As Kirk & Garrovick beam up when the bomb goes off, Kirk starts the journey with his communicator open and at his mouth. When he and Garrovick finally materialize, Kirk's hands are at his side, and the communicator is nowhere to be found.

Did they cancel Battle Stations after the creature got inside the Enterprise? I would have thought they would have stayed on full alert. And when did Garrovick slink off the bridge and go back to his quarters?
I'll always wonder if, after telling Garrovick some "tall tales" about his father, Kirk told him, "By the way, you're still on report for striking a superior officer."

At the beginning of this episode, the crewman known as Mr. Leslie is killed by the creature. Yet he manages to appear in several later episodes (and is again called by name by Kirk)!

When Garrovick first enters his quarters, there is a tri-di chessboard prominently visible on the headboard above his bed. When nurse Chapel later enters his quarters, there is no sign of the chess set.

I don't think it was Mr. Leslie who was killed, but his twin brother Mr. Lesley, or vice versa. ;-)

Scotty took the liberty of dumping radioactive waste? What about the planet below? Isn't it a violation of the Prime Directive to pollute a planet with radioactivity?

Spock doesn't understand obsession, but aren't Vulcans obsessive about logic?

To get rid of the creature they are going to flush radioactive waste into the ventilation system? ("Captain, we have good news and bad news. We succeeded in getting rid of the creature, but now half the ship is dead and the other half are mutating.")

Perhaps Spock isn't trying to block the vent with his hands, but is actually trying to mind meld with the vent to get it to close?

The creature touched Kirk and Rizzo and they both sensed some kind of intelligence. How come Spock, with his greater mental powers, didn't pick up anything from his contact with the creature?

One of the security people is holding a device that kind of looks like the device that Spock uses on Psi 2000 in The Naked Time.

Spock says his hemoglobin is based on copper, so shouldn't it be called cupraglobin.

Since mother and child share the same blood, shouldn't Spock have some hemoglobin and wouldn't the 'cupraglobin' have entered into Amanda's bloodstream?

Spock says that the evidence indicates that the creature is here to spawn. What evidence? Did Spock read the creature's mind after all?

Spock says that it will take two men to transport the antimatter, but on the surface Garrovick lets go of it and the device hovers.

I thought that antimatter could not be transported? I guess the crew was unaware of that fact and did it anyway.

Why not just leave the antimatter next to the plasma, or have a third person who will carry it? I can't believe that no one foresaw the possibility of the creature grabbing the bait before the trap was set.

After successfully beaming up the Captain and Garrovick, Scotty says, "Thank heavens." and Spock says that no deity was involved. Someone should point out to Mr. Spock that Heaven is a place, not a deity.

All the security people in this episode seem to be Ensigns, but I believe both Yar and Worf of The Next Generation were Lt. Commanders.

Was this the episode written by Calvin Klein? ;-)

The ep was written by Art Wallace. (From the Encyclopedia)

>Since mother and child share the same blood, shouldn't Spock have some hemoglobin and
wouldn't the 'cupraglobin' have entered into Amanda's bloodstream?<

Perhaps Spock was a test tube baby?

CCabe, KAM's comment was a joke... you know... Calvin Klein's Obsession?

Keith--the prefix "hemo-" is from the Greek word for blood, not iron. Copper based hemoglobin is not a contradiction in terms.

I was thinking of minerals with names like hematite, but now that I think about it, since they rust it is more likely that they would be named after blood, than blood named after iron.

Good guess. Hematite's name is from the ancient Greek word haimatites, meaning bloodlike.

Are dictionaries wonderful?

Speaking of the immortal Lieutenant Leslie, why is he not in charge of the security team? Kirk tells *Ensign* Rizzo to take his men to scout for the creature.

Totally agreed that flushing the ventilation system with radioactive waste is a really, really bad idea!

Leslie is an ensign in this episode. For those keeping record, here is a chronology of Leslie`s rank and position (in production order)

Where No Man has Gone Before - Blue shirted security guard.
Practically every episode, starting with The Corbomite Manuever - Red shirted Lieutenant at Engineering.
The Conscience Of The King - Red shirted ensign at the helm.
More episodes - Red shirted Lt at engineering.
The Alternative Factor - Red shirted Lt at the helm.
More episodes - Red shirted Lt at Engineering.
The Changeling - Gold shirted Lt at navigation.
Obsession - Red shirted ensign security guard (I don`t need to tell you what happened to him, the description speaks for itself!)
More episodes - Red shirted Lt at Engineering
Return to Tomorrow onward - Red shirted Lt security guard.

And by the way, McCoy saying "thank heaven" is because that was what was allowed by the censors!

You mean the sensors wouldn't allow him to say "Thank God"? Man, them Censors is picky.

They won`t even allow "idiots"! What`s next to be censored, st*pid? Oops! Sorry....

They won`t even allow "idiots"! What`s next to be censored, st*pid? Oops! Sorry....

The fact that Leslie appeared on so many episodes as a Red Shirt is astounding in itself, considering security personnel all get waxed because they're so "good" at their jobs. Now that I think of it, Leslie probably grabbed some security slob lower in rank than himself and stood behind him allowing the other guy to get his clock cleaned. This makes Leslie not so dumb after all. But then why is he in a red shirt if he's so smart? I'll tell ya, somethin' fishy going on with Mr. Oddjob.

Actually, my chronology is slightly wrong, go to the Who is that Extra page for more info (and a better episodography)

Wait, I just had an idea! Leslie is in section 31! That would explain his mysterious Sloane-like return to life! (I`m posting this here because I can`t get post on the Section 31 board on the Classic Trek sink) It would also explain other things, too, I suppose.

Anti-Nit: Phil says the creature couldn't have gotten in through an open vent because an open vent would let out all of the ship's air. Well, maybe not. I can open my faucet and not let all the water out of my town's water supply. It's possible that as part of the cleaning procedure, a small amount of air was allowed to escape through the vent, clearing it of debris. The creature swam upstream through this and got into the ship's air supply.

McCoy says to Kirk about Rizzo, "He could be saying what he thought he wanted you to hear." He probably should have said, "He could be saying what he thought YOU WANTED to hear."

>>Anti-Nit: Phil says the creature couldn't have gotten in through an open vent because an open vent would let out all of the ship's air. Well, maybe not. I can open my faucet and not let all the water out of my town's water supply.

The analogy you gave is convincing, yet I can think of this example: If a person opens a small window in a jet airplane flying 35,000 feet above the earth, the air inside the plane will rush out so fast that it will expel the person who opened the window plus nearly everything else for several meters around it. This is due to the extreme difference in air pressure between the outside of the plane and the interior. What greater difference in pressure can there be between a 1 gee environment and the vacuum of outer space?

Unless the creature came in the vent after the atmosphere was voided from the vent ... but that would presuppose an airlock of some sort.

The vent doesn't necessarily have to lead into an occupied section of the ship-- there's gotta be a bunch of areas for heat release or something similar. Consider the large vents at the rear of the warp engines; nobody is going to be standing around there, so the cloud could have entered through that section, if it hadn't found a vent near the impulse drive.

Todays rumor is love affair between Christine and Ensign Garrovick.
It seems to me that she's unusually concerned about the young man, whom she should barely know, socially, considering he's a new crewman. He even refers to her by first name.
I think this episode also seems to indicate why Kirk (up until this episode) would take such dangerous risks to save people he knows or even those he doesn't. For 11 years he's held onto the guilt of those 200 dead crewman of the Farragut, that he's always believed he could have prevented from dying, had his reflexes been quicker at the phaser station. From that time onward, he probably told himself that he would never allow such a thing to occur again Sort of like Peter Parker's, 'With great power, comes great responsibility' after his uncle is killed, prompting him to enter a life of crime-fighting.

According to "Inside Star Trek" (available on CD), Spock WAS INDEED a test tube baby. Buy it and listen!

(It comes with the "Special Edition of the soundtrack of Star Trek the Motion Picture")

GREAT MAKEUP: The pale makeup for the dead corpses look eerie!

I'm not sure if this is clever or cheap....when the cloud sneaks over the rock,Spock fires a phasor at another rock to get a sample of it. The cloud then moves backward...I'm not sure, but I think the creators just played the earlier footage of the cloud going over the rock...backwards! (to make it LOOK like it was retreating) The same thing applies in Garrovick's quarters when the cloud creeps in the vent then is vaccuumed out...the footage looks like it was played backwards!

NEW!!!!!! Photon torpedo sfx......TOO COOL!

It sounds like Shatner has a cold in most of this episode.

Unmilitary behavior: Garrovick is confined to quarters...he goes...buries is face in his hands...and cries!

GREAT DIALOGUE: Spock:"I need advice"
McCoy:"Then I need a drink"

GREAT MOMENT: The final beam up is nerve-racking. You don't know if they made it back or not until the sequence is complete!

The shot of the Enterprise racing thru space comes from the opening credits.

GREAT LINE: "Applying psychology" Chapel to McCoy when she return a disk to McCoy's office.

When the creature attacks, there's a sparkly effect...it looks very simular to the sparkly effect of the Companion in "Metamorphosis"

It MIGHT have made the story a little more interesting if someone said, "We have found the ghost of Dracula" (Why not...they found Jack the Ripper?)

Once again we're treated to just exactly what the Enterprise can do....

PHASORS!
PHOTON TORPEDOES!
WARP 8!

Kinda like what "Arena" was in the 1st season!

The plastic grabbers seens in the teaser is the same plastic grabbers seen in "Operation: Annihilate!"

Phil identifies one of the closing stills as "The Enterprise orbiting Vulcan"...not true....it's the MIRROR Enterprise orbiting the Halkan planet.
I know because the Enterprise ALWAYS orbits the planet from left to right. The only exception was "Shore Leave"

At one point Spock says to McCoy that he doesn't understand the emotion of obsession...that's funny...what about Spock's desire to return to Vulcan to mate in "Amok Time"? I mean the guy changed the course of the ship too. Wouldn't that count as obsession?

Garrovick seems to have a cabin all to himself. Yet in the offical ST blueprints, the Constitution Class ships are shown to have only 27 single rooms reserved for senior officers (and probably important passangers). The rest of the cabins are doubles, with the beds right next to each other. Perhaps as security chief, Garrovick is considered a senior officer.

Or perhaps he snores & the other crewmembers signed a petition to get him his own room? ;-)

Dr. McCoy has an ENGINEERING insignia on in this episode.

Spock disappears from the Bridge when Kirk orders the weapons to be fired...yet Spock instantly reappears after the torpedo explodes.

KUDOS TO THE SFX DEPT.....The anti-grav unit holding the anti-matter bomb....no wires seen...no transparent table underneath....It LITERALLY looks like it's suspended in mid-air!!!!FLAWLESSLY EXECUTED!

I have a theory of Leslie's resurrection.
Oh yes indeedy.
Here it is.
H'hem.
It will make everyone agree with me and make me very rich.
Here it is.
Leslie and Captain Scarlet both wear red.
Captain Scarlet is indestructible.
Leslie is a descendant of Captain Scarlet, therefore Leslie is indestructible and Star Trek and Captain Scarlet take place in the same universe.

Nope.

The answer was revealed on The Phantom Return of the Empire's Last Hope Strikes Back, Part XVI (http://www.geocities.com/TheLICC/Phantom16.html)

Cloning.

Or, he could actually be Flint in one of his many incarnations.
Or he could be Wolverine.
Or he could be a hologram.
Or...

Ok then.
If its cloning, then he's an obvious advance in technology first pioneered by the Terrahawks team.
So there.

This episode has a blatant BILC moment...
The "Vampire Cloud" is outside the Enterprise...heading for it....and Kirk not only has phasers fired at it, but (new) photon torpedoes too.
Isn't firing weapons at a non-corporeal lifeform like firing a gun at someone's shadow?

Wellllll...to put the kindest possible interpretation on it...the vampire cloud is energy, the phasers etc. involve a different kind of energy - maybe he's hoping to scramble the cloud's circuits somehow.

(Emerging from bushes wearing a WWII German helmet) "Verrrryy Interesting!"

But shtupid.

NANJAO: This episode marks the last time we see the "new" photon torpedo special effects...they go back to the "old version" in later episodes.
(Tis' a pity too. it's pretty cool!)

Poor blood-sucking cloud. If only it had been discovered during Picard's time. Picard would have tried to communicate with it instead of killing it.

DVD NOTE: This episode is on the same DVD as "The Immunity Syndrome"...an amazing coincidence...seeing that both episodes dealt with antimatter.

The creators tried to pull a fast one on us....
The footage of Scotty pressing the button to depressurize Garrovick's quarters is actually a FLIPPED SHOT of Kirk pressing the button to start the countdown to implosion on the Constellation from "The Doomsday Machine" (I know it is... because of the button arrangement & the little lights above the buttons...it's the same as the panel in the Constellation Auxillary Control room...but as I pointed out...FLIPPED!)

Yet another way to avoid showing Scotty's missing finger.

**Leslie Alert** Mr. Leslie is bumped off in this episode....but rises again in later episodes.

The cuts that Sci-Fi made in this episode were horrendous. Garrovick's dialogue as the creature approaches him and Kirk, and the shock wave as the anti-matter exploded. Nurse Chapel's attempt to get Garrovick to eat. And that's just what I remember from watching Trek on Channel 11 all those years.

Poor blood-sucking cloud. If only it had been discovered during Picard's time. Picard would have tried to communicate with it instead of killing it.

So true...hey, y'know, recast Garrovick in the Dr. Marr part, and we have a pretty good case for a 'Silicon Avatar' remake altogether.

Wow! there are a whole slew of nits I found during a recent re-watching of this ep! So here I go!

1. At one point Kirk tells Spock that the creature is going home. Spock asks "Do we know where "home" is? Was he not listening when Kirk told Chekov to set a course for the Tycho system 10 seconds earlier?

2. The senior officers seem genuinely suprised when Kirk announces that he will use anti-matter to destroy the creature. Well, don't photon torpedoes use anti-matter warheads? Kirk ordered them to be fired at the creature and nothing happened. So how is the final plan going to be effective?

3. When Spock or Garrovick (I cant remember which)asks Kirk about the creature, Kirk says: "Something that can't possibly exist, but it does". Why? The dialog never says that they killed the creature 11 years ago. So why is it so suprising to Kirk that it still exists?

4. Spock's credibility takes a hit in this episode. After the first 2 security guards die on the planet, (at that time by unknown forces)
Spock pipes up that they are ready to leave orbit. What kind of logic is this? Is it not standard procedure to investigate 2 possible murders before leaving?

5. Spock states that the anti-matter blast will rip away 1/2 of the planets atmosphere. Kirk shrugs his shoulders and proceeds. HUH??? Shouldn't Kirk kind of ask permission from Starfleet before destroying an entire planet? Does Starfleet really allow thier Captains that kind of power?

3. When Spock or Garrovick (I can't remember which) asks Kirk about the creature, Kirk >says: "Something that can't possibly exist, but it does". Why? The dialog never says that they killed the creature 11 years ago. So why is it so suprising to Kirk that it still exists?

I think that statement refers to the fact that according to Federation science, the creature cannot exist - because of its being composed of di-kironide and being able to alter its molecular structure. So when Kirk says the creature "can't possibly exist" he's not saying that it should have died eleven years ago but that it should not, according to science, ever have existed in the first place.

Jayson - 2. The senior officers seem genuinely suprised when Kirk announces that he will use anti-matter to destroy the creature. Well, dont photon torpedoes use anti-matter warheads? Kirk ordered them to be fired at the creature and nothing happened. So how is the final plan going to be effective?
Just a guess, but I assume that in a photon torpedo matter & anti-matter are brought together to produce a powerful explosion and it was the explosion that was ineffective against the creature. The anti-matter in the torpedoes never touched the creature.
Here Kirk is using just anti-matter against the creature, its body will supply the matter for the planet-shattering kaboom^OMT.
How's that sound?

Todd-point well taken.
KAM-good point, i never thought of that

Isn't it amazing that on the same day that Kirk reencounters a deadly cloud that he hasn't seen in 11 years, he gets a new security officer that just HAPPENS to be the son of the Captain that this cloud killed the last time Kirk encountered it 11 years ago?

---

Quote:

Isn't it amazing that on the same day that Kirk reencounters a deadly cloud that he hasn't seen in 11 years, he gets a new security officer that just HAPPENS to be the son of the Captain that this cloud killed the last time Kirk encountered it 11 years ago?

---

I blasted the Sci-Fi channel for their cuts. Well, TV Land makes their own. At least they're a bit more subtle about theirs.
Kirk rolls around in the dirt, and gets his pants filthy, when he fights with Garrovick. Yet, when he beams back to the ship, he's clean as a whistle.
I don't know of Stephen Brooks wore a hairpiece in this episode, but it looks like he borrowed Sean Connery's from You Only Live Twice.

Kirk doesn't know Garrovick is on his ship? Kirk doesn't keep track of crew transfers very well; he didn't know who Dr. Ann Mulhall or Marlena Moreau were, either.
Did the Vegan Choriomeningitis in Kirk's blood, mentioned in The Mark Of Gideon, save Kirk's life when the vampire cloud attacked the Farragut? He mentions that he came into contact with the thing and lost consciousness back then, and the cloud also found Spock's copper-based blood inedible. Perhaps someone has to have disease-free, iron-rich blood to be killed.
When Kirk complains of an alleged conspiracy on the bridge, there's a red shirt at the helm. Leslie, also a red shirt, was at that station in the first season, too, so I wonder why the director or wardrobe guy made that mistake? This late into the second season someone should have known that the helmsman should have a yellow shirt.
Spock isn't at his station when the Enterprise attacks the cloud-- you can see his empty area. When the cloud approaches the ship, Spock is present.
Why would Kirk just sit there, just ordering the deflectors raised? Shouldn't he have had the ship back up at full speed to avoid contact with the cloud?
What a strange camera angle for the director, Senensky, to use, when Chekov reports that the cloud has left the ship; you can clearly see the edge of Spock's station, which disrupts the reality of the story, reminding you that you're watching a tv show.
Kirk beams up at the end of the show without his communicator in his hand, following the explosion.

"What greater difference in pressure can there be between a 1 gee environment and the vacuum of outer space?"

Maybe a 3 gee environment?

What greater difference in pressure can there be between a 1 gee environment and the vacuum of outer space?

BZZZT!!!! And thank you for playing. Here's your lovely parting gift.

You have mixed apples and oranges. That is, 1g refers to gravitational acceleration, measured in newtons or kg-m/s². Pressure is measured in pascals (N/m²) or psi. It is quite possible to have one atmosphere of pressure at zero g (cf. Space Shuttle or ISS) or alternatively, have a 1g gravity field at vacuum (cf. the moon -- OK, it's only 1/6g, but you get the idea).

When Chapel gives McCoy a report on the one surviving security officer (from the first attack), she says that his blood count is "sixty percent below normal." There are two problems with this statement.

First of all, "sixty percent below normal" is a meaningless figure. The normal "value" is actually a range of values (for a male, hemoglobin should be somewhere around 14 - 18 g/dL); blood counts are thus given as absolute figures, not as percentages below or above "normal."

Second, why is the officer so weak and why does he die? It's implied that his low blood counts are the reason for his condition. If--IF--that's the sole reason for his weakness, it's a tad silly. People can survive hemoglobin levels of 2g/dL or less, which is--to use Chapel's percentage system--15% of the MINIMUM value. Of course, his death could be caused by other factors. But this isn't indicated in the dialog.

The nameless vampire -sucking cloud is enhanced next week, hopefully my vcr (my hi-df vcr recorder)will tape it at 3am pst!

The main effect would be the shots of the gas creature in space. I don't think they'll redo the live action shots.

The ensign hit Captain Kirk on his head with something on purpose on the planet, but the captain did not bring him up on charges after they got transported up to the ship.

Just saw the tape. I still like the end music of Obssession.(Gamesters of Kirk and Return to tomarrow).the planet exteriors are better than the Giant Jupiter-like scenes!

The live action effects were unchanged (phasers, live cloud effects). The space effects are redone, with a more 3D-looking cloud. Also, as they pull away from Tycho IV at the very end a huge blast mark is visible.

Kirk did say Garrovick was on report, though yeah, slugging your superior officer isn't a great way to get promoted.

If they wanted the creature to be as close to the explosion as possible, why were they carrying the bomb away from the blood?

alan- the phaser shots were kinda redone!

Eh? The live action phaser shots (Spock shooting the rock, Garrovick shooting at the cloud) are unchanged. The space battle with the cloud has new phaser effects, of course.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENT:

When the Enterprise leaves orbit at the end, you can see a huge crater on the planet surface....where the anti-matter explosion took place.

The remastered "Obsession" airs next weekend, with "The Savage Curtain" the following week, just in time for President's Day.

When Kirk fights with Garrovick, the rock wall they fall into moves. That's some pretty light rock.

I did a little research on that matter antimatter reaction subject. Here is what I came up with

When matter and antimatter react, the electrons and positrons anihilate directly and turn into gamma rays. However, because those particles represent only a small fraction of the mass involved, they do not contribute greatly to the amount of energy released.

The protons and neutrons react with the antiprotons and antineutrons in a rather complex set of interactions resulting in the production of a strong pulse of neutrinos and antineutrinos, as well as a powerful flash of gamma rays. Because they react so little with other particles and with each other, the neutrinos and antineutrinos fly away at the speed of light, carrying away about 60% of the energy as they do. The remaining 40% of the energy, in the form of gamma rays, is what produces the actual explosion as it slams into the surrounding matter (air, rock, ship's hull, whatever) and instantly heats it up to millions of degrees. From a distance, the explosion would look and behave a lot like a classic nuclear explosion.

According to Garrovick, the device they carried to the planet's surface contained less than an ounce of antimatter, but probably not much less, so lets round it up to a full ounce. Once released, that ounce of antimatter would react with an ounce of the surrounding matter to produce the explosion. That's two ounces of mass being converted to energy, only 40% of which will go into the actual explosion. Converting that mass into energy with Einstein's famous E=MC2 equation gives us 2.0412x10E15 joules. Converting that to megatons gives us 0.488 megaton.

Yes, you read correctly, that's only 0.488 megaton from one ounce of antimatter. It is a sizable explosion, but nowhere near enough to rip away half a planet's atmosphere, or send shockwaves thousands of kilometers in space. Even adding the 60% of energy lost to the neutrinos would only make a 1.22 megaton explosion. So obviously, the potency of antimatter has been greatly exagerated in the Startrek universe.

I already mentioned that when Kirk beams up with Garrovick, he beams up without his communicator in hand. I should also add that Kirk's original position was both arms bent towards his face, holding the communicator close, and aboard ship, empty hands, with arms straight down his body.

Scotty seems overly concerned about that medicine getting to Theta 7, almost as if he knows somebody there and is worried about them. His sister, perhaps?

I love the new CGI effect of the planet as the Enterprise leaves, showing a massive Austrailia-sized explosion/crater.

I know the vampire cloud can shift its time frame, and the producers needed an exciting finale, but would the anti-matter explosion really make that much more of a difference if it was detonated 2 feet or 20 feet from the cloud? I'd imnagine the ground-zero destructiveness would be a good 10 miles in circumference from the bomb, and kill the creature, anyway.

Kirk's log states something like, "No one achieves Starfleet Command...", which is an awkward way of saying 'starSHIP command', or 'command of a starship', or 'command IN Starfleet', because 'Starfleet Command' is an organization in its own right.

Stephen Brooks tv career would continue until 1982, and include "The F.B.I." as Special Agent Jim Rhodes (58 episodes, 1965-1968)and "The Interns" as Dr. Greg Pettit / 24 episodes, 1970-1971) He was born in Ohio in August, 1942, making him about 25 when this episode was filmed.

Anti nit.

Much has been said about the creature getting into the ship through the impulse engine vent. It is true that there can be no direct contact between the vent and the ship's interior, and that events in the episode indicate that the creature cannot move through solid matter. There is, however, a way out of this conundrum.

The creature was capable of going through the ship's deflectors. It is reasonable to infer that it could also go through a force field, which is similar in nature to the deflectors. The impulse engine vent was physicaly open because Scotty was performing some maintenance on it, but it could very well have been sealed with a forcefield while the work was ongoing, precisely to avoid loss of atmosphere. This provided the creature with the access it needed, even though there was no direct path between the inside and outside of the ship.

Good, Francois, but I wonder how the creature got inside the USS Farragut and killed so many of its crew. I wonder if it was able to create microscopic breaches in the hull?

It could very well have been beamed up accidently, even in its dicoronium rock-state, or brought aboard from a shuttle in a specimen case. Unless someone writes a novel, I guess we'll never know.

When the creature enters Garrovick's quarters, Spock throws him out of the room and the door closes between them. Spock makes no attempt at locking the door. Why doesn't Garrovick get back in the room? Those are his quarters, he should be able to open his own door.

Kirk orders negative pressure in the air vent of Garrovick's quarters. We see the creature being sucked back in the vent and carried away. However, this is a creature capable of high warp space travel, as well as moving freely on a planet's surface. Could negative pressure in a ventilation system really affect it to that degree?

When planning the destruction of the creature with an anti matter explosion, Spock states that his green blood means the creature could not do him much harm. I wouldn't be so sure about that. The thing is intelligent, it's possible it could figure out other ways of attacking Spock.

One tension point in the story is Enterprise being delayed in her rendez-vous with USS Yorktown, which carries perishable medical supplies urgently needed on Theta VII. After Enterprise confirms to Yorktown that they will be late, couldn't the Yorktown herself deliver the supplies, or at least get underway to Theta VII to cut down on the delivery time if she is not fast enough to make the delivery herself?

Keith Alan Morgan on Saturday, April 17, 1999 - 5:59 am: All the security people in this episode seem to be Ensigns, but I believe both Yar and Worf of The Next Generation were Lt. Commanders.

Actually Keith, they were both Lieutenants during their appearances on TNG. Yar was never a Lieutenant Commander - even though she certainly earned that rank - and Worf only received it in Star Trek Generations.

(AKA RWFW)

The remastered version of this episode is being shown here in the UK, on CBS Action, at 6pm today and 12pm tomorrow (UK time). I'm looking forward to seeing the crater at the end!

The next episode will be Wolf in the Fold.

Ah, yes, the episode where Mr. Leslie is killed off, but he coms back to life, because he appears in later episodes.

Mr. Leslie must be an Immortal, a la Duncan MacLeod. The only way he'll stay dead is if you take his head.

Like how this episode showed that Spock and McCoy can relive Kirk of command, given the right circumstances (like him acting seemingly irrational).

Of course, they don't do it, but they clearly can if they have to.

Everyone acts like this is the only vampire cloud out there, and it wasn't created by another creature spawning it, but maybe the hint is in the dialog.
Spock specifically states that dicoronium exists only in lab experiments-- maybe that's what happened. This creature is the result of an lab experiment gone horribly wrong, similar to the theory in 'The Immunity Syndrome' thread where another poster suggested that the Space Amoeba was a one-off experiment gone wrong.

Although not canon, the Titan novel, Orion's Hounds, had a possible origin for the vampire cloud.

This comes cloud's page at Memory Alpha:

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quote:

According to the novel Orion's Hounds, a predatory cloud creature with metadimensional abilities was genetically engineered to have warp capability and a hunger for humanoid blood, so that it could be used as a biological weapon. The clouds nearly destroyed both sides in the war before they were stopped, but a few managed to escape.

---

I like that concept, too-- biological weapons from an alien war, and this one got away from it's makers? Works for me.

Yeah, it makes sense.

Back in 'The Cage'/'The Menagerie', Pike mentions that the Enterprise has a crew of 203 people (that he has to worry about). We know that that story takes place 13 years before Season 1, and now we know Kirk met up with the Vampire Cloud 11 years prior to 'Obsession' from Season 2, placing those old events 3 years after 'The Cage'.
In a span of 3 years, a Constitution-class ship went from a crew of 203 to 430. I wonder why?

Must have been a major upgrade when we weren't looking!

Once again, as in "The Apple", Kirk sends down a whole slew of security guards on a mission where there's no reason to anticipate much danger, just so they can die.

In this instance I fear you might be right.

On the other hand he might have just been giving them a chance to get some fresh air and sunshine.

Yes, but, at that point, Kirk didn't know that the cloud creature was there.

In his book, I'm surprised Phil didn't mention that Mr. Leslie died in this episode, but somehow got better (or he has an identical twin brother, who also serves on the Enterprise)

But it does fit Star Trek standard operating procedures.

About Mr. Leslie maybe he is a clone, maybe the real question is who cloned him?

Maybe the Founders found the Federation far earlier than we realized.

@Tim, Leslie was only MOSTLY dead!