The story is a rip off of Cornel Woolrich's THE NIGHT HAS A THOUSAND EYES which had been made into a film before this, officially.
If you don't know the story it may hold your interest but this is a pretty shoddy episode with only Richard Boone saving a few moments. One with him looking disgusted by his host/clients various outrageous ugly behavior, and a great one where he bursts into laughter when made to apologize to a tiger. Also Boone does well with some exposition and comes off rather Bond-like by suddenly revealing his knowledge of an Indian language.
Roddenberry's script and the performers also offer up leering a women, fortune cookie English in scenes that are painfully dated and sexist and racist today but would have seemed clunky and overdone at the time. It offers none of the Captain Kirkish moments Roddenberry he gave the series in other much better episodes. I guess the only progressive element would with it being against Colonialism, but there is no interesting dialogue or much to the script that isn't better done in the Woolrich original.
Don Taylor directs flatly and lamely, none of the limited action is staged worth a dam. All the guest stars are both over the top and not very good, though the script doesn't do them any favors either.
Don't get me wrong I like the series but this ain't one of the best. Coming later in the series perhaps it was just the show running out of gas in most departments.
If you don't know the story it may hold your interest but this is a pretty shoddy episode with only Richard Boone saving a few moments. One with him looking disgusted by his host/clients various outrageous ugly behavior, and a great one where he bursts into laughter when made to apologize to a tiger. Also Boone does well with some exposition and comes off rather Bond-like by suddenly revealing his knowledge of an Indian language.
Roddenberry's script and the performers also offer up leering a women, fortune cookie English in scenes that are painfully dated and sexist and racist today but would have seemed clunky and overdone at the time. It offers none of the Captain Kirkish moments Roddenberry he gave the series in other much better episodes. I guess the only progressive element would with it being against Colonialism, but there is no interesting dialogue or much to the script that isn't better done in the Woolrich original.
Don Taylor directs flatly and lamely, none of the limited action is staged worth a dam. All the guest stars are both over the top and not very good, though the script doesn't do them any favors either.
Don't get me wrong I like the series but this ain't one of the best. Coming later in the series perhaps it was just the show running out of gas in most departments.