THE RETURN OF ARCHONS TO: THE REVIEW
STAR TREK, The Original TV Series

GUEST STARS...
Charles Macaulay

PLOT SUMMARY...
Searching for the crew of a missing starship, the Enterprise crew arrive at a planet where the residents are controlled by a computer, and are allowed to periodically go berserk.

QUICK SCAN...
This episode features frequent phaser usage. It's fun to see Kirk, Spock and others in Western-type garb. The idea of "Red Hour" a brief period when alien citizens are allowed to go berserk is thought provoking. The FX involving phaser use in this episode are particulary good.

SYNOPSIS...
The Enterprise arrives at the planet, Beta lll, in search of the missing crew of the U.S.S. Archon. Beaming down, the Enterprise finds an Old West-type culture, run by a powerful, unseen leader, called Landru.

The Enterprise gang pass themselves off as "Archons". Locals eventually realize that Kirk and company, " are not of the body", targeting them from destruction.

Kirk discovers that Landru is actually a computer. Kirk and Spock destroy the computer, "freeing" the locals to think for themselves for the first time in thousands of years.

BEST BETS: For the World is Hollow, The Apple, A Taste of Armageddon

MORE