This is a pretty intense episode, and probably my favorite so far. We are past the first few episodes with a noteworthy milestone or two in every episode. The episode has the first of what would be many Vulcan mind melds. It is also the first episode so far that Kirk has apparently been turned off by an attractive female crew member, but I will get to that soon!
The opening scene starts with an engineer and a redshirt loading cargo onto the transporter, but just as the attempt to beam it down to a the cleverly named penal colony of Tantalus the captain walks in. Just in time to see them embarrass themselves by forgetting to ask the penal colony to turn off it's forcefield first. Fortunately for them Kirk is there to correct them and then reprimand the redshirt right after they beam a conveniently man sized box of secret do not open over to the enterprise. Kirk and the redshirt leave the transporter room and moments later the man sized box opens revealing a sweaty, crazed looking man who knocks the engineer out with one blow and steals his uniform.
By now the penal colony realizes they are missing a prisoner and the hunt is on! Enterprise security proves no match for this one crazy man however and he makes it all the way to the bridge only to be neck pinched by Mr. Spock. The lunatic turns out to be the recently assigned assistant to the revolutionary doctor who heads the penal colony. Just like the medical anthropologist Kirk immediately trusted this new doctor inspires instant trust in the captain, but McCoy isn't so sure. Dr. Adams, the head of the penal colony, agrees to let Kirk and company beam down to check things out.
When Kirk arrives in the transporter room he finds Dr. Helen Noel. She is beautiful, seems to trust everything Dr. Adams says, and was apparently turned down by Kirk at the ships Christmas party that year. They beam to the surface and while looking around with Dr. Adams find a, "treatment room," with neural neutralizer beam in the ceiling aimed at a patient and a blank faced therapist operating the controls. Adams clearly doesn't want to talk about it which Dr. Noel seems to think is just fine, but Kirk is suspicious.
Back on the ship Spock performs the first and most free form mind meld in the history of Star Trek and learns the the very same neural neutralizer was used on Dr. Adams now crazy assistant to remove his memories and replace them with new ones. Before Spock can let the captain know Kirk has taken the only logical course of action and put himself under the beam with Dr. Noel at the dials. It turns out the neural neutralizer is a perfect suggestion implanter which Dr. Noel uses to replace Kirk's memory of rebuffing her at the Christmas Party. Just then Dr. Adams bursts in and begins torturing Kirk.
After one round of torture Dr. Adams proves to be the worlds worst jailer by putting Kirk and Noel in the same room with a man sized easily opened vent leading to the power controls. Dr. Noel crawls through the vent to turn of the force field so the Enterprise can help while Kirk returns with Dr. Adams to get some neutralizing done. After a fairly badass fight scene Dr. Noel kills a guard by kicking him into charge power relays. This allows Spock to beam down and the captain to escape the beam and knock out Dr. Adams in the neutralizer room. Noel, Spock and Kirk meet up and return to find Dr. Adams has been killed by his own torture beam when the power came back on.
Review portion: Lots going on in this episode, but it all served well to keep increasing the tension. Doctor Noel managed to make the already skimpy female uniform look even skimpier which did make Kirks lack of interest seem a little surprising, but if that is the biggest plot hole I will take it.
8 out of 10
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