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Eric's Excruciatingly Detailed Star Trek (TOS) Plot Summaries: Concatenated Version

This file contains episode summaries for all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series. Episodes are listed alphabetically by episode title.

It has taken a huge amount of time to write all these (there are more than 50,000 words in this document), so please acknowledge your source if you reproduce them anywhere in part or whole. Detailed summaries for a few episodes are still under construction. Thanks to Brian York for creating the index, and to David Landis for pointing out spelling and other corrections. David's corrections, as well as many minor editorial changes, were implemented on Feb 10-16, 1997. David's Hypercard version was then edited by Peter Vince, who provided a number of "official" Star Trek spelling corrections. These corrections were implemented on Apr 6, 1997.

Web-accessible Star Trek: TOS resources making use of my summaries include the following:

Other Star Trek: TOS resources on the web include:


Index

A Piece of the Action A Private Little War A Taste of Armageddon
All Our Yesterdays The Alternative Factor Amok Time
And The Children Shall Lead The Apple Arena
Assignment: Earth Balance Of Terror Bread and Circuses
By Any Other Name The Cage Catspaw
The Changeling Charlie X The City on the Edge of Forever
The Cloud Minders The Conscience of the King The Corbomite Maneuver
Court Martial Dagger of the Mind Day of the Dove
The Deadly Years The Devil in the Dark The Doomsday Machine
Elaan of Troyius The Empath The Enemy Within
The Enterprise Incident Errand of Mercy For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky
Friday's Child The Galileo Seven The Gamesters of Triskelion
I, Mudd The Immunity Syndrome Is There In Truth No Beauty?
Journey to Babel Let That Be Your Last Battlefield The Lights of Zetar
The Man Trap The Mark Of Gideon The Menagerie I
The Menagerie II Metamorphosis Miri
Mirror, Mirror Mudd's Women The Naked Time
Obsession
The Omega Glory Operation: Annihilate! The Paradise Syndrome
Patterns of Force Plato's Stepchildren Requiem for Methuselah
The Return of the Archons Return To Tomorrow The Savage Curtain
Shore Leave Space Seed Spectre of the Gun
Spock's Brain The Squire of Gothos That Which Survives
This Side of Paradise The Tholian Web Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Trouble with Tribbles Turnabout Intruder The Ultimate Computer
The Way to Eden What are Little Girls Made Of? Where No Man Has Gone Before
Who Mourns for Adonais? Whom Gods Destroy Wink of an Eye
Wolf in the Fold

All Our Yesterdays

On a mission to evacuate the population of the lone planet Sarpedon before its sun Beta Niobi novas, Spock, Kirk and McCoy beam down to investigate why sensors indicate no humanoid life remaining on the planet. They discover a ``library'' staffed by Mr. Atoz (``A to Z'') and his clones which contains history tapes. Kirk offers to evacuate Mr. Atoz, but he tells them to hurry up and pick a destination, and that he himself plans to join his wife and family when the nova comes. It appears that by inserting the record tapes into a machine called the Atavachron, people can be sent back in time. Mr. Atoz confirms Kirk's suspicions that this is indeed what has happened to the inhabitants of the planet.

While viewing a tape, Kirk hears screams and accidentally sends himself to a time period of witch hunts. McCoy and Spock rush after him, but end up transported themselves to 5000 years in the past when the planet was still in an ice age. Meanwhile, Kirk has ``rescued'' a woman from being poked with a sword by challenging her attacker to a swordfight. Only after chasing the man away does Kirk discover that the woman was a thief attempting to rob the gentleman and that furthermore, there is no entrance back to the library. Kirk goes to the wall from which he had emerged and is able to talk to McCoy and Spock, but cannot get to them. When Kirk is arrested by the authorities for aiding a thief, McCoy and Spock ask him what is going on, and the authorities also hear the voices. The woman then betrays Kirk and denounces him as a witch, claiming that he and the ``spirits'' made her steal against her will.

Spock and Bones, on the verge of freezing, are discovered an sheltered by a woman known as Zarabeth. She has been exiled because her kinsman tried to assassinate Zorcon the Tyrant.

Meanwhile, in prison, Kirk is questioned by the Prosecutor. When Kirk mentions the library, the Prosecutor becomes extremely uncomfortable. At first, he tries to maintain that Kirk might indeed be innocent. But when the guard insists that he heard voices talking to Kirk, he is forced to back off. When Kirk then starts repeating the word ``library'' to the Prosecutor, he gets flustered and rushes out saying he wants nothing to do with Kirk. Back in the ice age, Zarabeth tells Spock that the Atavachron alters cell structure and that he therefore cannot return to the future. Meanwhile, Kirk escapes from his cell when he grabs the guard who is trying to pour soup into his bowl and knocks the guard out. When the Prosecutor comes to take Kirk to the inquisition, Kirk realized that he is also sent from the future, and threatens to denounce him as a witch if he does not help Kirk. The Prosecutor then informs Kirk that the Atavachron alters cell structure and brain patterns to prepare people for the past. The Prosecutor has been prepared and cannot return, but Kirk can only survive a few hours and must return. Kirk then finds his way back to the brick wall from which he emerged, and steps back into the library. Mr. Atoz insists that Kirk be prepared, and Kirk is forced to lock one copy of him in a closet and knock out another. The real Mr. Atoz then arrives and zaps Kirk.

Back in the ice age, Spock's personality is slipping to that of the barbaric Vulcans of 5000 years in the past. He falls in love with Zarabeth and believes her when she tells him he cannot go back. McCoy notices the changes in Spock (especially when Spock responds to an insult by grabbing him by the scruff of the neck and announcing ``I don't like that'') and guesses that Zarabeth is not being completely truthful in order to keep Spock with her. Spock also begins to notice that he is not himself when he eats animal flesh and enjoys it. However, this knowledge does not stop him from telling Zarabeth that she is beautiful and then making love to her. While kissing her, he also cracks one of his rare smiles.

Meanwhile, Kirk has managed to recover enough to avoid having Mr. Atoz wheel him into the Atavachron. He overpowers Atoz and forces him to help him locate Spock and McCoy by trying various disks. McCoy has somehow figured out that it is only Zarabeth who cannot return, and confronts Spock with this fact as well as with the fact that he has reverted to the mental state of his barbarian ancestors. Spock manages to drag himself away from Zarabeth and returns with McCoy to the library by following Kirk's voice. With everyone back, Mr. Atoz puts in a disk and rushes to join his family before it is too late. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy return to the Enterprise, which warps out of orbit just as the star novas.

The Alternative Factor

As the Enterprise maps a planet with iron-silicon surface and oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere and begins heading towards Starbase 200, the ship is twice subjected to massive disturbances. Spock reports that the magnetic field of the surrounding space ``blinked'' and the gravity of the planet momentarily reached zero. Spock then finds a human life form on the planet's surface and Spock, Kirk, and a security detail of 3 beam down to investigate.

They find a spaceship and a bearded man who yells something about having time to still stop ``him,'' then jumps or falls off a cliff. Kirk discovers that the blinking phenomenon drained the Enterprise's dilithium crystals, leaving only 10 hours before the orbit decays. Starfleet command reports that every quadrant of the galaxy has been subjected to magnetic, gravimetric, and electric disruption, and Kirk and Starfleet fear it may be a prelude to an invasion.

Kirk interviews the fallen man, who claims he is chasing a murderer who destroyed his entire civilization. He himself was saved because he was inspecting magnetic communication satellites. He attempts to enlist Kirk in his fanatic pursuit. It turns out that the strange phenomena are caused as the man, whose name is Lazarus, battles his anti-self in a corridor between parallel universes and that the ship on the planet surface is a time-travel machine. The universe is returned to normal when Kirk destroys Lazarus's ship, sealing the corridor off at both ends, and trapping Lazarus and his anti-self inside to fight each other for all eternity.

Amok Time

McCoy noticed that Spock is growing restless and also that he has stopped eating. He also is becoming extremely irritable, throwing Nurse Chapel out of his quarters and physically flinging the Vulcan Plomeek soup she has specially prepared for him. After this outburst, he demands a leave of absence on his home planet Vulcan from Kirk. Kirk is baffled by Spock's behavior, but has no choice but to divert to Vulcan. However, a priority message forces him to change course back to Altair 6 in order to be on time for the new president's coronation. As soon as he leaves the bridge, Spock orders the course changed back to Vulcan.

Kirk orders Spock to sickbay, where Bones examines him and finds that if he is not brought to Vulcan within eight days, Spock will die due to extreme stress produced by chemicals being pumped through his body. When Kirk confronts Spock, Spock says he cannot tell the cause of his problem because it is a deeply personal affair. Kirk eventually cajoles Spock into revealing that his problem is ``Vulcan biology,'' which Kirk correctly concludes means Vulcan reproduction.

The Vulcan time of mating is known as Pon Farr, and is a very painful and personal experience. It strips logic away from Vulcans, and forces them to return to Vulcan to take a mate. Spock compares the need to return to Vulcan to the Eel Birds of Regulus 5, who return every 11 years to the caverns where they hatched, and to salmon on Earth who must return to the stream where they were born in order to spawn. Kirk contacts Admiral Komack at Starfleet Command sector 9 to request permission to divert to Vulcan. The Admiral denies permission, but Kirk ignores the order (since he would be one of three Starships there in any case), and re-directs to Vulcan.

In the meantime, Spock is flipping out. In one extremely emotional outburst, he mashes his viewing screen to pulp when Uhura tries to contact him. However, he recovers when he learns that the Enterprise is headed for Vulcan. He invites Kirk and McCoy, as his two best friends, to join him on the surface for a ceremony. On Vulcan, Spock prepares for his Koon-ut-kal-if-fee, or ``marriage or challenge'' ceremony with T'Pring, to whom he had been betrothed by their parents when they were 7 years old. Kirk and Spock comment how hot Vulcan is, and Kirk (who evidently is no physicist) says this is because Vulcan's atmosphere is thinner than Earth's.

The master of ceremonies is T'Pau, the only person ever to turn down a seat in the Federation council. As the ceremony begins, T'Pring rejects Spock and challenges (Kalifee) him to battle with her champion, who she names as Kirk. This upsets her lover Stonn, and pains Spock. After learning that another champion will be chosen if Kirk declines the challenge, Kirk accepts battle with Spock, not realizing that the fight is to the death. Before Spock can kill Kirk with a lirpa (a rod with blade on one side and mallet on the other), Bones steps in and gives Kirk a shot supposed to be a triox compound which will accommodate him to the Vulcan climate and temperature. Instead, Bones actually injects him with a neuroparalyzer which simulates death. When Kirk konks out, McCoy pronounces him dead and contacts the Enterprise to beam the two of them up.

Spock confronts T'Pring and she explains that she is in love with the Vulcan Stonn. By choosing Kirk as her champion, she was guaranteed a desirable outcome. If Kirk won, he would not want her, and she would have Stonn, together with Spock's name and property. If Spock won, he would not take her for daring to challenge, and furthermore would be tried by Starfleet and incarcerate. Believing that he has killed Kirk, Spock loses all interest in his treacherous mate and returns to the Enterprise. Here, he is overjoyed to find Kirk alive, betraying his emotion with a big smile (another smile occurs in The Cage and is repeated in The Menagerie, Part I). Kirk is let off the hook for disobeying orders when Starfleet retroactively grants permission to divert to Vulcan at T'Pau's request.

And The Children Shall Lead

When the Enterprise responds to a distress call on the scientific colony on Triacus, Bones, Kirk, and Spock discover that all of the adults to have committed suicide using the drug cylotin. Kirk spots a single survivor, Prof. Starnes, but he does not seem to recognize Kirk and subsequently dies in Kirk's arms. A recording reveals that the colonists felt compelled to destroy themselves to escape what they call ``the enemy within.''

However, the children of the colonists (Tommy Starnes, Don Tsing Tau, Mary, Steve, and Ray; last names Janowski, O'Connel, and Wilkins, not necessarily in that order), appear to be in fine health and pay no attention to the absence of their parents. They are beamed up to the Enterprise, and an examination by McCoy reveals nothing amiss. Kirk tries to question the children and finds that they hated the planet and felt resentful that their parents liked it. Before Kirk can find out anything else, the children begin repeating ``busy, busy, busy,'' and refuse to say anything more. Kirk tries talking to Tommy alone, but he only repeats the behavior of his friends.

When they are left alone, the children perform a summoning ritual for the ``friendly angel.'' The angel gives them instructions for their next ``task,'' which consists of bringing the Enterprise to Marcus 12 instead of Kirk's intended Starbase 4. On Marcus 12, the angel promises that they will find many friends to make them strong, and that this will allow him to take over the universe and allow the children unlimited freedom and play. The children prepare to use strange powers (invoked by up and down motions of a clenched fist) to influence the minds of the crew and take the Enterprise out of orbit and towards Marcus 12.

Clues to events which took place on Triacus are given by a series of recorded messages by Prof. Starnes. These document the onset of paranoia and loss of control over actions immediately following the excavation of a cave by Wilkins. At this juncture, Tommy enters the bridge and uses the opportunity to cause the tape to malfunction before his father's message can be completed. Tommy remains on the bridge after Kirk and Spock leave to consult in private. Tommy influences Sulu to leave orbit, giving him the illusion that the viewing screen shows the Enterprise to still be in orbit. When Uhura notices that the Enterprise is no longer in orbit, she confronts Sulu, but the children soon give her the same illusion as Sulu.

In the engine room, another child causes two engineers to guard the controls and to knock out Scotty when he tries to get them back and put the Enterprise back on course. Spock and Kirk listen to the rest of Dr. Starnes' tape in private, and find that he was being influenced to do things against his will, including requesting a spaceship from Starfleet despite the fact that he had no need for it. Consulting the computer's memory banks, Spock discovers a legend that Triacus was previously inhabited by a band of marauders who terrorized the Epsilon Indi system. The legend also maintains that the marauders, who were eventually wiped out, are waiting to return and maraud again.

Kirk beams down a pair of guards to take over from the security detachment on Triacus, assuming that the Enterprise is still in orbit since he has given no orders for it to do otherwise. When he then attempts to beam up the security detachment, Spock is unable to lock on, and Kirk is forced to face the fact that he has just beamed two men into a vacuum. When Kirk and Spock rush to the bridge, they get a look at the alien influencing the children (who have assembled on the bridge and performed another summoning ritual). Kirk gives commands to Sulu and Uhura to change course and send a message to Starfleet, but the children make Sulu see a passage of knives and Uhura a picture of herself as old and sick, and neither carries out the order. Kirk then orders Spock to send the message to Starfleet, but he is also unable to obey. When Kirk tries to order the security officer to confine Sulu to quarters, the children cause his speech to sound garbled. Kirk then becomes paranoid about losing the Enterprise, but Spock grabs him and the two of them escape from the bridge on the elevator.

They go to auxiliary control and try to enlist Scotty's help in overriding the ship's controls, but Scott and his engineers are firmly under the children's control. Chekov and two security guards attempt to arrest Kirk and Spock at phaser-point, but Kirk and Spock are able to fight their way out of it. Kirk finally manages to free the children of the Gorgon's evil influence and regain control of the Enterprise by replaying the taped ritual and summoning the Gorgon. With the help of tapes of the children playing with their parents, Kirk shows the children the Gorgon's wickedness in killing their parents. When the children cry and desert him, the Gorgon becomes disfigured, then disintegrates, chanting ``death to you all.''

The Apple

When Kirk beams down with a large landing party to investigate planet Gamma Trianguli 6, a flower turns toward security guard Hendroff and sprays him with deadly spores. Scott reports that the matter-antimatter pods are inexplicably losing potency. He believes it to have something to do with the planet's unusual magnetic field. Kirk sends Valery and Marple to scout out the way to the nearest village. Spock then detects the presence of a humanoid watching them, and also detects planet-wide vibrations. Spock also finds a curious low density rock which explodes unexpectedly when he tosses it away. Spock runs in the way of another flower which is about to spray Kirk, and catches the darts in his own chest. McCoy injects Spock with masaform-D, but he does not respond, and Kirk asks Scotty to beam them all up. The Enterprise's matter-antimatter pods have already been drained by what Scott now identifies as some sort of beam from the planet, and Scotty's attempt to beam them up now fails, leaving the landing party stranded.

Spock recovers, but the landing party is then surprised by a rapidly moving electrical storm despite the absence of nearby clouds. The ground also begins to smoke. Valery attempts to report in by communicator, but his communication is jammed. The landing party goes to investigate, but Valery is tragically killed when he runs over one of the exploding rocks. The humanoid returns, and Kirk has Chekov and Spock create a diversion while he sneaks up on the watcher. Kirk attacks him, evoking tears. Kirk promises not to hurt him again, and the humanoid tells Kirk that his name is Akuta, chief of the primitive people he calls the feeders of Vaal. He appears to be in some kind of communication, since Spock notices antennae emerging from either side of his head. Kirk asks to be taken to Vaal, just as Scott reports that the Enterprise is being dragged into the planet by a tractor beam from the planet.

Akuta takes Kirk to Vaal, who appears to be a door into a hill in the shape of a dragon's head. Spock's tricorder shows that the entrance leads into the planet's interior, and is surrounded by a force field. When Akuta takes the landing party to meet with the rest of the people of Vaal, Kirk notices a strange lack of children, and finds that Vaal has forbidden love, providing ``replacements'' as they are needed. Seana introduces herself to Spock, and is greatly amused when he tells her his name. McCoy finds that the people are in perfect health without any disease or aging. Kirk and Spock then witness a ceremony in which the people of Vaal provide it with fuel. Chekov seduces Martha, and this is observed by two of the people of Vaal (Makora and his newfound girlfriend), who proceed to imitate it. This angers Vaal, who gives Akuta instructions.

As Kirk and party are resting, Akuta explains to his people that they must kill the strangers, and gives them instructions on how to bash their heads in using a heavy stick. They then disappear, and the Kirk and Spock go to confront Vaal. Vaal responds by calling a thunderstorm and striking Spock with a lightning bolt. The people of Vaal then attack, killing a security guard. As usual, the rest of the landing party fends off the attack and get off unscathed. Vaal weakens as the feeders are prevented from feeding him, and Kirk has Scott attack Vaal with the ship's phasers to weaken it further. This drains Vaal's power reserves, and frees the people from his grip. Spock accuses Kirk of giving the people the equivalent of the apple of knowledge and driving them from their Eden, but Kirk maintains that Spock's resemblance to the Devil is much more apparent than his own.

Arena

A landing party from the Enterprise beams down to Cestus 3 for a dinner engagement with Commodore Traverse. Upon arrival, they discover that the Earth observation outpost has been obliterated. Furthermore, the outpost had been destroyed several days ago, so the messages received from the base must have been faked. The landing party (Kirk, Spock, Lang, Kelowitz, O'Herlihy, and Harold) discovers a survivor, but then comes under attack by the aliens responsible for the massacre. O'Herlihy is vaporized. The Enterprise simultaneously comes under attack by an alien vessel and is forced to raise its shields, preventing the landing party from beaming back up. Kirk is able to locate the arsenal of the outpost and locate a mortar. The aliens overload Spock's tricorder, causing it to explode, but Kirk is able to use the mortar to fire a blue sphere which destroys the alien attackers.

After returning to the ship and giving chase to the alien vessel, the survivor reports that they were attacked by a ship which approached at space normal speed, then proceeded to bombard the outpost. The Enterprise increases its speed to warp 8 in order to catch the alien. Before they can do so, both the Enterprise and the alien ship are scanned and incapacitated. The responsible party is an advanced civilization calling itself the Metrons and inhabiting an uncharted solar system. The Metrons force Kirk and the reptilian captain of the alien Gorn ship to duel to the death to determine which ship will survive. Both combatants are provided with auto-translation walkie-talkies, but Kirk thinks the device is only a recorder and so gives away his location and intentions to the Gorn. However, although the Gorn is physically stronger than Kirk, it is slower. Kirk rolls a (obviously styrofoam) boulder down a cliff and flattens the Gorn, only to see it push the rock aside and get up unscathed. Kirk then becomes ensnared in a set of ropes laid by the Gorn, but is able to escape, albeit with an injured leg.

After Spock's entreaties to the Metrons, the crew of the Enterprise is permitted to watch the spectacle on their video monitor. Kirk is eventually able to outwit the Gorn by finding the minerals for making gunpowder (sulfur, carbon, and potassium nitrate [saltpeter]) and using it to propel native diamonds (also found on this geologically unlikely planet) at the Gorn using a hollowed-out bamboo reed as the gun barrel. After winning a victory, Kirk convinces the Metrons not the destroy the Gorn ship, since it is possible that they viewed the Federation base as an encroachment on their territory. Kirk is returned to the Enterprise, which is the mysteriously transported back to its original position on the way to Cestus 3.

Assignment: Earth

The Enterprise has used the light speed breakaway factor to propel itself backward in time. It monitors Earth communications while on a historical fact-finding mission to study how Earth survived the turbulent year 1968.

While in orbit, the Enterprise accidentally intercepts a transporter beam originating more that 1000 light years away, beaming aboard interplanetary agent Gary Seven and his partner Isis, disguised as a black cat. Seven discovers that the Enterprise is from the future, and demands to be beamed down to continue with his mission. Seven claims he is a human from the twentieth century who has been living on a different planet, which wishes to remain hidden (even is Kirk's time). When Kirk decides to confine Seven to a detention cell until he can learn more, Seven overpowers the guards and even brushes off Spock's nerve pinch, but Kirk temporarily stuns him with a phaser. Ho does not long remain in his cell, however, using a ``servo'' device disguised as a pen to deactivate the force field and put his guard to sleep. He is rejoined by Isis on his way to the transporter room, and beams down before Kirk can stop him, materializing inside a safe concealed behind a sliding rack of glasses in what appears to be an otherwise normal office.

However, the office turns out to be anything but normal, and a Beta 5 computer (capable of analytical decision) is also hidden behind a bookcase. Gary Seven asks the Beta 5 computer the status of agents 201 and 347, and discovers that their location has not been reported for 3 days. In order to access the computer, Gary Seven (who is known as agent 194 and turns out to be a ``Class 1 Supervisor''), is forced to summarize the nature of his mission. The agents turn out to be descendants of human ancestors taken from the Earth 6000 year ago and specially trained for the mission of preventing Earth from destroying itself before it can become a peaceful society. According to the computer, this is necessary since science and technology have progressed faster than political and social knowledge on Earth. Seven learns that the agents' mission was to disable a rocket to launch an American orbiting nuclear platform which will take off in an hour to counter a similar platform launched by an ``opposing power.'' Seven compares this situation to the one which almost resulted in the destruction of planet Omicron 4.

Meanwhile, Roberta Lincoln, a secretary hired by Seven's fellow agent shows up (late) for work, and Seven mistakes her for one of the agents. As a result, he shares some of his secret gadgetry with her, including a voice-activated typewriter. However, Seven convinces her that he is a CIA agent, and that she should remain silent about what she has seen in the interests of national security.

Just after Seven learns from the Beta 5 that agents 201 and 347 were killed in an automobile accident on Highway 949, 10 miles north of McKinley Rocket Base, Kirk and Spock (who have beamed down in an attempt to locate Seven) barge into the office. However, Lincoln stalls them long enough to allow Seven to escape into the safe/transporter, and also manages to call the police to the office (which is located at 811 East 68th Street, number 12B). When they arrive, Kirk beams them up to the Enterprise along with himself and Spock, then immediately returns the policemen to the apartment.

Seven rematerializes inside the rocket base and stuns a guard with his pen gizmo before he can complete a call to security. Seven then makes his way to the gantry elevator and begins to sabotage the wiring when he reaches the top. Just as the guard stunned by Seven awakes, Kirk and Spock materialize in front of him and are escorted by him to an interrogation in the launch complex.

Meanwhile, Lincoln accidentally discovers the sliding glass rack, opening it by depressing a pen on the desk. She then picks the lock to the safe. At the sane time, Scott locates Seven manipulating wires on the rocket using the ships sensors, and attempts to beam him up. Lincoln, however, accidentally pulls him back to the office while fiddling with the safe controls. Seven then using the Beta 5 exceiver circuits to cause the third stage of the American rocket to malfunction and veer off course. He also arms the warhead, and is shortly thereafter konked on the head by Roberta.

The arming of the warhead is noted by Chekov aboard the Enterprise, who attempts to contact Kirk for instructions. When the communicator beeps and the rocket base guard picks it up, Spock nerve pinches the guard, and tells Scott to beam Kirk and himself to Seven's apartment. Here, they watch while Seven explodes the warhead 104 miles above ground. Records from the Enterprise show that exactly such an event occurred, and that it furthermore caused the nuclear powers to re-assess the risks of placing hydrogen bombs in orbit.

Balance Of Terror

The Enterprise investigates the lack of response from Earth outposts 2 and 3 (and subsequently 8) monitoring the Neutral Zone between planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the galaxy. Using his authority as a ship's captain, Kirk is preparing to solemnize the marriage of crew members Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson. However, the ceremony is interrupted when Earth outpost 4 reports itself under attack by an unknown space vessel. The Earth outposts have been constructed on asteroids, and were authorized by treaty following the atomic war with the Romulans more than a century earlier. No human or Romulan, however, has ever seen the another. Navigator Stiles is especially bitter because his ancestors were killed in the Earth-Romulan war

As the Enterprise communicates with outpost 4, Commander Hansen reports an attack underway by an unknown weapon from a spaceship which subsequently vanished. Immediately thereafter, the attacking starship becomes visible briefly, destroys the outpost, then vanishes again. However, Kirk is able to track it despite its cloaking device, and flies on a parallel course. Spock is able to lock in to Romulan transmissions, and the crew of the Enterprise gets a glimpse of the Romulans (who have pointy ears!). The anatomical resemblance of Rolumans and Vulcans leads Stiles to question Spock's allegiances.

Meanwhile, the Romulan commander questions his mission of starting a war, and discusses it with his Centurion. Aboard the Enterprise, scanners show debris from outpost 4 contains disintegrated cast roginium, the hardest substance known to science, and Spock surmises that a plasma weapon must have been used. The Enterprise takes advantage of the passage of the Romulan vessel through a magnitude 7 comet tail to attempt an attack. However, the Romulans are planning to turn and attack the Enterprise once the comet rendered its sensors ineffective. Kirk fires phasers at random in hopes of hitting the Romulan and scores a minor hit. Unfortunately, this overloads the phasers and renders them temporarily unusable. The Romulans fire a plasma-ball and the Enterprise retreats at full speed. Fortunately, the plasma-ball dissipates partially before impacting. The Enterprise fires again and again does only minor damage. However, the Romulan ship ejects debris including the body of the Centurion who was killed in the second Enterprise attack.

The Enterprise then sits motionless for 9 hours, 47 minutes hoping the Romulan ship will make a move and reveal itself. Spock accidentally sets off an alarm while fixing the phasers, and the Enterprise begin maneuvering and fires off another salvo. The Romulan vessel then ejects debris, inside of which it has placed a nuclear weapon. Spock detects a metal object, and the Enterprise destroys it before running into it, but 22 casualties, mostly radiation burns, still result. Stiles and Tomlinson are overcome by pink gas in the phaser room, but Spock is able to get there and fire the phasers manually. This is enough to render the Romulan inoperative, and its captain self-destructs. Tomlinson dies, but Spock is able to save Stiles. Kirk must then comfort Martine over the death of her fiance.

Bread and Circuses

On routine patrol, the Enterprise happens upon space debris from the S.S. Beagle, a survey ship which disappeared 6 years ago. The Beagle had been a Class 4 star drive vessel with a crew of 47, and had been commanded by Captain R.M. Merrik, an academy associate of Kirk. When Spock projects the path of the wreckage back in time, he discovers a civilization of modern-day Romans on Planet 4 of the 892 System. The Enterprise then intercepts a television transmission showing a gladiator killing the ``last of the Barbarians,'' who turns out to be Beagle flight officer William B. Harrison.

After beaming down, Spock, Bones, and Kirk are confronted by a cadre of rifle-toting escaped slaves. The landing party is captured and taken to the slaves' leader Septimus, a former Senator who now worships the ``sun.'' Although the slave Flavius wants to kill the Enterprise's landing party, Septimus accepts them as friends and offers them hospitality. The extreme similarity of the 892 System's civilization to the Romans Earth is apparently a coincidence, demonstrating according to Kirk the validity of Hodgekin's Law of Parallel Planet Development.

When Kirk questions the slaves about a man named Merrik, he finds that the leader and First Citizen of the Roman-like empire is called Merricus. When Kirk and his comrades then express an interest in capturing Merricus, Flavius Maximus (a former gladiator) offers to accompany them. However, they are captured by Roman forces and put in prison. Kirk questions Flavius to find out about the institution of slavery on this planet, and finds that slave uprisings virtually ceased after they were slowly given rights such as medical care and a pension. Kirk, McCoy, and Spock attempt to escape when their guards escort them to talk to Merrik, but Merrik has anticipated this, disarms them, and then brings them to his quarters for a conversation.

Merricus is indeed Merrick, and he tells Kirk that he beamed down to the planet to obtain iridium ore for repairs after he Beagle sustained meteor damage. Here, he met First Consul Claudius Marcus. He also decided that he could not bring word of the planet's culture to the Federation without hopelessly contaminating it. Merrik therefore agreed to stay, but killed those of his crew members who could not adapt by sending them into the Arena be killed in a fight. The Consul orders Kirk to transport his crew down a few at a time. Instead, Kirk gives the code word ``condition green'' alerting Scott that he is in trouble, but that Scott should not interfere. For refusing to comply, Merrik sends McCoy and Spock to fight in the Arena against gladiators Achilles and the recaptured Flavius. Spock is very unsporting, however, since he stuns his opponent and then nerve pinches Flavius when McCoy gets into trouble. McCoy and Spock are returned to prison, but Kirk is entertained by the Proconsul's slave Drusilla prior to execution.

Scott prepares to disrupt power to the entire planet from the Enterprise just as Kirk is about to be executed on live Roman TV. Before the execution can take place, Flavius intervenes. Unfortunately, he is killed by machine gun fire before Scott cuts power. Kirk then frees McCoy and Spock, only to be surrounded by Roman guards. However, Merrik has stolen a communicator and signals the Enterprise to beam them up. Unfortunately, in the middle of his transmission, he is slain by the Proconsul. Merrik throws the communicator to Kirk, who has Scotty beam them up just before their cell is criss-crossed with machine gun fire. Back aboard the Enterprise, Uhura discovers that the escaped slaves were not sun worshippers, but worshippers of a different ``son'': the Son of God.

By Any Other Name

After a landing party beams down to investigate a distress call, they initially find no life form readings. Shortly thereafter, two ``perfect'' human life forms register and put in an appearance. They thank Kirk for responding so quickly to the distress call, and demands that Kirk surrender the Enterprise. Before Kirk can take any action, they press buttons on their belt which paralyze the landing party's muscles. It turns out that the commander Rojan and his companions (Tomar, Hanar, Drea, and Kelinda), are members of the Kelvin Empire from the Andromeda Galaxy. They are members of a scouting party sent to search for a new planet (since their old one will become unlivable within 10 millenia due to high radiation levels). However, the Kelvin's ship was destroyed by an energy field at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy. The Kelvins were able to use a shuttle craft to reach their current planet, but need a new ship to return. They also plan to modify the ship's engines to allow the intergalactic trip to be made in 300 years. While Rojan explains this to Kirk on the planet's surface, other Kelvins take over the Enterprise.

When imprisoned behind bars similar to diburnium (but more dense), Lt. Shae advocates a forcible breakout. However, in an out-of-character move, Kirk suggests that Spock using a Vulcan mind probe on Kelinda (as he had done to the guard on Eminiar VII). Spock is violently thrown back by Kelinda's reaction, but when she enters the cell to investigate, Kirk knocks her out and attempts to escape. Unfortunately, Kirk and the escapees don't get very far, and the Kelvins reduce Shae and Yeoman Thompson to two small gray polyhedra (which are purported to contain their essences). Rojan crushes Thompson's polyhedron as a warning to Kirk, but restores Shae to human form.

From his mind probe, Spock reports that the Kelvins are actually immense beings with 100 limbs which resemble tentacles. Spock pretends to be ill by going into a self-induced Vulcan coma, and is permitted to be beamed up with McCoy. On board, McCoy tells Nurse Chapel to prepare 2 cc's of stochaline (``don't argue Nurse, just get it''). McCoy pretends that Spock will be fine in several hours and is only suffering from a flare-up of Rigelian Casaba fever.

Kelinda admires the plants on the planet surface and compares them to Kelvin sashir (``a rose by any other name,'' according to Kirk). Spock and Kirk are beamed up to the ship, and discover the Kelvin power source. Spock and Scott prepare to blow up the Enterprise when it passes through the negative energy barrier at the edge of the Galaxy. However, Kirk hopes to avoid destruction, and so refuses to give the order. (Actually, the Kelvins had discovered the plan and rendered it ineffective in any case.)

As soon as the Enterprise is past the energy barrier, the Kelvins begin reducing the entire crew (with the exception of Kirk, Scott, McCoy, and Spock) to more gray polyhedra. After Tomar expresses a desire to sample the ship's food, Spock notes that since the Kelvins have taken human form, they seem to be indulging in sensory experiences which were hitherto unknown to them.

Kirk suggests that this unfamiliarity with senses can be used to confuse the Kelvins. Bones uses the stimulant formazine on Hanar to irritate him (telling him it is a vitamin shot), Kirk attempts to seduce Kelinda by kissing her, Spock plays on Rojan's jealousy over the kissing incident, and Scotty loads Tomar up on Sorian Brandy (and when he runs out, resorts to his secret stash of Scotch Whisky), but Drea is unaccountably left unaffected. When Rojan tells Kelinda to stay away from Kirk and she refuses, Rojan loses his temper and threatens to neutralize the rest of the humans. As Scott is about to celebrate drinking Tomar under the table, he too keels over in a dead faint. Rojan becomes increasingly jealous, and engages in a fist fight with Kirk over Kelinda. The Kelvins are dismayed by their very human responses and fearful that by taking human form, they have betrayed their own form and culture. They are therefore convinced by Kirk and Spock to work with the Federation to find a habitable planet in the Milky Way for their people, and Rojan returns control of the Enterprise to Kirk.

The Cage (Original Pilot)

This pilot episode was later incorporated into the two-part Star Trek episode The Menagerie, Parts I and II. The only characters who were retained in the Star Trek series were Leonard Nimoy (as Spock) and Majel Barrett (who took a large demotion from ``Number 1'' in the pilot to Nurse Chapel).

Catspaw

Strange things happen to a landing party consisting of Jackson, Sulu, and Scotty when they beam down to planet Pyrus 7. Sulu and Scott disappear, then Jackson returns to the Enterprise and promptly dies without a readily apparent cause. A strange voice coming from Jackson's mouth then tells Kirk that there is a curse on the Enterprise, which must leave or the crew will all die.

When Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to investigate, leaving DeSalle in command and Chekov as his sidekick, they are enveloped in fog. They also detect multiple life readings, despite the fact that the Enterprise's sensors detect only the landing party. The landing party subsequently encounters three witches and a medieval castle. Upon entering the castle, they are confronted by a black cat. While exploring the cobweb-draped interior, they fall through a hole in the floor which opens up beneath them and then suddenly find themselves held in irons in the castle's dungeon. Sulu and Scott, now both Zombies, release the prisoners and begin leading them away. When Kirk attempts to overpower them, they all materialize in front of the robed Korob and his ``precious'' black cat whom he appears to consult for advice.

Spock questions Korob as to why previous surveys have not detected life on the planet, and Korob admits that he is not native to the planet. Korob makes a meal magically appear, but Kirk, Spock, and McCoy profess not to be hungry. He then makes plates full of gemstones appear and offers them as an incentive for leaving without further inquiry, but Kirk claims that the Enterprise can manufacture them in bulk and is not impressed. The cat leaves, and shortly thereafter Korob's colleague Sylvia appears. However, around her neck is the same diamond pendant that had been worn by the cat. Kirk overpowers the Zombie Scott, takes his phaser, and demands that Sulu and Scott be released and that their weapons and communicators be returned. Sylvia responds by waving a model of the Enterprise over a candle. The real Enterprise experiences extreme heat, and narrowly avoids burning up when Kirk removes the model and offers to cooperate. To prevent interference from the Enterprise, the model is encased a glass, surrounding the actual Enterprise with a force field it cannot break free from.

Kirk and Spock are chained again in the dungeon, and McCoy is added to the collection of Zombies. Sylvia is meanwhile enjoying the sensual pleasures of her new existence, and mocks Korob for being afraid to use his power when he complains that she is abusing the specimens. Kirk pretends to fall in love with Sylvia in order to pump her for information. She responds by changing into a number of different attractive forms. Kirk learns that Korob and Sylvia have been sent to study the galaxy, using a device called the transmuter. However, Sylvia discovers by probing his mind that Kirk is manipulating her, and becomes angry.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise is breaking free through the efforts of DeSalle. Korob releases the Enterprise from its encasement, then sets Kirk and Spock free and tells them to leave immediately because be can no longer control Sylvia. Sylvia changes to a giant black cat, attacks Korob, and attempts to kill Kirk and Spock. Kirk grabs Korob's scepter, which he suspects to be the mysterious transmuter. After fending off attacks from McCoy, Scott, and Sulu, Kirk tells Sylvia that he has the scepter. Sylvia tries to finagle it away from him, but he breaks the scepter in front of Sylvia. The castle vanishes, and Sylvia and Korob appear as the bizarre blue and yellow puppet-like alien beings they are. Unable to survive in this galaxy without the transmuter, they shrivel up and melt away and Sulu and Scott are returned to normal.

The Changeling

When the Enterprise investigates a distress call from the planet Mulour (population 4 billion), Spock reports that sensors detect no life forms. There is no word even from Dr. Manway, head of a Federation science team on the planet, who has his own transmitter. The Enterprise's shields then come up automatically when it encounters a 1 meter long, 500 kg, cylinder which attacks the Enterprise with energy bolts having the strength of 90 photon torpedoes. Kirk torpedoes the object, but the energy is simply absorbed by the target. Kirk then transmits a message to the object, and it stops firing, requests communication, and allows itself to be beamed aboard the Enterprise.

The probe identifies itself as Nomad, and refers to Kirk as the creator. Checking records, Spock finds that a Nomad probe was indeed launched to explore the far reaches of the galaxy and seek out new life (and presumably to go where no probe has gone before). Apparently, Nomad believes that Kirk is Jackson Roy Kirk, the original creator of Nomad. Nomad insists, however, that his mission is to destroy that which is not perfect (including all biological ``infestations.'')

Kirk leaves Lt. Singh in charge of Nomad. When it hears Uhura singing over the intercom, however, it slips away to seek her out. Upon finding her, still singing, Nomad questions her as to what form of communication she was practicing. When she replies music, it erases her mind, calling her a mass of conflicting impulses. When Scotty tries to intervene, Nomad kills him. When Kirk is displeased, Nomad offers to ``repair'' the unit Scott, claiming that it was only acting in self defense. Kirk then asks Nomad to repair Uhura, which it claims it cannot since it has erased her memory banks. Nurse Chapel therefore begins re-educating her on how to read, and reports that she can be back on the job in a week, which doesn't speak too favorably for the training required for a Federation communications officer.

Kirk then tells Nomad to accompany two security guards to a waiting area (actually a top security cell). Spock attempts to study Nomad, but it only lowers its shields when Kirk explicitly tells it to. However, Spock is not able to learn full details from his scan, and therefore resorts to a Vulcan mind meld. How the analog-to-digital conversion is performed is not explained. Spock discovers that Nomad collided with an alien probe called Tan-Ru, designed to obtain and sterilize soil samples from other planets, and was severely damaged. Some of its memory was lost, and it subsumed Tan-Ru's directive, interpreting it to mean sterilize imperfections. Spock is shaken by the experience, and Kirk is forced to pull him away and tell Nomad to stop communicating. Kirk again confines Nomad to the cell, but it waltzes right through the security field and kills the two security guards when they attempt to stop it with phaser fire.

Nomad then makes his way to the engine room where it improves the ``efficiency'' of the engines 57% by increasing the matter-antimatter reaction rate. Kirk orders Nomad to reverse changes to the matter-antimatter reactor, as the Enterprise cannot stand the stress. Kirk confronts Nomad, telling him that his contempt of biological units is illogical, since its creator is a biological unit. Kirk tries to get the probe to return to the holding cell, but it kills the two security guards sent to accompany it and heads to sickbay. Here it examines Kirk's medical history, attacking Nurse Chapel when she tries to stop him. It then shuts down life support systems throughout the ship in order to destroy the imperfect units aboard it without destroying the Enterprise.

Kirk then gets Nomad to admit that it must sterilize everything which is in error. Kirk defeats Nomad by showing it its own imperfections: it thought he was Jackson Roy Kirk, it did not discover its mistake, and it did not exercise its prime function by eliminating itself because it was imperfect. While attempting analyzing the situation, Nomad is beamed into space. It is caught in a logic loop while attempting to analyze its errors, and finally self-destructs in order to ``sterilize'' its own imperfections.

Charlie X

The Enterprise (crew of 420) takes charge of Charlie Evans from the science probe vessel Antares (crew of 20) in order to transport him to his nearest living relatives on Earth colony Alpha 5. Captain Remart and navigator Nellis sing the praises of Charlie, the sole survivor of a transport crash on the planet Thesus 14 years previously. Charlie appears to be quite bright, and has learned to talk from the crashed ship's data tapes. After dropping Charlie off, Remart and his crew bid the Enterprise what appears to be an unusually hastened adieu and return to their ship.

On the Enterprise, Charlie tells McCoy that the crew of the science ship didn't like him, and that he wants people to like him. Charlie then proceeds to fall in love with Yeoman Janice Rand. He pats her rump (which she objects to) and gives her a bottle of perfume, her favorite kind. Charlie meets Rand later in the Recreation Room, where Spock is playing a Vulcan musical instrument and Uhura is (attempting) to sing. Charlie shows good taste by not enjoying the singing, and causes Uhura to run out of breath. When the Antares is almost out of communications range, it starts to warn the Enterprise about something, then disintegrates. After the spontaneous destruction of the Antares, Charlie makes the curious and sinister-sounding comment that ``it wasn't very well constructed.'' Shortly thereafter, another strange event takes place when the cook reports that the synthetic meatloaf has been transformed into real turkeys! Back in the Rec Room, Kirk manages to beat Spock at 3-D chess, implausibly beating Spock's logic with his own quirky strategy. Charlie is intrigued by the game and tries to duplicate the feat. After losing, he causes the white chess pieces to melt, revealing that he has both a bad temper and rather scary telekinetic powers.

Rand introduces Charlie to Yeoman third class Tina Lawton, but Charlie is only interested in Rand and brushes Tina off. Kirk, doing his best to instill Charlie with manly qualities, attempts to teach him how to fight using some curious mallet objects. When Kirk's training partner Sam laughs at one of Charlie's falls, Charlie makes him ``go away.'' This demonstrates to Kirk and Spock that Charlie has the power to manipulate matter. Kirk calls security guards to escort Charlie to his quarters, but Charlie objects and causes all phasers on the ship to vanish.

Kirk suspects that Charlie has been given certain powers which legend ascribes to an ancient race of Thesians and confronts Charlie. Charlie admits he destroyed the Antares by making the warped baffle plate on the shield of the energy piling go away, but claims it would have blown up anyway. When Charlie discovers that Kirk plans to divert from Alpha 5, he takes control of the Enterprise and its crew. He forces Spock (``Mr. Ears'') to recite poetry (``Tiger, Tiger, Burning Bright'' and ``Once Upon a Midnight Dreary''). He then turns Tina into a lizard and bursts in on Rand. When she spurns his advances, he makes her disappear. Kirk and Spock attempt to lock Charlie in a detention chamber, but to no avail. Charlie goes on a rampage, turning a young crew member into an old woman and removing the faces from some crew members who are laughing. Kirk, Bones, and Spock try to distract Charlie by overloading him with activity, but do not meet with success until a Thesians vessel approaches the Enterprise. The Thesians return Yeoman Rand, apologize to Kirk, and take Charlie away to live alone with them.

The City on the Edge of Forever

As the Enterprise investigates ripples in time which are resulting in spatial disturbances, Sulu has a heart flutter after his control panel short circuits. Bones gives Sulu cordrazine, a mind-blowing drug at high dosages but a valuable cardiac medicine in small dosages. Sulu immediately recovers, but McCoy accidentally injects himself with the remainder of cordrazine in the hypo when the Enterprise passes through a particularly strong space disturbance. McCoy freaks out and becomes extremely paranoid, knocking out the transporter chief and beaming down to the planet to escape the ship of ``murderers.''

The transporter had been locked in on the center of the time ripples, and when Kirk, Spock, and a landing party follow McCoy down, they discover 10,000 year-old ruins surrounding the annulus-shaped structure from which the time distortions are emanating. The structure talks with the landing party, identifying itself as the Guardian of Forever, and is apparently a time portal. Spock finds the crazed McCoy and nerve pinches him, but McCoy recovers and rushes through the portal before anyone can stop him.

Communication with the Enterprise immediately ceases, and the landing party concludes that McCoy's actions in the past have changed the future. To return the present to what it was, Spock and Kirk enter the time portal at a time shortly before McCoy did so that they may find McCoy and prevent him from changing history.

They materialize in America during the 1930s Depression, and are forced to steal clothes so as not to draw attention to themselves. When questioned by a policeman, Kirk explains Spock's ears by claiming that Spock was caught in a mechanical rice picker as a child. After escaping and hiding in what they think to be a deserted building, they meet Edith Keeler (played by Joan Collins), guiding light of the 21st Street Mission. They agree to do odd jobs for her to obtain the funds necessary for Spock to construct a mnemonic memory circuit to read the information in the tricorder and discover what historical events McCoy has changed. They discover that Keeler is the link, either dying in a traffic accident or meeting with the U.S. President.

Unbeknownst to Kirk and Spock, Bones appears and is given shelter at Edith's mission. After his arrival, he accosts a man on the street and then falls down unconscious. The man then accidentally vaporizes himself using McCoy's phaser. McCoy recovers from his cordazine trip, and tells Edith he is chief medial officer on the U.S.S. Enterprise. At first he does not believe he is in 1930 America, but soon realizes that indeed he is.

After hours of careful work using primitive vacuum tube circuits, Spock discovers that McCoy, if not stopped, will prevent Keeler's death. Keeler will then found a peace movement which will delay U.S. entry into World War II and allow Germany time to develop the atom bomb and conquer the world.

On his way to see a Clark Gable movie with Edith, Kirk learns from Edith that Dr. McCoy is in town and then immediately sees Bones across the street. Despite his love for Edith Keeler, Kirk holds Bones back to prevent him from saving Keeler as she crosses the street in front of a truck.

The future is returned to what it was, and Kirk, Spock, and McCoy return to the planet of the Guardian where their landing party has been waiting, but for only a few seconds of real time. Communications with the Enterprise are restored, and when the Guardian asks if anyone else desires to make a journey in time, Kirk responds ``Let's get the hell out of here.''

The Cloud Minders

When a botanical plague threatens to destroy all vegetation on the planet Merak II, the Enterprise makes a visit to Ardana, the only known source of the xenite mineral needed to halt the plague. Despite High Advisor Plasus's request that they beam to the cloud city Stratos, Kirk and Spock beam directly down to the xenite mine entrance, where they are lassooed by the xenite miners. Kirk and Spock fend the miners off, and those who are not quick enough at running away are killed by security guards who beam down with high advisor Plasus from Stratos.

Kirk and Spock are entertained as guests on Stratos until the xenite can be found. During their stay, they discover that Ardana is a divided planet, with the Trogglytes toiling in the cold and dirt of the mines and the city-dwellers enjoying the benefits. Although Kirk and Spock do not witness the event, a Trogglyte who is captured after defacing artwork in Stratos refuses to reveal the names of the rebel disrupters, preferring instead to fall to his death by jumping out of a window.

Plasus' daughter Droxine is fascinated with Spock (she likes his ``exquisitely shaped ears''), but the city servant and secret Trogglyte leader Vanna has an interest of a different kind for Kirk: she attempts to take him hostage at mining-implement-point. Kirk recognizes her from the planet's surface and tries to question her. She does not fully cooperate, but does tell Kirk that the Trogglytes believe the Enterprise has been sent to intimidate them. He calls Spock and Droxine, who in turn summons a sentinel to escort Vanna away. Vanna's screams as she is being tortured with rays in an attempt to learn the names of other disrupters draw Kirk and Spock. Kirk is outraged by the torture, and his forceful protests prompt Plasus to order their immediate departure from the city.

Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk learns from McCoy that unprocessed xenite emits an odorless, invisible gas which temporarily diminishes mental ability and heightens emotions. Spock then realizes that the leaders of the disrupters have all been isolated from xenite emissions by their service aboard Stratos. Kirk proposes that the Trogglytes be supplied with xenite masks, but Plasus is not interested. Kirk then violates Plasus's ban from Stratos by secretly beaming down to Vanna's cell on Stratos, armed with a mask, and offering his assistance in achieving equality for her people if she will produce the xenite. Vanna seems to agree, but takes Kirk hostage (despite Midro and Anka's desire to kill him) after she and Kirk overpower the guard and escape to the mines on the planet's surface. Vanna then forces Kirk to experience life as a Trogglyte and dig with his hands.

Kirk regains his phaser from Vanna after she has sent Midro and Anka on errands. He uses it to seal the cavern and orders the Enterprise to beam Plasus down as well for a small demonstration on the effects of an invisible gas. The demonstration proves quite effective when Kirk becomes enraged and commands Plasus and Vanna to dig xenite. When Vanna and Plasus grow faint due to the diminishing oxygen in the sealed chamber, Kirk strikes him and the two begin hand-to-hand combat with morte mining implements. The three are saved from suffocation only when Vanna gets Kirk's communicator during the combat and tells the Enterprise to beam them up.

Once the effect of the gas has worn off, Kirk agrees to provide Vanna with masks and help the Trogglytes obtain equality in exchange for the xenite, despite the protests of Plasus. Kirk and Plasus drop charges against each other, and Kirk and Spock return to the Enterprise with xenite in hand.

The Conscience of the King Construction

A friend of Captain Kirk, Thomas Layton diverts the Enterprise to the Signia Minor Earth Colony, 300 light-years off its course, with a phony message. Layton tells Kirk his suspicions that the actor Anton Karidian is actually Kodos the Executioner, but doesn't live to expand on this allegation since he is murdered shortly thereafter.

Kirk consults the computer banks and discovers that Karidian's history begins exactly where Kodos's ends. Of the nine witnesses of Kodos' murder of 4000 colonists on Tarsus IV 20 years previously, Kirk finds that Layton, Kevin Riley, and himself were the only survivors (E. Molsen, D. Eems, and the other four are all dead). Kirk finds further that the deaths of all these witnesses occurred when the Karidian players were nearby.

Hoping to conclusively establish the identity of Karidian, Kirk requests his friend Captain Daily not to pick up the acting company. At the request of Karidian's 19-year-old daughter Lenore, Kirk then uses the Enterprise to take them to the Benecia colony (8 light-years out of the way). While the players are aboard, Riley's milk is poisoned and a phaser on overload is hidden in Kirk's room. Kirk confronts Karidian, but is not conclusively convinced of his guilt.

After Riley escapes from sickbay and tries to kill Karidian, Kirk overhears the psychopathic Lenore telling her father that it was she who has been killing the eyewitnesses to his deeds of the past. Kirk tries to take Lenore into custody, but she grabs a phaser from a security guard. She tries to shoot Kirk, but her father takes the fatal phaser blast intended for Kirk, and Lenore goes insane.

The Corbomite Maneuver

On the third day of star-mapping (with Lt. Bailey as navigator in place of Ensign Chekov), the Enterprise discovers a giant multi-colored spinning cube. McCoy, who is giving Kirk his quarterly medical examination, fails to inform Kirk about the crisis, quipping (to himself) ``If I jumped every time a light went off around here, I'd end up talking to myself.'' As a result of the exam, Kirk's diet is restricted to salad, much to his chagrin. The cube, which holds a distance of 1593 m, is 107 m on an edge, and > 11,000 metric tons in weight, has an unknown propulsion system which prompts Scotty to admit that it ``beats me what makes it go.'' As the Enterprise tries to maneuver away from the cube, the cube begins emitting deadly radiation and Kirk is forced to destroy it.

Responding to the destruction of what turns out to have been a warning buoy, a mile-diameter spherical flagship known as the Thesarius rushes to the scene. It is piloted by Balok and belongs to the First Federation. Balok threatens to destroy the Enterprise for violating First Federation space and destroying the warning buoy. Balok gives the crew of the Enterprise 10 minutes to consult with their deity before they are destroyed. Prompted by uncharacteristic curiosity, Spock is able to obtain a visual image of the imposing Balok using the ship's monitor during this waiting period.

Kirk saves the day by pretending that the Enterprise is equipped with a secret ``corbomite device'' capable of destroying any vessel which attacks it. Balok then offers to spare the crew of the Enterprise by towing it to a First Federation planet, interning the crew there, and only then destroying the Enterprise. However, Kirk waits for the tow ship to expend its power, then pulls away, crippling the power systems of the tow ship.

Kirk, McCoy, and Dave Bailey transport to the main ship Thesarius to render assistance. Here, they meet Balok, the pilot of the ship, who greets them and offers them ``tranya'' to drink. Kirk and company find that the image of Balok they had glimpsed was a phony puppet and that Balok is actually an unintimidating midget. It turns out that Balok did not trust the information he gleaned from his scan of the Enterprise's data banks and was simply testing the Earth men to see what their true intentions were. Bailey, who had panicked during the crisis on the bridge of the Enterprise, remains on the Thesarius to exchange cultures with Balok after a tour of the Thesarius by Balok.

Court Martial

After sustaining severe damage in an ion storm, the Enterprise is forced to seek repairs at Starbase 11. Here, Commodore Stone investigates the loss of records officer Ben Finney, who was killed when the ion pod in which he was taking readings had to be jettisoned in order to save the Enterprise. Stone finds that despite Kirk's insistence to the contrary, the computer record shows that Kirk ejected the pod during yellow alert, before red alert had been signaled. Kirk is further incriminated when it is learned that although they were once close friends, Finney had deeply hated Kirk and held him responsible for Finney's lack of promotion. This stemmed from an incident aboard the Republic (NCC 1371), when Kirk had replaced Finney on watch and discovered a circuit open to the atomic matter piles that should have been closed. Finney was sent to the bottom of the promotion list, and began to blame Kirk for ``keeping him down.'' Kirk stands by his testimony, and draws a court martial for perjury and culpable negligence. His former flame Ariel Shaw is the prosecuting attorney, and Kirk seeks the services of attorney Samuel T. Cogley.

Testimony from McCoy, Spock (S 179-276 SP), and himself (SC 937-0176 CEC) proves unenlightening, and Spock is forced to admit that there is nothing mechanically wrong with the computer (confirmed by a later megalite survey). Just as sentence is about to be pronounced by Stone, Space Command Representative Linstrom, and starship captains Chandra and Crisnowski, Spock discovers something amiss in the program bank of the Enterprise after he is able to beat the computer 5 times, despite the fact that its program should not be capable of losing. Spock rushes down to the Starbase, and the entire court reconvenes aboard the Enterprise to determine what is going on. Using a auditory sensor (intensified by a factor of ``1 to the fourth power,'' that's a whopping total of 1 to the uninitiated), the computer detects one more heartbeat aboard than can be accounted for. Kirk soon locates the hiding Finney who has managed to tap out the primary energy circuits. Finney tells Kirk how to return power and prevent the Enterprise from burning up in the planet's atmosphere only when Kirk tells him that his daughter Jamie is aboard. Kirk's record is cleared, and Samuel Cogley takes on a new case: defending Finney.

Dagger of the Mind

As the Enterprise makes a routine visit to the Tantalus penal colony, transporter technician Mr. Berkeley tries to beam supplies down, only to discover that he is prevented from doing some by a security force shield. After the colony drops the shield, it beams a box of research material aboard the Enterprise. However, the box actually contains Simon van Gelder, former assistant to penal colony director Doctor Tristan Adams. van Gelder karate chops the transporter technician, then makes his way to the bridge of the Enterprise with a phaser has has taken from a security guard. He demands asylum, but Kirk and Spock overpower him. Bones suspects something amiss, and wishes to keep van Gelder on board for examination. Kirk and Dr. Helen Noel, an acquaintance from a Christmas party of years past, beam down to investigate.

After Kirk and Helen beam down, van Gelder tells Spock about Adams' use of a neuroneutralizer to empty the minds of his inmates. He warns that Kirk is in danger, and consents to have Spock mind meld with him to discover the truth. Kirk and Helen observe the neutralizer being applied to a patient by Adams' assistant Eli, and becomes suspicious. When Kirk and Helen secretly examine the neuroneutralizer by having Helen use it on Kirk at minimum intensity, Helen suggests that they renew their Christmas party encounter. Adams wrenches controls from her, turns the neutralizer to high intensity, and forces Kirk to drop his phaser and communicator. The two are then taken prisoner.

Helen escapes through a ventilation duct (her escape is reported by Lethay, a ``cured patient''), and Kirk is saved from having his mind seriously harmed during a second neuroneutralizer session when Helen turns off all power to the colony, including the energy shield. Helen is waylaid in the shield room, but pushes her attacker int a high voltage transformer. Kirk then knocks out Adams and his assistant, and goes in search of Helen. Spock, noticing that the shield is off, beams down and restores power to the colony. Adams, still unconscious in the treatment room, is subjected to the neuroneutralizer and is killed of loneliness when the machine empties his mind, despite having only been left at low intensity. Van Gelder is left behind to destroy the treatment room and reconstitute the colony.

Day of the Dove

Called to Earth colony Beta 12A by a distress signal which claims that the colony is under attack by a ship, Kirk and his landing party (Bones, Chekov, and security guard Johnson) find no traces of the 100 men, women, and children who inhabited the colony. Kirk's suspicions of Klingon involvement seem confirmed when the Enterprise detects the approach of a Klingon battlecruiser. Strangely, however, the cruiser is disabled and heavily damaged.

Klingon Commander Kang and his landing party then beam down and subdue the Enterprise's landing party, accusing the Enterprise of attacking and killing 400 Klingons aboard his ship. He demands that Kirk beam the Klingon landing party up to the Enterprise. Meanwhile, Kirk accuses Kang of destroying the colonists of 12A. Chekov attempts to attack the Klingons, accusing them of attacking and killing the members of a Federation outpost on which his brother Pyoter was stationed--despite the fact that he has no brother.

Kirk pretends to comply with Kang's order after Chekov is tortured, but actually warns Spock by pressing a special button on his communicator. Scott then holds the Klingons in transit until security guards can cover the transporter room. Kang and his landing party are then beamed aboard and taken prisoner along with the rest of the Klingon crew (including Kang's wife Mara) who have been beamed to the Enterprise from their stricken ship. Soon thereafter, the Enterprise spontaneously accelerates to Warp 9 and traps all but 38 crew members below deck.

When Kirk confronts Kang and accuses him of being responsible for the trapping of the Enterprise's crew, phasers and room ornaments turn into swords. Thus armed, the Klingons escape and take control of engineering. Their attempt to cut off life support to the bridge is foiled, however, when normal functioning returns for no apparent reason.

Meanwhile, Spock has ascertained that there is an unfamiliar alien life force aboard. After watching the crew of the Enterprise and the Klingons turn at each other throats, seeing Chekov seeking revenge for the death of his non-existent brother Pyoter at the hands of the Klingons (as well as attempting to rape Kang's wife), and observing that fatal wounds (Johnson's heart wound, for instance) are mysterious healing, Kirk realizes that the alien (a rotating, multicolored energy field) is influencing matter and human and Klingon behavior, somehow deriving sustenance from violent emotions they experience.

Kirk and Mara use intra-ship beaming to pass through the Klingon defenses. With the help of Mara, and after fighting Kang in a sword battle which ultimately involves all Klingons and Enterprise crew members, Kirk eventually convinces Kang to cease hostilities and participate in temporary gestures of goodwill. These drive the creature away, returning control to Kirk.

The Deadly Years

When Chekov, Spock, Lt. Gallway, McCoy, Kirk, Scotty beam down to resupply the experimental colony on Gamma Hydra 4, they initially find no one home. Kirk is puzzled since he had just talked to the leader of the expedition an hour earlier. Stranger still, Chekov finds a dead man (Alvin) in one of the colony's buildings who appears to have died of old age. However, Spock maintains that this cannot be true because the expedition was composed of only young people. The leader, Robert Johnson (age 29) then appears, along with his wife Elaine (age 27). Both appear to be extremely old.

Kirk beams the landing party up together with those of the colonists who are still alive. Aboard the Enterprise, the colonists die of old age. Kirk puts Spock, Commodore Stocker (who is on his way to Starbase 10), and his former flame (of 6 years, 4 months, and some odd days) Dr. Janet Wallace on the investigation team. The only unusual event which Spock can determine is that an unusual comet passed by the planet shortly before.

Kirk then begins to lose his memory and displays advanced arthritis. Scott, McCoy, Lt. Gallway, and Spock also show signs of aging (at a rate of 30 years per day), but Chekov curiously does not. Spock then finds the source of the affliction. Apparently, the comet whose tail Gamma Hydra 4 passed through (and is now in quadrant 448) is emitting low energy radiation. Commodore Stocker becomes increasingly concerned about Kirk's condition, and forces Spock to hold a competency hearing. Meanwhile, Lt. Gallway dies of old age and Chekov continues to remain unaffected.

Kirk is found incompetent, and Commodore Stocker takes over. He orders the Enterprise to head directly for Starbase 10, through the neutral zone. Meanwhile, McCoy and Kirk realize that the one difference between their experience on the planet and Chekov's was that Chekov was scared to death upon encountering the dead body. McCoy recalls that early investigations showed adrenaline to be a potentially useful drug from combating radiation, although it was subsequently abandoned when hyronaline was discovered. Spock develops an injection containing adrenaline, which he first tries on Kirk. Fortunately, the shot is effective, and Kirk is able to assume control of the Enterprise, which is now under attack by the Romulans thanks to Stocker's incompetence in violating the Neutral Zone.

In a clever subterfuge, Kirk transmits a message using Code 2, which has been broken by the Romulans. He claims that the Enterprise has inadvertently strayed into the Neutral Zone. Kirk also claims he will destruct the Enterprise using a corbomite device which will destroy everything within a 200,000 km diameter, and that the explosion area will have to avoided for 4 years. The Romulans give a little ground lest they be destroyed in the upcoming explosion, and Kirk immediately races out of the Neutral Zone and into Federation space at Warp 8.

The Devil in the Dark

The Enterprise is sent to investigate a string of sabotages and murders on pergeum mining planet Janus 6 (which also possesses an abundance of uranium, cerium, and platinum). Starting 30 monthly previously when the new level 23 was opened, 50 people have been killed in the mines, including the guard Schmitter. All of the murdered mine workers were burned to a crisp. The only solid lead as to the culprit is a large fuzzy object seen briefly by Chief Processing Engineer Ed Appel. Although Appel shot the object with a phaser it had no effect.

Spock, McCoy, and Kirk beam down to confer with Chief Engineer Vanderberg. Spock notices a spherical silicon nodule, which he describes as a geological odditity, on display in the Engineer's office. Spock also notes that the creature must have been moving at great speed in order to be capable of causing some of the deaths due to their large spatial separation but close temporal coincidence.

The next move of the create is to kill the guard of the PXK pergeum reactor room and remove the main circulating pump of the reactor, placing it in danger of going supercritical. Scotty is able to rig up a replacement, but only expects it to last 48 hours. Spock and Kirk speculate that the creature may be based on silicon instead of carbon, and suggest that if that were the case, then phaser 2 would be much more effective than the phaser 1 used by the miners. They equip a landing party with phaser 2 and go in search of the creature. The creature finds one of the search party, and promptly fries him. Spock examines a nearby tunnel and discovers it to have been newly cut. The creature then shows itself and is fired upon. It escapes, but the blast chips off a chunk of fibrous silicon material which is apparently its skin.

The rock-like creature is then located by Spock's tricorder tunnelling through solid rock. Spock finds that there is only one creature, and has second thoughts about killing it, but Kirk is firm in his determination to destroy the creature. Kirk wants Spock to remain behind rather than join in the search lest they both be killed, but when Spock points out that the odds of both of them dying are 2228.7:1, Kirk is forced to relent.

Kirk is trapped in the creature's lair, containing many nodules, after the roof collapses. Kirk tells Spock that the creature is 10 feet way from him, and Spock rushes to the scene. Spock mind melds with the creature, but does not physically touch it because of the corrosive acid it emits. Spock discovers that the creature is in pain, and the creature uses the the knowledge it has gained from the melding experience to tell Kirk and Spock that it is peaceful by corroding the words ``No kill I'' in stone. Spock then actually touches the creature, which he has learned calls itself a Horta. Spock discovers that the mining activity has accidentally killed off many of the Horta eggs (the silicon nodules). McCoy treats the Horta's phaser injury using cement, but complains ``I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer.'' Spock finds where the stolen pump is, and Kirk goes to retrieve it.

Meanwhile, the miners overpower the security detail from the Enterprise and storm in to kill the Horta. However, they relent when Spock informs them that all the Hortas but this one have died off as a normal part of a 30,000 year reproductive cycle. Spock further explains that the Horta must now protect the eggs which are being accidentally destroyed by the miner, so that its kind can flourish again. In fact, the miners become big Horta fans when Kirk suggests that they can take advantage of the Horta's tunnelling abilities to get to profitable deposits.

As the Enterprise prepares to leave, Vanderberg informs Kirk than he and his men are getting along well with the hatching Hortas, although adjusting to their appearance is a little difficult. Spock mentions to Kirk that the Horta found human appearance repulsive. However, Spock reports that the Horta apparently liked his pointed ears, and so he did not have the heart to tell it that the ears were not a universal human characteristic.

The Doomsday Machine

The Enterprise responds to a distress call and finds that all seven planets in system L370 have been destroyed. They then enter L374 and discover all but the two inner planets have also been destroyed. They detect a distress beacon from the Starship U.S.S. Constellation, then find the battered remains of the ship itself. Scans show the bridge to be uninhabitable, but the rest of the ship to have reserve power and to be inhabitable. Subspace interference prevents good communication, and Kirk is unable to contact Commodore Matt Decker, Captain of the Constellation. Kirk therefore sends a boarding party to the Constellation to investigate. They find no sign of the crew, and Scotty determines the warp drive to be inoperable and the phasers to be exhausted. Kirk then locates Decker in the auxiliary control room, but Decker is in a state of shock and not very coherent. Even after an injection by McCoy, Decker is able to say that his ship was attacked by ``that thing.''

Kirk and Scott play back the Constellation's record tape in which Decker reports discovering destroyed solar systems, and entering L374 to investigate the breakup of the fourth planet by Science Officer Masada. Decker reports that his ship was attacked and damaged, so he beamed his crew down to the third planet. The attacker then returned, further damaged the Constellation (including the transporter), and then proceeded to destroy the third planet while Decker remained helpless on the Constellation. Washburn reports that the antimatter in the warp drive has been deactivated, and Kirk surmises that this is connected with subspace interference. Decker informs them that the attacker was a miles-long robot which uses a pure anti-proton beam to destroy objects in its path, then digests them as fuel. Sulu computes that the path of the robot has brought it from outside the Galaxy.

Kirk beams Decker and McCoy back to the Enterprise. They arrive just as the conical ``doomsday machine/planet killer'' (with a sparking interior) makes a reappearance and pursues the Enterprise. It attacks them and damages the Enterprise's transporter, then heads for the densely inhabited Rigel 7 system. Commodore Decker pulls his rank and assumes command of the Enterprise (using Order 104, Section B, Paragraph 1a) over Spock's objections. Decker orders an attack on the doomsday machine despite Spock's protest that its shell is made of neutronium and is therefore impermeable to attack from a single ship. The Enterprise is attacked by the doomsday machine, but manages to survive, and Decker then attacks the doomsday machine with phasers, which have no effect. The doomsday machine then attacks again, destroying the Enterprise's shields and then begins pulling it into its interior with a tractor beam. From the Constellation, Kirk sees what is going on, and begins heading towards the doomsday machine using impulse power. He distracts it by firing phasers, freeing the Enterprise, and is then in turn saved when the Enterprise fires again.

After the Enterprise restores ship-to-ship communications, Kirk angrily orders Spock to re-assume command on his personal authority, which he does. After Spock assumes command, Mr. Montgomery accompanies Decker for an examination in sickbay. On the way, Decker overpowers Montgomery, then steals a shuttlecraft. Decker pilots the shuttle into the planet killer's maw, killing himself, but producing a small power drop in the doomsday machine. Kirk reasons that the explosion of a starship might be capable of destroying the alien vessel. Scott rigs the Constellation to explode, then transports to the Enterprise, leaving Kirk behind. The transporter then malfunctions, and Scott is able to fix it only just in time to beam Kirk aboard before the Constellation is swallowed. At the last second, Kirk is beamed aboard the Enterprise. The Constellation then explodes, producing an explosion of 97.835 megatons, which turns the planet killer into a harmless pile of space junk.

Elaan of Troyius

The Enterprise is on a top secret mission to the Tellun star system. It takes aboard Petri, ambassador from Troyius (the outer planet), then continues on the the inner planet Elaas. Here it beams aboard three Elaasian guards who check that all is secure, then the haughty Dohlman of Elaas. Kirk is surprised by her bearing (she demands that Kirk and everyone else, whom she calls inferior, ask her permission to enter and leave her presence). Petri explains that Elaan is to be taken to Troyius for a marriage with the ruler of Troyius in order to stop a bloody war. The Elaasian Council of Nobles and Troyius Tribunal have agreed that Petri shall teach Elaan the customs of Troyius (i.e., the rudiments of civilized behavior), but Elaan has other ideas. She also complains and hurls things about the room when she is unsatisfied with her quarters (which are Uhura's personal quarters which she has vacated for Elaan).

At Petri's request, Kirk proceeds on to the return trip on impulse engines only so as to allow plenty of time for Elaan's ``education.'' Not surprisingly, the lessons do not go well, and Elaan stabs Petri in the back with a knife (fortunately not fatally). To make matters worse, the Federation commissioner sends a coded signal to the Enterprise that he plans to attend the wedding personally.

Meanwhile, Spock detects a ``ghost'' paralleling the Enterprise's course. After fading in and out of sensor range, it finally ventures closer and reveals itself to be a Klingon warship. The reason for the presence of the Klingon warship turns out to be that the Elaasian guard Kriton, is in love with Elaan and has thrown in with the Klingons in a fierce jealousy over having to give up Elaan to the Troyian leader. Kriton booby-traps the warp engines, killing an engineer who discovers and tries to question him.

Kirk tries to take over the tutoring, but doesn't get much further than Petri and has a knife thrown at him. Despite Elaan's orders to the contrary, Kirk enters her chamber (after Spock stuns the two guards) and attempts to administer another lesson. At first, Elaan tries again to kill him. She then locks herself in a closet and tells Kirk that she will wait there 10 ``light-years'' if she has to, but then has a change of heart. She cries and tells Kirk she wants to make people like her. Kirk unwisely touches her tears (which contain a biochemical substance which causes men to fall in love with their shedder), and is snared.

Kriton transmits a signal to the Klingon ship using a Klingon communicator, but is then caught. Before Spock can use the Vulcan mind meld on him, he uses a concealed phaser to commit suicide. The Klingon ship then heads for the Enterprise at warp speed. Luckily, just before Kirk gives orders to maneuver, Scott discovers that the matter-antimatter pods are rigged to explode as soon as the Enterprise goes to warp speed. The Klingon ship streaks by the Enterprise without firing, presumably waiting for it to go to light speed and blow itself up. Unfortunately, Scott finds that the dilithium crystals have been completely fused, and that power for the warp drive and phasers is therefor not available. The Klingons demand that the Enterprise prepare to be boarded or destroyed. When Kirk does not comply, the Klingon attacks.

Spock has been wondering why the Klingons are interested in Elaan in the first place, but discovers the reason when Elaan comes to the bridge and bridge sensors show that the ``common stones'' in the Dohlman's necklace are made of dilithium crystals. Scotty is able to effect repairs to the engines using the crystals, and Kirk blows up the Klingon using photon torpedoes on its next pass. Kirk is able to resist the effects of the tears (to McCoy's's annoyance, since he has actually managed to find an antidote), and the Dohlman is transported safely to Troyius.

The Empath

When the Enterprise stops by to pick up scientific staff Linke and Ozaba from the planet Menarian 2 (which is in orbit around a star which is about to supernova), Kirk, Bones, and Spock discover the station has been abandoned for three months. Meanwhile, Scott reports a massive solar flare measuring 3.51 on the ``Ritter'' scale. Kirk informs Scott to move the Enterprise to a safe distance until the flare passes, putting it out of communication range for 74.1 solar hours.

The landing party reviews the record tapes to see what has become of the scientific staff. It the tape, a high pitched whine begins, and Linke and Ozaba are whisked away one at a time while attempting to cover their ears. After reviewing the tape, Kirk and company are subjected to the same high-pitched whine, and are transported underground to the chambers of the Vions, 121.32 m below the surface.

Here, they discover a timid, mute, woman. McCoy starts to approach, but Kirk holds him back. When McCoy protests that she seems harmless enough, Spock reminds him that ``The sand bats of Maynard 4 appear to be inanimate rock crystals, doctor, before they attack.'' Kirk wonders how he will communicate with the woman unless she is a telepath. However, Spock notes that this is unlikely, since 98% of known telepathic species send as well as receive thoughts. McCoy dubs the woman Gem.

While Kirk is trying to question Gem, two Vions appear. When Kirk tries to secure freedom for the landing party, the Vions trap McCoy, Spock, and Kirk in a force field which draws energy from their bodies. The Vions then vanish, releasing the landing party. Gem then touches Kirk's forehead, transfers the wound there to her own head, and heals it, revealing herself to be an empath.

Spock reports that his tricorder now reveals a collection of machinery which did not appear to be there before. When they go to investigate, they discover Linke and Ozaba encased in plastic cylinders. In addition, there are three empty cylinders, labelled ``Subject McCoy,'' ``Subject Kirk,'' and ``Subject Spock.'' One of the Vions then reappears, but Kirk distracts him while Spock nerve pinches him. However, the Vion is only pretending to have fainted, and the landing party does exactly what the Vions intended when they head up to the planet surface.

On the surface, the Vions create an illusion that Scotty is on the surface with a search party. This distracts McCoy and Spock while the Vions study Kirk and offer to let the others go if Kirk offers himself as a ``specimen.'' The Vions torture Kirk without apparent reason. They then let him go, but Kirk finds that McCoy and Spock are still subterranean prisoners. Gem cures Kirk's injuries (including a case of the bends), but then faints from the strain.

Although Kirk does not yet realize it, it turns out that the Vions are testing the empath Gem to see if she will sacrifice herself by saving members of the Enterprise's crew. The Vions have the ability to save the inhabitants of only one out of several planets doomed to destruction, and wish to see if Gem's planet is worth saving. The Vions require another test, and give Kirk the choice of selecting McCoy (who will likely be killed) or Spock (who will likely suffer permanent brain damage). While Bones is bemoaning being trapped underground, he reports ``I'm a doctor, not a coal miner.'' Bones tranquilizes Kirk to give him rest (and to prevent him from picking Spock), but Spock points out that he is now in command and will select himself. McCoy then sneaks up on Spock and tranquilizes him as well, leaving only himself when the Vions come for a volunteer.

When Spock awakens, he adjusts a control device he has obtained from one of the Vions to operate using his own brainwaves, and transports Kirk, himself, and Gem to the torture chamber. They find McCoy is tied up and nearly dead, with almost no pulse, internal injuries, bleeding in the chest and abdomen, hemorrhage in the spleen and liver, and 70% kidney failure. Gem attempts to save McCoy, but stops before she kills herself in the process. She tries again, but McCoy pushes her away.

The Vions appear and watch the spectacle, locking Spock and Kirk inside force fields. Spock meanwhile manages to release himself from the force field by suppressing all emotion. He takes one of the control devices away fro the Vions, but is unable to use it to cure McCoy. Kirk secures freedom and a promise to save Gem's planet when he convinces the Vions that Gem has already earned her planet's survival. He also accuses the Vions of being hypocritical by causing pain by lacking the very emotions they are trying to evince from Gem. They agree, heal McCoy, and depart with Gem.

The Enemy Within

While gathering specimens on planet Alpha 177 (whose night temperature reaches -120 degrees), geological technician Fisher falls off a cliff and injures his hand. He also becomes covered in a magnetic yellow ore. He is beamed aboard the Enterprise, where the transporter behaves strangely. However, it appears to work correctly when Kirk beams aboard shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, the ore has actually caused the transporter to malfunction, and Kirk is split into two alter-egos, the evil one (hostility, lust, violence) of which arrives unnoticed a few minutes after the good Kirk (compassion, love, tenderness) after the crew has left the transporter room.

The evil Kirk makes his way to sickbay, where he demands brandy from McCoy. Meanwhile, the transporter mishap results in the production on an ``evil'' horned poodle out of a shy, quiet animal specimen beamed up from the planet surface. Scotty realizes the consequences, and is forced to strand the remaining 4-man landing party (including Sulu) on the planet. In the meantime, the evil Kirk enters Yeoman Janice Rand's quarters and lies in wait for her. She scratches him when he attacks her, and manages to warn Fisher to call Spock. Unfortunately, the evil Kirk incapacitates Fisher before he can get the word out. Simultaneously, the good Kirk shows starts showing signs of losing both his decisiveness and his ability to command.

Showing great ingenuity, the evil Kirk applies powder to his face to hide Rand's scratch, tricks transporter technician Wilson into giving him his phaser, then knocks Wilson out. The evil Kirk then hides in the lower decks, but Kirk and Spock anticipate this move and hunt him down. Spock identifies the evil Kirk and gives him a nerve pinch, but it is not at all obvious what to do with him when he comes to. The eminent Scotty finds that the transporter ionizer is destroyed and will take a week to repair. However, this seems too long to wait, as the evil Kirk is exhibiting decreased constitution and appears to be in danger of dying.

Spock and Scotty rig the transporter to run off the impulse engines, and successfully recombine the dog-creature. Unfortunately, the strain of recombination proves fatal to the pooch. When the good Kirk tries bring the evil Kirk to the transporter, he is overpowered. The evil Kirk goes to the bridge and orders the Enterprise to leave orbit, but the good Kirk follows him there. Kirk is eventually returned to normal when the transporter is modified and used to fuse the two parts of himself back together. The landing party is also beamed back up suffering from frostbite, but nothing worse.

The Enterprise Incident

Apparently suffering from the stress of command, Kirk begins becoming irritable and irrational. He even orders the Enterprise across the Neutral Zone into Romulan space. Despite sensor scans which show nothing within a parsec, the Enterprise is immediately surrounded by three Romulan ships. Kirk promptly sends a coded sub-space message to Starfleet Command apprising them of the situation. Sub-commander Tau of the Romulan fleet demands immediate surrender of the Enterprise, then allows it an hour of time to decide.

Meanwhile, the Romulans allow Kirk and Spock to beam aboard for an interrogation by the Romulan commander. Two Romulans are simultaneously beamed aboard the Enterprise as hostages. Kirk claims that navigational errors led the Enterprise to stray into Romulan space, but Spock refuses to corroborate his story. Spock then says that the strain of command has led Kirk to act irrationally, and reports that Kirk ordered the Enterprise across the Neutral Zone on his own initiative and is not sane.

Spock continues to act a traitor in testifying against Kirk, and the Romulan commander convicts Kirk of espionage and courts Spock to join the Romulans as a commander of the Enterprise under Romulan command. The Romulan commander takes a special interest in Spock, and Spock uses the opportunity to seduce her. Kirk is injured while trying to escape detention, and McCoy is allowed to beam aboard to treat him. McCoy corroborates Spock's testimony that Kirk is not fit for command, and also that he has been under extreme stress. Spock then agrees to take command of the Enterprise and lead it to a Romulan base. Upon saying this, he is immediately attacked by Kirk and defends himself using the ``Vulcan Death Grip.'' The dead Kirk is then returned to the Enterprise with McCoy.

Amazingly, it turns out that Kirk and Spock have been operating under Federation orders to steal the newly developed Romulan cloaking device, and that Spock has only given Kirk a nerve pinch in order to simulate death. Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk is disguised as a Romulan Centurion with the aid of plastic surgery to his ears and beamed back to the Romulan ship. He reports to Spock by communicator that the cloaking device is located near the commander's quarters. The communication is detected, but Spock is able to distract the Romulan commander (who has changed into an evening gown at Spock's request) long enough to enable Kirk to steal the cloaking device (which looks like a white sphere with a protuberance at the top).

The Romulan commander is outraged by Spock's treachery, and further nonplussed when he asks her straightforwardly what the present Romulan method of execution is. Spock gains another delay by demanding the Romulan right of statement. Before Spock can finish, Scott locates him and beams him back on board the Enterprise. However, the Romulan commander is able to grab hold of him and be transported together. Kirk attempts to use the Romulan commander as a hostage, but this scheme backfires when she orders Tau to destroy the Enterprise immediately. Luckily, Scott is able to connect the cloaking device to the shields as the Enterprise speeds away at Warp 9. Thus cloaked, the Enterprise disappears from the Romulan sensors and escapes back to Federation territory. While accompanying the Romulan commander to the brig, Spock reveals to her in confidence that he was not entirely unaffected by her charms.

Errand of Mercy

After negotiations with the Klingons break down, the Enterprise is sent to block Klingon expansionism on the Class M planet Organia, described by Spock as class D- on the ``Richter scale of culture.'' After being attacked, the Enterprise destroys a Klingon vessel. Shortly thereafter, Uhura reports that a state of war has been declared between the Federation and the Klingons. The Enterprise then enters orbit around Organia, despite the warning from Unit XY75847 that a fleet of Klingon ships is in their sector.

Spock and Kirk beam down to the planet Organia to warn the populace of an impending Klingon invasion. Strangely, the Organians do not appear the least concerned about strangers beaming down in their midst, and do not appear the least worried by the prospect of Klingon occupation. Ayelborne, Chairman of the Council of Elders, greets them and invites Kirk to speak to the council. Kirk offer protection from the Klingons, but Ayelborne says his people have no need of defenses and are in no danger. This laissez-faire attitude seems consistent with a report from Spock that the society of Organia has been completely stagnant for tens of thousands of years.

In the meantime, the Klingon fleet arrives and Sulu is forced to warp the Enterprise out of the vicinity, stranding Kirk and Spock. A party of heavily armed Klingons then beams down, according to one of the elders, despite the fact that Spock's tricorder has no way of ascertaining this. The Organians disguise Kirk and Spock as natives in an attempt to protect them from harm at the Klingons' hands.

Ayelborne bids welcome to the Klingon Kor, who declares himself military governor of Organia, and claims that Kirk is Barona, one of Organia's leading citizens. Spock is harder to explain, but claims he is a dealer in kevis and trillium. Kor finds Kirk's lack of complacency and obvious hatred of the Klingons refreshing on a planet otherwise filled with passive Organians, and declares him liaison between the Klingons and the people of Organia. Despite force 4 scanning of Kirk's mind by a Klingon mind-probe device, Spock is able to maintain his merchant pretext and is allowed to go free.

Kirk and Spock attempt to interfere with the Klingon occupation and incite the natives to defend themselves by blowing up a Klingon munitions dump. When Kirk admits what he has done to Ayelborne, he is admonished. Unfortunately, Kor has bugged the Council chambers and prepares to mind-probe Kirk and then execute him. However, Ayelborne declares that this is unnecessary, since Barona's true identity is actually James T. Kirk of the Starship Enterprise.

Kor then threatens to fry Kirk's mind and dissect Spock to find how he is capable of foiling the mind scanner unless Kirk tells him all he wants to know. He is given 12 hours, and thrown into a cell with Spock in the meantime. However, Ayelborne lets them out, despite the fact that the Klingons are vigorously guarding the cell and observe nothing. As revenge, the Klingons initiate mass executions of 200 Organians, and threaten to kill 200 more every 2 hours unless the escaped prisoners are returned. However, the Organians continue to insist on non-violence. Kirk then threatens physical injury to Ayelborne unless he returns their phasers, which he wants to use in a two-man suicide attack against the Klingons. Ayelborne is shocked by Kirk's behavior, but agrees to let him have the phasers.

Spock reports that the odds of them returning alive from their mission are 7824.7:1. They begin by killing two Klingon guards, then waylay and pump another Klingon for information. Spock reports that their odds of surviving have now improved to 7000:1. Kirk and Spock manage to take Kor prisoner just as the Federation and Klingon fleets are massing for attack in the Organian system.

At this point, the Organian council brings all weapons and instruments of violence to a temperature of 350 degrees, including those on the Enterprise. Ayelborne then immobilize all fighting forces of both sides, producing an immediate cessation of hostilities which the Federation and Klingons subsequently maintain. Ayelborne also reports that in the future, Klingons and Earthlings will be allies, a prediction that is not bourn out until the Star Trek IV movie and Star Trek, The Next Generation television series. It turns out that the Organians are actually advanced beings capable of creating illusions, and so were never actually inconvenienced by the Klingons to start with. Spock notes that the Organians are as far above humans on the evolutionary scale as humans are above the amoeba.

For The World Is Hollow, And I Have Touched The Sky

McCoy calls Kirk to sickbay and informs him that the ship's Chief Medical Officer (himself) has contracted an incurable fatal disease called xenopolycythemia and has only one year to live. However, McCoy assures Kirk that he will still be able to do his job until the end.

Suddenly, the Enterprise is attacked by chemically fused missiles and forced to destroy them. The Enterprise then diverts and determines their point of origin to be an asteroid 200 km in diameter. The asteroid is actually a nuclear-powered spaceship on a collision course with planet Daran V (population 3 billion 724 million, 396 days until impact). Spock detects no life forms, so a landing party consisting of Kirk, McCoy, and Spock beams down. While exploring a set of pink cylinders, the landing party is attacked by plaid-clad soldiers. McCoy is knocked out, but proves to be none the worse for wear.

After informing the ``Oracle'' which advises the priestess-leader Natira that they come in peace, the Oracle treats them to an electrical shock to show them what it is like to be enemies. The inhabitants of the world called Yonada do not know that they are on a spaceship, except for one old man who had climbed a mountain when he was young. He gives herbs to the threesome after their electrical experience, but confides to them that things are not as they seem, ``For the world is hollow and I have touched the sky.'' After uttering this, the oracle punishes the old man with death by means of a subcutaneous ``instrument of obedience.''

Spock recognizes Fabrini writing on wall of the oracle chamber and a symbol showing 8 planets, as in the Fabrini system. (The Fabrini appear for the first time in the Star Trek: The Next Generation series.) The sun of this system supernovaed 10,000 years ago, so the inhabitants of Yonada appear to be their descendants. The oracle tells Natira that the people will reach a world of plenty ``soon'' (which turns out to be 390 days after the appropriate course correction). This is foretold in the book containing the knowledge of their creators. Kirk and company must convince the inhabitants to alter the ship's course before it eliminates the 3+ billion inhabitants of Daran V. In the meantime, the priestess Natira governing the asteroid/spaceship, has asked McCoy to become her mate, despite the fact that McCoy has only one year to live. McCoy agrees and permits insertion of an instrument of obedience. However, Spock and Kirk commit sacrilege by breaking into the Oracle chamber. Luckily, Natira allows them to return at McCoy's request.

Bones finds out about the book and tries to tell Kirk (who has returned to the Enterprise) about it by communicator, but is incapacitated by his instrument of obedience. Kirk and Spock beam down, and Spock removes the gizmo. They tell Natira that her planet is actually a spaceship, and she goes to ask the Oracle for the truth. She is punished and nearly killed, at which point McCoy removes her instrument of obedience. When Kirk and Spock try to access the book by pressing the three lower planets on the left side, the Oracle heats the chamber to incandescence. However, Kirk is able to reach the book. He finds instructions on how to access the controls by applying pressure to the center of the Oracle until it slides aside. They disable the Oracle and put Yonada back on course. They also discover databanks of the Fabrini containing a great deal of medical knowledge, including the cure for McCoy's xenopolycythemia. McCoy decides to return to the Enterprise, but hopes to meet Natira again when the ship reaches the new planet.

Friday's Child

Kirk attempts to secure a mining agreement for topeline on Capella 4. Coincidentally, McCoy had been stationed on the planet for two months, and warns Kirk that although the Capellans are scrupulously honest, they are a war-like people, 7 feet tall and extremely strong. Their conventional weapon is a throwing-star type weapon called a kleeat. Before beaming down with McCoy, Spock, and a red-shirted security officer, Kirk warns Scott that the Klingons are thought to be active in the Capella 4 sector.

Upon beaming down, this prediction is born out. As McCoy greets the Capellans, the landing party learns that the Klingons have arrived first and are presumably already engaged in negotiations. Before he can be restrained, Brad the security guard pulls out a phaser to shoot the Klingon emissary and is instantly killed by a kleeat-wielding Capellan. After the landing party agrees to hand over its weapons and devices as the Klingon have already done, they are treated as honored guests. A Capellan woman offers Kirk some food, but Kirk is luckily restrained by McCoy before touching her, since it turns out that touching a Capellan woman mandates hand-to-hand combat with her closest male relative. In fact, Kirk's refusal to initiate combat greatly disappoints the woman's closest male relative.

Kirk and the Klingon negotiate with Tierr Akaar, leader of the ten tribes of Capella. While the Tierr seems to favor the Federation, Maab and the Tierr's consort favor the Klingons. The Tierr is then challenged to a duel by Maab. Before this can take place, a factional fight for power take place. In the fighting, Akaar is killed and Maab becomes Tierr. Upon becoming Tierr, however, Maab's perspective changes, especially after seeing fear in the Klingon's eyes when Kirk challenges him to a fight.

Meanwhile, a Klingon vessel diverts the Enterprise with a phony distress call from the freighter S.S. Diadra (maximum speed: Warp 2). To Scott's surprise, upon arriving at the scene, he can find no trace of the distressed Diadra. However, he notes that the distress call asked for the Enterprise by name, despite the fact a freighter would not have knowledge of its whereabouts. As the Enterprise speeds back to Capella, the Klingons try another diversion with a distress call from the U.S.S. Carolina. Scott ignores it, citing the saying ``fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me'' (which Chekov reports is an old Russian saying). However, before the Enterprise can return to Capella, it is confronted by a Klingon warship.

On Capella, Akaar's pregnant wife Eleen is sentenced to death because she carries a royal child. Kirk intervenes, in the process antagonizing the Capellans and Eleen herself, who demands his death for laying hands upon her. The Enterprise landing party is put under guard with Eleen, and McCoy prepares to treat her wounded arm. The landing party takes the opportunity to overpower their guards and run away to save Eleen. They hide out in the hills, where McCoy treats Eleen's arm, and also discovers that she may give birth at any time. Eleen begins to become interested in McCoy.

Using their communicators, Kirk and Spock set up an avalanche which blocks and kills some of the Capellans tracking them. The Klingon uses the opportunity to steal one of the confiscated phasers from a wounded Capellan, and then stabs him to death. Kirk then finds a cave in which to shelter Eleen, but the climb there is difficult. Eleen will only let McCoy help her make the climb until McCoy remarks ``I'm a doctor, not an escalator.'' In the cave, they make a fire using a magnesite nitron tablet. While McCoy delivers the baby, Kirk and Spock construct bows and arrows.

After giving birth, Eleen hits McCoy on the head with a rock and runs to give herself up to the Capellans. She claims to have killed the child and the Earth men as they slept. The Klingon does not believe her, and demands of the Capellans under threat of phaser fire that they verify Eleen's story. Suddenly, Kirk shoots the Klingon with an arrow, and an exchange between the Capellans and Kirk and Spock follows. The Klingon threatens to shoot anyone who raises a weapon against him. This does him no good, however, since Maab exchanges his life for that of Eleen by confronting the Klingon, and Kieel uses the opportunity to kill the Klingon with a kleeat.

After this fracas has taken place, Scott and a landing party arrive. When McCoy re-unites Eleen with her child, he confounds Spock with his use of ``obscure earth dialect'' oochie-woochie-coochie-coo. Kirk gains mining rights when the Eleen acts as regent for the child Tierr-to-be, named Leonard James Akaar.

The Galileo Seven

As the Enterprise is on its way New Paris on Marcus III, it encounters a strange natural phenomenon. Commissioner Ferris wants Kirk to hurry on to New Paris, but Kirk is under orders to study all quasars and quasar-like phenomena and so stops the Enterprise in order to do so. Kirk launches the shuttlecraft Galileo (NCC 1701/7) with Spock, Scotty, McCoy, Boma, Latimer, Gaetano, and yeoman Mears aboard.

The 24-foot-long shuttlecraft is pulled off course into the Murasaki 312 electromagnetic storm (``Murasaki effect'') and crash lands on Taurus II. It and its crew are in one piece, but the shuttlecraft is greatly damaged. As Spock puts it, ``Picturesque descriptions will not mend broken circuits, Mr. Scott. I believe you have your work cut out for you.'' Taurus II seems safe at first (atmosphere 70 mmHg of oxygen, 140 mmHg nitrogen, and acceptable quantities of Ar, Ne, and Kr), so Spock sends Latimer and Gaetano outside to scout the area.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Ferris continues pressuring Kirk to leave the shuttle behind in order to get needed medicine to the plague victims in New Paris, but Kirk continues the search until the last possible moment. In an act of desperation, Kirk sends out shuttlecraft Columbus to search Taurus II (the only planet which is habitable in the area, and the one which is closest to the center of the Murasaki effect).

On Taurus II, Spock gets his first taste of command, much to the resentment of his crew. Spock sums up his views on command by stating, ``I neither enjoy the idea of command, nor am I frightened by it. It simply exists.'' Scott determines that much fuel has been lost and that the shuttlecraft's weight must be reduced by 500 lbs. if it is to achieve escape velocity. While scouting the area, Latimer and Gaetano enter a thick mist. They then hear a croaking noise and are shortly thereafter attacked by the planet's 10-12 foot high ape-like inhabitants. Latimer is killed by a spear whose tip resembles a Folsom point, but Spock's archeological knowledge just makes his crew more resentful.

Boma insists on a funeral for Latimer, but Spock remains inside the craft with Scott trying to fix it. Unfortunately, they lose the remaining fuel when a line breaks. The crew wants to attack the apes, but Spock does not which to unnecessarily take life, so he instructs them to fire to frighten, but not kill. Spock orders Boma back to help with repairs, while Gaetano is left behind. Alone and terrified, Gaetano has his phaser knocked away and is then mauled to death.

Scotty proposes powering the shuttlecraft by draining energy from phasers, which is all well and good, except that it is the crew's only remaining defense against the creatures. Spock goes to investigate what has become of Gaetano, and carries his body back despite a rain of spears from the ape-creatures. Arriving back safely, Spock is surprised that his logical decisions have resulted in two deaths and the antagonism of his crew. The crew retreats to the craft, which is then set upon by one of the apes with a large rock. Spock comes up with the idea of draining the batteries to electrify the exterior of the ship, which grants them a temporary respite. Unbeknownst to the crew of the Galileo, Kirk beams down landing parties, but they are unable to discover anything. Lt. Kelowitz from landing party 2 reports one dead, two injured by the anthropoid creatures, who databases classify as order 4AG and resembling creatures from Hanson's Planet. Ferris forces Kirk to abandon the search when his time runs out, under Title 15 of the Galactic Emergency Procedures.

Scotty manages to get the shuttlecraft off the ground after tarrying shortly to give Spock time to get on board after he is slightly injured. The Galileo's crew is saved when Spock jettisons and ignites the fuel to serve as a flare. This gives them only a few minutes before re-entering, but allows them to be seen by the Enterprise and transported to safety. Kirk needles Spock about his act of desperation, but Spock defends his actions logical considering that all other alternatives had been exhausted.

The Gamesters of Triskelion

Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov prepare to beam down to Gamma 2, an uninhabited planetoid with automated communication and astrogation station. Before Scotty can beam them down, however, they are whisked away from the transporter platform.

The landing party reappears on a different planet entirely, and find themselves standing on a pad bearing a curious three-pronged triad logo. They are then accosted by four armed assailants from planets spread throughout the galaxy. Phasers and communicators no longer work, and for once they are defeated when they resort to hand-to-hand combat. They are then fitted with ``collars of obedience'' by Galt, master Thrall of the planet Triskelion, and taken to their cells. When they try to escape, the collars are activated, subjecting them to great pain and rendering them helpless.

Meanwhile, Spock scans the entire solar system, but is unable to find any trace of the lost landing party. Ensign Haines notices an ionization trail from a hydrogen cloud, and Spock follows it across the galaxy to N24 Alpha, 11.630 light years away.

Back on Triskelion, Uhura's is introduced to her drill Thrall Lars. Kirk's drill Thrall is the blue-haired Shahna, and Chekov's is Tamu. When Uhura refuses to fight, Kirk is forced to fight the whip-equipped Kloog as punishment. Upon witnessing Kirk's successful battle, the ``Providers'' controlling the Thralls bid for ownership of the newcomers (in a currency unit known as the quatloo).

While on a training run, Kirk tries to distract Shahna by telling her about love. When Kirk asks her about the Providers and she begins to answer, her collar is activated. When she recovers, Kirk seduces her. The Providers find this amusing and do not punish Kirk, but make him stop. Back in his cell, Kirk knocks Shahna out and uses her key to free Uhura and Chekov.

Spock and McCoy attempt to beam down Triskelion, but are prevented by the Providers. They are then put in audio communication with Kirk, who is still on the planet's surface. The Providers then reveal themselves to Kirk as three glowing brains (yellow, green, and orange). They threaten to destroy Kirk and the Enterprise, but Kirk makes a bet with the gamesters about his ability to survive in combat. If he wins, the Providers must free Kirk and the Thralls. If he loses, he offers the entire crew of the Enterprise up as Thralls. However, the gamesters insist that Kirk fight three opponents simultaneously: Kloog, Lars, and an Andorian. They also grant the crew of the Enterprise the opportunity to observe the conflict.

Amazingly enough, Kirk wins, even after one of the opponents is replaced by Shahna. Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are returned to the Enterprise, leaving behind a saddened Shahna.

The Immunity Syndrome

On its way to a much-needed rest stop at Starbase 6 (with Lt. Kowal in place of Sulu), the Enterprise is diverted to investigate the mysterious cessation of communication with the Gamma 7A star system. While on its way, Spock telepathically senses the destruction of the Intrepid, a starship manned by Vulcans, and claims that all 400 Vulcans aboard have been killed. Starbase 6 then orders the Enterprise to Sector 39J to investigate the loss of communications with the Intrepid.

The Enterprise encounters a strange field which drains all energy, whether mechanical or biologically generated. Spock reports that he has never encountered a phenomenon like this before, and it shows up on the viewing screen as a dark hole in space. The Enterprise launches a probe into it, but it returns only a high-pitched whine which causes half the Enterprise's crew to faint. When the Enterprise prepares to fire again, the whine returns, and the Enterprise experiences a 5% power drain. The stars vanish from the viewing screen, and Spock reports that they have entered a ``zone of darkness.'' This boundary layer proceeds to drain the ship and its crew of energy.

Spock finds that the zone of darkness is a negative energy field. Scott prepares to use full power to yank the Enterprise out of the zone, but the best he can do is is slow the pull towards the center of the zone. As they approach, they see a giant one-celled organism which is 11,000 miles long and 2,000-3,000 miles wide. They send a probe which penetrates the organism and discovers it to be living and to be filled with protoplasm.

Kirk decides to send a shuttlecraft, and must decide between sending Spock or McCoy. Spock sets out in the shuttlecraft Galileo II (NCC 1701/7), and heads for the nucleus. He also reduces life support systems to the bare minimum, causing Chekov and Kirk to become concerned. Spock establishes that the organism has stored enough energy to reproduce and that the 40 chromosomes in the nucleus are ready to come together. Kirk shuts off the Enterprise's engines and switches all power to the shields, causing the Enterprise to be sucked into the organism.

Kirk then fills a probe full of antimatter, and prepares to plant it in the nucleus. Chekov reports that the probe is ``ready for lunch,'' and successfully lodges it in the nucleus.

Meanwhile, aboard the shuttlecraft, Spock makes a log tape in preparation for his own death. As the Enterprise backs out of the organism before it blows up, it detects Spock's shuttlecraft and locks on a tractor beam. The Enterprise run out of energy near the edge of the organism, and the crew waits for the detonation and their own deaths.

The explosion rocks the ship, but it survives, and the stars appear in the viewing screen again. Somehow, the shuttlecraft survives as well, and Spock reports he has some fascinating data on the organism. However, McCoy is furious that he has botched the acetylcholine test.

I, Mudd

A man named Mr. Norman, who has been aboard the Enterprise for 72 hours, and strikes Dr. McCoy as odd. McCoy's suspicions are confirmed when Mr. Norman overpowers Ensign Jordan, the auxiliary control operator, and re-directs the ship. Security guard Rowe reports that the directional controls are unworkable. Mr. Norman then barges into Engineering, increases speed to Warp 7, and sets up a booby trap to prevent tampering. He hijacks the Enterprise and takes it on a four-day trip to an uncharted planet of robots who exist solely to serve humans.

Harcourt Fenton Mudd, previously encountered in the Mudd's Women episode, is the ``ruler'' of the robots. He has escaped from prison (where he was condemned to death for fraud), and has created an army of 500 robot women He has also created an android version of his nagging wife Stella. Unlike the real Stella, the android follows instructions and is forced to shut up when Mudd tells her to.

Mudd is being studied by the robots, who are accommodating, but refuse to let him go. The androids tell Kirk that they were built by people from the Andromeda galaxy. However, the civilization which constructed them was destroyed by a supernova, and so the androids were left without supervision. Now they have found new purpose in Mudd. Spock makes inquiries, discovers that there are 207,809 androids, and most importantly that they seem to be controlled by some central coordinating power.

Mudd beams androids aboard the Enterprise and has them send down the entire crew. Chekov is fascinated when he finds that the female robots have been programmed to carry out all activities of which human females are capable. Uhura also doesn't find captivity so unpleasant when she is promised immortality. Mudd attempts to take over the Enterprise and strand Kirk and the crew on the planet in place of himself. However, the robots do not permit Harry to carry out his plan. They find people too destructive, and plan to take over and ``serve'' all humans (according to their programming) in the galaxy in order to control them.

Spock learns that there are many robots of each Alice, Oscar, etc., series, but only a single Norman. He speculates that Norman is the central coordinator, and suggests that they coordinate their efforts on him. They tranquillize Mudd and then claim they need to beam aboard the Enterprise to cure him. The androids are about the grant the request until Uhura pretends to reveal that this is merely a ploy to get aboard the Enterprise. She claims her motivation is that she wants to be made immortal. The landing party (including Spock), then engage in a series of illogical (and moronic) actions in order to confuse and overload the androids. This culminates in the immobilization of Norman himself when Harry tells him ``everything I say is a lie.''

Kirk leaves Harry on the planet with his attendant robots to serve as an example of human failure to them. The robots are also reprogrammed to carry out their original task of rendering the planet fit for human life. As a final blow to Mr. Mudd, Kirk also leaves behind several android copies of his shrewish wife Stella.

Is There In Truth No Beauty?

The Enterprise is given the mission of transporting the Medusan ambassador Kollos, a member of a species so ugly that the mere sight of it causes humans to go insane, back to his home planet. Spock is able to wear a visor which will protect him, but all humans are forced to leave the bridge before the ambassador arrives. The ambassador arrives enclosed in a specially designed box, but is also accompanied by the telepath Dr. Miranda Jones, who is looking after his needs. Like Spock, Jones is able to look at a Medusan through a visor, supposedly because she has studied on Vulcan.

Larry Marvick, one of the designers of the Enterprise, also has beamed aboard. He is in love love with Jones. At a welcoming dinner, the senior crew all drool over Miranda, but the mood is spoiled when she reports that someone nearby is contemplating murder. When Marvick's advances are snubbed by Miranda, she discovers that he is the one considering murder, although she does not know whom against. Marvick seeks revenge against Kollos for taking Miranda away from him, but is driven insane when he inadvertently looks at Kollos while attempting to shoot him with a phaser. The insane Marvick commandeers the Enterprise, pilots it to an unknown location outside of the galaxy, raves about being suffocated in his sleep, and then dies for no apparent reason.

In order to return the Enterprise to the galaxy, either Spock or Miranda must mind meld with the ambassador who, as all Medusans, is a master navigator. Spock is given the task, but fears interference from Miranda, who is fiercely jealous of Spock's ability to mind meld. Kirk discovers that Miranda is afraid of human emotion, and wishes to go with Kollos partly to avoid having to deal with it. However, she learns of Spock's plans telepathicaly, and demands that she be taught to pilot the Enterprise so that she can mind meld with Kollos. Bones uses the opportunity to reveal that Miranda is blind (her dress is a highly complicated sensor web which allows her to see, as well as to measure Kirk's distance from the door as 1 m 4 cm), which is why she is able to ``look'' at Kollos.

Kirk suggests that Miranda take up the issue with Kollos, who agrees to her horror that Spock should be the one to make contact. Using the visor to protect his Vulcan half from the sight of the Medusan, Spock melds minds. A now smiling and cheerful Spock greets the other senior crew members, then pilots the ship successfully back to the Milky Way. However, when Spock reverses the mind meld, he forgets the visor, sees Kollos, and goes crazy.

Kirk asks Miranda to help Spock, and when she claims to do be able to do nothing, Kirk accuses her of having used her mental powers to make Spock forget to put on the visor. Luckily, Miranda has a change of heart and uses telepathy to bring Spock back to health.

Miranda and Kollos are then delivered to their destination. Upon parting, Kirk presents Miranda with a rose. Miranda queries ``I suppose it has thorns,'' and Kirk responds, ``I never met a rose that didn't.''

Journey to Babel

The Enterprise transports ambassadors to a conference to discuss the admission of Corridon, a star system composed of many mutually combative races, to the Federation. Corridon contains a nearly unlimited supply of dilithium crystals, but its small population and lack of strong government has allowed illegal mining operations by outsiders seeking to exploit its natural resources. Sarek is the 102.437-year-old ambassador from Vulcan, and is accompanied by his wife Amanda (who is a human). To Kirk's surprise, they turn out to Spock's parents. Also to Kirk's surprise, Sarek is cool towards Spock, apparently because Spock has chosen to devote his life to Starfleet instead of Vulcan science.

The conference is to take place on neutral planet code-named Babel. McCoy questions Amanda about Spock and finds that, as a youth, he had a pet sela, a sort of fat Vulcan Teddy bear with 6-inch fangs. Meanwhile, Uhura has detected an unidentified transmission from the Enterprise, and Chekov subsequently detects a small ship of unknown origin paralleling the Enterprise just out of phaser range at Warp 10.

From Section A3 on Deck 11, Lt. Joseph reports that Tellerite ambassador Gav has been murdered. McCoy ascertains that death was instantaneous following an expert breaking of his neck (known to Vulcans of Tel-Shaha). This brings Sarek under suspicion, since he had been involved in an altercation with the Tellerite after accusing his people of smuggling from Corridon. However, when Kirk begins asking Sarek questions, Sarek suffers from a malfunction in one of his heart valves, the Vulcan equivalent of a heart attack.

Meanwhile, Spock detects tritanium emissions from the alien ship's hull after it transmits a message. Uhura determines that the message was received somewhere aboard the Enterprise. However, Spock is unable to decode the fragment of the message which Uhura has intercepted.

Sarek reveals that he has had three previous Vulcan heart attacks, and has been taking Bengacydrine to combat it. He requires an open heart operation, but the ship's stores do not have a sufficient supply of blood, especially of Sarek's rare Vulcan T negative blood. Despite the fact that Spock's blood is a mixture of human and Vulcan factors, he provides a blood transfusion to Sarek after McCoy uses an experimental stimulant to increase the rate of blood production.

The Andorian Thelev, a minor member of the ambassador's staff, attacks Kirk near Deck 5 and stabs him. Kirk requires medical attention, so Spock assumes command. Under these circumstances, he says he cannot take time off to give the transfusion to Sarek, and cannot pass command on to anyone else because he is the best qualified person to command the Enterprise. His mother pleads with him, but he refuses.

Finally, Kirk pretends to be healed (with McCoy's reluctant approval) and takes command from Spock, ordering him to sickbay. Uhura detects another transmission originating from the Enterprise,, and this time it is pinpointed to the Andorian in the brig. A search by security reveals a transceiver hidden in one of his fake antennae.

The Enterprise is then attacked by alien ship while Sarek and Spock are on the operating table, endangering both their lives. It is moving too quickly to be hit by the Enterprise and is able to damage the Enterprise sufficiently that it loses one of its shields. Kirk fools the alien ship by turning off shields and internal power, luring the enemy ship in for the kill. When it begins moving in, Kirk hits it with phasers and disables it. However, before he can ask them to surrender, they blow themselves up.

The Andorian prisoner appears to have been attempting to sow discord and distrust among the Federation members, but he dies of self-administered slow poison shortly after his comrades' ship is destroyed by the Enterprise. However, Spock, who is recovering from the operation, surmises that the perpetrators were from Orion, since Orioners are known to have been smuggling dilithium from Corridon and are anxious to prevent interference. McCoy confines both the injured Kirk and the recovering Spock to sickbay, shushing all protests. ``Well, what do you know,'' he says with a grin, ``I finally got the last word.''

Let That Be Your Last Battlefield Construction

On its way to decontaminate the planet Arianis, the Enterprise intercepts a shuttlecraft stolen from Starbase 4 together with its pilot. The pilot is an alien who is solid white on his right side and solid black on his left. His name is Lokai, and he claims to be a political refugee from Cheron. Shortly thereafter, another alien is deposited on the bridge of the Enterprise by a spaceship just before it disintegrates. The new alien identifies himself as Bele, a police officer from Cheron who has been tracking Lokai for over 50,000 years. Bele is black on right and white on left, and is outraged when Kirk sees no difference in them. Bele considers his coloration superior to Lokai and others of ``his kind.'' Both Lokai and Bele claim to be in the right, but Kirk stays above the argument, offering to drop them off at a Starbase.

Bele attempts to force the Enterprise to Cheron, but returns control to Kirk when he threatens to self destruct the Enterprise (Kirk: sequence 1, code 11A; Spock: sequence 2, code 11A2B; Scott: sequence 3, code 1B2B3; final code: 000 DESTRUCT 0; abort code: 123 CONTINUITY ABORT DESTRUCT ORDER). After the Enterprise has decontaminated Arianis, Bele deactivates the destruct mode and forces the Enterprise to Cheron. Here, Bele and Lokai discover that all life there has been destroyed by years of racially-motivated fighting. Driven mad by the sight, Lokai and Bele both beam down to the surface, where they will continue to fight each other until one or both is dead.

The Lights of Zetar

On its way to the Memory Alpha planetoid, storehouse of all cultural history and scientific knowledge of the Federation, sensors detect a strange storm. The storm is traveling at a speed of Warp 2.6, indicating that it cannot be a natural phenomenon. The storm heads right for the Enterprise, penetrating the shield and attacking different centers of the brain in different crew members (Uhura could not move her hands, Chekov could not turn his eyes, and Sulu could not speak). Lt. Mira Romaine, aboard to oversee transmission of data newly gathered by the Enterprise to Memory Alpha, seems the hardest hit. Much to the concern of Scotty, who is head over heels in love with her, Mira faints. When McCoy revives her, she makes strange growling noises and then seems to be normal again. However, she then refuses to cooperate with McCoy when he attempts to examine her.

The storm then heads for shieldless Memory Alpha, killing all those aboard and burning out the central memory core. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scott beam down to see what damage has been done, and see a scene of which Mira has had a premonition (a dead technician). The landing party finds one technician alive, but she begins making strange growling noises, turns a series of colors, and then dies of brain hemorrhage. Mira is then beamed down, and she warns everyone to return to the Enterprise because the storm is returning. Scans from the Enterprise confirm this, and the landing party returns to the ship. Mira is suspended in transit, but is subsequently beamed aboard. Further scans of the ``storm'' indicate that it is composed of 10 life units. Kirk tries to communicate with it using the universal translator, but receives no response. As the storm draws closer, Mira has another vision. Kirk fires phasers across the storm's path, but again elicits no response. He the fires at the storm, but this action causes Mira to crumple, causing Scott to become alarmed and forcing Kirk to desist from further firing.

A thorough analysis of Mira's record shows her to responses to be extremely flexible response to new learning situations. A Steinman analysis shows nothing unusual, but a hyperencephalogram shows Mira's brain circuitry pattern to have been altered to match those from the last tracking of the aliens. This seems also to explain her visions, and Mira reveals that she had one additional vision: that of Scotty dying.

In an attempt to rid Mira of the alien influence before the aliens attack again, Kirk rushes her to a gravity/pressure chamber. The aliens attack too soon, however, and Mira becomes completely possessed. Speaking through Mira, the aliens identify themselves as the last survivors of the planet Zetar. They have had to discard their bodies and have been searching for a millennium for one such as Mira's in which they can live out their lives. Before Mira's consciousness can be completely subjugated, Scotty puts her in the pressure chamber. Here, the aliens are killed and Mira is freed.

The Man Trap

The Man Trap was the first-aired regular season episode of Star Trek.

In this episode, a landing party from the Enterprise beams down to perform an annual checkup of scientist Bob Crater and his wife Nancy, who have been living on the planet M113 for 5 years. Without realizing it, each crew member sees a different Nancy Crater. In fact, Nancy's appearance corresponds to each man's fantasy of an extremely attractive woman. Crewman Darnell, for instance, sees a voluptuous blonde he met on Ripley's pleasure planet, Bones sees an attractive woman of 25, and Kirk sees an older woman with more mature charms.

Dr. Crater and Nancy both appear to be in good health, but Dr. Crater goes out of his way to request an additional supply of salt from the Enterprise's stores. Dr. Crater then does his best get rid of the landing party as quickly as possible. Shortly thereafter, crewman Darnell wanders off after Nancy Crater, but dies under mysterious circumstances. His corpse, when discovered, is found to be covered with a curious red mottling. A borja plant, belonging to the same family as the deadly nightshade and containing an alkaloid poison, is found in his mouth. Nancy claims to have seen him eating it and says she tried to stop him. However, Bones knows alkaloid poison when he sees it, and is immediately convinced that something is amiss. Further test show that Darnell's body is completely devoid of salt.

When an additional landing party beams down, crewmen Sturgeon and Green are killed and the salt is removed from their bodies. However, Green's body is not discovered, and Nancy Crater uses her shape-shifting trick to assume his form. As Green, she transports aboard the Enterprise with Kirk and Bones, who are the only remaining survivors of the landing party. ``Green'' makes his way into Sulu's quarters after observing a lunch tray with a salt shaker being brought in, but high-tails it out again when Sulu's pet plant begins shrieking at him. Green then transforms into a handsome Swahili man and attempts to seduce Uhura. Fortunately for Uhura, the man's advances are interrupted by passing crew members.

Meanwhile, a scan of the planet's surface reveals only a single life form, so Spock and Kirk realize that Nancy must have beamed aboard the Enterprise and start searching for her. While Spock and Kirk are thus engaged, the creature kills another crew member, and then pays a visit to McCoy in the form of Nancy Crater. She puts McCoy to sleep with his own sleeping pills while pretending to help him rest, and then assumes his form. In the meantime, Spock and Kirk have beamed down to the planet to question Dr. Crater. Here, they discover Green's body. By questioning Dr. Crater, they also learn that Nancy is dead and that her form has been taken over by the last remaining indigenous creature of the planet. As the audience has known for some time, this creature is capable of assuming any form and requires salt to live.

Kirk and Spock then beam Dr. Crater aboard the Enterprise, where he immediately recognizes McCoy as one of Nancy's impersonations, but does not reveal him. The creature returns Dr. Crater's loyalty by killing him, and then attacks Spock. Fortunately, because of Spock's non-human blood, he survives the attack without major injury. Bones then prevents Kirk from killing the creature (which he still sees as Nancy Crater), and then stands idly by as she begins to drain the salt from Kirk's body. At this juncture, Spock rushes in and demonstrates to McCoy that the woman attacking Kirk could not possibly be Nancy by striking her repeatedly and forcefully. Nancy does not even flinch, and then sends Spock flying across the room with a single counterblow. When the creature attacks Kirk again, its true alien form is revealed, and Bones kills it with a phaser, even after it reverts to Nancy's form.

The Mark Of Gideon

In an attempt to establish diplomatic relations with planet Gideon, Kirk beams down to the sensor-shielded planet using coordinates supplied by Gideon ambassador Hodin (875-020-079). Gideon has refused to let any ambassadors beam down or to permit any sensor scans, but has indicated to the Federation that their planet is virtually a paradise. However, they agree to let Kirk beam beam alone.

When Kirk materializes, he finds himself still on the transporter pad aboard the Enterprise. To his great surprise, he appears to be completely alone and there is no sign of the crew. After noticing a bruise on his arm, Kirk encounters a girl named Odona. Odona denies any knowledge of how she got there or what is going on. She tells Kirk her last memory is of being in an overcrowded auditorium struggling for air, and how wonderful it is to have such freedom of movement.

Back aboard the real Enterprise, Spock is attempting to determine why ambassador Hodin denies the fact that Kirk has ever been beamed down. His attempts to obtain authorization to search for Kirk are foiled when Starfleet bureaucrats insist that he contact the Federation diplomats in the Department of Planetary Treaties, and vice versa. After beaming up and down Hodin's assistant Krodak from the council chamber (coordinates 875-020-709) to test the transporter, Hodin refuses to allow Spock to beam down, despite the fact that he had previously agreed to do so.

Meanwhile, on the deserted Enterprise, Odona tells Kirk that there is no place on her planet which is not filled with people, and that the inhabitants would kill or die for the privilege of being alone. While Kirk is busy kissing Odona, he does not notice that the ship's viewing screen has become filled with the faces of people. After leaving the bridge, Kirk hears a strange sound outside the ship and opens the viewing port. To his surprise, he briefly sees the faces of a crowd, which quickly fade into stars.

Kirk begin to suspect that something is very wrong, but when he confronts Odona, she complains that she feels very strange, then collapses. Kirk carries her towards sickbay, but is met by Hodin and taken into custody. Hodin tells Kirk that Odona is his daughter, and that she has been infected with Vegan coreomenengitis from Kirk's blood. Hodin explains that the germ-free atmosphere and an increasingly long life span on Gideon have created a vast overpopulation problem, and that he hopes to bring it under control by introducing disease.

When Kirk asks why the population was not sterilized, Hodin says the the organs of the people of Hodin regenerate themselves. When Kirk then asks Hodin why the people of Gideon have not practiced birth control, Hodin replies that the people of Gideon believe life is sacred and that the love of life is the greatest gift, and that they therefore cannot interfere with the creation of life. Hodin tells Kirk that he must stay to provide the virus to infect the people of Gideon and bring the population under control. Kirk points out that Odona need not die, and that there is furthermore no need for him to stay since if Odona survives, her blood can provide the virus. However, Hodin tells Kirk that Odona's voluntary death at such a young age will bring forward dedicated young volunteers to also be infected.

By this time, Spock has discovered that the two sets of coordinates with which he has been provided do not match. After Admiral Fitzgerald continues to refuse to let Spock beam down, Spock disobeys orders and beams down to the first set of coordinates. He discovers the exact replica of the Enterprise to which Kirk was beamed and locates Kirk. Spock overpowers the guards, and he and Kirk beam up with Odona to the real Enterprise. As he is leaving, Spock quips to the ambassador, ``Your excellency, please do not interfere; I already have one serious problem to resolve with upper echelons.'' McCoy heals Odona and she is beamed back to Gideon where her blood can now serve as the source of Vegan coreomenengitis for her people.

The Menagerie, Part I

This episode and the sequel are derived from the original pilot for the Star Trek series, The Cage. The Enterprise diverts to Starbase 11 after Spock reports receiving a sub-space message from former Captain of the Enterprise Christopher Pike. However, the Commodore on the Starbase tells them that Pike has been injured from exposure to delta rays (resulting from a ruptured baffle plate while inspecting an old Class J starship) and could not have sent the message. This is confirms when Pike wheels confined to a wheelchair which is operated by brain waves. The only communication of which Pike is still capable is signaling yes (one flash of a light) or no (two flashes). Pike refuses to speak to Bones or Kirk, but agrees to speak to Spock in private.

Spock, who had served under Pike for 11 years, 4 months, and 5 days, prepares to mutiny in order to take Pike to Talos 4 (the fourth planet out of 11 in the Talos system), despite Pike's protests. Meanwhile, an investigation of the tapes reveals that Spock received no transmission, but Kirk refuses to believe it possible that Spock could have been responsible for a deception. Spock nerve pinches Chief Humboldt at the computer center and sends the Enterprise bogus instructions using tapes he has made of Kirk's voice. Another technician discovers Spock cross-circuiting the communications panel and attempts to stop him, but is nerve pinched for his efforts. Spock informs Mr. Hansen that the coded transmissions he has sent will navigate the ship automatically. McCoy is tricked into returning to the Enterprise by a request for medical assistance. Spock then transports himself and Pike aboard.

Right After Miss Piper (who knows about Kirk from mutual fried Helen Johansen) glances at her closed-circuit monitor and notices that Pike is gone, the Enterprise warps out of orbit towards Talos 4. Kirk and Commodore José Mendez pursue Spock and the Enterprise in a Class F shuttlecraft. Aboard the Enterprise, Hanson is superfluous as navigator while the instructions Spock fed into the computer are carried out automatically. When Spock notices that the shuttlecraft has nearly exhausted its fuel, he activates tape Abel 7 Baker, which stops the Enterprise and beams aboard Kirk and Mendez. Spock then informs them that has set up the ship's computer so that it cannot be disengaged without terminating life support systems until the Enterprise reaches Talos 4.

Spock is then put on trial. Not only is mutiny a court martial offense, but visiting Talos 4 is an offense punishable by death. The hearing proceeds because Pike is still listed as on active duty, so three command officers are present as required by regulations. During the hearing, Spock introduces a recording of the experiences of the original crew of the Enterprise on Talos 4 as evidence.

In the tape we see footage from the original Star Trek pilot episode, The Cage. The tape recounts how 13 years previously the Enterprise, commanded by Pike and with Dr. Heinz as chief medical officer, received a distress signal from the survey vessel S.S. Columbia, lost 18 years earlier. The Columbia reported making a forced landing on the Talos star group 18 years ago. Mr. Spock (the only character from the original pilot retained in the original series except for Nurse Christine Chapel, who tool a huge demotion from ``Number One'') reports that Talos contains 11 planets, number 4 of which is Class M (oxygen atmosphere). Captain Christopher Pike orders to continue on to the Vega colony in the absence of evidence that there are survivors.

Pike then retires to his cabin, where he is met by Dr. Phil Heinz. Pike recounts his traumatic experience on Rigel 7 in which his yeoman and two others were killed and 7 injured. Pike faults himself for allowing himself to be trapped in a deserted fortress and attacked by one of the Rigel warriors. He also complains that he is tired of being responsible of 203 lives and has been thinking of resigning. However, he is quickly distracted from such thoughts when follow-up message from the Columbia indicates that 11 crew members survived the crash. Pike commands the Enterprise to divert and investigate.

Talos 4 is found to have an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere and gravity equal to 0.9 that of Earth. On Talos 4, Spock and Pike find a blue-leaved plant, and we are treated to one of the few Spock smiles of the series (and the only one when he is not under some alien or hallucinagenic influence). The landing party of 6 finds survivors of the Columbia who are now old male scientists (including Dr. Theodore Hat of the American Continent Institute), but also a young woman named Vena who was born shortly after the Columbia crashed and whose parents are now dead.

Unbeknownst to the landing party, their actions are being monitored by native Talosians. The doctor notices that the condition of the survivors is better than could be reasonably expected, and becomes suspicious. Before he can find out what is going on, Vena leads Pike into a Talosian trap. As soon as Pike is drugged and captured by the Talosians, the survivors, who were illusionary, vanish. In a desperate attempt to rescue Pike, the landing party tries to blast through the rock into which Pike was spirited away, but their phasers have no effect.

At this juncture, Uhura reports that the Enterprise has been receiving transmissions from Talos 4 and Kirk is relieved from duty by order of the Starfleet Command Consul.

The Menagerie, Part II

In Part 2, the recording continues, despite instructions from Starfleet command that no further transmissions from Talos are permitted. The recording shows Pike confined in a cell. Here, he discovers that the Talosians are illusionists, capable of making a man see anything they wish exist. They are also telepaths who can communicate without speaking. The Talosians wish Pike to remain on the planet as Vena's mate. Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise beams the ship's power down to the surface in a fruitless attempt to blast through the mountain where the Talosians were seen to disappear. However, this has no effect, and the Talosians continue their mind games with Pike.

The Talosians re-enact Pike's encounter on Rigel 7 in his mind, but with the addition of Vena. In this re-enactment, Pike kills the beast who is attacking them, then is returned to his cell with Vena. Vena tells him that the Talosians retreated underground after a war two thousand years ago, and have been developing mental powers. She also reveals that she is a real human and not an illusion. Pike discovers that the Talosians cannot penetrate primitive, strong emotions with their telepathy.

The next virtual reality trip for Pike and Vena is at Pike's farm on Earth, complete with his horse Tango. As Pike uses the opportunity to scheme, Vena has the Talosians shift venues to a Roman court with a Vena playing the part of a green Orion dancing slave girl. Again, Pike does not cooperate. Meanwhile, a landing party from the Enterprise beams down in attempt to find Pike, but only Number One and the yeoman (out of a landing party of six) actually arrive. The Talosians now give Pike a ``selection'' of specimens for starting a human community of slaves.

Instead, Pike uses the phasers brought down by the landing party as bait, and captures one of the Talosians as he tries to recover them from a sliding panel in the side of the cell. Pike fires one of the phasers through the wall, sees no effect, but then forces the Talosian to show him the hole which was produced or else have the ``nonfunctional'' phaser tested on his head. Pike and the women escape to the surface, but it turns out that this was actually the first part of the Talosians' plan to re-populate surface. However, the Talosian learn of Pike and humankind's unshakable hatred of captivity, and this forces them to let the Enterprise's crew go, as humans appear to be too violent a species for their needs. All but Vena and Pike return to the ship. Before Pike leaves, he discovers that Vena's beauty is illusional, and that she was actually severely deformed in the Columbia's crash and ``put back together'' by the Talosians.

All this is viewed by the court martial committee on the Enterprise. However, when the tape is complete, Mendez disappears and turns out to have been an illusion used to distract Kirk from regaining control of the Enterprise. Kirk, with the authorization of Starfleet (who have also been viewing the images from Talos 4), permits the now-disfigured Pike to transport to Talos 4. All charges against Spock are dropped, and the Enterprise continues on its way. Kirk speaks to Spock about a tendency towards flagrant emotionalism, but Spock quips, ``I see no reason to insult me, Sir. I believe I've been completely logical about the whole affair.''

Metamorphosis

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy ferry Commissioner Nancy Hedford from Epsilon Caneris 3 to the Enterprise in the shuttlecraft Galileo. The Commissioner, who had been on a diplomatic mission to stop a war, is ill with Sicuro's disease and needs treatment aboard the Enterprise. The shuttlecraft is forced down on a small planetoid by a sparkling cloud of ionized hydrogen. The planet has an oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere with traces of krypton, argon, and neon, and a surface temperature of 75 degrees.

Kirk is unable to contact the Enterprise, despite the fact that the communications equipment appears to be functioning perfectly. On the planet, they find a man named Cochrane, who claims he has been marooned. Cochrane tells them that there is some sort of damping field on the planet which will prevent them from being able to get their shuttlecraft to work.

Hedford begins developing a temperature, the first manifestation of her disease. Cochrane turns out to be space pioneer Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the discoverer of the Space Warp. Thought to have been dead for 150 years, Cochrane has been kept alive and young for centuries by a doting gaseous alien he calls the ``Companion.'' The companion intercepted his disabled ship, brought him to the planet, and rejuvenated him. Cochrane had set out in a ship at the age of 87 to die in space. Cochrane also tells Kirk that the shuttlecraft has been diverted by the Companion to provide him with company.

As Spock attempts to fix the Galileo, the Companion drops by to investigate. Spock attempts to touch it, but is given an electric shock. The Companion also takes the opportunity to fry the Galileo's electronics. Using his newfound knowledge that the Companion is at least partly an electrical phenomenon, Spock builds a device to short-circuit it. Cochrane is not at all happy about this endeavor, but agrees to summon the Companion. When the Companion arrives to commune with Cochrane and Spock activates his short-circuit box, Cochrane is electrically shocked, and the Companion destroys the device and attacks Kirk and Spock. Fortunately, Cochrane regains his composure and summons the Companion away before it can harm them.

Kirk then comes up with the idea of using the shuttlecraft's universal translation device, which converts brain-wave frequencies, to attempt to communicate with the companion. This proves successful, and the Companion turns out to be a female entity who is ``in love'' with Cochrane. Kirk attempts to convince the Companion that humans pine away in captivity (or ``cease to exist,'' as he puts it), but the Companion does not believe him.

Cochrane is greatly disturbed by the knowledge that the Companion is in love with him, and storms out saying that he doesn't want to be ``fodder for any inhuman monster.'' At the same time, Hedford, in a feverish daze, remarks that it is strange that Cochrane runs from love while she herself has never had the opportunity to be loved.

Kirk then tries to convince the Companion that she is not capable of giving Cochrane true human love, and that if she really loves Cochrane, she will let him go. Instead, she occupies and cures the body of Commissioner Hedford, who had been on the verge of death. She also restores the shuttlecraft and communication devices to working order. However, the Companion is unable to leave the planet without dying, and Cochrane decides to remain with her.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise had discovered the asteroid field (containing some 7000 bodies) and had begun searching the asteroids one at a time for the lost shuttlecraft. Fortunately, this search is greatly simplified by the resumption of communications. As they prepare to depart, Kirk agrees not to mention his adventure with Cochrane.

Cochrane reappears in Star Trek VIII: First Contact, although his personality and appearance are completely different than they were in the original episode.

Miri

When the Enterprise responds to a distress signal from a planet (which just happens to look exactly like Earth: mass: 6 x 1021 tons, density 5.517, circumference 24,874 miles, oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere), Kirk, Spock, Yeoman Janice Rand, McCoy, and two security guards beam down and find a copy of Earth in the mid-1960s. On the planet's surface, while inoffensively examining a tricycle, they are attacked by a creature clad in rags. The creature appears to be a disfigured human, but with an extremely accelerated metabolism. He dies shortly after the encounter, but a security guard spots another inhabitant. Following it into a building, the landing party finds a 300-year old piano. They also discover their quarry to be a young girl named Miri. Miri is afraid of the landing party because they are ``grups,'' and the grups killed and hurt children before themselves dying.

The members of the landing party soon learns that they are all infected by a strange disease which causes death to anyone who has reached puberty. At a deserted hospital, they discover that the disease with which they are afflicted (which causing blue rashes) was accidentally created by a project to prolong life. They also discover that the ``lonelies'' (children) on the planet are actually over 300 years old, having aged only one month for every hundred years of real time.

Kirk is attacked by Louise, a girl who has just gone through puberty, and stuns her with a phaser. Like the first creature, she dies. The landing party find old records and discovers that they have only 7 days to live. Meanwhile, the children, led by Jahn, steal the landing party's communicators, rendering their search for a cure almost impossible. When Janice becomes upset and Kirk hugs her to comfort her, Miri becomes jealous and runs away to scheme with the rest of the children. Together, the children devise a ``foolie'' which consists of kidnapping Janice.

Kirk tries to convince Miri that all children eventually contract the disease, despite her protestations that it only happens ``sometimes.'' Miri takes Kirk to the children who proceed to attack him. After Kirk has shown them that it is they who are doing the hurting, and convinced them that they will die without his help, the children finally listen to the ``grups.'' Kirk returns to the hospital, only to find that Bones has injected himself with a possible vaccine. Fortunately for Bones, the vaccine is found to be safe and effective, and all are inoculated. They leave the children behind and contact Starfleet to send advisors and teachers.

Mirror, Mirror

After Kirk fails to convince the Halkan Council to allow the Federation to mine dilithium crystals on their planet, the landing party (Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, and Uhura) returns to the Enterprise. Interference from an ion storm, however, causes them to be transported into a parallel universe and a mirror image Enterprise.

Now aboard the I.S.S. Enterprise (Imperial Starship Enterprise), the landing party discovers crew members who are mirror images of themselves and belong to an evil Federation known as the Empire. Their first experience is the torture of transporter operator Mr. Kyle with an agonizer for his alleged failure to beam the landing party up quickly enough. Immediately, Kirk realizes that a mirror image landing party (including an anti-Kirk) must have been beamed aboard the real U.S.S. Enterprise.

Kirk, Uhura, McCoy, and Scotty impersonate their mirror image counterparts while finding a way to return to their universe. Kirk learns that he has been ordered to annihilate the the Halkans, but piques Spock's curiosity by ordering the Enterprise to hold its fire for 12 hours. Kirk then survives an assassination attempt by Chekov when one of his party defects, and then subjects Chekov to the agony booth. Kirk also uses the computer to determine that he succeeded to command by assassinating Christopher Pike and was responsible for the death of 9000 colonists on Vega.

While Scotty is adjusting the transporter to return them back to the correct universe, Kirk meets Marlena, the ``Captain's Woman.'' Meanwhile, anti-Spock has received a directive to kill Kirk if he does not carry out his orders by destroying the Halkans on the Enterprise's next orbit. Marlena shows Kirk the Tantalus Field, which he recovered from a lost civilization and has been using to eliminate his enemies.

Another assassination attempt, this time by Sulu, is crushed when Marlena uses the Tantalus Field on Sulu's co-conspirators. Kirk stalls Spock by knocking him unconscious, and Uhura, Kirk, and Scott head for the transporter room while McCoy stays behind to make sure that anti-Spock is all right. Anti-Spock the comes out of his self-induced trance and mind melds with McCoy. Discovering that a switch has occurred, anti-Spock then assists Kirk in returning his landing party to their own universe so that the Empire landing party may return to its.

When Kirk and the party return, they find that their Empire counterparts were immediately recognized and put in detention. The Enterprise's crew attributes this to the fact that it is easier for logical men to appear barbarous than for barbarous men to appear civilized.

Mudd's Women

Harcourt (``Harvey'') Fenton Mudd, attempts to evade the Enterprise with his small class J cargo ship, and leads it into an asteroid field. The Enterprise extends its shields over Harvey's ship, in the process burning out three of its four lithium crystals. Just before Mudd's cargo ship is destroyed by an asteroid, Harvey and his human ``cargo'' are beamed aboard the Enterprise.

On the Enterprise, Mudd pretends his name is Leo Francis Walsh, but is eventually forced to admit his true identity. The crew of the Enterprise, including Sulu and navigator John Farrell, become fascinated with the three beautiful women Mudd has been transporting: Ruthie (from a planet of sea ranchers), Magda (from Halium Experimental Station), and Evie McCurin (from a farm planet). The women are destined to be wives for settlers on Ophiuchus 3. McCoy notices a strange effect on his medical panel when one of the women walks near it and is about to investigate when he is distracted by another matter.

As a result of the destruction of three of its lithium crystals, the Enterprise is forced to divert to Rigel 12 to obtain new crystals. Before it can arrive, Mudd obtains a communicator and make his own bargain with the lithium miners (Chief Ben Childress, Benton, and Herm Gosset) on the planet. At Mudd's prompting, the miners offer to provide Kirk with lithium only in exchange for Mudd's freedom and the three women. Mudd and the women beams down to Rigel 12, where Evie becomes fed up with her plight and runs away, but Kirk finds her without difficulty using ship sensors. In the meantime, he learns the secret to the women's beauty: Mudd has been providing them with the Venus drug. Childress rescues Evie, but wants nothing to do with her when her beauty wears off. Kirk beams down to collect the lithium from Childress, at the same time providing Evie with red gelatin she believes to be the Venus drug. Evie believes herself once again to be beautiful, and unintentionally reveals her natural inner beauty. In the end, Kirk gets his lithium, Evie remains with Childress, and Mudd is taken into custody to be turned over to the authorities, only to make a second appearance in the episode I, Mudd.

The Naked Time

A landing party from the Enterprise beams aboard Psi 2000, an ancient planet about to break up. They find all six of the crew manning the station dead. The circumstances are bizarre, however, since the life support systems have been switched off and everything in the station is frozen solid. Crewman Joey unwisely removes his gloves is contaminated by a red liquid. When Joey and Spock return to the Enterprise, both are given a clean bill of health (for Spock, this is a pulse of 242 and a practically nonexistent blood pressure). However, Joey notices a strange itch and begins to act irritably and irrationally. He threatens Sulu with a knife, then attempts to turn it on himself. To McCoy's surprise, Joey soon dies from the inconsequential wounds which result. The infection afflicting Joey begin spreading like wildfire, infecting almost all crew members of the Enterprise in very short order.

As Psi 2000 shows a shift in magnetic field (and mass!), the Enterprise begins a close orbit requiring constant vigilance. Meanwhile, Sulu abandons his post for a jaunt at the gym, believing himself to be a rapier-brandishing French cavalier. Riley takes over the engine room and declares himself Captain. He demands ice cream for the entire crew, and begins a ship-wide broadcast of his personal rendition of classic Irish ballads (his favorite being ``Kathleen'').

As the Enterprise begins spiraling downward, Scotty attempts to cut through the bulkhead to regain control from Riley. Scotty displays a stroke of genius, when he is able to change the laws of physics in under an hour saying, "Ya can't change the laws of physics! I've got to have thirty minutes!"

While all this is going on, Nurse Chapel infects Spock and professes to love him. This is extremely difficult for Spock, especially since the infection is causing him to become excessively emotional. Spock then passes the infection on to Kirk, who begins exhibiting paranoia and loss of ability to command. Kirk is reduced to an ineffectual hand-wringer who can do nothing except agonize over the fear that he is losing command of the Enterprise. Luckily, Bones finds the antidote just in time and Riley is dislodged before the audience's ears are permanently damaged by his wrenching ballads.

After mixing matter and antimatter at a colder than recommended temperature according to an untested intermix formula, the Enterprise is thrown into a time warp which causes the chronometer to run backwards. This allows the Enterprise to escape the breakup of the planet, returning it 71 hours into the past and therefore before any of the episode's events took place.

Obsession

After beaming down to a planet to examine tritantium deposits (21.4 times as hard as diamond), Kirk notices a sweet, honey-like odor. He recognizes it as something he encountered 11 years ago, and orders the security guards to scan for choronium and fire at any gaseous cloud they encounter. Two security guards are killed by the gaseous creature after it removes the red corpuscles and feeds on their hemoglobin. Kirk, Spock, and Ensign Rizzo survive, but Rizzo has much of his hemoglobin removed and must be beamed back to the Enterprise for treatment.

Kirk becomes obsessed with the destruction of the creature, which killed half the crew of the U.S.S. Farragut (including its commander Captain Garrovick), Kirk's first deep-space assignment. Kirk appears to willing to miss his rendezvous with the U.S.S. Yorktown, the ship he is supposed to rendezvous with in order to deliver perishable vaccines for the planet Theta 7.

After Rizzo dies, Kirk beams back down with a landing party which includes Ensign Garrovick (Captain Garrovick's son). Garrovick fires phaser 2 when he spots the gas cloud, but not before two other officers have been attacked. Kirk grills Garrovick, accuses him of ``freezing up'' and being responsible for the death of one officer and severe injury of the other, then relives him of duty.

Reading the log file of the Farragut incident, Spock learns that Kirk's obsession is fueled by the fact that he was the one who ``froze'' 11 years previously, and has been blaming himself for the deaths of half the ship's crew members even since. When Chekov detects the creature leaving the planet's surface and heading into space, Kirk pursues it.

Scanners report that the creature is in a border state between matter and energy. The creature slows and then heads for the Enterprise. Neither phasers nor photon torpedoes damage it, and it enters the ship through the number 2 impulse vent which had inadvertently been left open by Scott after performing maintenance. Spock realizes that the reason for the creature's immunity to weapons fire is because it is able to move itself in time to avoid phaser fire.

On board the Enterprise, the creature attacks two crew men, and entered the ventilation system. Spock goes to explain the creature's ability to avoid being hit by phasers to Garrovick, but is then attacked by it when he tries to prevent it from entering Garrovick's room though the ventilation shaft. Spock is saved only become his hemoglobin is based on copper. (McCoy: ``That green blood of his... left a bad taste in the creature's mouth.'' Spock: ``Colloquially expressed, but essentially correct.'')

The creature then leaves the ship and heads away at warp speed, but Kirk has a hunch of where the creature is headed. In some mystical way, Kirk has sensed that the ``home'' of the creature is planet 4 of the Tycho system, the location where the Farragut was attacked. Spock is in favor of the chase since his sensor readings indicate that the creature is about to fission into multiple copies.

Kirk and Garrovick beam down to the planet and set some hemoplasm as bait, but the creature takes the bait before the explosive charge of antimatter is ready. Kirk proposes to use himself as bait and orders Garrovick back to the ship. Garrovick attempts to knock him out and act as bait himself, but Kirk overpowers him. The two are then beamed up in the knick of time and the charge of antimatter is set off. After some difficulties with the transporter, Garrovick and Kirk arrive back on board the Enterprise safe and sound.

The Omega Glory

As the Enterprise approaches planet Omega 4, they discover the U.S.S. Exeter in orbit. However, no one is aboard. McCoy, Kirk, Spock, and Galloway beam aboard the ship, and find the hip left on automatic pilot. Empty uniforms are strewn everywhere, and seem to be filled with some sort of white crystal. McCoy analyzes the crystals and finds them to contain 35% potasium, 18% carbon, 1.5% calcium, and 1.0% potassium, exactly the contents of the human body when the body's 96% of water is taken away. The boarding party then plays the medical log and are warned that they are dead men. They are warned that they must not return to their ship and told that their only chance for survival is to beam down to the planet surface and find Captain Ron Tracy.

On the Omega 4, they find Tracy who, together with Lee-Yang and Wu (two ``Coms''), is in the process of torturing a pair of savage ``Yangs.'' Kirk, Spock, Galloway, and Bones discover that they have been contaminated with a substance which removes all the water from the bodies of humans, but that the surface of planet Omega 4 provides a natural immunization against the contaminant.

Captain Tracy has apparently become mentally unstable, and Kirk finds he has been interfering with the planet's development. Spock and Galloway are attacked by Yangs while on a fact-finding mission, but Spock has already discovered the discarded power packs which Tracy has used to slaughter hundreds of Yangs. However, when Kirk attempts to communicate this fact to the Enterprise, he is confronted by a phaser-bearing Tracy. To show he means business, Tracy vaporizes the injured Galloway with his hand phaser. Tracy contacts the Enterprise and claims that the landing party has been found unconscious. Kirk blurts out a warning to Sulu, but is instantly knocked out by Coms.

Tracy is convinced that the substance in the atmosphere which protects them from death also prolongs human life, and cites the fact that Wu has lived to 462 years old and his father is more than 1000 years old as evidence. He is obsessed by finding the cause, and proposes that McCoy isolate it. He wants to sell it to the highest bidder, and believes that the significance of the discovery outweighs the force of the noninterference directive. Kirk attempts to overpower him, but is himself overpowered and then thrown into a cell with the captured Yangs.

The male Yang attacks Kirk, but retreats after Spock nerve pinches the female from a neighboring cell. When Kirk and Spock mention the word ``freedom'' while plotting a jailbreak, the Yang perks up and tells Kirk that he has spoken a worship word. The Yang then assists Kirk in prying a bar loose from the window, but then proceeds to wield it on Kirk's head and make his escape with his female friend. 7 hours and 8 minutes later, Kirk regains consciousness. He then helps Spock escape, and they find McCoy.

Bones has discovered that the virus resulted form a biological war in the distant past. Nature has apparently developed a way of conferring immunity to people who stay on the planet long enough. It therefore appears that the landing party is free to return at any time. Moreover, the crew of the Exeter would have survived if only they had stayed on the planet a bit longer. Bones also determines that the inhabitants live to such old ages simply because their ancestors were unusually fit, not because of any age-prolonging serum.

In frustration, Tracy attacks Kirk (who has threatened to turn in Tracy for court martial), but Kirk, Tracy, McCoy, and Spock are all taken prisoner by the victorious Yangs. Kirk realizes that ``Yangs'' and ``Coms'' are actually distorted forms of ``Yanks'' and ``Communists,'' and this somewhat implausible observation is confirmed when the Yangs display a tattered old U.S. flag.

A trial headed by the Yang leader Cloud William (the escaped prisoner) follows. Kirk recognizes the invocation as a distorted form of the Pledge of Allegiance, and surprises the Yangs by completing it unassisted. Tracy tries to convince the Yangs to kill Kirk by claiming he is servant of evil, as evidenced by his association with Spock (whose pointy ears match those in a picture in his ancient book, and who apparently has no heart---at least not in the correct anatomical location).

Kirk attempts to prove his innocence by completing the ``holy words,'' since the Yangs believe that the a liar who speaks them will have his tongue burned by fire. When Kirk cannot, Kirk and Tracy are pitted against one another in a fight to the death. Kirk is in trouble until Spock uses a mysterious mental power to influence Cloud William's woman to activate a captured communicator.

A landing party beams down, although Kirk has already turned the situation around and has Tracy at knife-point by this time. Kirk now realizes that the holy words are actually the preamble to the U.S. Constitution, and reveals the true meaning of the words to Chief William. Kirk and his landing crew then return to the Enterprise, bringing Tracy along as a prisoner.

Operation: Annihilate!

After losing contact with the planet Deneva (population 1 million) for more than a year, the Enterprise goes to investigate. Uhura's attempts to make contact at all frequencies, including private GSK783 subspace frequency 3, but without success. Spock consults the computer and discovers that waves of mass insanity have swept along a straight path through planetary systems Beta Portalin, Lavinius 5 (200 years ago), Theta Cygni 12, and Ingrahem B (2 years ago). Deneva (colonized a century ago and one of the most beautiful planets in the area) is the next planet on this path, and Kirk expects the worst for his brother Sam and his family.

While approaching the planet, the Enterprise encounters a Denevan ship heading straight for the sun. Attempts to convince the pilot to change course fail, and the pilot flies into the sun. Just before being vaporized, the pilot makes the cryptic statement ``I did it. It's finally gone,'' and claims that he is finally ``free.'' Uhura finally gets through to the private transmitter, and hears the message ``Please hurry, help us, I don't have much time. They'll know,'' being transmitted by Sam's wife Aurelan.

When Kirk beams down with a landing party, a group of armed men attempts to attack them with clubs, while at the same time shouting that they don't want to hurt them. Responding to a scream, the landing party finds Sam (who was a research biologist) dead and his wife Aurelan and son Peter in great pain. Aurelan refers to invaders, but the tricorder shows nothing unusual. After Aurelan and Peter have been beamed to the Enterprise and questioned as far as they can be, Aurelan reports that the invaders came from planet Ingraham B eight months ago after forcing the crew to take them there. She reports that the invaders use pain to control people and are forcing the residents of Deneva to build ships for them.

Kirk, Spock, and a landing party enter a building in which they find hundreds of small creatures which look like plastic pancakes. The creatures do not register on the tricorder and are highly resistant to phaser fire. When leaving, one of the creature whirls towards them and attaches itself to Spock's back. Back on the Enterprise, McCoy finds that Spock's nerves are being surrounded with strange tissue. Despite his incredible pain (as shown by the K3 indicator), Spock escapes from the sickbay and attempts to take over the bridge before being subdued and tranquillized. However, he is subsequently able to bring himself under control. He escapes again, and overpowers a transporter technician before Scotty covers him with a phaser. When he points out to Kirk that he is the reasonable choice to beam down to the planet to collect an alien for study since his nervous system is already compromised, Kirk allows him to go. On the planet surface, he is attacked by a man wielding a pipe, but is able to overpower him. He then phasers one of the alien pancakes and places it in a little red specimen box using a pair of plastic tweezers.

An analysis of the alien by McCoy shows it to be a one-cell creature resembling a brain cell. It seems also to be part of a larger organism which is composed of physically separate parts. McCoy tries to find the agent responsible for killing the creature when the Denevan ship flew into the sun. However, the alien seems unaffected by all radiation and heat, but McCoy initially neglects to try visible light. He finds that intense light kills the study specimen, and Spock volunteers to see if light also kills the alien material wrapped around his nerves. The experiment is a success, but Spock is blinded by the intense light. Seconds later, McCoy receives test results which demonstrate that the ultraviolet portion of the spectrum was all that would have been needed. The Enterprise consequently rings the planet with 210 ultraviolet trimagnesite intridium satellites (at 72 miles altitude), which bathe Deneva in ultraviolet radiation and kill the aliens. Meanwhile, Spock's eyes recover and his sight is restored because of a (hitherto unknown to us) Vulcan inner eyelid.

The Paradise Syndrome

Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down to a planet about to be destroyed by an asteroid as big as the Earth's Moon which on a collision course. They have 30 minutes to investigate before they must return to the Enterprise and deflect the asteroid.

They beam down in the middle of a pine forest next to a lake, and rightfully wonder at the astronomical chances that another planet should have developed so similarly to Earth. They soon discover an obelisk made of an alien metal which resists sensors and which is inscribed with inscrutable alien writing. And, in yet another amazing coincidence, they also find that the planet is inhabited by a group of American Indians consisting of Navaho, Mohican, and Delaware tribes. When Kirk returns to investigate the alien structure, he accidentally falls inside it while in the process of initiating communicator contact with Scotty. Search parties and sensor scans fail to locate him, and Spock and Scott are forced to leave in order to divert the asteroid and must return for Kirk later.

Inside the alien structure, Kirk's memory is erased and he can no longer remember who he is or what his instruments do. After he finds his way out of the structure, he is discovered by Indians leaving an offering at their ``temple'' and is taken for a god. The Indian elders are somewhat doubtful of the authenticity of Kirk's godhood and ask him to prove it. When a drowned boy is brought before the elders, Kirk practices mouth-to-mouth resuscitation and brings him back to life. Since the boy had been pronounced dead by the medicine man Salish, this is considered sufficient proof, and Salish is force to jealously gives up his medicine badge.

Meanwhile, the Enterprise makes it ways to the deflection point and attempts to push the asteroid off course. However, it suffers from mechanical problems and loses power before it can sufficiently deflect the asteroid.

Salish's jealousy is increased when his betrothed Meramanee (the chief's daughter) tells him she cannot marry him, because she is betrothed to the new medicine man ``Kirok.'' She asks Kirk to set the ``joining day,'' and he, oblivious of the oncoming asteroid, settles on tomorrow. In short order, he gets Mirimani pregnant. He is attacked by Salish, who discovers that he bleeds and therefore cannot be a god. Kirk has also discovers that the secret of the temple has been lost because Salish's father died before passing it along to his son.

Meanwhile, Spock attempts to fragment the asteroid with phasers, but blows out most of Scott's circuits in the process. He then retreats in front of the asteroid, despite Scott's pronouncement that he can do nothing to fix the damage without the help of a Starbase. Spock blames himself for Kirk's marooning and for the failure to destroy the asteroid, and refuses to eat or sleep until he solved the mystery of the obelisk.

On the planet, the winds begin blowing fiercely and the sky to darken. The Indians tell him that he must go to the temple and stop the the natural phenomena before the earth begins to tremble. Kirk finally agrees, but can do nothing since he does not remember how to get inside. In contrast to Kirk's befuddlement, Spock discovers that the symbols on the obelisk are musical notes left behind by a super race known as the Preservers. The preservers passed the the galaxy rescuing primitive cultures in danger of extinction, and the obelisk is a giant astroid deflector.

Meanwhile, Kirk and Meramanee are stoned by the Indians at the temple when Kirk is unable to get inside. McCoy and Spock beam down and frighten the Indians off, but not before Meramanee has been mortally wounded. Spock uses a Vulcan mind fusion on Kirk and manages to restore his memory. When he activates his communicator and says ``Kirk to Enterprise,'' a sliding panel opens up and grants them entry to the obelisk. Inside the ``temple,'' Spock is able to read the symbols and activate the astroid repulsion beam.

Patterns of Force

When the Enterprise approaches the inner planet Ecos to investigate the cessation of communication with researcher John Gill, it is attacked with a rocket carrying a nuclear weapon. This is puzzling as well as dangerous, since neither the outer planet Zeon nor the inner planet Ecos is technologically advanced enough to possess rockets or nuclear warheads. The Enterprise retreats to maximum orbital distance and Kirk and Spock beam down (after having position-broadcasting transponders surgically implanted in case of mishaps).

Kirk and Spock discover that a Nazi movement has swept the planet, complete with genocide of the ``Zeon pigs'' residing on Ecos. They view a public newscast in which the Iron Cross second class is presented to Daras, hero of the Fatherland. Kirk and Spock are also shocked to learn that Gill appears to be the leader of the planet's Nazi movement.

When they are approached and questioned by a Nazi Lieutenant, they overpower him and Spock steals his uniform. Spock then pretends that Kirk is a Zeon he has captured and nerve pinches a Gestapo commander who wishes to take charge of Kirk. This provides Kirk's uniform, and Spock compliments Kirk by telling him ``You should make a very convincing Nazi.''

As Kirk and Spock make their way to see the Führer, they are confronted by a Nazi S.S. Major after Spock neglects to salute him. The Major becomes suspicious, and Spock is exposed when he is forced to remove his helmet. Spock and Kirk are then whipped in the process of being interrogated. Nazi Party Chairman Eneg interrupts the ``questioning'' and tells the Nazis to lock up Kirk and Spock for an hour (in contradiction to standing orders to execute prisoners after interrogation).

In prison, Kirk and Spock speak to an imprisoned Zeon (whom they had previously encountered being beaten on the street by the Nazis) and find that the Nazi movement began several years ago (corresponding with the arrival of Gill). They escape from prison by making a primitive laser from the rubindium crystals in their transponders using their cell's incandescent bulb as the excitation source (not quite a flash arc and ruby crystal, but close enough in a pinch). Spock hides outside the cell and then nerve pinches the guard when Kirk summons him under the pretext of wanting to talk. Kirk and Spock also allow the Zeon prisoner to tag along.

Kirk and Spock penetrate Nazi headquarters with the help of Secretary Daras and Chairman Eneg. They discover that Gill is only the drugged puppet of deputy Führer Melakon after he gives a stilted speech unleashing the final assault on Zeon. McCoy is beamed down and manages to barely overcome the drug. Gill tells them that he started the Nazi movement to unify the planet (because it was the ``most efficient system Earth ever knew''). With an extra hypo from Kirk, Gill manages to call back the invasion fleet and denounce Melakon as a traitor. Melakon grabs a machine-gun and kills Gill, only to be shot himself. Chairman Eneg takes over and stops the killing, declaring that ``it is time to live the way our Fürher intended. Kirk and company then return to the Enterprise in peace.

A Piece of the Action

The crew of the Enterprise attempts to make contact with the inhabitants of planet Sigma Iosha 2, and Uhura puts Kirk in communication with Boss Oksmyx. The intelligent and imitative inhabitants of Sigma Iota 2 have built a culture around the book Chicago Mobs of the Twenties (published in 1992) which was accidentally left behind a hundred years ago by the S.S. Horizon. The Horizon was subsequently lost in space, and its report only reached the Federation two months previously because it was sent by conventional radio instead of sub-space communication. At the time of the Horizon's visit, the noninterference directive was not in effect, so Kirk, McCoy, and Spock wonder what sort of ``contamination'' they will encounter when they beam down to the agreed upon rendezvous point: a street intersection next to a yellow fire hydrant. Upon arriving, they are held at gunpoint (``heater''-point) by Oksmyx's men (including Kalo), but are taken safely to the ``Boss'' after a machine gun attack by rival boss Krako.

Oksmyx reports that there are a dozen or so Bosses across the planet, each controlling his own ``territory'' (plus assorted small fry). He asks Kirk to supply him with weapons so that he can take over the planet, and becomes upset when Kirk tells him that this is impossible. Oksmyx has his men escort Kirk and his party to a warehouse and hold them prisoner, then uses Kirk's communicator to demand that Scott beam down a supply of phasers within 8 hours or he will ``burn'' the landing party. Kirk wrangles his way out of imprisonment by pretending to teach the Ioshans the card game ``Fizzbin.'' Fizzbin is purported to originate on the planet Beta Antares 4, and is played by dealing each player six cards (except the player on the dealer's right, who gets 7). A second card is turned up, except on Tuesdays. Two Jacks are a half-Fizzbin, but any player with three Jacks is said to have a ``shrank,'' and is disqualified. There are a number of additional rules, and when Kirk asks Spock the odds of getting a Royal Fizzbin, Spock he replies, ``I have never computed them.'' Having thus distracted the guards, Kirk and Spock overpower them. Kirk instructs Spock and McCoy to use the radio station to contact Scotty and beam back to the Enterprise. Unfortunately, as soon as Kirk leaves the warehouse, he is kidnapped by some of Krako's men.

Jojo Krako, who is Boss of the southside territory, also wants heaters and instruction on how to use them, and offers Kirk one third of the proceeds of their use. He is not amused when Kirk suggests a sit-down conference to discuss planet-wide unification, and has his men notify Serl the Knife that he may have a job. Oksmyx learns about Kirk's capture, and contacts the Enterprise. By promising a truce, he gets McCoy and Spock to agree to beam down to discuss how Kirk can be freed. Before beaming down, however, Spock instructs Scotty to set the ship's phasers on wide dispersion stun for the region surrounding their beam-down point. As Spock suspected, he and McCoy are immediately taken prisoner. However, Kirk has been able to escape from his prison cell by pretending to be hurt, then subduing his guards. He makes his way back to Oksmyx's office and frees Spock and McCoy. He also forces two of Oksmyx's men to exchange clothes with himself and Spock, and the two make their jerky way to Krako by stealing a manual-transmission ``flivver'' (Kirk is obviously a better Starship Captain than automobile driver).

While staking out Krako's place, Spock and Kirk are accosted by a young hoodlum who offers to help them with the ``hit'' in exchange for a piece of the action. He distracts the men guarding the door by pretending to be hurt. Kirk and Spock pretend to be his family, and then overpower the unsuspecting guards. Once inside, however, they find that they have been expected and are being covered by machine-gun wielding gangsters.

Kirk convinces Krako that the Federation is moving in, and tells Krako that he will be cut in for a piece of the action if he cooperates. He then has Scotty beam Krako up to the Enterprise, although Scott is initially perplexed by Kirk's gangster lingo. Kirk then gives the same story to Oksmyx, and has him call the other Bosses (including Teppo). Scott locates the the people on the other end of the phone line, and transports them all to Oksmyx's chamber. They seem to agree to unification under the Federation (which gets a 40% cut), but then demand to see proof that Kirk and Company actually have some muscle backing them up.

At this point, a ``hit'' begins on Oksmyx's men, and Krako used the opportunity to again take Kirk, McCoy, and Spock hostage. He does grant Kirk a last transmission to the Enterprise, which Kirk uses to tell Scott to stun the battling gang members using the ship's phasers. The Bosses are impressed by this display, and agree to Kirk's original proposal, with Oksmyx as head Boss and Krako as his Lieutenant. Spock has reservations about the idea of leaving a criminal organization in charge, and also wonders how Kirk plans to collect a 40% cut every year, but Kirk pooh-poohs his objections.

As the Enterprise is leaving, however, McCoy realizes that he has left his communicator behind in Bella's office. The communicator contains a transtator, the integral part found in all machinery found of the Enterprise, so it is very likely that the imitative Iotans will have made impressive technological progress the next time they are visited by the Federation.

Plato's Stepchildren

When the Enterprise diverts to answer a medical emergency on an unknown planet, its crew discovers a group of natives of the star Sandara who claim to have traveled to Earth during the time of Plato and Socrates after their star supernovaed. When Greek civilization died, they left and settled on their current planet, which they call Platonius. The Platonians have very long life spans but are easily injured. They are also sadistic psychokinetics who amuse themselves by manipulating Alexander the Dwarf.

McCoy attempts to treat a minor cut their Philosopher-King Parman has sustained and which has become massively infected. However, Parman has a high fever and begins to become delirious. Unfortunately, his delirium translates into moving, shaking, and breaking of objects, including the Enterprise. Fortunately, when McCoy hypos Parman, the psychokinetic fits end. When Parman comes to, Parman, Queen Shirana (who is 2300 years old), Dianide, Eristethis, and the other Platonians begin to make life miserable for Kirk, McCoy, and Spock in order to convince McCoy to stay behind and act as their personal physician.

Parman first makes Kirk slap himself in the face repeatedly, then makes Kirk and Spock sing and perform silly songs for them. He also makes Spock laugh. When McCoy begs Parman not to continue forcing Spock to laugh, Parman makes him cry hysterically. In a final insult, Kirk acts as a whinnying horse while Alexander rides on his back.

Spock and Kirk question Alexander and find that the Platonians' powers developed 6 months 14 days after their arrival. Spock surmises that a substance found in the planet's food, is responsible for their mental powers, since the Platonians began consuming native foods after consuming their 2-3 months of supply. The chemical kironide is found to work in conjunction with pituitary growth hormone, explaining why the dwarf Alexander is unaffected.

The Platonians force Uhura and Nurse Chapel to beam down for their further amusement. They force Spock to serenade Chapel, and Kirk to kiss Uhura. Kirk and Spock also are forced to take a hot poker and a whip and pretend to use them on the women. Alexander tries to stab Parman, but is discovered and forced to turn the knife on himself. However, Kirk gives the Platonians a taste of their own medicine when he stops Alexander using the psychokinetic power he has acquired using a kironide injection given him by McCoy. Mind games between Parman and Kirk reveal Kirk to have the stronger power, and Parman backs down and promises to behave in the future. Kirk takes Alexander with him, leaving the Platonians to their own devices and warning that he can recreate the psychokinetic power if it should be needed.

A Private Little War

Spock, Bones, and Kirk beam down to a planet to obtain biological specimens. McCoy reports that the planet is a medical treasure trove. Kirk is familiar with the planet since it was the first planet he surveyed (13 years ago). Kirk also reports to Spock that the planet's inhabitants are peaceful and are only just beginning to learn how to forge iron. He is therefore extremely surprised to see villagers with rifles lying in ambush for a party of hill people which includes Kirk's former friend Tyree. To distract the ambushers, Kirk throws a rock, which causes the rifle to go off. However, it also brings on a chase, and Spock is shot with a flintlock while trying to escape.

The landing party beams up to the Enterprise, where they find a Klingon ship heading towards them. However, Kirk manages to keep the ship remain concealed by hiding the Enterprise on the opposite side of the planet. Kirk speculates that the Klingons have violated the treaty governing the ``neutral planet'' which restricts both parties to scientific research, and provided them with rifles. Kirk and McCoy beam down to investigate the Klingon's activities, leaving Dr. M'Benga in charge of Spock.

After beaming down, Kirk is attacked by the poisonous mugatu, a large white beast resembling a gorilla with a horn on its head and fins on its back. There is no antidote to the poison, but the hill people find McCoy and Kirk and take them to Tyree, who is now their leader. The Kanutu woman Nona is a medicine woman, as well as being the power-hungry manipulative wife of Tyree. She cures Kirk using a mako root (a plant which moves) and by having Tyree make a cut across her hand. After Kirk is healed, the wound on Nona's hand also vanishes.

Tyree reports that the firesticks are made by the village people, and that they first appeared about a year ago. Nona wants Kirk to use his weapons to vanquish the village people and make her husband a powerful man. She is greatly disappointed when Tyree pledges not to kill and Kirk is reluctant to share his knowledge of weaponry.

Kirk and McCoy enter a village and discover the Klingon Krell advising the village leader Apella, as well as carbon-free steel and other technological innovations too advanced for a primitive society. Unfortunately, they are discovered when McCoy accidentally triggers his tricorder. Luckily, they are able to escape.

Meanwhile, Spock recovers aboard the Enterprise, but tells Nurse Chapel ``hit me'' when he comes out of his self-induced healing trance. Nurse Chapel is hesitant at first, but then complies, only to be restrained by a shocked Scott. Dr. M'Benga then continues striking SPock, and with the aid of the pain thus induced, Spock is able to come out of his trance.

On the planet, Kirk furnishes the hill people with rifles, noting the analogy of the present situation with the brush conflicts on the Asian continent. In this conflict, Kirk says, two great powers fought through surrogates by supplying the opposing sides with roughly equal weaponry (but nothing capable of mass destruction), an obvious reference to the Viet Nam War.

Nona uses an herb to seduce Kirk. Although Tyree witnesses the seduction, he cannot bring himself to fire the gun he is holding and runs off. Meanwhile, Nona is attacked by a mogatu and Kirk uses a phaser to kill it. Nona repays the favor by hitting Kirk on the head with a rock and stealing his phaser. However, when she attempts to turn it over to the village people, they are only interested in molesting her. When the hill people arrive, the village people kill Nona, believing that she has set them up. The village people are killed by the hill people, but Tyree is mad with anger and asks Kirk for many weapons with which to kill the village people. Kirk complies by asking Scotty to manufacture flintlock rifles for the hill people which he refers to as ``serpents for the Garden of Eden.'' As they beam back to the Enterprise, Kirk s upset at the loss of innocence he has contributed to, but knows of no other action he could have taken.

Requiem for Methuselah

When Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to a small planet in the Omega system to obtain ryetalyn to counter the epidemic of Rigellian fever sweeping the Enterprise, they detect a life form (despite the fact that ship's sensors had indicated it to be uninhabited). They are then attacked by a droid called M4, which is subsequently called off by its owner, Mr. Flint. Mr. Flint demands that the landing party leave the planet immediately, and threatens to kill them if they do not. Kirk then calls his bluff by ordering Scotty to lock phasers on their position so that an attack on the landing party will result in the death of all of them. When McCoy tells Flint that the crew of the Enterprise is suffering from a disease which has effects similar to bubonic plague, Flint recalls the progress of that disease in Constantinople in the summer of 1334. He then permits the crew two hours on his planet, and offers M4's services to collect the ryetalyn. He then invites them to his home.

In Flint's home, McCoy is impressed to find a Shakespeare first edition, Gutenberg Bible, and creation lithographs by Terra Nullus of Centaurus 7. Spock then examines the extensive collection of unknown Da Vinci paintings, but his tricorder reveals the materials used to be of contemporary origin.

Meanwhile, Flint has consulted with his protege Rayna Kontec, who begs him him to allow the landing party to stay a bit longer. Flint then promises to have M4 process the ryetalyn, and introduces Rayna to the landing party, who are smitten with her. She, however, seems most interested in discussing field density and its relationship to gravity phenomena with Spock. Flint claims Rayna's parents were killed in an accident while in his employ and that he has raised her. He also says that Rayna possesses the equivalent of 17 university degrees in the arts and sciences.

While Kirk plays billiards with Rayna, Spock discovers a waltz on the piano and plays it while Kirk and Rayna dance. Spock is greatly surprised (for a Vulcan, at least), when he recognizes the waltz as an unknown work of Johannes Brahms written in his own hand.

In Flint's lab, McCoy discovers that the ryetalyn is contaminated with iridium at nearly 1 part per thousand, rendering it inert and useless. While Flint goes to collect uncontaminated ryetalyn, Kirk takes the opportunity to romance Rayna, with whom he has fallen in love. While Kirk is thus engaged, M4 returns and prepares to attack Kirk, who is saved when Spock destroys M4 with a phaser. Flint explains that M4 misunderstood Kirk's actions as an attack and was attempting to defend Rayna. Just as Kirk is beginning to feel comfortable after M4's demise, a replacement M4 created by Flint makes its appearance.

Kirk contacts the Enterprise to try to find information on Flint and Rayna. However, the only information Uhura can provide is that the planet was purchased 30 years ago by a wealthy financier and recluse named Mr. Brack. Spock finds another piece of the puzzle when he surreptitiously performs a tricorder scan and discovers that Flint is 6000 years old.

When Rayna goes to say goodbye to Kirk, Kirk urges her to come away with him. Meanwhile, the ryetalyn has also disappeared. When Kirk follows tricorder readings past a sliding panel, they find a chamber containing a series of android Raynas created by Flint to act as companions. Flint then admits to having been born in Mesopotamia as the soldier Acarin in the year 3834 BC. After falling in battle, he learned that he was immortal. In his lifetime, he was also Abramson, Alexander, Brahms, Da Vinci, Lazarus, Merlin, Methuselah, Reginald Pollock (from the 20th century), Shakespeare, Solomon, the painter Sten (from Marcus II), and many more people. Because of his immortality, he created a mate who would not age and die. Having learned Flint's secret, Flint refuses to let the landing party go. When Kirk tries to warn the Enterprise to leave the area, Flint suspends the Enterprise as a small tabletop model.

Flint is happy that Kirk has stirred emotions in Rayna and wishes to turn them towards himself. When Kirk refuses to back down, he and Flint fight one another. As a result of the conflict of Kirk wanting her to come away and Flint wanting her to stay, Rayna is caught in a logic loop because she is unable to hurt Kirk or Flint. This causes her to die. Kirk is devastated, but obtains uncontaminated ryetalyn from Flint and returns the the Enterprise.

On the Enterprise, Bones discovers that Flint is dying, having been removed from the Earth whose complex ``fields'' were the source of his immortality. Kirk's emotional trauma at the loss of Rayna is healed only when Spock uses a Vulcan mind meld and makes him ``forget.''

The Return of the Archons Construction

While searching for survivors of the Starship Archon which disappeared under mysterious circumstances, the crew of the Enterprise encounters a culture of zombies controlled by the computer Landru. Landru regulates the life of all planet members, purging their systems of violence and anger at specified times known as ``festivals'' and leaving them blankly contented for the rest of the time. Landru succeeds in absorbing Sulu, and attempts to do the same with the rest of the crew. When Kirk points out to Landru that he has violated his program by allowing human culture to stagnate, Landru disintegrates in a shower of sparks and frees the planet from his control.

Return To Tomorrow

The Enterprise receives a distress call from a planet hundreds of light years too distant to have been visited by any Earth ship. Spock determines that the planet is similar to Earth, but older, and also that its atmosphere was ripped away a half million years ago. Spock also detects no sign of life. As the Enterprise nears the planet, a voice identifying itself as Sargon asks Kirk to assume a standard orbit about the planet. The voice also addresses the crew of the Enterprise as ``my children.'' Spock detects a power source originating 100 miles below the planet's surface, and Kirk and McCoy prepare to beam down. Kirk wants Spock to stay on board, but the Enterprise loses all power when he states this. When Kirk changes his mind and proposes to bring Spock along, all power comes back on. Astrobiologist Dr. Anne Mullhall also tags along, claiming she has received an order to accompany them despite the fact that Kirk has given no such order. Strangely, the security guards get left behind when the transporter is activated. Furthermore, after arriving, the communicators function through 100 miles of rock despite the fact that they should not.

The landing party discovers evidence of an ancient culture on a planet whose habitable surface was destroyed long ago by a self-inflicted cataclysm. Sargon is revealed as a spherical receptacle containing pure energy which is the ``essence'' of Sargon. Sargon reports that his people colonized the galaxies 6000 centuries ago, and that humans and Vulcans may be their descendants. When Kirk asks Sargon how he can help, Sargon occupies Kirk's body. This transference produces great stress on Kirk's body, causing McCoy to become alarmed. Sargon then asks to borrow the bodies of Spock and Anne Mullhall for the surviving minds of Filisa (his wife) and Hanoc (a member of the opposing side in the great war), the only other two survivors, so that they may construct androids. Kirk, Spock, and Mullhall voluntarily agree, and the receptacles are beamed aboard the Enterprise for transference.

As before, the stress is too great on the human bodies, although Spock's body proves to be rugged enough to sustain Hanoc temporarily. Sargon leaves Hanoc in charge of formulating a metabolism depressant, but Hanoc takes the opportunity to doctor the formula to kill Sargon (and Kirk) so that he can stay in Spock's body. Nurse Chapel notices that the formula is incorrect, but Hanoc erases her memory and she forgets noticing this. While he is possessed by Hanoc, Spock flashes uncharacteristic smiles on several occasions.

Hanoc finds that Felissa is also desirous of keeping her body and does not wish to return to her receptacle. Meanwhile, Sargon is feeling the effects of the incorrect serum, and even Dr. McCoy cannot save him from dying in Kirk's body. Felissa attempts to engage McCoy in her scheme to remain in Mullhall's body while pretending to have left it, but then relents.

Sargon, who reveals himself to still be alive, expresses his approval. He and Felissa now scheme to force Hanoc to leave Spock's body. They restore Kirk to perfect health, but destroy the receptacle containing Spock's consciousness in order (to prevent Hanoc from returning to it) and attempt to administer a deadly poison. Hanoc has taken control of the ship, but Nurse Chapel manages to inject him. It turns out that Sargon has been sharing consciousness with Nurse Chapel, and that the hypo had actually only contained a tranquillizer. Spock is therefore returned to perfect health, but Hanoc, who had fled Spock's body believing it to have been poisoned, is now destroyed. Sargon realizes that the temptation for he and Filissa to abuse their god-like powers is too great, and he and Filissa desert their bodies and fade into oblivion.

The Savage Curtain

While scanning planet Excalbia, Spock detects strange readings which seem to indicate the presence of carbon cycle life forms. Because of the planet's molten surface, the reading are discarded as impossible until the Enterprise is scanned from the planet. The subsequent appearance of Abraham Lincoln on the viewing screen and his transportation to the Enterprise demonstrate that whatever intelligence resides on the planet has the ability to read minds and manipulate matter. Kirk orders full honors and courtesy be extended to their guest (including Lt. Dickerson and his security detachment). Shortly before beaming Lincoln aboard, Spock reports that sensors showing an object resembling living rock with claws at the same position.

On board, Lincoln appears to be human with knowledge of technology from the mid 1800's, but is strangely also aware of the Vulcan philosophy of Nom (meaning all). When Kirk accepts Lincoln's invitation for Spock and him to beam down to the newly-created patch of Earth-type environment on the planet (over McCoy and Scotty's strong objections), they encounter Surak, the father of Vulcan civilization. A piece of rock suddenly becomes animated and informs them that the inhabitants of the planet are conducting an experiment to discover which of the opposing human philosophies is stronger: good or evil. The inhabitants of Excalbia will witness the ``drama,'' as will the crew of the Enterprise. In this first experiment, the goal will be a simple one: survival.

To carry out their experiment, the rock creatures pit Lincoln, Surak, Kirk, and Spock (whose phasers and tricorders failed to beam down with them) against Genghis Khan, Colonel Green (who led a genocidal war in the early 21st Century), Zora (who experimented with the body chemistry of subject tribes on Tiburon), and Kahless the Klingon (who set the pattern for the Klingon Empire's tyrannies) in a battle to the death. Col. Green (who was notorious for attacking his enemies while in the midst of negotiations) begins the conflict by pretending to call a truce with Kirk while his associates prepare to attack. However, after fending off the attack, Kirk does not wish to begin hostilities. As incentive to fight, the Enterprise is rigged to blow up if Kirk cannot succeed within four hours. Kirk begins making tactics (and Lincoln compares his leadership qualities to those of Ulysses S. Grant), but Spock and Surak refuse to cooperate and Surak seeks out the other group to negotiate.

Green appears to parlay with Surak, but sends his associates to sneak up on him. They then attempt to trick Kirk's party into rescuing him when he (apparently) screams out in pain. Lincoln attempts to sneak into Green's camp, but this action had been expected. As he discovers that Surak is already dead, Lincoln is speared from behind. Col. Green's party then attacks Spock and Kirk. Spock kills Col. Green and the others are forced to flee. The rock creatures discover that evil is defeated when directly confronted by good, and Spock, Kirk, and the Enterprise are released.

Shore Leave

An Earth-like uninhabited planet in the Omicron Delta region seems the ideal location for rest and relaxation for the tired crew of the Enterprise. However, strange things soon begin to happen to the landing party. McCoy sees Alice and a white rabbit, Sulu finds an antique Police Special gun, Yeoman Barrels is accosted by Don Juan, and Esteban Rodriguez and Angela see birds. No one believes McCoy's Alice sighting until Kirk beams down and spots a giant rabbit track. Kirk cancels shore leave for the rest of the crew, but is then confronted with practical joker Finigan from Starfleet Academy on the one hand and his former girlfriend Ruth on the other. Meanwhile, Sulu has been attacked by a Samurai, Rodriguez and Angela have been confronted by a tiger, and Bones is making moves on Barrels, who has found princess's clothes.

Spock meanwhile reports from the Enterprise that he has detected a sophisticated power field on the planet which is draining the Enterprise's energy. Spock beams down to help investigate just as communications with the ship are becoming impossible. Pleasure over seeing Barrels dressed as a princess soon turns to terror when Bones is lanced by a knight. After bones is skewered, Kirk shoots the knight with the gun he has confiscated from Sulu. Investigation of the knight shows him to have the same cellular structure as the plants on the planet, and Spock surmises that it has been ``manufactured.'' Angela is then killed by a Japanese Zero airplane, and the bodies of knight and McCoy disappear.

After asking Kirk what he was thinking about prior to encountering Finigan, Spock realizes that the apparitions are being created out of the minds of the landing party. Upon thinking about the Academy again, Kirk conjures up Finigan and heads off on a wild chase after him. After Kirk catches up, Finigan lays him out flat. After more fighting, Kirk finally succeeds in doing something he had never done before, defeating Finney.

Suddenly, the planet's ``caretaker'' appears with a ``repaired'' McCoy (on the arms of two cabaret girls from Rigel 2). The caretaker apologizes for the misunderstandings and offers the services of the ``amusement park'' planet to the Enterprise's weary crew. Kirk accepts and authorizes the crew to beam down, but Spock has had his fill of shore leave and requests to be returned to the Enterprise.

Space Seed

The derelict DY100 class spaceship S.S. Botany Bay built in the 1990s is discovered by the Enterprise. Biological scanners detect life aboard, but only 4 heartbeats a minute, so Bones does not believe them to be produced by humans. The Enterprise has no record of the ship, but this is not surprising as many records were lost in the great World War of Eugenics fought during that period.

Bones, Scotty, Kirk and historian Marla McGivers beam aboard and discover it is indeed an old Earth ship powered by primitive nuclear power. The crew is in suspended animation, but the leader is accidentally awakened when the lights are turned on. Kirk is forced to break the glass and remove him from his chamber when the revival procedure fails and he is almost killed. McCoy and the man are then beamed aboard the Enterprise.

As the Enterprise proceeds to Starbase 12 in the Gamma 400 star system, historian McGivers falls in love with the leader (who is discovered to be Khan Noonien Singh). Khan makes a miraculous recovery, and holds Bones at scalpel-point to find out where he is. Khan and his crew are products of the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. In 1993, a group of supermen simultaneously seized power in more than 40 nations. Spock reveals to Kirk that his research has determined that that there were 80-90 supermen unaccounted for at the end of the war. This, together with Khan's extreme strength and physical prowess lead Kirk and Spock to wonder if there passenger might be one of the missing supermen. Through subtle questioning, Kirk gets Khan to inadvertently admit that he is one of the supermen when he blurts out ``We offered the world order.'' Kirk and company look up Khan in the database and find him to have been the most dangerous of the supermen, and at one time to have ruled a quarter of the Earth.

Khan uses his great strength to break out of his cabin, and McGivers helps him to transport to the Botany Bay. Khan awakens the 72 out of 84 superhumans (30 of them women) whose life support systems are still functioning and takes over the Enterprise with their help. Khan cuts off life support to the bridge, knocking out Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Uhura, Technicians First Class Tooly and Harrison, and Lt. Spinelli.

When Khan puts Kirk in a decompression chamber to force the other command crew members to join him, McGivers relents and helps Kirk regain control of the ship by cutting off the monitor camera on the chamber, injecting the guard, and releasing Kirk. Kirk then helps Spock escape when he is brought to the chamber for his turn. They gas the entire ship, but Khan escapes to engineering and attempts to cause the ship to self-destruct. Kirk takes on Khan in hand-to-hand combat, and is able to overcome him using a rod which he pulls from the control panel.

Kirk maroons the superhumans on Ceti Alpha 5, leaving them sufficient supplies to enable them to colonize the uninhabited planet. On hearing this, Khan asks Kirk if he has ever read Milton, and Kirk says yes, he understands. The reference is the statement Lucifer made when he fell into the pit, ``It is better to rule in Hell than suffer in Heaven.'' Kirk gives McGivers a choice between court martial and being left behind with Khan, and she elects to stay with Khan.

This episode was the basis for the movie Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

Spectre of the Gun

On a mission to establish contact with the reclusive Melcotians, Kirk ignores the message of a space probe which uses telepathy (each crew member hears the message in his own language) to warn the Enterprise to immediately leave Melcot space. Kirk tries to contact the Melcotians, but there is no response to his message.

When Spock, Kirk, Scott, McCoy, and Chekov beam down to Melcot, they materialize in a fog bank not recorded by ship's sensors. In addition, tricorders and communicators cease functioning. The landing party encounters a Melcotian who informs them that they are outside disease which must be destroyed. Their trespassing is to be punished by death, and that the pattern of their death will be taken from Kirk's memories, since it was he who ordered that the Melcotians' warning to be disregarded. Because Kirk's ancestors pioneered the West, the landing party finds itself teleported to Tombstone, Arizona on October 26, 1881. The townsfolk refer to Kirk as Ike Clanton, Chekov as Billy Clayborn, Scotty and Billy Clanton, Bones as Tom McCloury, and Spock as Frank McClary. Spock recalls that at 5:00, on this date in history, the Clanton Gang shot it out with Doc Holiday and Morgan, Virgil, and Wyatt Earp at the OK Corral--and were defeated.

On their way to the local saloon, the landing party witnesses the shooting of a bar patron by Morgan Earp. Inside the bar, Chekov is accosted by a woman name Sylvia who claims to know him. Both Kirk and Chekov narrowly avoid a gunfight with Morgan Earp over the incident. Kirk tries unsuccessfully to make peace with the Earps. When this fails, he and the landing party attempt to leave town so as not to be around at 5:00, but they are stopped by a force field.

Desperately, Bones and Spock cooperate to build a tranquillizer bomb which will incapacitate the Earps. McCoy tries to borrow chemicals for his bomb from the local dentist, only to find that the dentist is Doc Holliday. Nevertheless, Holliday lets him take the chemicals, telling him that he better be finished using them before his 5:00 date with destiny.

Meanwhile, Chekov has fallen in love with Sylvia, with whom Morgan Earp is unfortunately also in love. When Morgan picks a fight over the girl, Chekov is shot and killed. Spock is puzzled by this, since William Clayborn survived the battle at the OK Corral. Kirk takes it to mean that the outcome of the conflict does not necessarily correspond with the historical outcome. Kirk tries to get the Sheriff to call the shootout off, but finds that he is more interested in having the Clanton gang kill the Earps.

With time running out, Scotty volunteers to test the potion Bones has cooked up. Despite Bones' careful preparation, it does not work. Spock is the only one who understands the significance of this fact, saying, ``You do not seem to understand. It did not function. But it must function.'' Spock realizes that nothing around them is real; the whole scenario is taking place in their minds.

Kirk vows not to leave the bar until after 5:00, but finds himself and the others transported to the OK Corral at a few minutes before 5:00. Attempts to leave the Corral reveal that it is encircled by a force field so that escape is impossible. Using a mind meld, Spock convinces everyone else of his certainty that nothing around them, including bullets, is real. So convinced, the Earps shoot their imaginary bullets right through the landing party. When the Earps have stopped firing and after Kirk has spared their lives, the landing party finds itself whisked on board the Enterprise on the way to Melcot with a healthy Mr. Chekov (who is alive because the only thing that was real to him was the girl). The Melcotian probe, once again directly in front of them, emits M waves and then disintegrates. The Melcotians, impressed that Kirk did not kill, then extend an invitation to establish relations with the Federation.

Spock's Brain

The Enterprise encounters an ion-propelled ship of unusual configuration, which then activates a transferral beam. The beam transports a mysterious woman onto the bridge of the Enterprise. Upon arrival, she stuns everyone with a gizmo on her bracelet. She examines the stunned crew on the bridge, and appears to take a special interest in Spock. So much so, in fact, that she surgically removes Spock's brain, as McCoy and Kirk discover when they come to a short time later. Luckily, due to Vulcan physiology, Spock's body can be maintained alive mechanically while Kirk goes in search of Spock's brain.

When the Enterprise follows the ion trail of the woman's ship, they are led to the Sigma Draconis system. Out of three habitable planets (3, 4, and 6), scanners detect none which is capable of having constructed an advanced ion-powered craft. Planet 3 rates letter B on the industrial scale (Earth equivalent 1485), planet 4 letter G (year 2030), and planet 6 shows no sign of industrial development and is in a glacial age. Uhura detects regular emission of high energy from planet 6, in contradiction to its supposed primitive status. Playing a hunch, Kirk beams down with a landing party to planet 6.

Sigma Draconis 6 is indeed in the middle of an ice age, but Kirk has no trouble locating inhabitants (who attack them, believing them to be ``the others.''). When Kirk captures one of the attackers (who calls himself a Morg) and questions him, the Morg warns Kirk about the ``givers of pain and delight.'' Kirk asks Morg about females of his kind, but is only met with befuddlement. When Kirk asks Morg to help him find the ``others,'' Morg runs away in terror.

The landing party soon locates a ``dead and buried city,'' and also discovers a trap elevator. Kirk has Bones beam down together with Spock's mechanically controlled body, then intentionally triggers the elevator which takes them deep below ground. At the end of their downward journey, Kirk encounters the female (Imorg) Luma and stuns her with a phaser before she can activate her bracelet. Questioning leads nowhere, since Luma has the mind of a child.

Spock makes contact with the landing party through a communicator, but before anything can be done, Kirk and his party are apprehended by Kara, the Imorg leader. The landing party is then equipped with irremovable belts capable of producing intense pain. In response to Kirk's questions about the whereabouts of Spock's noggin, Kara responds with the deep philosophical statement ``Brain and brain: what is Brain!?'' Following this outburst, Bones assures Kirk that all the Imorg have low intelligence and could not possibly be capable of removing a brain.

The answer to this riddle is discovered when Kirk and crew overpower their guard and follow Spock's instruction to the central ``controller,'' which is actually Spock's brain. Here, they also find Kara, who immediately immobilizes them using their pain belts. Kirk uses the remote control to command Spock to grab Kara's wrist and press the red release button on her bracelet.

Spock's brain informs Kirk via communicator that the Imorg are able to gain temporary understanding of the ancient knowledge from a machine called the ``teacher.'' Kirk forces Kirk to put on the teacher, but she uses her new-found sophistication to level a phaser at them. Scott pretends to faint, and Kirk grabs the phaser away from her. McCoy then uses the teacher and discovers how to perform a brain transplant (``Of course, a child could do it''). He surgically restores Spock's brain to his mechanically sustained body using a trilaser connector and a sonic separator, just before the knowledge's three-hour period is exhausted. Luckily, Spock himself is able to provide some assistance in the procedure after McCoy manages to re-connect his vocal chords. Kirk then informs Kara that the Imorg will have to move to the surface and live as the Morg do. She is not to thrilled by the prospect, but Kirk does at least offer some Federation assistance.

This episode contains (at least) two inconsistencies. First, after identifying the planet as number 6, Kirk refers to it as number 7. The second error occurs when Kirk mistakenly states the stardate as 4351.5 instead of 5431.5.

The Squire of Gothos

Eight days away from colony Beta 6 on a supply delivering mission, the Enterprise encounters an unknown planet in quadrant 904. Sulu and Kirk then vanish from the bridge, and are presumed to have been transported to the planet. However, geophysicist Karl Jaeger reports the planet has no soil or vegetation, but does possess an extremely hot and toxic atmosphere.

The Enterprise then receives a message ``Greetings and Felicitations,'' followed by ``Hip hip hoorah. Tallyho.'' McCoy, navigator DeSalle, and Jaeger beam down to find Sulu and Kirk, only to find that the planet's surface is lush and the atmosphere breathable. However, their communicators are inoperable. They discover a castle, and are introduced to its occupant, the playful harpsichord-playing alien calling himself General Trelane.

Trelane, who amuses himself using machines with the ability to transform energy and matter, has been making a study of Earth and believes it to be as it was 900 years previously (the light travel time from his planet). Trelane insists that they all stay, but Kirk and DeSalle try to stun him with a phaser. Trelane confiscates the phaser, and amuses himself by vaporizing his statuary. Bones' tricorder fails to register Trelane at all, and Jaeger notices that the fire is giving off no heat. Spock is able to beam them aboard the Enterprise by beaming up every life form in the area. Trelane is upset by this, puts in an appearance on the bridge, then quickly brings the landing party back to his planet Gothos, this time including Spock, Uhura, and Yeoman Teresa Ross. Spock tells Trelane ``I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose.''

Kirk notices that Trelane never strays far from a mirror, and guesses that the mirror hides the source of Trelane's power. Kirk therefore challenges Trelane to a duel, giving the impression that he is offended by Trelane's attentions to Ross. He instead uses the opportunity to destroy the mirror. Kirk's supposition is proved correct, and the landing party once again escapes to the Enterprise.

However, as the Enterprise attempts to warp away, Gothos keeps appearing directly in its path. Kirk is forced to re-enter orbit and beams down to have it out with the Squire. Trelane becomes upset and condemns Kirk to death by hanging in a ``trial'' for the crimes of treason against a superior authority, conspiracy, and the attempt to foment insurrection. Kirk convinces Trelane that there is no sport in a simple slaying, and manages to escape death in a deadly hide-and-seek game. In return, Trelane agrees to let the Enterprise go. Unfortunately, Trelane welshes on his promise when Kirk wins the game and refuses to release the Enterprise. However, the wayward Trelane is finally taken away by his green energy-form ``parents'' to be disciplined and Kirk and the Enterprise are released.

A Taste of Armageddon

The Enterprise is en route to star cluster NGC321 to open diplomatic relations with the civilizations there, including the Eminiar VII, principal planet of the star cluster. However, Eminiar VII sends a Code 710 signal telling the Enterprise not to approach under any circumstances. The Federation knows very little about Eminiar VII, except that it has had space travel for several centuries but has never ventured beyond its own solar system. The Federation also knows that when Eminiar VII was first contacted, it was at was with Vendikar, its closest neighbor. However, the Federation ship making the report never returned and was listed as lost in space.

Kirk, Spock, and three crew members (including Galloway and Tamara) beam down and are met by Mea 3 and a security detachment of two who take them to Anan 7 and members of the High Counsel. Anan 7 claims that Eminiar VII has been at war with Vendicar, the third planet in the system, for 500 years. However, no evidence of warfare is evident to the landing party who witness a fusion bomb ``attack.'' In fact, Yeoman Tamara's tricorder shows no radiation disturbances, despite Anan 7's claim that half a million people have just been killed. A counterattack is ordered by Anan 7 and carried out by Sar's activation of the ``attack unit.'' Spock realizes that the war is being fought by computers which calculate casualties and that the citizens who are declared ``dead'' are then required to report to disintegration chambers.

Unfortunately, the Enterprise is declared destroyed by a tri-cobalt satellite explosion from Vendikar, and all persons aboard the Enterprise are ordered to report for disintegration within 24 hours. Kirk and the landing party are held hostage until the crew reports. Mea 3 is also declared a casualty, and so must report for disintegration. Anan 7 attempts to trick the crew down by imitating Kirk's voice and declaring that full diplomatic relations have been established. However, Scott smells a rat, and analyzes the transmission on the computer which determines with 98% certainty that a voice duplicator has been used.

Spock uses a Vulcan mind trick to get the guard to open the confinement cell, at which point he is knocked out and has his weapon stolen by Kirk. The escapees happen across disintegration chamber 12, and Spock takes its operator out of commission by distracting him with the line ``Sir, there is a multi-legged creature crawling on your shoulder,'' then nerve pinching him. Kirk then blasts the chamber.

Anan 7 gives orders to open fire on the Enterprise. Fortunately, Scott has raised the shields and the disrupter fire of magnitude 1812 decibels causes no damage, as reported by navigator DeSalle. Stuffed-shirt Ambassador Robert Fox attributes the attack to a ``misunderstanding'' and communicates with Anan 7, who claims that an error in their sensors indicated that the Enterprise was about to attack them.

Fox beams down, and is almost disintegrated after he beams down to make diplomatic advances. Meanwhile Kirk is subdued and recaptured while trying to recover the phasers. Spock and the escaped landing party (dressed as Eminiarian) rescue Fox and disintegrate another disintegration chamber. When Anan 7 contacts the Enterprise to demand that the crew beam down, Kirk manages to tell Scotty to issue General Order 24 (destruction of the planet) in two hours. Kirk then overpowers his guards and is joined by Spock. They enter the computer center and destroy the central computer, which causes all the computers to be destroyed in a chain reaction. This nullifies the treaty with Vendikar, and initiates a real war unless Anan 7 agrees to make peace with its ancient enemy. Now faced with the grisly consequences of a real war, Anan agrees, and Fox offers to mediate the negotiations. As the Enterprise heads on its way towards Organna 2, Fox reports from Eminiar VII that the outlook is hopeful.

That Which Survives

McCoy, Sulu, Kirk, and senior geologist D'Amato beam down to investigate a strange planet the size of the Moon but with the mass of the Earth. The planet has no magnetic field, but does have a well-developed atmosphere and plant life---despite the fact that the planet appears to be only 1000 years old. As the landing party is beaming down, a strange woman appears, says ``wait, you must not go,'' and kills the transporter operator.

The landing party discovers that more is afoot than reaches the eye when both they and the Enterprise are tossed wildly. Much to the surprise of the landing party, Helmsman Rahda, Spock, and Scott, the Enterprise is knocked 990.7 light years away from the planet. An autopsy performed on the transporter operator by Dr. Sanchez reveals that death resulted from disruption of every cell in his body. Spock does not know what to make of this, but returns to the planet at Warp 8.

The landing party splits up, and Sulu reports a magnetic spike, which then vanishes. D'Amato is sent in search of underground water by Kirk, but is killed by the woman who zapped the transporter operator when she says ``I am for you'' and then touches him. When Kirk tries to dig a grave using his phaser, he makes no progress, and discovers that the rocks of the planet are composed of diburnium osmium alloy. The burial is then accomplished by covering D'Amato with rocks.

Meanwhile, aboard the Enterprise, Engineer grade 4 John B. Watkins is killed by the woman when he checks the bypass circuit, but not before he warns Scott that a strange woman is aboard. The cause of his death is found to be cellular disruption of every cell in his body.

Back on the planet, the woman appears in front of Sulu and tries to touch him. Sulu tries to shoot her, but the phaser is ineffective. She manages to touch Sulu when he trips over a rock, but is only able to damage his shoulder before Kirk interposes himself and finds that she cannot harm him.

On the Enterprise, the woman rigs the engines to explode by fusing the emergency bypass circuit on the matter/antimatter integrator. The Enterprise begin accelerating out of control, and Spock estimates that the Enterprise will explode in 14.87 minutes, with no way to stop it.

Back on the planet, Kirk's phaser overloads itself and Kirk is forced to fling it away. The woman appears again and tries to touch Kirk, but is prevented by McCoy and Sulu. She identifies herself as Losira, commander of the station, but she does not register on McCoy's tricorder. Kirk follows the off-scale reading to an entrance, which then opens.

Scotty saves the Enterprise from exploding by reversing polarity on the magnetic probe and returning the magnetic flow to normal. The Enterprise then begins decelerating from its peak speed of warp of warp 15.2+ (although Rahda counts down warp 14.1, 14, 15.9, ...).

When the landing part enters the chamber, they find a glowing cube and a copy of Losira who is ``for'' James T. Kirk. At first he is protected by Sulu and McCoy, but two more Losiras then appear, one for McCoy and one for Sulu. Spock rescues the landing party at this juncture when he beams down and destroys the computer which was projecting the image of the woman Losira.

When a record tape is automatically played, they find out that the planet they are on is actually a space outpost built by the Calandans, who were all killed by a disease they created while building the planet. The outpost was left on automatic, with the computer attempting to fend off all explorers but the expected Calandan ship. As Kirk prepares to return to the Enterprise, he comments in response to a statement by Spock that beauty such as Losira's is transitory, that ``beauty survives.''

This Side of Paradise

When the Enterprise speeds to the agricultural colony Omicron Ceti 3, they expect to find none of the 150 men, women, and children colonists alive, as the planet is being bombarded with deadly and newly discovered Berthold rays. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, DeSalle, and another crewman are surprised indeed to find the colonists and their leader Elias Sandoval alive and in perfect health. Too perfect health, Bones discovers, when he finds that Sandoval now has a healthy appendix despite the fact that records show it to have previously been removed in an appendectomy. Sulu and the landing party are also struck by the absence of non-human animal life. Kirk orders Sandoval to prepare his group to be evacuated to Starbase 27, but Sandoval refuses.

Meanwhile, the colonist Leila Kalomi, shows Spock (in whom she takes a romantic interest) the colonist's secret: plants which spray spores that take up residence in the brain and, in return, provide perfect health and complete well-being. In addition, the plants thrive on Berthold rays. Sulu is soon given a similar treatment, and remarks to Kirk ``Of course we can't remove the colony. It'd be wrong.'' Alarmed by what he sees, Kirk tries to get in touch with Spock. However, it is too late as Spock is currently frolicking with Leila and pointing out cloud formations shaped like dragons from Bering Deria 7.

In the meantime, McCoy is also infected. Not only does he make himself a mint julep, but he also sends up hundreds of plants to the Enterprise. Kirk is beamed up by an infected transporter operator (``Well sure. If you want,'') who is systematically beaming down the crew of the Enterprise. Uhura has short-circuited all communications except ship to surface. Kirk is soon the only one left aboard, and he too is infected by a stray plant left on the bridge. After opening his safe (combination 5231) and looking through its contents, Kirk becomes upset as one side of him wants to beam down and the other side is devoted to the ship. These violent emotions, Kirk soon discovers, drive the spores out.

He subsequently has Spock beam up and proceeds to get him angry by calling him a ``mutinous, disloyal, computerized, half-breed.'' Spock beams up Leila to explain to her what has happened, but the pain of finding out she has lost Spock causes the spores to be driven out from her as well. Leila asks Spock if he has another name, but he only replies ``You couldn't pronounce it.''

Spock prepares a subsonic transmitter which will broadcast over the communicators and provoke those on the planet to irritability and anger. Fights begin to break out between Sulu and DeSalle, then McCoy and Sandoval, and soon the spores are driven out of everyone on the planet. The crew beams back up and the Enterprise is free to continue on its way. Spock is back to his old self, but we find out that on the planet, he was happy for the first time in his life.

The Tholian Web

When the Enterprise attempts to ascertain the fate of the U.S.S. Defiant which vanished 3 weeks ago, the warp engines begin to lose power, and Spock reports strange sensor readings. They visually detect the Defiant, but sensors indicate it is not there. Kirk, Spock, Chekov, and McCoy beam aboard wearing life support suits and find the entire crew dead. The captain's neck is broken, and the landing party initially suspects mutiny. An inspection of the ship, however, reveals that all crew members are dead, and McCoy concludes that they killed each other. When McCoy tries to touch one of the dead crew members, his hand passes right through him, revealing that the Defiant is starting to disintegrate. The transporter aboard the Enterprise is meanwhile behaving erratically, and only Spock, McCoy, and Chekov are successfully beamed back aboard, leaving Kirk alone on the Defiant.

Kirk and the ship are trapped in a parallel universe by the weakening of the surrounding fabric of space, and the computer calculates that the next time of spatial interphase will occur in two hours. Meanwhile, the crew of the Enterprise begins suffering from a state of insanity caused by a weakening of the fabric of space, and Chekov must be put under restraint.

The appearance of two hostile Tholian ships disrupts the spatial interphase which would have allowed Kirk to reenter his own universe. Spock is able to convince the Tholians to wait until the interphase occurs, but when it does, the Enterprise is unable to beam Kirk aboard. After this time has expired, the Tholian fires and damages the Enterprise. The Enterprise is forced to fire on Tholian commander Loskene's ship, and the Tholians respond by surrounding the Enterprise with an energy web.

McCoy and Spock, believing Kirk to be dead, review a recording left behind in his cabin. Kirk has predicted that Spock will be making difficult decisions and that McCoy will be critical of them, and instructs the two of them to work together, Spock tempering his decisions with human insight, and McCoy restricting his criticisms to take into account human fallibility.

In the bridge, Uhura sees a vision of Captain Kirk and reports to McCoy that he is alive. McCoy believes Uhura is going mad, and confines her to sickbay. Scott then sees the same vision, and rushes to the bridge, where everyone, including Spock, sees it as well. A therigram derivative (therigram, in its pure form, is a deadly nerve gas used by the Klingons) is found to act as a cure. Scott is hesitant until McCoy informs him that he has prepared it using alcohol as a solvent and that, after drinking it, a man could be hit with phaser stun without feeling it.

The Enterprise is able to hold Kirk in the transporter beam at the next interphase and then escape from the completed Tholian web by using ship's power to disrupt space-time and throw the Enterprise 2.72 parsecs distant. Kirk's oxygen is just about to run out, but McCoy is ready with a hypo of triox just as Kirk beams aboard and faints. Back on the bridge, Kirk reminisces about having a universe all to himself, but admits he likes a quiet one better. He then asks Bones and Spock if they reviewed his last orders, but Spock avoids the question and McCoy lies (transparently) about it.

Tomorrow is Yesterday Construction

When the Enterprise is accidentally warped back in time to the late 1960s by a black star, Kirk is forced to beam the jet-interceptor pilot John Christopher (serial number 4857932) aboard. On the Enterprise (one of only 12 ships in the fleet), Christopher learns much he should not know about (like the computer which addresses Kirk as ``dear'' after having been overhauled on the woman-dominated planet Cygnet 14). Because Christopher knows the future, Kirk cannot return him to Earth. A computer analysis by Spock, however, shows that Christopher and his wife will have a son, Sean Jeffrey Christopher who will head the Earth-Saturn probe mission.

After recovering all tracking records of the Enterprise from the military (and accidentally beaming up an MP, who samples chicken soup from the food dispenser), the Enterprise warps forward in time by accelerating towards and then breaking away from the sun. As the Enterprise travels back in time, Christopher is beamed back into his jet at the exact moment in time he saw the ship and the MP is returned to the base just as he heard a noise.

The Trouble with Tribbles

The Enterprise is called to Deep Space Station K7 by a priority 1 distress call. The space station and planet are in a quadrant disputed between the Federation and Klingon Empire. The quadrant was the site of the battle of Domatu 5, which occurred 23 years ago. The terms of the Organian peace treaty were that the Sherman's planet would revert to whichever side could manage it most efficiently.

Kirk is furious after the distress call issued by Nilz Barris, Undersecretary in Charge of Agriculture in this quadrant and person in charge of the development of the planet's development, turns out to have been without justification. In fact, Barris just wants someone to guard the quadrotriticale grain (a four-lobed high yield variety) bound for Sherman's Planet. Barris's assistant is Arne Darvin, and Mr. Lurry is the manager of the space station.

A Klingon ship arrives at the space station and requests that its crew be granted shore leave. Kirk tells the Klingon leader Koloth that he can bring members of his crew down 12 at a time, but that he will provide one security guard for each Klingon which beams down.

Meanwhile, the intergalactic trader Cyrano Jones gives Uhura a trilling creature called a tribble. She brings it to the Enterprise, where it promptly begins reproducing. Jones also tries to sell tribbles to Klingons on the Station, but the tribbles respond by emitting high-pitched yelps. Trouble breaks out between Klingons and members of the Enterprise's crew, also on shore leave, when one of the Klingons compares Earthers to Regulan bloodworms. This infuriates Chekov, who then becomes more upset when the Klingon goes on to call Kirk a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated, dictator with delusions of godhood. However, Scott holds Chekov back, even after the Klingon calls Kirk a Denebrian slime devil. However, when the Klingon calls the Enterprise a sagging old rust-bucket which is designed like a garbage scull, Scott punches him, precipitating a bar room brawl. When Kirk questions his crew, no one admits to starting the fight. However, when Kirk questions Scott alone, he admits that he started the fight, and also reveals that he refrained from fighting while Kirk was being insulted, but was forced to take action when the Klingons insulted the Enterprise.

The tribbles begin proliferating throughout the Enterprise, and Kirk even accidentally sits on one while taking a seat in his command chair. Kirk orders Uhura to clean the tribbles off the ship, and beams down to the space station to confront Cyrano Jones. However, since the only animals it is illegal to transport are dangerous one (and tribbles are not dangerous), Kirk can do nothing.

After Kirk finds that tribbles have spread aboard the Enterprise through air vents, he becomes concerned that they may have infested the grain storage lockers on the space station as well. His hunch proves correct, and opening the overhead storage bin produces a rain of tribbles on Kirk's head. Spock calculates that 1,771,561 tribbles are likely to exist on the station, assuming each tribble has a litter of 10 every 12 hours over a period of 3 days. However, Spock notes that, inexplicably, many of the tribbles are dead.

When the station transporter room is being cleared of tribbles, one of them yelps at Barris's assistant Darvin. Kirk verifies that tribbles coo for humans (and even Vulcans; ``obviously the tribbles are very perceptive creatures,'' according to Spock), but yelp for Klingons. He then asks McCoy to perform a tricorder a scan of Darvin. McCoy verifies that that Darvin is a Klingon, and also reveals that the grain was poisoned. Darvin admits to being a Klingon agent and to be responsible for poisoning the grain. Darvin is arrested, Kirk tells the Klingons to leave Federation territory, and Jones is ordered to pick up every tribble on the space station, a task which Spock estimates will take 17.9 years.

Luckily, another freighter can be diverted to provide replacement grain for Sherman's planet. However, this does not solve the problem of de-tribbling the Enterprise. The tribbles are finally removed from the Enterprise when Scotty transports them aboard the Klingon ship. While the tribbles may not enjoy their new home, the Klingons will definitely not enjoy their new passengers.

Turnabout Intruder

After receiving a distress call from a science party on Camus II exploring the ruins of a dead civilization, the Enterprise rushes to assistance. All members of the party appear to be dead except the leader Dr. Janice Lester and the medical officer Dr. Arthur Coleman. Kirk and Lester had been in love in Starfleet Academy, but Lester's inability to rise to command status because of her gender led them to drift apart.

According to Dr. Coleman, Lester is suffering from some unknown sort of radiation poisoning. However, when the rest of the Enterprise landing party goes to aid a dying science party member and leaving Kirk and Lester alone, she activates an alien device she has discovered and exchanges bodies with Kirk. Lester is driven by jealousy and a persecution complex and complains to Kirk of the agony of being a woman. Now in the body of Kirk, she then tries to strangle Lester and kill the real Kirk. Kirk, McCoy, and Coleman return before she can finish, having been too late to save the scientist from selebium poisoning. Lester-as-Kirk orders everyone to be beamed about, and takes over the role of Kirk.

Aboard the Enterprise in secret consultation with Lester-as-Kirk, Dr. Coleman reveals that Dr. Lester deliberately sent the science team where she knew the selebium shielding was weak, and that she was supposed to kill Kirk during the interval provided by Coleman on the planet.

Lester-as-Kirk removes Bones as chief medical officer and installs Dr. Coleman, a former starship doctor who has been found incompetent by the Starfleet Surgeon General, in his place. Dr. Coleman attempts to prevent Kirk (in Dr. Lester's body) from interacting with the crew by sedating her, but she escapes to sickbay to talk to Bones and Spock. However, Lester-as-Kirk is there as well waiting for a physical examination ordered by McCoy. He proceeds to knock Kirk-as-Lester out and orders her be put in isolation and incommunicado.

Meanwhile, Lester-as-Kirk delays a rendezvous with the Potemkin to conduct gravitational studies of the Beta Aurigae binary system and insists that course be set for the Benicia colony, despite the fact that Starbase 2 is on the way and that Benecia possesses only primitive medical facilities.

Spock suspects something amiss, and goes to speak to (the real) Kirk in solitary confinement. At Kirk's request, Spock does a Vulcan mind probe and discovers the truth. Meanwhile, McCoy tests Lester-as-Kirk's dermaloptic reaction to color wavelengths using a Rubiana dermaloptic test to compare his basic emotional structure to previous results. Spock tries to escape with the real Kirk, but is stopped by Lester-as-Kirk and security guards.

This leads to a court martial trial for Spock. Spock puts Kirk (in Lester's body) on the stand and testifies that Kirk's mind is in actually in her body. Scotty talks to Bones in the hallway about the vote, and the conversation is recorded by Lester-as-Kirk. Lester-as-Kirk then orders the death penalty for Scotty, Bones, Lester (who is actually Kirk), and Spock, despite the fact that general order 4 is the only crime for which the death penalty is still in effect.

In the meantime, Sulu and Chekov refuse to obey Lester-as-Kirk's orders, and Kirk and Lester experience a temporary reversion of minds. In fact, to prevent reversion, Coleman informs Lester-as-Kirk that Lester must be killed. However, Coleman is too late carrying out the task, and Kirk's and Lester's minds revert to their appropriate bodies.

The Ultimate Computer

The Enterprise is summoned to a space station without explanation and told that the crew will be removed to the space station. Upon arriving, Kirk is contacted by Commodore Enright and told that Commodore Bob Wesley will be beaming aboard. Kirk finds out from Wesley that has been given the ``honor'' of testing of Dr. Daystrum's M5 Multitronic System, a computer designed to replace the crew of a starship. McCoy has misgivings about the test, but Kirk has no choice but to go along with it.

Spock is impressed with the device and believes it to be potentially even more important than Daystrom's advances in duotronics. However, Kirk learns that the device is called M5 because the first four generations were not entirely successful, leading him to have misgivings. Kirk does not believe that his misgivings are entirely due to his own jealousy that his job could be partially or completely replaced by a machine.

The M5 appears to function normally at first. When it is engaged to enter orbit around Alpha Carinae 2 and make recommendations for a landing party, Kirk is chagrined to find out that the M5's recommendations are the same as his own, with the exception that he and McCoy are not included since they are ``nonessential personnel.'' Meanwhile, M5 begins turning off power to unoccupied parts of the ship, at the same time drawing an increased amount of power.

In an unscheduled drill at Alpha Carinae 2, M5 defends the Enterprise against attacks from the starships Excalibur and Lexington, the latter which is commanded by Wesley. The M5 is declared the victor of the simulated contest, prompting Commodore Bob Wesley to call Kirk ``Captain Dunsel.'' Spock explains the meaning of ``dunsel'' to McCoy as a term used by midshipmen at the Federation Academy for a part which serves no useful purpose.

In a short time, however, M5 takes control of the Enterprise despite Kirk, Sulu, and Scott's attempts to regain control. It then locks phasers at full power and destroys the automated ore freighter Wotan when it passes nearby. When Kirk tries to disconnect the M5, he discovers that M5 has generated a protective force field which prevents any one from getting near it. Scott assigns a technician to unplug the connection, but he is immolated when he tries to disconnect it. M5 has conveniently picked the instant of the technician's action with the establishment of a direct link between itself and the connector so that it may draw power directly from the warp engines. Spock and Scott desperately attempt to manually override before a scheduled rendezvous with the exercise force. Daystrom is surprised by the M5's actions, but views its behavior as mistakes made by a ``child'' who is still learning.

Unfortunately, implementing manual override fails when M5 reroutes helm and navigation control using the H279 elements and rendering the G95 systems dead. When Daystrom is questioned about M5's irrational behavior, he reveals that he has impressed human engrams in the circuitry, providing a system nearly as complicated as human synapses. At the scheduled rendezvous point, the M5 attacks the Excalibur, Lexington, Hood, and Potemkin, killing many crew members (53 on theLexington and initially 12 on the Excalibur, including its Captain Harris and the first officer).

Daystrom now reveals that the engrams were his own, and Kirk and company surmise that M5 therefore suffers from the mental instability which Daystrom now reveals (as he rails on his colleagues for laughing behind his back and becoming successful by stealing and building on his work). Kirk finally shuts off M5 by pointing out that by killing humans it has violated its programming of saving men from dangerous activities such as space exploration. Since the penalty for murder is death, the M5 concludes that it must die, and shuts itself down. While preventing Kirk from regaining control, it also drops shields, leaving the Enterprise open to retaliatory attacks from the task force. However, when Wesley sees that the Enterprise has dropped its shields, he calls off the attack.

Dr. Daystrom is committed to a program of rehabilitation, but Spock still refuses to respond to McCoy's prodding that that human compassion outweighs any advantages computer may have in computational ability. McCoy further annoys Spock by suggesting that people are more pleasant to be around than computers.

The Way to Eden

The Enterprise destroys the stolen space cruiser Aurora when it uses tractor beams to prevent it from entering Romulan space and the Aurora continues to use full power in an attempt to flee. The six passengers are beamed aboard the Enterprise before their ship's destruction, and prove to be Tongo Rad, the son of the Katulan ambassador (and must be handled with extreme delicacy because of ongoing Federation negotiations with Katula), Irini Galliulan (Chekov's former girlfriend and a Starfleet Academy dropout), Dr. Sevrin (a well-known research engineer in the fields of acoustics, communications, and electronics on from Tiburon), the musician Adam, and two unidentified girls. The group is dressed in far-out clothing, is disrespectful of authority, and calls Kirk ``Herbert'' (who was a minor official notorious for his rigid and limited patterns of thought---i.e., Herbert Hoover). The hippies demand to be taken to a planet called Eden and refuse to cooperate with Kirk. However, Spock seems to partially understand them when he makes a symbol and speaks of the ``One.'' As a result the hippies allow Spock to lead them to sickbay.

Medical examination of Sevrin reveals him to be a carrier of the synthecoccus novae virus and to be on the verge of insanity. Kirk orders Sevrin into isolation before he can endanger any crew members who may not have received complete vaccinations. The hippies object by calling Kirk ``Herbert'' again, and make up a protest song. Spock attempts to reason with Sevrin and offers to assist him in finding Eden and colonizing it, if he agrees to cooperate. However, Sevrin is so resentful of the impositions placed on him as a carrier of his disease (which has been created as a by-product of technological advancement) that he is oblivious to the damage he can impose on others and wants only to be free of the technology which his resulted in his infection.

Led by Sevrin, the hippies take control of the Enterprise by distracting crew members. Adam distracts Spock with music and arranges to hold a concert which is broadcast ship-wide (in which Spock joins in), and Irini distracts Chekov with love and finds out out to access the computer banks and navigate the ship. Finally, Tongo distracts Sulu with his hobby of botany. Tongo then knocks out Sevrin's guard and frees Sevrin, and the two up them knock out Chekov and take over the ship from auxiliary control and direct it toward Romulan space.

The hippies then complete Spock's search and find the planet they call ``Eden,'' which indeed lies in the Romulan sector. The hippies use hypersonics to incapacitate the Enterprise crew members and then proceed to land on the planet using the Galileo 2 shuttlecraft (NCC 1707/7).

Kirk manages to reach the auxiliary control panel and stop the sound. Kirk, Spock, Chekov, and McCoy then follows the hippies down using the transporter and find a beautiful planet. They quickly learn otherwise when Chekov's hands are burned when he touches a flower, and McCoy determines that all the plant life on the planet contains acid. The landing party discovers that Adam has been killed after eating appetizing-looking but deadly indigenous fruit. Sevrin refuses to leave and then deliberately eats a fruit which kills him. The landing party takes the remainder of the hippies (whose bare feet have been burnt) back to the Enterprise for medical attention.

What are Little Girls Made Of?

After the Enterprise travels to the planet Exo III in order to investigate the fate of Roger Corby (Nurse Chapel's former fiancee), security guards Matthews and Rayburn are both killed after beaming down with Kirk and Nurse Chapel. In turns out that Corby, known as the Pasteur of archeological medicine, has discovered the remains of an ancient culture. Using machinery he has found, he creates androids Braun and Andrea with the help of Rok, a still-functioning android from the ancient days of Exo III.

Corby begins implementing a dastardly plane by creating an android of Kirk to be taken to Minas 5 where he will start spreading androids throughout the galaxy. The real Kirk and Corby's android are completely indistinguishable. The android even knows that Kirk has a brother named George Samuel Kirk (called ``Sam'' by Kirk only) who saw Kirk off with his wife and three sons.

Fortunately, Kirk had shown great presence of mind while his mental patterns were being duplicated. By concentrating on the words ``Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your half-breed interference! Do you hear!?,'' he engrained this phrase into the circuitry of the android, who dutifully repeated them when aboard the Enterprise. Hearing these words from Kirk, Spock suspects something is amiss and follows the android down to investigate.

In the meantime, Corby has been forced to destroy Rok, who has remembered the equation ``existence, survival must cancel out programming.'' This equation led Rok to realize that the same kind of clash between humans and androids which led to his civilization's demise centuries ago is becoming inevitable again, and caused him to attempt to kill Corby. However, Corby catches his hand in a door, revealing the fact that he himself is an android. Andrea then destroys the Kirk android when he refuses to kiss her. When she tries to kiss Corby, Corby destroys them both, ridding the universe of Exo III androids for all times.

Where No Man Has Gone Before Construction

The very first Star Trek episode made (not counting the pilot episode, The Cage), although not the first aired. It differs from subsequent episodes in that there is no ``Space, the final frontier'' voice-over during the theme song at the beginning.

Near the edge of the galaxy, the Enterprise discovers a 200-year-old ship recorder from the SS Valiant. Shortly thereafter, the Enterprise passes through an unknown phenomenon which causes major damage and knocks out navigator Gary Mitchell and Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (both of whom have high ESP ratings). When Gary recovers, he begins to acquire telepathic and telekinetic powers. Kirk, alarmed at the prospect of having his ship taken over by an increasingly powerful and tyranical Mitchell, is convinced by Spock to maroon Mitchell at the lithium cracking plant of Delta Vega. Dr. Piper has no explanation for what is happening. Gary kills Lee Kelso, and escapes from his imprisonment. Kirk follows him and is able to destroy him with the help of Dr. Dehner, who is also beginning to acquire the power, but in the process, kills herself.

Who Mourns for Adonais?

Scotty falls in love with Lt. Carolyn Palamas, a specialist in archaeology, anthropology, and ancient civilizations. Carolyn has stayed up all night preparing a report on Pollux 5, in preparation for the Enterprise entering orbit around Pollux 4 (class M planet, oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere, age approximately 4 billion years). While approaching Pollux 4 in the Beta Geminorum system, an energy field in the shape of a giant green hand stops the Enterprise dead in space. Kirk tries to wiggle free and to apply forward tractor beams, but is unable to break the grip of the force field. An apparition wearing a laurel wreath then appears, addresses the crew as his ``children,'' and congratulates them for venturing forth from the hills and valleys of Earth. When Kirk demands to be set free, the apparition causes the hull pressure to rise (100 gsc and climbing), and Kirk is forced to back down. The apparition invites Kirk and a landing party down to visit, but specifically excludes Spock, who he says reminds him of Pan (who is boring).

The landing party (Kirk, McCoy, Scott, Carolyn, and Chekov) discovers a humanoid who identifies himself as the god Apollo. He tells Kirk that he will not allow the landing party to leave, renders their communicators ineffective, and demands worship. When Kirk refuses, Apollo causes himself to grow 20 feet tall. Apollo makes advances towards Carolyn which Scotty finds offensive. However, when Scotty tries to take a poke at Apollo, his phaser is instantly mangled. Apollo clothes Carolyn in a toga, again angering Scott. When Scott tries to intervene, he is electrically shocked by Apollo and thrown back.

Carolyn falls in love with Apollo and questions him about history. Carolyn finds out that Apollo was indeed one of the ancient Roman gods. (According to McCoy, he has an extra organ whose function is a complete mystery to him.) Apollo tells Carolyn that he and the other gods left after the ancient people of Earth stopped worshiping them. Without worshippers, even the immortal gods weaken, and all but Apollo have ``spread themselves to the wind'' and faded away.

After Kirk and company again defy him, Apollo zaps them all in rage, and then fades away. Kirk suspects that use of his godly powers tires him, and theorizes that he requires time to recuperate. He decides to deliberately anger Apollo. Unfortunately, this scheme comes to naught when Carolyn intervenes and convinces Apollo to be lenient. Apollo instructs Kirk to make arrangements to bring the Enterprise's crew down, after which he will destroy the ship.

Although Carolyn is in love with Apollo, she puts duty ahead of self when, acting on Kirk's instruction, she rejects Apollo (telling him she was only interested in studying him) in order to weaken him. Meanwhile, Uhura has been able to reestablish contact with the landing party, and Kirk and Spock formulate a plan. Apollo's power is destroyed when his energy source in the temple is located and blasted out of existence by the Enterprise's phasers, despite Apollo's attempts to destroy the Enterprise with lightning bolts. A sorrow-stricken Apollo appeals to the other gods to take him away now that he has realized that there is no room left for gods anymore. Kirk, too, is saddened, wondering if it would have hurt them to have gathered just a few laurel leaves.

Whom Gods Destroy

Kirk and Spock beam down to Elba II to deliver a revolutionary medicine to the insane asylum located there which houses the 15 incorrigible insane criminals of the Federation. Elba II is surrounded by a poisonous atmosphere. Inmate Marta warns Kirk and Spock that their host is not really governor Donald Cory, but they do not believe her. Upon viewing Cory's cell, however, Kirk and Spock discover that the inmate and former starship fleet captain Garth of Isar has imprisoned Cory in his cell and is running the facility with the aid of the other inmates. Garth imprisons Kirk with Cory, and destroys the medicines Kirk and Spock have brought.

Garth is able to change form at will using the technique of cellular metamorphosis (learned on Antos) and attempts to gain control of the Enterprise to escape and punish his former mutinous crew by impersonating Kirk. Garth is thwarted by the password Kirk has arranged with Scotty when Scotty queries ``queen to queen's level 3'' and Garth does not know the proper response to this problem in 3-D chess: ``queen to king's level 1.''

Garth then invites Kirk to dinner with the inmates and Mr. Spock. At the banquet, the green poet inmate Marta recites Shakespeare (which she claims to have written herself) and performs an exotic dance (which Spock find similar to a dance performed by Vulcan school children). We find out that Garth has charted more new worlds than any man in history, but then tried to destroy Antos 4. When Kirk refuses to reveal the counter password, Garth tortures Cory in a specially modified therapeutic chair. When Kirk still refuses, he is strapped in and tortured.

However, Marta convinces Garth to let her try more persuasive techniques. She begins making love to Kirk, then attacks him with a knife. She has arranged for Spock to be freed, and he luckily steps in and nerve pinches her before she can stab Kirk. Kirk and Spock make it to the control room where they contact the Enterprise. However, Kirk smells a rat, and demands that Spock give the countersign instead of himself. Spock, who is actually Garth in disguise, then puts the force field back on and assumes his true form before a security team can be beamed down. Kirk attempts to turn the force field back off, but is stunned by Garth before he can do so.

Garth then holds a ceremony in which he declares himself ruler of the universe, Marta his consort, and Kirk his heir apparent. He then threatens to use a powerful new explosive he has invented on Marta, who is dragged out into the poisonous atmosphere. Garth then carries out his threat, and commands that Spock be brought in. Spock pretends to be knocked out in his cell, then nerve pinches the two guards who have come to fetch him. He makes his way to the control room, where he is confronted by what appear to be two identical Captain Kirks. Spock tries to distinguish the real from the impostor by asking what maneuver was used to defeat the Romulan ship near Tau Ceti. One Kirk correctly gives the maneuver as the Cochrane deceleration, but the other Kirk points out that this is a classic battle maneuver. The two Kirks then have it out, and Spock is able to identify Garth when the real Kirk tells Spock to stun them both in order to assure the safety of the Enterprise. Control of the institution is returned to Cory and Garth and his colleagues are cured using the new drugs.

Wink of an Eye

While exploring an outer quadrant of the Galaxy, the Enterprise receives a distress call from the planet Scalos. A group of five Scalosians claims to be the last survivors of a civilization of 900,000. However, a landing party consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Compton is unable to locate the source of the transmission. Kirk thinks he detects the buzzing of insects, but the tricorder does not register them. Queer goings-on follow when Compton mysteriously disappears right in front of McCoy.

When Kirk and the landing party return to the Enterprise, a number of malfunctions occur aboard the ship which cannot be explained. As Kirk is being examined for ill effects, he again notices the buzzing sound he had heard on the surface, and correctly concludes that aliens have been beamed aboard.

Spock detects an alien machine being installed into the environmental control, but two security guards are not permitted to enter the chamber. Kirk and Spock are allowed to proceed, but when Spock attempts to disconnect the machine, he is prevented by a force field. When Kirk and Spock attempt to phaser the device, their phasers instantaneously disappear.

Back on the bridge, Kirk's coffee is drugged, and his metabolism is accelerated as a result. In accelerated phase, Kirk meets the Scalosians who have been beamed aboard, including the Scalosian queen Deela, who greets Kirk by embracing and kissing him. Kirk tries to stun Deela, but she steps aside before the normal-speed phaser beam can get close. Kirk rushes to the life support room, but is blocked from entering by Compton. Kirk forces his way past, but is then stunned by the Scalosians. However, Compton is injured by the Scalosian head scientist, suffers cell damage, and Kirk witnesses the rapid aging which results in Compton's immediate death.

Because the Scalosian men are sterile, the crew members of the Enterprise are to be frozen by a machine hooked in the life-support system and used as mating stock for generations to come. The Scalosians have been forced to use this technique of propagation ever since their water was polluted by radiation released by volcanic eruptions, resulting in sterility of the males. Kirk himself is to be the husband of Deela, much to the chagrin of her chief scientist Real.

Kirk makes a tape for Spock in which he explains all this and places it in a tape slot for McCoy to find. He then sabotages the transporter so that he cannot be beamed down in order to gain more time, and also pretends to be smitten with Deela in order to steal her weapon.

McCoy discovers the tape, and Spock is able to read it by greatly slowing it down. Meanwhile, Real is jealous of Kirk's romancing of Deela and attacks him before Deela makes him stop at phaser-point. Bones discovers a way to decelerate Kirk, and Spock accelerates himself to the Scalosian level by drinking Scalosian water (before McCoy can stop him) in order to deliver the remedy. Real activates the device in life support, but Kirk then steals Deela's weapon. He meets up with Spock, and the two of them stun Real. They also destroy the Scalosian machine.

The Scalosians are returned to their planet to live out the rest of their lives, recognizing that the Federation will not permit any more Starships to enter the area. Kirk successfully tries McCoy's concoction and returns to normal speed in front of a surprised Scotty. Meanwhile, Spock repairs damage to the Enterprise in record speed while still hyperaccelerated.

Wolf in the Fold

Scotty, Kirk, and McCoy beam down to Orgellius II for therapeutic shore leave. There, they enjoy Orgellian hospitality and belly-dancing. Scotty becomes enthralled with the belly-dancer Kara and invites her for a romantic walk in the fog. Shortly thereafter, Kara is found stabbed to death, with Scott in shock nearby holding the murder weapon. His fingerprints are the only ones on the murder weapon, and he has both a concussion and amnesia.

The chief administrator of Argellius II, the strategically important and only spaceport in the quadrant, Mr.Hengist (from Rigel 4) is put in charge of the investigation. Prefect Jaris suggests that his wife Sybo use Orgellian empathic contact to learn the truth, but Kirk suggests that they beam down psychotricorder to probe Scott's mind while Sybo meditates. Lt. Karen Tracy beams down to administer the test to Scott, but is then stabbed to death. Again, Scott is the only one present and, again, he does not remember a thing. The only other entrance is a door which has been locked for years. Kirk questions two men who were present at the céfe, her father and former fiance Morla (from Contaba Street).

Sybo then holds a séance in which she senses a monstrous evil ancient terror, devouring all light and life, bearing hatred towards women and all living things. She gives the evil the names Boradis, Keslack, Rejick, but the lights suddenly dim. When they come back on, Scott is standing behind her and she has been stabbed. This time, however, Scott does not black out.

Hengist, Jaris, Morla, Kara's father, and the landing party then beam aboard the Enterprise to have Scott analyzed by the computers. The computer verifies that Scott is telling the truth when he claims that he felt the presence of a foul, cold, evil creature. Morla then takes the stand, and the computer verifies that he is not responsible for the murders. Kirk then decides to run the names spoken by Sybo through the computer. It identifies ``Red Jack'' (Rejick) as a name for the mass murderer of 1920's Earth, known more commonly as Jack the Ripper. Spock then speculates that a creature who derives nourishment from the emotion of fear is responsible for the murders. The computer verifies that such a creature could exist, and if so would likely be formless and could exist as electromagnetic impulses. It cites creatures of Alpha Carina 5 who subsist on the emotion of love. The computer also suggests that the creature could take solid form at will, as the Miletus cloud creature of Alpha Madoris can change from gaseous to solid.

A search of crime records shows the following pattern of unsolved mass murders: 1932 Shanghai (7 killed), 1974 Kiev (5 killed), 2105 Martian colony (8 killed), and 2156 Heliopolis on Alpha Eridani 2 (10 killed). Spock notes that all these lie sequentially between Argellius and Earth. The computer then identified Kesla as the name given to an unknown mass murderer of women on Deneb 2, and Boradis as the name given to a mass murderer of Rigel 4 (1 solar year ago).

This immediately implicates Hengist, who recently arrived from Rigel 4. Computer analysis of the knife shows the blade to be made out of boridium, the handle of irinite, and identifies the inlay as originating from the hill people of the Argus river region of Rigel 4. Mr. Hengist makes a dash to get away, but is knocked out by Kirk. McCoy pronounces Hengist dead, but it turns out that has abandoned his body and taken up residence in the Enterprise's computer.

In order to avoid making the creature stronger by allowing him to feed of the fear of the crew, McCoy injects everyone with a tranquillizer. Sulu's reaction is typical, and he remarks that with a armful of McCoy's ``stuff,'' he wouldn't even be afraid of a supernova. The creature is purged from the computer and flees to a new body when Spock commands the computer to calculate pi to the last digit (an impossible task since pi is a transcendental number).

Only McCoy, Jaris, Spock, and Kirk remain to be tranquillized, so Kirk surmises that the creature has taken up residence in one of them. McCoy agrees to inject himself, but when Kirk attempts to inject Jaris, he is met with the outburst ``no, no, kill you all, die, make you suffer.'' Thus revealed, the creature returns to Hengist's body. However, Hengist is quickly subdued and tranquillized, and Spock transports him into empty space with widest possible separation. Kirk and Spock must then wait 6 hours for the tranquillizer to wear off their extremely ``happy'' crew.


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© 1996-8, Eric W. Weisstein
Nov 21 1998
please e-mail comments and corrections to eww6n@virginia.edu