Finally we get to one of my personal favorite episodes from when I was a kid. To be honest the horta looked even cheesier than I remembered, but this is still a memorable and enjoyable episode. It marks the first use of, "Jim, I'm a doctor, not a <fill in the blank>." It also features Spock mindmelding with a goofy prop and lots of talk about getting rich which makes me think maybe Gene hadn't settled on that no money in Trek thing quite yet.
The episode begins with a matte painting of a mining colony and a crew of guards looking out for an unknown enemy. Somehow it has killed 50 of their men already and for some reason this one guard isn't too excited to be left alone with an ineffective phaser. And it turns out he is right to be worried, seconds after being left by the rest of the group his is jumped on by some sort of giant monster thing and burned to a crisp. Kirk arrives with Spock and McCoy. They talk to the head of the colony who informs them of the situation. They also meet an engineer who shot the creature with, "phaser one," and it had no effect. (They insist on calling their weapons phaser 1 and phaser 2 all episode instead of type 1 and type 2 which seemed odd.) An alarm sounds, the creature has stolen the pump that cools the colony reactor dooming them all.
Kirk and Spock investigate the tunnel and Spock decides without much evidence that the creature must be silicon based. Kirk sends out search parties with phaser two which apparently works on silicon. Spock and Kirk argue about whether they should capture of kill the strange creature and in fact reverse positions at one point. The creature tries to collapse a tunnel onto Kirk, but he is uninjured by the falling foam rocks.
Kirk finds himself alone with the creature and decides kinda arbitrarily that it isn't hostile. He calls Spock who mindmelds with it and finds out it is injured. McCoy arrives and is aghast at the idea of healing it, but gives it a go. Spock mindmelds again and discovers the location of the stolen pump. Kirk goes for the pump while Spock learns the miners destroyed thousands of the horta's eggs. The miners rush in to kill it just as Kirk returns with the pump. He explains that it is cool, the horta was just mad because they were murdering its eggs. If they will be cool and not kill it the horta will happily dig tunnels for them to use in their mining. McCoy patches it up and the Enterprise in on their way with the miners happily working with baby horta.
Judgement: The episode features a guy under a strange kinda vomit color tarp for a monster, but still manages to feel serious. Kirk is all over the place on if they should kill or save the horta, but it all works out well in the end. A few plot holes keep it from perfection, but a joy to watch never the less.
8 out of 10
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