Synopsis: While charting an Spacial phenomenon in their shuttle craft, seven Enterprise crew (Spock, McCoy,Scotty, and four other members) are thrown off course and crash on an unknown planet. They are soon attacked by the planet’s inhabitants, large primitive ape like creatures. Due to ionization the Enterprise, which is scheduled to take medicine to Markus III can not locate the missing shuttle. They are on a tight schedule and only have a few hors to search a large area of space.
Will Spock and crew escape the planet? Will the Enterprise find their missing crew?
Thoughts:
Hmmmm…. Well…. I like the Shuttle craft. It would have come in handy when Kirk was split in two by the transporter. Oh and when they thought they were trapped on the last planet they were on. Maybe it is a new addition to the ship.
Spock does not make a good leader, especially when everyone keeps questioning every order. What is with that? I thought they were military or something with ranks and discipline. Maybe Spock is a token officer because he’s alien (Vulcan… They seem to have dropped the Vulcanian. I guess the writers were paid by the letter) and so doesn’t have to be listened to.
Scotty is quite clever in using Phasers to refuel the ship. Though that may have been Spock’s idea.
The monsters are just goofy.
Spock’s attempts to refuse that he was acting illogically come off as lame…. Even lamer was the prolonged laugh fest that ended this episode.
Why couldn’t the Enterprise zip over to the Planet drop off the meds and Warp back and resume the search?
Because the Enterprise is back to being a delivery van crewed by idiots.
Still no Rand. But there appears to be no shortage of cute young yeomen on board. Who was that serving coffee on the bridge?
What’s the point of a shuttlecraft when you have a transporter?
A whole different type of SCS (Stupid Crew Syndrome) here. I understand they were in a bad situation, and worried about getting off the planet alive, but they turned to mutinous rumblings awfully fast. Or is it just that there’s some latent prejudice against the alien in command?
And what’s with the idea about leaving someone behind? They’re just trying to contact the Enterprise, right? So fly up, get their attention and then go back and wait for the rescue. Heck, everyone but the pilot could stay planet-side, and they could save more fuel, maybe make two trips.
All in all a very disappointing episode. The series is really inconsistent so far, isn’t it?
Question about this series of threads: Are you actually watching Trek for the first time? It sounds so – well, culturally isolated to me. Then again, I used to live with a guy who would watch 3-4 taped episodes every night, and I’ve been to 3 conventions, so maybe my view is skewed.
On a scale of 1-10 (using all other episodes as a yardstick) I would give that one a 6.5.
Have you seen The Tholian Web, Mirror Mirror, Amok Time, and City on the Edge of Forever yet? Those rate a 10.
The idea behind these threads is that we pretend we’re watching for the first time. For some of us (like myself) that’s an exercise in imagination. For others, I get the impression that it’s more a matter of remembering.
The basic premise of the threads is that we pretend it’s the late 60s, and we’re watching this brand new show that just started up. We’re “watching” one a week, in original broadcast order. We haven’t seen any of the episodes you mentioned yet.
Come, join in our reindeer games. Imagine what it would be like to watch this iconic show for the first time, knowing nothing of what might come after. i for one am having a blast.
[/2005]
I wouldn’t even rate it a 6.5. Of the ones we’ve seen so far, I’d give it a 4, maybe a 5 tops. I think this was the worst episode to date.
Wasn’t the “exploding the remaining fuel” trick rather similar to something they did on that show Enterprise in episode Shuttlepod 1. Maybe future space explorers will have worked out a set of rules, or directives, for these sorts of circumstances?
Was I the only one who thought the scenery was a bit tacky? It didn’t really say “hostile alien planetoid” to me.
My memory of this episode is fading but wasn’t the shuttlecraft’s distress accompanied by multicolouerd flashing lights? I notice the corridors onboard Enterprise also flaunt these colours, is there a Federation code for spaceship back-lighting or is the colour just random, based on whichever circuits are currently in working condition?
I think Thwartme hit the nail on the head. These guys are bigots. You’d expect the coloured officer to be more understanding.
Kirk didn’t do much except look worried and try to squeeze out more time. Not the same cool under fire keep your feelings quiet from teh rest of the crew kind of captain from a few weeks ago (Balance of Terror) Here he was practically weeping infront of the bridge. Lord help him if he has to risk more than seven crew members to save many more.
This new series had been looking intelligent and original for the first few episodes. Now it’s degenerated into shooting monsters, like in the black and white movies from the early Fifties. It ain’t gonna make it at this rate. Pretty soon they’ll have the Enterprise scooping up energy beings that take over the ship Forty years from now, the few people who remember this show are going to wonder what happened that made things go so wrong.
Anybody else notice the attrition rate the guys with the red shirts are suffering? This Scotty character must be on a one-season contract, if he has one too.
So I guess this Dr. Boma character is supposed to be Spock’s nemesis – the emotional foil to Spock’s logical side. It’ll be interesting to see how that relationship develops.
Everything about this episode seemed a little off to me. I didn’t feel like Kirk or Spock acted in the characters that have been set up for them in the earlier episodes. The left over props from “Land of the Giants,” the way the other officers treated Spock. For that matter, the doctor’s line about it being Spock’s first command. He may be an alien, but he’s an important high-ranking officer on an important space ship. Do we really think he’s never led a trip to a planet before?
The only point I saw to this episode is explaining why the smarter Spock is not in command. The big cavemen are just dumb. No explanation was ever given for why they were attacking. And, Spock’s ploy was perfectly logical. When no other alternatives present themselves, choose the one with the highest (if small) chance of success.
Spock is becoming the most popular character. I know some girls who are oohing and aahing over him.
The shuttlecraft makes perfect sense. Transporters have limited range, and are not good for perhaps doing exploration work in space. If there are multiple shuttles (and the Gallileo is NCC 1701/7 - G = 7) they can do multiple jobs. I guess the atmospheric conditions on that other planet prevented them from sending a shuttle. (Yeah, that’s it.)
You see, this still doesn’t make sense. We’ve seen them zap multiple people and many different objects through the transporter. They were sending presumably fragile medical supplies down to the tantalus colony. They can beam someone from orbit to a planet’s surface and back. What use is a short range vehicle? Or are we supposed to believe that you could actually travel between worlds (stars?) in one of those things. Do they have warp?
Come to think of it, why were they in the shuttle in the first place? The Enterprise has all the fancy gizmos for analysis that the shuttle does, doesn’t it? What’s the purpose of sending the Galileo off to do the scanning?
You see, crap like this blows my suspension of disbelief out of the water.
And on another note… wasn’t the guy who played the High commissioner terrible?
What I don’t get is why he has to use violence on his foes. It would be really groovy if he had some sort of non-violent Vulcan way of subduing people. Like he could make people pass out when he, oh, I don’t know, wiggles his ear or something.
Well lets say you have heavy equipment to move like that huge phaser cannon they showed in the Menagerie. There is no way that small transporter (which appears that only transports what is directly on the floor pads) could move it. Also Seeing as the Transporter has failed twice already I think a shuttle is a perfect back up.
I’m sure Sulu was thinking the same thing as they were amputating his blackened toes after The Enemy within.