Episode Title: The Apple
Air Date: 10/13/1967
Written by Max
Ehrlich and Gene L. Coon
Directed by Joseph
Pevney
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty” John
Winston as Lieutenant Kyle Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Dick Dial as Lieutenant Kaplan Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel
Chekov Jay D. Jones as Ensign
Mallory Mal Friedman as Crewman Hendorff Celeste Yarnall as Yeoman Third Class Martha
Landon Jerry Daniels as
Crewman Marple Keith Andes as Akuta Shari Nims as Sayana Paul Baxley as Native Ron Burke as Native Bobby Clark as Native Vince Deadrick Sr. as Native
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Gamma Trianguli VI
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: The Enterprise beams
down to Gamma Triangulia VI a landing party so large they have to send them
down as two groups. The landing party
consists of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekov, a Yeoman, and four expandable red
shirts. Right away the all the members
of the landing party seem to be taken in at the nice weather this planet has,
even Spock. According to his tricorder readings the great weather seems to be a
planet-wide thing. An earlier ship had
detected some strange data on their sensors so they are here to investigate
that.
 |
| Beaming down to paradise |
The away team begins their mission
exploring the surroundings while taking an effort not to disturb the locals. One
poor red shirt discovers a plant that shoots spores, but unlike the ones on Omicron Ceti III that make you happy these ones just kill. Then another one of these plants aims at
Captain Kirk, but thanks to the quick actions of Mr. Spock Kirk is saved. Spock pushed Kirk out of the way and was hit by
the spores himself. Due to his Vulcan
anatomy he is not killed only injured.
 |
| The life and death of the red shirt! |
Kirk has had enough he calls Mr.
Scott on the Enterprise and orders
him to beam the away team back. Earlier
Mr. Scott had reported some minor problems that they were experiencing, and now
they have evolved into some big problems.
The transporter fails and the away team is stuck on the planet, and to
make matters worse the ship’s orbit is starting to decay. The source of the Enterprise’s problem is on the planet itself. Dr. McCoy is able to treat Mr. Spock and get
him back to a functioning level, which is one less problem but more problems
keep building up.
Suddenly the beautiful weather they
were experiencing ends and a storm opens up on them. A bolt of lightning strikes down so
powerfully that it disintegrates a security officer that it hits. The crew runs for cover. Earlier Spock and Kirk discovered that
certain rocks on this planet were highly explosive. As the security officer Ensign Mallory, who
had been scouting the terrain, ran back to rejoin the rest of the landing party
he stepped on one of these rocks and was instantly killed.
After three crew members are killed
in a short period of time in rather stupid ways Captain Kirk almost has a
mental breakdown that Spock has to coach him out of. They soon realize after the storm clears that
they are being spied on. Kirk has Spock
and Chekov cause a distraction allowing him to grab the intruder. Kirk punches him in the face, and even though
Kirk’s fighting skills are famed throughout the universe, he doesn’t need them
much here for after the man is hit he starts crying. Kirk becomes apologetic
and they talk a little bit.
 |
| Crew meet Akuta |
The local identifies himself as Akuta. Akuta has artificial antenna coming out of
his neck. When asked about it he
explains that the antenna is how Vaal communicates with him. Akuta leads them back to his village and
introduces them to his neighbors. The
away team also gets to see Vaal. Vaal
looks to be a stone structure but Spock’s readings show it to be the source of
power. The people of the local village
feed Vaal when they are summoned.
When at the village McCoy makes a startling discovery: these people do not age, their bodies remains static. McCoy has no idea how old they are. They could be fifty years or 50,000. The people of Vaal seem to have no concept of
death. There are also no children around
when asked about them Akuta refers to the idea of children as “replacements”
and says they have no need for such things.
The Yeoman then asks what about the relationships between men and women,
to which Akuta says Vaal has forbidden such activities.
 |
| Vaal |
When the away team is alone they
debate the situation. Kirk gets the Yeoman to wonder what would happen if a “replacement” was ever needed and Spock theorizes they
would receive instructions from Vaal.
The concept of living beings getting romantic tips from a machine
bewilders the team. A debate brakes
out among the team with McCoy taking the side declaring this state of existence
is unnatural while Spock defends the Prime Directive.
 |
| The Ensign and the Yeoman getting frisky in the wrong place! |
While they continue to sit around
and debate this there is still the ‘B’ story of the episode that happens to be
their most pressing problem. The Enterprise is falling from the sky in an
apparent death spiral. Scotty is doing
everything he can to save her but nothing is working. Throughout the episode he calls in and
reports the situation to Kirk. It is
this situation that will force Kirk’s action.
Later Chekov and Yeoman Landon
start getting frisky when they think they are alone but two villagers, a man
and a woman, see them. They like what
they saw and start to get frisky too!
They are then caught but Akuta who tells them this is forbidden. As a result Vaal commands Akuta to have his
people kill the outsiders. Akuta holds a
meeting with the villagers and explains how to kill.
 |
| No one gets frisky here! |
The mob of villagers sneak attacks
the away team and kills the remaining red shirt. However Captain Kirk, with his superior
fighting skills that are famed throughout the galaxy, and his well-trained crew
successfully fight off the mob without breaking a sweat. Now with the village under the landing party's control when Vaal
calls for food they prevent the villagers from giving it any. This weakens its protective shields and Kirk
orders Scotty to fire the Enterprise’s
phasers. Vaal is destroyed by the ship’s
fire power.
In the end Kirk explains to the
villagers that they are now free to get sick and die just like everyone
else. This is good because they can now
have sex and with it babies. Back on
the ship Spock wonders if they did the right thing comparing their actions to
the snake in the biblical Garden of Eden.
Kirk thinks it ridiculous that Spock would compare him to Satan and
challenges his first officer name any officer that may even slightly resemble
Satan. Spock answers in the negative.
 |
| The Yeoman still in red and kicking butt! |
Additional thoughts:
Poor Mr. Spock! He took quite a beating
in this episode, from taken the spores meant for Kirk to getting blasted by
Vaal. He is one rugged Vulcan and the
only thing that he let on that bothered him was an upset stomach caused McCoy’s
treatment.
 |
| Poor Spock! |
So now for the prime directive part
of the story, “The Apple” desperately tries to get the audience to have a
debate about the prime directive. In
fact I would say it is the first episode to actually try do so. Kirk violated all to hell in “The Taste of Armageddon” but they didn’t talk about it much.
Likewise in “The Return of the Archons” the prime directive is mentioned
once and quickly dismissed.
This episode feels like a “The
Return of the Archons-lite” it’s almost as if the writer went back and said
“wow we really missed an opportunity to do some prime directive soul searching
in that episode so I’m going to write it again and have the crew talk about
that.” Like “Archons” “The Apple” deals
with a humanoid society under the rule of a supercomputer, a supercomputer that
has been there so long the average people don’t know how it came to be, the
supercomputer is holding the society in a primitive state on purpose, and the
supercomputer is trying to destroy the Enterprise
by pulling it down from the sky. Both episodes were directed by Joseph Pevney.
 |
| The last stand of Vaal, but what was Vaal? |
There are however important
distinctions between the two episodes.
One difference is where the people and society of Beta II were
interesting and had depth, while the
people and society of Gamma Trianguli VI do not. Landru of Beta II had its entire history
explained: there really was a ruler named Landru who took over the planet and
imposed a more “simper primitive state” on the inhabitants, and when he died his
machine assumed his identity and continued to rule with his vision for
society. We have no more idea at the end
of the episode then we do in the middle about Vaal and his origins. Vaal, like Landru, may have been built by
someone from the planet but we are never told for sure. For all we know Vaal was set up by foreigners
to keep the local natives in status to be preserved for their intergalactic
zoo. However if the later was the case then that
would defeat the purpose of the episode’s main point which was the prime
directive, which is already going to be made irrelevant with another point as I will explain
in the next paragraph.
Kirk’s
reason for setting aside the prime directive in this episode is identical to
the one from “The Return of the Archons,” which is “the prime directive only
applies to developing societies where this society isn’t developing. “ The only difference is when in “Archons”
Kirk’s reason is just universally accepted, in this episode it is the subject
of a large debate mostly between Spock and McCoy. A debate that is pointless because of the
more pressing issue of Vaal trying and nearly realizing the destruction of the Enterprise. Their right of self-preservation takes
over. They were always going to destroy
Vaal and their debate over it comes off as the away team trying to justify their actions to themselves. They don’t
want to hurt the people of Gamma Trianguli VI but they must destroy Vaal so
they want their actions not only to save themselves but they want to believe it
helps these poor locals. Only Spock, who
is not as dependent on his emotions, refuses to play pretend. In conclusion, the
episode that was supposed to cause us to debate the prime directive is a
failure.
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| When babies are an idea and not a reality ! |
FINAL GRADE 3 of 5
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