TAS: How, Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth

            TOS had the planet of the Greek gods and TAS has the spaceship of the dragon/feathered serpent god. This episode probably would have been better if they hadn't already had an episode establishing that some of the ancient gods of earth were in fact aliens who visited us. This particular episode happened as excitement over the Mayans had at least momentarily surpassed excitement over the Egyptians, but because there are pyramids and obelisks they get mentioned as well. 
            Earth has been visited by a probe from an unknown star system and before it could be examined it self destructed. The Enterprise has been sent to follow the trail back to where ever it came from. As they push into unexplored space they encounter a crystal ship that quickly traps them in a force bubble they are unable to break free from. After some extensive probing the ship changes appears to look like a giant feathered serpent which pilot Walking Bear recognizes as Kukulkan from Mayan and Aztec mythology. Kukulkan is pleased to be recognized and transports Kirk, McCoy, Scotty and Walking Bear over to his ship.
            On the serpents ship they four of them are shown an ancient city Kukulkan instructed the people of earth to build for him to signal to him, but it was never built. They mess around with some giant serpent heads and get them to shine light at a pyramid which I guess is what he wanted? Kukulkan then transports them to his private zoo filled with dangerous animals being fed illusions to keep them docile. He keeps trash talking how violent the humans are, but his zoo doesn't seem very humane. Spock manages to ship the Enterprise into reverse and blasts they way out of the force field while Kirk and company distract the serpent by breaking open the zoo cages. They save the serpent from an electric cat thing and he lets them go. That's pretty much it other than some comments about how much they could have learned and how we are ungrateful children.

            Review: Not my favorite episode despite my personal interest in Mayan history and culture. The idea that all ancient cultures were inspired to build pyramids by the same aliens however is one of my pet peeves. 

3 out of 10