TOS 35: The Apple

Original air date: 10/13/1967
Star date: 3715.3

Summary: Under Starfleet orders to investigate the planet Gamma Triangula 6, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Chekhov, Yeoman Martha Landon and four redshirts beam down to find an Eden-like planet.  Before long, however, one of the redshirts is killed by poisonous darts shot from a flower.  Kirk thinks this is just an unfortunate accident, but then Spock detects a humanoid native following them secretly in the bushes, then runs across a strange type of rock which is both lightweight and highly explosive.  Shortly afterward, Spock sees that Kirk is about to be struck by poison darts and pushes him out of the way, taking the darts in his own chest.  He falls to the ground unconscious, and remains unconscious even after McCoy gives him an injection to revive him.  At this point, Kirk decides it's time to return to the Enterprise, but some force from the planet is preventing the transporter from working.

In the meantime, due either to McCoy's injection, his Vulcan blood, or both, Spock revives with seemingly no ill effects from the poision.  However, tragedy strikes again when a storm appears out of nowhere and a bolt of lightning vaporizes a second redshirt.  Not long after, a third redshirt dies when he steps on an explosive rock.  Fed up, Kirk sets up an ambush to capture the native following them.  This turns out to be Akuta, a member of a primitive yet peaceful tribe of people who call themselves the followers of Vaal.  Akuta is the only one who can speak to Vaal, and Kirk insists on meeting Vaal.  Akuta takes the remaining members of the landing party to a cave entrance which looks like a large serpent's head.  Spock and Kirk conclude that Vaal is a machine intelligence which controls all life on the planet, and which is currently holding the Enterprise; but to the simple natives, Vaal is their deity.  The natives do what Vaal instructs them to do, and follow Vaal's prohibition against love and procreation.  In return, they have perfect health and never age, and thus never need to have children or "replacements".  They are also responsible for feeding Vaal, thus providing the source of Vaal's power.

Scotty then reports that Vaal has the Enterprise in a tractor beam and is pulling them toward the surface.  They cannot break out, and will only be able to last 16 hours before plummeting to the planet's surface.  Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock are unable to talk to Vaal, and are left to sit around their hut and ponder the ethics of destroying the natives' deity and saving their ship.  Meanwhile, two natives see Chekhov and Yeoman Landon kissing, and experiment with it themselves, in violation of Vaal's orders.  Vaal finally orders Akuta to assemble the male natives and kill the landing party by bashing their heads in.  As part of the attack, the final redshirt is killed, but the main cast and Yeoman Landon subdue and detain the natives.  As a result, the natives can no longer feed Vaal and replenish Vaal's power supply.  Seeing an opportunity, Kirk orders Scotty to direct phasers at the snake's head entrance to Vaal's cave.  Vaal defends "himself" from the phaser attack with a force field, but this drains all of "his" power, thus freeing the Enterprise.

The show ends with Vaal "dead" and the natives free to manage their own lives: to love, procreate, and die.  Spock questions whether this was the right thing to do, but Kirk laughs him off, comparing him to Satan in the Garden of Eden.

This episode combined the cult-worship aspect of "The Return of the Archons" (only without the good mind-control, assimilation and confrontation of the "deity") with the simple life versus productive life discussion of "This Side of Paradise" (only without the angle that anyone who visits the planet can participate) and the ending of "Who Mourns for Adonais?" (only without involving a mythic Earth deity who spreads himself on the wind in the end).  In other words, this episode features a lot of recycled ideas with a lot of the interesting stuff taken out, and not much new added in.

On the other hand, this episode also has: the obligatory death of several redshirts, yet another female Yeoman (tally so far: female Yeomen 356, male Yeomen 0), and Kirk making bad jokes at the end after just having lost several crew members.

So, really not too much to recommend it.

In fact, the only thing that makes this episode even remotely worth watching is the debate it presents over the as-yet-not-fully-explained Prime Directive --- and that debate can be summed up pretty quickly in exactly two of the interchanges which occur in the show.  First, between McCoy and Spock, as they (along with Kirk) observe the natives feeding Vaal:

Spock: In my view, a splendid example of reciprocity.
McCoy: It would take a computerized Vulcan mind such as yours to make that kind of a statement.
Spock: Doctor, you insist on applying human standards to non-human cultures.  I remind you that humans are only a tiny minority in this galaxy.
McCoy: There are certain absolutes, Mr. Spock, and one of them is the right of humanoids to a free and unchained environment.  The right to have conditions which permit growth.
Spock: Another is their right to choose a system which seems to work for them.
McCoy: Jim, you're not just gonna stand by and be blinded to what's going on here?  These are humanoids, intelligent.  They need to advance, and grow!  Don't you understand what my readings indicate?  There's been no change, progress here in at least 10,000 years!  This isn't life!  It's stagnation!
Spock: Doctor, these people are healthy and they are happy.  Whatever you choose to call it, this system works, despite your emotional reaction to it.
McCoy: Well it might work for you, Mr. Spock, but it doesn't work for me!  Humanoids, living so they can service a hunk of tin.

and the second between Spock and Kirk, as time runs short before the Enterprise is destroyed:

Kirk: Bones was right, these people aren't living, they're existing.  They don't create, they don't produce, they don't even think.  They exist to service a machine.
Spock: If we do what it seems we must, in my opinion, we'll be in direct violation of the non-interference directive.
Kirk: These are people, not robots.  They should have the opportunity of choice.  We owe it to them to interfere.
Spock: Starfleet command may think otherwise.
Kirk: I'll take my chances.

Of course, in the end, everyone but Spock is A-OK with the destruction of Vaal.  And let's be honest; there's no way Kirk would simply allow Vaal to destroy himself and his whole crew.  So there was never really a choice to be made.

On the other hand, let's be clear what Kirk did for the natives.  Yes, they are now free to make their own decisions about things, to create and procreate, to produce and reproduce.  They are now also inevitably going to die, and suffer from hunger and disease.  Is it clear Kirk's actions harmed the natives?  No.  But it's not clear that he helped them any, either.  In typical Kirk style, he's far too flippant about how the natives will adjust to life without Vaal --- and in a usual Star Trek stretch of credibility, the natives are far too willing to forget about Vaal and take Kirk's word for it that everything will turn out just fine.

Aside from this episode's painfully slow pacing and the fact that it lacks much originality, I had a few other objections to it as well.  For one thing, when Spock and Kirk first observe the natives feeding Vaal, Spock immediately concludes: "There is no living being there.  It is a machine, nothing more."  It's not at all clear how Spock arrives at this conclusion.

More troublesome, however, is the fact that NO ONE from the Enterprise crew makes any attempt to communicate with Vaal.  When they first meet Akuta, they ask to speak to Vaal and are told that Vaal speaks only to Akuta.  All well and good.  But Vaal makes numerous attempts to kill the members of the landing party (sometimes successfully), and is also trying to crash the Enterprise into the planet.  Kirk makes no further attempts to talk to Vaal.  It seems he should be quite a bit more persistent on that point before he "kills" the natives' deity.

And incredibly, when Scotty reports that the Enterprise absolutely will not be able to escape Vaal's tractor beam, Kirk temporarily despairs that his entire crew will die, and it will be his fault.  He then seems to come to a sudden realization that since Vaal is no longer feeding, perhaps he can drain Vaal's power --- even though that's been pretty obvious for some time.

Other observations on this episode . . .

Spock really takes a beating on this episode, getting poisoned, shocked, and struck by lightning.

While it's true that Vaal forbids the natives from physical intimacy, it's hard to believe that they don't have normal sexual urges --- and that they don't understand why Chekhov and Landon are making out.

This episode does a strike a blow for feminism, however, as Yeoman Landon takes out not one, but two of the male natives who are trying to bash in the heads of the landing party.  This following on the heels of "Mirror, Mirror", where Uhura disarmed Evil Marlena (in a much less impressive way).

One good line by McCoy in this episode.  When the landing party are asking the natives of this Eden-like planet where their children are, and what happens when two people fall in love, the following exchange occurs:

Akuta: Love --- strange words, "children", "love" --- what is love?
Yeoman Landon: Love is --- when two people are --- (Chekhov embraces her)
Akuta: Ah, yes, the holding, the touching.  Vaal has forbidden this.
McCoy: Well, there goes paradise.

The Moral of the Story: A productive, creative lifetime with occasional hardships and eventual death is preferable to an eternity spent in mindless contentment.