Title: The Apple
Airdate: 10/13/1967
Plot Summary
The Apple starts with Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Checkov, and a landing party beaming down to what they believe is a paradise rich in natural resources. But they soon find it’s the opposite of paradise, with the Enterprise in immense danger from an unknown power on the planet. Kirk is losing people in the landing party to this deadly planet and he must find the secret of Vaal, the being that runs the planet.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk punches Akuta so hard that he cries. He looked like he kicked a puppy. He admits he came to this planet mostly because he wanted some fresh air and kicks himself when he didn’t take better precautions before going down, leaving three crewmen dead.
Logical
Spock has to reassure Kirk when he blames himself. He also has a moment where he pretends to dress down Chekov to let Kirk beat up Akuta and flush him out of the brush.
He’s Dead Jim
Bones is able to save Spock’s life and Spock is typically ungrateful. He also gets the best line when he finds out that Vaal has forbidden sex. “Well, there goes paradise.”
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is absent from this episode.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov spends most of the episode trying to have sex with Yeoman Landon.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura is absent from this episode.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty can’t seem to free the Enterprise, can barely get the communicators to work, and is basically useless. However, the is able to get the ship’s phasers going to destroy Vaal. Not so much destroying it but making it expend so much power to protect itself, that it burns itself out.
Canon Maker
The Apple really cements the idea that Scotty is third in command of the ship. While it’s happened before, Scotty has so much to do trying to save the ship and giving commands while he’s up there, it really made it expected after this episode I think.
Canon Breaker
Once again the idea of money is brought up as Kirk mentions to Spock how much they have invested in him and Spock has an exact number, but he’s interrupted. There’s also mention that if Scotty doesn’t get the Enterprise freed, he’s fired, though I think that was all gallows humor.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
One redshirt gets killed by a dart plant, another gets smoked by Vaal lightning, a third hits the grenade rocks, and the last gets beat to death by a villager. Bad day for them, but at least some variety. I did like that Kirk has some moments of remorse that these guys are dead and is hit pretty hard by it. He spends a scene blaming himself.
Technobabble
Kirk mentions dropping the nacelles and the warp reactor if they have to, alluding to the idea that the ship could be separated. It’s not clear if he means to separate the saucer, but given the warp core is in the secondary hull, that would seem likely.
I Know That Guy:
Akuta is played by Keith Andes. He had a reasonable career in the 40s and 50s and played General Marshall in the classic Tora! Tora! Tora!
Shari Nims plays Sayana, I could find very little about her.
And David Soul plays Makora who would go on to have a decent singing career in the seventies but really got fame from playing Hutch on the show Starsky and Hutch.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Ugh, The Apple is a hard episode to watch. Lots of red-shirt deaths to show how dangerous the planet is but of course when Spock gets hit with the poison darts, he’s fine. Then he gets hit by lightning that vaporizes a redshirt but he’s fine again. I could kinda buy that he could survive the poison being Vulcan but the lightning?
The Apple is another episode where Kirk wipes his ass with the prime directive though given the circumstances to prevent the destruction of the Enterprise, it’s at least somewhat understandable. The people of the planet apparently have no idea what children are, which begs the question of how they got there in the first place or if they have no memories of being children themselves.
I will admit that there’s some delving into the morality of interfering, a possible exploration that might have been interesting but instead, they made it more about Kirk’s failings to take precautions than the more interesting conundrum of violating the Prime Directive.
The planet has nothing but death traps, flowers that shoot darts, rocks that explode, and a giant lizard cave that needs fruit and exploding rocks, but mostly exploding rocks, to power itself which is apparently enough to take out the Enterprise. What is it, a Mr. Fusion? I guess they used the rocks that explode but where do those come from?
The people are annoying as hell in their childlike behavior. They don’t age so I guess they are immortal? Never need replacements? Not one accidentally stepped on an exploding rock? Kirk even posits this question but the people don’t know anything about it so that would assume there’s never been an accident. It all seems to be an excuse to talk about sex with primitives.
They spend most of the episode trying to save the Enterprise and get back to it. It’s really a slog to get to the point which is.. I don’t know. I guess don’t be run by a computer?
If I were a leftist, I’d accuse Kirk of being a colonist, bringing Christianity to the natives, and criticize it for native genocide or some shit. In truth, Kirk is right, these people lack free will and the ability to choose their lives. But the question is, are they unhappy with their lot in life? For instance, if this changes, will they lose immortality? That may be a big price to pay.
In the Return of the Archons, at least those people really didn’t like being controlled by Landru or weren’t in their right minds. Here it doesn’t appear they are being controlled. They seem to be happy with their life so what gives Kirk the right to change their whole way of life?
Also, how did this planet come about? In Archons, we get the idea that the people found themselves on that planet and needed Landru to create some order and things got out of hand. You could surmise how it happened even though it wasn’t explicitly spelled out. But here? How? Why?
And if Vaal doesn’t want the Enterprise there, why not let them leave? Instead, it tries to destroy them. If it’s trying to keep a specific environment stable, a starship with anti-matter spread out all over the planet after it explodes is probably not a good way to go.
I could deal with that if The Apple was the least bit compelling. It just isn’t, you just want to turn it off. Whatever possible ideas that this might have, and there are a few, it doesn’t execute worth a damn. Not a great episode.
