The Enterprise is infested with Rigellian Fever which is like COVID only dangerous. Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down to planetoid blah, blah, blah to get unobtanium which will cure the fever. There they meet the robot guard of the planetoid’s owner, Mr. Flint. After some posturing Flint agrees to help McCoy make a serum from the mineral.
In his home, Flint has rare masterpieces of art by Leonardo da Vinci and Johannes Brahms. And it turns out he actually is those two men and many other like Alexander the Great, Solomon and perhaps the greatest of all, Donald Trump. He was a Mesopotamian soldier from around 4,000 B.C. and after being stabbed through the heart he discovered that he was immortal. And he has a mate named Rayna who wears the form fitting silvery dress that is the true mark of an android woman, which they determine she is. Of course, Kirk falls in love with Rayna and Flint and Kirk do battle over her. But when she has to choose between these two manly men her circuits burn out and she dies. When they return to the ship to save the crew with the cure, McCoy reveals that he has determined that Flint’s immortality was voided when he left Earth and he will die after the rest of a normal life.
This is a very unique episode. The concept of the immortal human who has been so many famous men is brilliant. What they do with this concept is not so brilliant. Having Kirk go through all his typical libido exercises is embarrassing. But we do get to reach the heights of the Shatner Mockery Index. I think the best examples of this are:
- When Flint shrinks the Enterprise to a model about a foot long, Kirk stares into the bridge viewport and we see his huge head looking anguished in the bridge screen.
- When Kirk first declares his love for Rayna, he makes all the spastic Kirk faces he’s so famous for.
- When Rayna declares herself independent of Flint’s orders, Kirk starts crowing about how she’s “human down to the last blood cell!”
It’s probably only my subjective enjoyment of the concept of a science fiction story with a man that has lived through all of our history and been so many famous men that saves this episode from my scorn. Objectively it has many of the same weaknesses that the season three episodes suffer from. But I’m fond of it for the reason I’ve stated. So, I’ll mark it as a 7 // 9.
I thought James Daly did an excellent job as Methuselah. Watching him act alongside Shatners – facial expressions is very entertaining.
Loise Sorel brings a childlike innocense to her character that is really well done.
Its a really cool story – and then Kirk wrecks everything by thinking with his dick.
The model Enterprise is one of the most interesting things in all of 3rd season
You forgot to mention the part at the end where Spock uses the “Vulcan Mind Meld” to get Kirk to forget Rayna – Truly Cheesey.
Yes, once again the guest stars make the regular cast look like untalented high school actors. That “model” of the Enterprise must have been the “actual” Enterprise used for all the outside shots of the ship. I’d love to see a movie with this sort of plot. Think of the dialog that could be written between a man who had seen all of history and a man from the future, just not James T. Kirk.