Where No Man Has Gone Before
Star Trek Axiom #1 - When the Vulcan says someone has to die, even your old buddy from the academy, forget the moral quandary. Just kill him.
The Enterprise picks up a 200 year old distress call from the SS Valiant and goes to investigate. They beam aboard the ship's Black Box which looks like an early prototype of Robby the Robot, and find out the Valiant's captain self-destructed the ship. Seems that ESP sensitive crew members went bonkers after flying into a pink energy field . . . the same energy field the Enterprise is flying into right now!
The pink energy field "attacks" the Enterprise, killing and injuring very specific crew members. Sure enough, the ship's most ESP sensitive crew member, Gary Mitchell who is Kirk's old pal from the academy, develops silvery eyes, can read novels in minutes, and starts fucking with the machines in sick bay and shooting lightning from his fingers. The ship's psychiatrist, Deanna Troi, I mean Elizabeth Dehner, is also an ESPy. And Kirk, in not one of his brighter moments, assigns her to look after Gary.
But he's got bigger problems to worry about. The Enterprise's warp engine was damaged, so they beam down to the nearest Federation outpost to gather supplies. AND since Gary has started to turn, I don't know, totally evil, Spock suggests they maroon him on this planet as well after Kirk balks at outright killing his old frat buddy. Spock orders a phaser rifle beamed down to the planet just in case.
Once down there, Gary goes totally demi-god on Kirk and friends then escapes. Dehner who has now also developed the silvery eyes of the psycho ESPy joins him as they build this weird garden of Eden. Kirk shows up, speechifies about how men don't have the wisdom to handle the power of God, then lays a good old fashioned James T Kirk whoop-ass on Gary, encasing him in a stone tomb. (Missus RC's response, "Gee, I wonder if he'll be back.") Deanna Troi dies, thereby TOTALLY fucking up the TNG timeline. Wait, it was Dehner who died. Scratch that last part.
The writing is indeed pretty clumsy yet there's this nice creepy vibe to all the sick bay scenes between Gary, Kirk, and Dehner. Maybe it was just the eeire silver contact lenses.
We also start to get some of our regular crew members. Mr. Scott! Sulu! Though Sulu isn't the helmsman yet. In fact, he's just your typical Asian stereotype.
Kirk: "What does the Math say? Mr. Sulu?"
Sulu: "What does the Math say, Captain? Well, here let me stop taking pictures of this banzai tree for a second, take off off my over sized glasses, and stop eating this cat. Then I'll tell you what the math says, you stupid American."
Apparently, the bridge set was complete when they shot this episode, but for some reason the helmsman and ensign seats (from here on referred to as the Sulu and Chekov seats) are reversed. No Uhura or Bones yet either. The doctor is still some old guy with no personality.
Roddenberry's favorite plotline of finding God at the end of the universe is introduced here. It's something he always seems to comes back to. Whatever.
But Spock is Spock, Kirk is Kirk, and it feels far more like Star Trek than "The Cage."
