Redjac, Regak, Jack...Robert Bloch is back (after "Catspaw") and he has Jack the Ripper on his mind. This must be murder! We begin with a belly dancer. What's this? Is this not Trek? Sure enough, there's Kirk, McCoy and a lusty Scotty watching the show, to the tune of an old Orion slave girl dance. Next thing we know, Scotty has knifed the poor girl to death in a mist-filled alley. Then he does it again, to a poor yeoman. And again, to a local mystic. All women. And him with a recent knock on the head, caused by a female crewmember. Yes, it must be him. Murder mystery solved! Well, not quite. Just one thing to mention before we go on, regarding the 2nd murder: Scotty is the main (and only) suspect at this point; so they send him downstairs to be alone with another female in a secluded chamber; sure enough, she's dead a minute later. But, what do I know? I've never conducted a murder investigation. I guess that's how it's done in the 23rd century.
This is a fun, if trivial, episode, filled with some nice touches. The alien society here is one of the most peaceful we've ever seen but they still resort to ancient customs for dealing with murderers: death by slow torture. Cut to: Scotty 'gulp.' There's a central séance which manages to be spooky as the doomed clairvoyant describes the menace - evil, a hatred of all that lives, and so on. Then we learn about this entity which was known as Jack on Earth in the 19th century and which continued to kill every few decades as mankind spread to the stars. It's intriguing, copied by Stephen King for his magnum opus, 'It,' not to mention there was that Kolchak TV film "The Night Strangler" in '73 - though we never learn what this timeless creature did before its escapades as the Ripper. Then the crew all get space happy thanks to a special cocktail from McCoy and, as seems customary with many later Trek episodes, a grim tone is subverted to a playful one in the last act. The episode also generalizes the fear factor in females, making them the primary (and only) targets of this cosmic killer. At least the monstrous alien killer in "Obsession" was more diverse in its attacks - red-shirts! Stick to what you know, Trek!
