Dagger of the Mind

  This is yet another episode that proves that they were shot in a completely different order than they were aired in since Yeoman Rand and Nurse Christine are nowhere to be found throughout this episode. Instead, Kirk's love interest is the feisty and somewhat irritating psychologist Dr. Helen Noel.

    What I find really interesting is this top notch security prison penal planet has a prison escape onto the Enterprise inside of a box. A box! Do they not check the stuff they beam into other ships? Or was this just like a really bad day for them? Dr. Simon van Gelder comes aboard and just starts karate chopping people and stealing their clothes. (Okay, so he steal's one guy's clothes but it's still weird...) Eventually Spock does his super awesome Vulcan grip on him(because that is automatically better than any tranquilizer) and Spock and McCoy try to ask him some questions but they seem to physically pain him.

  McCoy mentions this to Kirk and with a little prodding finally convinces him to investigate the penal planet. The director of the planet, Dr. Tristan Adams, agrees and Kirk and Helen (who refuses to go by Dr. Noel) go down. The people of the planet seem awfully unemotional and Kirk picks up on it quickly but because Adams has a well-known reputation Helen refuses to see it. 

   Spock and McCoy continue to probe Gelder. By having Spock use a Vulcan mind trick so that Spock can read Gelder's mind they find out that Adam is using a piece of machinery to erase peoples memories and replace them with his own. Funnily enough, right as this is happening Kirk sits in the machine...

  Helen and Kirk figure out the machine works and Helen tries to change a memory Kirk has of her, only to be caught by Adam who then makes Kirk fall full blown head over heels for her. Adam does a little more messing with Kirk until Kirk passes out. 

The ending's kind of weird. But basically Helen climbs through an air duct and then messes with wires to shut off the machine. While she does this Kirk is being tortured again. Helen finally turns it off, allowing Spock to come onto the planet, she shoves a guy onto the electrical box which kind of saves the day, Kirk beats up Adam and his group and escapes, finds Helen and Spock, turns around, and finds Adam weirdly dead. And the whole time I just kinda wanted to go...WTF!!! What is this!!!

   Then everyone is back on the ship, awkward staring at Kirk, a look of mutual understanding between Spock and Kirk, and then they're sailing away. YIPPEEEEEE! Weirdest ending so far...