Star Trek (1966) 1.21

The Return of the Archons

The Enterprise visits the planet Beta III hoping to find any clues as to what happened to the Archon, a spaceship that vanished 100 years prior. A two-man scouting party is sent down to the surface of the planet. Sulu returns acting weird. O'Neil doesn't return. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and three other crew members beam down to the surface of the planet to try and figure out what's going on and find O'Neil. They find a society that acts strangely docile except during the "red hour" when everyone outdoors goes nuts.

Someone named Landru seems to be in charge but before their investigation can go much further Kirk and the rest of the landing party are forced to run and hide. They find a hiding place with some help from Reger, one of the locals who is part of a movement opposed to Landru. They find O'Neil while they are on the run but he has been brainwashed.

Landru finds Kirk and the others in their hiding place and sends his men to deal with them. McCoy is brainwashed. Kirk and Spock are sent to be brainwashed but Marplon, another member of the resistance helps them to evade reconditioning.

Kirk and Spock find Landru. It is a computer. Kirk reasons with it until it blows a circuit.

Thoughts

This episode was directed by Joseph Pevney. This is the second of 14 episodes he directed of the show. The previous episode he directed was 1.18 Arena.

I can see how some people might really like this episode. There's potential here. It's really weird in some ways. What is up with the way everyone is dressed on Beta III? Why do they all look like they come from the 19th century? What's the deal with the "red hour"? Landru seems to be all about keeping things orderly. The red hour is very chaotic. Why would Landru allow that? What is up with the law givers and those staves they carry around with them? I think one can imagine answers to these questions but I would have preferred some answers even if they are incomplete answers.

On the whole I'm not crazy about this episode. It seems to be mostly Kirk and Spock. None of the guest stars did anything that made them interesting to me. Even McCoy didn't really do all that much. There wasn't enough to this story, or at least that's the way it felt to me.