“The Enterprise lands at a picturesque planet for shore leave, but the idyll is ruined when a samurai and a bloodthirsty knight attack Sulu and Bones.”
These episode descriptions are weird.
Kirk has a new yeoman. She gives him a massage, which he appreciates when he thinks it’s Spock, but then things get awkward when he realizes it isn’t. SLASHFIC!
***
Meanwhile, Sulu and McCoy are in a park somewhere in California, discussing the need for shore leave. McCoy says it looks like something out of Alice in Wonderland. I would personally avoid Wonderland, but that’s me.
And of course the White Rabbit shows up, followed by Alice. Sulu doesn’t see them.
***
Back on the Enterprise, Kirk is refusing shore leave. Spock is also refusing because Vulcans don’t take vacations.
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McCoy reports the rabbit and Alice to Kirk, who doesn’t believe him.
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Spock tricks Kirk into taking shore leave for the good of the ship. Kirk beams down with the new yeoman and finds McCoy, who has discovered giant rabbit tracks. Kirk cancels everyone’s shore leave until they investigate.
Suddenly, they hear a gunshot. Sulu has found a revolver, but Kirk makes him turn it over to him.
They find more rabbit tracks. The group splits up, Kirk and Bones on one team, Sulu and Yeoman Barrows on another. Kirk tells Bones about and upperclassman naked Finnegan at the academy who used to play practical jokes on him, and lo and behold, he appears and punches Kirk in the face.
Kirk is going to fight Finnegan, but he hears Barrows screaming. He and Bones run to find her and discover she’s been attacked by a cloaked man with a bejeweled dagger. Kirk suggests she imagined it, which is super shitty considering he just got punched in the face by someone who shouldn’t have been there, and considering her uniform is torn. Turns out it was Don Juan. OK.
***
Kirk goes to look for Sulu but finds some flowers and someone named Ruth, who starts making out with his cheek right before the commercial break.
Kirk is being super weird and doesn’t care about finding Sulu, or the flock of birds Rodriguez reports to him. Their sensors indicated no animal life on the planet, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s super weird.
Ruth leaves, saying he’ll see her again when he wants to.
***
Spock reports there is a strange power source beneath the planet’s surface interfering with communications.
***
Barrows and McCoy are discussing how beautiful the planet is, and Barrows says she should be wearing a princess gown and a tall hat with a veil. McCoy says she’s have to fight off Don Juan again, and him too, which is way creepier than I expected him to be. Suddenly, there’s a princess gown and tall hat, and Barrows decides to wear them. McCoy approves creepily. She tells him not to peek while she’s changing, and he says he’s a doctor so if he peeks it’s in a professional capacity. Naturally, he keeps trying to peek...
***
Meanwhile, Rodriguez and Martine, who was supposed to get married in the last episode but is now way into Rodriguez instead, are being stalked by a tiger.
***
And there’s the samurai, chasing Sulu. He literally popped up out of a hole in the ground, as samurai do. Sulu’s phaser doesn’t work. He runs away and finds Kirk, but the samurai disappears. I’m entertained by Sulu’s pronunciation of “samurai,” considering George Takei is fluent in Japanese. He didn’t Americanize the word, and I’m glad he didn’t.
***
Spock beams down against orders to tell Kirk that the energy source is draining the ship’s energy. Not sure what his plan was once he got to the surface, but ok.
***
And a knight on horseback appears. McCoy says hallucinations can’t harm them, and promptly gets run through with a lance. Kirk shoots the knight with Sulu’s gun, but McCoy appears to be dead.
Barrows declares it to be her fault. Kirk tells her he needs every crewman alert and thinking, and she pulls it together.
Meanwhile, Sulu discovers the knight is a dummy, not a person. Spock’s tricorder still works, and he determines that everything has the same cellular structure, like they’ve all been manufactured.
***
The tiger is gone but now Rodriguez and Martine see an airplane, and Martine...doesn’t know what it is. Yeah. Rodriguez says it won’t hurt them unless it does a strafing run. Which it does. They run away and Martine smacks straight into a tree, knocking herself out.
***
McCoy’s body disappears. Finnegan returns, for some fucking reason. He’s basically a tall leprechaun and I would like to punch him as much as Kirk does. Kirk chases him to the Vasquez Rocks, but there’s no Gorn yet. Kirk catches up and they fight. Kirk loses, and ends up with his shirt artfully torn for the ladies (and approximately 10% of gentlemen).
After the commercial break, Kirk gets up and they fight some more. This is going to take a while.
Another break in the fighting but Finnegan won’t answer Kirk’s questions. Back to fighting.
Finally, Kirk wins the fight. Spock asks if he enjoyed it. He admits he did. Spock theorizes that someone is reading their thoughts and providing whatever they’re thinking about.
***
Someone calling himself The Caretaker shows up to explain that everything that happens is supposed to be for their amusement. Turns out McCoy is still alive, escorted by two showgirls. Barrows does not approve. The showgirls turn their attentions onto Sulu and Spock.
The Enterprise is able to contact the landing party. The Caretaker invites them to enjoy the planet, and Kirk allows the shore leave parties to beam down.
Kirk says he’ll go back to the ship, but Ruth appears again and he decides to stay.
***
This is another episode with a good concept and bizarre execution. There was no chemistry between McCoy and Barrows, so that whole subplot seemed super forced. They never explained Ruth, or why Martine was suddenly into Rodriguez when her fiancé died in the last episode on what was supposed to be their wedding day. And Finnegan made me want to break shit - that was a supremely obnoxious performance. But the idea of a planet that basically gives everyone the adventure they want is pretty cool, especially since these aren’t potentially-sentient robots that will rise up and kill all the guests.
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