The Man Trap

[Mendon]

It's a nice enough episode, but only Crater seems interested in the creature's survival, and he's vilified for it. Why couldn't the creature find a home in the Federation? Are they seeking out new life only to exterminate it? I don't think so. Comparisons to buffalo and passenger pigeons fail to account for the fact that this is an intelligent lifeform, and as Crater has proven, one that can be lived with peacefully.

Despite all the good things going on in this episode, that will always be enough to keep it out of my favorites.

Anybody see this differently?

 

[AtoZ]

It's a nice enough episode, but only Crater seems interested in the creature's survival, and he's vilified for it. Why couldn't the creature find a home in the Federation? Are they seeking out new life only to exterminate it? I don't think so. Comparisons to buffalo and passenger pigeons fail to account for the fact that this is an intelligent lifeform, and as Crater has proven, one that can be lived with peacefully.

Despite all the good things going on in this episode, that will always be enough to keep it out of my favorites.

Anybody see this differently?

I liked the hand puppet in the botany lab which was a redress of McCoy's sickbay. They blew it. They had the perfect opportunity to kill off Mr. Leslie in this one but instead used other actors. Leslie could have been killed any number of times and been back for The Enemy Within. They should have thought more "outside of the box" when looking for scale-wage victims in this one.

 

[Mendon]

Some nice interaction between Sulu and Rand in this one. The plants were cool, too.

Did Leslie die more than once? I can find only a reference for "Obsession", whose script the actor claims included a scene where the dead crewmen were resurrected, but it was never filmed.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

Comparisons to buffalo and passenger pigeons fail to account for the fact that this is an intelligent lifeform, and as Crater has proven, one that can be lived with peacefully.

Obviously it can't be lived with peacefully. When it had a choice to eat salt tablets or suck the life out of Green, it chose to kill.
It was intelligent but driven by instinct.

 

[Mendon]

Clearly it overcame "instinct" to work out its arrangement with Crater. I think it's more likely that the creature was either (A) unable to survive without Green's salt at that moment, regardless of the presence of a few tablets or (B) led by Carter not to worry much about the lives of others. Probably both of those were at play, but the very fact that Crater and the creature were able to live side by side tells me that with the proper arrangement, the salt creature and humans can coexist.

Even if it turned out that Crater somehow represented a special case and that the salt creature normally couldn't keep from killing, treating not only a previously unknown and intelligent lifeform, but the very last of its kind to boot, without first attempting any sort of diplomatic overture is totally contrary to Starfleet character. If nothing else, the writing should have established an it-or-us dilemma more clearly.

 

[Gary Mitchell]

I don't think that Captain Kirk would have been too happy if Spock paused to offer Federation membership to the creature while it was sucking his face.

 

[Mendon]

Why didn't they just make her a genuine offer of salt as proposed in the briefing room, rather than springing traps? Didn't both she and Crater indicate that would have been enough for everyone's mutual benefit?