So far TOS series episodes seem to be following the theme of a dangerous psychic/vampire on the ship and no one is safe! This episode starts with the crew encountering a 200 year old distress signal coming from what turns out to be the black box from the destroyed USS Valient. So even though this is from a 200 year old ship from a period before humans were known to have been this far it is assumed to be a crisis and that whatever destroyed the Valient must still be a threat! So what is the best course of action? To go directly to where the Valient was destroyed as fast as possible of course. Also for some reason the data logger starts transmitting as they EXIT THE GALAXY. Which is apparently a big deal as it calls for the heads of all departments to report to the bridge.
The head of engineering is a very young Montgomery Scott who also happens to operate the transporters. In addition to Sulu who is apparently in charge of science or something, Dr. Piper shows up as the head of medical because apparently McCoy hadn't been cast or something (this is in fact the first episode filmed which may explain some of the continuity issues). Also the head of psychiatry/ESP Dr. Dehner. This is extremely convient because after she is already on the bridge Spock manages to get information out of the data recorder indicating the Valient was destroyed by crew who gained ESP powers from some sort of energy barrier outside the galaxy.
Again, the obvious course of action is to fly directly into this purple galactic barrier at warp one even though sensors indicate it may be solid. Luckily for them it isn't and instead it only knocks out there engines and kills nine crew. Plus it jolts Kirks best friend from the academy days Gary Mitchell along with Dr. ESP with some sort of energy field or something. When Gary recovers he has spooky silver eyes and has developed a nasty case of being a dick. You have probably already figured out that he is now a dangerous psychic who is going to threaten the ship. Luckily he isn't psychic enough to dodge a good punch from Kirk and with the help of Spock and Dr. Dehner they get him tranquilized and transported down to a planet that conveniently has fuel to fix the engine and no people making it the perfect place to leave Kirk's best friend to die.
You may be asking yourself how you don't know this fine Lt. Commander Mitchell, but of course it is because he is the villain of the episode. After digging Kirk a grave (with a tombstone to some guy named James S. Kirk, yeah more continuity) Dr. Dehner developed enough psychic powers to stun Mitchell long enough for Kirk to get into a good uniform ripping fist fight ending with Kirk burying Mitchell in his own grave. And I guess he gets Dehner to kill herself? Not sure what happens other than Kirk logging her and Mitchell as having given their lives in the service of their ship and flying home.
Not the most memorable of episodes. Lots of 60's ESP shenanigans only made the episode feel dated. Also they went back to using the phasers from the pilot. I guess you could say that Charlie destroyed them all in the last episode and they dug the antiques out of storage, but that would both give the writers too much credit and at the same time discredit the, "all is as it was at the beginning of the episode," floating green head that closed out Charlie X.
4 out of 10
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