“This Side of Paradise”

I think the heart of this episode is with Kirk and Spock. Kirk's sense of duty is so strong that he frees himself from the effects of the spores--proving again that he has a will of iron. Spock never tries to fight the spores, but when Kirk frees him, he also knows and does his duty: "I have a responsibility, to this ship and to the man up on the bridge." Kirk seems glad to be himself again and off on the next adventure, but Spock is reserved, sad, and reflective. All he can say about all of it is, "For the first time in my life, I was happy."

Agreed. Worth the clumsy fighting and lame romantic music for the poignant last words of Spock.

At the end of the episode, Bones says the spores left their bodies perfect. They should have taken samples with them! They had the *cure* for every disease and injury and they let it slip through their fingers. Yes, it's a happy drug, I get it. But they found a reliable way of overcoming its effects. Plus, Starfleet could have studied the things and figured out a sterile way of achieving the effects. They could have easily taken precautions to avoid accidental exposure when bringing them aboard. Stoopid.

I couldn't help but think that this was intended as a commentary on hippie counterculture and the use of recreational drugs.

That was a very fun episode to watch! The solution was a bit hard to swallow but so many great Kirk/Spock scenes. Spock hanging from the tree, Kirk speechless. Their dialogue after the fight. Priceless.

Not the most convincing plot (and resolution) but who cares.

For me the funniest thing in this episode was how the spores somehow gave Dr. McCoy a southern drawl. That seemed weird and out of place, given no one else changed their accents. It wasn't even just an accent: suddenly Bones was off making Mint Julips. Who the heck directed Kelley to turn into a plantation owner, when for everyone else the spores just made them relaxed and happy?

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this episode is the first where Spock's race is referred to as "Vulcan" instead of "Vulcanian".

In retrospect: "Vulcanian" makes more sense, since they are from the planet Vulcan. But I guess they thought Vulcan sounded better.

Drug culture references indeed.

Spock hanging from the tree did this in for me.

1.237 stars for me.

I love the way DeForrest Kelly says 'Ennerpriiiise' when calling the ship. Used it as a ringtone for awhile.

For me, this episode is comparable to "All Our Yesterdays" in Season 3, but the Spock romance is far more developed and believable here in Season 1, whereas the latter ep feels more like a "reset button" relationship with very little screen time between Kirk's witchcraft dilemma. The tearful scene with his girlfriend at the end of "This Side of Paradise" and the haunting final line hit all the right notes for me; the farewell at the end of "Yesterdays" feels more like episode of the week stuff. So I'm not sure why Jammer gave "Paradise" 2 1/2 stars and "Yesterdays" 3 stars. For me, the Spock romance and Spock-Kirk dynamic (even the lightweight fight scene at the end) in "Paradise" easily makes it a 3 or 3 1/2 star episode. And the treatment of drugs/counter-culture, topical for the time the episode was made, captures more nuance than any later Trek treatment of this topic that I've seen. For me, this one is a classic, moving and surprisingly fun.

This episode is a favorite of mine and reflects to talent if writer D.C. Fontana. The one thing I would like to mention: McCoy did not "develop" his southern drawl - the spores emphasized it. In addition to being happy, his was relaxed, which brought out his accent more. The mint julep references are hilarious.

As for taking the plant spores to cure all diseases - the plants traveled they space to that planet, because they needed the radiation to survive. Not only that, the plants are most likely seen as too dangerous to investigate further. If anyoneone wants to go back to the planet with a well-prepared research crew, so be it.

Spock: "I've never understood the female capacity to avoid a direct answer to any question."

I'm sorry, but that was pure gold. Made my episode.

A decent episode which touches on a couple of themes - the happy drug culture and how man needs to be challenged, Kirk's love for his ship is the most powerful drug, and an insight into Spock's loneliness - his line at the end is poignant.
What is odd is how Kirk isn't initially infected after catching up on Spock hanging from a tree (one of the classic moments in all of Trek). He must have been in some emotionally elevated state -- he eventually succumbs on the ship after spending some reflective time alone on it.
Bit of a stretch to me how quickly humans come under its spell and why they didn't beam down to the planet in protective suits given the deadly radiation.
But definitely Kirk and Spock's various interactions are gold. Some filler moments in this one which kept it at a slow pace overall.
Not a bad episode overall, 2.5/4 stars for me.

What’s so bad about feeling good? The colonists had purpose enough to farm and cultivate food to live. Their health improved to a perfect condition. And they now knew the cure for it. (I would like to know what happened to the animals they’d brought with them. The answer given to that question was evasive.) It seems like the planet possibly could be developed for a recovery facility, under certain conditions. And it was good seeing Jill Ireland again.

Re: Linda - They did explain it. The radiation killed the animals (which is why they were farming) - they only lived because of the spores. Although it begs the question how a plant can tell the difference between a sentient being or an animal (else wouldn't there not be enough spores if the animals could trigger the plant too?), but what-ever.

Yes, you’re right, Corey. Spock explained that radiation killed the animals, but that the spores thrived on human bodies. I'm not exactly sure how that would work but obviously it did.

Just rewatched "This Side of Paradise" in air date order as I plunge through TOS boxed set. I would re-rate this one, upping my original review to 3 1/2 or 4 stars. There's just so much good stuff going on here, but it's really an example of what TOS often does best: A marginally interesting Sci-FI setup allows us to enjoy a great character episode, looking at very human themes.

Like Kirk later on this season in "City on the Edge of Forever," Spock must choose duty over love in this episode -- a theme that recurs throughout the TOS stories all the way to their last film together. This Enterprise crew serves a higher purpose of space exploration for the sake of human development, honoring their own happiness and yet always willing to put the mission above their personal desires when necessary, and this episode presents this message in especially strong fashion by focusing on Spock. The confirmation here that Spock has emotions but suppresses them consciously adds a new layer to his character and to the series, developing our understanding of him perhaps more strongly than any other story -- this is the kind of key character moment that really lays the groundwork for the emotional resonance of his sacrifice in Wrath of Khan: Despite his insistence on the logic of "the needs of the many," we sense that's just a cover for how he really feels, making his death that much more poignant. And I was reminded in rewatching "Paradise" this time, in Kirk goading him to fight, of the teasing Spock underwent as a child -- narrated by his mother Amanda in "Journey to Babel" and later portrayed onscreen in "Yesteryear" (TAS) and the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot film. The "dog-faced boy" comment and other insults of Kirk, although superficially silly, clearly hit Spock on a deep level here and you can sense that he's fed up with being teased as a "freak" by everyone from his childhood companions to McCoy and the other human crew of Enterprise. Really striking stuff.

So all in all, while it's easy to underrate this episode as a bit of fluff, I really found it much deeper than it first appears on rewatching. It's easy to take for granted what we learn about Spock here, but I'm not sure any other "Spock story" in the Trek franchise tells us as much about his inner self as this one. Perhaps this episode best makes sense if you care more about the characters than about the morality play and science-tech aspects of Star Trek -- and that's a hallmark of what TOS does best.

The most beautiful thing about this episode is the plot. It's about a scientific research station that has discovered literal paradise, and goes on to show how bad that is! The is a point-blank statement about the Federation itself, and won't be addressed in this manner again until well into DS9. The statement being made is that the Federation *is not* a pleasure-based dystopia where everyone lies around enjoying themselves and doesn't do anything. That's the first thing I think about when I contemplate future technologies like food synthesizers, transporters, and eventually the holodeck: I imagine people living lives of hedonism and struggling to have a reason to do anything. This episode shows us that the Federation is fundamentally about *work*, about furthering the development of the human species (all species really, but we only hear of human progress for the most part), and about exploring and building communities. Paradise may feel good to the colonists when the crew meets them, but once the power of the spores fades they realize what a waste of time their paradise was, how much of a hollow experience it was. Of all episodes in the entire canon, this one is probably the most on-point about what Trek is really about.

Trekfan said: "Just rewatched "This Side of Paradise" in air date order as I plunge through TOS boxed set. I would re-rate this one, upping my original review to 3 1/2 or 4 stars."

Hey Trekfan, I guess we're rewatching TOS at the same time. Like you, I'm finding myself raising my opinion of most episodes, including this one.

Incidentally, I see this episode as a comment on the communes, counter culture and drug-using cults of the 1960s. In this regard I think the episode takes cheap shots, and I disagree with its message, which bashes the suppression of human desires in favor for simplicity (desires only beget more desires; they cannot be quenched, leading to all kinds of neuroses, both on an individual level, and on a socio-econo-systemic level).

And yet the broad, awww-shucks tone of the episode somehow worked for me, as did all those surreal shots of futuristic spacemen roaming primitive farms. Spock's emotional longings, contrasted with Kirk's egomaniacal desire to fight off the effect of the spores, also felt a bit touching.

Why didn't Kirk take a shuttlecraft to the closest Starbase and get help? It would have been safer to call McCoy up to the ship. Who beamed Kirk up that final time?

I feel like guest actors on TOS were much more polished than guest actors in the 90s.

I'm not sure McCoy and Spock have ever been more delightful. They were both like one big mint julep.

@LiliEoze

"the plants traveled [through] space to that planet"

Yes, I remember that. Why does the reviewer seem to go out of his way to say that the plants were indigenous to the planet?

I liked this one. It was fun. And Jill Ireland - I'd forgotten how luminous she was.

Nice character development for Spock, as we glimpse what lies beneath his icy exterior.

I had to wonder: where were the kids? They'd been there 3 years, all enveloped in their love for one another . . . but no kids. And we see from the Spock-Leila interaction that the spores don't interfere with sexual attraction.

I noticed this because everyone seemed to lack a sense of purpose, nothing really challenged them, everyone was so happy and easy going, and nothing ever happened to truly upset them. And a couple of babies would have turned all that on its head right away.

Even exposed to the spores (any babies would have died within a couple of weeks otherwise), babies would remain excessively needy creatures, and therefore remain sources of purpose, challenge, and frustration (enough to neutralize those spores in seconds!).

I definitely agree with the shows message that true happiness is only deeply experienced when sadness is also a possibility, and that human beings require challenging occasions in order to rise to them.

Lots of fun moments. Above average and memorable (I say that because I actually remembered this one - but maybe that's because I was once in a birthday skit for a Trekkie friend, called "The Other Side of Paradise." I played Nurse Chapel. It was 1977, I think.)

Very good episode ,forget the hard to swallow solution at the end .Its interesting to note that a year later a movie called 'whats so bad about feeling good' came out starring george peppard and mary tyler moore,which has pretty much the same story line.

All in all, a nice little story. In the original draft for the script, the spores were supposed to be a benevolent group conscious, and being possessed by the conscious would put someone in a state of bliss. I still think there are cues from that script in here -- everyone affected seems to act in coordination to possess others to maintain some sort of symbiotic relationship with the planet.

I like how people were slowly converted one by one, which led to some memorable interactions with the straight man (Kirk) and the euphoric crew he encountered.

Of particular note was Spock's dramatic shift from being very order-orientated to letting down his guard and feeling happy with a woman he could finally share that with. There seems to be a number of messages we could take from this episode - about freedom leading to happiness, but that freedom without purpose is empty. Yet -- I'm not sure the story really sticks to any focused message on the subject.

The Kirk-Spock fight makes this worth the price of admission. 2.5 seems about right.

Trent (Tue, Oct 10, 2017)

Summarizes my feelings for this episode quite eloquently.

III of IV

P.S. Drugs are bad, mmkay.

Oh, and in classic Star Trek fashion the planet they visited looked astonishingly a lot like a typical american country side.

This Side of Paradise

Star Trek season 1 episode 24


"I am what I am, Leila, and if there are self-made purgatories, then we all have to live in them. Mine can be no worse than someone else’s.”

- Spock


3 1/2 stars (out of 4)


Would you be happy in paradise? If all your problems were solved, if there was nothing left to do? Would you join the waltz, or would you dance to the beat of a different tune?

These are the universal themes explored in “This Side of Paradise”. When the crew come upon a group of settlers living in plant-spore induced bliss on a poison planet, every crew member is infected. Bones goes to make a mint julep ("That's a drink, Jim.”). Spock is able to love an old flame ("I have little to say about it, Captain, except that for the first time in my life I was happy.”).

Kirk wants nothing to do with.

A few Star Trek episodes suffer from severe cases of fourth act syndrome. They have amazing set ups, but drag out the climax to the point of utter boredom. “Arena” is a prime example - amazing set up, really grabs you. But the fight on the planet is tedious to the point of breakdown.

“This Side of Paradise”, by contrast, takes a very pedestrian premise, with silly looking props as white-powder spraying plants, and elevates it with the most profound exploration of the human condition.

There is an old poem ("Poetry, Captain. Non-regulation”) that speaks to me (and who else can poetry speak to?),

"How sweet is mortal Sovranty!"—think some:
Others—"How blest the Paradise to come!"
Ah, take the Cash in hand and waive the Rest;
Oh, the brave Music of a distant Drum!

Each person must answer that question for themselves. There are some who live only for the paradise to come. Do they risk missing out on life? Others revel in the pleasures of this world. Are they just drowning themselves in hollow stimulants (@Alex)? Or as @Trek fan hints, maybe the greatest allure of Paradise is the freedom to be yourself. Spock is free to climb a tree. McCoy no longer has to pass as a northerner, and can enjoy is natural lilt (@LiliEoze).

Are you, you, if you are free to just be?

Each person must make his own choice. As Spock says, each person must chose his own purgatory.

Kirk makes his decision. I keep going back to that line from Milton that Khan and Kirk both embraced in “Space Seed”. Better to rule in hell than serve in heaven. Kirk had an almost allergic reaction to paradise (@Trent). He’s a man that’s here to work. That’s why he signed up for service (@Peter G.).

Once the colonists snap out of their blissful stupor, they feel exactly the same way.

ELIAS: I think we'd like to get some work done. The work we started out to do.

https://youtu.be/gJV-O1e10z8

I rate this at least 3 out of 4 stars. As others have said, I think the key to this is Kirk's drive, sense of purpose, duty, and loyalty to his and the ship's mission. Pleasure is natural and good but if that and "drifting" is the extent of a person's focus, I think they stagnate and their full potential goes unfulfilled.

It makes me think of the current debate about socialism (the colonists) versus capitalism (Kirk), group experience versus individualistic pioneering and achievement. Of course, in the real world there are aspects of each that naturally overlap. All those on the Enterprise had a group experience, though they were also part of the mission, with Kirk and others leading it. Some may feel more affinity for, or see logic in, the group experience, and that's good, because we're all part of that in some ways. Others (like myself) find themselves more motivated to focus on forward-moving action and vision, and personal achievement. That's how I see it anyway.

The final scene with Spock and Leila in the Transporter Room is very moving and one of Nimoy's best in TOS, in my opinion--Nimoy had just the right balance of emotion or softness, and control. I read on the Trek memory-alpha fandom site that, in the original draft, it was Sulu who was supposed to fall in love with Leila. But making it Spock and Leila obviously makes it more dramatic.

@ Shrantastic,

While I agree that this is a very good episode, I disagree that the analogy of capitalism vs socialism fits as a parallel. Those two systems are fundamentally two different ways to organize trade and government oversight, and on an individual liberties level a question of how much one's actions should have to abide by a rule-set that is enforced for the good of all. Socialism, love it or hate it, is not about a kum ba ya group feeling of euphoria. In fact detractors of socialism tend to view it as the opposite - the greatest way to squash pleasure in life. When comparing these two systems, if anything capitalism is closest to fitting the analogy you're pointing at - that each person does whatever they want without an overriding series of rules and regulations pushing them in a particular direction. To the extent that this episode is about enforced discipline versus doing what feels good, the colonist are the capitalists (finding their own version of happiness as they see it) versus the Enterprise crew who have to follow set protocols and keep cohesive for a single purpose, which is socialistic (relative to the colonists). And in fact some detractors of Gene's vision specifically point toward Trek as being a socialist utopia, and therefore making no sense in practical terms.

I think in your post you were looking for a way to compare the individual work ethic with the feeling that the individual is lost in the group. I suppose this could better apply to certain types of people than to entire economic systems. For instance I guess you could argue that the arch-Republican type in the U.S. with the "bootstrap" mentality are red-blooded individualists like Kirk, whereas some people on the left-wing side think in group terms and don't value individual prerogative as much. If this is what you meant I guess maybe there is something of that in this episode, although I don't think it's fair on the one hand to think of the colonist as being left-wing (socialists as you put it) in the sense that left-wing people are just hedonists, nor I suppose is it fair to suggest that Kirk and his crew are "may the best man win" individualists, since we know that on Trek the ethos is to look out for each other self-sacrificially.

Generally I think the episode is posing the question of whether there is in fact something better and more precious than perpetual harmony and bliss. TOS seems on multiple occasions to answer that question with a resounding yes, which is interesting enough on its own. That it paints the colonists in this particular episode as having no fault in their system (no Vaal, no Landru, no secret chink in the armor) means that the show is claiming that there can never be, under any circumstances, a reason to give up toil in favor of euphoria. It is a repudiation of the Garden of Eden itself, with the claim that there is something better for us, however difficult it is. That's a pretty big claim, and I think it goes beyond left vs right and beyond politics.

Of that era, this was one of the better episodes. Without going into all the classic personality differentials of the cast, or the science (really, most all these episodes take great leaps faith....; ) But, as a massage I do believe this makes certain where the foot comes down, and it is squarely in the camp of mainstream western patriarchal society, proving once again Star Trek was anything but counter culture. It's not that it ever pretended to be, but many have some misconception as that the message expanded beyond where our society was at that time, of which I was well aware of, I remember as a mid teen, scratching my head as I watched episodes like this, and people around me thinking that it represented the sense of freedom, and individuality, etc etc. Of course, if you think about it for a moment, it's not really any different than all the other 'messages' we were fed growing up in that era, preparing for our next 'adventure'...conflict, as it turns out. The only difference with Star Trek and the usual schlock we were fed, is that Star Trek took a moment to analyze the differences, where as during that time differences were generally hit with a hammer. Not to say that the juxtaposition was not relevant, it was and remains so, but it was Kirks line near the end, where he turned to the absolute of , para phrased...'....do we stroll throw the fields to the sounds of a lute, or strive, claw (etc) to the sound of a beating drum....' That message , was clear as a bell, and it coincides with the gaining strength of the anti-war movement and all the rest, that unfolded before my young unjaded eye.

What a terrible resolution on Kirk's part. Where Picard at least would have made a grand speech about why that particular Paradise may not be right, Kirk just had the role of a conservative trying to prevent alternative ways of life not because they are arguably wrong but because it must be as it always has been, life must be a struggle and where would we get if were just happy with what we had instead of always trying to change our circumstances.

He could have argued about free will but no. He argued we are not meant to just be and be happy.
And while they constantly make fun of half human Spock, the one time Spock discovers his ability to feel and for happiness, he is ready to take it away from him without a moment of thought and no reflection or discussion on it after the fact either. So we got happy Spock vs Spock "I have a duty to that man" - don't see why I should vote for the ladder if that is the extend of it.

Less than the deed as such it is tus in thoughtlessness with which Kirk defends that which is right because it always has been so is sad.
Same the colonist leader. Damn, 3 years we did nothing but farming and living happily. What a waste of time when we could have terraformed this planet, changed the environment, build super structures and turned the place into one of interplanetary commerce.
OUCH.


After 30 years of Trek fan ship I finally took it on to watch TOS in full (never cared much for it in spite of trying). And while I find the omnipresent music and sound effects surprisingly stimulating, I cannot understand how people chose Kirk over Picard or TOS over any other series.
I can understand if you liked it growing up. But looked at with a present day view it offers nothing more than shallow old style scifi entertainment. The few episodes where ethical/philosophical questions are raised it hardly scratched their surface.
Kirk was a commander and fighter but not an engineer, scientist, philosopher and mentor like Picard. He was chauvinistic, often acted rightout dumb/naively. TOS explored seemingly out of self interest, it's not as if they learned much from it. TNG has the same type of alien (planet) problem posing episodes as TOS but on top some of them take a relatively deep look at ethics and society for a 45 minutes episode. I have not come across a single TOS episode that is more than pure entertainment and skips over all the deeper questions that should come up when you meet alien cultures and have to question your own.

The whole TNG crew is well more trained, versatile and (most of them) have more characteristics than even the main characters of TOS. (the movies aside maybe).
Pure nostalgia aside, what does TOS have to offer than TNG does not and does much better on top? (and why wouldn't it, after all it is the newer show that ran several years longer)

Not really sure Seb's comment is worth a response (seems like borderline trolling to me). I love both TOS and TNG a great deal but if I was to evaluate them objectively and unemotionally, there's no question in my mind that TOS is clearly superior.

TOS had some of the best sci-fi writers of its day and the stories have more staying power and speak to various aspects of the human condition, geopolitics etc. generally better than TNG did. There are very few truly terrible TOS episodes, which is remarkable given how quickly they had to crank them out and how low the budget was. My big issue with TNG is that there were so many terrible episodes, but fortunately there were enough of great ones too, otherwise it would not have started a TV sci-fi boom in the early 90s.

I really have to say that the writing and acting (main cast and especially guest actors) for TOS is also generally far superior to that of TNG and that's what really makes, on average, watching a TOS episode a better experience for me than a TNG one. The TOS music goes a long way toward the overall experience, and that is another thing TNG failed to pick up on (barring a small handful of episodes with good soundtracks). It's a bit tougher to have a fair comparison for character development since TNG had twice the number of episodes and TOS really focused on the Big 3 and maybe Scotty a bit.

There have been plenty of Kirk vs. Picard comparisons over the years. I can't say which one is better or whatever, but we have to acknowledge that they are fundamentally different not just because of the era in which the characters are created. That being said, I think Spock is the single best character in all of Trek and one that the other series have tried to emulate (Data on TNG, the doctor on VOY, etc.)

I think TNG's success, despite all its weaknesses (poor actors, a lot of poor writing, taking 2 seasons to really create an identity, and then largely coasting thru Seasons 6&7) really comes from maybe 2 dozen terrific episodes. I think the masses of TV viewers were starved for quality in the early 90s and TNG did enough to hit a home run.

The point of the episode is that artificially induced happiness isn't real happiness. It's the moral of the lotus eaters.

Imagine a country where a government pumped its citizens full of tranquilizers from the day of their birth. The citizens would be perfectly content and would probably resent anyone who tried to cut off their supply of drugs. Does that mean that the government is morally right to do such a thing?

"Happiness" is a nice goal, but it can come in many forms. Some people are happy creating art, some want to be successful in business, some people want a family etc. The flowers only give you the FEELING of happiness without any sense of (or desire for) accomplishment.



I prefer TNG to TOS, but TOS was the only show that really captured what it means to be human:

People aren't perfect, but they should try to do better.
There are no short cuts to happiness.
Technology is a tool, not something to worship.
The freedom to choose between good and evil is essential to being human.
In the real world you have to make tough moral decisions in the hope that you are contributing to the greater good.

One detail worth noting is that the episode isn't *only* addressing whether a person choosing lazy bliss is making just as good a choice as someone choosing struggle and effort. That would be a related but somewhat different conversation. In this episode what happens is the crew are infected, and never make a conscious choice about what's best for them. The lazy happiness is literally contagious, and the way it's shown they have absolutely no choice in the matter. Even Spock, who otherwise makes logical decisions about all things, finds himself switched immediately when exposed to the spores. So while it's not blatant mind control, it comes very close to be an existential danger to the crew.

Now the episode obviously is also talking about bliss versus struggle in general, and Kirk's decision at the end that he prefers struggle is right on point with that. He alone seems to be in the position to see both sides and chooses. His choice also involves making that choice for his crew, however since arguably they weren't ever given a choice in the first place this seems entirely proper to me.

Another thing to consider is that if we want to go more metaphorical and less literal, there is an issue here about immediate gratification being like a drug you won't ever be able to turn off once you start. It's like the pleasure button, and you would go crazy if that button went away for even a minute once you're hooked. Many people would choose that even knowing what it means. Maybe even most would choose it eventually. So there is even a moral question about whether it should be seen as a public danger that something even exists that can enslave users immediately and permanently. There is a good argument to be made that this could threaten entire civilizations. It is not unreasonable to me that a civilization might even take steps to ban or destroy any tech (or in this case spores) that effectively remove your free will and replace it with constant pleasure. It's drugs times a million. So even if the spores are not malevolent in themselves, they still seem to be to be extremely dangerous.

TOS was pretty adamant that humans should not be controlled and that humans need to explore, work to earn their rewards etc. That's a classic sci-fi theme.

In none of the situations is humanity actually making a choice to be controlled to achieve "happiness" and I think it's instructive that Kirk & co. provide that outside viewpoint to assess the problem and remedy it. The viewer can take whatever he/she wants from that theme.

In this episode, it's the spores that delude humans into thinking they are happy. But Kirk & co. establish a pretty consistent track record of playing liberator -- "The Return of the Archons" where they free a society from Landru's computer control; "The Apple" where they free people from the god-machine Vaal; "Dagger of the Mind" where they free patients from Dr. Adams' mind manipulation; "Who Mourns for Adonais?" has Kirk telling Apollo that humans of this era can no longer be shepherds -- they've grown beyond that; in "Errand of Mercy" they see an arrested culture and want to help it advance (aside from the strategic importance of Organia) until they find out the Organians are super-beings.

TOS would tell you humans can't exist in captivity ("The Cage" / "The Menagerie").

So I think this episode is just one iteration/flavor of a consistent TOS theme.

@ Rahul,

The one caveat I would put in front of all that is in most of those cases the happiness is fake; either an illusion, naive lack of knowing anything better, or outright false happiness such as in Return of the Archons where they are really boiling underneath the surface and are not at peace at all. But I do somewhat think that in This Side of Paradise they are uniquely showing us an environment where they experience real bliss, and not an unintelligent one. The crew can still think, it's just that they are 100% hooked on the spore juice and love it. Unlike the other episodes with a similar theme, here it would appear that even without an evil computer controlling them, a fake happiness or a sanitized peace (like in A Taste of Armageddon) here they have the real deal, and it's up to the Captain to decide if even the real deal is acceptable when the consequence is that humanity will advance no further in any way after this, forever. It's a question of freedom, yes, but also a question of whether people should be allowed to freely choose to give away their freedom. Kirk seems to be saying "you will be free whether you like it or not!" It's a pretty strong position to take, and much less of a no-brainer than releasing people from some stupid computer system.

I like this episode very much. It’s true that there isn’t a great deal of tension and edge-of-the-seat drama, but it was surely worth it to see Spock fall in love and hang from a tree! Not to mention McCoy’s Southern drawl (DeForest Kelly was a Southerner?).

There’s some interesting dialogue at the end about Milton’s Paradise Lost, and Spock’s remark about being “happy for the only time in his life “ was truly poignant. Using major sci-fi writers pays off in such moments and elevates Trek above ‘ commonplace TV’.

One major flaw: I understand about using the transporter to beam down alone — there must be a timer switch mechanism. But how on earth did Kirk beam back to an empty ship? Someone would have been needed to operate the transporter.

I wonder if this episode was really a comment on the ubiquitous 60s use of tranquillisers and antidepressants? That such solutions are ultimately artificial, and worse, they get you hooked and dependent?

I've always enjoyed this episode on a couple of levels. First, the "science" of it isn't stretched as much as ANY episode with human aliens speaking English with a California accent, and there are too many of those. Second, the dramatic scenes in the transporter room were exceptionally scripted and directed. One of the my top 5.

Regarding why McCoy returned to a southern drawl on this and some other episodes (e.g., the Deadly Years): DeForest Kelly was born and raised in the Deep South. That was his natural accent.
I agree with the others that this was a very good episode. 3 out of 4 stars for me.

There’s an elegant, thoughtful simplicity to this little story. “We can’t stroll to the music of the lute. We must march to the sound of drums.” I wrote that up on the whiteboard in our kitchen to amuse my wife and kids. The science-fiction elements were handled expertly. What starts out as a simple planetary investigation leads to a mystery of how exactly these colonists could possibly be alive, and then progresses to a commentary on the differences between living in total freedom and living with the freedom to have the chance to develop your best life through struggle. All throughout, things are kept interesting but understandable. Never once was I bored or confused.

I think that “This Side of Paradise” clearly takes potshots at the 1960’s free-love drug culture but also at societies that stifle incentive. I like how the objection here is that the state of bliss resulting from the spores/poppies (see what I did there?) is artificial and even inhuman. Oh, everyone’s happy on the planet. They’re happy in a state of ignorance, laziness and worthlessness. They don’t contribute to the betterment of society. And as Kirk says, “Man stagnates if he has no ambition.” McCoy’s anger is in fact triggered by the proposal of having to work. (His retort about the uselessness of a Doctor on this planet got me rolling--”Do you know how quickly I can put you in a hospital?”).

There’s a striking scene where Kirk is sitting alone on the otherwise deserted, dimly-lit Bridge. The ship is powerless without its crew, and so is Kirk. Here he stands in for the rest of the society left behind by the ever-growing mass of leeches who don’t contribute anything worth a damn to it--in full command of his faculties but helpless and melancholy nonetheless. The crew have left to live a blissful existence on the planet without a care in the world. Kirk’s life back on the ship, by contrast, is a life of struggle and reality. “I don’t know what I can offer against paradise” is a telling and even sadly defeatist lamentation. But of course we know the message--paradise of this sort is insidious and forced. It’s a nice touch that the plants literally *explode* all over you--it’s almost violent and predatory. @PeterG, as always, makes a great comment above: "It's a question of freedom, yes, but also a question of whether people should be allowed to freely choose to give away their freedom.”

And oh my God, I loved the confrontation between Kirk and Spock. The dialogue is hilarious (I quote one of the lines below), especially Spock’s observation about initiating a brawl between 500 colonists and crewmembers, and we even get a trademarked Cheesy Fight Scene between the two of them. It’s all too brief actually, but still one of the top fights on Star Trek yet because it comes from Kirk’s place of friendship and caring. Who hasn’t had that one situation where the only option was to knock some sense into your best friend, because if you didn’t, it meant that you just didn’t care? That act-out with Spock holding the table over Kirk’s head with a look of steely determination is goofy and perfect at the same time.

It’s absurd that Kirk just misses--by inches--being infected by the spores that first time, but I’ll grant it as a dumb-luck necessity.


Best Line:

Kirk -- “You’re an overgrown jackrabbit. An elf with an overactive thyroid!”

(Kirk’s priceless and best impression of a schoolyard bully in the hopes of making Spock angry)


My Grade: A-

I agree that the scene on the deserted bridge is memorable and really well done. There is no real action or tension, but a lot of intensity and an almost tragic quality. The long shots and slow camera work underline the thoughtful, melancholic atmosphere created by the dim light and Kirk’s quiet, defeated voice. When he says that his crew “mutinied”, you can hear in this one word how deeply it hurts him. So many times, he’s faced (and withstood) all kinds of dangers threatening him to lose his ship and his crew, and he knows he’s probably closer to this than ever before – not in battle, through a disease or any unknown danger, but under circumstances he has never encountered before or even thought of. As a threat, this scenario is so utterly absurd that no one could ever have anticipated or been trained for it. So he’s completely unprepared and at a loss to know how to solve the dilemma. If there were a real, typical mutiny, he could at least react to it by opposing his authority as the captain, imposing his orders by force or even violence if necessary, but he is powerless against the calm, quiet way in which crewmembers refuse to obey him… like Uhura who tells him with the sweetest smile that she has sabotaged the communications station.

Likewise, I also think that it is not only his sense of duty which enables him to overcome the effect of the spores, but also his deep-laid fear to lose his ship, crew and command. It is no coincidence that the turning-point is the exact moment when he’s about to beam down. If he does, he has lost the Enterprise forever, because with nobody left aboard there is no way to return to the ship, even if he wanted to. When he is operating the controls, he suddenly realizes what he’s doing, how close to the edge he’s standing… and the shock snaps him out of the spore-induced mindless happiness. From a psychological point of view this makes a lot of sense, so in addition to be well filmed and played, this scene is also well written…

I just watched this one the other night, and while I hold to my previous comments on the episode I had the challenge of having to defend them against my wife's objections. While I had been considering the episode as being a dilemma between a life of easy bliss and one of toil and challenge, she pointed out that the colonists do actually conduct farming, it's just that they have decided to only make what they need rather than produce excess for the purposes of commerce or export. Similarly, they do appear to have designated jobs, and don't just sit around lazing in the hay all the time. So this complicates the situation into one where the dilemma is not just between bliss and duty, since the colonists do seem to have limited duties. And indeed I can see the argument strongly in a modern context, of people (especially during the pandemic) feeling a better life exists out of the city, perhaps in the country or on a hobby farm, living more simply and doing a bit of gardening rather than buying veggies at the supermarket all year long. Choosing to live simply is surely not something we would want to condemn, so it bears narrowing down exactly what we think this episode is saying. I don't think it's arguing that country people are wrong somehow.

In considering these facts I had to hone my arguments and find what was really wrong with this colony. The most striking this isn't the symbiosis with the spores per se, but the fact that they squash all negative emotion. Right away this has a similarity to a drug, which makes the situation suspect. And not only do they eliminate negative emotion (sadness, anger, etc) but if you in fact experience negative emotion it nullifies the spores and breaks you out of the group. That also has a suspect quality, such as is found in certain communities where any non-conformity would mean your expulsion or censure. It seems hard to support the idea of a colony where having a bad day means you're "not one of us anymore".

And there is one more troubling aspect to the behavior under the spores, which we see through Spock, which is that he seems to be totally unconcerned with Kirk's feelings, and in an almost child-like way. It would be one thing if he had a change of heart, explained to his Captain that he'd rather have this life than one in Starfleet, and that this decision is not made lightly but rather seems the best choice for him. That would be unfortunate, but completely understandable. You could accept it, even if you might not respect it. But the manner in which Spock informs Kirk of his change of situation is really disrespectful, as if he no longer considers Kirk's feelings or needs to have any relevance. This is perhaps the worst aspect of what we see in the changes to the crew. It is very hard to see this as merely being a situation of deciding to enjoy a simpler life when it simultaneously makes you a jerk to your friends.

It is hard to pinpoint one core reason the colonists are wrong, other than to point at these individual warning signs, and to suggest that all is not right here. The very fact of a person's attitude changing instantly rather than gradually seems to lend credence to the drug comparison and make it hard to see this as being just a life choice. Kirk's attitude regarding life being about work rather than bliss is always a striking one, but it seems to require specifics beyond what the episode spells out. The colonists do work - but their work is only for themselves, just enough to get by. They do not produce excess, which some might view as being humble in ambition. But this was supposed to be an agricultural colony, presumably equipped by the Federation: does that mean the colonists are actually turning their backs on people who need the food this colony was supposed to produce? Maybe in that case it's not just humility, but selfishness driving their production output to be merely self-sufficient. And why should they care what anyone else needs, when they experience bliss all the time?

Finally it seems pretty obvious to me that a life entirely lacking negative emotion is not a good one. True, we do try through most normal efforts to increase capabilities, ease suffering, be more productive, and to find better and better sources of entertainment. And based on the viewpoints of many Western people life can generally be summarized as the attempt to increase positive emotion and reduce negative emotion. But I don't agree with this viewpoint for various reasons, and I suspect that Kirk doesn't either. There is no room in the episode to go into the philosophical (or alternatively religious) reasons why one might hold this position, but I think the writers are feeling that there is something icky about having a goofy smile on your face all the time. We feel this too in Return of the Archons, and in fact DeForest Kelley and Takei do very similar goofy smiles in both episodes. The fact that Archons involved a mind-controlling computer, complicating the political analysis of the episode, might be a side point from the fact itself that people who walk around with stupid smiles and no cares have got a fundamental problem. I can see an argument against this, disputing the idea that we need negative emotion, but in any case I think the writing suggests this as a premise, and I think I agree with it. It's just not that easy to point out briefly what's wrong with being happy all the time. Maybe it's the idea of the return to Paradise (from a Judeo-Christian viewpoint) being wrong when it's unearned. Maybe we have to build paradise by working through problems with those who disagree with us, rather than striving for everyone to agree about everything. Pure conformity can feel harmonious, but I think that is not real harmony.

@Peter,

Some interesting ideas, for sure. I like this one but it's been a long while since I've seen it, so here are just some speculative thoughts -- nothing I am too attached to.

One thing that made me perk up is your mention that one of the downsides seems to be that Spock is a jerk to Kirk -- letting him know he's out in an unceremonious way. That is interesting, because Kirk is of course the one to break the spore spell, and then the way he breaks it on Spock is that he is deliberately a jerk to Spock. It almost makes me think that the thing that made Kirk so angry was not *just* losing the Enterprise -- though as in Elaan of Troyius, Kirk's love for his ship will override most other spells -- but the anger over the personal betrayal of Spock being mean to him, and that might have given him the idea of how to anger Spock.

I think as usual, the emotional core of the episode is Kirk and Spock -- individually and together. I think probably the larger message is found with the crew and the colonists in general, and it seems like they are kind of normal people who have a normal level of satisfaction with their jobs and lives and then get doped up by the spores, lose their drive except for subsistence, and then when brought back to themselves realize that they've lost some time and need to get back to work. And I think that is probably where the actual message lies and it's something like what you are saying; it's not quite that they are total layabouts, but that they are missing a certain drive, or something.

But Kirk and Spock seem to be having different stories from everyone else, or at least different aspects are demonstrated. Kirk's love for his ship and his hard-working life drives him to sufficient anger that he is able to break the spore spell. He spends the whole episode trying to avoid the planet surface, getting more and more riled up, and while he falls under the spell, losing the Enterprise is a bridge too far and so, poof. And so Kirk's speech at the end is, in that sense, a little hollow. Kirk wasn't *actually* tempted by a life of ease below; that was just some weird spores tricking him. The real Kirk doesn't want that, and so Kirk didn't "give up paradise" because he is already in his paradise -- he is already where he wants to be. The temptation is only surface.

Spock, on the other hand, was *completely* tempted, and not only that, but does not seem to have the reaction of that colonist who looked around and said that time was wasted. Spock, when broken out of the spell, looks around and recognizes the necessity of following logic and propriety and duty, and so he does it. But he is not happy about it, because he is incapable of being happy. And while Spock might say that he's incapable of emotion, we know better even by this point -- he is actually extremely capable of, and awash in, anguish, the kind that erupted in The Naked Time given a few seconds. He gives up emotions because they are too painful, and because they are, as far as we can tell, basically entirely negative -- he can't catch a break. And so he was doubly locked out. He was granted happiness he had never felt in his life, and he was granted a reprieve not just from responsibility but from the constant, ongoing internal anger and misery, which Kirk taps into.

So again I am coming back a little to your line about Spock being a jerk to Kirk. You know, I've been watching early The Simpsons lately, and it occurs to me that this episode shares a little in common with "Bart's Friend Falls in Love," where (um, spoilers) Bart's best friend Milhouse gets a girlfriend, starts abandoning Bart, and then Bart finds a way to break them up, eventually leading to a knock-down drag-out fight between him and Milhouse, with Star Trek-ish musical cues. And there *is* this weird element to the episode, if you narrow it down to the personal side of the Kirk-Spock thing, of what happens when your normally dutiful and stuck up best friend gets a girlfriend and he's suddenly mellow enough to start talking sass at you. The only thing to do is to get him so angry he realizes he has to break up with her, and then you can all be pals again. This time WE walked out of paradise ourselves. Easy for Kirk to say, surely.

Of course, Kirk has to knock Spock out of it for his own good -- but more than that, Kirk needs Spock to rescue the others, and it does seem as if the others, in general, want to be rescued. Spock logically seems to know that it is correct for him to have been rescued from the spores -- from the temptation of the hippie girlfriend who gets him to chill out so that he can get back to his brooding serious business. But the episode ends not with Kirk's speech about marching to the beat of the drums, but Spock observing that for once, he was happy. I suspect that this is D.C. Fontana's teleplay overlay on the basic story.

I want to end with a little disclaimer sentence that of course Kirk did the right thing -- I think the episode is clear on that. But I do think there is something kind of interesting. It sort of feels as if Kirk did absolutely the right thing for himself, the right thing for his crew and the colonists in general, and for Spock -- it's complicated. Spock is sort of the sacrifice. And in some ways that is even harder for Kirk -- except that what Kirk wants, of course, is Spock by his side.

Maybe a way to put it is that Kirk and Spock demonstrate different aspects of the same problem. Let us say that it is better to live a difficult but meaningful life than a quiet and enjoyable one.

At one extreme, there is Kirk -- for whom this is, ultimately, not even really much of a choice or a real sacrifice; his whole being rebels against even the notion of a quiet life as opposed to one of toil and adventure. So for him, the quiet life is an obvious trap, that he's being duped out of his actual mission.

At the other extreme, there is Spock -- for whom the quiet bucolic happy life, hanging out in trees, would be not only a respite from his ordinary life, but also granting him happiness which is normally completely unattainable to him. So for him, he must give it up because -- well, because others need him, perhaps, or perhaps because it's a lie, or perhaps logic demands it, or perhaps *just because* that's the way things are. But he isn't going to like it. Spock followed logic his whole life, and so he is tempted completely.

And the episode finally seems to be suggesting that on some level everyone needs to be on board -- so Kirk has to drag Spock out, finding his weakest points and pushing them until Spock breaks into anger and then is forced to reckon with their situation. If we see Kirk and Spock as being representations of different impulses within the same person, then logic can, regretfully, understand that life is more meaningful with toil, but it takes some actual gusto and drive and ambition to force the issue. Which is maybe another way of saying, it'll probably not be enough to *just* see the logic, abstractly, in a harder course, but some part of you will probably have to be engaged emotionally in it, even if only one's anger.

@ William B,

I like your analysis of the Kirk/Spock friend relationship. But I think I see Spock's relationship and its subsequent breakup as being a little different than 'bros before hoes' (sorry everyone). Sure, Kirk needs Spock back, for personal and professional reasons, but that girl is trouble. It reminds me of these situations when everyone except the person in a relationship can see the other person is manipulative. Right at the start of the episode we can see she wants him, and we get this:

ELIAS: You've known the Vulcanian?
LEILA: On Earth, six years ago.
ELIAS: Did you love him?
LEILA: If I did, it was important only to myself.
ELIAS: How did he feel?
LEILA: Mister Spock's feelings were never expressed to me. It is said he has none to give.
ELIAS: Would you like him to stay with us now, to be as one of us?
LEILA: There is no choice, Elias. He will stay.

Two things about this exchange. First of all I find the phrase "you've known the Vulcanian" to almost hint that he's asking whether they made love. But the menacing aspect obviously comes next, which is a body-snatchers sort of exchange. But the strange thing is that Elias asks her the question, implying that what was going to happen wasn't yet set in stone. So she does seem intent on stealing Spock away, more or less against his will. This is a really bad girlfriend. Later on it seems like when Sulu gets sprayed it's almost a practical joke on Spock's part, since prior to them arriving and pressing the matter with him he wasn't making any effort to get them to go near the spores. Then again the infected crew do seem to want to infect others, so maybe Spock was going to do it sooner or later.

Either way if we ignore the body-snatchers angle and focus on Spock and Leila, I personally see it as one of these toxic relationships where the other person makes you feel really good. Yes, Spock does say he was happy, but interestingly enough I don't think he means by this that it was a good thing. If he did then he could presumably drop his dedication to logic and pursue a relationship with Leila anyhow (or even do so through logic, as Sarek claims to do). But Spock appears to believe there are more important things than being happy, which is once again a striking way to end the episode. So I'm not sure I agree that Spock was sacrificed for our happy ending; for him the happy ending is for his two halves to be in conflict. That's why he's in Starfleet, I think - to face the opposition of two halves: known and unknown, safe and in danger, human and Vulcan. (**spoilers**, I guess) The reason Spock defied Sarek and joined Starfleet seems related to the fact of Spock not wanting peace as Vulcans know it, but needing to tread the danger zone. If that's his highest aspiration then being happy would be a failure to live up to his goals. One risks running into a definition problem on this, since I think many people define "happy" as being synonymous with "the best thing for you", so from that standpoint it's just tautological to pursue happiness. But the way I see the term is that it involves good feelings, but doesn't necessarily imply reaching one's best self. As an example, I doubt many who've sacrificed themselves for others on the battlefield were "happy" to do so, but they may well have been noble or selfless to do so. Some virtues may rise far above happiness, and I think Spock's final remark falls along those lines. As a result I do think Kirk and Spock are in the same boat on this issue, it's just that Kirk is even more clear than the Vulcan in his dedication to duty and to his ship. Whereas Spock was tempted this time, Kirk had already made peace with that issue and if he had been tempted in the past, he no longer was now.

So I guess my conclusion is I think Kirk did save Spock from falling short of his own potential and values. The painful thing is that Spock really liked being sucked into Leila's thrall, so it makes it all the harder to recognize that and yet decide that it was wrong. From that standpoint I definitely agree with you that Spock's lot in life seems destined to be fraught with difficulty. But I also think that's the way he wants it.

That makes sense to me, Peter. I genuinely had no memory of Leila's side of it -- and I think you're correct. I think she maybe isn't fully aware of how manipulative she is maybe being, but she sees a kind of opportunity to ensnare Spock and takes it.

For the record, I wasn't so much arguing that Spock, as characterized in general, would view happiness as a worthier goal than exploration and science, so much as that within the confines of this episode, as a one-off, it might have been possible that Spock might have been willing to make that trade-off, for a while, given that this happiness is so completely absent elsewhere, if he weren't otherwise needed. It's not that I think happiness is the highest value, but more if a kind of baseline, bare minimum level of joy or even capacity for joy is absent from a person's life, they might be willing to take it when given the chance. Of course The Menagerie comes up here. However I agree that Spock, overall (and, I believe since you've just seen this episode, here too) would prefer other sources of meaning rather than joy.

Or wait, I guess she is being very conscious about how manipulative she's being. I guess what I meant is that I suspect some of that is down to the spore effect on her.

@Peter G.

"I think the writers are feeling that there is something icky about having a goofy smile on your face all the time. We feel this too in Return of the Archons, and in fact DeForest Kelley and Takei do very similar goofy smiles in both episodes. The fact that Archons involved a mind-controlling computer, complicating the political analysis of the episode, might be a side point from the fact itself that people who walk around with stupid smiles and no cares have got a fundamental problem."

This made me think of that great scene with Kor in "Errand of Mercy" as well, when he's railing against the Organians for their "idiotic smiles."

"Smile, smile, smile!"

@ Peter G
"The most striking this isn't the symbiosis with the spores per se, but the fact that they squash all negative emotion. Right away this has a similarity to a drug, which makes the situation suspect."

"This is perhaps the worst aspect of what we see in the changes to the crew. It is very hard to see this as merely being a situation of deciding to enjoy a simpler life when it simultaneously makes you a jerk to your friends."

Brilliant analysis. This is the critique of drug culture that I think the episode is making.

Also, your wife has some good points. They do provide for themselves on this colony, but also only in the most basic way necessary for their survival. They are able to live, but they have no ambition. Adversity can promote ambition which can then create incentive, and a byproduct of incentive is reaping the rewards of contribution. Some would argue that there's nothing inherently wrong with sitting on your duff all day as long as you're not hurting anyone and are self-supporting (not taking handouts). But I think there's yet another point hidden within this episode that if your life is *too* simple, happy and without any kind of adversity, part of your mind, part of your soul, will atrophy.

@ William B:
"He gives up emotions because they are too painful, and because they are, as far as we can tell, basically entirely negative -- he can't catch a break. And so he was doubly locked out. He was granted happiness he had never felt in his life, and he was granted a reprieve not just from responsibility but from the constant, ongoing internal anger and misery, which Kirk taps into."

This also taps into the drug culture point. A lot of people use to mask their pain; they can't deal with the underlying emotional turmoil. For them, and for Spock, it's the only way to make them happy. That's why bringing Spock out of it is so challenging--it would be insulting if the solution was a simple injection or something. That would be too easy.

I agree on the similarities between the spores and drugs. No matter how beneficial the spores are (the colonists would be long since dead without them), the happiness they bring is a shallow one. The colonists FEEL happy, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they ARE happy... when they are freed from the effect of the spores, it becomes very obvious that their bliss was not coming from inside, not from true and complete satisfaction, but that it was induced, almost imposed by the spores.

I've been watching the old TOS shows after watching SNW and once again, Pike has a way out of his predicament for Spock can simply take him to Ceti Omicron 3 and the spores (if they are still there) will cure him of his accident

I agree Lena is manipulative - she tricks Spock into going into the field right up to the plants.

As someone said above, if there were babies there would be bound to be some stress related/negative feelings. So maybe the spores suppress fertility also?

The colonists are only producing enough food to get by - a comment is made early on that they aren't growing enough to expand the colony. So the whole thing seems to be a steady state - the Enterprise crew therefore have to be 'recruited' by the spores in order for there to be more people for the spores to infect. Otherwise the spores have reached maximum effect and there are presumably a lot of spores that couldn't affect anyone and join in the gestalt before the Enterprise crew arrived.

I did think also that, as well as having no ambition, there is no evidence that the colonists have any kind of artistic expression. They work in the fields, cook the food, perhaps weave and make their own clothing and keep house and drink tea. So ultimately, it's a rather pointless existence - hollow, especially if there can be no children - because even if the spores don't suppress fertility it would be difficult to imagine children not experiencing strong emotions and therefore succumbing to the Berthold rays. Without new people being sucked in and joining the spore 'cult', eventually these very healthy people would die of old age leaving the spores no vehicle in which to survive unless they launch themselves into space again and look for another world bombarded by Berthold rays - which might be few and far between.

Oh no? You'd like to see how fast I can put you in a hospital?

Gem of an episode this is! One thing though, how did Kirk get back to the ship, if when he got there, he was the only person on board?

Yes, the point of the episode is that human beings need more than an idyllic life free of negative emotions (anger, greed, and even sadness). Without that, there is no episode. It is also true that most viewers wanted to see conflicts in the episodes in order to make them interesting. But I believe there are some episodes that might challenge that thinking. In "Arena", the Metrons were peace loving people until the Enterprise and the Gorns intruded on their space. They also had great power to protect their way of life. Even Captain Kirk considers them to be a highly advanced society.

The Organians also were entirely peaceful people until the Enterprise and the Klingons arrived. Although they were in no danger, at one point their leader Ayelborne says it is painful to be in the presence of Captain Kirk and the Klingons, because of their war-like tendencies. Again, at the end, they are shown to be a more highly advanced, very powerful group of beings. I don't know about the Klingons, but Captain Kirk has to recognize them as superior beings, including their peaceful nature. (The only question I had was why did they take human form and a fairly primitive way of life, rather than just staying as they were shown in the end. I guess the answer is that, without that, there is no episode)

In several episodes, it is also pointed out that in earlier times, the people of earth (and presumably other Federation members) were more warlike and prone to conflict. However, Captain Kirk says that they have largely overcome those tendencies, and part of their mission is to promote peace, and never to start a war. Of course, as the episodes progress, they do get involved in various types of conflicts, which are needed to keep the stories interesting.

Another interesting thing is that in many episodes, Spock seems content, and maybe even has a sense of superiority, with his logical way of life, while other episodes make it clear that he needs to repress the more "human" emotions, and in fact the Vulcans do have a very war - filled past.

As for this episode, I thought it was well done and interesting to watch. I think the interactions between Kirk and Spock on the planet were mostly intended to be humorous. It is true that Spock was temporarily rejecting his duties on the Enterprise and his loyalty to his captain, but that is the result of the spores. I think Leila is too gentle to be "manipulating" Spock. She wants to maintain her happiness, but she also wants Spock to experience it too.

As far as the spores, they do seem to be truly benevolent. Sandoval says that they give his people complete peace. It seems likely that without the Enterprise showing up, they would continue along the same path for quite some time. They do still work to provide for themselves, and I would presume that they still have intellectually fulfilling lives - they are not slaves to the spores. It is true that, with the exception of Captain Kirk, they do not have an option as far as receiving the effects of the spores. That doesn't seem bad - that's just the way the spores are. I agree that the scenes between Spock and Leila toward the end are well done, and they give a lot of information about Spock's character that hasn't been seen before (except a little bit in "The Naked Time")

So Captain Kirk has to recover his crew, and as a byproduct, the colonists also lose the effects of the spores. They probably could get the spore effect back if they wanted to, but they choose to take a more productive path. I keep coming back to the idea that Gene Roddenberry wanted to present some "messages", but the shows also needed to be entertaining so people would watch . I think this episode does succeed in that respect.

Another great episode. Spock without logic is really something to see.

Trek sold itself to the networks as 'Horatio Hornblower in the Sky with Phasers'... That mandate is challenged here. They wanted to be more supple, and respond to the evolving humanity of the time. In the end, to me, the message is a little sad: stay consistent to your pitch, don't bite the corporate hand that feeds you. If you set out to swashbuckle and stir up the galaxies, there's little place for simply being. You must be doing. This is TV! We need brawling and chase scenes and sexual conquests...

But I love how in its heart of hearts Trek doesn't really believe this. It wants to slow down and contemplate its navel from time to time. And thanks to the expansive soul of D.C. Fontana, they did!

The run of the show coincides with real world events of the 1960's, where certain segments of Western youth were turning on, tuning in, and dropping out. Trek feels obliged to respond. And notice that as the seasons progressed the hair got longer, the sideburns got shaggier (the girdles tighter), the receptivity to peace and love . Pandering? Posturing? Or something else?

In Season 1, the response to "non-doing" is gentle but firm - Roddenberry, a former cop, and his creative team aren't digging this more passive counterculture, this rush to peace, as alluring as it seems on the surface (of Omicron Ceti 3).

Behavior that suggested paradise was within reach, was diametrically opposed to the ethos of the show and the manic spirit of the first half of the 20th C, set in motion by Teddy Roosevelt and the like. Buck up men, get out there and kick ass! (Women, you be pretty and receptive.)

But you feel the creative team (Ms. Fontana, etc.) wrestling with these ideas - can we break free of the tyranny of missions, orders, and constant doing? the episode is so lovingly made, so seductive, and Kirk, vacillates between a lost puppy and a stick in the mud - a stern reminder that all leaders need followers in order to do their work.

I can't help but think of "The Ultimate Computer" episode where Kirk's dominance is challenged by Daystrom's M5 computer.

KIRK: There are certain things men must do to remain men. Your computer would take that away.
DAYSTROM: There are other things a man like you might do. Or perhaps you object to the possible loss of prestige and ceremony accorded a starship captain?

Ouch! Burn! Kirk has a vested interest in keeping the band together. He's Paul McCartney in 1969. And Spock is John Lennon, addicted to his own poppy pollen, found his Yoko, stuck in the blissful present, he's not interested in these silly space games anymore. Is he wrong? If you've got a contract with Paramount, you're damned straight you're wrong! The show must go on! How interesting would it be though if Kirk couldn't shake off the plant juice, and he did beam himself down there for good, and the series just continued to slowly unfurl in the land of Omicron (!). Grow any good zucchinis this week Spock?

Spock! Always sympathetic to pacifism. In "The Way to Eden" he's very willing to grok with what the space hippies have to say. And in "This Side of Paradise" he sure seems out of his Vulcan mind. And wow, if this playful cloud-gazing love bug is who's actually living inside Spock, he must also be a mega-masochist if he prefers to keep clenching and stifling his true self - duty-bound to that man in love with his ship on that cold blinking bridge.

So much to think about with this episode, thanks for letting me explore some thoughts and reactions here. I could go on and on but - duty calls!

While I enjoyed this episode, particularly the insight into some of the character dynamics, it seems like there were some script issues that leaked into the final product. I got the impression that the spores were being set up as predatory in some way, with some larger, more insidious agenda at work that simply never materialized. It’s reasonable to imagine the spores as just a biological mechanism doing what they do, creating some fluke-ish symbiosis with the humans they bump into. But it seemed like there was a coercive aspect to them that I kept expecting to be the crux of the conflict, instead the episode shifted into a philosophical/character driven question about happiness, ambition, duty, loyalty, and all the great ideas laid out in the above comments. Now don’t get me wrong, I love philosophical ideas and character episodes, but with the story elements feeling somewhat confused This Side of Paradise left me with the sense that something was missing.

However, when it comes to its central idea surrounding the effect of these spores on our crew and the colony they were visiting there’s a lot to admire. Initially I struggled to justify the hostility towards this happy-go-lucky spore infected colony and their general penchant for time wasting. But thinking about the subtle, low key hostility those effected by the spores actually direct towards those not ‘spored’, it occurred to me that the happiness effect happening here carried with it an intrinsically ugly loss of perspective. For those absorbed in the glow of spore bliss, the notion of respect for others began to degrade. Spock outright flouts Kirk’s authority as captain, and by extension the entirety of the dream that is the federation, but he also ceases to have any concern for Kirk’s position as a person, a friend. The induced selfishness of the spore effect has an inherent callous destructiveness that ignores the larger perspective of the world, a perspective in which other people are an important component.
As an example to illuminate the general point: in the real world other people developed germ theory, other people developed antibiotics and inoculation, other people created vaccines, as a result of all this effort we humble commenters don’t have to worry about dropping dead from small pox or bubonic plague, a considerable improvement over the vast majority of human history. So we could, in turn, say ‘fuck it’ and use this grand platform of civilization we’re standing on that so cushions us to go climb a tree and lazily sip mint juleps, but at what point does that choice become ethically dubious? At what point does it become morally imperative to consider one’s place in the larger scheme of things? In the case of these colonists, they didn’t appear on this planet by magic, they were brought there aboard starships loaded with supplies given to them to build a colony, presumably there was a great deal of effort and even sacrifice made to get them there, so at what point does their shoulder-shrugging attitude become problematic on principle? What obligations, if any, do individuals have towards both the present and the future of the society that facilitates their existence, particularly in the face of such unprecedented opportunity and freedom that the modern world offers..

I think that the ideas and characters save this episode from the goofy mediocrity of say, Shore Leave, I just wish they could have cleaned up the script a bit from a story standpoint. 2.75 spores.

Trek, especially TOS and TNG, has a pervasive tension between aspiration to some kind of utopia and rejection of seeming utopias. I think the distinction seems to be not so much that the various versions of paradise offered to the characters are counterfeits while they aspire to the real thing, as a quasi-moral stance that paradise that is offered instead of earned is wrong, indeed so obviously wrong that the writers don't always feel a need to explain what's so bad about it, and brook no possible tweaks to the system short of sweeping the whole "paradise" away, or even tolerance of it as is, just at the level of "different strokes for different folks."

There's a hope that people can build a society in which (as Picard tells Lily in First Contact) "the economics are somewhat different" so that there is no scarcity or poverty, and where "the challenge" (as he tells a twentieth-century capitalist in "The Neutral Zone") is not survival but self-improvement. That's supposed to be good, because people made it happen by their own efforts, but if another society that produces enough for everyone and keeps everyone in perfect health and happiness was only made possible by some spores, well, that's just obviously bad, and everyone should reject it, even if they have to be forced to do so by the infliction of emotional suffering.

I think we're supposed to see something very noble in Kirk's efforts to keep everyone on (as the title says) "THIS side of paradise."

I'm not sure I do. There's something vaguely, well, Pelagian about it, as if paradise is able to be and must be earned.

When Spock is infected by the spores, in subsequent scenes his changed personality is augmented by suddenly donning the brown costume of the farm colonists. Yet he didn't return to the farm house to change clothes.

Then later when Spock beams up to Enterprise to help Kirk retrieve needed supplies before marooning the ship, still influenced by the spores, he is wearing his standard science blue. Someone must have stolen Spock's brain as well as his costume. So, we were wondering where the error lies.

It's just a television show, OK? That's all. There is no spore plant, there is no auxiliary, there's no goddamn ship! You got it?

It's a shame that so few participants in this site, not one review since my last input half a year ago. I'm sure I could find other trekky places, but I kind of enjoy viewing ten years worth of other's thoughts. William is good here, although lately I'm having trouble getting through his posts, not that they're wrong, but verbose. Achieving a point with brevity has it's fans. Anyway, no one got my joke in the earlier comment, how sad. Never give up, never surrender. Now about the episode, last night I misspelled episode more than once but didn't notice until after the post hit. And they apparently can't be edited. Lately I watch for the uncredited extras and background performers, some appear in multiple episodes and occasionally a spoken line or two, and one appears in almost every episode. Memory alpha fandom is the site I'm looking at while the TV show is on, it often has interesting tidbits about production, location, cast, and an extensive list of each TOS actor's cross references with other productions also featuring TOS actors. I suppose since I must have seen the episode a hundred times by now, this is a logical inquisitive pasttime. Perhaps it is typical or expected that watching star trek reminds me of a past life I enjoyed more than I do now, so it's kind of an escape. I sometimes wish I had the disc for Mr. Atoz to send me back there. I have not really memorized the season show list but was relieved that Sargon was not on tonight cause i'm kind of tired of him,..... looks like that's not for a few more weeks.

@Greg, that is a fair criticism. I find it takes longer to edit down to shorter posts, and in retrospect I would have liked to take the time to do that, to make my thinking clearer for myself and to make the posts a better read for others. If I end up filling in reviews for the episodes I didn't write about I might make that effort.

I feel as if this episode is rarely seen as it didn't often syndicate over the years. So I hadn't seen it in a long time. At first I was a little disappointed, saying to myself, oh no not another "brains taken over," this time by spores, episode. (That happens a lot on TOS!--having control of your own faculties and maintaining self seems to have been something that Star Trek's writers were anxious about.)

So I was slightly bored and annoyed by it, but I agree with others here that it is a poignant episode for Spock (acted beautifully by Nimoy--the artistic brilliance of the cast being something not mentioned enough). I have always felt that Spock did not come by his Vulcan self-composure so easily. He is half-human, after all, and must have some degree of constant inner conflict to lock out that human side. Here, he loses the battle, and he is a genuinely endearing, sweet presence. But we certainly see glimpses of it elsewhere in his teasing of Dr. McCoy and sometimes tender loyalty toward Captain Kirk. He is kind to his colleagues, and often attempts to be diplomatic though his Vulcan nature is to be completely blunt. He is certainly not absent of feelings, and those often seem loving and caring, if very discreetly so.

This episode could have made a great movie, but of course would have had to have been written with more depth. (They went as deep as they could with about 50 minutes broken up by commercials.) The consequences of being so content as to lose all ambition, motivation and edge is an interesting concept for a story, familiar to any parent trying to light a fire under a perfectly happy basement troll. For a band of adventurers living according to a military code of discipline, it is a nightmare.

PS on Spock's human/Vulcan nature. I'm not enough of a "Star Trek" scholar to recall all the episodes wherein we got the lowdown on Spock's personal development, but when I ask myself why he went with his Vulcan side rather than the human, I think it is significant that the Vulcan in him comes from his father, and the human, from his mother.

And so I also wonder, whether or not this was consciously intended, if Spock's inner turmoil and that decision to be a Vulcan is not a metaphor for how a man becomes a man (to men in 1967)--specifically, by rejecting the emotional inheritance of is mother. Manly virtues probably seemed endangered in the late 60's, what with the long hair, bare feet and rampant self-indulgence. "Let it all hang out, man!" A generation that grew up idolizing WWII heroes and the likes of John Wayne must have been not just disgusted but horrified by the changing culture.

But even beyond that era, what might Carl Jung have had to say about all this?

I think Spock loved his mother but could not allow himself to "be" her, and similarly, boys of that era had to become something by methodically excising what they could not allow themselves to be, which above all, meant "SOFT." They could not be soft. They could not cry. They could not like girly things, like hanging upside down from trees. They could not giggle with delight. A little older, they could not be seduceable. (They could certainly get it on and walk away, but love was trouble. They had to be circumspect about that, and women were alway dangerous.) Probably a foreign language to many people in 2024, but I think of my own dad, and it makes perfect sense.

This is one of my favorite episodes. My take on it was that it was a commentary on the effects of drug dependence, but after reading so many of the above comments, maybe that was a bit superficial. I also think that this episode had some of the best dialog (SPOCK: "I dont think so."
KIRK:" I don't think so what?"
SPOCK: "I don't think so....sir."
not to mention all the other quotes everyone wrote.
I also loved the insight that we get into Spock. Truly heartbreaking in some ways.

☆☆☆ 1/2☆

I’m guessing someone has probably already mentioned this previously. But here it is anyway.

Reference the point in the episode where the entire starship’s crew to the last person under the influence of the intoxicating spores, had transported down to the planet.

The next scene depicts Sandoval and Spock having coffee at the farm house kitchen table talking to Captain Kirk. Kirk then, finally in utter disgust says he’s beaming back up to Enterprise and the scene closes.

So just how does the captain manage to transport up to the now vacant Enterprise with no one at that point left on the ship to operate the transporter machine?
Which, of course, in the next scene Kirk has indeed managed to re-board Enterprise via the ship’s transporter machine. Have I missed something?

I didn’t read through all the preceding comments so this may have already been pointed out.

During the scene, about halfway through the episode, when Spock and Sandoval are drinking coffee at the kitchen table and Kirk comes in and the three of them converse briefly. Kirk suddenly declares he is going back to the ship.

The next scene depicts Kirk entering the bridge and attempting to raise anyone on the inter-ship communications system with negative results.

He's is indeed alone and the sole individual on the starship. Now…! My question is…? How did he get back aboard the starship at that point in the first place?

If nobody else was aboard, there was nobody to operate the transporter to beam the captain on board at that present time so how can he be in an position to find himself alone and the sole individual left on the Enterprise?

Did I miss something in the plot that that explains this conundrum?

There was a long line of crewman using the transporter. It's not unreasonable to assume they were still beaming down when Kirk was beamed up, and the next time we seem him he's all alone, with the last crew member since beamed down.