Space Seed is the episode that introduces Ricardo Montalban as Kahn. It was the 24th episode produced and the 22nd aired. That was February 16, 1967. I had watched The Wrath Of Kahn a while back and was curious to see this episode. Mostly the reason I decided to NetFlix the series. The Enterprise comes across the Botany Bay floating in space and they find some frozen folksicles in the freezer. They thaw Kahn out and soon as he wakes up the 20th century superman tries to take over the galaxy. Kahn was part of a group of genetically altered humans who thought they should step into commanding the Earth of the 1990's. Normal folks didn't put up with that and fought back. Kahn, and 84 others, escape in a ship and three hundred years later they wake up to a new galaxy they think is just waiting for them to take over. You'd think if you were that smart you'd figure out that people would fight back. Sure enough Captain Kirk has to take Kahn down and it's a pretty good struggle. Madlyn Rhue plays the ship's historian who falls for Kahn. She betrays the ship and when Kahn and the super bunch get exiled Kirk lets her go with them. How fun would it be being the stupidist person on a planet full of smug, sarcastic braniacs and rocks? It was a good episode that was written by Gene L Coon and Carey Wilber. It was enjoyable to see it again.
A Taste Of Armageddon is another Gene L Coon script, this one co-written with Robert Hamner, and it's an interesting story but a bit goofy. The Enterprise as on a diplomatic mission to a planet that had been contacted by the Federation 50 years ago. The ship disappeared after reporting in. Kirk, Spock and a few others beam down and meet with the head man. Soon after they arrive there's an an attack by people of the third planet in the system. Spock quickly figures out that the two rival planets use computers to fight. Yep, says the head man, we've been fighting for 500 years without destroying our society. Look how civilized we are, our patriotic casualties line up willingly for the disintegration booths and our planet remains intact. Kirk is appalled, especially after he's told that the Enterprise got hit and the crew must report to those murderin' booths we were just talking about. James T is not going to take being a prisoner lying down and he organizes the shore party into a revolt. They capture the head guy and destroy his war computers. Faced with a real war the two planets get to making nice. An entertaining story for the most part but you'd think that they would have figured that fake war is not a solution to their problems themselves wouldn't you. Some societies just suck I guess.
This Side Of Paradise is the 24th episode. It aired on March 2 1967. Jerry Sohl wrote the original story and after D C Fontana rewrote the story and wrote the screenplay Jerry took his name off the episode and the credit goes to Nathan Butler. The Enterprise comes to a planet that has a small group of colonists living there. The planets radiation should have affected them but they are fine. In fact they are better than they were when they arrived on the planet. What's up with that? Dr McCoy gets to work on the enigma while Mr Spock gets infected by some flora. It turns on his emotions and he falls for the pretty Jill Ireland. Spock infects the crew and pretty soon the only one on the ship is the Kirk unit. When he gets infected he gets mad and it breaks the infection. He calls Spock back to the ship and gets him mad. They fight and Spock is back on track. They save the crew from paradise. Life goes on and the Enterprise is off to some other planet next week. Another one that isn't too bad, sad though. Poor Mr Spock says it was the only time he was happy.
The disc has two short featurettes. One on romance in the 23rd century and one one Star Trek Conventions. Both kind of fluffy but mostly entertaining.
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