The Paradise Syndrome

Not exactly one of the series high points, this one’s an awkward blend of sci fi, western, romance and several other elements that don’t go particularly well together.

The Enterprise is assigned to divert an asteroid so it doesn’t hit an inhabited planet. If they’d just done their job, this would have been a five-minute episode. The Big Three decide to do a little pre-just-do-your-job sightseeing. The planet is a beautiful place inhabited by simple natives who look and live like stereotypical American Indians.

Things start going wrong when Kirk, standing by himself next to a strange obelisk, tries to hail the ship and suddenly falls through a trap door. He’s zapped by a strange purple light and loses his memory. Fortunately for him, the locals are a peaceful people. They take him in even though the only thing he can remember is that his name is Kirok.

He makes a particularly big impression on Miramanee (Sabrina Scharf), a woman who looks as if at any moment she may have to rush off to help Marlon Brando turn down an Oscar. Unfortunately, she’s already betrothed to Salish (Rudy Solari), who must be the tribal shaman because he has a labial-looking representation of the obelisk on his headband. But when Kirk uses simple CPR to revive a drowned boy, the tribe hails him as a demigod. Out with Salish and in with Kirok.

Meanwhile, the crew on the Enterprise is having no luck diverting the asteroid. They screwed around looking for Kirk so long that by the time they got to the rock it was too late to tractor-beam it onto a new course. And to make matters worse, an attempt to cut the thing in half overloads the phasers and shorts out the warp drive. The ship is now stuck using impulse power to stay barely ahead of the asteroid as it slowly makes its way toward the planet.

The delay gives Kirok enough time to marry Miramanee and knock her up. Just as things seem to be working out for them, the asteroid arrives accompanied by the ship. Kirk’s shipmates bring him back to his senses, and working together they figure out that the phrase “Kirk to Enterprise” is a coincidence-of-the-millennium “open sesame” for the entrance to the obelisk. And inside they find a control panel that, when activated, turns on a planetary defense system that shoves the asteroid away.

All’s not well that ends well, however. The tumult caused by the near miss deals a fatal injury to Miramanee, leaving Kirk grief-stricken but single once again. The conclusion is symptomatic of the major defect of the whole episode: everything’s based on a ridiculous lattice of coincidence. A simple hailing message turns out to be the key to an ancient lock. The damage done to the Enterprise is just enough to delay the ship but not knock it out of the picture altogether. And of course the crew makes a string of dumb decisions without which none of this would have happened to begin with. Weak.

Episode rating:

Stardate: 4842.6

Episode type: Enterprise crew

Written by: Margaret Armen

Original air date: October 4, 1968

The Enterprise Incident / And the Children Shall Lead

Back to the Star Trek index