star trek series 1 episode 29

Operation -- Annihilate! (episode)

• View history
• 1.2 Act One
• 1.3 Act Two
• 1.4 Act Three
• 1.5 Act Four
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.1 Production timeline
• 4.2 Story and script
• 4.3 Effects
• 4.4 Sets, locations, and props
• 4.5 Costumes
• 4.6 Performers
• 4.7 Continuity
• 4.8 Video and DVD releases
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Co-star
• 5.4 Featuring
• 5.6 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.7 Stunt doubles and stand-in
• 5.8 References
• 5.9 External links

Summary [ ]

Flying parasites infest Deneva

The USS Enterprise approaches Deneva . Captain Kirk is concerned; Uhura has been unable to contact any transmitter on the planet , including a private transmitter code, GSK 783 , that Kirk suggests. Spock 's research has revealed that a pattern of mass insanity has been spreading in a straight line through this part of the galaxy , starting with Levinius V , then Theta Cygni XII , Ingraham B , and now Deneva is next, a planet on which Kirk's brother Sam is stationed with his family.

Lieutenant Sulu picks up a ship on sensors . The small craft of Denevan configuration is on course directly for the Denevan sun , and does not appear to be out of control. Kirk orders Sulu engage the Enterprise at warp 8 interception course. The Denevan vessel is out of range of the tractor beam ; the Enterprise pursues. Finally, they make contact: seconds before the ship burns up, the pilot cries out, " I did it! It's finally gone! I'm free! " After the vessel's destruction, Doctor McCoy walks up to Kirk and softly asks, " Jim, your brother Sam and his family – aren't they stationed on this planet? "

Act One [ ]

Spock and Montgomery Scott inform Kirk about Deneva's history and the fact that there has not been contact in a year. Uhura reports activity on the private transmitter channel, a woman speaking but does not respond to Kirk. Contact is abruptly cut; Kirk demands that Uhura get the channel open again, but she reports that it was shut off on the other end: the only thing she can do is keep hailing and hope they choose to answer back. Kirk identifies the woman as likely being his brother's wife Aurelan Kirk , to McCoy.

Once the Enterprise arrives at Deneva, Kirk forms a landing party consisting of him, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Yeoman Zahra , and Bobby . Spock says there are the expected number of Human life signs, but "strangely quiet." They beam directly into the capital city on Deneva. Once on the planet, they are struck by the curious lack of people; in a city of 100,000, no one is visible – until, a few minutes later, they are about to be attacked by four men who, even as they charge, scream " Go away! We don't want to hurt you! " But, with their clubs , they start to try anyway, forcing the landing party to stun them with their phasers , an attitude inconsistent with their actions. Then McCoy discovers with his medical tricorder that the nervous systems of the unconscious men are violently active – as if they are somehow still being stimulated.

A loud scream draws them next to the lab of Kirk's brother, Sam. They find Sam dead on the floor. Aurelan is hysterical, and their young son Peter is unconscious nearby. Kirk holds Aurelan close while McCoy sedates her. McCoy and Spock both give their condolences to Kirk. Evidence suggests something has been trying to force its way in through a ventilation shaft, despite the fact that the sensors showed nothing on Deneva that didn't belong there. McCoy recommends that Kirk returns to the ship with his relatives and the doctor so he can be present when Aurelan wakes. Spock is left in charge of the landing party.

In sickbay aboard the Enterprise , McCoy is waiting on lab results to identify the cause. In the meantime, the Kirks have been heavily sedated for the extreme pain they're experiencing, but Aurelan is surprisingly resistant to the tranquilizer and is still awake. Holding her hand, Kirk informs her that Sam is dead, but Peter is still alive. In terrible pain, she tells Kirk that " things " came, eight months prior, on a ship from Ingraham B as its crew had been forced to travel to Deneva. As she tries to answer Kirk's questions, she experiences more and more pain, until McCoy is forced to sedate her, which only blunts the pain. The creatures use the Denevans as their arms and legs, and are forcing them to build ships. They control their hosts with pain. Aurelan's last act is to implore Kirk not to let the things go any further; this effort costs her everything she has left, and with a pained scream she dies.

Kirk rejoins the landing party; he knows there is some sort of creature present, but the landing party has not yet discovered anything beyond a curious buzzing. Kirk orders their phasers to be set to force 3, on the kill setting as the creatures responsible have already shown a willingness to kill. Entering a building where they heard this sound, the landing party discovers strange creatures clinging to walls and the underside of an opening. Looking like little more than loathsome blobs of jelly, they emit an unwholesome buzzing, and employ a crude, wingless flight. Each armed party member fires at the creatures, but force 3 – sufficient to destroy most organisms – barely affects them, even after several seconds of exposure; one simply falls to the ground. And the creatures do not even register on Spock's tricorder .

" Spock, are you all right?! "

Thinking it may be a trap, Kirk orders the landing party out of the infested area; as they leave, the creature on the ground flies up and strikes Spock in the back, leaving a strange puncture wound. Kirk rips it off of Spock's back and asks the Vulcan if he is all right. Spock looks upward in pain.

Act Two [ ]

In sickbay, McCoy removes a small strand of tissue from Spock's back, and then, over Nurse Chapel 's objections, he closes the wound. The creatures attack by stinging; they leave behind a piece of this tissue that rapidly infiltrates the victim's entire nervous system, far too completely for conventional surgery to remove. McCoy explains this to Kirk on the bridge while showing him the piece of tissue and an identical piece removed from Aurelan's body in a container. He admits that he, the lab and the science department are all stumped on what to do next.

Spock recovers consciousness, rages past Chapel out of sickbay and storms the bridge . His goal: to take the ship out of orbit , throwing aside Sulu from the helm. Forewarned by Chapel, Sulu, Kirk, and two other officers grapple with Spock but his Vulcan strength proves troublesome and he nearly takes out Kirk with the Vulcan nerve pinch . With difficulty he is ultimately wrestled to the deck; Chapel arrives on the bridge with tranquilizer and McCoy sedates Spock as he's being held down. Kirk orders that he be returned to sickbay and security restraints employed, where McCoy makes another grim discovery. The K3 indicator , a measure of pain, is very, very high. The reason for the madness is confirmed: victims are in such agony that their minds eventually break under the stress. Spock, recovering consciousness, apologizes for his loss of control and now claims the ability to control the pain, noting that for Vulcans, "pain is a thing of the mind: the mind can be controlled". Referring to the creatures as the creature, only of thousands of parts, wants control of the ship which Spock is resisting. But after his visit to the bridge, and McCoy unsure if he could maintain control as time wears on, Kirk isn't sure and for the time being, has him continued to be confined to sickbay under observation. Kirk is intent on a cure for his nephew, but McCoy reminds him that the rest of the colonists deserve just as much consideration.

After they both leave, Spock, conquering the pain, breaks out of sickbay and getting back in uniform, plans to visit the planet's surface with a specimen case. Scotty, acting on Kirk's orders, refuses to transport him. A scuffle breaks out, including Spock nerve pinching Leslie . Scott holds Spock by threatening to stun him with a phaser and calls for Kirk to come down. Later, when Kirk appears, Spock explains that his plan is to retrieve a creature for study. He believes that since his nervous system is already infiltrated, there is little more the creatures can do to him. Kirk is convinced, and over McCoy's objections, Spock beams down to collect a creature for study, armed with Scotty's phaser.

Act Three [ ]

Spock is attacked by a colonist on Deneva almost immediately after being beamed down. The man knocks Spock's phaser out of his hand with his club. Spock is able to incapacitate the crazed man with a nerve pinch and, upon regaining his phaser, begins to struggle against fresh pain from the parasite, having failed to stop Spock through the colonist. Spock knocks down a creature with his phaser fire, returns to the ship and begins to study it. Immediately, in one of the Enterprise 's science labs , he realizes that the creature resembles, more than anything, an enormous brain cell . Kirk catches on immediately: these creatures are not separate animals, they are all parts of a single entity , connected together in some mysterious fashion. This is how it resists phaser fire: each part draws strength from the whole . Remembering how the colonist that flew into the sun cried out that he was 'free', Kirk feels that this is an angle they can work with. He orders an analysis of everything from the medical and life science departments in an hour.

McCoy's multiple efforts to find some method to kill the creatures fail. Not heat, not radiation – nothing can kill it. Kirk knows that if they cannot find a way to kill these creatures, he will be forced to destroy Deneva to prevent their spread. A million people will die if nothing can be done. Kirk cannot let the creatures spread and has absolutely no wish to kill the Denevans, including his nephew. He demands a third alternative.

Act Four [ ]

Spock and McCoy report to Kirk's quarters, having not gotten any breakthroughs. Knowing the kind of pain Peter will experience if he wakes up, and admitting he's not sure how much longer he can hold out against the pain, Spock requests beaming down to Deneva and taking Peter with him before the planet is destroyed, but Kirk flatly denies permission. Kirk posits that the key must lie in exploring the properties of the sun. The Denevan the Enterprise contacted earlier was free of the creature moments before he died; something in the sun killed it. As Spock lists off the physical properties of a sun, Kirk considers that if not radiation, nor heat – could it be light? After turning a computer, with its flashing light, in his quarters on and off, Kirk thinks that it may be the answer. McCoy protests that light isn't lethal, but Kirk points outs it's just not to Humans; the creatures hide indoors and in shadows on Deneva. What if it's because they're sensitive to light, and strong amounts of light are lethal to them? Spock agrees it's a possibility. McCoy points out that they can't bring the planet to the sun, but Spock agrees with Kirk that they can bring the equivalent to Deneva, through a string of satellites around the planet, burning tri-magnesite and trevium .

" I am free of it and the pain. And I am also… quite blind. An equitable trade, Doctor. Thank you. "

McCoy rigs a test cubicle in the biolab , and Chapel puts the sample creature inside. Spock has calculated that at the distance that the Denevan declared himself free, the sun's brightness would be measured at 1,000,000 candles per square inch , and with the satellite network set to that intensity, anything within a closed, darkened area will be affected. With everyone putting on safety goggles , they expose the creature for several seconds and confirm the theory: high-intensity light is fatal to the creatures. As it's necessary to see what will happen to tissue that has infiltrated a victim, Spock volunteers to enter the cubicle – McCoy, who would prefer his guinea pig be someone other than the man he regards as Starfleet's best first officer, attempts to dissuade him, but Spock insists. He also refuses goggles, as none of the colonists will have any (and it would likely be time prohibitive to outfit a million people anyway), despite knowing that the intensity will damage his optic nerves . This test does, in fact, succeed: the blinding light completely frees Spock of the creature and the pain – but at the cost of his eyesight. Spock, exiting the cubicle, assures McCoy that it was an equitable trade – the closest he comes to revealing how much pain he has been experiencing. Only then is the true tragedy revealed: the lab test results on the dead creature delivered by Chapel indicate that the creatures are vulnerable only to a specific subset of the light spectrum: ultraviolet radiation . McCoy is chagrined to realize that Spock need not have been blinded at all, but Spock reminds him that it was also his choice; what's done is done.

Nevertheless, the answer is at hand. Kirk orders satellite control to deploy a formation of 210 ultraviolet satellites at 72 miles altitude, in a permanent orbit. The satellites are turned on; the creatures begin to fail, to fall, to smoke and to die. Ground stations on Deneva quickly make contact; the creatures are dying everywhere. Kirk passes the good news down to sickbay and for McCoy to pass it on to Spock; he reminds McCoy that Spock's blindness wasn't his fault, but McCoy doesn't respond.

A little while later as Kirk has Zahra begin recording a mission update for Starfleet Command , she notices Spock returning to the bridge – he can once again see. An inner eyelid , a hereditary trait of Vulcans developed as a protection against the brightness of Vulcan 's sun , closed to shield his eyes on instinct. Spock explain it is normally ignored, much as a Human would ignore their own appendix . Kirk ponders that regaining one's sight would be an emotional experience for most, and assumes that Spock, as usual, had none, but Spock corrects him: he had a very strong reaction as the first thing he saw was McCoy's face as the doctor was bending over him. McCoy replies that it's a pity that Spock's brief blindness didn't increase his appreciation for beauty. Interrupting the two, Kirk has Spock lay in a course for Starbase 10 . Relieved beyond words, McCoy asks Kirk not to mention his previous "best first officer" statement – at which point Spock turns around from his science station and thanks the doctor for his compliment, and Kirk jokes that all the concern over Spock's eyes had led McCoy to forget about his Vulcan ears. Kirk has Sulu take the Enterprise to warp factor 1 and the ship leaves Deneva.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2267

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Pain is a thing of the mind. The mind can be controlled. "

" Freeze right there, Mr. Spock. Or I'll put you to sleep for sure. "

" Jim, that man is sick! And don't give me any damnable logic about him being the only man for the job. " "I don't have to, Bones. We both know he is. "

" I cannot let it spread beyond this colony even if it means destroying a million people down there. "

" I am free of it and the pain. And I'm also quite blind. An equitable trade, Doctor. Thank you. "

" My first sight was the face of Dr. McCoy bending over me. " " 'Tis a pity your brief blindness did not increase your appreciation for beauty, Mister Spock. "

" You've been so concerned about his Vulcan eyes, Doctor, you forgot about his Vulcan ears. "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

• Story outline "Operation: Destroy!" by Steven W. Carabatsos : 15 December 1966
• First draft teleplay by Carabatsos: early- January 1967
• Second draft teleplay "Operation -- Annihilate!": 19 January 1967
• Final draft teleplay by D.C. Fontana : 24 January 1967
• Revised final draft teleplay by Gene L. Coon : 3 February 1967
• Second revised final draft teleplay by Gene Roddenberry : 13 February 1967
• Additional revisions by Coon: 14 February 1967 , 15 February 1967 , 22 February 1967
• Filmed: 14 February 1967 – 22 February 1967
• Day 1 – 14 February 1967 , Tuesday (Half Day) – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Transporter room , Briefing room
• Day 2 – 15 February 1967 , Wednesday – TRW Space and Defense Park : Ext. Deneva colony
• Day 3 – 16 February 1967 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room , Kirk's quarters , Bridge
• Day 4 – 17 February 1967 , Friday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge
• Day 5 – 20 February 1967 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. McCoy's office , Sickbay
• Day 6 – 21 February 1967 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Sickbay
• Day 7 – 22 February 1967 , Wednesday (half day) – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Science laboratory
• Original airdate: 13 April 1967
• First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 9 December 1970
• First UK airdate (on ITV ): 21 March 1982
• Remastered airdate: 23 February 2008

Story and script [ ]

• This is the only episode title of the Original Series that includes an exclamation point and, along with VOY : " Bride of Chaotica! ", is one of only two episodes in the entire Star Trek franchise to incorporate that particular punctuation mark. It is also the only episode of the Original Series to incorporate a dash in the title.
• In addition, it is one of only three Original Series episodes in which the word "damn" is used, with McCoy cursing the "damnable logic" behind the experiments designed to destroy the creatures. The only other uses of the word "damn" occur in " Journey to Babel ", wherein Kirk admits he can't "damn" Spock for his loyalty by taking command of the Enterprise at the cost of Sarek 's life, and in " Court Martial " where Kirk makes a log entry stating that the evidence against him is "damning."

Deleted scene with Peter Kirk in captain's chair

• A filmed scene cut from this episode featured dialogue between Kirk and his nephew Peter. The dialogue concerned Peter's returning to Deneva to live with Sam Kirk's partner. [1]
• Steven W. Carabatsos had an obligation in his contract, that he must deliver at least one script of his own while serving as story editor. Carabatsos left the series in late- 1966 , but still had to fulfill this task before departing. Having no idea of his own, Gene Roddenberry suggested him one, entitled Operation: Destroy! , which was the basis for this episode. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One )
• The script, as originally conceived, did not envision the parasites being killed with light. Instead, the Enterprise leaves Deneva and destroys their home planet. By effectively annihilating the central "brain" that controls their operations, the ship renders the creatures harmless. Working from an early draft of the script, James Blish writes up this version in his adaptation of the episode in his volume Star Trek 2 .
• The first draft script, entitled "Operation: Destroy", did not feature Kirk's brother and his family. In that version, a Denevan woman named Aurelan was in love with a young man named Kartan, who flew his ship into the Sun to destroy the creatures. Aurelan and her father were not infected, and helped the Enterprise crew in their research. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 65)

Effects [ ]

• Deneva, as seen from space, was created by the Westheimer Company , only appearing in this color scheme for this episode. This planet was frequently reused in the second and third seasons, as Capella IV in " Friday's Child ", Pollux IV in " Who Mourns for Adonais? ", 892-IV in " Bread and Circuses ", Neural in " A Private Little War ", Triskelion in " The Gamesters of Triskelion ", an unnamed planet in " By Any Other Name ", Ekos in " Patterns of Force ", an unnamed planet in " The Ultimate Computer ", Elas in " Elaan of Troyius ", Amerind in " The Paradise Syndrome ", Triacus in " And the Children Shall Lead ", two unnamed planets in " Is There in Truth No Beauty? ", an unnamed planet in " Day of the Dove ", the Kalandan outpost in " That Which Survives ", Ariannus in " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ", Elba II in " Whom Gods Destroy ", Eden in " The Way to Eden ", Sarpeidon in " All Our Yesterdays " and Camus II in " Turnabout Intruder ". Also, two color-enhanced versions of this planet appear in the series: a reddish one (also in the second/third season opening credits and as planet Vulcan ) and a purple one ( Halkan planet, Omega IV , etc.).
• The fly-by of the Enterprise that opens this episode was only seen one other time. It was re-used in " The Tholian Web " as the ship is thrown clear of the Tholian force field .

Sets, locations, and props [ ]

• The Deneva outdoor scenes were shot at the headquarters of TRW Space and Defense Park in Redondo Beach, California (currently the Northrop Grumman Space Technology headquarters). See here for the location in Google Earth. The establishing shot of Kirk's brother's lab was a building on the campus of UCLA, and the entrance of the building was the cafeteria at TRW. ( Star Trek Encyclopedia  (2nd ed., p. 112)) The scenes at TRW were filmed 15 February 1967 . [2]
• This is the first time McCoy's lab is seen. Inside the lab, the prop used previously as Balok 's lamp device in " The Corbomite Maneuver " can be seen sitting on a shelf. Different components of sickbay were added over the first season, such as the decompression chamber seen in " Space Seed ". McCoy's lab contains one of the life support canisters used on the Botany Bay .
• The chairs that were seen in Chief Vanderberg's office in "The Devil in the Dark" were recycled for Sam Kirk's office, albeit painted pink.
• The oversized plexiglas tongs that Spock uses to pick up the Denevan parasite would again be used to recover the phasered sample of tritanium in the teaser of " Obsession ".
• The starmap showing the progression of the space madness also shows up on station viewscreens in future episodes.
• Wah Chang designed and constructed the parasite creatures. In the Star Fleet Medical Reference Manual , it was called a "blastoneuron."
• The clubs used by the Denevans during their attack on the landing party appear to be thick Lucite rods. ( citation needed • edit ) Curiously, the gray, grooved clubs used by Spock during his fight with Kirk in " This Side of Paradise " and some of the miners on Janus VI in " The Devil in the Dark " were not recycled for this use.
• The white trombone mutes usually seen in the glass case of Enterprise 's Sickbay are seen in the back room of Sam Kirk's lab. They are later seen in McCoy's lab.

Costumes [ ]

• Unique to this episode, Uhura wears a black belt on the bridge, having worn one while on the landing party in the previous episode produced, " The City on the Edge of Forever ". In " The Gamesters of Triskelion ", she dons it when she joins the landing party and wears a communicator and phaser.
• Although the ubiquitous jumpsuit-type outfits worn by the four Denevans who attack the landing party crop up in a variety of colors, this is one of the few in which a green one appears. There is also a red variety, apparently the only one ever seen in The Original Series .

Performers [ ]

• The body of Sam Kirk was played by William Shatner , wearing a false mustache and a different hairstyle.
• Stock footage of Leslie's hands from " The Alternative Factor " is used to represent the personnel in the satellite control room. This shot was removed from the remastered version of the episode.
• William Blackburn , an extra on the show from " The Corbomite Maneuver " through the end of season three, can be seen in the background in at least three different uniforms in this episode.
• This was the final regular appearance of the unknown actor who played Bobby , or in the case of this episode's script notes, "Abrams". He made one further appearance, via recycled footage, in the following season's finale " Assignment: Earth ".
• There is a blooper from this episode in the first season blooper reel. The parasite creature that was supposed to hit Leonard Nimoy's back is seen hitting his backside instead, making Nimoy break up with laughter. Also appearing is a sequence showing the landing party with their phasers being used in tandem as electric shavers.

Continuity [ ]

• McCoy speaks about "getting the plates back" on Kirk's nephew to help with his medical treatment. This line references X-ray plates which were common in the 1960s but, in the 2260s, would have been extremely archaic and impractical compared to other medical advances of the time (such as DNA examination).
• The Vulcan inner eyelid is mentioned again in ENT : " The Forge ". In the Star Trek novel Spock's World , the inner eyelid was developed in one tribe of Vulcans who eventually took control over most of the planet.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original US Betamax release: 1985
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 16 , catalog number VHR 2328, release date unknown
• US VHS release: 15 April 1994
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.10, 13 January 1997
• Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 15, 19 September 2000
• As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• William Shatner as James T. Kirk / Sam Kirk

Also starring [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy as "Mr. Spock "

Co-star [ ]

• DeForest Kelley as "Dr. McCoy "

Featuring [ ]

• James Doohan as " Scott "
• Joan Swift as " Aurelan "
• Maurishka as "Yeoman Zahra "
• Majel Barrett as " Christine Chapel "
• George Takei as " Sulu "
• Nichelle Nichols as " Uhura "
• Craig Hundley as " Peter "
• Fred Carson as " First Denevan "
• Jerry Catron as " Second Denevan "

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• David Armstrong as Kartan
• William Blackburn as Hadley
• Robert Bralver as Denevan colonist
• Carey Foster as a Enterprise sciences crew woman
• Jeannie Malone as a Enterprise yeoman
• Eddie Paskey as Leslie
• Ron Veto as Harrison
• Bobby (scripted as " Abrams ")
• Third Denevan
• Denevan pilot (voice)
• Enterprise command lieutenant
• Enterprise lieutenant
• Enterprise operations crew woman 1
• Enterprise operations crew woman 2

Stunt doubles and stand-in [ ]

• Bill Catching as stunt double for Leonard Nimoy
• Gary Combs as stunt double for William Shatner
• Eddie Paskey as photo double for William Shatner

References [ ]

2067 ; 22nd century ; 2265 ; 2266 ; 40 Eridani A ; advisor ; affection ; alternative ; altitude ; amount ; answer ; appendix ; archaeologist ; area ; arm ; asteroid belt ; attitude ; audio ; autonomic system ; beauty ; bee ; Beta Portolan ; Beta Portolan system ; bio-bed ; biolab ; billion ; blindness ; Blood Q⁵ ; Blood T² ; body ; " Bones "; brain cell ; building ; call sign ; candlepower ; cargo ; capital city ; cell ; chance ; choice ; civilization ; club ; computer ; consciousness ; contact ; contact signal ; coordinates ; course ; creature ; curiosity ; deck ; degree ; delirium ; Deneva ; Deneva system ; Deneva capital city ; Deneva colony ; Deneva system's asteroid belt ; Denevan ; Denevan ship ; Denevan sun ; dog ; dozen ; ear ; electromagnetic spectrum ; energy ; engineering advisor ; engineering control ; environmental control ; eye ; eyesight ; face ; fact ; family ; Federation ; flying parasite ; force 3 ; freighting-line base ; goggles ; gravimetric pull ; gravity ; ground station ; GSK 783 ; heat ; hereditary trait ; hour ; host ; hull ; hull temperature ; Human ; idea ; inch ; information ; Ingraham B ; Ingraham B vessel ; inhabitant ; inner eyelid ; interception course ; K3 indicator ; laboratory ; landing party ; Large Magellanic Cloud ; leg ; Levinius V ; life sciences department ; light ; living matter (aka living tissue , tissue); logic ; mask ; mass ; mass insanity ; matter ; medical department ; mile ; Milky Way Galaxy ; million ; mind ; miner ; month ; nervous system ; nurse ; " on the hot seat "; opportunity ; optical nerve (aka optic nerve ); pain ; patient ; pattern ; permission ; phaser ; phaser power ; phaser weapon ; physical law ; physical property ; place ; plate ; planet development ; plot ; population ; power ; private transmitter ; progress ; puncture ; quality ; question ; radiation ; research biologist ; result ; risk ; satellite control ; science department ; science lab ; section ; security alert ; security restraint ; sedative ; seeding orbit ; sensor ; shadow ; ship's surgeon ; single-celled organism ; sleep ; sound ; specimen ; speculation ; spinal cord ; " stand by "; Starbase 10 ; Starfleet Academy ; straight line ; stinger ; street ; subspace frequency three ; subspace transmitter ; sub-warp speed ; surface ; surgery ; survivor ; temperature ; tentacle ; test cubicle ; theory ; Theta Cygni XII ; thing ; thousand ; tolerance level ; tractor beam ; tranquilizer ; transcript ; transmitting station ; trap ; trevium ; tricorder ; tri-magnesite ; ultraviolet light ; ultraviolet satellite ( satellite ); ventilator ; victim ; Vulcan ; Vulcan (planet) ; Vulcan nerve pinch ; wasp ; white

External links [ ]

• "Operation -- Annihilate!" at StarTrek.com
• " Operation -- Annihilate! " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " Operation: Annihilate! " at Wikipedia
• " Operation -- Annihilate! " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• "Operation -- Annihilate!" original and remastered screencaps at TrekCore
• " Operation -- Annihilate! " at the Internet Movie Database
• 2 ISS Enterprise (NCC-1701)

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Star Trek – Season 1, Episode 29

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William Shatner

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Operation: Annihilate!

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Operation: Annihilate!

Approaching the planet Deneva, the Enterprise encounters a private spacecraft whose pilot is flying desperately into the sun, the apparent act of a lunatic. Spock reveals disturbing news: a pattern of mass insanity that has spread across the galaxy in a nearly straight line, the current end of which is Deneva. The landing party discovers the horrifying truth - and one of them becomes its victim. Now the crew must devise a cure before Spock dies, or is driven hopelessly insane.

DeForest Kelley

James Doohan

Nichelle Nichols

George Takei

Majel Barrett Roddenberry

Craig Huxley

Jerry Catron

Cast appearances.

William Shatner

Leonard Nimoy

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Star Trek - Season 1

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20 Episodes

S1 e1 - the man trap, s1 e2 - charlie x, s1 e3 - where no man has gone before, s1 e4 - the naked time, s1 e5 - the enemy within, s1 e6 - mudd's women, s1 e7 - what are little girls made of, s1 e8 - miri, s1 e9 - dagger of the mind, s1 e10 - the corbomite maneuver, s1 e11 - the menagerie (1), s1 e12 - the menagerie (2), s1 e13 - the conscience of the king, s1 e14 - balance of terror, s1 e15 - shore leave, s1 e16 - the galileo seven, s1 e17 - the squire of gothos, s1 e18 - arena, s1 e19 - tomorrow is yesterday, s1 e20 - court martial, where does star trek rank today the justwatch daily streaming charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. this includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. this includes data from ~1.3 million movie & tv show fans per day..

Streaming charts last updated: 17:17:44, 03/05/2024

Star Trek is 432 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The TV show has moved down the charts by -60 places since yesterday. In the United Kingdom, it is currently more popular than A Difficult Woman but less popular than Will Trent.

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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The City on the Edge of Forever

• Episode aired Apr 6, 1967

When a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy accidentally changes history and destroys his time, Kirk and Spock follow him to prevent the disaster, but the price to do so is high. When a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy accidentally changes history and destroys his time, Kirk and Spock follow him to prevent the disaster, but the price to do so is high. When a temporarily insane Dr. McCoy accidentally changes history and destroys his time, Kirk and Spock follow him to prevent the disaster, but the price to do so is high.

• Joseph Pevney
• Harlan Ellison
• Gene Roddenberry
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• Joan Collins
• 73 User reviews
• 16 Critic reviews

• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

• Mister Spock

• Sister Edith Keeler

• Transporter Chief

• (as Bartell La Rue)
• Onlooker on Street
• (uncredited)
• Lieutenant Hadley

• Passerby on Sidewalk

• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia To emphasize on the extremely high age of the Guardian in the upper millions, or well into the billions, the starfield of its planet is surrounded by red dwarfs and red giants.
• Goofs In establishing scenes, the completed Empire State Building can be seen as part of the NYC skyline. Construction on the building didn't begin until early 1930, and wasn't finished until mid-1931.

Dr. McCoy : You deliberately stopped me, Jim. I could have saved her. Do you know what you just did?

Spock : He knows, Doctor. He knows.

• Crazy credits Script Supervisor George Rutter is written as "SCPIPT SUPERVISOR...GEORGE A. RUTTER" in the credits. This happened on numerous other episodes in season one.
• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song
• Connections Edited from TrekCulture: 10 Greatest Final Lines In Star Trek Episodes (2022)
• Soundtracks Theme From Star Trek Written by and credited to Alexander Courage

User reviews 73

• May 5, 2021
• April 6, 1967 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
• Desilu Productions
• Norway Corporation
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 50 minutes

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Published Apr 24, 2024

Stuck in a Loop: The Best of Star Trek's Time-Jumping Episodes

From The Next Generation to Discovery, going around and around is sometimes very revealing.

StarTrek.com

In the Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 episode, " Face the Strange ," Captain Burnham and Commander Rayner find themselves both stuck in a loop, but also, jumping all around the timeline of the titular starship. From the point before the U.S.S. Discovery was launched, to pivotal moments in Season 4, Season 3, Season 2 and even very early in Season 1, Rayner notes at one point that, "We’ve gone back in time to when you went forward to the future. That’s a little confusing."

Throughout all of Star Trek 's history, time travel has been just as propulsive to the narratives as space travel. But, within the various time travel stories of Trek , there is a special kind of time-skipping episode — the time loop story. Discovery has recently shaken-up this formula with "Face the Strange," but many elements of this episode pay homage to a proud Star Trek tradition. Here’s the history of the best time loop, and time-jumping episodes across the entire Final Frontier.

" Cause and Effect ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 5, Episode 18)

"Cause and Effect"

Perhaps one of the greatest science fiction episodes of all time, The Next Generation set the gold-standard for how to do time loop episodes.

When the Enterprise collides with another starship in the first scene, this episode poses one question right off the bat: What happens after you blow up the ship — and everyone on it — before the credits roll? The answer is mostly connected to whether or not we can even remember when we're stuck in a loop. Without actually spoiling this classic episode, let's just say thank the stars for Dr. Crusher and Data.

The brilliance of "Cause and Effect" cannot be overstated, but the 21st Century legacy of this episode is utterly appropriate. When Geordi reveals how the time loop works, Riker says, "You mean we could have come into this room, sat at this table and had this conversation a dozen times already?" This scene has become a popular meme format across various social media platforms, satirizing the time loop of some aspects of the internet experience.

" Parallels ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Parallels"

Arguably, when Worf starts slipping between realities in "Parallels," the story is more focused on other dimensions, rather than a true time loop. But, each time he pops into a new reality, Worf does tend to reply to his own personal log, which is what began the episode.

Obviously, in each new timeline, Worf's personal log is different, and because he checks it so often in the episode, this gives "Parallels" the feeling of a time loop story, even though Worf is technically moving both forward in time, and also, side-to-side.

On top of all of this, "Parallels" feels time-loopy because so many ideas and plot points from previous seasons of The Next Generation are revisited here. From references to " The Best of Both Worlds ," to the return of Wesley Crusher, "Parallels" brings all the good things of TNG back around again for another look, from a different point of view.

" All Good Things... ," Star Trek: The Next Generation (Season 7, Episode 25)

"All Good Things..."

Speaking of the best of The Next Generation , the immortal series finale is, from a certain point of view, one big time loop. As Jean-Luc Picard shifts between past, present, and future, the biggest mystery of "All Good Things…" is what caused the anomaly in the Devron system? Eventually, we learn that the ending and the beginning of this story are inextricably connected, a paradox that creates a kind of loop that must be broken.

Twenty-nine years later, in the Star Trek: Picard episode, " Imposters ," Captain Liam Shaw references this moment, and notes that Picard and Riker have a "real chicken and egg thing going on." It doesn’t get any more time-loopy than that!

" Visionary ," Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 3, Episode 17)

"Visionary"

When O'Brien starts seeing another version of himself appearing randomly throughout the station, Dr. Bashir briefly floats the idea that he's just having really boring hallucinations. But, as the episode goes on, it becomes clear that O'Brien is actually seeing brief moments in the future, and then, catching up to those moments in the present.

"Visionary" messes with what we expect from a time loop episode, because in all instances of future occurrences, there are literally two O'Briens present, and, when the past O'Brien catches up to the future moment, the duplication effect happens again, creating a kind of visual loop for the audience. The funny thing is, in several instances, the future doesn't play out exactly the way past O'Brien saw the first time, making this one of the wobblier time loops in all of Star Trek .

" Relativity ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 5, Episode 24)

"Relativity"

In a move very similar to Discovery 's "Face the Strange," this unforgettable episode of Voyager briefly takes us back to a point before the series even begins, showing us Janeway's first moments on Voyager before the ship left the Utopia Planitia Shipyards on Mars. (In "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner see Discovery in a drydock on Earth well before the events of Season 1.)

But, Voyager 's jaunt into its own prehistory is just the beginning of a very specific type of time jumping episode. Here, Seven of Nine isn't exactly repeating a loop, but, making several attempts at different times, to prevent a bomb from destroying Voyager . As Tuvok aptly puts it when encountering one version of Seven from the future, "Like many time paradoxes, it's improbable, but not necessarily illogical." Because this episode features multiple versions of Seven, and leaps to various eras of Voyager , it pairs very nicely with Burnham and Rayner's similar jumps in "Face the Strange." Especially the moment where Seven meets herself.

" Shattered ," Star Trek: Voyager (Season 7, Episode 11)

"Shattered"

Does Voyager have the best timey-wimey episodes in all of the Trek franchise? It's hard to say, but if there's another Trek episode that feels like an older sibling of Discovery 's "Face the Strange," it's almost certainly "Shattered," a fan-favorite episode from Voyager 's final season. Here, the captain and the first officer — Janeway and Chakotay — find themselves on a version of the ship that has been split into different time periods.

"Shattered" is one of Star Trek 's greatest retrospective episodes, touching on moments across all of Voyager 's story, and teaming past versions of characters with ones closer to the present. It's a touching story, and, structurally, it's wonderfully homaged in Discovery .

" Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad ," Star Trek: Discovery (Season 1, Episode 7)

"Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad"

One of Discovery 's stand-out moments from Season 1 fully set the stage for "Face the Strange" in Season 5. In "Magic to Make The Sanest Man Go Mad," Harry Mudd sets the ship on a true time loop, in which only Stamets can truly remember what is going on. Like in "Face the Strange," Stamets has a perception that exists outside of time, thanks to taking on the Tardigrade DNA in "Choose Your Pain."

This detail comes in handy in "Face the Strange," where Burnham and Stamets again have to re-team to get Discovery out of a time loop caused by nefarious enemies using time travel technology as a weapon. In Season 1, Burnham and Stamets barely knew each other, much like Burnham and Rayner's relationship in Season 5. But, if there's one thing a time loop or time-jumping episode can do, it’s make people who are just colleagues into best friends for life.

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Ryan Britt is the author of the nonfiction books Phasers on Stun! How the Making and Remaking of Star Trek Changed the World (2022), The Spice Must Flow: The Journey of Dune from Cult Novels to Visionary Sci-Fi Movies (2023), and the essay collection Luke Skywalker Can’t Read (2015). He is a longtime contributor to Star Trek.com and his writing regularly appears with Inverse, Den of Geek!, Esquire and elsewhere. He lives in Portland, Maine with his family.

Star Trek: Discovery Seasons 1-4 are streaming exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Canada, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia and Austria. Seasons 2 and 3 also are available on the Pluto TV “Star Trek” channel in Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The series streams on Super Drama in Japan, TVNZ in New Zealand, and SkyShowtime in Spain, Portugal, Poland, The Nordics, The Netherlands, and Central and Eastern Europe and also airs on Cosmote TV in Greece. The series is distributed by Paramount Global Content Distribution.