THE COLD WAR BETWEEN THE FEDERATION AND THE KLINGONS RUINS LIFE ON A POOR LITTLE PLANET

 Episode Title:  A Private Little War

Air Date: 2/2/1968

Written by Don Ingalls and Gene Roddenberry 

Directed by Marc Daniels

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”        Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Booker Bradshaw as Dr. Joseph M'Benga       Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli                        Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent       Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley           Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel      Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Nancy Kovack as Nona                Michael Witney as Tyree          Arthur Bernard as Apella       Janos Prohaska as the mugato     Gary Pillar as Yutan         Paul Baxley as Patrol Leader          Roy N. Sickner  as unnamed Villager                     Jeannie Malone as unnamed Native Woman       Ned Romero as Krell         

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed Klingon K't'inga-class battle cruiser

Planets:  Neural

My Spoiler filled summary and review: A landing party consisting of the Enterprise’s most senior and experienced officers of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are exploring the beautiful and peaceful planet of Neural.  It is a place Kirk once visited before as a young lieutenant. He found their Stone Age inhabitants to be intelligent, resourceful, and peaceful with their neighbors.  However today on this return trip after they get done admiring the environment’s natural beauty they notice something awful.  Kirk and Spock see a couple of Villagers carrying flintlock guns and appear to be about to ambush a group of Hill People.  Among the Hill People is Kirk’s old friend Tyree.  Realizing his old friend is about to be killed Kirk wants to use his phaser but Spock instantly reminds him that that would be of the violation of the Prime Directive.   Instead Kirk chooses to throw a rock, and it accomplishes what he intends the Villagers stop paying attention to the Hill People and turn their fire on Kirk and Spock.  The two run back to Dr. McCoy but they are not completely successful as Mr. Spock is shot in the back.  The bullet seems to have gone right through him as there is blood on both sides of his shirt.  They call for an emergency beam out and get back up to the Enterprise.

Once back on the ship McCoy rushes Spock to sick bay and tells Kirk that he can’t give him a definite answer on whether or not Spock will survive.   Kirk doesn’t have much time to worry about it because as they are caring for Spock the red alert siren goes on.  The Klingons have entered the system!  Kirk gets the bridge and the bridge crew notices that the Klingons seem to be unaware of them.  Their ship is on the other side of the planet’s orbit, and they seem to be communicating with their ground crews.  Kirk drops the Enterprise back onto yellow alert. Kirk now knows how it is the Villagers were able to develop flintlocks so quickly: the Klingons were supplying them.  The bridge crew consisting of Scotty, Chekov, and Uhura are skeptical to the Captain’s claims.  Just because it took Earth a long time ago from early Stone Age to flintlock weapons doesn't mean it has to take this species the same length.  More evidence would be needed to confirm that the Klingons are behind the Villagers’ sudden technological advance. 

Shot through the what ever that is on a Vulcan

Despite the fact his instincts tell him that the Klingons are knee-deep in this, Kirk realizes his crew was correct.  He needs to find more evidence if he wants to be able to help directly.   A young doctor working in McCoy’s sick bay, whose name is Joseph M'Benga, had his internship on Vulcan and is an expert Vulcan physiology.  He must’ve just transferred to the Enterprise just yesterday because we sure could’ve used his help last week.   With Dr. M'Benga in charge of Spock’s care, Dr. McCoy’s free go back down to the surface with Captain Kirk. 

His worst fear since that airplane trip

               Kirk and McCoy beam back down to the planet’s surface and our attacked by a mugato, one of Neural’s native creatures.  The creature is large with deadly poison claws.  McCoy is able to disintegrate it with his phaser but not before the creature was able to get its claws on Captain Kirk.   McCoy tries to call up to the Enterprise only to discover that the ship had to leave orbit in order to prevent detection from the Klingons.  Kirk tells McCoy that he needs to get him to Tyree’s people for they can help him.  Kirk knows that the Hill People have an established relationship with a group of individuals called the kahn-ut-tu.  The kahn-ut-tu are witch doctors who know how to treat this type of poison.

It turns out Tyree doesn’t just know a kahn-ut-tu he happens to be married to one.  Tyree and his wife Nona are discussing what to do about the now violent Villagers.  Nona wants to find a way to get their guns while Tyree is hoping for more diplomatic solution.  They start talking about the nature of their relationship and Nona insists that Tyree sought her out because women like her can make men powerful.   Tyree says he’s pursued Nona because she put a spell on him, now at first I thought he was joking but this does turn out to be the case.  We see Nona drug Tyree into a trance and starts making suggestions to him on what he should be doing and how he can’t resist her.  This is when the other Hill people arrive to tell them of the arrival of the strangers who claim to know Tyree.

When the couple shows up Nona is able to catch McCoy using his phaser to heat rocks to help a sick Captain Kirk.  She is able to cure Kirk what appears to be a giant turd.  She cuts her hand with a knife and places her bleeding hand on the turd and places that over Kirk’s wound.  This surprisingly works but apparently is going to give her an “in” on Kirk’s mind.

Tyree and Nona

Backup on the Enterprise Spock is going under his own unusual treatment.  Chapel starts to talk to Spock only to hear from our new doctor that Spock can hear everything she is saying even though he is unresponsive.

Kirk and Tyree talk about what’s going on.  Tyree tells them about how the Villagers have developed these fire sticks and are using them to harm the Hill People.  Kirk also learns that Nona who has saved his life also knows his origins.  As his wife Tyree is bound to share everything with her even his secret that his friend Jim Kirk comes from the stars.  Nona confronts Captain Kirk about her knowledge of the phasers.  Kirk responds by explaining to her the Prime Directive, and Kirk actually gives a very simplistic understandable explanation to why it exists.  Nona then tells Kirk that despite its honorable intentions the Prime Directive really sucks.  Nona leaves in anger and Tyree tells Captain Kirk not to be bothered that he knows that Kirk and his friend will help in ways that his wife does not understand.  

Nona cures Captain Kirk

Tyree and Kirk make plans with Dr. McCoy to sneak into the village to see the source of the fire sticks.  Kirk has mixed feelings he wants to help his friend and his people but he also knows if they discover the truth and that the Klingons are in fact behind this as he suspected originally then he fears what he will have to do.

The trio heads down to the village and Kirk, with his supreme fighting skills unparalleled anywhere in the galaxy, is able to knock out one of the guards and get his team in building where the fire sticks are being made.   They find the forge used to create the fire sticks and their tricorder readings confirm that the technology is of Klingon origin.  They hear noise so they all hide and two people enter the room.   One is a leader of the Villagers whose name is Apella and the other is a Klingon whose name is Krell.  We, the audience, are privy to the entire conversation between the Klingon ambassador the village leader.   Apella confesses that he was afraid that his people would soon grow tired of killing, however now they have been killing and taking what they want they find the rewards are great.  Being a conqueror is intoxicating.  He has found some unexpected problems that he does have to deal with.  He tells Krell that the last raiding party only managed to capture one woman and he did not know how to divide one woman amongst a bunch of men.   Krell tells Apella that he should reward the woman to his soldier who killed the most enemies this will show his men of the most warlike among them will be rewarded.  Krell then goes over his long-term plans for the planet and how his people will allow Apella to take control of this world is one of their Imperial governors.

Krell and Apella making plans for ruling a planet and dividing women!

 Then McCoy’s tricorder goes off and they’re discovered but fortunately with Captain Kirk, the greatest fighter in the known universe is on their side and he easily defeats the two would-be planet conquers.  The other Villagers try to stop them from escaping and they easily could’ve been killed fortunately the Villagers aim like Stormtroopers and the plot armor protects the trio from being harmed. 

 Back on the Enterprise Mr. Spock recovers from his ordeal in a very amusing way.  In his unconscious state he asks Nurse Chapel to beat him. This confuses her but Dr. M’Benga said to do anything Mr. Spock requests so she does.  Scotty sees this and thinks she has gone mad and tries to stop her.  M’Benga enters and tries to stop him. Spock however has fully recovered.

Kirk’s training the Hill People in the uses of the flintlock. Tyree is still troubled by what they must do and not yet fully committed.  Nona, on the other hand is becoming impatient.  She decides solve her trouble by seducing Captain Kirk.  Since our Captain is not the type of man sleep with another man’s wife particularly the wife of his friend he refuses her.  Nona decides to deal with this by pulling a Cosby and drugging Captain Kirk to make him more receptive to her advances.  This begins to work and Kirk embraces Nona.  Poor Tyree comes to see Kirk and sees this instead.  Naturally upset as he feels that he is the only man who Nona should be drug rapping, he throws down his firearm and leaves angrily.  As he storms off a mugatoe arrives and attacks.  Kirk is able to disintegrate it with his phaser but is knocked unconscious.  Nona has decided she is had enough of her husband, his friends, and their collective weakness.  She grabs Kirks phaser decides to defect to the Villagers for Apella is a much more daring man than her husband.

Kirk training the Hill People

               Nona finds one of the Villagers hunting parties and approaches them.  She demands they take her to Apella so she can offer him the weapon.  Unfortunately for Nona these Villagers don’t have upgrade weaponry in mind but rather rape.  They talk to themselves and they bring up the fact that if they were they to bring her to Apella he would just reward her to whoever amongst them had killed the most Hill People.  Since none of them had been the top killer that week they would lose their only opportunity to rape Nona.  So they decide to gang rape her right now instead, this way they can each have a turn.  While they’re attempting their assault a number of Hill People showed up.  McCoy had berated Tyree for leaving his weapon on the ground.  They came back found Captain Kirk and now they found Nona.  The gang rapists feel that this was all a trap and decide to cut their losses and just kill Nona.  The two sides battle, McCoy is slightly wounded but will recover, and Tyree kills his wife’s murderer with a rock. The rest of the Villagers retreat in the now widowed Tyree swears vengeance and asks Kirk the weapons that he promised.  Kirk will provide.  The Captain is disappointed that he is the one who must ruin paradise.

Tyree, ready to kill

Additional thoughts: The poor mugatoes these are the true victims of the story.  The strange aliens beam down to their world and into their territory and while they’re defending their territory one of them is disintegrated by phaser.  Later his mate upon seeing the ones who destroyed him tried to avenge his death, and she too was likewise disintegrated.  A sad end to such noble creatures.

So the first thing we have the talk about is the obvious Vietnam War criticism.   The people of Neural are clearly a Third World nation where the Federation and the Klingon Empire represent the two superpowers of the United States of America and the Soviet Union.  The local people’s lives, world , and politics gets interfered with and played around through no fault of their own.  They are but unwilling pawns in the game between the great powers.  Now this presents some issues.  I, for one, fully believe the US was the “good guy” compared to the communist superpower, but we were hardly innocent.  The Federation, on the other hand, just wants to leave this poor planet alone and would if it weren’t for those nasty Klingons.  The Federation motives are completely pure where real life was much more complex.

This also makes me think about the other powers the galaxy particularly the Organians.  What do they think of this? After all this is partially their fault.  If they had just allowed the Federation and the Klingons to duke it out themselves then they wouldn’t be stuck playing these cold wargames with these poor little planets serving as proxies.   Now granted the Klingons might have come here eventually but they would have had to deal the Federation directly first.

Always good to see more people in the medical department

On a lighter note I want to point out how much I love it when we see members of the Enterprise crew who aren’t the senior staff or bridge crew. I mean Dr. McCoy supposed to be the chief medical officer so who are the people he is supposed to be the chief of besides Nurse Chapel? In the first season episode “Dagger of the Mind” we got Dr. Helen Noel now we get Dr. Joseph M'Benga, an expert on Vulcan physiology.  Considering all the pon farring and Vulcan heart attacks that have been happening on the ship the season, we can easily see why Dr. McCoy went out to recruit him.

To Nona sexual assault is a means to an end.  To the Villagers it is the end.

You know this is probably the most rape or attempted rape we have seen in a Star Trek episode.  First we have Nona doing her best Bill Cosby impersonation, by drugging all of her potential suitors when they turn away her affections.  We have Apella discussing with Krell about how to divide captured women amongst the men.  Then Nona, now is a potential victim to a group of villagers at the end. A bit of irony there with the rapist becoming a potential rape victim.  The thing is I don’t actually have an objection to the presence of sexual assaults in the episode seeing as the episode is supposed to represent the horror of war and that has been part of war historically.

FINAL GRADE 4 of 5

CAPTAIN KIRK PLAYS "MEET THE PARENTS" WITH SPOCK

Episode Title:  Journey to Babel 

Air Date: 11/17/1967

Written by Dorothy C. Fontana

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”              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 James X. Mitchell as Lieutenant Josephs                        Frank Da Vinci as unnamed Vulcan Aide          Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley         Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel          Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov                 Jerry Catron as Crewman Montgomery Jeannie Malone as Purple-Skinned Delegate            Mark Lenard as Ambassador Sarek                     Jane Wyatt as Amanda Grayson           William O'Connell as Thelev           John Wheeler as Ambassador Gav           Reggie Nalder as Ambassador  Shras                   Billy Curtis as Small Copper-Skinned Ambassador             Russ Peek as unnamed Vulcan Aide                        

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Galileo NCC-1701/7, unnamed Orion ship

Planets:  Vulcan, Babel

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  The episode begins with the USS Enterprise providing a ferry service to delegates that will be attending a conference on a neutral planet named Babel.  The conference is to decide the admission of the planets of the Coridan system to the Federation, which are rich in dilithium but poorly defended.  Its dilithium stuffed surfaces has led to many competing claims to these planets some of them from fellow Federation members.  Coridan itself wishes to be part of the Federation as a full-fledged members.

Kirk meets Spock's Mom and Dad

As the shuttlecraft Galileo drops of the Vulcan Ambassador and his human wife. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy go down in dress uniforms to meet the couple and there is a funny moment where McCoy tries to learn the Vulcan hand salute.  The Ambassador introduces himself as Sarek and his wife Amanda Grayson.  Sarek seems to rudely blow off Spock as first officer extends the traditional greeting, and refuses to have Spock be his tour guide. Kirk, taken back by Sarek’s refusal to have Spock as his tour guide, asks his first officer if he like to go down to the planet to see parents before they leave Vulcan.  Spock then informs his Captain that the Ambassador and his wife are in fact his parents.  (More on that point in my “additional thoughts” section.)

Kirk decides to give the Sarek and his wife a tour himself and in the engineering room tries to spark up a conversation between the father and son, however Sarek cuts it short.  After the two Vulcans leave Amanda explains to Captain Kirk the source of the trouble. Spock went off to Starfleet instead of his father’s chosen occupation through the Vulcan Science Academy.  Kirk tries to point out that Spock can better explore the universe in Starfleet, but Amanda says that Sarek despises the potential for violence.  So he will no longer speak to Spock.

McCoy with Spock's parents

Kirk hosts a feast in the officers’ lounge for the dignitaries and two important things happen while they are there.   The first is the Tellarite Ambassador Gav demands to know Sarek’s position on the issue of Coridan.  Sarek refuses to tell him anything to which Kirk backs him up.  Also we have Dr. McCoy meeting with Spock’s parents.  We learn from McCoy’s questions that Sarek is over 100 and retired relatively young.  More importantly McCoy learns from Amanda that Spock, as a child, had a sehlat that she describes as a type of teddy bear.  This delights McCoy until Spock informs him that these “teddy bears” are alive and have fangs. 

Sarek not getting long with the Tellarite Ambassador 

Later on the bridge, Spock discovers that the Enterprise is being followed by a mystery ship.  It matches no known configurations of anything they have seen before.   It passes them at warp 10 but does not fire.  The ship is going to become and ongoing annoyance for the rest of the episode.

In their quarters Sarek chastises Amanda for telling personal stories about Spock.  Amanda is rather pleased at Sarek’s defense of their son.  She even tells him that she believes he is now proud of Spock.  Sarek says his feelings are immaterial and logically a first officer of a Starfleet vessel is entitled to respect, regardless of their relationship.  Sarek returns to the reception where he is once again confronted by Gav, which ends in a physical altercation that Kirk breaks up. 

Sarek defending his son to Amanda's surprise

A security officer later discovers that Gav has been murdered.  The method of death was identified by Mr. Spock as tal-shaya, a Vulcan fighting technique.  Spock bases this on the precision in how the neck of Gav was broken.  Given their earlier encounters suspicion falls on Sarek.  Captain Kirk and Spock then confront Sarek.  Sarek actually agrees that he is mostly likely suspect, and he was off mediating by himself at the time.  It looks bad as Sarek has no alibi; however he then has a heart attack.

Dead

So it turns out Sarek does have an alibi and a good one.   Sarek isn’t as healthy as he let on.  He has a heart condition, hence his earlier retirement, and he off having another heart attack while the Tellarite was being murdered.  McCoy confirms this and confirms that Sarek needs heart surgery now.   McCoy can do it, in theory, but they are going to need a blood donner.  Fortunately Spock is a match but he needs to take a drug that will make him produce more blood.  This is will take Spock out of active duty for a little while almost like an organ donner.  Spock of course will do it.

In the corridors of the Enterprise Kirk is attacked by the Andorian aide Thelev , who we later learn is the actual murder.  He isn’t fighting an overweight Tellarite now, Thelev is combating James T. Kirk one of the greatest fighters in the galaxy.  Thelev finds himself outmatched fighting an opponent with such speed and grace that he needs to cheat.  He pulls a knife and with pure luck happens to connect and stabs Kirk right in the back.  A lesser fighter would have then fallen and been another murder victim but this is Captain Kirk.  Even with his stab wound he manages to beat his opponent unconscious and then calls for security to take him away. 

A sick Sarek, can't be the killer

With Kirk now recovering from his injury in sickbay Spock realizes that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.  With the Captain undergoing treatment it is up to him to assume command and defend the ship against the unknown attacker.  His father will therefore have to wait and that means he will most likely die. His mother tires to argue from logic which fails because Spock is already convinced of his logic.  She then tries to appeal to his emotion which is useless. 

                

Kirk and his would-be-murder

Kirk realizes that in order to save Sarek he needs to go back on duty and convince Spock that he is fine.  Kirk gets up, gets dressed, and heads to the bridge.  Spock is convinced and goes down to sickbay.  Kirk is then about to call Scotty to the bridge to take over when the Enterprise is then attacked.  Kirk decides to stay and fight wounded.  Their opponent is speedy and all the Enterprise’s phaser shots miss.  The crew learns from their security division that their prisoner is not really Andorian and has been communicating to the other ship with a device in his fake antennae.  Kirk orders him brought to the bridge, and Thelev gets to watch his side lose.  Kirk decides to play possum.  He orders the ship to cut power and act like they are dead.  As the enemy ship goes in for the kill the Enterprise launches a surprise attack of photon torpedoes crippling their opponent’s ship.   Kirk was about to have the other ship boarded but then it self-destructs.  Thelev said they were under orders to do that it was a suicide mission from the start. With that Thelev dies having taken a suicide pill from before. 

While Kirk is winning the space battle McCoy is winning the medical one

While Kirk had his impressive space naval victory, McCoy completed Sarek’s surgery all while the ship was shaking under attack. Spock uncovers that this was all an operation conducted by the Orion Syndicate trying to start a war and sell dilithium.  The reason the ship seemed so powerful is they were giving all their energy to the attacks with no attention of returning.  When all was said and done Kirk, Spock, and Sarek were all in sickbay recovering and the family from Vulcan had a fun family together, and McCoy gets to tell everyone to be quite and lay down happy with the fact that he got the episodes last word.  This is the only time in Star Trek that I can remember that a character seems to break the fourth wall when they are not doing a log entry.  I assume he was talking Chapel.     

Additional thoughts: So earlier this year the crew of the Enterprise discovers that Mr. Spock had a betrothed who he never mentioned before; and now after preparing for this conference, which must have been weeks, Spock knew his parents were coming and never bothered to tell anyone.  I am sensing a pattern.  Spock has family members that he does not want talk about or even acknowledge.  To be fair he did mention that he had a father and mother and gave their occupations however he had to work up to that.  When we first see Kirk and Spock together Spock says he had a human ancestor.  I suppose one’s parents are their most immediate ancestor but when one talks about an ancestor we assume you mean ancient grandparent with too many ‘greats’ to count.

Amanda, a surprise Spock family member and not the last

One of the great misconceptions about Vulcans is they don’t have emotions.  They have emotions they just maintain absolute control over them.  We have at this point of the series seen Mr. Spock lose control of his.  In “The Naked Time” the virus caused him to confront his guilt of never telling his mother that he loved her.  In “This Side of Paradise” the spores allow him to openly express love and infatuation.  The episode “Amok Time” his pon farr erodes his control.  

While Mr. Spock seems to display emotion only when something causes him to lose control Sarek, despite his stoic demeanor, seems to actually driven by his emotional state while pretending to driven just by logic.  For example the first thing we learn about Sarek is that he engaged emotional blackmail of his son by cutting him out of his life trying to make him quit Starfleet and attend the Vulcan Science Academy.

Sarek a Vulcan led by emotions that he pretends is logic

Being driven by his pride and emotions isn’t something that Sarek has limited to his son, but he also applies it to his career as well.  He undertakes this mission to Babel knowing that he is very ill. Yet because of his pride and desire for privacy, he does not bring a Vulcan physician that would be familiar with condition, nor does he bring a backup diplomat who could take over if his health becomes an issue.  Even worse when suspicion falls upon him for potentially being the murderer of Gav, instead of informing Kirk and Spock that he was off having a heart attack at the time of the murder that Dr. McCoy could probably verify with a quick exam, he lies and says he was meditating in private.  Instead of admitting weakness he allows himself to continue to be a suspected murder, slowing down the potential of catching the real killer who was still on the loose at this time.  Not to mention failing to get justice for the family of Gav.  Then it all became pointless because he had a heart attack right in front of everyone so his privacy didn’t even last long enough to justify the deception assuming you ever could.

This episode was particularly insightful to the inside workings of the mind of Mr. Spock.   Throughout the series we have seen Mr. Spock a challenge by various members of the Enterprise crew on his outsider status of being a Vulcan. Sometimes is done playfully like with Mr. Spock’s rivalry with Dr. McCoy, conversations with Captain Kirk or even Lt. Uhura.  However there are other times where it’s more of insidious attack like Stiles in “The Balance of Terror ” or Boma in “The Galileo Seven.”  In this episode however we learn through his mother that when he was a child he was harassed by other Vulcan children for being half human.  Not only was he verbally harassed but he was often bullied and beaten by his classmates.  Since Vulcans control their emotions as adults he does not have to worry about unapologetic harassment and humiliation, however there is always the lingering thought that they do not truly accept him.  We learned in “Amok Time” that Mr. Spock in his voyages on the Enterprise has become something of a legend on Vulcan. 

The irony is that it took him leaving Vulcan to truly become accepted amongst his people.  That probably was not part of the plan but for it was also how he became accepted by his own inner psyche.  As a child Spock was labeled a human by Vulcans and as an adult when he surrounds himself with humans he is labeled a Vulcan.  This is the reason why he left Vulcan and this is the reason why he chooses to be among humans.  In “I, Mudd” Mr. Spock told Dr. McCoy that he didn’t know of any other place in the universe where he was much more needed than on a starship full of irrational humans.  However it is not their need to why he chose to be there, but his own.  Only in being surrounded by humans can he ever feel Vulcan.  

In this sense Spock always wins his conflicts with Dr. McCoy.  For whenever Dr. McCoy starts on his whole teasing of Mr. Spock on his Vulcan characteristics he only pleases Mr. Spock in ways that he can't understand.  Mr. Spock must get in the small arguments with Dr. McCoy on purpose for his own psychological therapy.  No one makes Spock feel more Vulcan than Dr. McCoy.

                    On a side note this is a great Captain Kirk episode as well.  We could see Kirk engage in hand-to-hand combat with the assassin and win despite the fact that the assassin stabbed him with a knife.  We could see a weakened Kirk take control of the bridge when the ship is under attack by a strange and foreign adversary and prevail in that situation as well.  Kirk kicks butt all the way through.

Kirk to take command despite injury

Despite the fact that he’s talked about a lot Mr. Scott never makes it apparent since entire episode.   To be fair there wasn’t much for him to do; they were only going to a conference there were no great feats of engineering that needed to be done on screen.  However I could see a fan forgetting and thinking he was in this episode is seeing how often his name is dropped.

When I was watching this once with my father, who himself has had two heart surgeries, he found McCoy’s describing the condition and necessary steps to fix it absurd.  Particularly, the part about needing so much blood.  I tried to explain to my father that they are aliens so it is probably different.   He is probably right about the show’s writers not really researching the subject.

Meeting the many aliens of the United Federation of Planets

This episode has long been a fan favorite and he can easily see why there a lot of fun and interesting things that happen.  This is an episode that truly begins to explore what it means to be in the United Federation of Planets.  We meet all sorts of different aliens for the first time and we get to watch them interact amongst each other.  As Star Trek grows this is something we see much more of but the foundation is here.   And of course that final scene is one of the great scenes of the franchise.  With Kirk, Spock, and Sarek all laid up in sick bay and McCoy trying to control everything so his patients can focus on getting better. There is a Star Trek novel I once read that took place shortly after this episode and scene with the three patients was continued.  I can’t remember which book it was however.

FINAL GRADE 5 of 5