Synopsis: the Enterprise has located a planet that seems to defy all logic. It is about the size of a moon and is very young but has an atmosphere and vegetation like an earth-type planet that is larger and much older. Just as they beam down to investigate, Kirk, McCoy, Sulu, and geologist D'Amato are surprised by the appearance of a woman in the transporter room. After they dematerialize, the purple woman touches the transporter chief and kills him instantly.
The Enterprise is displaced 1000 light years away and begins the return trip to the planet. The Purple woman appears again, this time questioning one of Scotty's engineers before killing him as well. The Enterprise begins accelerating out of control, meaning that the ship will explode if something isn't done to correct it. Scotty undertakes the dangerous task, while Spock analyses data from the displacement.
Back on the planetoid, the Purple woman begins to appear to the away team. First D'Amato is killed, and then Sulu is attacked but escapes when Kirk intervenes. The Purple woman is only programmed to kill a specific target, and is harmless to others. After dodging other purple assassins, the away team finds a door leading to the interior of the planet and the central computer. Inside, three purple assassins appear, one for each of them and they spend some time dodging away.
On the Enterprise, Scotty's initial attempt to fix the ship has the opposite effect until Spock's analysis reveals that the spatial displacement also knocked the ship out of phase. Evidence of this is what Mr. Scott observed when he said that something felt wrong with the ship. When Mr. Scott reverses the polarity of his probe, the repair attempt is effective.
On the planet, Kirk and the team are about to be touched by the assassins when Spock and a security officer beam down, and shoot the controlling computer with a phaser. Then a recording plays of the purple woman who is revealed to be Losira, the last commander of this station. She explains that this planetoid is the remains of an artificially constructed outpost that had contracted a deadly disease, killing everyone and leaving the automated defenses active. McCoy surmises that the entire species had been wiped out by this disease, and this outpost was all that remained.
Analysis
Taken in its entirety, this was an entertaining episode, with both the action on the Enterprise and the action on the planet working together to tell a coherent story. The structure is right, the cast is right, it's just that there isn't enough there to give it any punch. After a few minutes, it just felt like padding.
Kirk directing his team on the planet seemed repetitive and each time we went back to them, basically the same things happened and the story did not advance. Yep, stuck on a desert planet with no food or water, better look around. Yep, let's say the same thing over again 3 minutes later. Still on the planet, no answers, no clues, the team still working over old ground, the purple woman appears for D'Amato and still we learn nothing.
Spock and Scotty are trying to re-take control of the ship, which is a great story idea. Spock comes up with a solution and Scotty volunteers to carry out the plan. Again, Trek gold here. It's just that it was too drawn out so that it felt padded and lost its drive.
I wanted to like this episode so much more that I actually did. For example, Scotty reports to Spock that the ship doesn't feel right. The audience instinctively believes the chief engineer and knows this will lead to an important breakthrough. But then, nothing and we are distracted by a development in a different direction.
The bottom line is that this should have been a hallmark episode: a mysterious planet, creepy deaths, a deadly female assassin that appears at will and kills with a touch, a long-dead civilization with an automated defense that kills without remorse, or does it.... It has all the classic elements that should provide for an intriguing solution to an intractable puzzle, a brilliant discovery, dazzling displays of intuition, dogged persistence, and deductive reasoning. And while we got the form, it lacked in substance.
Small asides:
1. Spock's dialogue with the bridge crew, and especially Scotty, completely missed Spock's character. Rather than making him appear devoid of emotion, it instead made him appear irritable, impatient, and annoyed. Spock is a Vulcan dedicated to logic, not a cultural neophyte who is unfamiliar with human idioms and figures of speech.
2. I was fascinated by the brief suggestion that part of Losira's character remained within the computer's re-creation of her as a weapon of assassination. Some of Losira's compassion, value for life, and abhorrence at murder seemed to shine through, however briefly. I would have loved to see this idea developed even more and incorporated into the ultimate solution.
3. Kirk snapping at Sulu seemed entirely out of place. And the extended burial scene for D'Amato seemed forced and awkward. In the absence of any explanation offered by the story I must conclude that this was poor writing.
Rating 2.5 out of 5
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