Episode Title: Operation -- Annihilate!
Air Date: 4/13/1967
Written by Steven W.
Carabatsos
Directed by Herschel
Daugherty
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk and the corpse of George Samuel Kirk, Jr. Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander
Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr.
Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”
James Doohan as Lieutenant
Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Majel Barrett as Nurse
Christine Chapel Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Ron Veto as
Crewman Harrison Frank Da
Vinci as unnamed Guard Maurishka
as Yeoman Ellen Zahra Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman Joan Swift as Aurelan Kirk Craig Huxley as Peter Kirk Fred Carson as First Denevan Jerry Catron as Second Denevan David Armstrong as Kartan
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701, unnamed Denevan ship
Planets: Deneva
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: The Enterprise
is on an important assignment. Some
archaeological research has indicated a disturbing pattern. Numerous planets one right after the other
going back two centuries shows their respective civilizations all collapsing
due to mass hysteria. Going in order the
tragic cases follow a straight line and next on the line is the Federation
colony of Deneva. The last contact with
Deneva was over a year ago.
The colony of Deneva is known for
producing materials for the engineering needs of various Federation planets. Scotty himself made the transport runs
earlier in his career. The Enterprise is continuing to try to
contact the colony but they keep getting no response. Since all the official channels seem
unresponsive Captain Kirk orders Lt. Uhura to try a private frequency. As she begins Dr. McCoy confronts Captain
Kirk and asks if this was the colony that the Captain’s brother lives with his
family.
Lt. Uhura gets the channel on the
private frequency raised and Captain Kirk is able to speak very briefly with his
sister-in-law, Aurelan. She doesn’t make
a lot of sense and it’s unclear if she realizes it’s him that she’s talking to
but she seems absolutely horrified. They
lose contact and according to Lt. Uhura it is because those on the other end stopped
transmitting. As the Enterprise enters the system they find a
vessel from the colony heading straight towards the sun. They try to hail the doomed ship and race to intercept
it before can get to that star. They
fail but right before the vessel is destroyed they here over the communications
system the pilot exclaiming that he is now free.
 |
| On Deneva |
The Enterprise then goes to Deneva and Captain Kirk organizes a landing
party with himself, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and a number of redshirts. When they beam down to the planet they are
attacked by a group of men while they attack also say they don’t want to hurt the Enterprise crewmembers but their actions
complete with the clubs they weld shows otherwise. The gang however brought clubs to a phaser
fight and the Enterprise crewmembers
pull out their phasers and stun the group.
Dr. McCoy notices that evening unconscious the men’s metabolism is hyper
accelerated.
Captain Kirk leads the away team to his brother’s lab. In there he finds his sister-in-law
hysterical near crazy to the point she has to be sedated by Dr. McCoy. The Captain’s nephew is unconscious on the
floor and when Kirk approaches his brother he finds the scientist dead. Kirk is clearly distraught by the death of
his only sibling but he has no time to mourn for they’re clearly still in
danger.
 |
| George Samuel Kirk, Jr. dead |
The Captain returns the ship with
Dr. McCoy and his surviving relatives. Aurelan
Kirk is briefly revived; her vitals are all over the place. She screams that they entered their bodies
and force them to build ships. She screams
in pain and ultimately dies leaving Peter Kirk and orphan. With no further use for him in sick bay the
Captain returns to the planet.
On the surface Spock and the away
team have located some of the creatures responsible for the havoc. They are nasty disgusting things. Single celled organisms that looked like
giant bags of fake vomit. With phasers
set the kill they blaster creatures only to fine the phaser beams have little
to no effect. With intense maximum phaser fire they manage to briefly stun one. Spock wants to take it is a sample, but the
Captain elects to retreat. While the
landing party is retreating the creature that was hit revives and attacks
Spock. They beam up and get Mr. Spock to
sick bay.
 |
| Away team encounters some nasty creatures |
Dr. McCoy tries his best but finds
his body is infested with so many smaller versions of the creatures they saw
that on the planet. It’s like the thing
had his babies in Spock and they are all growing. Dr. McCoy can’t remove all them without
killing his patient. The problem is the
same for all the citizens of the colony.
When Mr. Spock wakes up he is deliriously
tries to take control the ship. He escapes from sick bay makes it all the way
to the bridge and almost succeeds to take control of the helm. Several officers all have to tackle him at
once until Dr. McCoy knocks him out with a hypospray. When he comes to in sick bay he notices he is
physically restrained. Tells the Captain
that that is not necessary and he is now once again in control although he is
still in pain. He request to be let out. Kirk says that may be an option if he can
demonstrate that he’s in control however he’s not sure how long that may be.
 |
| Nasty stuff |
Alone in sick bay he mutters that
he is in control of his emotions and he is in control of his pain. He breaks out and heads to the transporter
room however he is stopped by the quick actions of Mr. Scott. When Kirk arrives he explains that they still
need to get a sample from the planet surface and says he is already infected he
is the best choice to go. Seeing as he
went to the transporter room to head of the surface and not to the bridge take
control the ship Kirk sees that is a sign that he is now mentally well and chooses
to trust him. Spock successfully goes
down to the planet and retrieves a sample by capturing one of the creatures and
bringing it back to the ship to be studied in the sick bay.
Upon studying them Mr. Spock and
Dr. McCoy are able to determine that these creatures are all part of a
collective. They are in essence a single
entity the difference between this creature and us is it doesn’t keep all of it
cells together the same place. Each cell
is part of the whole creature that is why phaser fire was unable to affect
it. What the creature does is it infects
its victims growing new cells their bodies and using the new cells’ placement
to cause pain to the host. If the host
does not do exactly as instructed the pain will become more intense. Creature has its hosts build ships after gets
done wiping out all life on that planet it uses the ships to proceed to the next
one.
 |
| Spock fighting to get control of the bridge |
It appears in order to save the
rest of the galaxy from this creature the Enterprise would have to render the
planet lifeless from orbit killing all the inhabitants. Spock says that he and Peter Kirk will have
to go down to the planet and be sacrificed with the colony. Spock does not want to do this but he doesn’t
see any other solution as they haven’t been able to come up with an effective
way of destroying the parasitic creature.
Kirk refuses he says there’s going to be another answer. He mentions the pilot who flew into the sun at
the start of the episode and points out that the last thing he said was he was
free. Kirk reasons that there was
something in the sun that could be used to fight this creature.
Spock and McCoy continue to work on
it they try to think what elements the sun has and test that on the sample cell
that they have. McCoy tries radiation
and heat nothing however is working.
Time is running out and Spock is afraid they may have to revert to the
original plan. While trying to
brainstorm over the sun’s elements Kirk, the non-scientist, is the one to come
up with the most obvious answer that his scientists colleagues weren’t able to
think of. What if it is light that
destroys the creature?
 |
| Race against time |
McCoy sets up the experiment using
the single cell of the creature that they have and exposes it to intense
light. It works but now they had to try
on a subject who is a person like themselves who has been infected. Mr. Spock volunteers, McCoy wants to give him
goggles but Spock refuses as those on the surface will not have goggles. Spock is exposed to the intense light and he
is cured of his infection unfortunately he is also left blind.
They run some test and Dr. McCoy’s
discover some bad news and good news simultaneously. Just like there are sounds that we cannot
hear there is light that we cannot see and light that is on a wavelength we
can’t see is sufficient to kill the creature. So they won’t have to blind everyone
on the planet but it also means that Spock’s sacrifice was unnecessary.
 |
| A victory of sorts! |
The Enterprise drops satellites in orbit around the planet and uses
those satellites to create light beyond the visible spectrum that is intense
enough to wipe the creature from existence.
Peter Kirk also cured. There is
also some more good news; Mr. Spock’s blindness was temporary since Vulcans
have an inner eyelid that they evolved to protect against the intense Vulcan
sun. Which I suppose made it illogical
for him to refuse the goggles after all the humans on that planet didn’t have
inner eyelids to protect them from bright light but since it wasn’t necessary
to use visible light anyway is all academic.
Dr. McCoy was so worried about his Vulcan eyes so much that Kirk pointed
out to the Doctor that he forgot about the Vulcan ears and Mr. Spock heard all those
nice things that Dr. McCoy was saying about him.
Additional thoughts: Poor
Captain Kirk this has to be the worst week in his entire life. Just last episode he had to watch the love of
his life die and if he prevented it then that would’ve been the end of the world
that he knows. As if the universe had
thought he hadn't suffered enough however this week he gets to lose his big
brother and lose him in a very horrific way.
Death by some alien creature that caused him to suffer intense pain
before his death and he died knowing his wife and child were going through the
same thing that he was. Kirk then gets
to watch his sister-in-law die and see his nephew suffer. Then he’s told that for the good of the
universe he may have to kill millions of people, including his best friend and
nephew. That last thing was avoided but I
think our good Captain deserves another trip to the fantasy shore leave planet for at least a month to help him recover for everything that he’s been going
through.
So what do we call this thing that they were
fighting? The planet-hopping
vomit-looking creature that travels all it cells traveling independently. I’m thinking vomit parasite. Why can’t everything strange we encounter in space be like the Horta which was apparently ugly to but turned out to be very
lovely; where this thing was just plain old nasty. Also why it was immune to phaser fire just
because each cell was separate? That
didn’t make a lot of sense to me. Cells
of my body are destroyed by contact with things every day I don’t see why it
would be much different here.
Back in the episode “What Are Little Girls Made Of” we first learn about Kirk’s brother and his family from
Kirk’s evil android doppelgänger.
However that episode it is said that Kirk’s brother has three sons. So my question is where are Kirk’s other
nephews? Why do we only see the
one? I guess that Peter is probably his parents’
youngest child. He seems to be about 12
so if is siblings were separated by about three years his brothers should be 15
and 18 respectively. So perhaps the
18-year-old is often college in the 15-year-old is visiting him? That’s the only explanation I can think of at
the moment.
However of the nephew why don't we see
what becomes of him? The whole episode
Kirk is trying to save his life and yet we don’t see what happens to him after he
loses both of his parents. The kid is
now an orphan; shouldn’t his uncle be trying to help him out? I read there was actually a scene about this
but it didn’t make the final cut. If so, that is too bad because it leaves the viewers
wondering. Maybe Peter goes to live with
his brothers? Is Kirk’s mother still
alive at this point? Maybe Peter can go
live with his grandmother?
FINAL GRADE 4 of 5
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