Operation: Annihilate!

"Operation: Annihilate!" is the last original episode from the first season of the original American science fiction television series Star Trek. It is episode #29, production #29, and was broadcast April 13, 1967. It is written by Stephen W. Carabatsos, and directed by Herschel Daugherty.

Set in the 23rd century, the series follows the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the Federation starship Enterprise. In this episode, the crew of the USS Enterprise must find a way to exterminate malevolent parasitic creatures that have taken over the residents of a Federation colony.

Plot

Stardate 3287.2: The Federation starship Enterprise is tracing a path of mass insanity that is destroying civilizations in a straight line through the galaxy, jumping from planet to planet. The next planet in line is Deneva, and Captain Kirk (William Shatner) has Communications Officer Lt. Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) open a hailing frequency on a private transmitter. As they enter the system, they detect a ship heading for the sun. The pilot raves incoherently until he suddenly becomes lucid… just as his ship is destroyed by the heat. Chief Medical Officer Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) notes that Kirk's brother Sam has a laboratory on a planet next in line to be affected by this phenomenon.

Kirk takes First Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy) and others in a landing party and find that the locals are strangely quiet, until a group of men come out. They try to warn the landing party away but then come after them in a fit of violence. The landing party stun them but McCoy determines that they're being violently stimulated even when unconscious. They hear a scream from the laboratory and run there to find Kirk's sister-in-law, Aurelan (Joan Swift), trying to keep something from entering through the ventilator grille. They also find Sam Kirk (William Shatner), dead, and his son Peter (Craig Hundley) unconscious.

Back on the ship, McCoy determines Aurelan and Peter are both in extreme pain and is forced to tranquilize them. Aurelan has a greater resistance and they bring her around enough for her to reveal that "they" forced a ship's crew to bring them to the planet eight months ago. The more she tries to answer, the more pain she suffers. Before dying from the excruciating pain, Aurelan reveals that "they" are spreading, forcing the Denevans to build ships to spread further.

Kirk beams down to join the landing party and search for the creatures responsible. Inside a building, they find pancake-sized single-celled organisms that are highly resistant to phaser fire. They try to retreat but one of them attacks Spock. They pry it off but Spock is immobilized with pain.

They take him back to the ship where McCoy determines that the creature injected something into Spock. The doctor has no choice but to call off the surgery: the creature has infiltrated Spock's spinal column with pieces of living tissue that are impossible to completely remove surgically. Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) still thinks Doctor McCoy should try something, and attempts to refuse when he orders her to close Spock up. McCoy threatens to get another nurse, so she submits.

In Sickbay, Spock revives and storms off to the bridge, but Chapel sees him leave and prepares a sedative, then follows him. He tries to take control of the ship. The crew are barely able to restrain him, and Chapel shows up with the sedative just in time. McCoy administers it to Spock. Back in Sickbay under heavy restraint, Spock awakens and asserts that as a Vulcan he can control the pain. Kirk orders him to be confined for a while longer to see if he can maintain control. Once they leave, Spock snaps his restraints and goes to the transporter room. He orders Chief Engineer Scott (James Doohan) to beam him down but, following captain's orders, the engineer refuses. Spock then attacks them but Scott is able to hold him at phaser point and call the captain. Spock explains to Kirk and McCoy that the pain is gone and he has to capture one of the creatures, and he is the logical choice since he is already infected. Kirk agrees and a Denevan attacks Spock when he arrives on the planet. Spock renders him unconscious and returns to the building where they found the organisms. He stuns one of the creatures and takes it back to the ship.

In the laboratory with McCoy and Chapel, Spock determines the creature is part of a hive mind that has come from a different universe, with different physical properties, and is all but immune to phaser fire. Kirk orders them to find something that will kill the creature without destroying the host, but McCoy comes up with nothing and the captain admits that he will have to destroy the planet and everyone on it rather than let the creatures spread.

Remembering that the man piloting the Denevan ship called out that he was "free" right as the ship was destroyed by the sun, Spock and McCoy test the creature against numerous properties of the sun, to no avail. Kirk realizes that the one property they haven't tried is light. They come up with a plan to place satellites in orbit and have McCoy test the specimen they have. The light destroys the specimen but Kirk wonders if it will work on an infected victim. Spock volunteers, and is exposed to the extreme light. Spock reveals that he is free of the creature, but entirely blind. Nurse Chapel comes in to reveal that only high-end (ultraviolet) light waves were necessary, not the blinding white light that McCoy used on Spock.

The Enterprise distributes the satellites and then energizes them, and the creatures are destroyed and the Denevans recover. Later, Kirk files a message to Starfleet when Spock arrives on the bridge, back to normal. Spock explains that the blindness was temporary, and that Vulcans have a second, inner eyelid to protect against the bright Vulcan sun (Spock claims that Vulcans tend to ignore the extra eyelid much as humans ignore their appendix, perhaps explaining why he did not immediately realize the blindness was only temporary). A relieved McCoy reluctantly admits he thinks Spock is the best first officer in Starfleet and Spock, with his superior Vulcan ears, overhears him, much to the chagrin of McCoy.

Production notes

The script, which was written by Steven W. Carabatsos, was originally titled "Operation: Destroy". Aurelan was a Denevan woman in love with a man named Kartan, and it was Kartan who flew the ship into the Denevan sun in the cold open. Aurelan's father was also a major character in the teleplay, and the two colonists were not infected by the "Denevan neural parasites". Instead, they helped Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock with the research into how light could destroy the parasites.^[1] The script did not originally end with the Enterprise crew using light to destroy the parasites. Instead, the ship learns the location of the aliens' home world, and destroys the central controlling "brain" located there. Author James Blish used this draft of the script when adapting the episode for print, and this ending appears in the chapter "Operation: Annihilate!" in the anthology Star Trek 2.^[2]

This was the first episode of the series to be directed by Herschel Daugherty. Daugherty would later direction Season Three's "The Savage Curtain" as well.^[3] It was also the first appearance in Star Trek for child actor Craig Hundley, who played "Peter Kirk". He would also portray "Tommy Starnes" in the third season episode "And the Children Shall Lead".^[4]

Location shooting occurred in two places. The scene where the Enterprise away-team beams down to the surface was filmed at the TRW Space and Defense Park (now the Northrop Grumman Space Technology headquarters) in Redondo Beach, California.^[5] The entrance of Sam Kirk's laboratory is the cafeteria on the TRW campus.^[5][6] The exterior of Sam Kirk's laboratory, which features white pylons, is a structure at the University of California, Los Angeles.^[7] Filming at TRW occurred on February 15, 1967.^[6]

The neural parasites were created by prop designer Wah Chang from bags of fake vomit.^[8]

The episode aired on April 13, 1967, and was the final episode to air in the series' first season.^[9] One scene did not make it into the episode. This scene came at the end of the story, and featured Peter Kirk (dressed in a captain's shirt) sitting in the captain's chair on the bridge while his uncle, James T. Kirk, agrees to let him return to Deneva to live with Sam Kirk's research partner and friend. Although filmed, it was edited out due to time constraints.^[10]

Reception

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'B+' rating, describing it as a "a little rocky in places" but otherwise praising the alien menace and Nimoy's acting.^[11]

The show is popular for revealing new facts about Vulcan physiology. Galaxie 500, an American alternative rock band, wrote a song about the episode for their 1990 album This Is Our Music. The song was titled "Spook", but the band secretly used the title "Spock" since the lyrics referred to Spock's blindiness in this episode:^[12]

When you went blind

Then I nearly lost my mind It didn't last

'Cause you have another eyelid

References

Bibliography

• Asherman, Alan. The Star Trek Compendium. New York: Pocket Books, 1981.
• Blish, James. Star Trek 2. New York: Bantam Books, 1968.
• Clark, Mark. Star Trek FAQ: Everything Left to Know about the First Voyages of the Starship Enterprise. Milwaukee, Wisc.: Applause Theatre & Cinema, 2012.
• Okuda, Denise; Mirek, Debbie; and Okuda, Michael. The Star Trek Encyclopedia. New York: Pocket Books, 2011.
• Schuster, Hal and Rathbone, Wendy. Trek: The Unauthorized A-Z. New York: HarperPrism, 1994.
• Wareham, Dean. Black Postcards: A Memoir. New York: Penguin Books, 2009.

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: "Operation: Annihilate!"

• "Operation: Annihilate!" at StarTrek.com
• "Operation: Annihilate!" at the Internet Movie Database
• "Operation: Annihilate!" at TV.com
• "Operation: Annihilate!" at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• "Operation: Annihilate!" Screenshots before and after remastering at TrekMovie.com

v t e Star Trek: The Original Series Series The Original Series episodes Season 1 2 3 awards and nominations The Animated Series episodes Primary characters Christine Chapel Pavel Chekov James T. Kirk Leonard McCoy Janice Rand Montgomery Scott Spock Hikaru Sulu Nyota Uhura Feature films The Motion Picture II: The Wrath of Khan III: The Search for Spock IV: The Voyage Home V: The Final Frontier VI: The Undiscovered Country Related topics Planet of the Titans Theme song USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-A) Category