The Enterprise is on a mission to observe a planet as it disintegrates but first they must evacuate the people working in a research station there. The away team finds the base staff dead; all in bizarre situations; one man was found frozen to death while showering fully dressed and others were just seated at their posts. One of the away team comes into contact with a red liquid and soon starts acting strangely, questioning why men are in space. Back on board the Enterprise his condition worsens and he threatens Sulu and another crewman with a knife. They disarm him but are soon acting strangely themselves; Sulu is running around with a sword and the other man starts singing Irish ballads and more dangerously locks himself in engineering and takes control of the ship. This would be bad at the best of times but the Enterprise is in a decaying orbit and more and more crew members are becoming affected. It is a race against time as Scotty tries to force his way back into Engineering and McCoy works to find a cure for the strange condition.
This is an entertaining episode which grabs the viewer's attention quickly; the opening scenes where the frozen base is explored and crewman Tormolen is contaminated make clear that something strange has happened and will inevitably start happening again on the Enterprise without making it too obvious what might happen. As more and more people become infected it becomes apparent that the condition affects people emotionally in a way similar to alcohol without the accompanying drunkenness it removes people's inhibitions so some, like Tormolen, will become maudlin, others will become flirtatious and others will act out fantasies. This is done in an interesting way and even though we know it will work out in the end it is quite tense as they race against time regain the ship and struggle to deal with the condition. The effects of the condition give us a chance to see the main cast acting in a way we don't usually; it was particularly fun seeing Sulu running around the ship with a sword, William Shatner hamming it up as Kirk gets overly emotional and Spock actually showing some emotion.
I wasn't surprised to learn that this was intended to be a two part episode as the solution to one problem leaves the Enterprise travelling back in time only for this problem to be solved almost immediately so quickly that there was little point having it happen at all! Overall a pretty good episode that I really enjoyed.
This is an entertaining episode which grabs the viewer's attention quickly; the opening scenes where the frozen base is explored and crewman Tormolen is contaminated make clear that something strange has happened and will inevitably start happening again on the Enterprise without making it too obvious what might happen. As more and more people become infected it becomes apparent that the condition affects people emotionally in a way similar to alcohol without the accompanying drunkenness it removes people's inhibitions so some, like Tormolen, will become maudlin, others will become flirtatious and others will act out fantasies. This is done in an interesting way and even though we know it will work out in the end it is quite tense as they race against time regain the ship and struggle to deal with the condition. The effects of the condition give us a chance to see the main cast acting in a way we don't usually; it was particularly fun seeing Sulu running around the ship with a sword, William Shatner hamming it up as Kirk gets overly emotional and Spock actually showing some emotion.
I wasn't surprised to learn that this was intended to be a two part episode as the solution to one problem leaves the Enterprise travelling back in time only for this problem to be solved almost immediately so quickly that there was little point having it happen at all! Overall a pretty good episode that I really enjoyed.