Operation -- Annihilate!

If anyone doesn't see the similarities to RA Heinlein's Puppet Masters, well, I don't know what to say.

Season 1, episode 29. The Enterprise is tracking a strange straight line pattern where all of the inhabitants of the planets in line are going crazy and dying - some are killing themselves. The next planet in line is Deneva, a Federation Outpost where Kirk's brother Sam is stationed. Kirk, Spock & McCoy beam down to the planet to investigate and to visit Sam and his family. What they find are strange flat flying creatures attacking people and everyone on the planet are either going crazy, dying or already dead. When they get to Sam's place they find Sam is dead, Sam's wife starting to go mad then suddenly dies and Sam's son in a comatose state and dying. Spock is attacked by one of the creatures. The 3 beam back aboard the ship with Kirk's comatose nephew. Kirk, Spock and McCoy race to find the answers and cures, in the process Spock is blinded.

I actually found this episode quite entertaining. The dialogue between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is really good. It shows just how great of a team the three of them are: different ideas, opinions but working together they create good theories and solutions.

8.5/10

We sadly learn of the death of Kirk's brother, wife, and son. They have been victimized by an influx of rubbery creatures that latch on to their victims and do in their central nervous systems. Kirk vows to find a solution to this problem. Spock is investigating the things but fails to check out his surroundings. As he walks under an archway, one of the creatures, previously stuck to a wall, flies through the air and settles on his back. He is immediately overcome with excruciating pain. The crew is able to stun one of the creatures and it is brought to Dr. McCoy for analysis. McCoy tries every kind of approach he can think of from poisons to heat to shooting and stabbing but nothing works. It is when they realize that one of the victims said as he approached the sun that he was free that they try one last thing: light. The remainder of the episode involves their efforts to test their light theory, being stopped short because to do this, you need a host that has been assaulted by this creature. It is the quest for such a host and more tests that make the conclusion quite interesting.

Parasitic flat fish will send you insane, once they've made it inside you're as good as slain, it's a fight to discover, a remedy to recover, from psychosis inducing such pain.

The population of the Deneva colony come under attack from a space borne parasite that subsequently kills all while putting its host under extreme physical and mental torture.

This was always one of my favorite episodes as a kid: The Enterprise crew investigates an epidemic of "space madness" and traces the latest outbreak to a local human colony that just happens to be where Kirk's identical twin brother has been assigned as a research scientist. The fun really begins when it becomes apparent what the alien menace is, which are an invasion of flying interstellar space pancakes that make up a collective gestalt creature looking to spread it's way across the galaxy. It needs humanoids who can fly space ships to spread from colony to colony, and Kirk has to face the decision of his career when choosing between whether or not to just go back to the Sulaco and nuke them all from orbit. It's the only way to be sure ...

Just kidding. This was one of our favorite Star Trek adventures to act out when we were kids because you could use a bean bag as the pretend space pancake and smack each other on the back, beaming it with your wooden shop class phaser to save each other. The architecture in the city is also pretty rad, looks a lot like the State University at Albany campus I used to study at, which lo and behold was built at about the same time that the actual location (some sort of aerospace company's campus center) was made. It's a great episode for Spock and McCoy fans too, they have more to do than usual which may have been the result of Leonard Nimoy's surprise popularity with fans writing in -- much to the chagrin of William Shatner, who considered himself the focus of the show and resented any major actions that didn't center on Captain Kirk.

This one doesn't, and so it sort of sticks out. One of the best of the "overlooked episodes", and actually rather violent & filled with more physical suffering than usual for Star Trek.