I do like the notion that help is not easily available . It adds to the notion that space is BIG. I think Replicators are a logical progression of transporter tech but I dislike the way they had wave away the energy consumption in TNG. Converting energy to matter would require vast amounts of energy on any larger scale.
I appreciate that the precise nature of food synthesisers is unclear but suggests they have chemical components in store rather than energy to matter. They certainly can't produce turkeys from thin air
There's got to be something else going on with replicators and even the Transporter system than converting matter to energy, because that's what the
Warp Engines do and they are a big, complicated deal. If a desktop sized replicator can convert matter to energy like a warp core, what's so special about the warp core? Just get your energy from the replicator!
On to
Conscience Of The King...
Man oh man, the first season had some excellently written dialogue scenes! Bereft of space battles or direct threats to the crew, this episode instead focuses on character interactions and especially Kirk. After all, if he didn't bring the actors on board none of this week's adventure would have happened! Kirk in mainstream pop culture has a reputation for acting independently or not following orders. However, this is the very first time (in his whole career, apparently) that he’s gone off on his own whims and he berates himself accordingly.
The episode does add to the impression that Kirk has had a long and varied life and career. He knows people on many different worlds and has friends.
Not just knows people, but is apparently really close friends with some such as Tom Leighton and his wife. There's also John Daily of the Astral Queen, who owes him “a dozen” favours. What sort of adventures have Kirk & Daily had in the past? We may never know, but it adds so much texture and world building.
New set this week - sort of. The ship's theatre is of course a redress of the Engine Room, but if you look closely behind the audience seats you can spot those weight lifting bars that Sam was using back in
Charlie X - in other words, the crew of the Enterprise put their plays on in the gymnasium, just like in my old high school!
The curved corridor appears in its complete from from end to end; both when Spock and McCoy have their clandestine midnight chat, as well as when the security is searching the ship for Lt Riley.
Kirk states something about an "Arcturan Macbeth." Is Karidian from Arcturus?
According to
Memory Alpha and
Memory Beta, Arcturus was mentioned in the novelisation of the episode as the
solar system where Planet-Q was located (where Kirk sees the play). Although it is a human colony, I guess the residents now all consider themselves "Arcturans" and as such Kirk is just making the assumption that the actor is one of the colonists.
The galaxy feels really big in this episode. Aside from planets so remote that they are in danger of starving to death (and Tom Leighton's fake discovery of an amazing synthetic food to end famine) the issue of the Enterprise deviating first 3 light years and later 8 light years off their route is significant and must be justified to HQ.
We also finally know what to call these future astronauts: Kirk specifically references "
Star Service Lieutenant Riley". This matches up nicely with the other references to "the service" that we've had in earlier episodes. And the organisation is the United Earth Space Probe Agency (UESPA), so that's all established and will never, ever, ever change
My take: Kodos wasn't "the governor" as a publicly known elected official. He was a man on Tarsus IV who concealed his identity, took the nomme de guerre "Kodos", built an armed following, and launched a successful coup against the real Governor. Then Kodos declared himself Governor, and his followers did his bidding. When things went bad, he faked his own death, left a burned body behind, and took the name Karidian as he got off the planet posing as a refugee.
As usual in TOS not every little detail is spelled out, so there is certainly plenty of scope for this interpretation of events. It also accounts for the lack of finger prints, identification documents, medical history and so forth for the man known as "Kodos".
The issue is not that anyone needs proof that Kodos committed the atrocities - it's whether Anton Karidian and he are the same man. There's a photo of Kodos in the ship's memory banks - but even Kirk can't be sure after 2 decades. They have a voice recording of Kodos, but Anton Karidian was not a perfect match for that either (perhaps due to his Power Of Acting, perhaps because people's voices naturally change as they age). Did the 9 witnesses see Kodos actually give the orders?
Either way, eye witness testimony is considered one of the least reliable forms of evidence in court due to the extreme fallibility of human memory and how it can be manipulated over time. Lenore's mental disorder probably escalated the power of the 9 people in her mind to a far greater threat level than it really was.
So cool to see Uhura playing Spock's harp.
It's interesting Riley has to ask Uhura for a song. Don't they have recorded music on the Enterprise? No CD's, no mp3 files, no youtube? Or he just isn't allowed to listen to them while on duty or just prefers a live version.
They definitely have "taped" entertainment on board (Kirk offers them to the captain of the Antares in
Charlie X) but there's just no beating a live Nichelle Nichols performance! And it might be cool, but WHY does Uhura have the Vulcan lyre at all? Spending some personal time with Mr Spock, are we...
Everyone catch the doors to the bathrooms in the quarters? I assume those are doors to bathrooms. Karidian's quarters had a connecting door to Lenore's. There was a door perpendicular next to the door Lenore came through.
Nah, that “toilet door” is a closet, just like in the deleted scene from
Corbomite Manoeuvre 
Ooooh, Kirk gets testy with Spock. I wonder what was on Enterprise's schedule that they were delaying by transporting the actors.
He's probably still annoyed that Kirk managed to one-up him by somehow knowing that they'd be contacted by the Karidian Players.
-
SPOCK: How did you know this lady was coming aboard?
-
KIRK: I'm the Captain.
Kirk's grin when he says this conveys exactly how much he's enjoying this rare moment.
What's the deal with all the space paper? Kirk is writing on paper. The voice-print is on paper. Paper everywhere.
In the case of Kirk and the SP (space paper) he is apparently jotting down Kodos' original words, recalling them
from memory no less! Is there really no record of what he said in the history banks? However, the use of SP is a convenient way to play the scene with Anton. What is unacceptable is the use of SP for the voice analysis results - just way too imprecise, especially when they had electronic voice analysis in
Mudd’s Women.
Pretty cool McCoy defending Spock to Kirk. They argue but do care about each other.
It's the 3rd week in a row where Spock and McCoy work together as a very tight team, despite their verbal sparing (which is excellent). They are both true professionals.
Riley overhearing McCoy. Sloppy, Leonard, sloppy.
Yeah, that's a really poor show from McCoy as he's recording his log. Riley is RIGHT THERE, there's not even a door between them!!! He really needs a separate office for this kind of work. Maybe he’ll get one in Season Two...
Security is definitely lax on the Enterprise. Right from the start. Lenore beams up without authorization. How was she able to do that? Can anyone just beam aboard the Enterprise? And then, as mentioned above, anyone can waltz into Kirk's quarters. Eve walked in and took a nap in Mudd's Women and now Lenore sneaks in and plants a phaser on overload. Where did she get the phaser? The unguarded armory? Did she bring it with her?
It's a bit weird that she was allowed to beam onto the ship
before requesting permission to come aboard, although since the Transporter Room is an entry point, perhaps it serves as a staging area for visitors? It does seem that security was stepped up a notch after the exploding phaser incident – hence why Riley had to break into that weapons locker on “H Deck”
The verbiage on the chute Kirk drops the phaser in says something about waste disposal. I always assumed the chute dumped the phaser out into space next to the ship.
Yep - it says
PRESSURE VENT DISPOSAL but it's location outside Kirk's cabin is certainly very convenient. Are these facilities scattered all over the ship? Just how often to the crew need to flush things out into space? Is this why we never see a
toilet?
Again with Enterprise crew standing idly by during an emergency. When Joe flipped out in the rec room in Naked Time the other crew just stood there and watched. Nobody tried to help. Nobody called for security or medics. Again the same thing. Lenore comes out all crazy on stage waving a phaser. All those people there watching Hamlet just sat there. Nobody seemed to call security. Nobody jumped Lenore. Nobody got in her way of Kirk.
Well Kirk does say that the crew has “been on patrol a long time”. Perhaps non-stop since the series began. Are they so jaded by all the monotony that they're just bewildered at anything they don't expect? And after the shenanigans with Lenore, the crew don’t even get to see the whole play! Never mind, I expect they’ll be due some shore leave before long…
As the episode ends, Kirk is back talking to his helmsman. And Connors AKA Rand gets renamed to Mr Leslie, which Kirk says 3 times in the space of 20 seconds!!! OK Shatner, we get it; you named him after your daughter. Can you drop it now?
