Sunday, October 26, 2008

1.21 - The Return of the Archons

The Enterprise crew stumbles upon a strange society of peaceful and tranquil people that dress in turn of the 20th century Earth clothes. Kirk and Spock beam down with a landing crew just before "festival" which apparently is 12 hours of rioting in the streets, debauchery and promiscuous sex (rape?). It's not long before the crew is discovered as outsiders, as not part of the "body" and a couple of guys in robes take them away. Everyone refers to a fellow named Landru, about being incorporated into the bigger whole where they will find peace and tranquility. Thankfully Kirk and Spock run into a rebel of sorts who pretends to perform the ritual procedure to incorporate them but really intends to help them destroy Landru. Turns out Landru is a computer and has been running the society with the ideals of a machine. Order, peace, tranquility, but no soul. This even freaks out Spock a bit. Using the power of logic, Kirk gets the machine to destroy itself, convincing it that it was behaving contrary to the real good of the "body". The day is saved!

The thing that struck me most about this episode was that all the parts of the "body", who acted in a fairly mindless manner, referred to others as "my friend. "Joy be yours and tranquility my friend." "Joy to you all friends." Reminds me of someone...

Great line - Spock punches one of the robed guards and Kirk asks "Isn't that somewhat old fashioned?"

Overall - 7
Camp - 1

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