Review

A planet even Spock can't explain! I giggled at such an amusingly goofy opening line and I enjoyed the scientific paradoxes presented by the planet. It's only a few thousand years old and the size of Earth's moon, and yet it has vegetation, significant atmosphere, and Earth-like gravity. Much like the mystery of the scientifically implausible planet, Scotty's near-suicide mission and the landing party's terrific command of survival skills in the sudden absence of the Enterprise were nicely done. I also was struck by how cranky Spock was all episode. I've never seen him so difficult to get along with!

The explanation that the planet was artificially created reasonably explains away all the paradoxes, but the story about the people who created it totally fails to deliver. As Losira slowly starts killing people, her inability to communicate anything resembling a motive gets more and more frustrating. In what is perhaps the longest Star Trek has ever dragged out establishing a character motive, Losira's motives only become apparent in the very last scene of the episode.

At the end we learn that her people, who are yet another alien race that looks exactly like humans, died out due to a disease they accidentally unleashed on themselves while creating that planet. The image of Losira attacking people was due to a computerized defense mechanism that was set to auto attack anyone in the vicinity not of Losira's people. Somehow Losira's personality was fused into the computer before she died, which explains her ambivalence to all the killing she did. The end of the story gave us a motive, but not a reason to care, resulting in quite a flop.