The first season of Star Trek really begins to hit its stride here with an extremely solid run of excellent episodes. A Taste Of Armageddon is a slightly dated allegory of the futility of war. The show's novel notion that two warring nations would fight their war via computer simulations, voluntarily surrendering the required quotas of both people and resources, almost seems far-fetched until we see the next round of U.N. sanctions against [insert country here] come to nothing but bloody grief. It also features yet another brainless Federation bureaucrat (though thankfully, the guy gets the hint this time around), and some of the best Spock moments in the first season (especially when the Vulcan bemusedly dispatches "an unusual brand of diplomacy" with phaser in hand on Eminiar VII - is that cowboy diplomacy at work there, Spock?). A fun and yet thought-provoking episode.

Space Seed, of course, introduces us to Khan, as played by Ricardo Montalban. A solid hour, and one of the entire Trek universe's all-time best "somebody took over the ship" stories, Space Seed's only casualty is the doormat-ish character of Lt. Marla McGivers, who falls for Khan. She doesn't show an ounce of strength or dignity until halfway through the episode, and that really leaves a bad aftertaste considering how enlightened the 23rd century is supposed to be. But other than that, it's a damn near perfect episode. One of my favorite moments occurs when Khan escapes from his quarters on the Enterprise, hits a red-shirted guard and sends the guy flying - maybe a slightly overboiled stunt, but considering that it's Khan, the bad-ass of the original series, it works.

Both episodes have their flaws, and little things which date them from something of a sociological standpoint, but they're better than most, making this an essential volume in the collection.

Reviewed by Earl Green
theLogBook.com webmaster / editor-in-chief