Star Trek: Obsession Rewatch

May 9, 2015 9:26 AM - Season 2, Episode 13

Captain Kirk hunts for a creature from his time aboard the U.S.S. Farragut. The crew must try to understand the strange entity that feeds on human blood.

"Obsession" was broadcast on December 15, 1967. It is episode No. 42, production No. 47, written by Art Wallace, and directed by Ralph Senensky.

This episode deals with several human emotions: guilt, fear, obsession and, ultimately, redemption. While Captain Kirk is the primary focus, the viewer sees glimpses of these emotions in other members of the ship. At various times the "fight or flight" instinct is shown as an internal battle which one has to overcome in order to find emotional peace.

Episode reviews at Tor and Trek Movie.

Memory Alpha Link

The episode can be viewed on Netflix and YouTube.

posted by Benway (1 comment total)

I can see why no one has any comments. The random science nonsense was especially thick in this one: I don't really understand how an intelligent cloud of Dikironium from another planet would exclusively eat red blood cells, and how did it get them out of that jar, anyhow? Also, after explaining that the creature could transform from one element to another and move from matter to energy and use gravity to propel itself, Spock has to explain that OF COURSE something with those properties would be unaffected by the ship's shields. Well, I mean, maybe, since I don't actually know how the shields work. Most egregiously, how is injecting the ventilation system with radioactive gas EVER a good idea?

What really irritated me was pointlessly upping the suspense level by adding a perishable vaccine needed to save millions of lives. Maybe that's because I AM WATING TO GET A VACCINE MYSELF. Why didn't the vaccine lab hire a fast ship to begin with instead of hiring a slow leaking tub like the Yorktown to rendezvous with the Enterprise? Except wait, I don't think the Yorktown is a slow leaky tub; isn't it another starship? If so, why does it need to rendezvous with the Enterprise at all- why not just transport the damn vaccine itself? The Federation seems to do nothing but ferry diplomats and vaccines using random passing ships. Wouldn't it be faster to send a message telling Theta VII how to make the vaccine itself? I mean, unless the vaccine was made out of TRITANIUM or something.

OK, OK, you say I am dwelling on trivia, when this is a story of OBSESSION, where instead of a white whale, we're dealing with a white cloud of Dikironium. This is also stupid. There is no reason to think there is only ONE cloud of Dikironium; stands to reason there's a swarm of them and all of them are blood-sucking vermin, so there's no reason to focus on just one of them; you need to hire a space exterminator to get all of them. Speaking of which, how exactly did Kirk know it was going back to its home planet to spawn? Because it suddenly smelled different? Oh, OK. Just checking. But just like there's never just one cockroach, there is never just one space vampire. Kirk should have delivered the vaccine and come back later with an ion tracker, because probably the Yorktown has a spare one and, you know, a creature with those properties ALWAYS leaves an ion trail.
posted by acrasis at 12:03 PM on February 28, 2021