This episode begins in a very peculiar way. Sulu and O'Neil are running for their lives dressed in 1920's fashion.They call for help after being surrounded by men in long brown monk type robes wielding long hollow tubes. O'Neil runs for his life but Sulu waits for the beam which comes a moment too late and Sulu is touched by the weird tube things. When he is back aboard the Enterprise he has this weird creepy smile plastered on his face and keeps talking about "Paradise."
Of course because everyone's worried about Sulu they put on the garb and go down to this planet. Immediately they are greeted by people who have the same sort of mindless happiness that Sulu had.
One of the people they meet tells them to beware the "Red Hour" and then six o'clock hits and everyone goes bat crap crazy and the women who was supposed to take them to get shelter screams, "THE RED HOUR!!!" while scratching at her clothing so I'm assuming six o'clock is the "Red Hour". Kirk and his crew take shelter with that woman's father, Reger, until six in the morning, the end of the "Red Hour."
After some harassment (and murder) by the lawgivers, or men in monk robes, Kirk figures he must learn more. He finds out the society is run by Landru, a 6000 + year old man who saved Beta III from disaster and brought them to peace.
Reger leads them along to find out information, as they walk telling them he is part of the revolution to fight against Landru. Along the way they find O'Neil spaced out like Sulu and have to stun him, but despite Regers protests carry him along with them. As they stop they are found by a hologram of Landru, knocked out by sonic sound waves, and brought to a holding cell. When they wake up McCoy and O'Neil are nowhere to be found. A little bit later McCoy comes back spaced out like the others.
After a little bit of trying to figure out how to fix McCoy the lawgivers show up and whisk Kirk away. When he returns he seems as spaced out as the others. They take Spock next and this man, Marplon, introduces himself when the lawgivers leave. He tells Spock that he's also part of the rebellion and he can help, Kirk is fine, and Spock will be too if he pretends to act like the crazy loopy out of it McCoy.
That goes fine for awhile, but after a little while of whispering and trying to figure out what to do spaced out McCoy realizes Kirk and Spock were lying about being spaced out and starts shrieking about how they were "traitors to the body".
The lawgivers come in to check on McCoy but Kirk and Spock knock them out and steal their monk robes. Kirk forces Marplon to take them to Landru, but since no one's actually seen him in like 6000 years Marplon takes them to the room where Landru speaks.
After a while of fighting with Landru's projection Kirk and Spock just give up and shoot at a wall. Turns out Landru was a computer the whole time, somehow using telekinesis to control the minds of the planet.It was programmed with the memories and ways of the original Landru but since it had no soul or creativity the planet soon fell to ruin. Kirk and Spock then spend a few minutes convincing "Landru 2.0" that he was evil and that his job was to exterminate evil so of course "Landru 2.0" blows himself up.
| Landru |
 |
| Landru 2.0 |
This episode had a few things that caught my attention. For example, until this episode they never showed who ran the ship when both Kirk and Spock are on a mission. Answer to this conundrum: It's Scotty.
But my favorite part of this episode was when Kirk and Spock are discussing "Landru 2.0" and Beta III and Spock says something about how he understood "Landru 2.0's" actions, and Kirk calls Spock a computer, which Spock thanks him for like being called a computer was the biggest compliment and highest praise he could receive which made me laugh so hard I was surprised I wasn't told to shut up.
So any Vulcans or half Vulcans out there, if someone calls you a computer thank them, because apparently you will never get a better compliment.
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