Any episode that starts with a reference to ‘the fifth interstellar geophysical conference’ has a fair way to go before it reaches ‘fun’ or even ‘tolerable’.
Ten minutes in, the direction is clearly ‘downhill’ – there’s a one minute montage of people scanning plants with tricorders. And the climactic moment of tension? Mr Scott with a button that’s stuck. Well, unless you count the game of ‘ring around the rosie’ Kirk, McCoy and Sulu play.
Everyone seems to have taken their cranky pills this week. Especially Spock, who is acting very inconsistently with his previous behaviour. Refusing to say ‘Thank You” just makes you look like a dick.
So no, not very good.
No red shirts (the transporter officer doesn’t count, he didn’t beam down. And the geologist doesn’t either, he was wearing blue). It’s been a while: 20 episodes or so
72 down, 665 to go.