Star Trek TOS S1 E23 and 24 Review

After a couple days of only being able to review one episode, I'm back to reviewing two episodes today. One of these I enjoy quite a lot, the other is not as much of a favorite but it is quite funny all the same.

The first episode I will be reviewing is called A Taste of Armageddon. The story concerns the Enterprise going to a planet called Eminiar VII to establish diplomatic relations with the help of ambassador Robert Fox. The Enterprise is warned away from the planet because it is currently at war with a neighboring planet called Vendikar. Despite this, Kirk and Spock take a landing party down, and find out that this interplanetary war is not your typical war at all. Instead, it is fought with computers, theoretical battles, with real casualties, who are to report to disintegration chambers if they are designated as killed in battle. Naturally, Kirk doesn't take kindly to this, especially when the planet's leaders say that everyone on the Enterprise was killed and therefore need to report to the planet to be disintegrated. The big takeaway I had from this episode was that to clean up war in this way, it doesn't inspire people to want to change anything, so death continues. The whole thing about a real war is that, despite how intense it gets, it does inspire change and for people to want to find a resolution so the conflict can end. That was the message given by the episode and I loved how Kirk basically laid it out for them after destroying the battle computer and starting the beginnings of peace talks, so a pretty solid ending.

The other episode I watched was called This Side of Paradise. This one focuses on the Enterprise going to a planet called Omicron Ceti III, where some colonists had settled some three years prior, but due to the presence of deadly berthold rays, it is highly unlikely they would have survived beyond a week. So, it is quite a mystery when the colonists are there, alive and well, and with perfect, as in too perfect to be real, health. It turns out that the colonists, and later the crew, are infected with strange spores that basically make them high and have no desire to do anything other than the bare minimum of living. This had some pretty funny unintentional comedy, like Spock acting like a child and sassing Captain Kirk directly to his face, or McCoy kicking back and deciding to make himself a nice mint julep. The episode isn't one of my favorites, but it was still entertaining for those sequences alone.

Next time, the Enterprise goes to a mining planet where a mysterious alien life form has been killing the miners for some unknown reason. What is doing this and why? Find out next time when I review The Devil in the Dark.

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