Bertold rays, poisonous to the humanoid body, have the Enterprise crew visiting a colony planet containing them in their atmosphere. However, when Kirk, Spock, Sulu, McCoy, and away team beam down to the planet, Omicrom, they notice that the colonists (who left earth for this planet), who should be by all accounts dead, are alive and perfectly healthy! McCoy does exams on the colonists, even realizing that surgeries removing appendix and showing scars are totally healed! What is the reason behind this? Well, Spock sure finds out when someone he meets from six years prior, still madly in love with him, introduces him to flowers that release spores, influencing anyone who absorbs them at close range. His emotional control barrier is broken down, allowing Spock to be free to smile, to be silly, to love. Jill Ireland (wife of Chuck Bronson) was the love interest for Spock, who admits at the very end that for the first time in his life, he was happy. The episode is a bit sappy with its romantic subplot (the music when Nimoy and Ireland are together is gag-inducing for those like me who just aren't into lovey-dovey) but seeing Spock swinging from a tree, disobeying Kirk's orders flippantly while smooching Ireland, and revealing a side to him that was behind a protected wall due to the Vulcan repression of emotion provide plentiful entertainment value. My favorite scene is definitely Kirk on the Enterprise by himself, with a flower dumping spores into his face, with him combating their influence through anger. The crew just disregarding their captain who is ordering them to go back to their stations as they beam themselves down to the planet is a hoot. You can see how helpless Kirk feels. McCoy laying on a Georgia accent real thick, with "good ole Jim-boy" banter towards Kirk is priceless. Ireland is absolutely beautiful. The location is sunny and vibrant, although Kirk realizes it is all a façade. The colony has done nothing but live in a fog of good health and joy (kind of a pleasant alternative to what Kirk believes shouldn't be so easy; many would prefer Omicron any day of the week compared to the struggles we so often face in life), having done little agriculturally besides raise vegetables. Kirk having to land a barrage of insults at Spock in order to get him really violently mad so the spores leave his system is a memorable scene. It had gotten so bad for Kirk, Uhura, under the spores influence, had short-circuited distance subspace communication, with only "to surface" lines open. Although the script makes a point about how living in total harmony but stagnant without any progression is wrong, there could be a debate right the opposite: why not accept spores enabling you to not feel anything but pleasure and happiness with perfect health against the alternative of cancer, misery, and aging?
Review of This Side of Paradise
