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.

This Star Trek story has the Enterprise coming upon a seemingly deserted planet which has some strange life patterns. Almost as if life was grafted on to it as opposed to evolving naturally. But the away team of Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and a geologist is stranded when a beautiful woman gets on the Enterprise and kills the transporter technician. And then the Enterprise is hurled almost a 1000 light years away.

The beautiful woman is former Miss America Lee Meriwether and she's deadly to the touch as she kills both another Enterprise crew member on board and the geologist on the away team. Remarkable she turns up in two places light years away and causes considerable damage.

But there is a logical explanation for all this and more than Spock endeavor to find it. Her people are the Calandrans and they've left ages ago.

An interesting Star Trek saga.

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.

Losira can kill with a hand, once selected you're fate has been planned, the last of her kind, more than one you will find, her eyeshadow is remarkably grand.

The Enterprise is hurled light years away while Kirk and crew investigate a planet protected by Losira.

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.