The Deadly Years - Star Trek TV Episode [ Synopsis | Editorial Reviews ]
Production # 40 Episode # 41
Air Date: 12/8/1967
Stardate: 3478.2
On the way to Starbase 10, the U.S.S. Enterprise stops to deliver supplies to the colonists of Gamma Hydra IV. A landing party consisting of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Lieutenant Galway and Chekov beam to the planet's surface. They find that accelerated aging has taken place, killing most of the colonists. Chekov is terrified when he discovers the first body. The only survivors, an elderly couple who claim to be in their twenties, die shortly after meeting the Enterprise crew. When the landing party returns to the Enterprise, the aging acceleration begins to affect each of them ... except Chekov, who remains curiously immune. While Kirk wants to stay in orbit around Gamma Hydra IV until a cure can be found, one of his passengers, Commodore Stocker, wants to proceed to Starbase 10 where he feels the best medical aid can be obtained.
The senior officers succumb to the effects of old age and soon Kirk is unable to command, as are Scotty and Spock. Command falls to Commodore Stocker, who, while an efficient desk officer, has no deep space training. Thinking he will save time, Stocker plots a course through the Romulan Neutral Zone on his way to Starbase 10. The Romulans are waiting and begin an attack.
Stocker, panicked and inexperienced, has no idea what to do. As the Enterprise is surrounded, McCoy comes up with an antidote to the aging sickness ... adrenaline. Chekov, he explains, wasn't affected because his fear at finding the bodies on Gamma Hydra IV had already kicked his natural adrenaline into high gear.
McCoy restores Kirk to normal in time to save the ship by reusing his famous "corbomite" bluff and telling the Romulans that the Enterprise would destroy anything within a 200,000 kilometer radius. McCoy distributes the antidote and restores everyone to their normal state.
Amazon.com
"The Deadly Years"
While on the planet Gamma Hydra IV, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Scotty are infected with an unknown disease that causes premature aging. The only member of the party unaffected is Chekov (Walter Koenig), who becomes McCoy's guinea pig while searching for a cure back on the Enterprise. A nifty idea with some poignant overtones, the story by David P. Harmon startles a viewer with the sight of these familiar folks rapidly graying, wrinkling, weakening, and suffering memory loss. At the same time, Harmon is careful to age each character as a unique individual. Kirk slows down more than the longer-lived Spock, while McCoy remains mentally keen, if physically brittle. As for poor Scotty, well...The dramatic subtext in "The Deadly Years" concerns the perennial conflict over when and how to decide that someone has become too old to execute crucial responsibilities. In that sense, this episode feels constantly relevant and uniquely entertaining: let's just say some of these actors play "old" a little better than others. (Director Joseph Pevney has reported that there was a lot of conflict over who was stealing old-guy moves from whom.) With all this going on, one might not notice that guest star Charles Drake is a truly familiar face, having been cast in The Maltese Falcon and Now, Voyager. --Tom Keogh
Also on this DVD
"Mirror, Mirror"
When their mission to secure a mineral trade ends in failure, a freak ion storm catches Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Scotty in mid-beam-up and sends them to a parallel dimension where Federation leaders are as ruthless as the Klingons, and Star Fleet promotions are attained by assassination. They find themselves on an alternate Enterprise, peopled with evil counterparts to the people they know (all attired in glittery, glam-rock uniforms), including most famously an evil, goateed Spock whom Kirk must convince to overthrow the empire. Kirk and his landing party try to fit in with this crew of villains who are threatening with annihilation the planet where the mineral trade went sour, while searching for a way back to their world and fending off assassination attempts. Mirror, Mirror achieves the best of what Star Trek is capable, which is to say space opera brought to a high pitch by melodrama. Everyone appears to be having great fun turning their characters to the dark side, especially George Takei, whose evil Sulu beams when making his assassination attempt against Captain Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, who makes Spock's shift from the meditative logician to the ruthless goateed one seem, well, quite logical. This episode in particular fueled popular culture in such a way that in some circles it is now impossible to sport a goatee without being called "the evil Spock." The story of the evil Spock is continued in the Deep Space Nine episode Crossover. --Jim Gay
[ back to top Star Trek The Deadly Years ]
[ Gift Trek - Star Trek Home ] [ Star Trek Episode Listings ]
Owned and Operated by the 'Original' Star Trek Fan Club, formed in 1969
Star Trek Fan Club
PO Box 401
Roselle Park, NJ 07204
[ Gift Trek - Star Trek Home | Star Trek Episode Listings | Star Trek Video | Autographed Photos ]
