Ah, the good old ‘talk the all powerful computer into a logical inconsistency’ ploy.
Pretty sure we have Isaac Asimov to blame for that one.
If I remember the first Star Trek movie properly, it’s a bit of a plot hole there that this episode never gets mentioned there. Oh, we’re facing an earth probe modified by an alien race? Gee, does that ring any bells at all for anyone?
The other obvious tie in to later Star Trek here is the alien probe that wants to understand and then eliminate organic life. Could very easily have written a Borg tie-in, but no one seems to have done so.
The episode itself is a pretty good one. A nice cheap ship-based episode, although not a lot of chance for anyone except Kirk to do much. The big discordant moment was the ‘Oh, Uhura’s been mind wiped? Gee, that’ll take us weeks to retain her’. They could have found a better way to reset the episode at the end.
32 down, 705 to go.