This is an episode I am sure I haven't seen before, and I have been missing out. This is one of the more personal stories in TOS and it also has some interesting scifi ideas going on. The idea of a culture sending out a vessel with its people and knowledge when they knew they were doomed is interesting. And seeing what those people are like after thousands of years of living to maintain their vessel which they believe to be a planet is even more interesting. The silly sounding fatal disease that McCoy comes down with was clearly going to be cured by the end of the episode, but it made his story of wanting to move on from the Enterprise much more believable.
As we begin the Enterprise is under attack by primitive chemical rockets. After easily blasting them into space dust with the phasers they follow them back to their point of origin. What initially appears to be an asteroid is actually a fairly primitive, but well disguised space ship. The bad news it is on a collision course with a heavily populated planet and being 250 miles across it won't matter if it is ship or rock when it collides. Meanwhile Kirk is called to sickbay. McCoy explains he has terminal xenopolycythemia, yes, I had to look that one up. McCoy tells Kirk he has one year to live and Kirk informs starfleet. They arrive at the asteroid/ship and Kirk beams to the surface along with Spock and McCoy. They find a series of tubes and no signs of life. Until the tubes open and let out some brightly dressed guards with swords who subdue them and give their weapons to the high priestess Natira.
Natira has them taken below and they are brought to the room of the oracle. Kirk claims they are there to be best buddies, but the oracles decides to show them how it treats its enemies first and gives them a dose of the old pain ray knocking them out. When they awaken an old man comes in and tries to explain that he went outside and learned the truth but before he can tell them more than the name of the episode he dies with a glow in is right temple. Natira arrives and has the body taken away. She then tells them they are now honored guests and can come and go as they please. McCoy starts making nice with Natira while Spock and Kirk wander the ship. Spock recognizes the righting on the walls as belonging to a planet that was wiped out thousands of years earlier. They work their way into the oracle room where they hear Natira ask the oracle for permission to marry McCoy. After the agreeing the oracle detects Spock and Kirk and hits them with the pain ray.
Instead of killing Kirk and Spock, McCoy has their sentence reduced to banishment, but he stays behind to live with Natira. Kirk isn't happy, but understands McCoy is trying to find happiness before he dies. McCoy has an implant put into his head to join, "the people," and then he marries Natira. She shows him a book with all their secrets they are to read when they arrive. She explains the people are being taken to a new world to make a new start. McCoy tries to tell Kirk this, but he is knocked out by the implant before he can. Kirk beams down with Spock and they remove the implant. Natira tries to stop them from getting to the book, but they convince her to help them and she too is knocked out by her implant. But McCoy removes her implant and they go to the oracle room. Spock uses the book to open up the controls and reprograms the ship to orbit the planet it is headed for, not destroy it. Natira convinces McCoy to go without her, but before they leave Spock discovers the cure for McCoy's disease is on the asteroidship and everybody is happy.
Review: This is both a personal story and an adventure. Having seen later content I am obviously aware that McCoy doesn't end up leaving the Enterprise, but this was a more touching way of dealing with it than I was expecting from the third season.
7 out of 10
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