Planet of the Native American stereotypes! This is another odd episode about a parallel earth populated by people who are literally Native Americans, "a mixture of Navajo, Mohican, and Delaware," according to Spock. And boy are they into medicine men and worshiping white people as gods. I don't see any modern Trek doing an episode quite like this. Or if they did they would at least make them aliens who are only similar to Native Americans. They don't offer him a peace pipe, but they do just about everything up to that point.
The episode begins with the normal planetary scouts at work. And by that I mean Kirk, Spock and McCoy, never mind all the scientists and other qualified people back on the Enterprise. They only have 30 minutes to explore the planet and observe its peaceful inhabitants before they have to warp away and go push an asteroid that is on its way to destroy the planet. It isn't ever explained why they don't take care of the asteroid first. It isn't like three bridge officers are going to make a discovery in 30 minutes just in case they can't move the asteroid. But they do find something. A very out of place metal obelisk on a stone platform with odd markings on it. While Spock and McCoy are messing around Kirk stands next to it and calls the ship. The floor below him opens and he falls into a chamber full of lights and buttons. He falls onto the controls and is hit with a green beam and passes out.
Spock and McCoy search fruitlessly until Spock decides to head back to the ship an go try to deflect the asteroid. Kirk has had is memory washed by the obelisk and stumbles out to only to be seen by two native women. Apparently coming out of the obelisk makes him a god or something so they start bowing. He is taken to the village and performs the strangest CPR I have ever seen on a boy who drowned and saves him! (I have been training in CPR for 20+ years and never have they recommended folding up the persons legs and rubbing them vigorously!) This miracle seals the god deal and now he gets to marry the hot priestess. He is now also the medicine man so he is in charge of operating the obelisk when the sky darkens.
Back on the ship Spock tries to blast the asteroid, but fails and burns out the warp engines. Fortunately they are slightly ahead of the asteroid and will arrive at the planet 52 days later leaving Kirk plenty of time to get busy with the priestess. The former medicine man is pretty pissed Kirk took his job and seems to be doing a pretty crappy job. But Kirk wins the first/knife fight they get into so he gets to marry the priestess. Back on the ship Spock has deciphered the writing on the obelisk and learned it was placed there by an advanced culture to protect the primitive people on the planet from asteroids. And also that it isn't working somehow. And that they are musical notes.
Kirk is busy getting married and even ignores when the wind starts ripping the village apart and the sky gets dark. But the people convince him to go to the obelisk, but it won't open for him. Kirk and his wife are stoned by the villagers on the steps of the obelisk until Spock and McCoy beam in and save him. Spock mindmelds the captains mind back into place and fixes the obelisk just before the planet is destroyed. Kirks wife dies and he is genuinely sad and it ends with him mourning her passing.
Review: This is a touching story buried under a pile of outdated stereotypes. It also offers a fairly crappy explanation for why there are so many humanlike civilizations in the galaxy, because the protectors kept us from dying! Overall not a great episode, but it does have some touching moments.
3 out of 10
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