Bright spots in dreary episodes

The scene where Kirk was getting through to Garth accompanied by the historical music was the best one in the entire episode!
JB

 

It's possible that he aged more than he would have on Earth due to the conditions of Deneva.

 

But the essential problem remains, either way: The Gideons were able to convince Kirk that he was on the Enterprise, with which he's intimately familiar (he knows "every sound that this ship could make"), with no one else on board but Odona. Even Federation members, which the Gideons weren't, wouldn't generally know how to recreate (virtually or otherwise) a replica of the Enterprise that could fool its captain.

This episode was an insult to my intelligence at age 12 on NBC and it's no better today. But I appreciate the guest stars more now than I did then; they do their best with what they're given.

 

This is very hard for me, as I pretty much love everything about TOS...so finding a "dreary episode" is difficult.

• I'd say everything about Alexander is a bright spot in "Plato's Stepchildren."
• I like the opening sequence of "Mudd's Women" with the Enterprise chasing a rouge ship into an asteroid field.
• I like the "mutiny" discussion between Scotty and Bones in "Turnabout Intruder..." I always thought that not having more interaction between Scotty and Bones was a missed opportunity
• The disease make-up and "beaker of death" line In "Miri" are pretty good.

 

It's a fairly subtle tell, but Kirk in the episode mentions a memory gap of 9 minutes several times in the episode which occurred in between him leaving the Enterprise and beaming arriving in the replica. We know that during this time gap the Gideonites extracted the disease from his blood, but in order to do so (and not remember) he must have been heavily sedated. Mere moments later it would not be too far of a stretch to say that he was still under the influence of those drugs whilst wondering around those duplicate corridors, which (thanks to the drugs) made him imagine all the extra details which made the fake ship feel like the real thing.

Spock (in his normal sound mind) identified the replica as a fake immediately

 

Yeah, maybe, but the idea that the Gideon Council obtained knowledge of a specific disease that Kirk had once contracted is possibly even more ludicrous than the idea that they could (even temporarily) fool him with a fake Enterprise. Or are Starfleet officers' medical records routinely broadcast, even to non-Federation planets?

Me too, quite a lot; for me it's the best part of the episode - that and seeing Barbara Baldavin (the casting director's wife) again, subbing for Uhura this time.
My favorite part of "Mudd's Women" is the long scene with no Enterprise crew, just Childress and Eve in his hovel with the sandstorm outside, where he hangs the pots and pans.

 

Well, they probably have spies. That doesn't seem like much of a stretch, but building anything that looks like a Starfleet vessel sure does.

 

Yeah it is possible but his wife doesn't seem to be that age so obviously old Sam boy must be an older brother and married a much younger woman!
JB

 

I love watching Yvonne Craig in this episode
A very sexy bright spot

 

It's also been speculated that the Federation was in on it and GAVE the Gideons the exact specs for the Enterprise. Not enough to build an actual working model, just enough to fool Kirk.

Now there are some unique things about Enterprise that couldn't be known or duplicated...the way the door to his quarters hesitates an extra second before opening, the scratch on the left arm rest of his command chair, the discoloration of the desk in his quarters from where he spilled some plomeek soup...but maybe he didn't notice such things in his worried state of mind.

 

Or, now that I think about it, I think someone here once proposed a telepathic holodeck system capable of reading Kirk's mind, giving him everything he expected to see.

 

I think the mock Enterprise was real and not a hologram as Hodin I think, or was it Odonna, mentions this area that they sealed off and is virtually the only place on the planet where life isn't teeming everywhere!
JB

 

So Kirk was an idiot for an entire episode.
He didn't recognise a fake Enterprise and he let the Gideons get away with their mad plan.
Because of the love of a beautiful woman???
I think they shouldn't have revealed to us the audience the fakery so soon so we could have wondered what happened to the Enterprise crew, I suppose it just made me angry at Odana at the beginning to see her deceiving Kirk all episode and him falling for it.

 

Wink of an Eye
The way Kirk pronounces sabotage.

 

Spock didn’t like her dancing though.

 

I liked it
That's good enough for me dude

 

I must not be Vulcan because I liked it, too.

 

Vulcans are weird mate
Better off being a barber who appreciates a sexy rather unconventional Orion Slave Girl, a completely batshit mental one.

 

I could quote what Eddie Murphy said about the green skinned girls of Star Trek, but I’m afraid that would get me Hell banned for all eternity.

 

Careful now