A guest blog by Siblings and Mindless-Droid

“For the first time in my life I was happy” – Spock

This week we are here to talk about the episode that was originally intended to be a romance for Mr. Sulu but by the final draft had instead become a romantic episode for Mr. Spock. That’s right; today’s episode is “This Side of Paradise.” If you would like a more detailed summary, you can read it here http://www.startrek.com/database_article/this-side-of-paradise, whereas if you would like to watch the episode you may do so here http://www.startrek.com/watch_episode/HA0gB9aDK5fI?qid=835#trivia_box. Also, you can watch the episode preview at http://www.startrek.com/watch_video/episode-preview-this-side-of-paradise.

Mindless-Droid: This side of Paradise is another one of those so-so episodes. It was nice to see Sulu back at the helm but the opening scene was a little overly dramatic. The re-mastered Enterprise and planet shots never seem to disappoint. The end of this episode had a really cool shot looking back through the warp nacelles at the planet receding away.

This must have been a money saving episode since there was no need for many effects and the sets were something you could find on any movie or TV soundstage. The mystery of the spores was interesting with Sulu sitting two feet from them while talking about finding something out of the ordinary. It was nice to know that the crew of the Enterprise knew their livestock.

Leila was annoying and quite selfish with or without the spore influence. Given Sandaval’s realization after the spores were gone that they haven’t accomplished anything it was as if she wanted to keep everyone under the spore influence for her own private little paradise. As to the spores and the plants themselves it wasn’t quite clear if they were just mindless fauna or if they were somehow sentient and had some sort of agenda. At times it seemed that they hinted that they were more alive and intelligent but that was not really expressed fully.

I do like how they were building up the character relationship between Treks Big Three. Kirks frustration with Spock while under the influence of the spores and McCoy knowing that something was wrong. Another example was Spock’s loyalty to the ship and Kirk after the spore influence was gone. You also get to see that nothing means more to Kirk then his ship and his crew and this is the one thing that helps him resist and ultimately defeat the spores influence. It was either that or he was just mad that Spock got the girl this time.

This week ME-TV edited two scenes down so much I noticed it even though to be honest I wasn’t really paying close attention. The first was kirk in his quarters near the end looking through his personal belongings before the scene in the transporter room and then they showed McCoy and Sandaval being affected by the sonic waves but edited out the scenes of other crewmembers altercations.