This episode is essentially a murder mystery story.\u00a0 Kirk is the detective and the members of the crew and a band of traveling Shakespearean actors are the props.\u00a0 The leader of the acting troupe is suspected by Kirk of being a mass murderer who slaughtered four thousand of his citizens where he was a colony leader.\u00a0 The only surviving witnesses who can identify the murderer are Kirk and Lt. Riley of the Enterprise.\u00a0 The biggest complication is that, of course, the suspect\u2019s daughter is a buxom blonde that has caught Jim Kirk\u2019s eye.<\/p>\n
Other than the love interest, which is slightly tedious, the Shakespearean motif is relatively amusing, with chunks of Macbeth and Hamlet slung around at slightly appropriate moments.\u00a0 Spock is alarmed by the Captain\u2019s secretive and erratic behavior and McCoy is his usual contrary self.\u00a0 Outside of the plot we are regaled with Lt. Uhura singing something Star Treky and we are given one last walk through by Yeoman Janice Rand on the bridge.\u00a0 Apparently she was fired shortly before this episode and this was her swan song.\u00a0 A pity.\u00a0 She was pretty.<\/p>\n
The plot and the love story resolve themselves as the guilty receive poetic justice and madness and death are the fruits of murder.\u00a0 I\u2019d give the story a 7.\u00a0 Shatner has almost no opportunity to perform any tumbling, bare chested gymnastics or over the top histrionics.\u00a0 I\u2019ll call it a 1 on the Shatner mockery scale.\u00a0 That a 7 \/\/ 1.\u00a0 Not too bad.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This episode is essentially a murder mystery story.\u00a0 Kirk is the detective and the members of the crew and a band of traveling Shakespearean actors<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[2150,38,1355,44,309,265,1691,293,2261,154,1692,837],"class_list":["post-9555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-the-conscience-of-the-king","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-william-shatner"],"yoast_head":"\n