"Star Trek" The Return of the Archons (1967)

The Red Hour, Landru & Absorption

Season 1, episode 21. A century earlier the U.S.S. Archon disappeared near the planet Beta III and the Enterprise investigates. A search party goes down but only Sulu returns to the ship but acting very strange. Kirk gathers another party to beam down the surface and finds all the inhabitants are acting as strange as Sulu. The party runs into a girl who says her father will give them a place to stay at his tavern about that time the red hour began. The party ends up in that tavern and meet the girl's father Reger. From there Kirk and Spock start asking Reger and his friend, Tamar, questions about what is going on. They mention the name Landru but cannot say more... Landru overheard and sent in his men to kill Tamar. From there Reger is trying to help Kirk and crew from being absorbed by Landru. They are caught and Landru tries to absorb them one by one. McCoy is absorbed but Kirk and Spock pretend to be. It's up to Kirk and Spock to solve the mystery of Landru and save the rest of his crew from being absorbed or destroyed.

The mystery of Landru makes for quite an interesting episode.  The ending is good - watching Kirk and Spock destroy Landru with only words quite literally.

8/10

 

"Star Trek" The Return of the Archons (1967)