Shore Leave is sort of a fantasy episode wrapped in a sci-fi costume.\u00a0 It was written by Theodore Sturgeon who was a very good, very unconventional science fiction author of the time.\u00a0 But from my point of view this story is just an excuse to allow the cast to run around and emote.\u00a0 Accordingly, it will have a lower episode score but a higher Shatner mockery score.<\/p>\n
The Enterprise is exploring a new planet that needs cataloging.\u00a0 The crew including Captain Kirk are extremely weary from recent emergencies that they have encountered during their extended mission.\u00a0 Kirk is considering using this seemingly idyllic planet as a location for shore leave for the crew.\u00a0 During the exploration the landing party encounters some inexplicably strange things.\u00a0 McCoy meets the White Rabbit and Alice from Wonderland.\u00a0 When Captain Kirk beams down with his new yeoman, a fetching young woman named Tonia Barrows who is a worthy successor to Yeoman Janice Rand, they also begin to run into impossible things.\u00a0 Yeoman Barrows is manhandled by a swashbuckling man who resembles her idea of the womanizer Don Juan.\u00a0 Kirk meets his nemesis from Starfleet Academy, an upperclassman named Finnegan, who back then, tormented him with practical jokes.\u00a0 Sulu finds a pistol that he has always wanted to try and meets a samurai who chases him with a sword.\u00a0 Other landing party members are chased by a tiger and strafed by a WW II fighter plane.\u00a0 And finally, after Yeoman Barrows puts on a medieval princess\u2019s ball gown Doctor McCoy is run through with the lance of a knight on a black charger.<\/p>\n
Mr. Spock beams down to inform the landing party that a mysterious force is draining the Enterprise of energy.\u00a0 He surmises that the strange encounters are some kind of manufactured creations meant to give life to the thoughts that the various crewmen are thinking at the time.\u00a0 Finally, Kirk chases down Finnegan and they have an epic fist fight after which Spock notes that Kirk very much enjoyed giving Finnegan the comeuppance he earned long ago.\u00a0 Spock theorizes that the phenomena are meant to be amusements for the participants.\u00a0 But Kirk reminds him that McCoy is dead.<\/p>\n
At this point a man in a long funny robe shows up and tells them he is the caretaker of this world and that his people use it as an amusement park on which to relax.\u00a0 When Kirk complains that McCoy is dead, of course, McCoy walks back into the scene accompanied by two chorus girls wearing some feathers here and there and each holding onto one of his arms.\u00a0 Yeoman Barrows who has shown some proprietary interest in McCoy demands an explanation for the girls and McCoy confirms that he happened to be thinking of a cabaret and the dancers just showed up.\u00a0 The caretaker confirms that no permanent damage will happen on this pleasure world and offers to Kirk the opportunity for his crew to take a greatly needed shore leave and he agrees.<\/p>\n
I am of two minds about the intrinsic merits of this episode.\u00a0 It is somewhat amusing in a broad and casual way.\u00a0 But I think it goes overboard.\u00a0 The plot is clearly absurd.\u00a0 And it\u2019s a departure from the story arc of the series.\u00a0 The thin plot is fleshed out with the landing party running back and forth reacting to all the strange people and things they encounter.\u00a0 I\u2019d give it a score of 6 for the episode rank.<\/p>\n
But for Shatner mockery it gets points for the fist fight with Finnegan.\u00a0 Shatner gives of his best.\u00a0 He rolls around in the dirt and flips and tumbles all over the place.\u00a0 He even manages to rip away half of his shirt.\u00a0 And while he doesn\u2019t give us any of his most spastic facial expressions, he does give us a fair number of overwrought expressions and exclamations.\u00a0 Let\u2019s give it a 7 on the Shatner scale.<\/p>\n
So, there we are, \u00a06 \/\/ 7.\u00a0 That\u2019s makes it a fairly balance experience for the Star Trek connoisseur.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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