I would never have considered this to be the premiere episode of Star Trek, but now that I'm about to watch the entire series in order, I'll probably run into other surprises as well. Interestingly, Dr. McCoy is the central character here for the most part, except when he's being dressed down by Captain Kirk for dropping the ball a few times. It was also unusual to see Uhura attempting to flirt with Spock, and I was never that much of a fan back in the day to remember if that part of her personality carried forward into other episodes. Getting reacquainted with the characters and their idiosyncrasies should be a blast this time around.
One of the cool things I like about Star Trek is the way the writers introduced concepts and names for things that made them seem like they were around forever. Like the Borgia plant in this story, it's name presumably derived from that of Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of a sixteenth century Pope. She was rumored to have used a hollow ring to dispense poison to claim her victims. Combined with the shape shifting ability displayed by Nancy Crater (Jeanne Bal), the series' first monster was suitably gruesome enough to entice future viewers to come back for more.
One thing's true though, the early Star Treks took no prize for special effects when you get right down to it. The character metamorphosis was done as far back as Lon Chaney's Wolfman in 1941 and just as well. One thing I don't recall any movie or TV show coming to grips with is how the shape shifter also managed to change his clothes. I guess you're not supposed to think about that.
So for a first effort (although I understand this story was actually the sixth one filmed), this was a reasonably good start to have the fans coming back for more. Back then there were no Trekkies yet, so I guess at least the germ of a good idea made it's way out of this premiere episode. Funny, but for some reason after watching this show, I had to go get a bowl of potato chips.
One of the cool things I like about Star Trek is the way the writers introduced concepts and names for things that made them seem like they were around forever. Like the Borgia plant in this story, it's name presumably derived from that of Lucrezia Borgia, the illegitimate daughter of a sixteenth century Pope. She was rumored to have used a hollow ring to dispense poison to claim her victims. Combined with the shape shifting ability displayed by Nancy Crater (Jeanne Bal), the series' first monster was suitably gruesome enough to entice future viewers to come back for more.
One thing's true though, the early Star Treks took no prize for special effects when you get right down to it. The character metamorphosis was done as far back as Lon Chaney's Wolfman in 1941 and just as well. One thing I don't recall any movie or TV show coming to grips with is how the shape shifter also managed to change his clothes. I guess you're not supposed to think about that.
So for a first effort (although I understand this story was actually the sixth one filmed), this was a reasonably good start to have the fans coming back for more. Back then there were no Trekkies yet, so I guess at least the germ of a good idea made it's way out of this premiere episode. Funny, but for some reason after watching this show, I had to go get a bowl of potato chips.