Star Trek episode "Arena"

"Arena"

Season 1, episode 18.

This is one of my favorite Star Treks, one I especially remember as a kid. It is inspired by a story from SF great Fredric Brown. I love the one-on-one fight and how Kirk wins by being smarter and making gunpowder.

O'Herlihy, a redshirt, is vaporized quickly during a barrage and Kelowitz and Lang die off screen. It's like a future mortar battle, although I am wondering why you wouldn't beam the bombs to the camp? Can they only get through by mortar fire?

Kirk almost gets blown up twice but rolls into a communicator conversation with Sulu.

The enemy lock onto Spock's tricorder signal and detonate it. "They've fed back my own impulses and built up an overload!"

They eventually pursue the aliens who have blown up this settlement on Cestus III into space. Both ships are scanned by an unknown solar system (How can a neighboring solar system to an outpost be unknown?).

Kirk is ready to annihilate the enemy ship, without even knowing who they are.

Then we find another race of super beings in control. The Metrons. They have stopped the ships with "an unidentifiable power" and choose to "resolve your conflict in the way most suited to your limited mentalities." They have "prepared a planet with a breathable atmosphere."

Then Kirk is gone, whisked away to the planet with the leader of the other ship, a Gorn, a lizard-like alien who looks like a refugee from a Barney show. The Gorn stalks Kirk like Pepe Le Pew.

We find that the Gorn were attacking the outpost because they saw it as a sign of aggression against their space--apparently Starfleet didn't look into this further before establishing an outpost there.

Kirk beats him with gun powder but refuses to kill him. The Metrons let them all live because mankind has shown great compassion. They are then, in the blink of an eye transported five hundred parsecs (roughly 1610 light years) away from its previous location.

Now, I found out that the original script was a bit different.

http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Arena

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/arena.htm

The only major plot point excised from the aired version reveals the Metrons' true original intentions.

METRON: I am afraid we perpetrated a hoax on you.

KIRK: What hoax?

METRON: We said that the ship of the loserof this personal combat would bedestroyed. That is not quiteaccurate. It is the winner... thestronger, the more resourceful...who would pose the greatest threatto us. We planned to destroy thevessel of the winner. Your ship, Captain.

KIRK(dangerously): Not my ship.

METRON: No, captain. We have changed our mind.

The rest of the Metron's dialogue explaining how they were impressed with Kirk's sparing of the Gorn's life is as aired.

There is a DS9 episode that talks again about the Gorn and an Enterprise episode that mentions them. Here. Then the Metrons, a super-race, is never mentioned again either until a DS9 episode, either. To be honest, that brief Metron mention may have been accidental--it isn't like it is a hard sci-fi name to come up. There are plenty of METRONS in sci-fi.