Kirk and Spock are held captive on a penal colony planet when the inmates take over the asylum. Adding to the drama is the main inmate is a shape-shifter.
This episode has two problems, one minor, one major. The minor problem is the show did this plot already. Serious? They have the entire galaxy to explore, not to mention countless allegory plots about the human condition, and they were running out of ideas by the third season?
The major problem is everything the writers knew about mental illness was learned from watching "Arsenic and Old Lace." The difference is Star Trek had the decency to play mental illness as a drama instead of "Arsenic" which played mental illness as a laugh-riot!
I'm talking about the whole delusions of grandeur trope. Shorthand for mental illness in pre-70s was to put a Napolean hat on someone. Instant crazy! "Arsenic" did this by making a character think he was Theodore Roosevelt, "Whom Gods Destroy" did it by making Garth think he was Lord commander of the universe.
The other disturbing thing was the other inmates passing time by doing wheelbarrow races. It's as if the writers were thinking that the insane extras had to do something, hmm, what do the mentally ill do, yeah! they do wheelbarrow races! This of course comes off as awful, insensitive and really amateurish.
We really don't portray mental illness like this anymore.
This is a pity, if the writers had done actual research, a real story about real mental illness could have been made. The viewers could have actually learned something. Star Trek classic took on the Vietnam war, it could have taken on mental illness.
Some good points. I never tire of two William Shatners wrestling each other. Star Trek 6 would steal this 25 years later for a hilarious moment. Yvonne Craig was beautiful and sexy and back in the 60s always got saddled with the girlfriend-of-the-week roles, though she deserved better. On the other hand what's not to like about her as an Orion slave girl? And speaking of Orion slave girls, the episode used a bunch of formerly introduced alien races; this might have been a cost-saving maneuver, but it perhaps unintentionally brought some uniformity to the ST universe.
One technical point: The Star Trek classic reruns shown now are the special-effects enhanced episodes where, for the most part, all the model starships have been replaced by CGI ships. That being said, the scene where the Enterprise is firing photon torpedoes at the Klingon ship should be awesome. It's not. It's only slightly better than the original effect. Further, they missed an opportunity to CGI the scenes where Garth is shapeshifting instead of leaving in the cheesy '60s effect. Speaking of Star Trek VI, the shapeshifter in that film changed form while talking, how cool is that?
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