34 – The Apple

Grade: D-

Summary

A crewman is killed on a supposedly blissful planet where nothing should have been dangerous. However, the Enterprise Crew soon discover that this planet has plants that shoot poison darts, exploding rocks, and targeted lightning.

Captain Kirk and friends also find a small village near an enormous power source. The people in the village worship something called Vaal, which lives inside a cave where the power source is located.

Commentary

This is one really stupid episode. They’ve already done this before. It was called Return of the Archons. A bunch of brainwashed folks running around aimlessly, and then Kirk comes in to save the day and ignore the Prime Directive. This was one of the low points of the second season. Good thing there were several more good episodes after this one. It is memorable mostly because of the half-dressed women with platinum-blond hair.

Of Note

In this episode, we find out that Chekov’s first name is Pavel.

I’m not sure if this is a record or not, but 4 Redshirts die in this episode.