The one with the Yangs and Kohms.
IMHO this is a silly episode. It simply mixes elements of other previous episodes together, but does not do it very well. It is very like 'A Private Little War' with someone providing weapons to a single side of a frontier culture, in another 'Vietnam war' analogy. It has a misguided starship captain (Ronald Tracey) who has broken the Prime Directive, as in 'Bread and Circuses', and also as in 'Patterns of Force'. It has a 'virus' or some 'biological agent' which is cured by exposure to a planet's atmosphere (which the bio-filters somehow allowed up to the starships), and the search for immortality, which is almost another Trek cliché by the time it is used in 'ST:IX Insurrection'. And we once again have parallel Earth development, only that it is inconceivable that both the USA flag and Constitution (including the calligraphy), the slang words 'Yankee' and 'Commie', and the Pledge of Allegiance, could all have developed independently.
This can all be partly explained by the fact that it was originally written as another possible second pilot script, so the instrumentation, terminology, and backstory is a little different to what was ultimately produced, and is closer to that of 'The Cage'.
IMHO this is a silly episode. It simply mixes elements of other previous episodes together, but does not do it very well. It is very like 'A Private Little War' with someone providing weapons to a single side of a frontier culture, in another 'Vietnam war' analogy. It has a misguided starship captain (Ronald Tracey) who has broken the Prime Directive, as in 'Bread and Circuses', and also as in 'Patterns of Force'. It has a 'virus' or some 'biological agent' which is cured by exposure to a planet's atmosphere (which the bio-filters somehow allowed up to the starships), and the search for immortality, which is almost another Trek cliché by the time it is used in 'ST:IX Insurrection'. And we once again have parallel Earth development, only that it is inconceivable that both the USA flag and Constitution (including the calligraphy), the slang words 'Yankee' and 'Commie', and the Pledge of Allegiance, could all have developed independently.
This can all be partly explained by the fact that it was originally written as another possible second pilot script, so the instrumentation, terminology, and backstory is a little different to what was ultimately produced, and is closer to that of 'The Cage'.
