The Apple - Star Trek TV Episode [ Synopsis | Editorial Reviews ]
Production # 38 Episode # 34
Air Date: 10/13/1967
Stardate: 3715.3
When a landing party beams down to the planet Gamma Trianguli VI, they find what appears to be an idyllic paradise. They quickly discover, however, that the planet is deadly, sporting plants that shoot thorns, rocks that explode, and incredibly accurate lightning bolts.
With a much reduced party, they encounter the planet's inhabitants. They are a peaceful, child-like people who call themselves the "Feeders of Vaal." They dress in flowers and bright paint, never reproducing because they don't age or die. Each day they "feed" Vaal offerings of food. Vaal seems to be a large serpent's head carved of rock, but is actually the terminal for an advanced, underground computer. Seeing Kirk and his party as a threat, Vaal takes them prisoner and tries to pull the U.S.S. Enterprise from orbit.
Kirk realizes that by depriving Vaal of the natives' daily offerings of food, the computer won't be able to convert the offerings into reaction mass. Thus weakened, Kirk uses the U.S.S. Enterprise's phasers to destroy Vaal. This leaves the natives on their own to discover birth, death, and the everyday ways of life.
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"The Apple"
A landing party beams down to Gamma Trianguli VI, a lush planet that's just like paradise... or is it? This is not the episode to be caught wearing a red shirt in: dangers abound and crew members drop like flies. Soon the party discovers a seemingly unspoiled tribe of innocents who spend their lives serving the god Vaal. Can it be that it's time to disobey the prime directive? The natives are all beautiful people with loincloths and entertaining hairdos, and of course Mr. Scott has an engineering dilemma. Another highlight is the sequence in which the natives learn a few facts of life from a particularly randy Mr. Chekov. Skip this one at your peril. --Ali DavisAlso on this DVD
"The Changeling"
After destroying 4 billion people in the Malurian star system, a 21st-century NASA probe called Nomad--carrying friendly greetings to whatever unknown, extraterrestrial race might find it--has a violent encounter with the Enterprise, nearly blowing the starship out of the skies. Hoping to sidestep another attack, Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock invite the diminutive, computer-driven, impossibly powerful spacecraft aboard to learn how its peaceful mission was supplanted by a program to destroy life. Written by John Meredyth Lucas, who was intrigued by the idea of a sentient, almost godlike machine that turns against its creator, "The Changeling" transcends, fortunately, Star Trek's cash-strapped special effects department (let's just say Nomad looks like a cross between the Tin Man and a 1960s beach radio) to become a compelling drama. Particularly memorable is Spock's mind-melding scene with Nomad, in which the Vulcan is shaken by the probe's chaotic memories of being captured and given destructive impulses. Frequent Trek director Marc Daniels was particularly proud of the way his crew made Nomad appear capable of independent movement: there was one model for hanging from a wire, a second for standing on a floor, and a third for riding on a dolly (to get a sinister, point-of-view traveling shot). If "The Changeling" sounds vaguely familiar, it should: the script was rewritten as the basis for Star Trek: The Motion Picture. --Tom Keogh[ back to top The Apple ]
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