15 – Shore Leave

Grade: B-

Summary

McCoy and Sulu are down on a planet, investigating if it is suitable for shore leave. They both think it is a perfect spot for a vacation. McCoy even compares it to “something out of Alice in Wonderland.” Then he actually sees a 6-foot tall rabbit pull a watch out of his pocket and exclaim that he is late.

Commentary

This episode is OK, but I don’t like it all that much. It’s another episode where everything gets explained at the end in the last 5 minutes. It’s too much like an average episode of the Animated Series. The writing is a bit sub-par, and I’m not impressed by episodes that end in the same way this one does.

I also think this episode takes way too long to get to the point. I actually remember looking at the timer to see how much longer this episode would go. I thought I had been watching for 45 minutes, but it was only half that long. Some people would think that means it’s boring, and I wouldn’t necessarily disagree. But it’s just really, really slow.

Overall, this episode has some nice touches, but it’s really just above average.

Of Note

This episode starts out really weird. Kirk has a pain in his back. His yeoman starts to rub it a bit, and Kirk thinks it’s Spock. When he finds out it’s his yeoman, then suddenly he doesn’t like it. So it’s OK if it’s Spock, but not of it’s a female yeoman? Weird.

In this episode, Mr. Spock has to convince Captain Kirk that he needs to take some time off to relax. The way he does it is too similar to what happens in the Next Generation episode called “Captain’s Holiday”.