Season 3, episode 7. The Enterprise has found a colony of 100 Federation people that is completely destroyed - no traces people or colonization anywhere on the planet. The Enterprise received a distress call. Kirk, McCoy, Chekhov and a red shirt security member beam down to the planet to find no traces of the colony. The nearby Klingons received a distress call from the Enterprise and their vessel was fired upon leaving many Klingons dead. The Klingons beamed down and confront Kirk and crew about what happened. The Klingons and the Federation have been a peace for 3 years but the Klingon Kang believes that Kirk's ship fired on them to provoke a war. What none of the see is the alien watching them. Chekhov gets upset over remembering his bother Peter and others dying from Klingons years back and the Klingons detain him, but their guns on Kirk and orders Kirk to beam them all aboard. Kirk calls Spock to have all of them beamed aboard then presses a button to alert Spock of impending danger. Scotty and Spock has the Captain and crew filtered out and beams them first into the ship, security team comes in and they finish beaming the Klingons on board, followed by the living Klingons on the Klingon ship. All Klingons are held but Kang, his wife and first officer that will be treated as guests but watched carefully. The alien also entered into the transporter but was able to get on board undetected. Now the Enterprise has several Klingons and an undetected alien on board. This alien will raise the tensions between the Federation and the Klingons. Everything that goes wrong with the Enterprise will be blamed on the Klingons and what happens to the Klingons will they will blame the Federation over an unseen alien. Worse yet, Chekhov wants to avenge the death of his brother - and Chekhov is an only child. To top it off, the Enterprise is flying out of control and medieval weapons of war: swords and axes are appearing on board. Can the Federation and Klingons start working together to solve the mystery of what is really going on? An excellent tension building episode. An alien with intelligence and it's own reasoning for doing these things to both sides. Minds are being taken over by the alien, blame is being thrown back and forth, revenge (Klingons), including false revenge (Chekhov), life support being cut off, insults flying, race hatred and more. This episode feels like "Star Trek" to the fullest extent.
9.5/10
