Operation -- Annihilate!
The Enterprise arrives at Deneva where Captain Kirk's brother Sam lives with his family and where a generalized madness has stricken the inhabitants. Deneva isn't the first planet to afflicted by the bout of insanity. The source of the problem is unknown. A number of other colonies on other planets have been destroyed by the madness.
Kirk beams down with Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and two other crew members. They try contacting the colony before hand without much luck. They find Sam, Kirk's brother, dead. Aurelan, Sam's wife, and Peter, Sam's son, are still alive. Kirk and McCoy take them back to the Enterprise. Kirk tries questioning Aurelan, she responds but only with great difficulty and then she dies.
Kirk beams back down to the planet and with Spock, Scotty, and the other two crew members has a look around. They find some small flying creatures, possibly the ones which Aurelan spoke of when responding to Kirk's questions. They are getting ready to leave when one of the creatures lands on Spock's back, causing him great pain.
They get the creature off Spock and get him back to the Enterprise. Doctor McCoy does for him what he can. Spock gets away from Sick Bay when he wakes up. He heads to the bridge and tries to take over the helm. Kirk and three other men hold him down while McCoy sedates him. Later Kirk allows Spock, after he has demonstrated that he has regained his sanity, to go down to the surface to get one of the creatures so that they may examine it.
Spock completes his mission and returns to the ship with a creature. They conduct a number of experiments and ultimately discover that extreme light is deadly to the creatures. They test their theory first on the creature they have, it kills it, and then on Spock, it blinds him but destroys the piece of the creature that remained within him. They use this information to cure Peter and everyone on Deneva.
Thoughts
What is up with the title for this episode? I'm not sure what a better title would be but I don't think that the one they gave it exactly captures the spirit of the episode.
There is one female crew member in the landing party. She is not armed with a phaser, not uncommon in this season of the show. I'm not sure when that will change.
There's something about this episode that reminds me of the next to last episode of the first season of The Next Generation, 1.24 Conspiracy. Both involve strange unknown creatures spreading across the galaxy, taking over people by invading their bodies.
I find the science in this episode to be extremely suspect. Something feels wrong about it.
I also found the episode to be strangely uncompelling. This was not a great way to end the first season. I wouldn't be clamoring for more episodes of this show after watching this one except for the fact that I know that there are some really good ones in the next two seasons of the show.
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