The Apple
- FIRST SHOWN (US)
- 13 October 1967
- ON
- NBC
- STARDATE
- 3715.3
- DIRECTED BY
- Joseph Pevney
- PRODUCTION NO.
- 38
WRITTEN BYWritten by Max Ehrlich
Gene L. Coon did an uncredited rewrite of Ehrlich's script.
A landing party explores a planet that looks like paradise, but its gentle people serve a mysterious power called Vaal, and the planet itself seems determined to kill intruders.
Red alert: the full plot, ending included. Haven't watched yet?REVEAL SYNOPSIS
The Enterprise visits Gamma Trianguli VI, where the landing party finds a lush, mild world that soon turns deadly. One security guard is killed by poisonous plant spores, another by lightning and a third by an exploding rock. The team meets Akuta, leader of a peaceful tribe whose antennae let him hear Vaal, a machine housed in a great serpent-headed rock which the villagers feed. Vaal keeps the planet perfect and the people ageless, but they know nothing of love or children. Meanwhile Vaal begins dragging the Enterprise down out of orbit. After Chekov and Yeoman Landon are seen kissing, Vaal orders the villagers to kill the strangers, and a fourth guard dies. Kirk stops the tribe from feeding Vaal, leaving it weakened, and the Enterprise destroys it with phasers. Kirk tells the people they are now free to live their own lives, grow their own food and raise families.
- 01Max Ehrlich's only Star Trek script. A young David Soul, later famous in Starsky and Hutch, plays the villager Makora.
- 02The original script called for the Enterprise to separate its saucer section, but the effect was judged too expensive.
- 03All four security guards in the landing party die, making this an early and notable example of the “redshirt” phenomenon.