirk dismissed this, saying that the people on the planet won’t have any. This seems like a weak argument against protecting Spock‘s eyes! Tragically, Nurse Chapel then appears from the lab and says that it was only the ultraviolet component that was needed, not the visible light – Spock was blinded for nothing.

Kirk orders a set of satellites launched to bathe the planet in high intensity ultraviolet light – so bright that it will “even affect things in the dark in closed rooms”. I guess they didn’t realise when they made this episode that intense UV light is rather dangerous to humans – or maybe they figured giving a million people melanomas over the next 10 years was worth it. In the denouement, Spock reveals he has regained his sight, thanks to a third eyelid in his Vulcan anatomy that shielded his eyes from the worst. Kirk then tells Spock to lay in a course for Starbase 10 – which is weird, since normally it’d be the helmsman who lays in the course.

Tropes: Operation Blank, Excited Episode Title, Apologetic Attacker, Special Effect Failure, Puppeteer Parasite, Idiot Ball, Cardboard Prison, Heroic Willpower, Moral Dilemma, Take A Third Option, Weaksauce Weakness, Kryptonite Factor, Tragic Mistake, Temporary Blindness, Organ Dodge.
Body count: George “Sam” Kirk (off-screen), Aurelan Kirk.
(Image © 1966 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)

I’ve been waiting for “The City on the Edge of Forever”. If there’s one episode that even non-Star Trek fans should watch, this is the one. It’s often held up as the best episode of the series, and it’s hard to argue otherwise. It won a Hugo award for Best Dramatic Presentation (an honour shared with “The Menagerie“) and a Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Dramatic Episode, making it the most honoured episode of all time. I know the story back to front, but watching it again you can’t help being reminded why this is such a good episode.

It starts with the Enterprise in orbit about a planet, from which is emanating mysterious “ripples in time”. Seeing this right after “The Alternative Factor“, you may feel this bodes ill, given how rambling and plot-holey that episode was after a similar start. A shudder rocks the ship and Sulu collapses after a giant spark leaps from the helm. One wonders why they don’t install simple circuit-breakers to prevent such things. McCoy races to the bridge and gives Sulu an injection of cordrazine to stabilise him. McCoy is putting the hypo away when the ship shudders again, and he falls on the hypo, accidentally injecting the whole contents into himself. He suddenly yells in a drug-induced craze, “Murderers!” and races violently from the bridge.

Kirk asks what the effects of an overdose of cordrazine are and learns they include crazed paranoia. We see McCoy enter the transporter room, where the transporter chief for some reason doesn’t turn to see who has walked in the door, and McCoy knocks him out then beams himself down to the planet. Kirk mobilises a landing party to capture McCoy, including Scotty and Uhura for some imponderable reason. They find him amidst some weird alien ruins and Spock gives him a nerve pinch to subdue him.

Spock notes that the time ripples are coming from a strange arch, which suddenly speaks to them, stating it is the Guardian of Forever, and that, “Since before your sun burned hot in space and before your race was born, I have awaited a question.” It begins showing them images of Earth’s history, which appear within the arch shape. These images prove that the Earth was black and white in the past. Spock starts recording the images on his tricorder. McCoy regains consciousness and bolts, leaping through the arch… and into the past. Uhura says she’s lost contact with the Enterprise, and the Guardian explains that McCoy has changed history – the Enterprise no longer exists!

Kirk and Spock come up with a plan – they will leap into the past, arriving a week or so before McCoy (they can’t pinpoint where he went more precisely) and prevent whatever he does to change history. They arrive in New York in 1930, during the Great Depression. They steal clothes and run from a cop, hiding in a basement where they are found by social worker Edith Keeler. She offers them a job and finds them a place to sleep.

Kirk is smitten with Keeler’s far-sighted visionary outlook and a romance develops over the next few days as Spock builds an electronic interface for his tricorder so they can see some of its recorded images and get an idea of what change in history McCoy might cause. The electronic equipment includes radio tubes and, for some reason, a Jacob’s ladder. One can’t help wondering why a device as futuristic and sophisticated as a tricorder doesn’t have a built-in screen… it seems less capable than an iPhone. Spock eventually perfects his tricorder interface, and discovers that Edith Keeler is the pivot point in history. She either dies soon, in 1930, or goes on to become nationally important and meet with President Roosevelt in an advisory role. Kirk guesses that, in his crazed state, perhaps McCoy kills her. Spock speculates that perhaps he saves her, and that she is meant to die.

In one of the many memorable scenes, Kirk accompanies Edith for a walk at night. She senses he is troubled and asks to “let me help.” Kirk says those words will be written in a hundred years time by a poet from a planet orbiting the leftmost star in Orion’s belt, and points up into the sky (see image above). This is a beautiful scene, spoiled only by the next shot – a stock shot of New York city at night… with an overcast sky.

A bit later, McCoy appears in the city and, after a mishap with a street bum who steals his phaser, stumbles into Keeler’s mission, where she gives him a bed for the night. Meanwhile, Spock tinkers more with the tricorder interface. When Kirk returns, he displays images of what will happen if Edith Keeler lives. It is shocking… Keeler’s pacifist activism prevents the US from entering World War II and Hitler wins. To prevent this: Edith Keeler must die. Kirk and Spock have to stop McCoy from saving her life. They soon bump into McCoy (now recovered from his drug overdose), and…

Having rescued the past, the Guardian spits them all back out where Scotty and Uhura are waiting. The Enterprise has returned. Kirk says the the best closing line of any episode, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

There’s so much more to this episode that I can’t convey. It’s still immensely powerful. Cannot be recommended enough.

Tropes: Cool Gate, Time Abyss, Portal To The Past, Butterfly Of Doom, Set Right What Once Went Wrong, Costumer, Changed My Jumper, Good Samaritan, Mad Scientist Laboratory, Technology Marches On, Zeerust, Not Quite The Right Thing, Retroactive Precognition, Fish Out Of Temporal Water, I Just Shot Marvin In The Face, Born In The Wrong Century, Godwin’s Law Of Time Travel, Save This Person Save The World (inverted), Geeky Turn On, Temporary Love Interest, Gadgeteer Genius, Bamboo Technology, I’m A Doctor, Not A Placeholder, Look Both Ways, Bittersweet Ending.
Body count: One bum (accidentally self disintegrated), Edith Keeler.
(Image © 1966 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)

“The Alternative Factor” is one I didn’t remember from the episode title, which is never a good sign with these episodes, though it all came back to me a few minutes in. The Enterprise is orbiting a planet, which Spock describes as pretty normal, with an “oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere”, failing to point out that an atmosphere made of oxygen and hydrogen would be extremely unstable. The ship is then rocked by a bizarre special effect, consisting of a semi-transparent overlay of some random nebula – which, being an astronomy geek, I recognised on sight as the Trifid Nebula – accompanied by camera shaking and dramatic music.

Spock is unable to explain the phenomenon, saying only that it was like reality winking out. Sensors pick up a human on the planet where there was none before and Spock conjectures this person could be the cause of the effect. Instead of fleeing for their lives like any sane people faced with a potentially universe-altering power, Kirk and Spock beam down to investigate. They find a strange man who raves about being hunted by a monster, before he falls off a cliff. They take him back to the Enterprise, where McCoy treats him. Kirk is informed that the space rupture has drained the ship’s dilithium crystals, and the orbit will decay in 10 hours – again for some reason they must be using an orbit so insanely low that it will actually decay that quickly.

Kirk gets a call from Starfleet, in which he’s told that the fleet is evacuating everyone within 100 parsecs of the Enterprise, and Kirk is alone in fixing this problem that has affected “the entire Galaxy and beyond”. One wonders how they measured that. Kirk visits the mysterious man, whose name is revealed to be Lazarus only well after he should have introduced himself, and only because Kirk refers to him by name. I suspect they must have cut the scene in which Lazarus first tells them his name. The mysterious effect rocks the ship again, and we see Lazarus apparently fighting another man in a blue veil of silhouetted special effects. Despite this, Kirk allows Lazarus to wander the Enterprise without a guard! Kirk and Spock do interview him, but without using the lie detector we saw back in “Mudd’s Women” – I guess they forgot they had one.

Lazarus runs amok, beaming himself down to the planet thanks to the lack of any sort of guard placed on him. Kirk goes to capture him again and does so after Lazarus falls off a cliff – again. McCoy says, “He’s not going anywhere, not this time.,” and immediately leaves Lazarus alone, unguarded in sick bay. He immediately escapes, while Kirk and Spock have a discussion and speculate wildly and with no real evidence that Lazarus is one of two copies of the same man, one from a parallel antimatter universe, and that they’ve been switching places every time the reality ripple occurs, and if they ever meet each other it will destroy the universe.

Lazarus steals dilithium crystals and beams down to the planet again to work on his time machine. Kirk races after him alone, not bothering to take 15 seconds to get a security team together to accompany him. He finds Lazarus, who wrestles him into the time machine. Kirk finds himself in the blue silhouette pace, and emerges to find another Lazarus – a sane and reasonable one who explains everything to him, stating that Kirk is now in the antimatter universe. Lazarus says the universes are connected by a “negative magnetic corridor“, and that Kirk must go back and push the insane Lazarus into the corridor, so the sane Lazarus can wrestle him while Kirk destroys the time machine to trap them there forever and save the universe. Kirk reflects on the terrible fate this is, then goes and does it, with the help of Spock, who seems to understand exactly what Kirk is planning to do with no word of explanation whatsoever. The ending seems very choppy, like they cut bits out to make it fit into the episode time – reinforcing the idea that they may also have cut the first mention of Lazarus’s name.

This is a somewhat unsatisfactory episode, probably from poor construction more than a poor idea. The concept is actually interesting, but it hasn’t been carried off very well, with too much poor special effects and plot-induced stupidity on the part of Kirk.

Tropes: Mad Lib Thriller Title, Hollywood Science, Screen Shake, Kirk’s Rock, Space Friction, Cardboard Prison, Alternate Universe, Antimatter, Never The Selves Shall Meet, Negative Space Wedgie, Pocket Dimension, Hell Is War, Oubliette, Sealed Evil In A Duel, And I Must Scream, Plot Induced Stupidity.
Body count: None, but both Lazaruses doomed to fight each other in limbo for eternity.
(Image © 1966 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)

“Errand of Mercy” gives us the long-awaited introduction of the Klingons to Star Trek. As such, it’s a landmark episode right away. It also shows us just how much the Klingons have evolved over the course of Star Trek’s long history, and not just the obvious forehead ridges either. These Klingons are clearly 1960s references to the Yellow Peril, complete with Asian-oid make-up and Fu Manchu moustaches, with some shades of Nazi-style militarism thrown in. Whereas Klingons later develop into a proud warrior race with a strong sense of internally consistent honour, these Klingons are conniving, deceitful, and downright despicable in their actions, although the leader Kor displays an evilly affable nature by making amusing comments and offering Kirk a drink and so on. And, these Klingons harbour cowards, as seen when one spills his guts to avoid Kirk strangling him in a late scene. No Next Generation-era Klingon would be caught dead capitulating under mere threat of death.

The episode opens with the Enterprise approaching the planet Organia – a strategically important habitable planet between the Federation and Klingon spheres of influence, and inhabited by technologically primitive natives. The Enterprise is attacked, completely by surprise, as in the first thing they know about it is when the ship suffers explosions and everyone on the crew lurches to one side. Doesn’t the ship have some sort of… sensors to detect approaching ships? They fend off the attack, destroying the attacking ship. This prompts them to talk to the Organians and to offer them protection against the Klingons.

Kirk and Spock beam down, leaving Sulu in charge. Once again this demonstrates the vital importance of placing both your commander and first officer in a position of potential danger together. The Organians have a stagnant medieval level society, with no violence whatsoever. In fact, they’re so non-violent, they refuse any help from Kirk and state that the Klingons are not a threat to them, which confuses Kirk and Spock.

The Klingons arrive, drive off the Enterprise, and duly overrun the planet, turning the Organians into slaves and forcing Kirk and Spock to disguise themselves. The leader Kor picks Kirk as his native liaison, issuing various totalitarian proclamations (clearly written in English) through him. Spock is obviously a Vulcan, so Kor subjects him to a mind probe device, but Spock’s superior mental fortitude allows him to deceive it. Kirk and Spock decide to lead a rebellion, even if the Organians are unwilling, and sneak out into a blue-filtered night to blow up a munition dump. This prompts Kor to toss them in a dungeon. Spock is still stumped by the Organians lack of regard for the situation and insistence that nobody will be hurt – you’d think that by now someone as smart as him would guess that they have a secret that means they are capable of defending themselves (and anyone else) from harm.

The Organians show up to free them from the dungeon in an unexplained manner. irk and Spock decide to go on the offensive against the Klingons again, despite Spock calculating odds of 7824.7 to 1 against their success, lamenting that it’s “difficult to be precise“. Kirk decides to risk it anyway. The Organians finally step in to prevent Kirk and Kor killing each other, and reveal they are energy beings capable of disarming everyone on the planet and in the massed warships in orbit. They enforce a peace treaty, and state: “It is true that in the future, you and the Klingons will become fast friends. You will work together.” Chalk up another set of virtually omnipotent aliens encountered by the Enterprise crew.

This is a decent episode, slightly tarnished by the “evil oriental” portrayal of the Klingons. And of course omnipotent aliens have become cliché in Star Trek, but at this point of the series it was still capable of being a surprise, and the situation provides enough suspense, drama, and novelty to carry the episode.

Tropes: Yellow Peril, Evilly Affable, Medieval Stasis, Perfect Pacifist People, Easily Conquered World, Mind Probe, Training The Peaceful Villagers, Hollywood Darkness, Ludicrous Precision, Never Tell Me The Odds, All Powerful Bystander, Energy Beings, Sufficiently Advanced Alien, Foreshadowing.
Body count: None!
(Image © 1966 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)

“The Devil in the Dark” is another top notch episode. It begins with a beautiful matte painting of an underground mining operation, set in a very large cavern. From the mining crew we learn that a strange “monster” has been attacking miners, and has killed 50 men already. Another (the hapless Schmitter) dies on-screen to amplify the situation, and we learn the miners are awaiting the Enterprise and its crew to deal with the crisis.

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy arrive for a briefing. Spock is interested in a melon-sized silicon nodule that mining chief Vanderberg says are scattered all over the place down in the mines. This is a clear Chekhov’s gun, though you’d be hard pressed to figure that out at this point if you hadn’t seen the episode before. They scan for life, looking for the monster, but find nothing but the miners. Spock raises the spectre of the monster being “not life as we know it”.

They leave the briefing room, and curiously Vanderberg opens the door using a button under the edge of his desk. I noticed this because he has to walk back around to his side of the desk specifically to reach the button. Why the door-opening button isn’t, say, on the wall right next to the door is a mystery. They go the reactor room, where the monster has stolen a vital cooling pump from the main reactor. Missing this part will cause the mine to become unlivable in a short time, and – for some bizarre reason – they’re using an outdated reactor for which they have no spare parts at all. For such a vital piece of equipment, you’d normally want some sort of backup system, but apparently not these guys.

Scotty beams down to do his best with the reactor, and it’s beyond even his awesome skills. He jury rigs a device made of tubes filled with coloured water, but says it won’t hold long – they need the pump back or they’ll have to evacuate everyone within hours. Kirk calls in a security detail made of 6 redshirts to hunt down the monster, which Spock is now sure is a form of life based on silicon rather than carbon. McCoy dismisses the idea as patently ridiculous, probably more to disagree with Spock than based on anything 23rd century science knows about alien life.

The creature kills a redshirt, and Spock and Kirk wound it with phaser fire, slicing a chunk off. They blithely pick up the chunk of the monster, not bothered by the fact that everyone else who has come into contact with the creature before has been instantly incinerated and dissolved by potent acid, leaving only a smoking pair of boots behind. Fortunately, neither is affected in this way.

Kirk and Spock decided to chase the creature by themselves – as opposed to gather all their security guys to form a better armed party. Kirk tries to tell Spock to stay behind, as they shouldn’t risk both the captain and first officer of the Enterprise, but Spock counters by calculating the odds that they will both die as exactly 2228.7 to 1 against. What’s more, they reach a forking tunnel, and decide to separate. They make their way through the unlit tunnels to a chamber where there are lots of the silicon nodules. Kirk finds some cracked open and realises what Spock has deduced – they are eggs! The monster is merely a mother protecting her children.

Spock uses the “Vulcan” telepathy technique – looks like we’ve finally lost “Vulcanian” for good – to communicate, learning the creature is called a Horta. Kirk calls McCoy in to treat the beat, McCoy complains it’s made of silicon – “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!” Kirk tells him to treat it anyway. But it’s not quite over, because the miners still want blood, and somehow manage to overpower the well-trained Enterprise security crew and rush the chamber with Kirk and co. in it. The miners, by the way, all wear various orange, yellow, and pink shades of jumpsuits – possibly to give the mine a feminine touch, since obviously there are no women down there. In fact, the only woman we see in the entire episode is a nameless yeoman in the background on the bridge in the closing scene as the Enterprise warps out of orbit. The miners have made peace with the Horta and the babies, allowing them to tunnel while they pick up the scraps and become filthy rich off the minerals they can now extract easily.

But all kidding aside, this is an exceptional episode, with suspense, drama, engaging scientific possibilities, mystery, suspense, thrills, a moral message, and a strong resolution. It’s one of the more memorable episodes in the canon, and for good reason.

Tropes: Dug Too Deep, Chekhov’s Gun, Technicolour Science, Redshirt Army, Lowered Monster Difficulty, If My Calculations Are Correct, Ludicrous Precision, Let’s Split Up Gang, Rocks Fall, Party Splits, Hollywood Darkness, Monster Is A Mommy, It Can Think, Starfish Aliens, Last Of His Kind, I’m A Doctor, Not A Placeholder, Shaming The Mob.
Body count: 50 miners already killed before the opening scene, the miner Schmitter (pre-credits sequence), another miner (not named), 1 redshirt security team member.
(Image © 1966 Paramount Studios, used under Fair Use.)