The Deadly Years question

[Tactical Drone]

my apologies if this has been asked before, and I am in no way trying to disrespect this episode as it's very good. My question is why after Dr. McCoy directly stating that they have mere hours or maybe a day left to live, did they waste time with a competency hearing instead of just leaving general bridge operations to Sulu or whatever and working around the clock to find a cure? That one or two hours it could have taken (in their world the hearing was probably a lot longer than the 10 minutes of TV time for us) could have been fatal for all the away team members.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Kirk wasn't about to give up command to anyone during a crisis. This episode showed some of his wonderful flaws. He's rather die of old age in that chair than lie around in sickbay waiting to be cured - or die.

 

[Timo]

Indeed, Stocker would have been disinclined to believe that McCoy, whether addled by pseudo-aging or not, would ever have come up with anything useful while working under the command of the senile Kirk or one of his loyal stooges.

The best course of action was to get everybody to a starbase (now those could handle anything, as Stocker would well know!) within the time remaining, and that course could not be taken as long as Kirk resisted.

Timo Saloniemi