Trekipedia

This Side of Paradise

The Enterprise visits a colony where indigenous flower spores provide the settlers with peaceful contentment.

• Stardate 3417.3
• Released 2 Mar 1967

The Enterprise arrives at planet Omicron Ceti III, where Kirk expects to find all the colonists dead because of the deadly Berthold rays to which they have been exposed for the past three years. But when a landing party beams down, colony leader Elias Sandoval informs them that everyone on the planet is quite well–including Leila Kalomi, a young botanist with whom Spock had worked six years before. Leila leads Spock to a clump of plants that spray him with their spores, liberating the Vulcan‘s emotions. Spock expresses his long-suppressed love for Leila. Other members of the landing party are exposed, plants are beamed up to the Enterprise, and before long everyone is affected. Then the captain discovers that strong emotional reactions are the antidote to the spores’ effects, and tricks Spock into coming back aboard the Enterprise. He goads him into a fight, and barely avoids being killed by the Vulcan’s superior strength. The conflict restores Spock to normal, and he assists Kirk in constructing an apparatus that frees the Enterprise crew and the colonists from the spores.

Written by D.C. Fontana
Story by Nathan Butler and D.C. Fontana
Directed by Ralph Senensky

Cast:

• Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner)
• Commander Spock (Leonard Nimoy)
• Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy (DeForrest Kelley)
• Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott (James Doohan)
• Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu (George Takei)
• Lieutenant Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols)

Guest Cast:

• Lieutenant Leslie (Eddie Paskey)
• Leila Kalomi (Jill Ireland)
• Elias Sandoval (Frank Overton)
• Lieutenant Commander Kelowitz (Grant Woods)
• Painter (Dick Scotter)
• Lieutenant DeSalle (Michael Barrier)