“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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