Review

Obligatory Earth bureaucrat of the week becomes a repetitive pain in the ass for Captain Kirk as the Enterprise feverishly engages in the search and rescue of the derelict Galileo shuttle which veers off course not long after beginning its mission and crashes while attempting to study the Murasaki quasar-like multiple star system. I have mixed feelings about this premise. Parts of it are fantastic but other parts are riddled with unnecessary details that drag down the appeal of the plot. None of these annoying details ruin what turns out to be an exceptional story for the most part but are regardless worth a mention. The two most prominently poor choices are the character of Ferris and the choice to have the shuttle crash on a habitable planet.

First let's talk about Ferris. The whole point of his character was to force Kirk into having a short window of opportunity with which to rescue the downed shuttle. We didn't need such an overdone character to achieve that. Something along the lines of Starfleet Command radioing Kirk every now and then and yelling "where the hell are you?" would have even been sufficient to achieve this dramatic effect. Instead we get a useless character trolling the bridge in nearly every one of the Enterprise's scenes acting smug and self-righteous; contributing absolutely nothing useful to the story.

Second let's talk about the habitable planet the shuttle crashed on. Of all the random gravity wells the shuttle could have fallen into they happen to land on a habitable planet? In the middle of a quasar-like system? I find that hard to believe. But even setting that issue aside, the planet's habitability was not an asset to the story largely because the subplot concerning the crew fending off the primitive natives followed by the subsequent burial controversy was not terribly compelling. A much more compelling and realistic story would have had the shuttle crash on a deserted wasteland not unlike Mars or Venus forcing the crew to don spacesuits in order to make repairs. Personally I find the idea of a hostile environment on the planet far more compelling than spear chucking hostile aliens.

Ignoring those annoying aesthetics, this episode is terrific. It's a lot of fun watching Spock handle his first command and getting a chance to see him as fallible just like the rest of us. Granted, many of those serving under him were a bit too quick to criticize the many reasonable choices he made, but it's also clear by his own admission that some of his choices were not at all appropriate. The most obviously poor choice Spock made was to order Gaetano to patrol the periphery of the crash site alone, rendering him an easy kill by one of the aliens. This is counterpointed brilliantly by Spock's innovative act of desperation igniting the improvised flare at the end of the episode. Indeed we learn a lot about our pointy-eared friend in this great Spock character drama, not the least of which is that while he may not be perfect, he is certainly decisive and thinks on his feet well. These qualities in my opinion portrayed him as a fine leader.