23 – A Taste of Armageddon

Grade: C+

Summary

The Enterprise receives a message from a nearby planet that the ship has been destroyed in a computerized war simulation. They are asked to surrender their entire crew and submit themselves to be mercifully killed as a result of this computer simulation. Not surprisingly, Kirk has other plans.

Commentary

This episode isn’t very good, really, but the storyline was one of the best we’ve seen. The idea is if we can’t remember how terrible wars are, we will continue fighting forever. The people on this planet obviously had forgotten about it, and Kirk gives them a solution that will force them to remember. He hopes this will keep them from fighting a mindless war that has gone on for so long that nobody can remember why they’re fighting.

Here’s yet another example of a time when Kirk will ignore the Prime Directive if he doesn’t like what it would dictate to do.

In this episode, Scotty is on the bridge and in charge. McCoy gives him a hard time about his leadership, but honestly, I think he usually does a great job in command of the ship. McCoy always gives everyone a hard time when Kirk is not in command.

The ending was a bit lame, but in general this is a pretty decent episode.

Of Note

Spock refers to himself as “Vulcanian” again. It sounds weird.

Something that was really funny was when Spock said, “They go in but they do not come out”. Naturally, I thought of the old Roach Motel commercials when he said that.