27 – The Alternative Factor

Grade: D+

Summary

The Enterprise scans an uncharted planet and finds no sign of life. But then a violent force rocks the ship, and suddenly, there is a man named Lazarus on the planet. Spock and Kirk beam down to the surface to investigate. They return to the Enterprise with Lazarus so that he can receive medical treatment for his injuries, and he tells them of another man who is ‘anti-life’.

Commentary

This cheesy episode is one I could do without. Though the idea of having matter and anti-matter meet at some point and destroy each other is intriguing, this episode is fairly boring and has far too many effects shots to generate any interest. There are also far too many scenes where the two antagonists fight each other. Judging by the shallowness of the storyline, I’d say the screenplay for this episode was among the shortest of the entire series. I’ll just add this is by far the most boring episode I’ve seen up to this point in the series.

Of Note

Apparently, Lazarus and Lt Masters were supposed to have a romantic scene together, but this idea was scrapped since an African American woman played Lt Masters. The episode when Kirk kisses Uhura (Plato’s Stepchildren) came 18 months later.

This is often noted as one of the worst (if not the absolute worst) episode of the series. Yeah, it’s bad, but there are a few others that I think are worse than this.