TOS #29: Operation Annihilate

This is a relatively straighforward episode aboult slimy creatures, which are actually a hive mind, taking over the bodies of the people on Deneva and causing them to build ships to spread the creatures to other star systems. The things kill Kirk's brother and infect his nephew.



Spock also gets infected, but is able to control the pain used to manipulate his body and mind. He beams back down to capture one of the nodes of the organism.



The Captain figures out that the thing is sensitive to light, and they test the hypothesis on Spock. Light does remove the creature from him, but also (temporarily, luckily) blinds him. Before realizing Spock's blindness is reversible, this episode created a good-of-the-many/good-of-the-one scenario around Spock which is clearly one of the precursors to the plot of II.

TOS #28: The City on the Edge of Forever

Of all episodes of TOS, I believe this might be the one that affected me most, personally. In it, Bones OD and transports down to some weird anomalous ruins on an otherwise unremarkable planet. He jumps through this time gate into about 1930, altering the timeline significantly. The rest of the away party appears to be inside some kind of immuned area, as they are now trapped in an alternate timeline in which there is no Enterprise in orbit. The gate lights up when it talks, and it kind of insults Spock.

It agrees to replay Earth's history and Kirk and Spock try to jump back to just before where Bones went. They miss by what appears to be several weeks. Once they get back to 1930, Kirk meets Joan Collins and falls in love with her. Spock figures out that the timeline alteration is that Bones saves her. By saving her, he causes the US not to enter World War II in time, letting the Germans develop atomic weapons first and win the war.

Although Kirk is in love with her, he stops Bones from saving her at the critical moment and fixes the timeline. The gate thing then allows them to jump back to their own time and beam up to the Enterprise. The thing I like best about this episode is how Kirk and Spock work for pennies a day to buy parts which Spock uses to build a computer to interface with the tricorder to figure out what's happening to the timeline.

TOS #27: The Alternative Factor

While an investigating an uninhabited planet, the ship gets rocked by this strange force that makes things' gravity go momentarily near 0. The Captain, Spock, and several redshirts then beam down to talk to a newly discovered, single, humanoid life form on the planet, who they bring back to sick bay on the Enterprise.



This guy turns out to be schizophrenic, and one of his personalities is a dilithium crystal kleptomaniac. Eventually, they figure out that there is a singularity connecting parallel universes, and that this dude is actually jumping back and forth. The other him, from the parallel universe, is trying to stop him from accidentally annihilating everything.

Eventually, one of his selves and Kirk manage to lock both halves of the dude in this interstitial space, protecting both universes but dooming both incarnations of the guy to eternal hand-to-hand combat in a very blue room.

TOS #26: Errand of Mercy

The Enterprise gets attacked by Klingons about 30 seconds in to this episode, and then continues on its mission to secure a border-area planet of some strategic importance.

The council of the planet, which was supposed to be a backward one, isn't interested in Federation protection, and keeps insisting it's safe. Then, members of the council start intuiting things about what are happening in orbit.

Kirk takes the pseudonym Barrona and Spock pretends to be a Vulcan trader. Kirk is then appointed liaison between the Klingon marshall and the Organians. He and Spock decide to try to foment a rebellion, but the Organians don't care and the Klingons find out and imprison Kirk and Spock. Eventually, both the Klingons and humans realize the Organians are far more advanced than was thought (it turns out they are godlike beings of pure energy).

Taught a lesson in humility, they call off the war.

TOS #25: The Devil in the Dark

This episode is about a monster menacing a mining colony. It turns out to be a silicon-based lifeform that's only killing to protect its brood. This guy and about 50 other people get killed by it.

I could have told them at this point that this shiny orb was the egg of a silicon-based lifeform, but that somehow eludes everyone but Spock.

Eventually Spock mind melds with the creature, figures out what's going on, and brokers a deal. If the creatures dig tunnels (which is what they do anyway), the humans will NOT dig tunnels and will satisfy themselves with processing the discarded minerals. Everybody wins.

TOS #24: This Side of Paradise

This episode is about the Garden of Eden. In it, all these very healthy-looking guys live blissfully in this Smurf-like one-woman colony. This woman actually loved Spock 6 years ago, and uses these weird bliss-making spores to make him decide to stay in Eden.

Eventually, the whole crew submits to the spores, falling into soma-like trances, until the Captain figures out that strong emotion breaks their hold on the mind. He pisses Spock off enough that Spock can overcome the Spores, and then they all agree not to court-martial each other.

Spock is acutely aware that he gives up his only chance of happiness, but that's OK, because being blissful yet having nothing to live for is no good, says Captain Kirk.

TOS #23: A Taste of Armageddon

This is another fascinating episode in which a planet has actually learned to fight out its wars by computer. They do make the "casualties" actually dead, in the end, but with no catastrophic destruction or escalation to full scale annihilation. The problem is, they've been doing this for 500 years, and there's no end in sight.

Women like the one pictured here are marked as casualties in one battle, and Kirk decides to take matters into his own hands.

The ambassador from the Federation wants to fall into the trap of the people on the planet, but acting Captain Scotty is too smart for them and disobeys the order to lower the shields.

And it's a good thing, of course. In the end, the Ambassador learns that you can't negotiate until you have figured out your alternatives, including who would win in a fight.

TOS #22: Space Seed

This is, of course, the episode where Khan is introduced.


He's frozen in a deep sleep, and if it weren't for Bones, he probably never would have thawed out.


The crew would be fine, because they are on to Khan's personality as soon as they have this dinner party, but the ship's historian (left), gets seduced by Khan and helps him.


His seduction of her is brilliant, because it relies on all the tendencies women are afraid to admit in themselves.

TOS #21: The Return of the Archons

This one starts out with Sulu in costume, getting zapped by some zombie people in western clothes. He gets really spacy and confused.

These guys, though, betray their weird God and help Kirk and Spock.

Once they escape from their stone jail, Kirk and Spock seek Landrew, who appears like this:

But of course, when the curtain is pulled back, they find Landrew to be a computer. He's like a cross between the Wizard of Oz, Skynet, and Hal. In a possible precursor to 2001, Kirk and Spock trick the computer.

TOS #12: The Menagerie (Part 2)

In order to get Pike back from his captors, the Enterprise sends down this "laser." Sadly, it's unable to penetrate their superrock fortress.




Meanwhile the aliens are trying to make Pike fall in love with their captive earth woman, so they can breed a human slave population. But that's OK, because Pike eventually outsmarts them, but not before they send him into his own dream worlds. Naturally, he outwits them long enough for Spock to figure out how to help him.





This is another definite precursor to the Ngillum episode.

TOS #11: The Menagerie (Part 1)

Spock "exaggerates" a communication from the planet where former Captain Pike happens to be hanging out. After a radiation accident, he's kind of a cross between Christopher Reeve and Stephen Hawking.

Spock mysteriously then fakes new orders for the Enterprise to go to some unknown place, where these guys live. Only it turns out Spock and Pike have been there before, 13 years earlier.

At the end of Part 1, it's still not clear what the hell Spock is up to, but it's clear he'll need Kirk's help.

TOS #19: Tomorrow is Yesterday

The enterprise has an accident with a black hole and goes back to the early 1960's. Once there, they try to clean up the timeline accidents they've caused. They end up with a fighter pilot and then an MP on the Enterprise.

The captain gets captured at one point, but Spock and Sulu use their martial arts to free him.

Then, for the first time in Star Trek, they use the "slingshot around the sun" method to travel through time to get back to where they're supposed to be.

TOS #18: Arena

This episode has a familiar plot: the Enterprise is going to visit some friends, who turn out to all have been slaughtered, and the crew discovers it was a trap. They chase the offending slaughterers for a while, until they run into people who talk like this:



These psychedelic aliens suggest that the Enterprise and the Gorn settle their dispute by 1-on-1 combat between the captains. Both captains are transported to a neutral planet and start battling it out.



Obviously, Captain Kirk wins in the end, but not before ingeneously figuring out how to make a diamond bamboo pipe bomb.