When I was 8 years old on a family road trip, we popped in at a museum in Clovis, New Mexico. I remember nothing of the museum aside from their two giant spear props from this episode near an exhibit emphasizing the importance of the Folsom Point, which was an important discovery placing the earlier population of North America. It added a lot of weight to the viewing experience of this particularly creepy episode while home sick from school one day.
Years later at a restaurant I remember accidentally making eye contact with an elderly gentleman across the room. We nodded at each other and that was that. Then the next day at a nearby Chiller Theater convention I saw the man again sitting at a table with displays of all the movies he was in. Lo and behold, he was Don Marshall, who here was the largest thorn in Spock's side. We had a 15 minute conversation about the episode and he was as friendly as could be, saying that he had a blast working on Star Trek with nothing but good things to say about it, despite the rushed 6 day shooting schedule.
The first season of Star Trek served up a wonderfully uneven mishmash of tonal shifts and crazy ideas. A lot of these early episodes (along with THE MAN TRAP, THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER, NAKED TIME, etc.) felt more like a horror-show than a sci fi show, and the bombastic music certainly added to the chill factor. With this episode, a few crewmembers of the Enterprise get marooned in their most hostile planet yet, populated by mist and spear-wielding giant furry primates as one of Star Trek's most well-realized one-time threats. The atmosphere serves this episode well and I really wish they'd made more like it seasons 2-3.
The downside of this episode for me has to be the tiresome infighting between Spock and the others. Some of his decisions, like leaving the lone crewman to guard a valley, make little sense. The other crew's actions don't either, such as their need to bury dead comrades when under direct threat, or Kirk's decision at the start to send his chief engineer and ship's doctor to chart some random nebula. All in all this episode stands as a classic and for anyone interested in seeing the props from it, be sure to pop in the museum in Clovis.
Years later at a restaurant I remember accidentally making eye contact with an elderly gentleman across the room. We nodded at each other and that was that. Then the next day at a nearby Chiller Theater convention I saw the man again sitting at a table with displays of all the movies he was in. Lo and behold, he was Don Marshall, who here was the largest thorn in Spock's side. We had a 15 minute conversation about the episode and he was as friendly as could be, saying that he had a blast working on Star Trek with nothing but good things to say about it, despite the rushed 6 day shooting schedule.
The first season of Star Trek served up a wonderfully uneven mishmash of tonal shifts and crazy ideas. A lot of these early episodes (along with THE MAN TRAP, THE CORBOMITE MANEUVER, NAKED TIME, etc.) felt more like a horror-show than a sci fi show, and the bombastic music certainly added to the chill factor. With this episode, a few crewmembers of the Enterprise get marooned in their most hostile planet yet, populated by mist and spear-wielding giant furry primates as one of Star Trek's most well-realized one-time threats. The atmosphere serves this episode well and I really wish they'd made more like it seasons 2-3.
The downside of this episode for me has to be the tiresome infighting between Spock and the others. Some of his decisions, like leaving the lone crewman to guard a valley, make little sense. The other crew's actions don't either, such as their need to bury dead comrades when under direct threat, or Kirk's decision at the start to send his chief engineer and ship's doctor to chart some random nebula. All in all this episode stands as a classic and for anyone interested in seeing the props from it, be sure to pop in the museum in Clovis.