That Which Survives

This isn't a bad episode, though it certainly isn't a good one. The problem, though, that makes this such a mediocre episode is the character Lee Merriwether plays--she's robotic in all her ways and this ISN'T conducive to creating a memorable character. I do understand WHY they chose to have her play the part that way, but still, there was just so little life in the show and having SOMETHING exciting occur would have helped. Perhaps Lee could have been seductive or more "real" and then lure the people to their death or perhaps another plot element could have been added. All I know is that the plot was thin and so was the action. While mildly interesting, this isn't a glowing endorsement and this episode is pretty typical of many of the lower quality episodes of season 3.

If Spock would have been like this in every episode he would have been one of the biggest A-ho's in TV history. Either the writer got carried away and didn't realize how badly Spock would come off or he was trying to sabotage the popularity of Spock. I guess we'll never know.

But even with that it's an intriguing episode about death, beauty, and survival. And about hopes that never come true no matter how long you wait. There might be some of us who can relate to that.

Lee Meriwether is terrific as the alien being who keeps trying to kill everybody. Beauty is one of the few good things in life, but what if the beauty is trying to kill you? Well, then beauty is no bargain. And must be dealt with. But how...

Enjoyable episode outside of the oddly grumpy Spock. Season 3 on the whole is underrated I do believe.

...have against Spock? Spock was never before so clueless or so sarcastic!! As Dr. McCoy would say, "that's not Spock!".

Most notable for: The fastest stated speed ever attained by Enterprise in TOS is in this one..... Warp 14.1. Voiced by Ensign Rahda (no Checkov in this one and Sulu stranded on the planet).

I won a contest on call-in radio in early 90s on Mark&Brian radio show with that one!

This might partially explain also what another reviewer said about 990 light-years would have taken 2 YEARS at warp 8.....but if warp speeds go up exponentially (as I read somewhere), then warp 14 might be hundreds or thousands of times faster than warp 8.....so it's right down in the right ballpark to be taking half a day. I'll leave it to others to "do the math".

Entertaining episode..... People don't like Cranky Spock, but again it's some humor and entertainment for us, and sort of like his command in "Galileo Seven". So I don't see it as THAT much out of character.

Curious why have Rahda in; Checkov must have been really unavailable for them to give decent speaking role, one time, to Rahda.

To me this is another fun season 3 episode that gets ripped unfairly. Is it cheesy at times? Yes! But this is Star Trek TOS and almost every episode is cheesy. I base my rating on it being fun to watch with high entertainment value. Lee Merriweather was stunning and did a great job in her role.