Shore Leave

TOS Season 1 Episode 15
Air Date: December 29th, 1966

In a five year mission being cooped up on a star ship will effect people psychologically. Imagine living on a cruise ship and not being able to go to land for five years. This episode the Enterprise finds a class M planet but with only plant life. Not even fish or insects. Kirk orders the crew to have some shore leave. Spock of course refuses but insists that Kirk take some leave himself. The initial team that goes to the planet to make sure things are safe start hallucinating, seeing things like knights in suits of armor, or old friends and loved ones. At one point a Japanese Zero does a strafing run shooting at the away team.

Spock was able to break through the interference that suddenly occurred and transport down. Funny how interference always just happens to prevent the away team from communicating or getting away. They try avoiding then fighting and eventually realize that whatever they are thinking of is appearing. They all clear their minds, I half expected the Stay Puft Marshmallow man to show up. Then a person shows up and identifies himself as the caretaker of the planet and that the planet is designed to being whatever you can think of to life for the purpose of pleasure and that nothing that happens on the planet can really hurt them.

The crew then accepts this and has shore leave and comes back relaxed and happy. Everyone except for Spock who spends his shore leave on the Enterprise.

I started playing Star Trek: The 25th Anniversary, a point and click adventure game. There is a comment that spock makes about Kirk fighting with Finnegan which happened in this episode.