Thursday 31 July 2008

Star Trek: TOS 3.8 - The Empath

Review 62 - Episode 63

The One where the Trio are tortured

Back to basics episode here. The Trio are captured and tortured to see how far an Empath can heal them. There's some excellent dialogue between them, especially when McCoy puts himself forward to die. It's fairly tame by today's standards, but still effective and quite shocking.

The sets are also very sparse giving it a feel of a stage play or stripped down drama, much like spectre of the gun was. Of course, it's because there's no dosh in the kitty, but it makes for compulsive viewing none the less.

The end scenes, when Kirk talks them into not killing them, is a standard Trek cliche, but works for me and doesn't ruin the episode.

An unexpected gem in amongst the dross that is Season 3

4/5

Overall Star Trek Franchise Rating so far: 178/315

No comments: