Star Trek episode "Whom Gods Destroy"

"Whom Gods Destroy"

Season 3, episode 14.

This episode features the Chinese grandfather from the beginning and ending of the movie Gremlins! (I only remember that because we watched it in our household very recently.)

In this installment, there is a medicine, a drug, for the insane.

A previous starship captain, Garth, is now criminally insane, takes over the asylum and now tries to get aboard and take over the Enterprise. All that and the fact that he has somehow learned the trick of becoming a changeling, able to transform his body into the appearance of anybody else; oh yes, and he has a green lady alien as a sidekick.

One interesting aspect to this whole mess is the code "Queen to Queen's level 3" that most be answered before beam up. Kirk won't give away the code, preventing the inmates from rampaging all over the ship. My concern is that since this is such a good idea, and also works so perfectly here, wouldn't this become standard practice all the time? Sometimes, my geekiness comes out and wants to know stupid stuff like this, when obviously it was just a plot device for this episode. But wouldn't there be all sorts of code words among Federation personnel? A rotating key word for danger? This is partly why I think the novel Dune by Frank Herbert is so interesting. Yes, it takes away from any direct action, but with the intricate hand signs and code words that the Atreides family use could never be called dumb.

No one dies in this episode, unless you count the green alien girl who was blown up on the surface to intimidate Kirk--why would you blow up your own gangmember? Remember, he is insane. And then everything at the end is all hunky-dory with drugs that miraculously remove the homicidal and criminal tendencies.