Star Trek: The Original Series/Recap/S1/E21 The Return of the Archons: Difference between revisions

What they find isn't promising; a giant [[Lotus Eater Machine]] disguised as a 19th-century town, where every Victorian-clad citizen is nice and friendly and not at all a [[Stepford Smiler]]... until the evening falls, during which they, well... aren't. Nice, friendly, and a [[Stepford Smiler]], I mean; for the entire night, everyone goes crazy and destructive, like the entire cast of ''[[Equilibrium]]'' went off their Prozium at the same time and started going through the withdrawlwithdrawal symptom of violent mood swings. The away team finds shelter at a local boarding house run by a man named Roger, who grows interested in their lack of going nuts like the rest of the town and questions if they're "Archons", referring to the crew of the ship that the ''Enterprise'' came to the planet to find; Kirk refuses to say, thanks to that pesky [[Alien Non-Interference Clause|Prime Directive]].

The next day, though, someone tips the <s>Black</s> Brown Cloaks off to the landing party, and attempts to "absorb" them into the [[Lotus Eater Machine]]. Fortunately, Kirk's uncanny ability to [[Logic Bomb]] any computer-like being saves the day, and they escape with Roger to a safer location... but not without picking up the Red Shirt, now a member of the machine, against Roger's warnings not to. Once out of danger, Roger explains the whole thing: he is a resistance fighter against the <s>Blasck</s> Brown Cloaks and their master, Landru, who controls the people via [[Mind Control]], and polices them with the <s>Black</s> Brown Cloaks; anyone out of its thrall is told [[You Will Be Assimilated]] (so, nothing like the Borg, then), and are killed if they can't be. Even worse, Landru has the ability to pull entire starships out of the sky to assimilate its crew, which is what it's doing to the ''Enterprise'', currently (though with heat beams... yeah, major [[You Fail Physics Forever]], there). Unfortunately, since the Red Shirt ''has'' been assimilated, Landru finds the group through him, and knocks them out in an attempt to capture and assimilate them.

The away team finds themselves deep in Landru's sanctuary, on call to be assimilated, and with no hope of escape now that the <s>Black</s> Brown Cloaks have adapted to Kirk's [[Logic Bombs]] (again, no Borg similarities here). In a stroke of luck, though, it turns out the master assimilator is a member of Roger's underground, and manages to keep Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. After subduing their captors (why they didn't do that, before, is anyone's guess, as is why Landru bothered to bring them to his inner sanctum to assimilate them instead of having the <s>Black</s> Brown Cloaks touch them with their Swiss Rolls), Kirk has Roger and the assimilator take them to Landru...which turns out to be a giant computer (what else?).

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