Return To Tomorrow was first broadcast February 9 1968 and it was the 49th episode broadcast. The Enterprise gets a call from someone on an uninhabitied planet. Kirk and Spock beam down with McCoy and spacebiologist Diana Muldaur. They meet Sargon who is one of the three surviving members of his race. They have been disembodied energy beings for 500,000 years. Their planet had a great war that destroyed their civilization. The best minds were collected, put into balls, and stored. Sargon wants to borrow bodies to build himself a cyborg so he can go visit the galaxy. Soon as he gets control of the Kirk unit he's not so ready to give it back. The other two surviving entities get put into Spock and Muldaur. Kirk gets some kissing, but sadly, he's not there to enjoy it. Sargon is defeated and everyone gets back into their own bodies by the end of the show. It's the first mention of the concept that some alien race had been through the Star Trek Galaxy and seeded people which evolved into the races we know today. It explains why so many of them are humanoid and why Spock can have a human mom.
Patterns Of Force has the Enterprise head for planet Ekos. They are looking for a Federation researcher, John Gill, who has gone missing. When they get there the ship is attacked by a missile with a nuke on the end of it. That shouldn't be. The natives of the planet were much more primitive. Turns out that Gill had given them some advanced technology and introduced them to Hitler's National Socialism. Even Spock agrees that it was a well run country but he wouldn't want people to live like that. Now the Ekosians are space traveling Nazi's who are bent on destroying their neighboring planet Zeon. The Ekosians Final Solution is to send a war fleet to destroy Zeon. Kirk and Spock try to put a stop to that but they get captured and loose their shirts. They escape and meet a woman Nazi who is part of the resistance. They sneak in to the Nazi HQ and free Gill. He renounces the Nazi leader and recalls the fleet. Gill is shot and dies after saying how sorry he is. Too late now. Hopefully the Federation and the two planets will be able to repair the damage. It's a tough old place in space, no one needs Nazis on top of that. This episode was never shown on German TV when the series was first aired there.
In the February 23rd episode, By Any Other Name, the Enterprise responds to a call from an uncharted planet. There they meet Rojan and Kelinda of the Kelvan Empire. They come from the Andromedia Galaxy and their ship got damaged when they went through the Galaxtic Barrier at the edge of the our Galaxy. They have special belts that give them great powers and cover up their real appearance. They capture the landing party and take over the ship. Rojan plans to use the Enterprise to return home. A trip that will take 300 years in the Enterprise. The crew is turned into while multi-sided shapes so they won't bother anyone.
In order to save the crew Spock and Kirk fight back. They use the newly forming human emotions that come with the Kelvan's new bodies to their advantage. Scotty gets one of them so drunk he passes out. Kirk smooches up the woman Kelvan and creates some jealousy in Rojan. Eventually Kirk and Rojan fight. Kirk explains that they Kelvan's are growing more human and that in the 300 years it would take to get to their home planet they wouldn't be able to live there as they would be too alien. Rojan agrees and they head back to the nice planet they were stranded on before. Kirks sends a robot ship with a message to Kelvan. Another episode where they meet some powerful aliens and teach them a thing or two. They use that plot a lot. Jerome Bixby wrote the original story and he co-wrote the script with D C Fontana. Marc Daniels directed. I didn't remember much about this episode but I did remember the multi-sided shapes that the crew get turned into. I wonder if the Federation pays out hazard pay.
March 1 1968 saw the broadcast of The Omega Glory. The Enterprise finds the Federation ship Exeter orbiting Omega IV. The Exeter is empty and the logs say they got a virus on the ship that killed everyone but those that made it down to the planet. On the planet Captain Tracey has sided with the Kolms against the Yangs and broken the Prime Directive by giving them phasers. Seems like that rule get bust a lot.
They figure out that the planet had a very similar development to the Earth and the Yangs are Yanks and the Kolms are the Chinese Communists. Kirks stops the fighting and gets the two groups thinking about peace. This was written by Gene Roddenberry and it's pretty heavy handed but memorable. I remember the plot points, but not the details, from seeing it when it was new.
It was a fairly fun disc to watch. Good batch of stories though a bit repetitive on some plot points. It must have been hard to come up with a completely new idea each week and people can only handle so much newness.
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