“The Time Trap”
Written by Joyce Perry
Directed by Hal Sutherland
Season 1, Episode 12
Production episode: 22010
Original air date: November 24, 1973
Star date: 5267.2
Mission summary
Enterprise is investigating the “Delta Triangle,” a region of space where starships have been disappearing for centuries. It’s almost as if the suits back at Starfleet are trying to get rid of them.
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“Whom Gods Destroy”
Teleplay by Lee Erwin
Story by Lee Erwin and Jerry Sohl
Directed by Herb Wallerstein
Season 3, Episode 14
Production episode: 3×16
Original air date: January 3, 1969
Star date: 5718.3
Mission summary
Kirk and Spock beam down to Elba II, a planet that houses an asylum for the “few remaining incorrigible criminally insane of the galaxy.” The asylum is in a sealed complex because Elba’s atmosphere is poisonous: presumably a feature and a not a bug. Kirk and Spock are bringing Dr. Donald Cory, the governor of the so-called colony, a medicinal cure for the crazy people left there. (I’d guess Dr. Cory was on someone’s shit list since all he governs is a group of 15 psychopaths, but maybe the alternative was Triacus?)
The newest arrival to the funny farm is Garth of Izar, a former fleet captain for the Federation and a hero of Kirk’s. Kirk would like to meet him, so Dr. Cory leads his visitors through the Rogue’s Gallery: an Andorian rockin’ a bright red pimp coat, a pig-faced Tellarite, and a green Orion slavegirl named Marta who seems perfectly rational until she tries to explain that Dr. Cory isn’t Dr. Cory at all. Silly girl. But when they reach the last cell, they find a battered and beaten Dr. Cory inside, suspended in mid-air! A broing and camera shake later, the Dr. Cory they thought they knew appears in his true form: Garth of Izar, or as he prefers to be addressed, “Lord Garth, Master of the Universe.” He locks Kirk in the cell with Dr. Cory, releases the other inmates, and has his droogs drag Spock away.
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“The Menagerie” Part II
Written by Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Robert Butler
Season 1, Episode 12
Production episode: 1×16
Original air date: November 24, 1966
Star date: 3013.1
Mission summary
The episode begins with an unusually lengthy Captain’s Log entry, recapping the incredible events of the previous episode. Then we dive back into Spock’s court-martial, now in closed session with just Kirk, Spock, Commodore Mendez, and Captain Pike in attendance. Just like Heroes, there’s no way to block the Talosian images, and no one thinks to just turn off the monitor.
Onscreen, the younger Captain Pike awakens in an episode of The Twilight Zone, inside a glass cage with hypercephalic beings studying him. They speak about him telepathically, analyzing his thoughts and predicting his actions. They say he will throw himself against the “transparency” in a “display of physical prowess,” just before he does. Pike speaks to them, insisting he’ll find a way to escape, but they ignore him as though he were a dumb creature and begin planning some experiments on him.
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