star trek episode this side of paradise

This Side of Paradise (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Production timeline
• 4.2 Story and script
• 4.3 Production
• 4.4 Locations
• 4.5 Sets and props
• 4.7 Continuity
• 4.8 Reception
• 4.9 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Guest star
• 5.3 Special guest star
• 5.4 Co-star
• 5.5 Featuring
• 5.6 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.7 Stunt doubles
• 5.8 Stand-ins
• 5.9 References
• 5.10 Unused references
• 5.11 External links

Summary [ ]

The USS Enterprise arrives at the planet Omicron Ceti III , the site of a colony established in 2264 . Unfortunately, the Enterprise 's mission is only to catalog its destruction under the bombardment of deadly berthold rays , which were discovered after the colonists left Earth .

Captain Kirk , Commander Spock , Doctor McCoy , Lieutenants Sulu , DeSalle , and Kelowitz beam down to the planet's surface and discover to their surprise that Elias Sandoval and the other colonists are not dead after all.

Act One [ ]

Sandoval and two other colonists are excited to see others than themselves; they haven't seen other Human beings since they left Earth. Sandoval explains that the colony's subspace radio had malfunctioned and they did not have anyone with the expertise capable of repairing it. Kirk grimly notes that they did not come here because the radio was broken but Sandoval says they are glad the Enterprise crew are here nevertheless. He offers to show the colony to them. " On pure speculation, just an educated guess – I'd say that man is alive ", McCoy tells Kirk. Spock notes that the berthold rays are deadly to all life on this planet – the colonists should be dead. The crew of the Enterprise would be safe on Omicron Ceti III for a week but not for four years, as the colonists have. As McCoy and Spock debate how the colony's inhabitants could possibly still be alive, Kirk tells the landing party that they had better find some answers first.

In a house, Spock encounters Leila Kalomi , a botanist he had met on Earth six years prior . She had loved him, but he had been unable to return her love despite being half-Human. Sandoval tells Kirk, McCoy, and Spock that the colony's philosophy is that man should return to a life less complicated by machinery. Thus, the colony has no mechanical devices or vehicles and weapons. " We have harmony here — complete peace ", Sandoval proudly says. Elsewhere, anomalies in the colony are discovered by Sulu and Kelowitz, such as the total lack of any animal life on the colony, like cows , pigs , horses , and dogs .

Alone together, Leila promises Sandoval to tell Spock their secret. Sandoval asks Leila if he would like Spock to stay with them and live as they do. " There is no choice, Elias. He will stay. " Later, during his examination of the colonists, McCoy is astounded to discover that every inhabitant is in perfect physical health, even to the point where childhood injuries have repaired themselves. He points to the example of Sandoval's multiple health problems prior to journeying to the planet, such as scar tissue found on his lungs that cannot be detected now or his removed appendix , which is somehow back in his body. Sometime later, Kirk tells Sandoval that Starfleet Command has just ordered him to remove the colonists from the planet but Sandoval tells Captain Kirk that they will not leave. Kirk says this is not an arbitrary decision on his part but Sandoval still says they are not leaving, " it's entirely unnecessary ", he says. McCoy reminds Sandoval of the deadly berthold rays currently bombarding the planet and their effect but Sandoval tells the doctor of their healthy lifestyle that is a plant based diet and that no colonist has of yet died. Kirk asks him how their animals have died and the colonists have not. Sandoval dodges the question and still refuses the captain's order to leave.

Outside, Leila leads Spock towards a flowering plant , she says she was one of the first to find them. Spock is then blasted with spores . The spores cause Spock's emotional barriers to break down, making him drop his tricorder and react in physical pain, which quickly passes. He gets back up in a euphoric state and confesses his love for Leila, who says the Vulcan is now one of them. They kiss passionately.

Act Two [ ]

When Kirk hails Spock with his communicator , his first officer responds casually and lacking any respect or formality for his commanding officer . McCoy notes that this behavior didn't seem like Spock at all. Kirk attempts to question Spock further, but Spock drops the communicator and again directs his attention to Leila. Concerned, Kirk follows the open com link, and finds Spock laughing and clowning around — actually hanging from a tree. When Kirk orders Spock to be placed under arrest, the Vulcan leads Kirk and his officers a short distance, stopping in front of one of the spore plants. Immediately, the spores blast Sulu and Kelowitz, who both exhibit the same euphoric behavior of the people on the planet. Meanwhile, DeSalle, already under their influence as well, infects Dr. McCoy, who begins beaming the plants aboard the Enterprise .

Kirk decides to go back to the Enterprise . However, because Dr. McCoy had ordered about a hundred plants beamed aboard, the spores are carried throughout the Enterprise by the ship's ventilation system . He orders Lieutenant Uhura to contact Admiral James Komack at Starfleet. Lieutenant Uhura , under the spores' influence herself, leaves the bridge to beam down, but not before completely sabotaging the communications station . Only short-range sensors, to be able to contact the crew on the planet, remain. In a fit of rage, Kirk throws one of the pod plants on the bridge over the helm console and storms out. Outside the transporter room, the captain discovers that his entire crew is beaming down to the surface and orders them to go back to their stations. Leslie , speaking for the deserting crew, refuses and openly admits his actions are mutiny against the captain.

Act Three [ ]

Kirk returns to the planet to find McCoy, to the house where he finds Spock and Sandoval. Spock responds by saying McCoy went to "make something called a mint julep ." He goes on to explain the spores not only induce a feeling of total peace and euphoria, but they are also the reason that the colonists have been protected from the deadly berthold rays. Spock, able to act as a scientist notwithstanding still being under the influence of the spores, explains that the plants traveled through space until they landed on the planet, actually thriving on the berthold rays. The plants act as a repository for thousands of microscopic spores until they find a Human body to inhabit. In return, they give their host complete health and peace of mind: in short, paradise; " It's a true Eden, Jim. " When Kirk hears that, he disagrees, stating that Humans weren't meant for that. He insists that man stagnates if he has no challenge to drive him and motivate him. But Spock says that Kirk simply doesn't understand now, but that he will come around eventually and really comprehend what they mean and join them.

The bridge is deserted, save for the quiet beeping of the various stations running on automatic. Kirk enters and surveys his situation. He tries to call Scott in engineering , but receives no answer. Other sections of the ship are similarly deserted. Recording his log, he notes that while the Enterprise can remain in orbit for several months without a crew, he cannot pilot the ship alone, even with automatic controls. He realizes that he's ultimately been marooned aboard the Enterprise . Moving over to the helm station, Kirk laments on how big and quiet the Enterprise is without anyone aboard and wonders how he can possibly get his crew back; what he can possibly offer, he rhetorically asks himself, against the paradise that the spores bring. Lost in thought, he forgets that he is sitting near the pod plant he threw earlier when it blasts him with a dose of the spores. He becomes just as mindlessly happy as the others, and hails Spock to let him know that he finally understands and wants to join them after all – even though no-one will be able to beam back up to the Enterprise if he does so. Kirk goes to his quarters to pack, where he opens his safe and finds one of his Starfleet medals. A look of frustration comes over his face and he refuses to take the medal with him. He angrily closes the box and immediately leaves his quarters for the transporter room. There, Kirk places his suitcase on the transporter pads and is about to beam down to the planet when he suddenly gets hold of himself and becomes angry – yelling that he cannot leave the Enterprise and, after slamming his fist down on the transporter console , he becomes himself again, free of the spores. He realizes that violent emotions and anger are what counteract the spores' euphoria-inducing effects. Noting this cure for the spores in his log, Kirk also realizes that his plan to free his crew and the colonists from the spores' effects and escape Omicron Ceti III comes with one potential danger: Spock. Knowing his first officer to be considerably stronger than a normal Human being and could kill him with his bare hands, Kirk decides to risk it.

Kirk, pretending to still be under the influence of the spores, hails Spock and tells him that he would like some help in moving some of the ship's equipment that could be useful down on the planet. Spock offers to send a team, but Kirk says he thinks the two of them can handle it. Spock agrees and, telling Leila he will return soon, leaves to be beamed back aboard the Enterprise . However, upon returning to the ship, Spock is greeted with Kirk threateningly brandishing a metal pipe and calling him a "mutinous, disloyal, computerized, half-breed." Spock thinks Kirk is joking, but the captain persists and begins insulting Spock's parents and the entire Vulcan race. Spock pleads with Kirk to stop, but, he continues, now turning his attention to Leila and how Spock couldn't possibly love her, and that he is a freak who belongs in a circus, "right next to the dog-faced boy." At this, Spock finally snaps and attacks Kirk, throwing him around the transporter room.

Act Four [ ]

As he prepares to smash a small metal table over Kirk's head, Spock regains control of himself and is broken from the spores' influence. He and Kirk set out to create a subsonic transmitter that will induce anger and intense emotions in everyone on the planet's surface via the crew's communicators, thus eradicating the spores.

Enterprise officers shaking off the effect of the spores

When Leila beams up to the ship to find out what happened to Spock, she tells him that she cannot lose him again. But Spock tells her that he has a responsibility to the ship, and to his friend the captain. He goes on to tell her that he is who he is, and that if there are self-made purgatories then we all have to live in them, that his can be no worse than that of someone else. Leila cries and then realizes that she lost not only Spock but the feeling the spores induced as well. However, she says that her feelings for Spock still have not changed and that she still loves him.

The transmitter is activated, and fights break out across the colony, destroying the spores' effects. Sandoval expresses regret, noting that they have not really accomplished anything in three years, as any progress they made was purely the result of the spores. He hopes that he and the other colonists can try again on another planet. As the Enterprise leaves Omicron Ceti III for Starbase 27 , McCoy cynically states that this is the second time Humans have been thrown out of paradise and Kirk responds jokingly that actually this time they just walked out on their own; maybe they weren't meant for paradise, says Kirk, maybe they were meant to fight their way through, struggle and scratch for every inch of the way. Spock, on the other hand, realizes that his time with Leila on the surface was the first time he had ever been happy.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2267

Memorable quotes [ ]

" It's like a jigsaw puzzle all one color. No key to where the pieces fit in. "

" I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question. "

" Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist. "

" It didn't hurt us. " " I am not like you. "

" I love you. I can love you. "

" We're evacuating all colonists to starbase 27. " " Oh, I don't think so. " " You don't think so, what?" " I don't think so, sir."

" Spock… are you out of your mind? You were told to report to me at once. " " I didn't want to, Jim! " " Yes, I can see that. "

" I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little. "

" Ah yeah, Jimmy boy. Hey, I've taken care of everything. All you gotta do is just relax – doctor's order. "

" This is mutiny, mister! " " Yes, sir. It is. "

" Who wants to counteract paradise, Jim boy? "

" Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is. "

" I'm beginning to realize just how big this ship really is. "

" No… NO! I… can't… LEAVE! "

" All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed! We'll see about you deserting my ship! "

" What makes you think you're a man? You're an overgrown jackrabbit; an elf with a hyperactive thyroid! "

" What can you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak, whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia? "

" Your father was a computer, like his son! An ambassador from a planet of traitors! The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity! "

" You're a traitor from a race of traitors! Disloyal to the core! Rotten…like the rest of your subhuman race! And you've got the gall to make love to that girl! "

" Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man! You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship! Right next to the dog-faced boy! "

" It isn't every first officer who gets to belt his captain… several times. "

" I am what I am, Leila. And if there are self-made purgatories, and we all have to live in them, mine can be no worse than someone else's. "

" You never told me if you had another name, Mister Spock. " " You couldn't pronounce it. "

" We don't need you. Not as a doctor. " " Oh, no? Would you like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital? "

" You better make me a mechanic, then I can treat little tin gods like you! "

" Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of Paradise. " " No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums. "

" I have little to say about it, captain. Except that for the first time in my life, I was happy. "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

• Treatment "Sandoval's Planet" by Jerry Sohl : 15 June 1966
• Revised story outline "Power Play": 15 July 1966
• Second revised story outline: 9 August 1966
• First draft teleplay "The Way of the Spores" by Sohl: 1 September 1966
• Second draft teleplay: 11 October 1966
• Revised second draft teleplay: 16 October 1966
• Story outline "This Side of Paradise" by D.C. Fontana : 16 November 1966
• First draft teleplay by Fontana: 7 December 1966
• Second draft teleplay: 11 December 1966
• Final draft teleplay by Gene L. Coon : 15 December 1966
• Revised final draft teleplay: 28 December 1966
• Additional revisions: 30 December 1966 , 4 January 1967
• Day 1 – 5 January 1967 , Thursday – Golden Oak Ranch : Ext. Omicron colony
• Day 2 – 6 January 1967 , Friday – Golden Oak Ranch : Ext. Omicron colony
• Day 3 – 9 January 1967 , Monday – Golden Oak Ranch : Ext. Omicron colony ; Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Kirk's quarters
• Day 4 – 10 January 1967 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Corridors
• Day 5 – 11 January 1967 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Transporter room
• Day 6 – 12 January 1967 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 10 : Int. Omicron colony farmhouse
• Day 7 – 13 January 1967 , Friday – Bronson Canyon : Ext. Omicron colony
• Original airdate: 2 March 1967
• Rerun airdate: 10 August 1967
• First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 29 November 1969
• First UK airdate (on ITV ): 14 February 1982
• Remastered airdate: 28 July 2007

Story and script [ ]

• In Jerry Sohl 's original draft (first titled "Power Play," then "The Way of The Spores"), it was Lieutenant Sulu who was infected by the spores and was able to fall in love with the Eurasian beauty Leila. McCoy discovered an internal condition that would have necessitated Sulu's resignation from Starfleet service, had the spores not cured his condition. His illness gave Sulu a will to develop a relationship with Leila just as similar circumstances would later affect McCoy's judgment in " For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky ". ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 59)
• The spores, in the early drafts, were a communal intelligence; when someone was possessed by them, that individual was granted telepathic abilities to link up with other possessed minds. The abilities of the spores to restore health were complete enough to enable them to return the dead to life. The antidotes for the spores were either the possession of a certain blood type or the introduction of alcohol into the affected person. Originally, Kirk leaped onto Spock and forced liquor down his throat to restore him to normal. In a surprise ending, the spores were revealed to be benevolent, conscious entities who never intended to act against anyone's will. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 59)
• According to Dorothy Fontana , the episode had to be seriously rewritten because Sohl had not quite gotten it right. Gene Roddenberry told her, " If you can rewrite this script, you can be my story editor. " She thought about it and eventually realized that the story wasn't really about Sulu, but about Mr. Spock. Nimoy, who was initially taken aback when he was told that they were working on a love story for Spock, later felt that the episode turned out to be a lovely story. ( TOS Season 1 DVD feature Kiss 'n' Tell: Romance in the 23rd Century )
• One of the basic aspects that Fontana immediately changed was Sohl's original conception of the spore plants residing in a cave. Thus, to avoid the danger of the plants, the crew merely had to avoid the cave. Fontana put the plants everywhere around the planet, and later the Enterprise to make them a real menace. ( Star Trek: The Original Series 365 , p. 131)
• Jerry Sohl was unhappy with Fontana's rewrites of his script and credited himself under his pseudonym "Nathan Butler". [1]
• The script featured characters named Lieutenant Timothy Fletcher and Crewman Dimont as members of the landing party. When Michael Barrier and Grant Woods were cast in these roles, the names were changed to DeSalle and Kelowitz respectively, to appear constant with the two actors' previous appearances on the series. [2]
• In writing up the episode for Star Trek 5 , James Blish added a response from Spock after Leila tells him, "It's been a long time": "The years have seemed twice as long." Blish also depicts Spock awkwardly taking her hand.

Production [ ]

• Originally " The Devil in the Dark " was scheduled to be filmed before this episode with Ralph Senensky directing it, and Joseph Pevney directing "This Side of Paradise", but during pre-production the two episodes were switched, and changed directors. It was due to producer Gene Coon 's assumption that "Devil" would be a tough assignment for a first-time Trek director. [3] [4]
• In a blooper, Leonard Nimoy flubs his line about the plants acting as a repository for thousands of spores. Instead, he says the plants act as a "suppository." The crew cracks up, as does Nimoy, who caps the fun by putting a Tootsie Pop in his mouth. [5]
• The empty shot of the bridge, before the turbolift opens to admit Kirk, was the best available piece of film for " Relics " to reuse as the holosimulation of the NCC-1701 bridge. The short snippet of film was "looped" several times and bluescreened in behind James Doohan and Patrick Stewart 's scenes. Using the stock footage in this way eliminated the need to completely rebuild the bridge – they only built a short section of the computer stations, the door alcove, and the command stations for the TNG-era actors to sit at. ( Star Trek: The Original Series 365 , pp. 133-134)
• In Leila's first close-up Jerry Finnerman lighted Jill Ireland with a baby spot light from behind, adding an "aura of light" around her face. [6]
• Senensky originally wanted to film the Kirk versus Spock fight scene from a wider angle, so the stunt doubles wouldn't be so obvious, but the transporter room set was too small to achieve this. [7]
• Gerald Fried 's score from " Shore Leave " is heavily featured in this episode, most notably the " Ruth theme", successfully accompanying the lost love between Spock and Leila.

Locations [ ]

• The large open meadow seen in several sequences is in Malibu State Park in southern California. It is the same spot where the hunt in the corn field took place in Planet of the Apes , and also extensively used in the series Gunsmoke . ( citation needed • edit )
• The barn Kelowitz and Sulu investigate can be seen in several episodes of Kung Fu . ( citation needed • edit )
• The buildings seen in the teaser, the first scene after and the scene in which DeSalle shows McCoy the spores are at a different location than the buildings seen in the rest of the episode. The green farm structures were located at the Disney Ranch. The concept of Sandoval's people refusing modern technology was intended to justify the late-19th century American style of the ranch. [8]
• According to director Ralph Senensky , the original schedule was that the first three of the six shooting days were to be spent on location, shooting at the Golden Oak Ranch (also known as the Disney Ranch), then the remaining three days indoors, filming the Enterprise scenes. However, after two days of shooting outdoors, Jill Ireland fell ill and couldn't appear on the set. It was in question if she had measles or not. Senensky decided to film all the farm scenes which didn't contain Leila's character and then return to the studio for Enterprise interiors in the remaining of the day, and hope for the actress' return. Ireland appeared the following day, as it turned out that she did not have measles. However, the crew couldn't return to Disney Ranch as it was already booked for another production. They decided to film the remaining scenes at Bronson Canyon . [9]

Spock and Leila in a deleted scene

• In the script, Kirk first spots Spock and Leila kissing passionately by the stream; there is no scene of Spock hanging off the tree limb. [10] Director Ralph Senensky came up with the idea of Spock hanging from the tree on location, when he found the tree and the spot closely to Bronson Canyon. Originally the scene was to be shot on a clearing. [11] Evidence taken from a deleted scene , of Spock and Leila's presence near the stream, appears in the episode's preview trailer.

Sets and props [ ]

• The food processors in the transporter room, placed there so Kyle could provide chicken soup for the air sergeant in " Tomorrow is Yesterday ", disappeared from the room by the end of the first season. In this episode, an enraged Spock destroys one of them.
• Omicron Ceti III is M-113 from " The Man Trap ", Alfa 177 from " The Enemy Within " dyed a green color.
• This is the first time that Spock wears the green jumpsuit. He wears it again in " Spock's Brain " while being remotely controlled.
• James Doohan ( Scott ) does not appear in this episode, although he is referenced and asked for by Kirk.
• Stuntman Bobby Bass , whose character tried to break up the fight between the two officers, had his only lines of dialogue in the series here.
• Frank Overton died only a few months after completing this episode, which was filmed in early January 1967 .

Continuity [ ]

• Admiral Komack is mentioned in this episode; he is seen in " Amok Time ". According to Denise and Michael Okuda, the character was named for James Komack , director of " A Piece of the Action ".
• In " The Tholian Web ", Chekov asks Spock if there has ever been a mutiny on a starship before. Spock replies that there has never been, despite the fact the events of this episode were specifically called a mutiny. (Obviously, with the crew having been under the influence of the spores, it is not a true mutiny, which usually implies willful disobedience rather than manipulation, making Spock's statement true). This statement about a mutiny never occurring would seem to be refuted by the events in Star Trek: Discovery . There is also Spock's mutiny in " The Menagerie, Part I " and " The Menagerie, Part II ".
• As established in The Making of Star Trek (p. 204), there are only seventeen starbases. However, Kirk announces that he has been ordered to take the colonists to Starbase 27 .
• At one point during his log recording, Kirk refers incorrectly to the planet as "Omicron III."
• Although Kirk hurls the pod plant across the bridge before storming out after Uhura abandons her post and it is that same plant that subsequently infects Kirk when he's sitting at the helm console, when the empty bridge is seen when Kirk records his log entry, the pod plant is nowhere to be found.
• The alternate reality version of Kirk also successfully provokes Spock to anger in Star Trek . Instead of merely insulting him with name-calling, however, he pokes the raw wound of his mother 's recent death at the hands of Nero .

Reception [ ]

• Dorothy Fontana very much liked the finished episode. She recalled, " It worked out very well because the actors were brilliant for me, and had a very good director, and you know, I really like it." [12]
• Ralph Senensky recalled that directing the episode " really proved to be very, very, very well worthwhile doing. Leonard [Nimoy] and Jill [Ireland] were wonderful, as was the whole cast. " [13]
• The book Star Trek 101 (p. 17), by Terry J. Erdmann and Paula M. Block , lists this episode as one of the "Ten Essential Episodes" from Star Trek: The Original Series .

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original US Betamax release: 1985
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 14 , catalog number VHR 2307, release date unknown
• US VHS release: 15 April 1994
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.9, 30 December 1996
• Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 13, 11 July 2000
• As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• William Shatner as Kirk
• Leonard Nimoy as Spock

Guest star [ ]

• Jill Ireland as Leila Kalomi

Special guest star [ ]

• Frank Overton as Elias Sandoval

Co-star [ ]

• DeForest Kelley as McCoy

Featuring [ ]

• Grant Woods as Kelowitz
• George Takei as Sulu
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
• Michael Barrier as DeSalle
• Dick Scotter as Painter
• Eddie Paskey as Crewman

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Bobby Bass as Enterprise command officer
• William Blackburn as Hadley
• Walker Edmiston as Enterprise transporter chief (voice)
• Carey Foster as Enterprise sciences crew woman
• Jeannie Malone as Enterprise yeoman
• Fred Shue as Enterprise crewman
• Ron Veto as Harrison
• Omicron colonist 1
• Omicron colonist 2
• Omicron colonist 3
• Omicron colonist 4
• Enterprise command crewman
• Enterprise crew women 1 and 2
• Enterprise engineering technician
• Enterprise helmsman lieutenant
• Enterprise sciences crew woman 2
• Enterprise sciences lieutenant
• Enterprise operations lieutenant

Stunt doubles [ ]

• Bill Catching as the stunt double for Leonard Nimoy
• Chuck O'Brien as the stunt double for William Shatner

Stand-ins [ ]

• William Blackburn as the stand-in for DeForest Kelley
• Frank da Vinci as the stand-in for Leonard Nimoy
• Jeannie Malone as the stand-in for Jill Ireland
• Eddie Paskey as the stand-in for William Shatner

References [ ]

2208 ; 2244 ; 2261 ; 2263 ; 2264 ; acreage ; admiral ; agricultural colony ; agriculture ; ambassador ; ambition ; anger ; animal ; answer ; antidote ; appendectomy ; appendix ; argument ; arm ; arrest ; automatic controls ; barn ; bean ; beauty ; belonging ; Berengaria VII ; berthold rays ; biochemistry lab ; biology report ; biologist ; blood sample ; " Bones "; botanist ; brain ; brig ; breeding ; butterfly net ; carcass ; chance ; choice ; circuit ; circus ; climate ; cloud ; co-conspirator ; communications station ; communicator ; computer ; contact ; contact signal ; court martial offense ; cow ; crop ; cure ; danger ; dead air ; death ; desertion ; dog ; dog-faced boy ; dorsal spine ; dragon ; dream ; drum ; Earth ; Eden ; effect ; elf ; emotion ; encyclopedia ; et cetera ; evacuation ; expedition ; face ; farm ; fate ; feeling ; field ; first officer ; flesh ; flora ; food ; foot ; frequency ; garden ; Georgia ; god ; grain ; Grayson, Amanda ; half-breed ; handshake ; happiness pill ; health ; heart ; hide ; homing device ; horse ; hospital ; Human being ; Human body ; " in a vacuum "; inch ; infection ; information ; inoculation ; insect ; instrument malfunction ; integrity ; itching powder ; jackrabbit ; jigsaw puzzle ; Komack, James ; landing party ; leader ; livestock ; lobar pneumonia ; logic ; love ; lung ; lute ; machine ; " make love "; marooning ; mechanic ; medical examination ; medical record ; medical test ; memory bank ; mind ; mint julep ; minute ; miracle ; mission ; motor coordination ; mushroom ; music ; mutiny ; name ; nature ; needs ; nerve ; Omicron Ceti III ( Omicron III ); Omicron colonists ; Omicron colony ; operation ; paradise ; peace ; philosophy ; physical strength ; pig ; pill ; place ; pod plant ; poetry ; potato ; progress ; pronunciation ; purgatory ; quarters ; radiation exposure ; rain ; rainbow ; reflex ; result ; rib ; risk ; safe ; Sarek ; scar tissue ; scientist ; sensation ; serum ; shingle ; shipmate ; ship's complement ; skin ; sky ; soil ; space ; speaker ; speculation ; spore ; standard orbit ; standard procedure ; star ; Starbase 27 ; Starfleet Command ; Starfleet Medal of Honor ; subhuman race ; subspace radio ; subsonic transmitter ; suitcase ; surface ; survivor ; tail ; teacher ; textbook ; thing ; thousand ; thyroid ; tin ; " tin god "; tissue ; tonsil ; traitor ; transmission pattern ; traitor ; tricorder ; vacuum ; vegetarian ; vehicle ; ventilation system ; vernacular ; Vulcanian ; Vulcan ; weakling ; weapon ; week ; word

Unused references [ ]

External links [ ].

• "This Side of Paradise" at StarTrek.com
• " This Side of Paradise " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " This Side of Paradise " at Wikipedia
• " This Side of Paradise " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Abdullah bin al-Hussein

TOS: S1 – E24: This Side of Paradise

This “Side of Paradise” is an episode of The Original Series that really stuck with people. Perhaps it was the fact that Spock broke character, or that Kirk was the one who blocked everyone else from having a good time. Kirk always enjoyed himself.

STARDATE: 3417.3

The episode begins as the Enterprise enters orbit around the planet Omicron Ceti 3. Their mission was to see if the 150 settlers had somehow survived, as the planet was under bombardment from harmful Bertold rays. Spock said there was “absolutely” no way the settlers would be able to survive for the three years.

Kirk ordered a landing party to the surface to investigate. They arrived and walked around through what looked like an abandoned 20th Century farming village.

As the captain waxed on and on about their deaths, settlement leader Elias Sandoval and two others walked up and introduced themselves. Kirk, Spock, McCoy and the others were shocked.

McCoy, with sarcasm, noted that Sandoval was “alive.” Spock said they should not be. As Sandoval gave them a tour, a woman appeared. She immediately stared at Mr. Spock, and he looked at her as well. Her name was Leila Kalomi ( Jill Ireland ), and she was the botanist for the colony. She knew Spock six years back on Earth.

The same “love” theme that played during Shore Leave when Kirk saw his old flame, Ruth.

This time, Kirk gave Spock the shady eye when he noticed his first officer’s connection with Ms. Kalomi.

Sandoval explained the point of this colony was to return to a simple life of farming, with no electronics, machines, or weapons.

Later, the crew fanned out to try to figure out how Sandoval and his people were living so well even as the Bertold rays streamed down from the sky. Sulu noted that the barns had no equipment and animals.

The episode gave us a little bit of intrigue… as we saw Leila and Sandoval “schemed” for a moment when the crew was not in earshot. She guaranteed that the “Vulcanian” would stay with the settlers.

McCoy examined the settlers and said they were all “excellent.” Spock called to Kirk to report that there were no animals on the planet (besides the settlers). Sandoval gave Kirk a tour of the fields. He told the captain that the planet gives them all they need, thanks to the great dirt, moderate climate, and rains. He learned that the settlers grew only what they needed, and they had very little surplus.

Then, McCoy discovered that Sandoval had a whole bunch of injuries, including scar tissue, in his medical logs from before the trip to Omicron Ceti 3. But now, Sandoval had no evidence of the scar tissue or any other ailments. Kirk was perplexed.

In the fields with Leila, Spock had no place to run. She detailed that she loved him when they met on Earth, but he did not respond to her. She offered that if she told him the secret of how they survived on Omicron Ceti 3, then he would share his feelings with her.

“Emotions are alien to me,” said Spock. “I am a scientist.”

Leila said she did not believe that.

Meanwhile, Kirk got orders from Starfleet to evacuate the planet. He told Sandoval that all would beam aboard the Enterprise. Sandoval refused.

As they walked, Leila and Spock approached a large, odd-looking flower. As they got closer, the plant sprayed Spock in the face with gas and spores. The Vulcan struggled for a bit, but after a while, his attitude changed. Spock looked suddenly looked up (while the love theme played) and he was a whole different man… er, alien.

He told Leila that he loved her, and they kissed.

Soon, Kirk and Sandoval exchanged words. Sandoval said they would not be going anywhere, while Kirk said that he did have his orders. Kirk asked Sulu if he’d seen Spock or DeSalle. Sulu had not.

When Kirk tried to raise Spock via the communicator, the Vulcan was resting his head in Leila’s lap, examining the cloud formations. He was wearing the same suit as the rest of Sandoval’s people — which was the same thing he would wear in “Spock’s Brain.”

Anyhow, Spock finally responded to the captain’s calls with: “Yes, what do you want?” Kirk told him that Spock needed to report in immediately. Spock sassed his captain and dropped the communicator.

Kirk used the signal from Spock’s communicator to find his first officer. They found Spock hanging from a log, swinging and playing.

Meanwhile, DeSalle gave McCoy a flower. Yes, one of those flowers.

When Kirk walked over to the trees Spock was playing on, the Vulcan told him that he would not be leaving the planet. Kirk told Sulu that Spock was under arrest and he’d be under Sulu’s custody.

Spock agreed to be under arrest but diverted Kirk, Sulu, and a third crewman over to a mass of the flowers. When they reached the flowers, they immediately sprayed the trio. Sulu succumbed and smiled.

“I see it now! Of course, we can’t remove the colony,” said Sulu. “It’d be wrong!”

Kirk, who did not seem to be affected, grabbed Sulu by the shoulders. He told Sulu that he didn’t understand the plants, but he would work to get all of the colonists on the ship. Spock said that Kirk was going to be “difficult.”

Back at the meeting spot, McCoy met Kirk. The doctor arranged for at least 100 flowers to be beamed up, and he ordered the captain to “relax.” He also called Kirk, “Jim Boy.” Kirk was not happy and beamed up.

When Kirk arrived on the bridge, he gave Uhura an order, and she said that she could not follow his order. She damaged the ship’s communications systems, so Kirk could not reach out to Starfleet Command. She walked off. After she left, Kirk found a flower near her station.

He found a line of crewmembers waiting to beam down to the planet. He ordered them to go to their stations, and they refused. The crew started leaving the ship en masse. Kirk asked McCoy why this was happening or if there was anything that could be done, but the doctor said: “Who wants to counteract paradise, Jim Boy?”

On the planet, Kirk confronted Sandoval, who asked the captain to join them. Kirk scoffed but asked about the flowers. Spock said the flowers and their spores drifted through space until they found their way to Omicron Ceti 3. And these spores are what enable Sandoval’s people to survive, as they block the Bertold rays.

Thanks to the spores, the settlers have “no need or want,” said Sandoval. Spock said that Omicron Ceti 3 was a true Eden, with belonging and love. Kirk said that humans were not meant for this sort of thing.

“Man stagnates if he has no ambition or desire to be more than he is,” said Kirk. He went back to the Enterprise, which was completely abandoned. He figured that without the crew, the ship’s orbit would eventually decay and the Enterprise would burn up in Omicron Ceti 3’s atmosphere.

As Kirk remained on the bridge alone considering what to do, Uhura’s flower sprayed him in the face. His countenance changed at once, and he called Spock to tell him that he understood. Kirk told Spock and Leila that wanted to pack a few things from his quarters, and he’d meet them soon.

While he packed, Kirk got upset about the situation. He slammed his hand onto the transporter control console and yelled. He broke free from the spore’s relaxing effect. He then decided to get Spock to break free from the spore’s effects as well. He tricked Spock into beaming up.

When Spock arrived, Kirk began.

“All right you mutinous, disloyal, computerized, half-breed,” he said. “We’ll see about you deserting my ship!”

Spock did not agree with the term ‘computerized.’ Kirk continued to insult Spock again and again while holding a metal rod.

“What could you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak, whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia?” Kirk asked. The insults continued.

Spock got a little upset and attacked, and after he’d beaten the captain, the spell of the spores wore off. Kirk explained how anger beat the spore’s powers. They agreed to put a signal into a transmitter, which would agitate the crew and settlers. They’d also break free from the spores.

After a while, Leila called up to Spock. She said she missed him and she wanted to see the Enterprise. Kirk asked if they should speak while she was under the influence of the spores. Spock beamed her aboard. When she hugged him, she knew that he was no longer “with them.”

He said that he could not. She sobbed. She said that she did not want to lose him again as she did six years ago. Spock said that he had a responsibility to the ship and the “man on the bridge.” Spock noted that he was living in a “self-made purgatory.”

She looked up after crying and realized that she was no longer under the influence of the spores. She said that she didn’t know if he had another name. He touched her face and said that he did, but it was unpronounceable.

Kirk and Spock started up the transmitter, and the settlers and crew started to fight and argue. Even McCoy and Sandoval argued over what McCoy should do when he’s no longer practicing medicine. They scuffled, and Sandoval realized that he wasted three years, but accomplished nothing. Sandoval said that he wanted to go to a new planet and start over after their visit to Starbase 21. Kirk agreed.

As they left Omicron Ceti 3, McCoy sighed and said this was “the second time man’s been thrown out of paradise.” Kirk disagreed, saying that they walked out on their own.

“Maybe we weren’t meant for paradise,” said Kirk. “Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can’t stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.”

Spock finally said for the first time in his life, he was happy.  

TREK REPORT SUPPLEMENTAL:

What a terrible ending! Spock was happy and found true love and left it to serve on a ship with an angry man? The crew and settlers lived in peace without fear of war, hunger, or sickness and in harmony… and Kirk ruined it. I realize that he had to for the show to continue.

But in my opinion, life on Omicron Ceti 3 wasn’t so bad. Who cares if they made no progress? They were happy. Not everyone needs to explore strange new worlds and seek out new life. Kirk should have just left them alone.

I felt terrible for poor Spock. He found love and had to leave it all.

Though I didn’t like the ending of this episode and wondered what sort of moral message it was sending as it was written — perhaps it was a veiled anti-Communist vibe or something, I thought this entry could have had implications to future Trek.

Here’s how:

• On the Enterprise-D, the crew could have easily filtered out the flower’s spores to inoculate the settlers under the “spell.”
• Could these spores be related at all to the ones in use by the U.S.S. Discovery ?
• What happened to Spock and Leila? Could they have gotten together sometime after this episode? Spock could have a blonde-haired son that could appear in Star Trek: Picard or some future series.
• Could the spores be weaponized by the Federation? They could come in handy against the Klingons or Borg.
• What was Spock’s other, unpronounceable name?

But it seems that later shows or writers ever pulled none of these plot strings. I could be wrong. Tell me in the comments!

RATING: 3 out of 5

Directed by: Ralph Senesky Teleplay by: D.C. Fontana Story by: Nathan Butler and D.C. Fontana Produced by: Gene L. Coon Executive Producer: Gene Roddenberry Associate Producer: Robert H. Justman Script Consultant: D.C. Fontana Music composed and conducted by: Alexander Courage Director of Photography: Jerry Finnerman Art Directors: Roland M. Brooks and Walter M. Jeffries

William Shatner as Kirk Leonard Nimoy as Spock

Jill Ireland

SPECIAL GUEST STAR

Frank Overton

DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy

Grant Woods … as Kelowitz George Takei … as Sulu Nichelle Nichols … as Uhura Michael Barrier … as DeSalle Dick Scotter … as Painter Eddie Paskey … as Crewman

Film Editor … James D. Ballas, A.C.E. Assistant to the Producer … Edward K. Milkis Set Decorator … Marvin March Costumes created by … William Theiss

Post Production Executive … Bill Heath Music Editor … Jim Henrikson Sound Editor … Douglas H. Grindstaff Sound Mixer … Carl W. Daniels Photographic Effects … Westheimer Company Script Supervisor … George A. Rutter Music Consultant … Wilbur Hatch Music Coordinator … Julian Davidson Special Effects … Jim Rugg Property Master … Irving A. Feinberg Gaffer … George H. Merhoff Head Grip … George Rader Production Supervisor … Bernard A. Windin Makeup Artist … Fred B. Phillips, S.M.A. Hair Styles by … Virginia Darcy, C.H.S. Wardrobe Mistress … Margaret Makau Casting … Joseph D’Agosta Sound … Glen Glenn Sound Co.

A DesiLu Production in association with the Norway Company

Executive in Charge of Production … Herbert F. Solow

Star Trek: The Original Series

This Side of Paradise

Cast & crew.

Jill Ireland

Leila Kalomi

Frank Overton

Elias Sandoval

Grant Woods

Michael Barrier

Dick Scotter

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© 2006 CBS Corp.

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• The Original Series
• The Next Generation
• Deep Space Nine
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The Wolf Inside

What’s past is prologue.

This Side of Paradise

The Starship Enterprise heads to a distant planet to investigate reports of a strange energy source disrupting power, only to be attacked by a mysterious alien vessel.

Captain Kirk and the crew prepare to engage the hostile craft in battle, but their ship is suddenly disabled by the same energy source they were sent to investigate. With all of their weapons and shields down, the crew is helpless as the alien vessel swiftly approaches.

Just before the enemy can strike, the crew is saved by a mysterious force field that materializes around the Enterprise. Although the shields are back up, the crew is still unable to make contact with the alien ship.

The Enterprise is then hailed by an unknown source on the planet’s surface. As the crew prepares to investigate, the mystery deepens when they become the first human contact with a race of humanoid aliens known as the Omicronians, who claim they created the force field to protect the Enterprise.

The Omicronians tell the crew that they were sent to the planet by a strange energy source, and that they have been living in harmony with the planet’s inhabitants ever since.

Kirk is skeptical, but the crew soon discovers that the Omicronians have been hiding a deadly secret. It turns out that the energy source they were sent to investigate was actually a deadly plant-like organism known as the Omicron spores, which has the ability to take over the minds of the crew and make them do its bidding.

Kirk and the crew must find a way to rid the planet of the Omicron spores before they succumb to its power and become its slaves. But as they struggle against its influence, the crew soon learns that the Omicronians have a hidden agenda of their own.

With the crew’s minds and the fate of the planet at stake, Kirk and his team must fight to save the Enterprise and prevent the Omicron spores from taking over the universe. This Side of Paradise is a thrilling journey into the unknown, as the crew of the Enterprise discovers the dangers of unchecked power and the true power of harmony.

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This Side of Paradise (Star Trek: The Original Series)

" This Side of Paradise " is the twenty-fourth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by D. C. Fontana and Jerry Sohl (using the pseudonym Nathan Butler) and directed by Ralph Senensky , it was first broadcast on March 2, 1967.

External links

In the episode, the USS Enterprise visits a planet where the inhabitants are under the influence of strange plant life.

The title is taken from the poem "Tiare Tahiti" by Rupert Brooke and the 1920 novel This Side of Paradise by F. Scott Fitzgerald .

The USS Enterprise is ordered to a Federation colony on Omicron Ceti III. Captain Kirk , First Officer Spock , Chief Medical Officer Leonard McCoy , and others beam down to the colony, and discover the colonists all alive and well, a surprise since the planet is bathed in Berthold rays, a form of radiation which humans cannot survive for longer than a week. Their leader, Elias Sandoval, welcomes them and explains they only lost communications due to equipment failure. Also present is Leila Kalomi, a botanist Spock met on Earth six years before; she loved him, but he was unable to return her love. The landing party notices a lack of animal life, including livestock brought to the colony. During medical exams, McCoy finds no sign of disease or injury in any of them: even Sandoval, who has had an appendectomy , now has a healthy appendix . Kirk nonetheless insists that the colonists be evacuated due to the Berthold rays, over Sandoval's objections.

Kalomi offers to show Spock how the colonists have survived, and takes him to a field of strange flowers. The flowers expel spores that cover Spock, after which he professes his love for Kalomi, and blithely disregards orders to begin the evacuation of the colony. The rest of the landing party are also exposed to the spores and, with the exception of Kirk, exhibit the same sort of behavior. As part of a symbiotic relationship with their human hosts, the spores provide perfect health, including protection from Berthold rays.

Kirk returns to the ship while the rest of its crew, under the influence of spore plants that have been brought on board, beam down to the planet. Lt. Uhura has sabotaged the communication system to prevent contact with Starfleet. After exposure to the spores, Kirk too prepares to leave, but as he is about to beam down, he is seized by frustration at his own abandonment of the ship. The effect of the spores disappears, and Kirk surmises that violent emotions destroy them. Kirk lures Spock back aboard Enterprise and uses derogatory racial remarks to goad him into attacking. As Spock is about to bludgeon Kirk with a stool, he notices that the spores' influence on him is gone.

Kalomi beams aboard to find Spock no longer affected by the spores, and her heartbroken reaction frees her also. Kirk and Spock induce a similar effect on the planet below by broadcasting an irritating subsonic frequency to the crew's communicators, provoking fights among the colonists and crew. Once everyone is cleansed of the spores, Sandoval agrees to the evacuation.

As they leave orbit with the colonists aboard, Kirk asks Spock about his experiences on the planet. Spock replies, "I have little to say about it, Captain, except that for the first time in my life ... I was happy." [1]

A Thorneloe University document, "Modern Interpretations of the Lotus-Eaters", notes the parallels between the episode and Homer 's Odyssey episode of the Lotus-eaters : "These two stories share a particular theme: the diversion or halting of one’s journey (either deliberately or accidentally) and how real life (i.e. the journey itself) cannot be lived on the extremes. ... The original Star Trek series aired in the late 1960s. It reflects the vast social change that was occurring at that time. ... The idea of living in peace and limiting work activities to only the essentials was (and still is, in many respects) contrary to the religious and political ideologies and realities of that era. ... The strong Protestant work-ethic present in American society meant a constant strive for development and dominance over nature, no matter the cost. ... The colonists failed to do this, thus their attempt to live in peace and to develop only what was necessary was considered a failure (as noted towards the end of the show). ... It was also a time of psychoactive drugs . The spores of the flowers could also represent the dangers of these drugs and their potential to help users escape reality." [2]

• Writer Jerry Sohl had his name replaced by the pseudonym "Nathan Butler", after D. C. Fontana rewrote the original draft (entitled "The Way of the Spores"). [3]
• This was actor Frank Overton 's last performance before his death on April 24, 1967, less than two months after the episode first aired.
• When Michael Barrier and Grant Woods were cast to play the characters Lieutenant Timothy Fletcher and Crewman Dimont, the names were changed to DeSalle and Kelowitz, whom the two actors played in previous episodes. [4]
• The shot of the empty Enterprise bridge was used as the blue-screen background in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode " Relics ", to depict Scotty 's holodeck re-creation of his old ship. [5]

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave this episode an "A" rating, describing it as "an intriguingly ambiguous episode", and he praised its sense of humor . [6]

In 2015, SyFy ranked this episode as one of the top ten essential Star Trek original series Spock episodes. [7]

In 2016, SyFy ranked guest star Jill Ireland's performance as Leila, as the 15th best guest star on the original series. [8]

In 2016, Empire ranked this the 24th best out of the top 50 episodes of all the 700 plus Star Trek television episodes. [9]

In 2016, IGN ranked "This Side of Paradise" the 24th best episode of all Star Trek including later series. [10] They note this episode for featuring a romance of sorts between Spock and an inhabitant of the planet Omicron Ceti III. [10]

In 2018, PopMatters ranked this the 18th best episode of the original series. [11]

A 2018 Star Trek binge-watching guide by Den of Geek recommended this episode for featuring the trio of characters Kirk, Spock, and Bones of the original series. [12]

In 2019, Nerdist included this episode on their "Best of Spock" binge-watching guide. [13]

Related Research Articles

" Mirror, Mirror " is the fourth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Marc Daniels, it was first broadcast on October 6, 1967.

" Errand of Mercy " is the twenty-sixth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Gene L. Coon and directed by John Newland, it was first broadcast on March 23, 1967. It was the first episode in which the Klingons appeared.

" Amok Time " is the second season premiere episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by science fiction author Theodore Sturgeon, scored by Gerald Fried, and directed by Joseph Pevney, it first aired on September 15, 1967.

" Spock's Brain " is the third season premiere episode of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Gene L. Coon and directed by Marc Daniels, it was first broadcast on September 20, 1968.

" Journey to Babel " is the tenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by D. C. Fontana and directed by Joseph Pevney, it was first broadcast on November 17, 1967.

" The Doomsday Machine " is the sixth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Norman Spinrad and directed by Marc Daniels, it was first broadcast on October 20, 1967.

" The Devil in the Dark " is the twenty-fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Gene L. Coon and directed by Joseph Pevney, the episode first aired on March 9, 1967.

The Menagerie is a two-part episode from the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . It comprises the eleventh and twelfth broadcast episodes of the series. Written by series creator Gene Roddenberry, with portions directed by Marc Daniels and portions directed by Robert Butler, it is the only two-part story in the original series. Part I was broadcast by NBC on November 17, 1966, and Part II was broadcast on November 24, 1966. In the episode, Spock abducts his former commander Christopher Pike, locks the starship Enterprise on a course to the forbidden planet Talos IV and turns himself in for court-martial where he presents an elaborate story explaining his actions.

" The Squire of Gothos " is the 17th episode of the first season of the American science-fiction television series, Star Trek . Written by Paul Schneider, and directed by Don McDougall, it first aired on January 12, 1967.

" The Naked Time " is the fourth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by John D. F. Black and directed by Marc Daniels, it first aired on September 29, 1966.

" The Enemy Within " is the fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series, Star Trek . Written by Richard Matheson and directed by Leo Penn, it first aired on October 6, 1966.

" The Galileo Seven " is the sixteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Oliver Crawford and directed by Robert Gist, it first aired on January 5, 1967.

" The Apple " is the fifth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Max Ehrlich and directed by Joseph Pevney, it was first broadcast on October 13, 1967.

" A Piece of the Action " is the seventeenth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by David P. Harmon and Gene L. Coon, and directed by James Komack, it was first broadcast on January 12, 1968.

" The Paradise Syndrome " is the third episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Margaret Armen and directed by Jud Taylor, it was first broadcast October 4, 1968.

" All Our Yesterdays " is the twenty-third and penultimate episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Jean Lisette Aroeste and directed by Marvin J. Chomsky, it was first broadcast March 14, 1969.

" The Savage Curtain " is the twenty-second episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann and directed by Herschel Daugherty, it was first broadcast on March 7, 1969.

" The Way to Eden " is the twentieth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . The episode was written by Arthur Heinemann, based on a story by Heinemann and D. C. Fontana. It was directed by David Alexander, and first broadcast on February 21, 1969.

" The Mark of Gideon " is the sixteenth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by George F. Slavin and Stanley Adams and directed by Jud Taylor, it was first broadcast on January 17, 1969.

" Whom Gods Destroy " is the fourteenth episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek . Written by Lee Erwin and directed by Herb Wallerstein, it was first broadcast on January 3, 1969.

• ↑ http://www.chakoteya.net/StarTrek/25.htm . Script transcription, "This Side of Paradise." Original Airdate: March 2, 1967. Retrieved August 2, 2021.
• ↑ Benjamin Szumskyj , Robert Hood (2009). The man who collected psychos: critical essays on Robert Bloch . McFarland . p.   213. ISBN   9780786442089 .
• ↑ Eversole, David. "This Side of Paradise" . orionpressfanzines.com . Orion Press Fanzines . Retrieved March 31, 2021 .
• ↑ DeCandido, Keith R.A. (September 1, 2015). " Star Trek The Original Series Rewatch: "This Side of Paradise" " . Tor.com . Archived from the original on June 23, 2022 . Retrieved July 8, 2022 .
• ↑ Handlen, Zack (April 10, 2009). " 'This Side of Paradise'/'The Devil in the Dark' " . The A.V. Club . Retrieved March 2, 2010 .
• ↑ Kaye, Don (2015-02-27). "Long Live Spock: 10 essential Star Trek: The Original Series episodes" . SYFY WIRE . Archived from the original on 2019-07-09 . Retrieved 2019-07-09 .
• ↑ Kaye, Don (2016-09-16). "The 17 best Star Trek: The Original Series guest stars (hero or villain)" . SYFY WIRE . Archived from the original on 2019-06-26 . Retrieved 2019-06-26 .
• ↑ "The 50 best Star Trek episodes ever" . Empire . 2016-07-27 . Retrieved 2019-06-29 .
• 1 2 Star Trek: The Top 25 Episodes - IGN , 20 May 2013 , retrieved 2019-08-02
• ↑ "The 20 Best Episodes of 'Star Trek: The Original Series' " . PopMatters . 2018-07-16 . Retrieved 2019-07-08 .
• ↑ "Star Trek: An Episode Roadmap for Beginners" . Den of Geek . 8 September 2018 . Retrieved 2020-07-03 .
• ↑ "A Guide to Binge Watching 7 Great STAR TREK Arcs" . Nerdist . Retrieved 2019-07-15 .
• "This Side of Paradise" at Wayback Machine (archived from the original at StarTrek.com)
• "This Side of Paradise" at Memory Alpha
• "This Side of Paradise" —Screenshots before and after remastering at TrekMovie.com
• "This Side of Paradise" —Final draft with revisions December 28, 1966; report and analysis by Dave Eversole

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Recap / Star Trek S1 E24 "This Side of Paradise"

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Original air date: March 2, 1967

AKA "The One Where Spock Got High On Spores And Smacked Kirk Around ". Also, Kirk mispronounces 'sabotage'.

The Enterprise arrives in orbit of Omicron Ceti III, planning to recover the bodies and record the destruction no doubt left by the deadly, flesh-destroying Berthold rays. The Trio, plus Sulu, DeSalle , and Kilowitz, beam down to find, surprise! Everyone is alive and well. A little too alive and well. A quick check up by Bones shows the leader of the colony is healthier than he was when he left Earth. Apparently, Elias has been taking appendix growing lessons from David Lister . Oh, and yet another blonde bombshell is head over heels for Spock.

There are unusual things about this farm. On this farm they have no animals, e-i-e-i-o. With no chick-chick here, no moo moo there, not an oink, not a baa, nowhere a quack quack. And Kirk is so disappointed there's no horsies to ride! Well, he can always look at all the hoes...that the men are using to tend the fields with. According to DeSalle , they have grown just enough to sustain themselves.

These Tropes of Paradise:

• Alluring Flowers : The landing party visits a colonized planet where everyone seems incredibly happy and peaceful. The reason becomes apparent when Spock is sprayed with spores from an alien flower and he starts planning for the entire crew to come down and join the colonists.
• And Then John Was a Zombie : Subverted. Kirk does eventually succumb to the spores, but he then experiences a strong surge of anger on seeing some of his medals , snapping him out of it.
• Artistic License – Space : Subverted for once. The Enterprise should indeed be able to remain in orbit for a minimum of a few months, assuming no drastic outside influences such as contact with an asteroid or tractor beams from the planet's surface.
• Beware the Nice Ones : Spock becomes angry after Kirk enrages him. Kirk does this to break Spock away from the spores' control.
• Bling of War : Kirk has some that he looks at while he's packing. It snaps him out of the spores' influence.
• Blunt "Yes" : Kirk warns a red shirt lined up to beam down against orders that what he's doing is mutiny. "Yes, sir. It is," the crewman calmly replies.
• Break His Heart to Save Him : Spock breaks up with Leila, causing an emotional reaction in her to overcome the influence of the spores.
• Call-Back : In “What Are Little Girls Made Of,” Spock mentions that he was offended by Kirk’s use of the term “half-breed.” Kirk replies, “I'll remember that Mister Spock, the next time I find myself in a similar situation.” In this episode, when Kirk needs to anger Spock, he uses the same term.
• Chekhov's Gun : When Kirk finds that Uhura shorted out the long-range communications under the spores' influence, he throws the plant responsible across the bridge. This is the one that infects him while sitting at the helmsman station.
• Crapsaccharine World : The Omicron Ceti III colony. No illness, no violence, perfect health— and no progress, and in a colony of healthy, happy adults there are no children at all.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : Kirk gets his ass handed to him by Spock, only surviving because Spock shook off the spores. Kirk: Anyhow, I don't know what you're so mad about. It isn't every first officer that gets to belt his captain... several times.
• Deadpan Snarker : Bones gets a couple. Of the living and walking Elias, Bones says that it's his professional opinion that this man is alive. Later, when Elias walks off after stating he will not cooperate with any evacuation, Bones asks the captain if he would like to use a butterfly net on the colonists' leader. When Elias tells him they don't need a doctor, Bones responds "Oh, no? Would you like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital?"
• Death World : Omicron Ceti III should be one of these thanks to the Berthold radiation... so why are the colonists still alive?
• Downer Beginning : The Enterprise shows up at the start of the episode expecting a planetful of dead colonists.
• Dramatic Downstage Turn : Appears in a conversation between Leila and Spock near the end of the episode.
• Dramatic Irony : Sulu comments that he knows so little about farms that he wouldn't know if anything was wrong if it were just two feet away from him. Just two feet away from him are the spore-producing flowers.
• Everybody Must Get Stoned : Something was in the air that made an irradiated planet inhabitable, but made everyone happy and wanting to stay forever- except Captain Kirk.
• The Final Temptation : The spores make people happy, at the cost of giving up any ambition to accomplish anything beyond personal comfort.
• Fisticuff-Provoking Comment : Kirk intentionally delivers a series of vicious insults to Spock in order to anger him enough to fight off the influence of pacifying plant spores. Spock manages to hold out until Kirk says he belongs in a circus, "right next to the dog-faced boy". Curb-Stomp Battle ensues.
• Foreshadowing : During Kirk's attempt at Your Mom (see below), Spock retorts that his father was an ambassador. We later meet his father, Ambassador Sarek, in "Journey to Babel."
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : In a pretty standard Trek move; a planet where you can send people to restore them to perfect health (including regrowing internal organs) is never considered as a potential solution to future health based problems. In fact it bears a striking resemblance to the effect of the later "metaphasic radiation" in Star Trek: Insurrection .
• Gaussian Girl : When Leila shows up, the camera lens is suddenly smeared in Vaseline, there's a light behind her to highlight her hair, and the romantic flutes start playing.
• Half-Breed Discrimination : Kirk invoked this, insulting Spock's parentage to anger him so that he would snap out of the spores' influence.
• Helping Another Save Face : After Kirk deliberately provokes Spock to anger to kill the alien spores manipulating him, Spock says that striking a fellow officer is a court martial offense. It's clear Spock is embarrassed by his emotional behavior, no matter how involuntary. Kirk reasons, logically as Spock notes, that if they're both in the brig, no one can build the device needed to free the rest of the crew.
• I Am What I Am : Spock tells Leila "I am what I am, Leila. And if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's."
• "Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is."
• At the end, with a whole bunch of cliches too, the page quote for No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction . Spock points out that such poetic talk is 'non-regulation.' What else is new?
• Large Ham : "I... can't... LEAVE!"
• Lawful Stupid : Invoked and averted during Kirk and Spock's discussion after their fight. Spock : Captain... striking a fellow officer is a Court Martial offense. Kirk : Well... if we're both in the brig, who's going to build the device? Spock : ...Quite logical, Captain.
• Loud of War : Kirk and Spock purge the colonists and the crew from the spore influence with a very irritating ultrasonic sound transmitted over the communicators.
• The Mutiny : They freely (so to speak, since they're under the influence of the spores) admit to it.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction : Kirk and McCoy provide the page quote. And when Elias has shaken off the spores' influence just after McCoy does, he mournfully realizes that "We've done nothing here... no accomplishments, no progress..."
• Only Sane Man : For two-thirds of the episode, Kirk is the only one not under the influence of the spores.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Spock's flippancy concerns Kirk, then the spores soon make everyone act OOC. Even the reliably cranky Bones becomes an easygoing good ol' boy (with thick Georgia drawl to boot).
• Pre Ass Kicking One Liner : From Bones , of all people. Following his "Oh, no? Would you like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital?" he dodges Sandoval's sole punch, knocking the other man to the dirt with a single blow of his own. He doesn't even drop his mint julep!
• Product Placement : Kirk's suitcase is a Samsonite™, a luggage so durable it can take a beating from a grown Mugato!
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech : Kirk has to deal a vicious one to Spock in order to piss him off enough to get over the spores' influence. An unusual case in that he didn't actually mean it.
• Recycled Soundtrack : Gerald Fried's score from " Shore Leave " is heavily featured in this episode, most notably the "Ruth theme", successfully accompanying the lost love between Spock and Leila.
• Reminder of Duty : Kirk throws off the spores' influence after looking at his medals and realizing that he can't walk away from his responsibilities.
• Send in the Search Team : How the episode started.
• Settling the Frontier : The Enterprise on a rescue mission to a Federation colony, supposedly endangered by deadly (and fictional) Berthold radiation.
• Space Amish : No motorized vehicles. Either We Will Use Manual Labor in the Future , or the spores make you forget how to drive. No animals either— since the spores couldn't affect them, they all died from the radiation.
• Stepford Smiler : Everyone under spore influence, but especially Uhura, who cheerfully tells Kirk how she disabled the long-range communications systems.
• Teach Him Anger : Kirk has to anger up Spock (who's on the feelgood spores) and then let himself get smacked around by an enraged Vulcan until he gets it all out of his system.
• That Cloud Looks Like... : Spock (under the influence of spores) and Leila go cloud gazing. Spock remarks that one looks very much like a dragon (in this universe, dragons are real, but all live on the planet Berengaria Seven). Unfortunately, to see what this scene looks like, you have to get the DVD!
• That's an Order! : Unfortunately for Kirk, Uhura is too stoned on spores to open a channel to anyplace but the planet's surface. She couldn't if she tried, as she short-circuited long-range communications.
• Spockanalia, a late-60's fanzine, established Spock's last name as "Xtmprszntwlfd." Unpronounceable, indeed.
• Another fanzine suggested "Spock" is his last name, and his first name is something embarrassing, like "Harold."
• Some expanded universe materials have said that "Spock" is his given name and his family name (which comes first) is "Sch'n T'gai". Pretty difficult to pronounce.
• Whole-Plot Reference : To Invasion of the Body Snatchers , in which alien plants make people start acting out of character.
• Your Mom : When trying to anger Spock, Kirk tells him his father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia. In response, Spock tells him that his mother is a teacher and his father is an ambassador. This inspired the writer of this episode, D.C. Fontana, to introduce Spock's parents when she wrote the second season episode "Journey to Babel".
• Star Trek S1 E23 "A Taste of Armageddon"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S1 E25 "The Devil in the Dark"

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This Side of Paradise Stardate: 3417.3 Original Airdate: 2 Mar, 1967

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The best 'Star Trek' episode of all time, according to fans—and see if your favorite ranks in the top 25

Posted: April 15, 2024 | Last updated: April 15, 2024

Best 'Star Trek' episodes

It's hard to think of a more everlasting and impactful science fiction property than "Star Trek." In 1966, what is now known as "Star Trek: The Original Series" premiered on NBC, the brainchild of creator, writer, and executive producer Gene Roddenberry. What made "Star Trek" unique for its time was its devotion to an optimistic vision of society, one where human civilization has moved past war and poverty, boldly going "where no man has gone before."

This utopian future was reflected by a diverse cast, with the crew of the USS Enterprise including a woman of African descent (Nyota Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols) and an Asian man (Hikaru Sulu, played by George Takei). Starting in Season Two, "Star Trek" added a Russian character (Pavel Chekov, played by Walter Koenig) during a real-life period of tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The cast was headlined by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as First Officer Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy.

Unlike the campier and fantastical sci-fi fare of the 1960s— like "Lost in Space" —"Star Trek" tackled issues not limited to racism, sexism, and nationalism, with episodic stories that served as allegories for present-day issues. One of the most commonly cited groundbreaking moments in "Star Trek" was a kiss between the characters of Kirk and Uhura in Season Three, one of the earliest on-screen interracial kisses .

While the original "Star Trek" was marred with low ratings on NBC, fan mail campaigns kept the show alive until its eventual cancellation in 1969. However, the series found new life in syndication in the 1970s, and the property has since grown into a multimedia franchise that includes 11 television shows and 13 theatrical movies.

To honor the original 79 episodes, Stacker gathered IMDb data for all episodes of the original "Star Trek" series and ranked the top 25 by user rating as of June 2023, with ties broken by the number of votes received. Read on to see if your favorite "Star Trek" episodes made the cut.

#25. Day of the Dove (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 3, Episode 7 - Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

The seventh episode of the third season of "Star Trek" once again pitted the Enterprise crew against the brutal Klingons. A being of pure energy creates confusion between the two factions, inserting false memories and creating conflict—in one instance, Chekov becomes aggressive towards the Klingons for killing a brother of his that never existed in the first place. The Klingon character of Kang, who originated from this episode, would return in the "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" shows decades later.

#24. A Piece of the Action (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 2, Episode 17 - Director: James Komack

Sometimes, "Star Trek" likes to incorporate time travel to create period-piece episodes, but in the case of Season Two, Episode 17, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy land on a planet that emulates 1920s Chicago gangster culture. With Tommy guns, fedoras, and pulpy 1920s dialogue, this fun episode goes through many of the classic gangster tropes. It's a memorable episode, particularly to writer-director Quentin Tarantino, who in the late 2010s wanted to direct a rated-R "Star Trek" movie inspired by the episode .

#23. Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 1, Episode 3 - Director: James Goldstone

The second pilot of "Star Trek" is titled after the famous mantra of the franchise, though "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was aired as the third episode of the first season. This episode was meant to introduce viewers to the general concepts of "Star Trek," with a standard mission gone awry—as a result, helmsman Gary Mitchell gains psychic and telekinetic powers, proclaiming himself to be god-like. "Above all else, a god needs compassion," Kirk says in one iconic scene when describing Mitchell's violent actions. As pivotal as the episode is, it lacks mainstay characters like McCoy and Uhura .

#22. This Side of Paradise (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Season 1, Episode 24 - Director: Ralph Senensky

Spock is often paired with short-term romantic interests in "Star Trek," and Episode 24 of the first season features one in the character Kalomi. Spock reunites with this botanist from his past on an away mission—he, Kirk, and McCoy beam down to a colony to find that all of its inhabitants are affected by spores that invoke an overly positive and lethargic attitude. For the half-human, half-Vulcan character Spock, it was another opportune time for him to explore his emotions as he found himself under the same influence.

#21. The Naked Time (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Season 1, Episode 4 - Director: Marc Daniels

The fourth episode of the show as a whole let the cast members let loose and act out of character. "The Naked Time" starts with Spock and a lieutenant observing frozen corpses in an abandoned research facility—after which they inadvertently bring some sort of sickness to the Enterprise that makes everyone affected act irrationally. Spock sheds tears and has an intimate moment with Nurse Chapel, but in a sillier (and iconic) scene, a shirtless Sulu runs amok with a sword .

#20. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Season 1, Episode 19 - Director: Michael O'Herlihy

The 19th episode of "Star Trek" Season One is a time-travel story, with the Enterprise finding itself above 1960s Earth. A U.S. Air Force pilot named John Christopher flies up to identify the ship, only to be beamed up by the crew. What ensues is a race to scrub all evidence of the Enterprise's visit to the 1960s while containing Christopher, all while trying to return home. In terms of "Star Trek" lore, the Enterprise's method of returning to the future is used again in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" and referenced in "Star Trek: Picard."

#19. Arena (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Season 1, Episode 18 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Episode 18 of "Star Trek" showcases some of Kirk's physical combat abilities as he is forced to fight a member of the reptile species known as the Gorn. The fight scene between Kirk and the Gorn captain was shot at the Vasquez Rocks , a location used so frequently by the franchise that it is nicknamed the "Star Trek Rocks." Modern audiences have mocked and parodied the fight scene , but its iconic status has never been disputed.

#18. The Tholian Web (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 3, Episode 9 - Directors: Herb Wallerstein, Ralph Senensky

Season Three, Episode 9 of "Star Trek" begins with the Enterprise searching for its sister ship, the Defiant. Unfortunately, the Defiant's crew had perished somehow, and the Enterprise crew find themselves up against interdimensional beings known as the Tholians. As they create an energy web around the entire Enterprise, Kirk is believed lost and the crew members begin to fall to the same madness that led to the Defiant crew's demise. The plotlines of the Defiant and the Tholian Web are followed up in the prequel show "Enterprise," in the 2005 two-part episode "In a Mirror, Darkly."

#17. The Ultimate Computer (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 2, Episode 24 - Director: John Meredyth Lucas

In a premise that still rings true today due to the prevalence of artificial intelligence, Season Two, Episode 24 features a computer named M-5, designed and built to handle all ship functions. Unsurprisingly, M-5 begins to turn malevolent, effectively trying to replace Kirk as the captain and attacking other Federation starships. "Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them," Spock tells Kirk at one point.

#16. A Taste of Armageddon (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 1, Episode 23 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Episode 23 of Season One features a rather unique sci-fi concept—a planet that fights war through virtual means. Kirk lands on a planet that is in conflict with another planet, and the long war between the two is fought in a simulation; when someone "dies" in the simulation, they are killed in real life. Unfortunately for Kirk, the Enterprise is destroyed in the simulation, but Kirk naturally refuses to destroy his ship and crew. Despite the dire premise, the resolution of the episode has fans believing it to be an overall optimistic story .

#15. The Corbomite Maneuver (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 1, Episode 10 - Director: Joseph Sargent

The 10th overall episode of "Star Trek" was the first to be shot after the pilot episode, and it features a memorable encounter with an alien named Balok (featured in the closing credits of the show). Balok claims that he is all-powerful and will destroy the Enterprise, giving the crew 10 minutes, but Kirk calls Balok's bluff. Summing up the lesson of the episode, Kirk remarks: "You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as the unknown—only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood."

#14. All Our Yesterdays (1969)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 3, Episode 23 - Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

Season Three, Episode 23 of "Star Trek" features some recurring tropes of the show, such as time travel and Spock having a brush with romance. The main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy each end up in two distant time periods of a planet. Spock and McCoy encounter a woman named Zarabeth, whom McCoy is suspicious of and Spock falls in love with rather quickly. While most time-travel episodes center around Earth, using this narrative device to explore the past of an alien planet was thought to be unique by fans.

#13. Errand of Mercy (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 1, Episode 26 - Director: John Newland

Episode 26 of Season One utilizes the Klingons as the main foes, with "Errand of Mercy" depicting the beginning of a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Kirk and Spock visit a neutral planet near the Klingon Border called Organia and attempt to convince its people to resist Klingon forces in this Cold War allegory episode . While the peaceful Organians appear to be primitive at first, they soon surprise Kirk and Spock as well as the Klingons. The main antagonist, the Klingon named Kor, returns in "Deep Space Nine."

#12. The Menagerie: Part II (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 1, Episode 12 - Directors: Robert Butler, Marc Daniels

Spock is under court martial in Season One, Episode 12, in this conclusion to the previous episode. This second part features the psychic Talosian aliens more heavily, as well as the character of Number One, who is portrayed by Roddenberry's second wife, Majel Barrett. With the previous episode establishing Captain Pike's tragic injuries, this second half provides a happier ending for the former captain of the Enterprise.

#11. The Menagerie: Part I (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Season 1, Episode 11 - Directors: Marc Daniels, Robert Butler

Season One, Episode 11 revisited events from the unaired pilot episode of "Star Trek," titled "The Cage." That pilot had featured Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) instead of Kirk, but "The Menagerie" clarifies that Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before Kirk. At this point in time, Pike has been horrifically injured, bound to a chair, and only able to communicate through beeps. Pike and Spock once again end up on the planet Talos IV for some unfinished business, and the episode utilizes footage from "The Cage" extensively as flashbacks for budgetary reasons.

#10. The Devil in the Dark (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.3 - Season 1, Episode 25 - Director: Joseph Pevney

"Star Trek" is arguably its most memorable when it teaches viewers about compassion and pacifism, and Episode 25 of the first season very much demonstrates this. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy begin to assist a mining colony dealing with a creature responsible for killing workers. Upon encountering the creature, the main characters begin to understand its nature better, and instead spare it and cure it, facilitating a symbiotic relationship between the creature and the miners.

William Shatner considers the episode one of his favorites, but behind the scenes, Shatner's father passed away during production , necessitating the temporary use of a body double while he attended his father's funeral.

#9. The Enterprise Incident (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.4 - Season 3, Episode 2 - Director: John Meredyth Lucas

The writers of "Star Trek" loved to use sudden irrational behavior by the characters as plot devices, and Episode 2 of the third season features Captain Kirk going off the rails. The Enterprise is on a secret mission to steal a Romulan cloaking device, and they encounter a female Romulan commander who eventually takes an interest in Spock. Kirk acts erratically through the episode and is even declared unfit to captain, leading to a dramatic episode overall.

#8. Journey to Babel (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.5 - Season 2, Episode 10 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Some significant characters in "Star Trek" lore make their first appearance in Episode 10 of Season Two, as Spock's parents Sarek and Amanda (the latter being human) feature heavily. Sarek, an ambassador, is wrongly accused of murdering a foreign dignitary, and it's up to Spock to clear his name. While Sarek and Amanda made more appearances in future "Star Trek" media, this episode is their only appearance in the original series.

#7. Amok Time (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.6 - Season 2, Episode 1 - Director: Joseph Pevney

The season premiere of "Star Trek" Season Two introduced concepts that would permeate larger popular culture. Spock's bizarre behavior leads the characters to learn about pon farr, a physiological phenomenon related to Vulcan mating. Viewers meet Spock's betrothed, a Vulcan named T'Pring, and the iconic Vulcan salute is used for the first time in this episode. The events culminate in a fight between Kirk and Spock, with the scene and its incidental music parodied in movies like "The Cable Guy" and shows including "Futurama."

#6. The Doomsday Machine (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.7 - Season 2, Episode 6 - Director: Marc Daniels

Catastrophic destruction is the main threat of Season Two, Episode 6, aptly titled "The Doomsday Machine." The Enterprise finds that one of its sister ships, the Constellation, has been heavily damaged by a machine capable of destroying planets. Matt Decker, one of the ship's survivors, goes on a mad campaign against the machine, jeopardizing the Enterprise in the process. While Decker doesn't make it by the end of the episode, his son Willard Deckard is a main character in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

#5. Space Seed (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.7 - Season 1, Episode 22 - Director: Marc Daniels

Episode 22 of the first season introduced perhaps the most recognizable villain in all "Star Trek" media: Khan Noonien Singh, portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán. A genetically engineered man from the past, Khan attempts to lead his people in overthrowing the Enterprise. While Khan was thwarted and exiled, he would later return in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," widely thought to be the greatest "Star Trek" movie in the franchise .

#4. The Trouble with Tribbles (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.8 - Season 2, Episode 15 - Director: Joseph Pevney

"Star Trek" isn't just political allegory and technobabble—there has to be levity sometimes as well. Enter the tribbles, cute little fuzzy creatures that create a problem for the Enterprise, as a tribble found in a space station begins multiplying rapidly. Meanwhile, conflict arises between Enterprise crew members and Klingons, culminating in a brawl in the space station. For the 30th anniversary of "Star Trek," an episode of "Deep Space Nine" titled "Trials and Tribble-ations" revisited the events of this episode, digitally inserting the "Deep Space Nine" cast into the events of the original episode.

#3. Balance of Terror (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.8 - Season 1, Episode 14 - Director: Vincent McEveety

Episode 14 of the first season of "Star Trek" is essential viewing, as it introduces the antagonistic Romulan race, a staple of the "Star Trek" universe. The centerpiece of this action-packed episode is a cat-and-mouse game between the Enterprise and a Romulan vessel with cloaking capabilities, leading to exciting and tense encounters. It's an episode full of high emotion that explores the effect and ramifications of war, with Kirk and the Romulan commander speculating that in another life, perhaps they could have been friends.

#2. Mirror, Mirror (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 9.0 - Season 2, Episode 4 - Director: Marc Daniels

Episode 4 of Season Two of "Star Trek" had the first look into another dimension within the lore, often referred to as the Mirror Universe. In this reality, the Federation is instead the Terran Empire, which is aggressive and militaristic in nature. The USS Enterprise is instead the ISS Enterprise, torture in the Agony Booth is the main form of discipline, and Mirror Spock famously fashions a goatee . The Mirror Universe has become a mainstay in most "Star Trek" shows, and the use of a beard to signify an evil doppelganger is an often used and parodied trope .

#1. The City on the Edge of Forever (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 9.2 - Season 1, Episode 28 - Director: Joseph Pevney

In quite possibly the most famous episode in the entire "Star Trek" franchise, Captain Kirk faces an unimaginable moral dilemma. A chase for an unwell McCoy leads to history being changed, and the Enterprise crew members find themselves in Depression-era New York City to repair the damage. Kirk falls in love with a social worker named Edith Keeler, but to his dismay, he discovers that for the timeline to be restored, Edith must be allowed to die. The tragic ending, Shatner's performance, high regard from both the cast and crew of "Star Trek," and multiple awards solidified "City" as the most celebrated "Trek" episode of all time .

Data reporting by Luke Hicks. Copy editing by Tim Bruns. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.

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This Side of Paradise

• View history

"This Side of Paradise" was the 25th episode of Star Trek: The Original Series in the show's first season , first aired on 2 March 1967 . The episode was written by Nathan Butler MA and D.C. Fontana , directed by Ralph Senensky MA and novelized in Star Trek 5 by James Blish . A remastered version of this episode was aired in syndication, premiering on 28 July 2007 .

• 2.1.1 Episode characters
• 2.1.2 Novelization characters
• 2.2 Starships and vehicles
• 2.3 Locations
• 2.4 Races and cultures
• 2.5 States and organizations
• 2.6 Other references
• 3.1.1 Adaptations
• 3.1.2 Video releases
• 3.3.1.1 Translations
• 3.4 External link

Summary [ ]

The Enterprise is sent to investigate the colony of Omicron Ceti III . After three years of exposure to Berthold rays , the colonists are expected to be dead. The crew is surprised to find the colonists alive, happy and in perfect health. They have a perfect world . A world with no hate, violence, death or disease . They are vegetarians, who only farm what they need. It is a true paradise.

The landing party beams to the surface and meets Elias Sandoval, the leader of the group. He introduces them to Leila Kalomi, a beautiful, young botanist who had fallen in love with Spock six years earlier on Earth. She promises to show Spock how they have survived on the planet with Berthold ray exposure and leads him to a secluded section of the planet where one of the plants spray him with their spores. Leila tells Spock that the plant induces feelings of happiness and love. Spock tells Leila that he can love her and decides to stay with her on the planet. He is happy with Leila, watching clouds, hanging from trees...and engaging in other "activities".

Other members of the crew begin to become infected with the spores and some of the plants are beamed aboard the Enterprise where more of the crew are affected.

Captain Kirk, the last to be infected, is affected by the spores. He prepares to beam down, but his desire to remain on the Enterprise is to strong and destroys the spore influence.

Kirk coxes Spock into beaming back to the ship, where he angers Spock into a fist fight. The anger that wells up in Spock causes the spore influence to subside and Spock returns to normal. They then head to the bridge to begin getting the crew back.

Leila contacts the ship and speaks with Spock; she asks to see the ship. Spock beams her up and she quickly learns that he has been cured. Spock tells Leila that he has a responsibility to the ship and to Jim. She tells him that she still loves him after she realizes that she's lost him.

Using a subsonic sound wave, Kirk and Spock bring the rest of the crew and colonists out from the influence. The colonists realize that the spores have made them stagnant and they plan to relocate.

Back on the bridge, McCoy observes that this is the second time man has been kicked out of paradise. "No no Bones, this time we walked out on our own," Kirk muses. Kirk asks Spock what his thoughts were on Omicron Ceti III. Spock responds, "for the first time in my life, I was happy."

References [ ]

Characters [ ], episode characters [ ], novelization characters [ ], starships and vehicles [ ], locations [ ], races and cultures [ ], states and organizations [ ], other references [ ], appendices [ ], related media [ ], adaptations [ ].

Video releases [ ]

Connections [ ]

Timeline [ ], translations [ ], external link [ ].

• " This Side of Paradise " article at Memory Alpha , the wiki for canon Star Trek .
• This Side of Paradise article at Wikipedia , the free encyclopedia.
• ↑ The character of Clifford Brent was not named in the episode but the same actor, wearing an officer 's Starfleet uniform , was addressed as Brent in TOS episode : " The Naked Time ". The same actor also played the character of Vinci .
• ↑ The character Vinci was not named in the episode but the same actor, wearing the same operations division Starfleet uniform , was addressed as Vinci in TOS episode : " The Devil in the Dark ". The same actor also played the character of Clifford Brent .
• 1 Tzenkethi
• 2 The Chase
• 3 Preserver (race)

Star Trek : "This Side Of Paradise" / "The Devil In The Dark"

Related content.

We've seen Spock dead; we've seen him sick and struggling against his emotions; we've seen him make mistakes; but this may be a first. This week—we see Spock smile. Not smirk, not half-grin, not appear bemused. The sonofabitch flat out, nothing held back, maybe five degrees split from actual hilarity, smiles. It's something of a shock.

We've talked before about Kirk's passion for blowing up societies that don't agree with him, and, of what we've seen so far, this week's "This Side Of Paradise" presents that passion in its starkest terms. It's an intriguingly ambiguous episode, for all the theatrics and occasional silliness; Spock isn't the only one to find satisfaction on Omicron Ceti III, but his emergent joy of life is the most symbolic both of what the planet offers to everyone on board the Enterprise, and what it ultimately takes away. That smile of his—it's shocking because smiling just isn't Spock's way. It never has been. Can an effect that so thoroughly distorts his personality be said to be a positive one? But then, if that effect leaves him content, how could it be anything but?

150 men, women, and children settled on Omicron four years ago. (Weird how you don't see any kids bopping around the planet surface. The issue's never raised, but seeing as it hasn't been that long, wouldn't you expect at least a few teenagers? It could be an oversight, but I like to think of it's something more sinister; the plant spores that make everybody so darn happy, and protect them from the deadly rays that destroy all animal matter, well, maybe those spores don't really work for kids. Maybe each and every living adult still on Omicron watched their children die; only they were so delighted by everything that it never occurred to them to care. I guess that would make Kirk's fight against the spore-heads a bit more black-and-white.) Sorry, got lost in the parenthetical. Settlers, planet, Enterprise comes to check things out—right, here we are. The place is constantly being bombarded by deadly energy called "berthold rays," which seem to guarantee that there'd be no survivors left of the original colony. Not really sure about the line of thought here for the initial colonization—Kirk implies that Elias Sandoval, head of the settlers, knew about the possibility of rays, but decided to take his (and their) chances anyway. But nobody's heard back from Sandoval or his group in a while, and the assumption is, everybody's toast. The rays don't immediately kill you—takes about a week for the effect to set in—so it's safe enough for Kirk, McCoy, Spock, Sulu, and a couple random guys to beam down. They see white picket fences, houses, barns; and just as someone mentions how all the people must be dead, a group of men in green-gray overalls shows up. Their leader identifies himself as Sandoval, and while McCoy has to give everyone a full physical, the truth seems obvious; the colonists are alive and well, berthold rays be damned. Of course, something must be up. McCoy senses it when, after doing a check-up on Sandoval, he finds that the man is actually too healthy; he's missing scar tissue on his lungs from an early surgery. It's Spock who discovers the cause, courtesy of his long-lost love, Leila. (I love the awkwardness of Spock having a romantic past; with Kirk, we expect broken hearts strewn across the galaxy, but it's a surprise to find out that Spock had a sort-of girlfriend at one point. From what we get in the episode, she loved him, but he never admitted anything on his part. We never really find out why, apart from Spock's obvious reluctance to admit to any feeling, and that's probably for the best.) Leila's talked it over with Sandoval, and has gotten the go ahead to bring Spock in with the team. So she tells him the answer to all his questions is in this really fake looking plant. When Spock gets too close, the plant hits him with some spores and ta-da: smiling half-Vulcan. One of the reasons "Paradise" still works as well as it does (and I'd rank it as one of the best of the first season) is that for all its melodrama—between Spock and Leila, and Kirk's struggles against himself, there's a lot to go around—the ep has a terrific sense of humor about itself. Just seeing Kirk trying to deal with a goofy, carefree first officer is great fun; from their first conversation post-sporification to Kirk's utter astonishment at finding Spock literally up a tree, it's some of the funniest stuff we've seen in the show. (Slightly less funny, but still sort of charming, are McCoy's Southern accent and attempts to construct a mint julep once he gets infected.) I really love Kirk and McCoy's brief conversation after Spock's first refusal to come back. McCoy notes that Spock doesn't sound like himself, and Kirk tells the doctor, "I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little." McCoy's immediate backpedaling of "I didn't say that!" tells you a lot about the character. Sandoval and his people have survived exposure to berthold rays because the plant spores render them immune. In addition, the spores make everybody cheery as hell, but they also take away a person's drive to accomplish anything. In all the time they've been on the planet, none of the colonists have made any progress in the scientific research that had driven them there in the first place. This lack of ambition becomes an even more serious problem when Spock and Sandoval arrange for the rest of the Enterprise's crew to get infected; Starfleet has issued orders that the colonists are to leave the planet, and Sandoval would rather bring everybody on the ship down to his level then leave such a good thing behind. With Spock's help, the conquest is a breeze, although it has to be one of the most laid-back mutinies in history—there's no forced exposure to the plants, and no attempt to force anyone to do anything. Just careful placement of the plants and crossed fingers. (The reason behind this lack of aggression becomes much clearer by the end.) Soon enough, Kirk is the only man left aboard the Enterprise who isn't marvelling at the way his hand does that thing, y'know, that thing, and man, we really are a living part of the universe, y'know? Whoa. On his own, there's not much Kirk can accomplish, aside from bemoan his fate; Uhura sabotaged communications, so there's no way to get a message to Starfleet as to what's going on. Inevitably Kirk himself is infected, but before he can beam down to the planet, his innate sense of duty rises up and forces him back to sanity; he realizes that violent emotions, like rage, are the only way to cure the spore's influence. So he beams Spock up and picks a fight with him. (More great dialogue from Kirk: Spock is "a simpering, devil-eared freak, who's father was a computer and who's mother was an encyclopedia." And the unforgettable topper: "You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship. Right next to the dog face boy!") After a brief scuffle, Spock is Spock again, and that means it's only a quick spot of work to get everybody else "healthy." While Kirk's point about humans needing forward momentum to be human is well taken, and Sandoval himself is horrified at his inaction while infected, it's a little sad to see everybody stripped away from such a pleasant mindset. Nowhere is that sadness more apparent than when Spock confronts Leila after he's been "saved" by Kirk; he basically tells her that whether or not he has feelings for her, he is who he is, and he has his duty. This heartbreak frees Leila, although neither she nor Spock seem particularly relieved to be free. There's no sense of judgment in the episode about their sense of loss, either. In the coda, Spock tells Kirk, "for the first time in my life… I was happy." It's a simple statement; Kirk doesn't offer an apology for destroying his happiness, and Spock doesn't ask for one. Just a simple melancholic fact of existence: we are who are. Delightfully, "Devil In The Dark" provides us with the one thing "Paradise" lacked: monsters! Or rather, monster, singular. (I guess the plants shooting the spores are sort of monster-like, but they don't have much in the way of personality.) Janus VI has some of the richest pergium deposits in the galaxy —and that's a good thing, since everybody wants and needs pergium. The mining colony on the planet has run into some serious problems of late, though. First their equipment started disintegrating, and then people started dying. Fifty so far, and the deaths haven't been pretty; corpses burned beyond all recognition. Vanderberg, the colony head, is at his wit's end. Something's out there, in the dark. Something that isn't affected by phaser fire, and can't be stopped. Enter the Enterprise. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy beam down, and a preliminary scan of the planet shows that there are no other life forms around apart from Vanderberg's crew. But the scans only look for carbon-based life; what if there's something else out there? Vanderberg lays down the situation: a number of planets depend on Janus VI's pergium output, but they haven't been able to get work done during the attacks. All they've got now are a bunch of useless silicon nodules that litter the mine. Even more frustrating, Venderberg's men had just found a huge new deposit of the mineral right before miners started getting killed. It was on the lower levels, ones that they hadn't explored before, and if they could only get at it, everyone's problems would be solved. Before anything can be decided, though, the monster strikes again, this time stealing a crucial part from the mine's nuclear reactor. The colonists don't have a spare kicking around, and neither does Scotty; something to do with the equipment being too out of date. This is not good at all, because while Scotty can work up a temporary fix, sooner or later, the reactor's going to fail and everyone is going to die. Now it's not just the potential danger of the monster killing again; now it's a matter of life and death. (Okay, so everybody could just beam back up and leave, but dammit, people need their pergium!) I expect even those of you who haven't seen the episode have made the connection, yes? When the miners broke into the lower levels, they pissed something off, and that something has been taking its revenge ever since. It's just like a classic monster flick—stupid humans wake up a beasty, beasty rampages, poor beasty has to pay the ultimate price for human carelessness. And one of the reasons "Devil" is so cool is that it plays out a lot like a monster movie, from the POV shots that hide the nature of the threat till the last minute, to the way everybody has a bad habit of wandering off alone. It's not all that scary to me now, especially knowing the ending, but as a kid, this was by the far the freakiest of original Trek episodes. Even seeing the monster, which, to an unkind eye, is just a goofy looking hunky of carpet, didn't make me feel better. Something about the cheapness of the effect actually made it more threatening; that something could look that silly, and still be a threat. Another common element of all those fifties monster movies is the not-entirely-sane scientist who demands that the creature be captured for the purposes of, um, humanity and learning and padding out the plot. Here we have Mr. Spock, a more than adequate substitute; he spends the episode the usual three or four steps ahead of everyone else (although notice how he doesn't come out and actually say that the silicon nodules are eggs until Kirk does? Either he's covering his ass, or we just had to make sure Kirk made the most important discovery, even if somebody else beat him to the punch), and he figures out quickly that while only one monster has been doing the attacking on Janus, the place used to be filled with 'em. He expresses regret to Kirk that the creature must be killed, and even suggests to the security team the Enterprise sends down (all red-shirts, poor bastards) that it might be nice to capture the thing alive, if possible. Unlike those earlier scientists, however, Spock is still a realist. When Kirk wanders off and gets trapped by the creature, Spock demands over the communicators that Kirk kill the thing for his own protection. Thing is, the creature isn't making any threatening moves. Earlier in the ep, Spock and Kirk decided that one of the reasons why the colonists' phaser fire wasn't damaging the beasty was that they only had "phaser 1." When the two bump into the thing themselves, they fire on it using phaser 2, which damages it but doesn't kill it. And now, face to, er, shag with the thing, Kirk sees the wound. Is it reluctant to attack now that it knows it can be hurt? Or is it trying to communicate something? Spock arrives, and decides the only way to proceed is to attempt to mind-meld with the thing. In his first try, he doesn't make physical contact; all he manages to discover is that the creature is called a "Horta," and it's in severe pain. The brief connection is enough to pass on information to the Horta, who burns a message in the rock: "NO KILL I." That's enough for Kirk—while Vanderberg's men are getting increasingly restless outside, Kirk summons McCoy. Spock is going to make another pass at mind melding, this time with actual touch, and Kirk is determined that the Horta survive the attempt. "Devil" is mostly a showcase for Kirk and Spock (Spock's mind melding acting is—well, we'll get to that), but McCoy gets one of his great moments here, when confronted by a wounded creature whose biological composition is so alien it might as well be inanimate. Spock earlier theorized that the Horta is silicon-based life, as opposed to us carbon-based folks; McCoy reacted with his usual skepticism, but Spock's theory proved out, as it explains why the phasers were so useless on the thing, and also why it was able to tunnel so efficiently through rock. (Well, that plus the corrosive juices it secretes.) This puts McCoy in a quandary; as he helpfully points out to Kirk, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer," but Kirk isn't having any of it. So McCoy pulls up his sleeves and improvises, using thermoconcrete from the Enterprisee to patch the Horta's injury. Works like a charm, and McCoy is understandably pleased: "Jim, I'm beginning to think I can cure a rainy day!" Vanderberg and his men are less than pleased, though; with the Horta cornered, they see their chance to strike, even going so far as to attack the red-shirts Kirk left behind to keep things orderly. They break into the room just as Spock is ending his last session—and I said I was going to talk about his mind meld, right? It should be ridiculous. Spock's basically groping a puppet and treating it like a massive spiritual and moral struggle. But it works; I'm willing to bet if you asked somebody who hadn't watched "Devil" in a while to tell you what they remembered best from it, they'd say the Horta, and Spock yelling "PAIN!" It's not memorable because it's campy, either. Nimoy's acting sells it because he never allows for a moment that what he's doing is absurd. He commits, as my old acting teacher would say, and the sequence becomes this whole tragic, horrifying tribute both to his skills as a performer and the writer behind the episode. What Spock learns is something most of us probably figured out twenty minutes ago: the silicon nodules are eggs, and the miners inadvertently destroyed them while moving into the lower levels of the planet. The current Horta is the last one of her kind alive; they have a curious life cycle, in which every 50,000 years the entire race but one dies, and it's her job to stick around and take care of the eggs. So she'd be a little pissed if those eggs were threatened. The old "scary monster is just a loving mama" routine is familiar, but effective, and it nicely reinforces one of TOS 's big themes: to paraphrase Pogo, we have met the alien, and it is us. Vanderberg realizes the error of his ways, and an arrangement between Horta and humans is made. Everything winds up happily after all, unless you're some miner's widow, and I'm sure they were all bachelors anyway. Not a bad way to come off last week; both "Paradise" and "Devil" are classics. I could nitpick a little, if I were so inclined, but I think I'll just leave off here. For some reason, seeing the Horta always makes me want a pizza. Grades: "This Side Of Paradise": A "Devil In The Dark": A Stray Observations:

• Ah, Spock: "Emotions are alien to me. I am a scientist."
• Spock tells Leila she "couldn't pronounce" his first name. I wonder, when was the first time that gag got used?
• Love the exchange between Kirk and Spock when Kirk tries to send Spock away from the Horta hunt; apparently the odds of them both getting killed are 2,228.7 to 1.
• Up next week: "Errand Of Mercy" and (ugh) "The Alternative Factor"

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Star Trek – This Side of Paradise (Review)

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Star Trek always had a curious relationship with the hippie movement in the late sixties. On a surface level, you’d assume that the series would have a great deal of empathy for the idealistic and pacifist movement. After all, the show embraced counter-culture in a fairly significant way, offering none-too-subtle criticisms of American foreign policy in episodes like A Taste of Armageddon , and harbouring some very serious concerns about authority in adventures like Dagger of the Mind . What was The Naked Time but an embrace of fin de siècle anxiety mere months before “the summer of love” ? After all, the nineteenth century European fin de siècle period had produced Der Wandervogel, considered one of the predecessors to the hippie movement .

And yet the show never seemed entirely comfortable with the youth movement. This would be much more obvious third season’s dire The Way to Eden , but the show’s sense of unease is quite palpable here, as Kirk finds himself trying to deal with a crew that have sampled some mind-altering vegetation and are now embracing free love.

Flower power…

This Side of Paradise is very clearly about the hippy movement. The colonists on Omicron Ceti III couldn’t embody the movement better if they tried. They live on a farming planet which produces enough food to sustain them. They don’t consume anything beyond what they need. “We’re vegetarians,” Elias explains helpfully. They’ve also stumbled upon a way to enhance their mind, using all-natural spores, using what Spock would describe as “a happiness pill.” They might use spores instead of mushrooms, but the colonists are clearly meant to be under the influence of something similar to LSD.

They offer a world that is no longer slavishly devoted to technological advancement, where there is no larger machine for the people to serve. In a way, their philosophy is quite regressive, as Elias explains, “Our philosophy is a simple one, that men should return to a less complicated life. We have few mechanical things here. No vehicles, no weapons. We have harmony here. Complete peace.” He has, in essence, built a “perfect world” , one devoted to the needs and wants of the people living in it.

Reaping what they sew…

There is a sense of “free love” and communal sharing. “Now,” Leila tells Spock, “you belong to all of us and we to you. There’s no need to hide your inner face any longer. We understand.” You could argue that Omicron Ceti III represents another rejection of communism from Star Trek , similar to the way the show dismissed the paradise that Landru had created on Beta III. Here, everything is shared, even the self.

However, if  This Side of Paradise is intended as a criticism of communism, it feels like a more balanced and nuanced critique than the version see in The Return of the Archons . Here, there is no “red hour” where the world seems to tear itself apart due to the expression of repressed desires. Omicron Ceti III has no secret police or brainwashing to impose the will of the collective over anybody else. Indeed, individualism is celebrated on Omicron Ceti III, to the point where everybody is allowed to do whatever they want to do. There is no larger obligation to the colony. Even Spock is able to indulge his own wants and desires more than ever before.

Never too far afield…

According to The History of Star Trek – Trek Classic , This Side of Paradise was written with one eye on the hippy movement, its philosophy and its trappings:

“I have a whole drawer full of ideas,” adds Sohl on the story’s genesis, “and I had the idea that… spores, as you know, are inanimate up until the point when they are mixed with water or with anything else, then they come alive. Like yeast. So I had the idea that these things could be consumed by someone and as a result the whole character chemistry of that person could change to a nice, peaceful and loving person. In other words, it was a psychedelic kind of thing. A lot of that was going on at the time. The premise of the thing was that everyone on the Enterprise takes LSD. What would happen? In effect, that’s what this was. They go down to the planet and they all get the spores in them and turn into different people. That was the basis of the whole thing, and I thought it was an interesting premise. It was the only time that Spock was allowed to be a loving, caring, cherishing human being. That was my idea. Worked out just swell, I think. I’ve forgotten what the payoff was. I think they had to be made angry. The adrenaline going into your system is what defeats the spores.”

It’s a metaphor that fits far more comfortably as a critique of hippy counter-culture than as a condemnation of communism.

A rose, by any other name…

It is worth noting that, despite the condemnations of communism in The Return of the Archons and of the hippy movement here, Star Trek is a franchise that generally leans a little bit to the left. Star Trek: The Next Generation features a socialist utopia existing in a post-scarcity economy, and the franchise generally espouses values that are associated with left-wing politics during the sixties. The series would champion racial equality, condemn the escalation of the Cold War and remain deeply critical of American foreign policy.

Star Trek is, after all, an attempt to imagine a western frontier,  without the systematic exploitation of the native people and the natural resources. And yet the condemnation of the hippy subculture in  This Side of Paradise actually feels quite consistent with what we’ve seen of Star Trek ‘s social conscience and attitudes. It is worth conceding that sixties counter-culture was not one gigantic and homogeneous political entity. Although there were obviously areas over overlap between the various sub-entities and branches under that umbrella, there was a huge diversity to be found.

We’ll just Ceti down over here…

In An Invasion of Centaurs , Theodore Roszak, the man responsible for coining the term “counter-culture” , outlined the most obvious divide:

To one side, there is the mind-blown bohemianism of the beats and hippies; to the other, the hard-headed political activism of the student New Left. Are these not in reality two separate and antithetical developments: the one (tracing back to Ginsberg, Kerouac, & Co.) seeking to “cop out” of American society, the other (tracing back to C. Wright Mills and remnants of the old socialist left) seeking to penetrate and revolutionise our political life?

Star Trek very clearly has a great deal of empathy for the political New Left. Indeed, as noted above, Roddenberry would embrace a lot of their philosophy when it came to crafting Star Trek: The Next Generation . However, it has very little patience for what Roszak classified as “the mind-blown bohemianism of the beats and the hippies” trying to opt out of contemporary American political culture.

Spock’s pollen allergies are acting up…

This is entirely in keeping with the philosophy of Star Trek , particularly at this early stage of its life. Political apathy and disengagement were not to be celebrated. You didn’t simply reject a system you found to be distasteful. You tried to change it from the inside. Political change only came around through hard work. The system only gets fixed if you are willing to commit to fixing it. Running away from political injustices and dwelling on a theoretical and abstract existential utopia did little to help anybody.

The main condemnation of the colonists in This Side of Paradise is levelled at their general apathy towards anything except their own wants and desires. “Well, sir,” Leslie reports to Kirk, “for an agricultural colony, they have actually very little acreage planted. There’s enough to sustain the colony, but very little more.” They are wasting their opportunity and their potential. When Elias is woken from his state of bliss, he laments, “We’ve done nothing here. No accomplishments, no progress. Three years wasted.”

No Bones about it…

As noted in Deep Space and Sacred Time: Star Trek in the American Mythos , this fits quite well with the way that the classic Star Trek treated the concept of utopia.

In This Side of Paradise, Kirk angrily counters Sandoval’s claim of a “perfect world,” saying that “man stagnates if he has no wants, no ambitions, no desire to be more than he is.” Against the arrested cultural development of the Feeders of Vaal, or the deliberate primitivism of a return to a “simpler” life in The Return of the Archons and This Side of Paradise, Trek suggests that people have a responsibility to their species’ collective project of growth and change. Perfection, insofar as it is conceived of as a state of being rather than a project of becoming, is detrimental to the health of the individual, the society, and the species. By a cruel irony, utopians are doomed to live eternally in their constricted situation unless someone else intervenes, for utopia enervates people and deprives them of the drives that, in the usual course of things, would lead to growth and change.

For the original Star Trek , perfection was a path rather than a final destination, an unattainable goal that nobody could really hope to reach. The hope was that humanity might advance and evolve while striving towards it. As Kirk observes, “Maybe we weren’t meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can’t stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.”

Hanging on in there…

This a key difference in the philosophical outlook of the classic Star Trek and the first couple of seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation . At some point in the gap between the two shows, Roddenberry decided that mankind should shift from striving towards utopia to living in it. Michael Piller, writing in his unpublished book Fade In , would describe this as “the Roddenberry Box” , where Roddenberry would insist on crazy ideas like “in the twenty-fourth century, no one grieves – death is accepted as part of life.”

This approach would sap all drama from the first two years of the show, removing any potential for character drama, and making the Enterprise seem self-righteous and judgemental when confronted with cultures that did not conform to their value system, condescendingly looking down on the Ferengi in The Last Outpost or the Anticans and the Selay in Lonely Among Us . If you believe the writers, who struggled to write around Roddenberry’s restrictions, the show became as stagnant as the cultures the classic Star Trek used to condemn.

“I hope this ship has autopilot…”

As an aside, I do like that This Side of Paradise doesn’t work too hard to stack the deck in Kirk’s favour. Although the colonists are affected by alien spores, the spores aren’t presented as sinister or evil. They aren’t parasitically feeding off the crew, and there’s no convenient health risk that makes it necessary to eliminate them.The relationship seems genuinely symbiotic, with the spores actively protecting the colonists.

“You see, they actually thrive on Berthold rays,” Spock explains. “The plants act as a repository for thousands of microscopic spores until they find a human body to inhabit.” Alias adds, “In return, they give you complete health and peace of mind.” It would be easy to make them evil and villainous, but This Side of Paradise resists the temptation. They seem genuinely peaceful, and Kirk’s destruction of them seems almost cruel. “You said they were benevolent and peaceful. Violent emotions overwhelm them, destroy them.” Kirk and his crew essentially hate an alien life form to death.

“Okay, Spock… I concede that McCoy might be a little bit racist…”

In fact, This Side of Paradise represents a dramatic shift in the depiction of space in Star Trek . Earlier in the season, space had been presented as vast and empty. It was full of the ruins of dead civilisations on dying worlds, and threats just waiting to strike at anybody stupid enough to wander along. Here, for the first time, space seems somewhat benign. Omicron Ceti III is a veritable Eden, filmed on a ranch that had been used for Gunsmoke , cementing the sensation that Star Trek was a “space western.”

Discussing the colony, Kirk explains, “It took these people a year to make the trip from Earth.” It doesn’t seem that far, in the grand scheme of things, given the Enterprise has been to the edge of the galaxy. When those human settlers arrive, they find a local organism that actively helps them survive. There’s also a sign that the Enterprise crew themselves are getting more used to all the crazy stuff happening out there in the cosmos. Kirk protests, “But these people shouldn’t be alive.” Sulu, getting genre-savvy, replies, “Is it possible that they’re not?”

The seeds of doubt…

Indeed, This Side of Paradise is a rather wonderful respite from what is a very intense final third of the first year of Star Trek . The show has been pretty high stakes since the last “breather” episode, Tomorrow is Yesterday . Between Tomorrow is Yesterday and the end of the season, This Side of Paradise feels like the only time that Star Trek stops to catch its breath. And, even then, we’re still confronted with the possible destruction of the Enterprise as it falls from orbit.

Like Tomorrow is Yesterday , D.C. Fontana is largely responsible for This Side of Paradise . Fontana is probably the strongest character writer to work on the original Star Trek , and it was her re-write of This Side of Paradise that earned her the post of story editor. She whipped original writer Jerry Stohl’s script into shape, offering a final version of the story which seemed quite different from the script originally submitted by Stohl.

What’s up, Doc?

As The Star Trek Compendium notes, one of the more significant changes made by Fontana was the decision to focus the script on Spock:

The story outline and earliest first-draft script for This Side of Paradise were called The Way of the Spores, and were very different from the final episode. In these early drafts Mr. Sulu was the central figure in love with the Eurasian beauty Leila. McCoy discovered an internal condition that would have necessitated Sulu’s resignation from Starfleet service, had the spores not cured his condition. His illness gave Sulu a will to develop a relationship with Leila (just as similar circumstances would later affect McCoy’s judgment in For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky).

Although a Sulu-centric story would have been interesting, given the show’s tendency to focus on the leading trio, it makes a lot of sense to use Spock as the central character in a story about free love.

Leonard Nimoy was particularly sensitive to William Shatner’s spoken word work…

Fontana has confessed that Spock is her favourite member of the original cast . Part of the reason Fontana writes Spock so well is that she understands the character’s inherent contradictions:

Spock was always meant to be Mr. Logic, but we always knew that – underneath – there’d be all these raging hormones from the human side; that he was emotional; that he really did feel, but he had clamped it down so hard that he didn’t want to admit that he felt anything anymore. He was “true Vulcan” – all logic and no emotion. And we knew that wasn’t true.

This has already been hinted at repeatedly over the first season – most notably in The Naked Time and in The Galileo Seven – but This Side of Paradise delves into the issue in depth, conceding that Spock would probably be a lot happier and a lot better adjusted if he could acknowledge his human side. Refusing to do so, somewhat counter-intuitively, is highly illogical and demonstrates the root of the character’s internal conflict.

Well, Shatner always wanted a larger role…

Not only does this afford Leonard Nimoy to demonstrate that he is a fantastic actor, but it lends the story a sense of tragedy, as Kirk discovers that he must essentially ruin his best friend’s chance at happiness in order to get his crew back. It’s an interesting moral dilemma for Kirk, who has (along with McCoy) always urged Spock to embrace his human side. This Side of Paradise offers us a rare glimpse at a completely well-adjusted version of Spock, which is all the more tragic for the fact we know it can only be temporary.

This Side of Paradise also demonstrates that the series recognises Spock’s sex appeal. It’s remarkable that all three leads already had established romantic lives. Kirk seemed to hook up fairly regularly, and it seems like every Starbase housed a friend of one of Kirk’s ex-girlfriends. McCoy even got some action in Shore Leave . The show teased the possibility of Spock and Uhura hooking up in a few of the early episodes (they play a mean duet), recognising that even the stoic Mr. Spock was not entirely asexual. An early episode of the next season, Amok Time , would be dedicated to Spock’s sexual identity, as well.

Spock smash!

Spock was something of a sex symbol while the show was on the air. In 1967, Isaac Asimov penned an essay about how Spock was “dreamy.” Science fiction author Alice Sheldon, who wrote under the name James Tiptree Jr., had a crush on the character, as recounted in Julie Phillips’ James Tiptree, Jr.: The Double Life of Alice B. Sheldon :

Around this time, Alli fell under the spell of a new story about exploration. She started watching Star Trek, and saw in the crew of the enterprise her childhood travelling party, crossing the great unknown. Kirk was the fatherly leader of the expedition, while Mr. Spock, with his pointy ears and rational reserve, fit Alli’s dream of the unattainable alien. To her surprise, Alli developed a violent crush on Spock. As Tiptree, she wrote a long fan letter to Leonard Nimoy explaining Spock’s appeal. Since humans were naturally exogamous, tending to marry outside of their own group, and xenophilic, or naturally attracted to foreignness, a crush on Spock was an instinctive and almost biological reaction to his alien appearance: “the touching shoulder-blades, the tremor, the shadowed and infinitely effective squint.” To another correspondent] Harry Harrison, Tiptree sighed, “If only Spock had a sister…”

Asimov argued that Spock made it sexy to be smart, and it’s quite telling that one the elements that carried over to JJ Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek reboot was a sexualised Spock.

Spock finally flips…

That said, it is very hard to write about a sexualised Spock without dragging Kirk into the picture, and This Side of Paradise is an episode that contains particularly strong homoerotic undercurrents to the relationship between the duo. Those undercurrents are present throughout quite a few episodes, to the point where it’s hard to suspect that the writing staff didn’t include those hints intentionally. In Amok Time , for example, strangling Kirk to death is enough to satiate Spock’s impressive lust.

Come to think of it, the only time Spock falls in love with Kirk wrestling him back to sense is when Spock finds himself stranded in the distant past with Zarabeth in All Our Yesterdays . McCoy wrestles with him a bit, but apparently it’s just not the same. Even in the expanded universe of the tie-in novels, extrapolating from an off-hand line in Sarek , Spock only gets married after Kirk has long been pronounced dead. We all mourn in different ways.

It’s a plant!

The romantic pairing of Kirk and Spock is one of the earliest fan fiction “couplings” , creating an entire sub-genre of fan fiction known as “slash.” As David Grevin argues in Gender and sexuality in Star Trek , the homoerotic pairing is an essential part of Star Trek ‘s cult appeal:

Numerous same-sex relationships involving Star Trek have been invisioned by slash fiction writers, but none more famously than Kirk/Spock. When watching the original series, one has little trouble understanding the basis from which slash writers derived their fixation on this male couple. The love between Kirk and Spock is quite palpable, lending their banter a depth and urgency that exceeds the boundaries of typical male friendships on television. What comes through most vividly in the Original Series is Spock’s conflicted but insistent love for Kirk, a love that breaks through the boundaries of Vulcan propriety.

And so Spock’s “closeting” of his emotions, burying and repressing a side of himself that his society has deemed distasteful, becomes mirrored in the closeting of his attraction to Kirk in this interpretation of the character. It takes a potent metaphor and makes it more literal.

Don’t worry, Spock has seen The Happening and knows exactly how to handle this…

This episode is primary concerned with how Kirk reacts to Spock’s love life. Spock seldom interferes in Kirk’s love life, and is generally respectful. Here, Spock hooks up with a nice young lady, and Kirk is less than pleased about that. Kirk’s entire crew has abandoned him, but he focuses on Spock’s betrayal. To be entirely fair, that makes sense even outside a homoerotic reading of the story. Spock is both his science officer and his second-in-command. He is also, excluding possibly Bones, Kirk’s closest friend on the crew. Spock is also one of the very few members of the crew who could probably figure out what is going on, if he set his mind to the task.

And yet there is something quite pointed about the way that Kirk reacts to Spock’s choice. He seems offended that that Spock has picked a beautiful young woman over service to his captain. He beams Spock up to the ship alone so he can try to stir him out of this stupor. The two wrestle, which always seems to help Spock get his priorities straight when he is focusing on a beautiful young woman ahead of James Tiberius Kirk. For extra bonus points, Kirk is holding a very phallic pipe.

It’s a pipe dream…

Later on, when Spock suggests that he should talk to Leila again, Kirk rather pointedly suggests that it might not be a good idea, while still playing the role of a gentle and concerned friend. “Mister Spock, Miss Kalomi is strictly your concern, but should you talk to her while she’s still under the influence of the spores?” Listening to Shatner deliver the line, it almost sounds passive-aggressive, as if Kirk is trying to stir Spock away from the woman without coming across as too possessive or too jealous.

There are a few other points in the show’s run where the relationship between Kirk and Spock seems rather blatantly homoerotic, but This Side of Paradise is really the first episode that supports such a reading, with Kirk trying to pressure Spock into forgetting about his girlfriend so the two can continue to have wonderful adventures out in the cosmos. It adds a wonderful layer of subtext to This Side of Paradise , which is already a very fun episode for anybody fond of the show’s sixties trappings.

The crew is really flora-ishing down there…

We really are into a great run of episodes here. While the hippy commentary dates This Side of Paradise a little more than some of the surrounding adventures, it’s still a fantastic piece of Star Trek . As a rule, Spock-driven episodes are generally great fun. ( Spock’s Brain being the obvious exception.) Here, Fontana also gets a little further underneath the character’s skin, enhancing the tragedy suggested in The Naked Time . Spock is an emotional creature. His irrational inability to accept that fact means that he will never find the peace he craves. Only by giving up the struggle against his imperfect human half will Spock finally be able reconcile every part of himself.

It’s very good character writing, and it explains why Spock remains such a fascinating character almost half-a-century later.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the first season of the classic Star Tre k :

• Supplemental: Vulcan’s Glory by D.C. Fontana
• Supplemental: Early Voyages #1 – Flesh of my Flesh
• Supplemental: Crew by John Byrne
• Where No Man Has Gone Before
• The Corbomite Manoeuvre
• Mudd’s Women
• The Enemy Within
• The Man Trap
• The Naked Time
• Supplemental: My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
• Supplemental: Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne
• Supplemental: Errand of Vengeance: The Edge of the Sword by Kevin Ryan
• Dagger of the Mind
• The Conscience of a King
• The Galileo Seven
• Court Martial
• Supplemental: Early Voyages #12-15 – Futures
• Supplemental: Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno
• Shore Leave
• The Squire of Gothos
• Supplemental: Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman & Kevin Ryan
• Supplemental: The Fantastic Four #108 – The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man
• Tomorrow is Yesterday
• The Return of the Archon
• A Taste of Armageddon
• Supplemental: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II by Greg Cox
• This Side of Paradise
• The Devil in the Dark
• Supplemental: Spock Must Die! by James Blish
• Supplemental: The Final Reflection by John M. Ford
• Supplemental: The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison/Cordwainer Bird
• Supplemental: Crucible: McCoy – Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III
• Supplemental: Star Trek (Gold Key) #56 – No Time Like the Past
• Operation — Annihilate!

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: A Taste of Armageddon , C. Wright Mills , F. Scott Fitzgerald , Fitzgerald , Great Gatsby , James Tiptree , kirk , Naked Time , Return of the Archons , spock , star trek , Star Trek Into Darkness , star trek: the next generation , StarTrek , Sulu , This Side of Paradise , This Side of Paradise (Star Trek: The Original Series) , United States , Way to Eden , world war ii |

2 Responses

This is another episode I am very fond of. It does excellent work with Spock, examining the inner turmoil that he strives so hard to conceal and overcome. And the scene of an emotional, angry Spock seriously pummeling Kirk does go some way towards demonstrating why (McCoy’s protestations about logical thought to the contrary) the Vulcans felt it necessary to adopt a strictly non-emotional philosophy & lifestyle.

Certainly the events with Spock in this episode neatly parallel what happened in the Enterprise episode “Fusion” which aired many years later. Archer is nearly killed by Tolaris, a member of a breakaway group of vulcans who have rejected logic and embraced emotion. I forget the exact line, but aftewards Archer admits to T’Pol that he after that experience he is finally starting to understand why most Vulcans are the way they are, why they feel it necessary to be logical.

Another thing that “This Side of Paradise” reminds me of is the famous speech by Harry Line (Orson Welles) in the 1949 movie The Third Man:

“You know what the fellow said – in Italy, for thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, they had five hundred years of democracy and peace – and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock.”

There’s a real moral ambivalence to this whole episode as it raises the notion that peace and stability can perhaps inadvertantly lead to complacency and atrophy.

Yep, the original Star Trek was quite skeptical of utopia in places, wary of perfection. That makes it interesting to look at how readily the first season of TNG embraces it.

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This Side of Paradise &#8211; Episode 24

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Star Trek (TV Series)

This side of paradise (1967), william shatner: captain james tiberius 'jim' kirk.

• Quotes (13)

Photos 

Quotes 

Dr. McCoy : Well, that's the second time man's been thrown out of paradise.

Captain James T. Kirk : No, no, Bones, this time we walked out on our own. Maybe we weren't meant for paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.

Capt. Kirk : [Everybody is now safely back aboard Starship 'Enterprise']  We haven't heard much from you about Omicron Ceti III, Mr. Spock.

Spock : I have little to say about it, captain. Except that... for the first time in my life... I was happy.

Spock : Captain, striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offense.

Captain James T. Kirk : Well, if we're both in the brig, who's going to build the subsonic transmitter?

Spock : That is quite logical, captain.

Capt. Kirk : We're evacuating all colonists to Starbase 27.

Spock : No, I don't think so.

Capt. Kirk : You don't think so, WHAT?

Spock : I don't think so, SIR.

Captain James T. Kirk : I had to make you angry enough to shake off their influence. That's the answer, Mr. Spock.

Spock : That may be correct, Captain, but trying to initiate a brawl with over 500 crewmen and colonists is hardly logical.

Captain James T. Kirk : I had something else in mind.

Captain James T. Kirk : [after enticing a fight with Spock]  Anyhow, I don't know what you're so mad about. It isn't every first officer who gets to belt his captain... several times.

Capt. Kirk : [to Spock]  All right, you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed. We'll see about you deserting my ship.

Capt. Kirk : You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship - right next to the dog-faced boy.

Capt. Kirk : [after speaking over communicator to a blissed-out Spock]  The frequency is open, but he doesn't answer.

McCoy : That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim.

Capt. Kirk : No? I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little.

McCoy : I didn't say that!

Capt. Kirk : You said that, I...

McCoy : Not exactly! And he might be in trouble.

Capt. Kirk : I said get back to your station.

Lt. Leslie : No, sir.

Capt. Kirk : This is mutiny, mister.

Lt. Leslie : Yes, sir. It is.

Capt. Kirk : My orders are to remove all the colonists and that's exactly what I intend to do, with or without your help.

Elias Sandoval : Without, I should think.

Dr. McCoy : [after Elias walks off]  Would you like to use a butterfly net on him, Jim?

Captain James T. Kirk : [narrating]  Captain's log, stardate 3417.7. Except for myself, all crew personnel have transported to the surface of the planet, mutinied. Lieutenant Uhura has effectively sabotaged the communications station. I can only contact the surface of the planet. The ship can be maintained in orbit for several months, but even with automatic controls, I cannot pilot her alone. In effect, I am marooned here. I'm beginning to realize... just how big this ship really is. How quiet. I don't know how to get my crew back, how to counteract the effect of the spores. I don't know what I can offer against... paradise.

Capt. Kirk : Mr. Spock, there were 150 men, women and children in that colony. What're the chances of survivors?

Spock : Absolutely none, Captain. Berthold Rays are such a recent discovery, we do not yet have full knowledge of their nature. It is known, however, that living animal tissue disintegrates under exposure. Sandoval's group could not have survived after three years.

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Published Apr 10, 2024

A Brief History of the Progenitors in Star Trek

They designed life itself!

SPOILER WARNING: This article contains story details and plot points for Star Trek: Discovery 's "Red Directive ."

StarTrek.com

Captain Burnham's top-secret mission in the final season of Star Trek: Discovery has finally been revealed. But this time, the Discovery crew isn’t stopping a future-destroying A.I., or a lethal, extra-galactic force. Instead, they’re investigating the basic mysteries of why most species in the Star Trek universe look vaguely human.

As revealed in " Red Directive ," the search for technology used by ancient "Progenitors" sets-up a massive treasure hunt for the season. But, who are the Progenitors? What did Jean-Luc Picard know about the secrets of inter-species alien DNA? And how does all of this fit in with Gene Roddenberry’s earliest ideas for Star Trek ?

Here’s a brief history of the Progenitors, from the early 1960s, to the 24th Century, all the way to 2024, and the 31st Century.

The Real World-Origins of the Progenitors

"The Cage"

When the U.S.S. Enterprise first set out to seek out "new life and new civilizations," a huge swath of those alien lifeforms turned out to look a lot like human beings. And the primary reason for that, at least behind-the-scenes, was two-fold.

First, human actors are more affordable, and second, Gene Roddenberry wanted the classic Star Trek to avoid the sci-fi trope of "Bug-Eyed Monsters." And so, in one of the original 1964 pitch documents for Star Trek , Roddenberry floated the idea of "The Parallel Worlds" concept . The idea was that the format of Star Trek — from a writing and production standpoint — would generally deal with "...plant and animal life, plus people, quite similar to Earth. Social evolution will also have interesting points of similarity with ours."

Unlike a huge swath of science fiction on TV at the time, the promise of strange, new worlds, that were, in fact, populated by people , is something that set Star Trek apart, and was the cornerstone of what gave the series its humanist angle. But, the side effect of course, was an in-universe question — why were so many aliens humanoid?

The Old Ones, Sargon, and The Preservers

"The Paradise Syndrome"

The first two seasons of The Original Series are sprinkled with hints that, in the distant past, the galaxy was visited by super-powered aliens with technology far more advanced than anything in the Federation.

In " What Are Little Girls Made Of? ," we meet Ruk, an android built by "The Old Ones," an alien race capable of creating humanoid androids that were basically immortal. In " Return to Tomorrow ," the disembodied soul of Sargon, refers to humanity as "my children." While Dr. Muhuall says this idea flies in the face of evolutionary theory, Spock mentions the idea that aliens seeded life would "explain certain elements of Vulcan pre-history."

Then in Season 3, in " The Paradise Syndrome ," Bones and Spock tackle the question head-on. When they realize an ancient race of "Preservers" helped various humanoid species throughout the galaxy, the idea of an ancient alien race guiding and "seeding" a ton of humanoid species became less of a myth and more of a working theory. "I’ve always wondered why there were so many humanoids scattered through the galaxy," Bones says. To which Spock replies, "So have I. Apparently, the Preservers account for a number of them."

And then, the questions about an ancient humanoid species went answered. At least, until The Next Generation . 

"The Chase"

Directed by Jonathan Frakes and written by Ronald D. Moore and Joe Menosky, " The Chase " was a sixth-season episode of The Next Generation , which, according to The Next Generation Companion , was considered in the writers' room the most "Roddenberryesque" episode of TNG at that time. The story itself took cues from Carl Sagan's novel Contact , and posited that yes, ancient aliens not only seeded most of the humanoid species, but also hid a message in the DNA of all those species.

Captain Picard's interest in archeology comes in handy during the quest to locate all the DNA strands and reveal the message, which was also represented metaphorically by the ancient artifact known as the Kurlan naiskos .

At the end of the episode, representatives from the Klingon Empire, the Romulan Empire, the Cardassian Union, and the Federation, all witness the truth — an ancient Progenitor (played by Salome Jens) makes it clear that all the humanoid species in the galaxy don’t exist out of pure hubris, but instead, out of a kind of desire for legacy. "You are a monument, not to our greatness, but to our existence…. Remember us."

Ronald D. Moore pointed out that there's no reason to believe that the Progenitors from "The Chase" and the Preservers from TOS aren't one in the same. Though not explicitly stated in the script, he said, "But this could be them, and be internally consistent."

Discovery Brings It All Home

"Red Directive"

While The Next Generation established a canonical fact that TOS only danced around, that only answered the question of why . With Discovery Season 5, a stranger, and more complex question is getting broached — how ?

"The Chase" told us why there are so many humanoid species in the galaxy, but we had no idea how the Progenitors specifically pushed life to evolve on various planets toward the exact form of life we’re all so familiar with. As the crew of Discovery — and other forces — are in pursuit of this ancient tech, Star Trek is boldly speculating on one of the biggest questions of all time.

If there was a supreme intelligence behind the creation of life, what was their method? While these kinds of questions are somewhat mind-boggling in real life, what Discovery is doing now is what Star Trek has done all along: Ask provocative questions that are beyond what we know now, so that maybe, in the future, we’ll be better prepared.

We don’t know that the Progenitors exist in real science, but the "panspermia hypothesis," is a very real scientific concept. A friendly alien may not have consciously sparked life on Earth eons ago, but, in reality, it is possible that some building blocks for life itself may have come from the stars.

Get Updates By Email

Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

• Star Trek 101

'Star Trek: Discovery's Series Finale Will Be an Extended Episode [Exclusive]

Showrunner Michelle Paradise and star Sonequa Martin-Green also share their favorite 'Discovery' moments and how it felt to end the series.

The Big Picture

• Collider's Steve Weintraub sits down with Star Trek: Discovery lead and executive producer Sonequa Martin-Green and showrunner Michelle Paradise.
• Martin-Green and Paradise discuss the planning that went into the emotional final episode of Discovery , their favorite episodes from Season 5, and tease the ancient power introduced in Episode 1.
• The Discovery duo also share their favorite moments from Season 5 and the series as a whole and confirm an extended series finale.

Unbeknownst to the cast and crew, Season 5 would mark the end of Star Trek: Discovery , the show that sparked the Trek universe back to life in 2017. After all the adventures the Discovery crew have taken fans on, led by Sonequa Martin-Green 's ( The Walking Dead ) Michael Burnham, it's time to say our goodbyes, and showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise thought long and hard about how to give the cast a proper send-off. In this interview with Collider's Steve Weintraub , Paradise assures us that the extended finale will "feel complete in a really good, even if it's bittersweet, way."

Having it no other way, the creatives behind Discovery pulled out all the stops. Season 5 pits our heroes up against some of the galaxy's most formidable foes when they're sent to retrieve an ancient artifact. Discovering they aren't the only ones out to get their hands on this mysterious object, they embark on a treasure hunt full of clues with adversaries hot on their trail.

During their conversation, Martin-Green and Paradise discuss the emotional final episode and reminisce on their favorite moments from the series. They tease the ancient power, share which episodes they're most excited for fans to see, and confirm that the series finale is going to be an extended episode. For all of this and more, check out the full interview in video above, or you can read the transcript below.

This interview was conducted prior to watching any Star Trek Discovery Season 5 episodes.

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Read Our 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5 Review

What is the Ancient Power in 'Star Trek: Discovery?'

It's gonna be ancient. and it's gonna be powerful....

COLLIDER: I'm both really excited to talk to you guys about the final season and sad that it is the final season. It's one of those mixed kinds of things. I read the synopsis, and this upcoming season is about an ancient power in the universe. I hate asking the generic BS, but what can you tease about the ancient power of the universe?

MICHELLE PARADISE: It is ancient.

SONEQUA MARTIN-GREEN: It’s powerful.

[Laughs] That is very descriptive.

PARADISE: I feel like anything we say will be a little bit spoilery, but I think fans will really dig it once it's revealed.

Is it any sort of nod to things that have been on Star Trek in the past?

PARADISE: I don't know. I've never seen Star Trek before. I’m just kidding. [Laughs]

Got it. Let me ask you this, when it comes to ancient power, is it like Q level? What's the barometer of power?

PARADISE: We can't answer. It’s powerful.

MARTIN-GREEN: And ancient .

Right. Exactly.

PARADISE: Let's just say it's more powerful than my iPhone.

PARADISE: I do have an older iPhone, so that's not giving anything away.

MARTIN-GREEN: That's right. More ancient than all of us sitting here.

I'll move on because, clearly, I get nothing. [Laughs] Of the last episodes, which are the ones that you are most excited for fans to see?

MARTIN-GREEN: That’s a good question. I'm really excited for them to see the finale, like the actual finale. That's the one for me.

PARADISE: Yeah, I'm pretty excited about that one too. I'm giving the generic, but I feel like every episode has a thing that I'm excited about, so I'm not sure that I could pick just one. I love our premiere this season, and the finale as well. This was a go-big. Every season is go-big, but this is like, “Let's go the biggest we can possibly go.”

'Star Trek: Discovery' Finale Will Feel Complete and Bittersweet

"emotional is an understatement.".

How cognizant were you about those last few minutes on screen? Because as a Star Trek fan, there have been some phenomenal finales, and then I think of Voyager , which I absolutely hated because basically they got back home and then it was over. So I'm just curious, were you thinking about that at all with those last few minutes?

PARADISE: Absolutely. That was huge. Alex [Kurtzman] and I talked about it a lot in terms of what those final moments would be, what it would look like, and what did we want to do there? You always want to wrap a season in a really wonderful way. Wrapping a series , especially when we didn't know going into the season that it would be the final season, we thought a lot about it, and we put a lot into it. I do think that people will really enjoy it and that it will feel “of a piece,” and feel complete in a really good, even if it's bittersweet, way.

Is everyone sitting around playing poker?

PARADISE: Well, they're under a disco ball. We finally brought it out for the show.

I just had to throw that out there.

MARTIN-GREEN: I love it. I don’t know how you knew, but that is exactly what we're doing.

I actually do want to know, though, and you're gonna get asked this a lot, but what was it actually like on the final day of filming for you? Because this is a great role and it's a meaningful role. Was it emotional?

MARTIN-GREEN: Oh my goodness, emotional is like an understatement, right? Like Michelle was saying, we didn't know going in, so when we were able to come back to do these additional shoots, or really it was one additional shoot, but we had to pack a ton into a short period of time So, we bonded even more there on the tail end. It was like, “Let's go big because we're about to go home,” kind of thing. So there were so many tears, but also so much celebration. I'm so thankful to God that I was able to be here, able to be with her, with Alex, with Tunde [Osunsanmi], with the cast and crew, and to build this. It's like, “We've done it. We did it. We have our contribution. Here it is. And we'll always have it. We'll always have each other.” So, it was all of that going through your mind, swirling through your mind and your heart. I can specifically remember the last moments, the last take.

I'm assuming you shot this on your iPhone to release later.

MARTIN-GREEN: I did. The poker.

Of course. Exactly.

PARADISE: I couldn't say it any better. I don't know how it would have felt if we had known going into the season. There was something very special, first of all, to get the opportunity to go back and do some additional shooting to wrap it up in the right way, but then knowing that that's what we were going into. For me, it felt like it was over the course of those days as we were shooting, just knowing that each of those things we would not be coming back to do again. And then those final moments, just full of appreciation for our amazing cast, our crew, all of the folks that we've been able to work with on this show there. Sonequa said it earlier, it’s lightning in a bottle. Honestly, it's a tremendous group of people, and they're so talented and such kind, loving human beings. It's been really a privilege to work on the show.

MARTIN-GREEN: It has.

The 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5 Finale Will Be a Longer Episode

I'm definitely curious if the finale might be like a longer episode because of the additional photography.

PARADISE: It might be.

[Laughs] I’m getting nothing. Can you actually confirm it's a longer episode?

PARADISE: It’s a longer episode, yes. We're not spoiling anything.

Believe me, I want to watch it as a fan. I do not want to know anything. I’m trying to go around.

PARADISE: It's under seven hours.

I am curious for the both of you, when you think about the show, not just this season, what's the sequence or scene that you were involved in that ended up being the biggest pain in the ass, or just the one that you couldn't wait to film or be involved in?

MARTIN-GREEN: That's a really good question, and also really hard to answer.

PARADISE: I never found them to be a pain in the ass. A lot of our stuff is so logistically complicated to pull off, and again, we have an incredible team, Tunde leading the team over there in Toronto. The one I was most excited to see how we would do it is in Season 5. It's the sand runner stuff. It's in the trailer, and just the logistics required to pull that off was one thing because none of that is VFX that you see. That was all done on the AR wall, the sand runner stuff , and just the coordinating that it took to get it done. And I got to be there on the day when they were shooting it, and then watching our actors get up there on those things, and as they moved the wall imagery would move. It was just incredible. It really was. It was like all the pieces having to come together to make that work, and it was such a treat.

MARTIN-GREEN: Yeah, a lot of the AR stuff was like that. So, even in the premiere of Season 5, there was a whole sequence, which you see in the trailer on top of the ship. We were all just like, “What are we doing? This is crazy.” But it worked. And Iceland, I'll say, from Season 3 when we jumped to the future, Episodes 1 and 2. That was insane because we would have, like, five minutes to get something, and the geothermal energy under the ground was draining our batteries , and “Well, we can't do that. We can’t do that.” It was crazy. “Oh, we've gotta bury me. We've gotta do this. Oh, we’ve gotta get this fight shot from eight different angles, and we've got three hours to do it.”

PARADISE: We kept losing cameras because they couldn't connect in the place where you were doing that.

MARTIN-GREEN: Yes, because the ground would literally drain the power from everything, that ground is so charged. So, yeah, Iceland. That whole episode is just a feat.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 releases episodes on Paramount+ every Thursday.

Watch on Paramount

Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery series finale will be a longer episode confirmed by sonequa martin-green & showrunner.

With Star Trek: Discovery's series finale just weeks away, Sonequa Martin-Green and Michelle Paradis confirm it will be a longer final episode.

• Star Trek: Discovery series finale is confirmed to be a longer episode.
• Discovery's series finale, "Life, Itself" is scheduled to premiere May 30 on Paramount+.
• Showrunner Michelle Paradise and Sonequa Martin-Green promise emotional, powerful final moments to wrap up the series in a complete way.

Star Trek: Discovery' s series finale will be a longer episode, which is confirmed by series lead and producer Sonequa Martin-Green and executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise. Star Trek: Discovery 's final episode, which is the season 5 finale, is scheduled to premiere May 30th on Paramount+. Discovery 's series finale, titled "Life, Itself," is written by Paradise and directed by Olatunde Osunsanmi.

In an interview with Collider, Star Trek: Discovery showrunner Michelle Paradise verified that the series finale will be an extended episode to accommodate the epilogue that was filmed in spring 2023 after Paramount+ allowed Discovery 's cast and crew three more days of production to create a coda to wrap up the series . While it's unclear how long Star Trek: Discovery 's series finale will be, Paradise joked it will be "under seven hours." Check out her quote below:

Michelle Paradise: It might be… It’s a longer episode, yes. We're not spoiling anything… It's under seven hours.

Michelle Paradise also answered a question about how important the final few minutes of Star Trek: Discovery 's series finale will be in terms of closing out the series. Read her response below:

Michelle Paradise: Absolutely. That was huge. Alex [Kurtzman] and I talked about it a lot in terms of what those final moments would be, what it would look like, and what did we want to do there? You always want to wrap a season in a really wonderful way. Wrapping a series , especially when we didn't know going into the season that it would be the final season, we thought a lot about it, and we put a lot into it. I do think that people will really enjoy it and that it will feel “of a piece,” and feel complete in a really good, even if it's bittersweet, way.

Star Trek: Discovery 's series lead, Sonequa Martin-Green , who plays Captain Michael Burnham, also described how emotional it was to come back months after the initial wrap of season 5 to film Discovery 's final scenes . Read her quote below:

Sonequa Martin-Green: Oh my goodness, emotional is like an understatement, right? Like Michelle was saying, we didn't know going in, so when we were able to come back to do these additional shoots, or really it was one additional shoot, but we had to pack a ton into a short period of time So, we bonded even more there on the tail end. It was like, “Let's go big because we're about to go home,” kind of thing. So there were so many tears, but also so much celebration. I'm so thankful to God that I was able to be here, able to be with her, with Alex, with Tunde [Osunsanmi], with the cast and crew, and to build this. It's like, “We've done it. We did it. We have our contribution. Here it is. And we'll always have it. We'll always have each other.” So, it was all of that going through your mind, swirling through your mind and your heart. I can specifically remember the last moments, the last take.

Star Trek: Discovery 's standard episodes run between 50-60 minutes.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Star trek: discovery season 5 is going out on a high note, season 5's more adventurous tone is praised by fans.

Star Trek: Discovery 's reception from fans hasn't always been positive, but Discovery season 5 has come out swinging with more fun, adventure, and crowd-pleasing connections to Star Trek lore. As such, Star Trek: Discovery season 5 has generally been more warmly received by audiences. Discovery season 5's treasure hunt for the ancient, life-creating power of the Progenitors positions it as a direct sequel to Star Trek: The Next Generation 's "The Chase" , and increasing callbacks to TNG and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine have left long-time fans more excited by Discovery 's final season.

In season 5, Star Trek: Discovery feels fresh and unpredictable.

Star Trek: Discovery season 5 has 'cut to "The Chase"' from the get-go, and the introduction of intriguing new characters like Moll (Eve Harlow), L'ak (Elias Toufexis), and Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) have added fascinating new dynamics to the series. Discover y's treasure hunt has allowed the serialized series to also weave-in more stand-alone stories that illuminate the stories of the USS Discovery's crew in different ways. In season 5, Star Trek: Discovery feels fresh and unpredictable, which bodes well for the conclusion of the treasure hunt and the ultimate denouement of the show in the series finale.

Source: Collider

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+

Star Trek: Discovery Ends an Era With Season 5

The showrunners and stars on how they’re taking the disco to the final frontier one last time..

Seven years ago, Star Trek: Discovery debuted as the seventh Star Trek series in the illustrious and long-running science fiction franchise. Discovery, or Disco as it is affectionately known, was also the first Trek anything to debut on a streaming service. Its success made episodic Star Trek viable again after a 12-year dry spell, and now fans have a robust lineup of all kinds of Trek series on Paramount+ as a result.

But all starship missions eventually come to an end. So with Season 5 of Discovery, Captain Michael Burnham and her USS Discovery crew embark on their final adventure. We spoke to some of the creative team about what’s coming for Burnham, Book, Saru and more.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Images

From Season Finale to Series Finale

After the turmoil and complex resolution of the Dark Matter Anomaly story arc in Season 4, the fifth season opens with many Discovery characters contemplating both personal and professional change.

While showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Michelle Paradise told IGN that they didn’t go into writing the season knowing it would be the show’s last, their instincts to create transition points for much of their ensemble ended up lending itself to a consequential final season.

“Alex and I talked about it,” says Paradise. “And this season we explore such big themes and such big ideas. And in some ways, it felt like if [the end] were going to happen, this was the right season for that to happen because it feels almost like an ending.”

While the showrunners didn’t find out that this was the last season of the show until they had already finished shooting the body of the season itself, the studio wanted to give Captain Burnham and the Disco crew a proper send-off. And so they let Paradise, Kurtzman, and the team fine-tune the Season 5 finale so that it could also serve as a series finale.

“The studio and the network were kind enough to allow us to go back and shoot some additional material so that we could wrap up the series itself,” continues Paradise. “So I feel like if people didn't know that, they would come in thinking that we had planned from the beginning to make [it] the final season. And it's exciting that the way it ends feels satisfying and fulfilling in that way.”

For Sonequa Martin-Green, who stars as Captain Burnham, wrapping up the show was the culmination of an experience for the actress that she’ll always feel lucky to have had.

“My goodness, the journey of growth, the journey of evolution – you can parallel Burnham's life with my own, this time that I had as Michael Burnham and then as Captain Michael Burnham,” says Martin-Green. “My goodness, I'll never be the same again. And I am just grateful because I feel that God blessed me with an opportunity to act out some of the things that he was teaching me.”

Star Trek Face-Off: Who Is the Best Crew Member?

Pick a winner.

The Captain Conundrum

A starship operates only as well as its captain, which bodes well for both Discovery and Captain Michael Burnham, who is arguably hitting her professional stride at this point in aiding Earth’s re-entry into the Federation. Personally, it’s a little more complicated as she’s still wrestling with the open-ended separation from her partner, Cleveland "Book" Booker (David Ajala), after he chose to leave and help those impacted by the Dark Matter Anomaly last season.

“Stepping into Season 5, that relationship is fractured, and will it heal?” ponders Ajala. “Knowing these two individuals, I think they will put their best foot forward to try and make it happen. But there's still creases in the relationship. However, the two of them believe in each other. And so far as there's life in Book's body, he will always support all of Michael Burnham's endeavors. And likewise, she would do the same for him. So having said that, these two were just meant to be kindred spirits.”

Surprisingly, matters of the heart are also top of mind for Discovery Captain… err, First Officer Saru. But first, Doug Jones, who plays the Kelpien character, told us that rank issue is also complicated.

“I had reached captain status in Season 3, and I was captain of starship Discovery,” explains the actor. “And then in Season 4, with our special mission that we were on with the 10-C and exploring all that… I felt that I was needed and that Michael Burnham, with our brother/sister supportive relationship, that I would not be a captain, but be her Number One. Is it logical to keep two captains on the bridge of a ship? Can it go on forever? Should it go on forever? So Season 5 is an exploration of what else can Saru do.”

And what would any new position mean for the deepening relationship between Saru and the Vulcan President of Ni'Var, T’Rina? First introduced in Season 3, T’Rina has become an increasingly important part of Saru’s life.

“I have been courting the lovely President T'Rina this whole time, played by Tara Rosling, whom I adore,” says Jones. “And so, yes, that's evolving at the same time as the career. Can they evolve together? Can we find a blend in the two? That's our struggle, and that's our little issue to get through. It's kind of like a Hallmark movie.”

What's your favorite Star Trek show ever?

The Disco’s Crew Highs… and Cast Lows

One of the strengths of Disco has been its varied crew of characters with their own stories and arcs that have kept audiences invested in the show. One of the best relationships that has unfolded across all five seasons has been the partnership between Paul ​​Stamets and Hugh Culber, played by Anthony Rapp and Wilson Cruz.

In this last season, Cruz said their unique relationship continues to grow, but Culber will get his own solo adventure that will surprise long-time viewers.

“I'm excited for people to see a different, new side of Culber,” says the actor. “I can say that. He has definitely experienced a lot of insane things in the five seasons and Season 5 is definitely up there with it. So I'm excited for [fans] to see him in a new light.”

With Lt. Silvia Tilly, actress Mary Wiseman remains a little giddy about her character’s love for her Captain, Oh Captain Burnham, and an upcoming memorable away mission together.

“I'm excited for people to see Tilly go on a very special adventure with her best friend, Michael Burnham,” says Wiseman, while Blu del Barrio promises that, much like Culber, their character Ensign Adira Tal will get to experience a shift that will challenge how everyone sees them going forward.

“Adira [goes] on a mission that they would probably, maybe from the past seeing Adira since they joined the ship, would probably imagine anybody else on the ship being in that position before they were in that position,” says del Barrio.

Of course, series ending also mean some of the cast’s wish-list episodes or arcs will remain unexplored. While much has been covered by the cast over the past seven years, there are a few clear, if good-natured grievances to be aired about what might have been if Discovery continued to cross the galaxies.

“How is it that we did not get the musical episode!?” laughs Cruz, clearly referring to the Strange New Worlds musical episode from last year. “I'm pissed off, O.K.!”

“I did not ever get to have a mirror Universe Adira and I'm so sad about that,” adds del Barrio. “It breaks my heart!”

But as any true Trekker knows, never say never with any crew in the Star Trek universe…

For even more on the new season, check out our Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 review for Episodes 1-4.

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Beyond Paradise's Peter Davison shares how he really feels about big episode 4 twist

"It's important that the audience are disappointed."

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**Warning: Contains spoilers for Beyond Paradise season 2 episode 4.**

After deciding not to spend the evening with new beau Richard out of respect to her late husband on his birthday, she later changed her mind in tonight's episode of Beyond Paradise . But Anne was only there for a couple of minutes before she was met with a shocking and unpleasant surprise.

Richard's name is actually Peter, and he's also a married man.

"Was any of it real?" she asked him, dazed by his deceit. "Or were you just stringing me along the whole time?"

More like this

"No, it's complicated," a flustered Peter responded. "I was going to talk to you about it. I'm sorry."

But she wasn't interested in his excuses.

"Not as sorry as I am!" yelled Anne, before driving off.

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• Death in Paradise's Australian spin-off confirms cast as filming begins

Speaking to RadioTimes.com and other press about the reveal, Peter Davison said: "It is rather baffling because he does seem very nice, doesn't seem like a conman, but that was obviously the whole idea, of writing it in that way.

"It's important that the audience are disappointed because that's the idea, isn't it? That they seem like a great couple, and then it all goes horribly wrong."

Davison went on to say that he "quite often gets cast as people who turn out not to be very nice nowadays".

"I think because I've made most of my career playing nice people, even though I turned out to be a cad, they think people won't hate me as much as they might do," he added. "So I did it in At Home with the Braithwaites and a series called Life, where I wasn't the nicest of characters."

But is this the last we've seen of Richard/Peter? Apparently so.

"One of the last things he says before Anne storms off is, 'Let me explain,'" said Davison. "I think I said to [producer] Lindsay [Hughes] at one point, 'Am I going to get a chance to explain?'

"Maybe his wife's been involved with other people as well. I don't know. Whether he's done this before or not, or whether he's happy or unhappy in his marriage, we may never know.

"There must be something behind it because he doesn't appear to be after her money. Maybe he's just after nice dinners and that feeling of being romantic again at his age."

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Barbara Flynn, who plays Anne, also floated a far-fetched yet entertaining route back for Peter.

"Barbara came up with the idea that maybe he go to prison and they could continue a kind of prison romance, like people do," said Davison. "We were searching for ways to try and persuade Lindsay to find a way to bring me back because it was a nice series to do."

Beyond Paradise season 2 continues on BBC One and iPlayer on Fridays .

Check out more of our Drama coverage or visit our TV Guide and Streaming Guide to find out what else is on. For more from the biggest stars in TV, listen to The Radio Times Podcast .

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