The Way to Eden
The Way to Eden (Video; YouTube; Memory Alpha) is full of hippies. Clad in even-more-graish-than-usual and slightly-more-revealing-than-usual attire, sporting lots of hair and odd medallions, the Space Hippies are following Dr. Sevrin and looking for Eden. They’ve hijacked a space cruiser and the Enterprise is hot on their tail; quick work is made of the chase and they’re brought on board after a tractor beam tug-of-war causes the cruiser to explode.
Yes, the Enterprise was told to go get a hijacked ship and blew it up. No one bats an eye at this.
Then they have to put up with the Space Hippies once they’re onboard complaining about their freedoms being impinged and calling everyone Herbert. The episode does a good job of portraying them as fools under the control of Sevrin, who Spock quickly determines is insane. What evidence does he have? Oh, he talked to him.
But there’s some sedition going on, lots of talking about who people are and what they want. The Space Hippies bring people out and get ‘em going. And then they take over the ship to go to Eden.
It all goes awry, of course, but not because the crew stops them; Eden isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, and Sevrin actually is all sorts of crazy.
But this episode is actually pretty good, if you can get past the ridiculously over-the-top nature of the Space Hippies and the more-than-occasional folksy musical interlude (with songs that aren’t half bad, truth be told). The story is simple but interesting, the characters get a lot of screen time to talk, and the situation is relevant. If anything I’d play up the Space Hippies legitimate beefs with the “modern” era (regimented society, technological omnipresence, constant war) and stretch out the end, but neither is possible without cutting something else, so I’m giving them a pass there.
Grade
B+
