Operation — Annihilate!
With a name like Operation — Annihilate! (Memory Alpha; SD Video), how could this episode possibly be good? Still, it’s the season one closer for the original series, so… maybe it has some interesting ending?
Well, this hails from the time before seasons meant anything. Cliffhangers? Never heard of ‘em.
ANYWAY.
The Enterprise is headed for Deneva, chasing a line of planets that have all gone crazy and destroyed themselves. And it soon becomes clear that Deneva has already started down this road. To make matters worse, Kirk’s brother Sam is stationed on Deneva with his family.
The set for Deneva is some crazy university covered in art installations that look incredibly like mid-60s university art installations. This causes your brain to vomit distractingly every time the crew goes down to the surface.
Which they do with frighteningly little preparation. “Here’s a planet where people are going crazy for no apparent reason; let’s not take any precautions to avoid the same fate. No, we’ll just beam down and meander about.”
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Which is why it’s a good thing that the crazy spreads not via tiny microbes that infect your brain when you inhale them. No, instead it spreads when flying jellyfish that resemble fried eggs careen across the screen and sting you.
No, I’m serious.
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Now, the above might make you think that this episode is terrible. And from a technical standpoint, that’s pretty close to correct. But the contagious insanity and the family angle and the slow creep onto the Enterprise itself, and then the aching decisions of how to fight the menace are all handled well.
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Except that they don’t appear to consider a simple quarantine. You make sure no one leaves the planet, and you continue looking for solutions. This is not that tough, people.
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Grade
C+
