This reworking of the Adam & Eve/the Garden of Eden story on another planet, along with the theme of population control, ends up being representative of the many things the original Trek series is known for. It almost seems that the writer took many of those Trek-like elements we've become acquainted with throughout the first season and simply plugged them in here arbitrarily: the numerous red-shirts, the stagnant culture ruled by a machine ("Return of the Archons"), a steadily-worsening threat to our beloved Enterprise, a return-to-nature scenario and a convenient disregard for the Prime Directive. But, it's probably the issue of the doomed red-shirts which dominates - if one had to pick that one episode which illustrates the original Trek's approach in terminating the careers of Starfleet red-shirts - this is the ultimate episode in that regard. Check out that huge landing party in the beginning - nine personnel! It's so big, it takes two beam downs. Why is it so big? Because there are four - count 'em 4! - red-shirts in the party. Get ready for some heavy-duty whittling down of a landing party.
Yes, this is probably the episode from which sprang much of the legend, amusing as it is, about how you shouldn't wear a red shirt when beaming down with a landing party. And, I'll have to say, each one in this story meets a creatively different demise. Unfortunately, or amusingly (depending on your mood), this episode also began a trend of unintentionally amusing episodes - case in point, "Catspaw" coming up soon. Though the 2nd season contained more entertaining episodes, in quantity, than even the first, it also had more with those awkward weaknesses that leaned towards silliness, whether due to the writing, directing and/or acting. Shatner began to seriously overact around this time - he wasn't always hamming it up as many might misremember - he hardly ever did in the first season. So, while we felt for him every time a crewmember was killed in older episodes, here there's a tendency for viewers to want to chuckle (the first doomed red-shirt gets it via a plant; Shatner: "What'd somebody say?... That...Paradise!..must've looked like this?!"). Oh, that angst!
The other weakness here is a rather truncated feel to the writing - many questions remain unanswered by the end. Why would there be land mines as rocks, for example, scattered around an otherwise idyllic world? OK, our god-machine might have placed them there against, what, visitors from space (red-shirts from space)? And exactly who or what is this Vaal? How did it come to rule over these villagers? What do they feed it? It looked to me like they were carrying typical food down into the bowels of wherever Vaal resides. How would a machine gain sustenance from such food? It just seems that much of the plot points are arbitrary, like the threats - presented merely as a means to kill off red-shirts in various manners. This episode does contain one of my favorite melodramatic proclamations from Scotty: rather than just telling Kirk he can't beam the party back up, he stresses that not even a fly could be beamed up! That surely gets the point across!
