Month: October 2021

Synopsis: A female alien comes onboard the Enterprise and takes Mr. Spock’s brain. While this episode is widely held as one of the least well regarded in Star Trek: The Original Series, it does demonstrate, albeit in very simplistic terms, what happens when psychic life is separated, one side being degraded while another one is… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 3, Episode 1: “Spock’s Brain”

Synopsis: The Enterprise is sent back in time on a mission of historical research to Earth in the year 1968, and discover Gary Seven. This, the last episode of the second season, could have been the season finale if not for a letter writing campaign from fans to save Star Trek. If itseems to be… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 26: “Assignment: Earth”

Synopsis: The Enterprise investigates the disappearance of the S. S. Beagle to find a planet that parallels Earth’s development, except the Roman Empire never fell. In past blogs on episodes such as: “Return to Tomorrow” and “Patterns of Force” I have spoken about inflation, and how it is a necessary part of the process that… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 25: “Bread and Circuses”

Synopsis: The Enterprise is chosen to host the M-5 multitronic computer in wargames. In “The Ultimate Computer” there are many concepts of depth psychology at issue, but I will focus on the idea that the individuation process is in fact a process toward balance in the various aspects of our conscious and unconscious personality –… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 24: “The Ultimate Computer”

Synopsis: The Enterprise finds the U.S.S. Exeter in orbit over the planet Omega IV, where an ongoing battle between the Yangs and the Kohms echoes the Cold War. Star Trek lore has it that this was one of the original story ideas written by Gene Roddenberry and pitched at the inception of Star Trek: The… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 23: “The Omega Glory”

Synopsis: The Enterprise is lured to a planet by a distress call and is confronted by aliens who want to take over the ship and conquer our galaxy. “By Any Other Name” is an illustration of what might happen to our society if we forgo the senses, including beauty, and emotions, including love, or Eros,… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 22: “By Any Other Name”

Synopsis: Starfleet Command orders the Enterprise to go to Ekos to investigate the loss of communication with historian John Gill. “Patterns of Force” is the episode in which a historian is sent to a developing planet as a cultural observer and ends up patterning its development on Nazi Germany. In my last post on “Return… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 21: “Patterns of Force”

Synopsis: The Enterprise is directed to a long dead planet, where alien beings want to borrow the bodies of three crewmembers. “Return to Tomorrow” is a physical manifestation of the depth psychological term, inflation. The Enterprise is summoned to a planet by a god-like alien intelligence. A being with a mind so powerful that it… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 20: “Return to Tomorrow”

Synopsis: Captain Kirk returns to a planet he surveyed as a young officer to find that the Klingons have armed one segment of the once peaceful population with firearms. In “A Private Little War” there are a lot of themes that are touched on. There is the obvious reference from the late 1960s of the… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 19: “A Private Little War”

Synopsis: The Enterprise encounters a large one-cell space organism. Depth Psychology teaches us how to “see through” different viewpoints, other than our conscious ego. In “The Immunity Syndrome” we do get the perspective of two different life forms, on life and death. The first, on death is in the beginning of the episode when Mr.… Continue reading Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2, Episode 18: “The Immunity Syndrome”