Star Trek

Season 1 Episode 25

This Side of Paradise

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6
8.4
out of 10
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12

EPISODE REVIEWS
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Episode Summary

EDIT
The Enterprise crew is trapped in paradise when they come to rescue colonists who have fallen to pacifying alien spores and become infected themselves.
SUBMIT REVIEW
  • Excuse me, but I don't see the problem.

    9.0
    Great acting. Leonard Nimoy at his best. However, I truly do not see where living on the planet was a bad thing. Love, peace, having just what you need and nothing more, and excellant health. There is no satisfactory answer given on why should the colonists, Spock, the crew leave their paradise. Yes, the ship would be abandoned. But it would seem to be that the good outweighs the bad.
  • Kirk must deal a mutiny due to a planet's strange spores infecting his crew.

    7.0
    This episode, with its not-so-hidden message about drug use, has some good acting from Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and the late Jill Ireland (Spock's temporary girlfriend). The episode shares some similarities with "The Naked Time" but in some ways is quite different. What makes the episode work is the emotional side of the debate between happiness and responsibility and how Nimoy and Ireland handle it. On the downside, the episode can be a little slow at times, and while it's an iconic part of the classic Trek series, there's not a lot of action and excitement, leading to some dull times.moreless
  • Free love and flower power!

    8.0
    Star Trek episodes are clever in that they show thoughts and concepts on current news and media stories through their episodes. I think this one was stating that it was all well having free love and a "brotherhood of man" in the 1960's but if we need drugs(the flowers in this case) to "dig it" then we will get nothing done well apart from creating some musical master pieces maybe!



    On a darker note I'd like to have seen the flowers more developed such as their need to reproduce. What if the spores after a certain period of time started to grow and take over the hosts body and because of their state of mind they wouldn't have cared!moreless
  • Flower Power!

    7.0
    this epiisode of "Star trek" has the crew visiting a planet to save some colonists, only to be told that the rather be here than on the ship. the find out why, a flower made most of the crew turn against Kirk and stay on the planet. It would have gotton to Kirk, except that Kirk is smarter than most of the people on the enterprise and used ager to get rid of the effect of the planet. the crew under the plant's spell rebelled against the plant and in the end, everybody is back on the enterprise. We see spook falling in love. Yeah, I like to put that thing in.moreless
  • The Enterprise visits a planet where the colonists are presumed to have died from radiation, only to find them alive and well and apparently living an idyllic life after being subjected to the effects of some spores. A pretty average episode in my view...moreless

    7.0
    This episode is another case of not being bottom-of-the-barrel, and is quite watchable, but for whatever reason does not really stand out as one of my particular favourites either.



    We have already seen the effects of crewmembers acting out of character earlier in the season in "The Naked Time". Both episodes are watchable, but for whatever reason I'm not usually a fan of whole episodes revolving around cast members acting 'strangely out of character'.



    Leonard Nimoy puts in a reasonable performance as Mr. Spock getting in touch with his human side. Other than one scene in "The Naked Time", this is the first time in the series that we see Spock's human half coming to the fore, but is far from the last time.

    Then there is the classic parting line as Leila asks about Spock's second name, to which he replies "You couldn't pronounce it".



    Much of this episode is unintentionally funny, nothing more so than the scene on the otherwise deserted bridge, where Kirk is suddenly sprayed by one of the spore plants... where the heck did that come from?!



    There are nice little touches of the crew being under the offending spore's influence, such as Doctor McCoy's southern drawl, but for the most part, I only find this episode average, with nothing to overly grab me about it. There is worse in the 'Star Trek' barrel, but it's not one of my particular favourites either.moreless
Jill Ireland

Jill Ireland

Leila Kalomi

Guest Star

Frank Overton

Frank Overton

Elias Sandoval

Guest Star

Michael Barrier (II)

Michael Barrier (II)

Lt. Vincent DeSalle

Guest Star

George Takei

George Takei

Lt. Hikaru Sulu

Recurring Role

Nichelle Nichols

Nichelle Nichols

Lt. Nyota Uhura

Recurring Role

Eddie Paskey

Eddie Paskey

Lt. Leslie

Recurring Role

Featured Episode Clip

Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • TRIVIA (2)

    • As with many amazing discoveries, no one ever remembers this planet and the spores later. They can heal disease and regrow missing organs. Just beam someone down, let them get healed, beam them back up and get them mad, and voila, one super-healed patient.

    • Where the heck did the plant that sprays Kirk come from? There's a side shot of the navigation station and there's nothing there. Then he sits down, the plant raises itself from somewhere, somehow, and spritzes him.

  • QUOTES (17)

    • Spock: (to Leila) What you are describing was once known as a "happiness pill." You as a scientist should know that is impossible.
      Leila: Not here.

    • Kirk: We haven't heard much from you about Omicron Ceti III, Mr. Spock.
      Spock: I have little to say about it Captain, except that for the first time in my life, I was happy.

    • McCoy: That didn't sound at all like Spock, Jim.
      Kirk: No, it... I thought you said you might like him if he mellowed a little.
      McCoy: I didn't say that! Not exactly.

    • McCoy: (after meeting Elias Sandoval) Pure speculation, just an educated guess, I'd say that man is alive.

    • Sandoval: We don't need you..not as a doctor.
      McCoy: Oh no? Would you like to see just how fast I can put you in a hospital?
      Sandoval: I am the leader of this colony. I'll assign you to whatever work I think is suitable!
      McCoy: Just a minute...better make me a mechanic. Then I can treat little tin gods like you!

    • Kirk: Maybe we weren't meant for Paradise. Maybe we were meant to fight our way through. Struggle. Claw our way up, scratch for every inch of the way. Maybe we can't stroll to the music of the lutes. We must march to the sound of drums.

    • Kirk: No wants -- no needs? We weren't meant for that. None of us. Man stagnates if he has no ambition, no desire to be more than he is.

    • Kirk: Another dream that failed. There's nothing sadder.

    • Spock: Emotions are alien to me. I'm a scientist.

    • Kirk: All right you mutinous, disloyal, computerized half-breed, we'll see about you deserting my ship.
      Spock: The term "half-breed" is somewhat applicable, but 'computerized' is inaccurate. A machine can be computerized, not a man.
      Kirk: What makes you think you're a man? You're an overgrown jack rabbit, an elf with a hyperactive thyroid.
      Spock: Jim, I don't understand.
      Kirk: Of course you don't understand. You don't have the brains to understand. All you have are printed circuits.
      Spock: Captain, if you'll excuse me.
      Kirk: What can you expect from a simpering, devil-eared freak, whose father was a computer and whose mother was an encyclopedia?
      Spock: My mother was a teacher, my father an ambassador.
      Kirk: Your father was a computer, like his son. An ambassador from a planet of traitors. The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity.
      Spock: Captain, please don't...
      Kirk: You're a traitor from a race of traitors, disloyal to the core, rotten like the rest of your sub-human race – and you've got the gall to make love to that girl.
      Spock: That's enough.
      Kirk: Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom instead of passing himself off as a man. You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship – right next to the dog-faced boy.

    • Kirk: Where's McCoy?
      Spock: He went off to create something called a mint julep. That's a drink, Jim.

    • Kirk: I'll tell you something - it's not every First Officer that gets to belt his Captain... several times.
      Spock: You did that to me deliberately.
      Kirk: Spock, believe me it was painful... in more ways than one.

    • Spock: I have never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question.

    • Leila: You never told me if you had another name, Mr. Spock.
      Spock: You couldn't pronounce it.

    • Kirk: Where are you?
      Spock: I don't believe I want to tell you that.
      Kirk: Spock, I don't know what you think you're doing, but this is an order. Report back to me at the settlement in ten minutes. We're evacuating all colonists to Starbase 27.
      Spock: No, I don't think so.
      Kirk: You - don't - think - so - what??
      Spock: I don't think so...Sir.

    • Spock: I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else's.

    • Spock: Striking a fellow officer is a court-martial offense.
      Kirk: If we're both in the brig, who'll build the subsonic transmitter?

  • NOTES (3)

    • Frank Overton is billed as Special Guest Star.

    • Jerry Sohl's original script was called "The Way of the Spores" and the central character and love interest for Leila was to be Sulu rather than Spock. The spores, which were to be hidden in a cave, would be agents of intelligence, and would give the recipient telepathic powers. D.C. Fontana rewrote the script to change the love interest to Spock, place the spores throughout the planet's vegetation, and cause the recipient to experience heightened blissful emotions. This then allowed the non-emotional Spock to express full emotion and experience love.

    • Jerry Sohl wrote the story for this episode under the pseudonymn Nathan Butler.

  • ALLUSIONS (0)

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