This was one of my favorite episodes from childhood, but apparently I never paid all that much attention. Instead of being about the Tholians at all it is a story of how the crew deals with the loss of the captain at a critical time. The Tholians are if anything the C story with the B story being that this particular piece of space causes space madness. I am still not sure what was supposed to have happened to the USS Defiant, but I guess it wasn't important enough to warrant more than a single line of dialog, "explaining," it.
The episode begins with the Enterprise finding the USS Defiant which had been lost week earlier doing a routine survey. The Defiant doesn't show up on sensors, but they can see it pulsing green and looking not right at all. Kirk beams over along with Spock, McCoy and Chekov, and in a first for TOS, they wear space suits. And not just any space suits, the lamest glittery and hard to see out of suits you can imagine. I could rant for a while about how silly and hard to operate in the space suits are, but back to more serious matters. On the Defiant they discover all the crew have died in violent struggles. The ship is littered with bodies and while exploring it suddenly starts phasing out of reality. They all return to the bridge and for some reason it is important for Kirk to stay behind while they beam over. Only the Defiant disappears before he can beam aboard and appears to be lost.
Spock now in command figures out the ship is phased into, "interspace," and should be back in just over two hours. Spock also decides/figures out that if they move or use too much energy it will somehow mess things up. While waiting Chekov suddenly freaks out and strikes Spock before being neck pinched and sent to sickbay. All across the ship this space madness is taking over. McCoy discovers it is being caused by staying for too long in this unstable region of space. Spock refuses to move when the C story, I mean main villains arrive, the Tholians! They tell the Enterprise their empire claims this space, but agree to wait an hour or two to see if Kirk can be saved.
When the time comes Kirk does not reappear and the Tholians attack. Spock manages to disable the Tholian vessel but burns out the Enterprise power in the process. Another Tholian ship arrives and the two ships start weaving a web that they won't be able to escape from apparently. Deciding the captain is dead Spock holds a service in his honor and after McCoy insists the two of them listen to the captains last orders. They fight about it for a while, but McCoy prevails. McCoy also accuses Spock of trying to steal command of the Enterprise, but right on cue the orders play and Spock is told to talk to McCoy for advice, and McCoy is told to shut up and accept that Spock is captain. This satisfies both of them apparently and McCoy keeps looking for a cure to space madness when Uhura has a vision of the captain in her quarters. McCoy assumes she has gone mad as well and has her restrained.
On the bridge the Captain appears in his space suit only out of phase with reality. He disappears and they release Uhura from sickbay. McCoy cures the space madness, with booze laced with nerve gas. Just before the web closes Spock fires the engines and somehow they are thrown free of the web and the captain is dragged with them. Just before the oxygen in his suit would have failed he is beamed aboard safe and sound. When asked about the orders McCoy and Spock claim they never listened to them which clearly breaks the Vulcans can't lie rule...
Review: This wasn't the episode I expected, but it was rather enjoyable. The multiple storylines kept things moving and added tension to an already tense episode. Seeing Spock having to deal with command is always interesting, and Scotty's love of the antidote to space madness is pretty funny.
8 out of 10
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