TAS: The Slaver Weapon

            I didn't know Star Trek contained any crossover episodes with outer continuities and when I finally saw the crossover episode I think I can see why. It is actually a pretty good Trek episode, but Spock has to keep expounding on stuff to make it make any sense. It also feels really weird to have a totally new species of aliens that apparently are well known but are never heard from before or since. Also I am pretty sure some of the technology attributed to the Slavers has had over original inventors. 
            The episode begins and ends in the very strangely shaped shuttlecraft Copernicus which has been tasked with transporting super important cargo instead of the larger and better armed Enterprise. The cargo is a billion year old stasis box with unknown contents left behind by a galactic empire that was wiped out a billion years ago. The box starts glowing as they pass a star system which indicates to Spock that there is another stasis box on the planet. When they land to investigate they are quickly ambushed by Kzinti "pirates" who lured them there with an empty stasis box. 
            The Kzinti reveal that they are trying to find a weapon powerful enough to let them fight back against they Federation which forced them to give up most weapons a century ago. In addition to a fresh steak and what appears to be a picture of one of the slavers is a small green gun looking thing with a slider on the side. The Kzinti take Spock, Sulu and Uhura outside to test the weapon on them, but other than being a cool telescope, a rocket and an energy drainer it doesn't seem to do anything. The energy drainer disables to police web being used on the Enterprise crew and they escape with the weapon other than Uhura who is captured and held hostage.
            Spock and Sulu experiment with the weapon and discover a hidden setting that turns it into a powerful nuclear laser beam or something and that gets the Kzinti's attention. Spock trades the weapon for Uhura but the Kzinti are too dumb to figure out out and end up blowing up both themselves and the weapon. 

            Review: There is all sorts of stuff in this episode that I am guessing is background important to Larry Niven's Known Space universe from which this story is adapted. But for the purposes of the story the fact that the Kzinti have depressed telepaths and dumb women is pretty much totally irrelevant. I liked the story of a stasis box with an unknown weapon, but the rest of the episode is way less interesting.

4 out of 10