A solid Spock episode, let down by the side plot on the Enterprise.
It’s interesting to see the weaker side of Spock, when he finds that his ‘logical’ way of commanding doesn’t work well with humans. It’s a little reminiscent of the complaints I’ve heard some people make about Generation Y – you have to pay too much attention to their feelings, everything has to be given to them. It’s interesting to see echoes of those complaints in Star Trek’s view of what’s necessary to be an effective commander 40 years before.
The weakness of the episode is the Enterprise side plot. I can see the need to keep Enterprise around, but it ruins some of the suspense of the episode if we know that the ship is still there, moving away very very slowly. I think less Enterprise, and less of the petty bureaucrat ordering Kirk around, would have made for a better episode.
Another 3 red-shirts down (1 offscreen, none in red). So far just the two actual Red Shirts in 16 episodes…
16 down, 721 to go.