They take one of the creatures up to the ship and McCoy says he's tried every known radiation, including something that sounds like Berian radiation. What was that supposed to be?
Anyway, he would have tried ultraviolet radiation. At the end of the episode, ultraviolet radiation kills the creatures. So why didn't it work when McCoy tried it? It would have been a short show. And why didn't they use the ending James Blish used in his adaptation?
This episode contains a great bad line:
Kirk wondering what it was about the sun that killed the creatures, and Spock says,
"It exists. It has mass, therefore gravity..."
Naturally Shatner couldn't let Nimoy risk solving the problem himself!<g> And of course none of the hundreds of other crewmembers could be allowed to solve it!<g>

Concerning Phil`s nit about Sulu disappearing from the helm console near the end of the episode, the scene was stolen from "The Conscience Of the King", where the redshirt in Sulu`s place was (fanfare, drumroll) Mr Leslie! (See the nits from "Obsession")

GUEST STAR PATROL
OK, I'm not sure, and this is stretching it, but I want to be complete. I think Craig Hundley (Peter Kirk) was on "Bewitched", playing a kid warlock. According to the "Nick at Nite Book", Craig Hunely is in it, but that could have been a spelling error. James Doohan is also listed in the show...

Not exactly a nit, but I'm sure the shot of the Enterprise used after teh credits was never re-used for any other episode.
Maybe they lost the film.

Am I the only person who thinks it a bit odd that a starship captain has the authority to order the deaths of a planet full of colonists without even bothering to ask Starfleet's permission?

He does the same thing in "A Taste of Armageddon" (General Order 24) But in "The Omega Glory," Sulu tells him he doesn't have the authority by himself to order some extra phasers beamed down to the landing party.

Kirk is not ordering the deaths of the colonists per se. He is trying to exterminate the creatures.

One nit that has always bothered me about this episode:
It has previously been established that:
a) A Vulcan heart beats faster than a human heart.
b) The strange bumping sounds the medi-bed makes are supposed to be the heartbeats of the patients.

So why are they so very slow when Spock lies down on one of them? And they never change their rhythm when he is administered a sedative.
The same goes for Kirk's Sister-in-Law (forget her name now ...) -- no change in the rhythm of her heartbeat.

Well, maybe both medi-beds were faulty? Not? Then it might just be a nit ... *gg*

Tina

When the Enterprise turns away from the Denevan sun, the star patterns don't shift.

Spock says that there have been no Federation contacts with Deneva for over a year, but in What Are Little Girls Made Of? wasn't it revealed that Kirk had received a communication from his brother Sam? (What is it with the Federation and its colonies? Does the Federation just not care about them?)

Why doesn't the focused energy of a phaser, do something to kill or injure the creatures? (Has the fear of causing skin cancer forced the manfacturers to create a deadly energy weapon that doesn't use ultra-violet?)

Before the delusional inhabitants approach the landing party, there is a change of shots of the crew walking in which McCoy changes position in the group up to the front on the left.

It isn't explained how Spock dispenses of the inhabitant with the pipe; it seems there's a scene missing as the episode returns from commercial. (Perhaps my tape is missing something?)

Spock and McCoy don't seem to have any help in finding a solution to the creature's invasive presence. Doesn't anybody on the crew help in scientific research?

Intense light from the satellites may not reach everyone indoors.

In the Blish novelization, it was magnetism, not light that destroyed the creatures. This, of course, lets us off without the corny "Oops, I'm not blind, I just have the galaxy's greatest memory, but forgot I have an 'inner eyelid'" scene.

Even though, that having been said, Gene Roddenberry's authorised biography by David Alexander reveals that James Blish never even watched an episode before he novelised them.
Totally illogical (and what's worse, a lot of Trek novelists these days seem to have followed suit- e.g. Melissa Scott, who began her Voyager book "The Garden" without having seen an episode and who- serve her right if you ask me- did a massive re-write when she saw one and realised that she hadn't handled the characters or their mannerisms quite right. And from what I've read of it (despite her apparent research) "The Garden" still misses the mark a bit).

James Blish's adaptation was based on an earlier version of the OA script, which did not include the "blindness" subplot.

A lot of the Blish stories are different from the televised scripts. I've been assuming that he was working from earlier versions.

When Spock is lying in sickbay we can hear the background musci/sound FX from Where No Man Has Gone Before, right down to the clicking remote control!

Kirk`s stunt double from Court-Martial is back, during the scene where they try to restrain Spock on the bridge. Try to follow Kirk`s actions between the wide and close shots, and you`ll see the stunt double. According to the Star Trek Concordance, he was also Latimer`s stunt double in The Galileo Seven (he does look a lot more like Latimer than Kirk) and Kirk`s in Space Seed (I`m not sure if he really is, since I don`t have Space Seed on tape and I don`t remember the stunt double very well, only that he was bad)

When Spock thrrows Sulu into one of the consoles at the side of the bridge, Sulu falls the smae way twice. This is obviously to do with bad editing when the stunt doubles took over.

GREAT CAMERA SHOTS:

*The opening shot of the Enterprise during the teaser.
*The shot of Kirk firing the phaser upward at the creature.
*Ditto for Spock when he beams down by himself.
*The shot of Kirk beaming onto a flight of stairs.

NITS:

For some strange reason Uhura has a black stripe around her waist.

When Spock beams down by himself & shoots the creature, it lands face down...however...when the camera switches to a close-up...the creature is face up...then the camera pulls back and shows the creature face down again, THEN when Spock uses the prongs to pick up the thing, it's face up again!

The chair in the ultra-violet light room is the same one that was used at the Tantalus Penal Colony in "Dagger of the Mind"

RUMINATION:

The parasite in this episode reminds me of the future "Borg stories" from STTNG....

Each piece is an individual unit, yet each piece works with the others as a whole.

GREAT LINE: "I want that third alternative!"

Kirk to Spock and McCoy after the discussion about destroying 1,000,000,000 inhabitants

When Kirk fires on one of the creatures, it lands face down on the ground, however, the close-ups show it landed face up! (the same nit happened when Spock shot one of the creatures--mentioned above)

All the doors on Deneva---a Federation planet---are hinged doors.

When Sulu acknowleges Kirk's command at the end, his voice is very faint...someone forgot to turn on the boom.

When Spock beams down, he is attacked by a Denevan...he seems a lot closer to Spock in some shots than some of the others

Just how fast can those Denevian ships go?

Sulu spots a ship heading towards the Denevian sun...Kirk orders a intercept course at WARP 8....yet they never intercept the ship nor get it in their tractor beam.

The story title's misspelt at the top of the thread. There are two 'n's in 'Annihilate'.
The Voyager novel 'The Garden' is incredibly dull.

Physical laws, as far as we currently know, do not vary from place to place.

Kirk calls the officers in the briefing room "gentleman" but they're not all male.

Phil noted that Kirk could not have heard Aurelan scream from the distance he was standing...well here's my theory...it is possible he could have heard her scream because she was standing next to a ventilation duct...her voice could have carried to the outside thru the vents.

GREAT ACTING MOMENT: Once again Shatner (Kirk) puts on a dazzling performance of a grief-stricken sibling after his brother is pronounced dead.

The all time, no contest, "hands down" SCREAM QUEEN WINNER: Aurelan Kirk in sick bay.

Man, that woman can travail, can't she?

My ears are still ringing, 20 years later!

This one is hard to tell....when Uhura expalins to Kirk how the communications were cut off, her lips don't match the words.

I must say also, Kirk's "attack" on Uhura was unnecessary, He says, "I'm not interested in excuses lieutenant, open the channel!" (or something like that)

Back, off Jim-boy the woman knows what she's doing! It wasn't her fault!

The people of Deneva must really be home-sick for Earth...all their buildings match the TRW complexes near Los Angeles, Ca.

At the end of the episode, why does Kirk ask SPOCK to plot a course for their next heading?

To save some money, the creators chose not to show the landing party dematerializing during the first beam down.

When Spock tries to take over the ship, he gets into a fight on the Bridge. Kirk & the others push him into the railing to the right of the command chair..when they do, the railing moves a little bit...for a Starship, it sure ain't sturdy.

And last, but not certainly least....the goofball responsible for the end credits screwed up again with "SCPIPT SUPERVISOR" AGAIN!!!!!!

Maybe it was the Denevian Parasites all along...it attacked the end credits person, took over their body and forced its will on the end credits person.....I can imagine it now.....

[Denevian parasite to end credits person]
"You will spell script incorrectly!
You will spell SCRIPT...S-C-P-I-P-T!
You will repeat this mistake until the end of the season!
You will obey! Remember SCPIPT! S-C-P-I-P-T!
SCPIPT! SCPIPT! SCPIPT!!!!! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!!!!!!!"

RUMINATION: This episode establishes the fact that Scotty served as an engineering advisor on a freighter line of some kind before he signed aboard the Enterprise.

There's a terrific blooper from this episode. When the away team first investigate the 'pancakes', one of them flies up and lands on Spocks back. In the blooper, it misses, and catches him one across the backside!

When Spock attacks the crew on the Bridge...
Uhura is gone! Another African-American woman is in her place! Who the heck is it?

Her evil twin.

When the landing party beams down for the first time, you hear some very familiar music...a clarinet piece with a maramba in the background. It was first heard in "Charlie X" when Charlie was walking down the hall and watching the guy with the pipe....I must note that this episode (Operation: Annihilate) marks the last time we hear the clarinet/maramba piece EVER!

John A. Lang, your post of 9-22-2000 shows 1,000,000,000. This is one Billion not one Million. Keep up the good work though, your posts are very informative. Also note when Spock beams down alone and has his phaser knocked out of his hand, it winds up just behind him, It looked like it was knocked much further away than that.

Craig Hundley, who played Peter Kirk would later go on to infamy as the nasty Tommy Starnes in the widely-disliked 'And The Children Shall Lead'.
I'm not sure why Spock won't wear protective goggles. He KNOWS he'll go blind, he KNOWS his optic nerves will be damaged or destroyed, but he goes through with the experiment, anyway. Just because the people on Deneva will suffer the consequences, why would Spock risk his future, which would be something like 150 years of blindness?

The reason he chose to not wear goggles is that the people on the planet surface wouldn't be wearing any.

John A., yes I know he said the people on the surface wouldn't be wearing goggles, but McCoy asked him, 'Do you have any idea what one million candlelight can do to your optic nerves?" McCoy knew the danger, Spock knew the danger. If there was a 50/50 chance of blindness (and it sounds more like a 90% chance of it), why would Spock destroy his sight? It serves no purpose; if the inhabitants on Deneva were ridden of the parasites, but suffered blindness, then that's still terrible, but at least Spock would not have to do his martyr act. Would he have stepped into a furnace without the benefit of fire-proof suit, just because the Denevans weren't wearing one? I don't think so. Don't get me wrong; it's a great scene and a twist that many viewers didn't expect, and the teeth-grinding curse, "Bones!" from Kirk is great, but Spock's masochism isn't logical.

I find it hard to believe that all of the crewmembers and computers tasked with finding "the third option" couldnt come up with the sunlight answer yet Kirk does it in a matter of minutes after thinking about the problem.

FUNNY THOUGHT:
Perhaps the person involved in the "Scpipt Supervisor" spelling snafu was Dan Quale.

NOTE FROM END CREDITS PERSON TO GENE RODDENBERRY:

"Yoo kan knot fyre mee, Eye kwit!"

Funny thought: You misspelled Dan Quayle's name! (But maybe you did that on purpose just to be funny? )

About "The Garden"--I don't really care that the author hadn't seen an episode before she wrote the book--the producers didn't care about continuity, so the author couldn't be expected to be consistent, either. But if it was dull, that is the author's fault.

I thought Blish's versions were usually just as good, if not better, than the aired versions-- but it's been a while since I've read Blish's versions.

Cheap-FX-Department
The creatures look like plastic joke vomit.

Yuck. I didn't think of that; I prefer to think they look like omelets.

Omelettes that had been vomited up?

My misspelling of Dan QUAYLE wasn't deliberate.
It's just been so long since I've had to spell it, I forgot how. In other words, I had a bad case of the "scpipts"

LESLIE ALERT! Mr. Leslie is in the Transporter room when Spock tries to beam down alone.

I feel REAL SORRY for the Asian yeoman in this episode. She's the only one in the landing party who does not get a hand phaser. All she does is crouch when the Denevians attack. What if the guys with the clubs somehow broke through the rest of the landing party? She'd be defenseless! Not to mention a few minutes later when the Denevian Parasites start swooping over the landing party's heads. She'd be an easy target!

(Maybe it was a conspiracy...she didn't want to be snuggly with Kirk, so he "arranged" for her not to get a phaser!)

actually, she was a phaser-control advocate at the time and didn't feel comfortable using tools of violence.

In Sickbay, Aurelan's head falls to the pillow when she dies. However, we never saw her raise her head.
Sci-Fi Channel seems to be dropping its regular nightly run of Trek as quickly as it began. Next week, they start Farscape repeats in its place.

hey mr odds, get the omelette to sickbays

Way up there on Sept.22, 2000, John A.Lang wrote '1,000,000,000' instead of 'one million'. On March 3, 2002 glennofnas corrected him and said that '1,000,000,000' is one billion. He's wrong and John is right, because six zeroes after a one (1,000,000) is only one hundred thousand. One billion would have twelve zeroes after it (1,000,000,000,000).
Back to the show...
If you look at the viewscreen above Uhura's head as she tells Kirk she can't reestablish contact with Deneva, it doesn't match the shape or star pattern on the screen from the camera angle when Kirk steps away from her. Her station has two viewscreens, while Scott's has one long one. Apparently, for some reason, this scene required Shatner and Nichols to do it from Doohan's seat.
Short show syndrome;
They couldn't do this on the episode, but
there's no telling if the parasites could pierce the material of an insulated space suit, so why not send down a bunch of people to pull off the parasites from the wall, stick them in a box, and jettison them into the sun? They'd still have to deal with the infected people, but at least these things wouldn't hurt anyone else.
And not to slag Picard or Janeway, but I could almost imagine them trying to protect the rights of the parasites. They've done so for similar, near-mindless lifeforms before.

because six zeroes after a one (1,000,000) is only one hundred thousand. One billion would have twelve zeroes after it (1,000,000,000,000).

First of all, 10⁶ is one million. One Hundred Thousand is 10⁵ (100,000).

Second, 10⁹ is one billion in American usage. 10¹² is one billion in British usage (Americans would call it one trillion). I believe that what Americans call one billion, the British call one milliard.

I am soooooooooo s-t-u-p-i-d!!! ARRRGGH!!! And embarrassed. D'OH!! D'OH!!! D'OH!!! Where was my head today????????
Can't tell I was lousey with math in high school can you? Now I've proven it INTERNATIONALLY!!!!
Excuse me while I crawl under that big rock over there...
AGRRGGH! It's a Horta!!!!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Actually, we also call an American billion (1,000,000,000) a thousand million, though mind you, the term one billion for this figure is becoming more fashionable in the UK nowadays. ("Why?" I hear you ask: BISC!) However the British term is numerically more accurate.

Not that it matters - personally I prefer using either term to describe my monthly income [this is a lie].

So...was I right or was I wrong?

You were wrong, John.
I thought glennofas couldn't count, but apparently, neither can I.
1,000,000 equals one million, but you had written 1,000,000,000 which equals one billion here in North America.

Responding to the question about the mediscanner and Spock's heartbeat way above: Rather than the normal thump-thump sound, the scanner makes a whining beep. Maybe that's how it indicates that the heartbeat is beyond its ability to register.

Kirk initially seems to blame McCoy for Spock's blindness. Yet he was the one who came up with sunlight as the secret to destroying the creatures and also insisted that Spock go ahead with the test (over McCoy's repeated objections)!

Moderator, as Ed Jolley pointed out (three years ago), the word "Annihilate" is spelled as such, with two "n"'s. Thanks.

Fixed it Luigi.

After hearing Aurelan scream, Kirk yells "Fan out! Follow me!", after which the landing party follows him in a close group. Fan out usually means spread out.

Maybe they thought he meant a female fan just came out of her closet, and they thought they were going to watch a peep show?

When they veer off from the Denevan sun at the beginning of the episode, the sun sweeps off the screen but the stars are stationary. In other words, the sun moved instead of the ship.

For those who don't know, Sam Kirk was "played" by William Shatner donning a mustache.

GREAT MOMENT: The swooping of the Denevian Parasites over the crews' heads. FLAWLESS!

It has been mentioned (much) earlier that McCoy claimed he tried radiation, so we might expect him to have tried ultraviolet light. This always bothered me. But what is worse is that Kirk's intuition about the sun being bright turns out to be meaningless. I think the idea here is that Kirk is not an egghead, but he has lots of savvy and common sense, so he might be expected to come up with solutions to problems that are so "obvious" that big brains like Spock would miss them - just as Kirk is able to beat Spock in chess. This idea worked well in "The Immunity Syndrome" - "Antibodies! ANTIBODIES!!"
But it doesn't work well here. "Brightness" as a common-sense concept refers to visible light, so the blinding white light McCoy threw at Spock must really have been what Kirk was suggesting.

Personally, I liked the Blish explanation better. And it didn't need the deus ex machina of the "inner eyelid" either. Blish had it be magnetism that destroyed the parasites.

Yes, I agree - wasn't Blish writing those noveletizations from earlier script drafts? Plus, I admire Spock's willingness to go in the chamber w/o goggles because "They'll have none on the planet, Doctor." But really, isn't that carrying heroism too far? For that matter, the folks on the planet would be caught by surprise by the blinding light, so maybe McCoy should sneak up behind Spock and push him into the chamber! Perhaps it is to duplicate the surprise the colonists will experience, that Spock doesn't even close his eyes until the light hits him!
But the courage with which Spock faces his apparently permanent condition, and the way he barely manages to conceal his relief and his pride in another Vulcan superiority, remain for me high points of the episode.

What's worse, strong ultraviolet light does cause eye damage.

Wow, you're right Alan, I never thought of that! I guess Kirk really required a fourth alternative.
The comments above re: magnetism being the original solution seem even more relevant.

In one of his introductions, Blish mentioned that he deliberately changed the ending of one story because the original just didn't work. I strongly suspect it's this one.

Good point. In the Blish version, they go to the parasites home planet, and destroy them all.

You know, I remember that now. I always thought that ending echoed the dramatic conclusion (spoiler alert) of Heinlein's novel Puppet Masters (skip the film!) and its final phrase, "Death and Destruction!" I guess the little pizzas got off easy in the aired version.

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


The Denevan ship is not very obvious when it is flying into the sun. Perhaps a tactical overlay on the screen shows an enlargement of the ship, with a data box indicating its hull temperature, velocity, distance from the sun, and heading (always 0 mark 0) relative to the sun, a cursory reading of its registration beam, and perhaps some general specifications such as its engine ability for escape velocity, "point of no return" and such. The tactical display scrolls off when the ship burns up, leaving the stark and growing image of the sun.

Again, on the medical panel, when Aurelan Kirk dies, the readings shouldn't all drop together like a marching band.

Spock speculates that the creatures originated from another galaxy. This does not seem as likely as their origin from a level of subspace, similar to the cellular peptide vampire critters in the TNG episode "Phantasms" ("Deanna is a cake"). Had this episode been made as a TNG/DS9/Voyager episode, it would have probably exploited this origin.

McCoy's medical lab has a prop in the corner that appears to be Balok's control pedestal from "The Corbomite Maneuver". Hardly appropriate, unless Bailey has arranged an exchange of First Federation medical technology.

How is that "Hardly appropriate"?

And why couldn't Bailey had arranged an exchange of First Federation Medical techology?

Check this out. (Still photo and script for cut scene from this ep. Scroll to the bottom of the page. Also has cut dialog from "Elaan of Troyius.")

DO IT, PARAMOUNT!

(...and while you're at it, fix that @#$%&* "SCPIPT SUPERVISOR" snafu!)

That looked like a magnifecent scene, it's a shame it was cut from the final episode. As it stands, the fate of Peter is kind of a loose end to this one.

Yes. That scene had very well-written dialog. It implied that Kirk's mother (if indeed he was referring to her when he mentioned "your grandmother" to Peter) was still alive. It would have been nice to have seen her in an episode. All this is 20/20 hindsight, of course.
Also, note that, although Peter had on a small sized uniform, the Command insignia is the same size as on the adult uniforms.

If this scene had not been cut, actor Craig Hundley would have had the distinction of being the only non-regular guest star to sit in the Enterprise command chair on two separate occasions (here and "And The Children Shall Lead")

1. Here I am again, using my favourite nitpicking theme of the country doctor. An unknown 'disease' makes complete planets mad. What do you do then, you beam abord 3 infected patients without taking quarantine measures, furthermore you let one patient escape from sickbay, not only once, but even twice... if this had been a virus the whole Enterprise could've been infected.
2. For a moment the starship board of directors are seriously considering the mass-killing of all inhabitants of the planet. Isn't that kind of behavior the same as what Kodos (aka Karidian) did, he killed only a selection of the inhabitants on his planet in order to make survival for the rest easier... (now I understand Kirk's middle name a bit better: Tiberius was emperor Nero's real name, put the thing on fire Kirk and write a poem about it!)
3. Since when are candles the interstellar standard for measuring light?

re: 3.

Candles/candlepower is currently the standard unit. Note, it doesn't mean "the amount of light emitted by a physical candle", but the standardized measurement of intensity.

To ScottN: Candlepower is a 'light' unit indeed, but it has been replaced by the Candela, that is the Earth scientific standard, if I'm not mistakin' (just as Kelvin has replaced both Fahrenheit and Celsius).

Sources: http://www.unc.edu/~rowlett/units/dictC.html#candela

and:

The candela, abbreviated as cd, has replaced the standard candle or lamp as a unit of luminous intensity in calculations involving artificial lighting and is sometimes called the "new candle." (1994-1999 Encyclopædia Britannica)

I'm well aware of the candela, however, back in the '60s, I believe candlepower was still used.

The chair Spock sits in during the blinding light scene was from the Neural Nuetralizer Room from "Dagger of the Mind"

The chair Spock sits in during the blinding light scene was from the Neural Neutralizer Room from "Dagger of the Mind"

That same chair was dusted off and re-used as Garth's torture chair in "Whom Gods Destroy," with the addition of the round lights at the head of the chair.

Makes perfect sense. It's just a standard Federation issue medical chair. I think about this chair every time I go to the dentist.

All the doors on Deneva---a Federation planet---are hinged doors.

Not neccesarily a nit. First, as a colony world, perhaps automatic doors were not a high priority. Or, maybe the colonists just don't like them. Second, we have seen regular doors many times in Star Trek, including on a Starbase(TNG's Samaritan Snare), at Starfleet Academy(The First Duty) and on Earth(Barclay's apartment on Earth)

Is it just me, or is the Denevan landing party missing things like phasers, communicators, etc. before and after beamdown? They produce phasers when the Denevans attack them, but I didn't notice them prior (save for the security guards' phaser).

Speaking of the attackers, were the stairs they came running down the same ones seen in 'Battle for the Planet of the Apes'?

Someone ( John A. Lang, specifically) mentioned here that Uhura was wearing some sort of black belt in this episode. The woman on the landing party had one, as well. I wonder if they were experimenting with wardrobe?

Uhura had a great moment after Kirk blasted her on the bridge for not being able to communicate with Deneva. She stood her ground and gave him the facts after he yelled at her for not being able to raise them.

By Todd Pence on Monday, August 25, 2003 - 7:28 pm:

Kirk initially seems to blame McCoy for Spock's blindness. Yet he was the one who came up with sunlight as the secret to destroying the creatures and also insisted that Spock go ahead with the test (over McCoy's repeated objections)!

It never occured to me until last night, but why was Kirk so angry at Bones after Spock was blinded? Earlier, Spock wanted to undergo the test without a visor, as 'There will be none on the planet surface', as I believe Spock said. McCoy wanted to do further tests, and Kirk agreed with Spock. It seems if anything, Kirk should've been angry at himself for not listening to McCoy. The scene reminds me of a time when I was riding with a friend in his car, and he ran out of gas. His first reaction was to blame his brother-in-law, who was "supposed" to remind him to get gas!

By John A. Lang on Sunday, January 13, 2002 - 5:38 am:

When the landing party beams down for the first time, you hear some very familiar music...a clarinet piece with a maramba in the background. It was first heard in "Charlie X" when Charlie was walking down the hall and watching the guy with the pipe....I must note that this episode (Operation: Annihilate) marks the last time we hear the clarinet/maramba piece EVER!

I love that piece of music. As little as it was used, it is nonetheless iconic ST music to me!

Peter Kirk is the only one of Kirk's nephews seen in this episode. What happened to the other two boys mentioned in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" Kirk doesn't even ask Aurelean what happened to them.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENTS

New Denevian shuttle

New satellite deployment

New satellite activation

And I'm not sure but...it looks like they sychronized Uhura's mouth with her words when she explains how she was cut off.

Next week the new Enhanced Operation A. is on..

Like John A said Uhuru's mouth and Uhura's Undies 122 shots.

I miss Janice Rand.

Aurelan can sure scream her lines out!!!!!!

Chekov too.

Good enhanced episode moment - We finally see the seeding of Deneva with the satellites.
Bad enhanced episode moment - The dialog in which Spock refuses eye protection before he's exposed to the blinding light was cut, making him look absent minded (and a bit out of character) when he enters the chamber without eye protection.

New orbital shots of Deneva, and the big new effect is the ultraviolet satellites we now see seeded and activated. This is also a rare case of the soundtrack being altered in the enhanced episodes. There are some extra sound effects for the satellites.

The phaser shots are unaltered, and the creatures themselves are also unaltered. I agree with Yeoman Zahra: "They don't even look real!"

Speaking of her, Maurishka Taliaferro was only credited as "Maurishka" for playing Zahra.

In addition to what Adam said, they left in the line where McCoy says he'll rig up some protective goggles. The dialog following where Spock refuses them is cut. They should have cut McCoy's comment about the goggles too.

When Spock leaves the chamber, he strides out quickly until he runs into the desk. If he can't see, why does he walk out like that?

Most of the glaring plot holes have been discusses above and in Phil's book, of course. As I mentioned, strong ultraviolet light will cause blindness.

A fine ending to a fine season!

That actress that played Kirks sister-in-law sure can scream!

It's too bad Kirks brother died before they got there, would've been nice to have had some scenes with him.

Doesn't ultraviolet radiation also burn the skin?

The remastered "Operation--Annihilate!" airs next weekend. The following week is "Mudd's Women".

The "straight line" progression of the parasites seems a bit odd. They hijacked spaceships to get to the next planet, so there's no reason it should be in a particular direction.

Did the Denevan spaceship have a viewport rather than a viewscreen as the Enterprise does? If it didn't, how would the UV from the star get into the ship? I'm also not convinced that the UV from the satellites would penetrate closed area on Deneva.

The first draft (that Blish worked from) got around the light and the blinding and the convenient deus ex machina of the inner eyelid by saying it was *MAGNETISM* that killed the parasites.

Yes, Blish even admitted to changing the ending.

Re: the spaceship, even if it had a viewport wouldn't it be UV resistant? No use giving the crew a sunburn.

I've got the Blish version, and they considered light but quickly ruled it out due to the nits mentioned above. They settled on magnetism as something that would have penetrated the ship, and their test on an infected person (not Spock) did kill the creature. However, they realized they could not apply that much magnetism to the entire planet. Instead, they tracked down the "home world" and destroyed it totally.

I don't think this was a "first draft" version; I'm certain the ending was actually changed by Blish, as he admitted to doing to one episode.

When the creatures are killed at the end, they leave some sort of residue behind. Presumably, the tentacles that are entwined throughout the people's nervous systems leave a similar residue when they are destroyed. That residue would probably be quite harmfull and toxic, and it should take a lot of time for the freed victims to clear it out of their systems and fully recover.

Do starships really carry a hundred ultraviolet emitting satellites as standard equipment, just in case they have to flood whole planets with UV light?

The transporter is a remarkable device. Here you have creatures that resist heat, acids, radiation, even full phaser power, and does not even register on tricorders, yet the transporter has no problem whatsoever scanning them, dissasembling them and reassembling them just as perfectly as it does with anything else.

And speaking of the transporter, I wonder if the bio filters of the more advanced Next Gen transporters could have cleared the infection from the Denevan victims.

Check out the lack of reactions to the man (Kirk's brother) and the boy (Kirk's nephew) lying on the floor, by the Yeoman, the guard, and Spock. They stroll into the interior of the house, and don't seem to even notice the two guys on the floor!

Stephen Mendenhall on Sunday, November 15, 1998 - 1:47 pm: They take one of the creatures up to the ship and McCoy says he's tried every known radiation, including ultraviolet radiation. At the end of the episode, ultraviolet radiation kills the creatures. So why didn't it work when McCoy tried it?

Maybe the conditions of the test were at fault. Either that, or the test subject was somehow kept alive remotely by the other creatures.

Here's a funny analogy from "Shatner's Toupee", comparing the creatures from this episode with Shatner's abandoned toupees.

Why did the creatures send only ONE man to stop Spock when he beamed back to the planet? Why not ten, a hundred, a thousand?

When Kirk beams back to Deneva, he materializes on stairs. I know the transporter is a very precise instrument, but the transporter operator really made his job needlessly complicated, he could have beamed Kirk on the nice open flat ground just a couple of meters away.

This was the only time we ever saw a family member of Kirk's, until his son was introduced in Wrath Of Khan.

When the Enterprise is flying to Deneva after failing to rescue the Denevan ship, it looks like the Enterprise is heading into empty space, without any planet up ahead, even a distant one which should look like a small, bright blob, even from a distance.

A parasite flies off the ceiling when Kirk and the landig party arrive, and it very nearly hits or lands on Scotty's face! H ducks down just in time.

Spock encounters Denevan who uses his club to smack away Spock's phaser, which goes flying off screen. After the commercial, Spock neck pinches the Denevan, and bends over to pick up the phaser. Just one problem-- he should have had to walk several yards out of camera range to pick it up, since the whole scene took place in one small spot of the sidewalk, and the phaser clearly went flying up high and away.

At the end of the episode, Kirk asks Spock to set a course, and the Vulcan replies, "My pleasure, Captain." My pleasure?! That should be an alien emotion to Spock-- I suppose his regained eyesight made him appreciate the little things in life a lot more.

Kirk is about to record a message to Starfleet Command with a Yeoman, but is interrupted by Spock and McCoy arriving on the bridge. Spock reveals the inner eyelid fact, Kirk and McCoy speak at the captain's chair, and Spock overhears McCoy call him the best first officer in the fleet, and the episode ends. The Yeoman never returned to Kirk to have te message recorded and sent!

And did anybody remember by the end of the episode regarding the plotline that Kirk's brother and sister-in-law were dead, and his nephew (probably) cured? Anybody? Me neither.

Scotty wasn't part of the landing party.


did anybody remember by the end of the episode regarding the plotline that Kirk's brother and sister-in-law were dead, and his nephew (probably) cured? Anybody? Me neither.

Nope, they were never mentioned again. Of course, this was the Season One finale, so any grief Kirk had stayed off camera.

Correction, Tim, Scotty was definitely there. It was him, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, a red shirt, and the Yeoman. I should know-- I just watched the episode on Saturday!

I need to get my memory checked!

Have you been to Gamma Hydra IV recently?

I don't remember!

The heartbeat sound in Sickbay may simply be representative of heart activity, and may occur at a beat considered “normal” by standards of the species that makes up most of the crew. It speeds up or slows down. Aware of Vulcan norms, the medicomp may represent Spock’s rapid heartbeat at the human norm to assure most people that it is normal – McCoy can read the numbers to see the exact value, but the sound would cue him to look up and see what it has sped up or slowed down to.

On the USS Intrepid, the sound may have been far more rapid, or may use some sound cue that is of customary Vulcan preference.

Kirk’s realization that light was a possible answer wasn’t bang on, but since light was harmless to people, it was worth trying, and further analysis determined that the parasites were vulnerable to one particular wavelength that was invisible to human eyes. It may have been one or more extremely narrow wavelengths that are lethal to the parasites but not enough to damage skin or eyes or to raise temperature.

Was it ultraviolet or infrared? Didn’t the planetary shots begin to look reddish, as if the light being generated was just on the edge of the visible light spectrum?

Spock having an inner eyelid may have not been noticed before by medics, and he himself may have been uncertain. OTOH, he may have known all along, but the organism may have been pressuring his mind so he didn’t think of certain things. Also, he may not have known how long it would take for the inner eyelid to reopen. Minutes, hours, days, weeks. In the novel “Spock’s World”, one tribe is able to take Pelasht because they have “the eye”, but it must be a membrane that can close only as far as necessary to protect the optic nerve; exposed to a million candlelight, it shut completely, leaving Spock uncertain as to whether it was able to protect him and not wishing to dwell on a “false hope”.

The Denevan ship might have had a small viewport, and once he got close enough, the little bit of opening was enough to let in that tremendous amount of light, and the Denevan might even have gone to sit there where the light was directly on him, and get away from the controls in case the parasites managed to make him change course. (Although, if I was the parasite-consciousness, I’d say, “big whoop-dee-do, we’re losing one ship and one set of arms and legs and a small network of nerve fibres”.)

Also, up close to the sun, a filtering cover on the viewport might have melted away or been irradiated beyond tolerance.

They had never seen these creatures before and were winging it.

In the original draft, Kirk's brother and family were not involved.

In the Blish version, it was magnetism, not light that killed the parasites, thus obviating the need for the (never seen again) inner eyelid.

The late Sam Kirk bears a striking resemblance to his younger brother (William Shatner played him, of course).

I guess Sam and his family were made victims to give Kirk a more emotional investment.

'The Autobiography of James T. Kirk' novel cleared up the boo-boo of whether or not Sam and Aurelean had only one son (Peter) or three kids ('What Are Little Giirls made Of?').
The author's (non-canon) explanation was that Aurelan gave birth to twins just before Sam Kirk got his job on Deneva, but George and Winona Kirk offered to take care of the babies for a while, because they were too young for space travel. Unfortunately, Sam and Aurelan died before the twins could join them on Deneva.

And I guess Peter ended up living with George Sr. and Winona after this episode.

According to Star Trek New Voyages/Phase II (in an adaptation of David Gerrold's Blood and Fire, originally written for TNG) Peter joined Starfleet and ended up serving on the Enterprise.

Works for me.

The director tried to pull a fast one, but I caught it!
In the close-in scenes of Kirk is trying to contact Sam and Aurelan's personal radio, and Uhura says she can't reestablish contact, the overhead viewscreen and the smaller ones at shoulder height don't match those at her station from long shots. Especially since Uhura has two overhead viewscreens and not one wide above her. They must have been filmed on the other side of the bridge set, for some reason.

After Kirk finds his brother dead, he stands up and kind of slumps against a wall for a moment, overcome by emotion.
One possible thought I had was that he just realized that if he hadn't been delayed by chasing the Denevan spaceship towards the sun, he might have beamed down in time to save his brother

Aurelan was played by Joan Swift, whose real name according to imdb.com is Joan Whitney Hill, is 87 years old and had three kids with her husband, Clancy. She seems to have quit acting back in 1975, at least on TV.

Shame this was the only look we got at Kirk's family in Classic Trek.

Spock was the only one who's relatives we got a real good look at (Journey To Babel).

McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura were all left out in the cold when it came to family members.

McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura have parents???!!!
Who knew???!!!

On a serious note, nobody would bat an eye if after 55 years somebody created 3 brothers and a sister for Uhura, or an adopted brother for Sulu, or six sisters for Scotty. No back story was ever established for them after all this time.
Now, telling us that Spock has a half-brother and an adopted sister...er...uh...no.

God, don't give the CBS Swindlers any ideas!

It would have been a nice touch if during the attack on the parasites with the ultra-violet light, we see some Denevans, like the first violent ones at the beginning of the episode, recover on screen, and we see them cured. I know that we're expected to assume that the people were saved, because we saw the parasites destroyed, but seeing the actual change back to normal would have been nice, even for 10 seconds.

I mentioned Kirk slumping against a wall,possibly because he just realized that if he hadn't been delayed by chasing the Denevan spaceship towards the sun, he might have beamed down in time to save his brother. Add two more facts-- not beaming directly into his brother's lab, and also dealing with the Denevans that attacked them
Assuming he died just minutes before his arrival in his brother's lab.

Of course, at that point, Kirk had no idea what was going on.

What happened to Sam's other two sons?

I'm not sure, are we sure that they even exist?

Remember that in What Are Little Girls Made Of that Kirk messed up the android Kirks programming.

Yes, but that was that insult to Spock.