Obsession (1967) User Reviews (28)

It can't possibly exist...but it Does!

[Bogmeister · 8/10 · 11 October 2006]

Will we ever be free of our monsters, even in the 23rd century? This episode says of course not and, especially in view of what we've seen of the 24th century on the TNG show and other spin-offs, there will always be space-age demons and goblins to terrorize us. Following up on commodore Decker's Ahab-like role on "The Doomsday Machine," now it's Kirk's turn to confront and obsess about his personal devil. Yet, his nemesis, in a key revelatory point of the story, is not some unthinking machine; it really is a predatory monster, killing off red-shirts left and right, like a space-faring shark with malicious tendencies (it breaks the record of red-shirt deaths in "The Apple," even if one of these happen off-screen). Shatner gets to show a bit more range than usual here; he doesn't go off completely half-cocked or deranged, but there's enough edginess in him here to warrant McCoy & Spock briefly teaming up against him, recalling the key scene in "The Conscience of a King."

The story does drive home one point probably a couple of times too many: that Kirk's guilt over not killing the creature years earlier is groundless. McCoy's scene with Kirk, where he points out his captain's possibly overly obsessive approach to the problem, is very good. But then we have Spock going over this ground over and over, it seems, both with Kirk & ensign Garrovick, another guilt-ridden character. Yes, the parallels of what's currently happening in this episode and events of several years ago on the starship Farragut are somewhat eerie, but enough already, Spock. Stop beating the audience over the head with it. Despite this clumsy aspect to story construction, it's a fairly exciting, suspenseful riff on the dangers lurking in outer space, even in Trek's quasi-utopia future. Much later, Captain Picard would be accused of Ahab-like behavior in "Star Trek-First Contact"(96) involving, what else, the Borg. This seems a prevalent theme among starship captains of the Trek mythos.

Kirk must kill his great white gas-monster

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 4 July 2015]

While on an uninhabited planet looking for essential minerals Capt. Kirk notices a strange sweet odour; an odour he has smelt before. Rather than beam out he orders a trio of red shirts to investigate and soon two are dead and one is seriously injured after a gaseous entity removed their red blood corpuscles. The Enterprise is due to rendezvous with another ship to transport urgently needed perishable medical supplies but Kirk decides to remain in orbit, obsessed with destroying the entity. It turns out that Kirk has encountered it before; on his first mission as a new officer; when he hesitated before opening fire. He still blames himself for the deaths of half the people on that ship. After another fatal encounter on the planet the entity heads off into space and Kirk orders the Enterprise to give chase; it is only when it turns and attacks the Enterprise that Spock accepts it is indeed a sentient being.

This is a decent enough episode although there was no prior hint that Kirk was the sort of man who would be recklessly obsessive yet here we are expected to believe that he would abandon an urgent mission without even contacting Star Fleet about the entity. As other reviewers have stated the writers clearly wanted an episode where Kirk acted like Capt. Ahab in his pursuit if his great white whale. We also have to accept that his erratic behaviour wouldn't lead to his removal from command… just as he removed a red shirt (coincidentally the son of Kirk's captain in the original mission) from duty for hesitating before firing. Still despite these faults I found myself enjoying the episode; William Shatner hams it up as Kirk delightfully and it was interesting to learn something about his early days in Star Fleet. Overall a flawed but enjoyable episode.

Ruling intelligence

[bkoganbing · 7/10 · 9 July 2016]

Another creature not in the experience of the earth led Federation is featured in this Star Trek episode. It's gaseous and without form, but has a ruling intelligence and feeds on the iron in human blood.

In fact as a young officer on the USS Farragut James T. Kirk encountered the creature and was lucky to live to tell the tale. Reminding him of that fact is a new ensign assigned to the Enterprise, the son of the late commander of the Farragut played by Stephen Brooks. It's with some mixed emotions that William Shatner deals with Brooks.

Complicating things is the fact that the Enterprise is on a critical rescue mission already when Shatner commits his vessel to fighting the creature. Something that for once Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are in agreement on and question Shatner's judgment.

Shatner shines in this Star Trek story of the difficulties of command and the problem of weighing both priorities and options. Trekkies will love this one.

"Obssessed!?"

[Blueghost · 15 June 2009]

Sayeth Captain James T. Kirk to his good friend a chief medical officer Doctor Leonard McCoy.

Or, Trek does Herman Melville. I remember seeing "Moby Dick" on TV quite a few times, and even the mid late 1970s iteration with Richard Harris and Bo Derek with Shamu in the antagonistic role of "Orca". So it is that I never really fully absorbed this episode until a few years back when I bought the first DVD publication of the classic Star Trek series.

It's a story about pining for a second chance, and, as the title states, obsessing about that second chance when it's presented. But the story also makes clear that the decisions we make, we make out of the best judgment we have at the time. As my former coworker told me one time "Could've, would've, should've, who knows?", and that's what the author of this screenplay is telling the audience. The author even goes a step further and seals the deal with a definite answer for both characters and audience by stating what would have happened.

This story hit home for me when I first popped it in my DVD player. I grew up with Trek as a kid, and reflecting on my own past experiences, I can truly appreciate this story and its parable for what it is, and embrace the full value of the message. Sometimes we go through life with an astonishing amount of regrets, berating our past performances for not achieving the goals we strove for. But, as long as we gave our full best effort at the time, it is reasonable to expect any better result? In the US we call it Monday-Morning quarterbacking; i.e. looking at a game of American "Football", and critiquing the mistakes of who made what decisions, and the impacts thereof. We learn from our mistakes, but how much dissection is healthy? Or, to put it in simpler language, do we really need to beat ourselves up for something over which we had no control?

Production Values; the monster is what it is--a cloud. Animated at some times, dry ice sunk in a pale of water at other times. It's not the most abhorrent or scary of creatures to look at, but it does give one pause when we consider its capabilities, and its true nature. In other words, again another fantastic sci-fi story carries forward some slight of hand special effects. We know what we're looking at, but the attributes of the monster as explained in the dialog and scene action and description, are what carry the story forward.

Again, this is the genius of shows like Star Trek. The material future may be the polar opposite of dystopic, but it's the forces inside us meeting the challenges without that create our own spiritual and psychological desolation. This episode, like all good TV, lets us vicariously travel that path as Kirk and crew address a menace to 23rd Century space lanes; a sociopathic (or perhaps just callous and uncaring) sentient that has its own priorities: Survival.

And here again we're given a pretty harsh story on top of that. In a galaxy and universe like Star Trek, where the usual baddies come in the form of Klingons or misunderstood (sometimes super powerful) alien races, will there always be room for a heart to heart negotiated settlement? And what will the ramifications of that be like? This too is worth pondering.

Gripping, mysterious, somewhat belabored in the subplot department, but a good watch all the same.

Enjoy.

"Monsters come in many forms".

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 1 December 2010]

I had to do a double take when Captain Kirk stated his opinion that intuition is a command prerogative. Really? No doubt intuition plays a role in forming critical judgments, but unless you have some solid facts backing you up, you'd have a hard time defending yourself if your decision was the wrong one. The Captain would have been all by himself in front of a real Federation competency hearing if his 'obsession' cost the lives of the Enterprise crew. Or maybe he would have died along with them. Interesting to speculate.

But the hero of the show is allowed some latitude to be wrong as long as he winds up right in the end. Somehow I didn't think the script played fair with everything we've come to know of Captain Kirk up to this point in the second season. The development of his character generally called for a level headed commander who wouldn't have taken the chances he did here. What I liked about this story though was the way it worked a little more information about Kirk's background and training into the mix, setting up the inevitable comparison with Ensign Garrovick (Stephen Brooks), now in the same kind of spot Kirk found himself in eleven years earlier. Too coincidental that Garrovick's Dad was Kirk's first commanding officer, but that's a standard plot device.

Watch closely as the camera comes in on the first red shirt victim at the start of the story - his eyes twitch slightly. Sorry, limited budget - no do-overs.

Star Trek Horror

[BrandtSponseller · 10/10 · 1 August 2006]

Obsession offers a very extraordinary antagonist--a "monster" that's an intelligent gas, made of an element that's not supposed to exist "naturally", and that's able to transform itself as a means of camouflage. Although there are some very broad parallels to this idea in other episodes, including Who Mourns for Adonais?, the material is handled very uniquely here.

We are also presented with an intriguing and unusual exploration of Captain Kirk's psychology, and through that, a bit of Starfleet history. Kirk is the source of the title, Obsession. He harbors deeply buried guilt, stemming from an incident on another ship when he was still a junior officer. His guilt suddenly rises to the surface after encountering this episode's antagonist. Because of this, he becomes obsessed with conquering the "monster", and it affects his judgments seriously enough that his command of the Enterprise is threatened.

As good as it was, the original Star Trek didn't often get close to more gut-level, scary horror material. This episode does, largely because the antagonist is unpredictable, shape shifting and nearly invisible much of the time. It functions as more of a generalized token of a threat to one's life force, made more literal in the way that the "monster" attacks its victims and sustains itself. At times, Obsession's structure and content--including emotional content, almost resemble later horror sci-fi like Alien (1979), which could have easily been influenced by it.

This episode is also notable for some extended, unusual cooperation and agreement between Spock and McCoy.

Don't You Fog-et About Me

[Samuel-Shovel · 7/10 · 9 June 2018]

In "Obsession", Kirk encounters a deadly gaseous cloud from his past that he believes is an intelligence lifeform. His previous encounter with it occurred when he was a young officer aboard the USS Farragut. A mistake by Kirk caused dozens of lives to be lost and he's never forgotten it. Smelling it on the planet he is surveying, all the sensations come flooding back to him as a pair of his crewman perish at its behalf, getting the blood sucked out of them. The son of Kirk's old commanding officer who was killed by this cloud is now a member of Enterprise's security detail. Him and Kirk pursue the cloud but Garrovick freezes in the moment, costing more lives to be lost. A skeptical Spock and Bones want the Enterprise to get back on track and rendezvous with the USS Yorktown to deliver medical supplies to an ailing planet. Instead, Kirk pursues the cloud as it heads off into space.

The cloud attacks the Enterprise, getting into the ship and slipping into the ventilation. A frustrated Garrovick leaves a vent open accidentally and the cloud attacks Spock but is uninterested in his green blood. The Enterprise heads back to where it all began, the planet where Kirk first met it. He feels a connection to the cloud and for some reason knows that this is its home. Kirk plants a powerful antimatter bomb on the surface with the help of Garrovick. They lure it into a trap and transport back to the ship just in time, seemingly killing the cloud. Another day, another adventure!

Ralph Senesky directed this episode. I find this interesting because he also directed the episode "Metamorphosis", another cloud-centric episode. He only directed 6 episodes in total so I think it's odd that 33% of his Star Trek work is about clouds attacking members of the crew.

Anyways... This episode plays out a bit like a horror show (as other reviews have noted). The monster is this unidentifiable, spirit-like being that slowly comes at the Enterprise, impervious to all weaponry. It's one of the spookier images you'll get from this show. Unfortunately, there's only so much you can do with a cloud as your enemy so script ideas are a bit limited. ("I don't know? We blow it up? Sure!) The episode falls apart a bit towards the conclusion.

My favorite aspect of this episode is the parallels between Kirk and young Garrovick: both are strong-headed, trying to always play the hero, hard on themselves, and have serious beef with this cloud. It would have been cool to see him featured a bit more on the show as Kirk's young protégé.

While not the greatest TOS has to offer, this episode's a fine example of a standard Season 2 episode of the show.

Military Drama Posing as a Space Monster Adventure

[mstomaso · 9/10 · 11 October 2007]

Obsession features a great Art Wallace script and solid performances by Shatner, Kelley and Nimoy. An away team is investigating a seemingly uninhabited planet, while carrying a cargo of medical supplies to a rendezvous for which they can't be late. A mysterious gas cloud attacks and kills a trio of red shirts by consuming their red corpuscles. Kirk recognizes the smell (literally) of all of this and explains that the last time he encountered this creature, half of his ship's crew was killed. The son if the captain Kirk served with is now a member of the Enterprise crew (Stephen Brooks) and Kirk believes that his hesitation doomed his crew mates. Soon, Kirk's obsessive behavior regarding the gas cloud has the crew questioning his sanity.

Ralph Senensky's direction keeps this classic Shatner episode tight, exciting, and well shot. There are many memorable scenes and the script allows for some very good character development for the young ensign as well as the principal cast members. And unlike the standard Star Trek Space Monster story, this ends up being as much a human-military (naval) drama as it is an adventure tale.

Kirk vs The Intelligent Fog

[Rainey-Dawn · 7/10 · 10 January 2017]

Season 2, episode 13. The Enterprise is at a planet in search of tritanium deposits. Kirk and away team has beamed down... while searching Kirk catches a whiff of a sickening sweet honey smell that he immediately recognizes from 11 years prior. He splits up the away team to search for and destroy it. The red shirts are attacked and killed but one that is dying - their red blood cells are drained of hemoglobin. Once they all beam aboard, Kirk becomes obsessed with hunting down that create and destroying it while ignoring Starfleet orders to rendezvous with the USS Yorktown. Kirk keeps insisting the creature is intelligent while Spock and McCoy have their doubts in the beginning thinking the captain is loosing his mind from a guilty feeling of all dying but him 11 years prior to this encounter with the creature. Kirk must destroy this creature once and for all.

3 things are illogical or do not make a lot of sense in this episode: 1) Spock has mentioned in other episodes that he "senses" yet he finds sensing or intuition illogical in this particular episode. Why would he find it illogical that humans can sense things or is it simply any type of sensing illogical to him? 2) Why would the always logical Spock put his hands in front of a vent as if that would stop the fog creature? Yes he reversed the vent output aka blocked the vent so the creature could not enter into the room with him but putting both hands in front of the vent is a very illogical move for a Vulcan... well he is half human so maybe the human side of him responded in this case? 3) Why were they searching for for tritanium deposits to begin with on the planet when they were to rendezvous with the USS Yorktown to transfer urgent medical supplies destined for Theta VII? If those medical supplies were so urgent then why search for those tritanium deposits? That in itself should have had Spock reminding the captain of the urgent supplies before they beamed to the planet's surface. Kirk was clearly ignoring his priority orders.

In spite of it's flaws, the episode is fun to watch. I find even lesser episodes a great joy to view and fascinating. ;) 7/10

Call me Ishmael

[Fluke_Skywalker · 8/10 · 4 May 2017]

Plot; Kirk encounters a gaseous entity eerily similar to one that killed several members of his crew, including his Captain, back when he was a young officer.

Seeing Kirk in full-on Ahab mode would've been treat enough, but that it's balanced out with some thoughtful debate between the trifecta (Kirk, Spock, McCoy) and an ultimately satisfying subplot with a young ensign take this up another notch.

I Haven't the Foggiest

[Hitchcoc · 7/10 · 29 April 2014]

Kirk is carting around baggage from eleven years ago, when he failed to act as a cloud that smelled sweet, like honey, appeared and several were killed. The crew is extracting some incredible ore when Kirk recognizes that smell. Three red shirts are sent to investigate. Two are killed by the cloud and one is badly injured. The Enterprise is supposed to dock with the Yorktown to bring important medical supplies. All Kirk can think of is the power of that cloud which has reintroduced his biggest failure. The cloud sucks the red corpuscles out of the bodies of its victims. A young ensign, son of an old friend of Kirk's is enlisted, and fails, just as Kirk did, to kill the foggy entity. The thing travels through space and the issue becomes what can be done to stop it. Simple phaser fire doesn't work. Kirk now becomes psychologist and pursuer as he allies himself with the young man. It works pretty well.

Factually correct, the 11 years are explained perfectly by Spock 3/4 of the way in.

[sat-elite · 10/10 · 15 November 2018]

Spock - 'Captain, the creature's ability to throw itself out of time sync, makes it possible for it to be elsewhere, in the instant the phaser hits. There is therefore no basis for your self-recrimination, if you had fired on time (and on target) 11 years ago it would have made no more difference than it did an hour ago. Captain Garrovick would still be dead. The fault is not yours Jim, in fact there was no fault.'

Gaseous Evacuations...

[Xstal · 7/10 · 16 February 2022]

The captain recollects a past event, that makes him fume and causes him to steam then vent, as a toxic gassy cloud, a suffocating shroud, renders members of his crew irrelevant.

Past frustrations cause the captain to relive those events again as a killer cloud starts to attack his crew.

HORRIBLE EPISODE

[rms125a · 2/10 · 26 September 2020]

Illogical and almost nihilistic episode in which Captain Kirk is willing to delay transporting very badly needed medicine to a nearby planet (acknowledging that deaths may occur as a result) to pursue his own "white whale" like a futuristic Captain Ahab. Unlike Ahab, though, Kirk's obsession is a very deadly creature that has already claimed starship lives in the past and which is almost impossible to contain or capture as it is in the form of a deadly gaseous cloud.

The episode also contains a line, which I thought until recently that only I had found bizarre and even risible; to wit, Kirk says, "Scotty, try flushing the ventilation system with radioactive waste" in a bid to exorcise the creature from the Enterprise, into which it has entered due to Kirk's mishandling of the situation in the first place. Flushing the ventilation system with radioactive waste would presumably have an even more lethal impact on the human crew than it could ever have on a gaseous diffuse cloudlike creature. A stupid and infuriating episode.

the smart fart

[blitzebill · 7/10 · 28 December 2013]

an interesting episode of how people react to situations and take responsibility for their actions, or lack thereof.

the gaseous creature that shows intelligence and root evil in its make up seems to hypnotize its enemies.

everyone freezes before they respond to it, except Spock, who, illogically, attempts to block its entry into the room by putting his hands over the air vent.

that does not compute since he knows the creature can easily divert its form into myriad shapes.

the ending on the creature's home planet is a good nail-biter.

this "white whale" of Kirk's past makes for an entertaining, engaging and engrossing episode.

Star Trek: The Original Series - Obsession

[Scarecrow-88 · 9/10 · 19 September 2016]

Superb Kirk episode has both Bones and Spock questioning his psychological state and duty to his command as he assumes the role of Ahab while a dangerous gaseous "vampire" cloud - which can alter it's form / molecular structure and attacks humanoid lifeforms, attracted to the iron in the blood - is the whale. When Kirk was an ensign on the Farragut, the cloud attacked and killed a number of his crew members, including his captain. What haunts him is that he froze momentarily, failing to fire his phaser. Not that it would have done any good, anyways. Good part for Stephen Brooks as the Farragut captain's son, now an officer on the Enterprise. He freezes just like Kirk did when an away team beams down to a planet the Federation is interested in for a particular strong mineral looking for the cloud, with one officer dead, another fatally drained, near death. Kirk battles his inner demons and faces an obsessive desire to kill the creature he considers intelligent, needing Spock to agree/confirm. Bones challenges him often in the episode, addressing whether or not his actions will delay shipment of medical supplies where they are needed elsewhere just to conquer a ghost from the past, annihilating the cloud at the cost of lives his quest jeopardizes. Spock's Vulcan blood, containing copper instead of iron, repulses the cloud and that just might be the answer. Antimatter once again is Kirk's go-to weapon, but he'll need to attract the cloud his way, with Brooks accompanying him to a planet for one final showdown. Seeing Kirk contending with a passionate need to vanquish a creature he considers evil, as his friends are concerned for his mental well- being lends itself to fireworks, and this gives Shather complexity to chew the fat on. Spock confronting the kid Kirk confines to quarters (for the slight mistake freezing) about not accepting failure, wallowing in the agony of it, is a good little scene as are Bones' confrontations with Kirk over the obsession. Dealing with the past, and closing that chapter on a high note, allows Kirk to put it behind him. And a young officer can be salvaged in the process, not having to live with his own shortcoming as long as Kirk did. Kirk snapping off at his crew, revealing a troubled soul needing a salve for his emotional wounds shows a vulnerability perfect for dramatic effect, his character tested and persevering. The cloud gives off a sickly sweet honey smell that tips off its presence, and the attraction to hemoglobin gives Kirk some advantage in bait.

the mist from the past and the quantum science!!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 12 March 2021]

Quite often appears an awkward episode, this is one of them, Kirk & Spoke and the Enterprise's crew are in a unknown planet surveying a rarest high stiffness mineral Tritanium twenty times harder than diamonds, when sudden appears a moving cloud that leaves in the air a sweet smell of honey, it's sound a smell that Kirk already felt at eleven years ago when was newly formed at academy of officers serving aboard of the USS Farragut, under orders of the Commander Garrovich, when such life form came out from nowhere, just few seconds of wavering of the young Officer Kirk many lives were lost forever, thereafter Kirk has been haunted by those past events, they get back when the strange mist that killed two crew's members and another is seriously wounded, the corpses outwardly all blood is drain out.

Back at Enterprise Captain Kirk is warned that has a mission to accomplish, he must head to a rendezvous point with the USS Yorktown to deliver a cargo of medical supplies according order of the Starfleet's command without delay, instead Kirk demands another task force to the planet under many complains of Spoke and Bone, he takes also the Ensign Garrovich (Richard Brooks) son of the old commander to this dangerous quest, Kirk's order is shot at first signal of the mist, sadly Garrovich froze in a flash allowing that such cloud monster kills the support crew members and suck their blood, Kirk is utterly obsess by Garrovich's fails and demand him off duty, meanwhile the Enterprise's radar points out the large cloud moving to outer space, even against the pleadings of the crew's members also suggesting some Kirk's mental disorder he pursued such being.

Even underneath of such oddity about a moving cloud be a sort of living being feeding of the iron enclosed on the human blood, the smart writer Art Wallace exposes a brainy dialogues on the field of the quantum science, the matter and antimatter which the outcome takes place, anyway at least we'd a rare chance to see the Vulkan asking for Bone's opinion, really outstanding moment to relief on the bizarre episode!!

Thanks for reading.

Resume:

First watch: 2021 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

Intuition with a smattering of guilt.

[thevacinstaller-03350 · 8/10 · 23 December 2022]

This is a well executed exploring the human condition of trauma in the form of another Shatner acting clinic. The episode bait and switches a few times in regards to Kirk's mental fitness for command but ultimately it is his logic and self examination/doubt that keep him from experiencing the typical ending of a revenge story.

Creating Ensign Garrovick for this story was an excellent idea to hold a mirror up for Kirk to see a young version of himself. Kirk is feeling guilty and takes the blame for the death of the crew on the Ferragut and takes out that guilt on Garrovick for reacting the same as Kirk had previously.

The episode does an excellent job of hiding Kirk's true state of mind and we get to go on the rollercoaster ride of Kirk's logic and guilt battling one another throughout.

This is one of those reflective episodes that you can identify with Kirk's dilemma if you have had some life experience with guilt.

Kirk as Captain Ahab

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 8 December 2006]

This is an okay episode--a slightly poorer than average entry, but a show still worth your time. It was interesting because the episode was actually a reworking of the old story of Moby Dick--with Kirk in a "Captain Ahab" role. Instead of the usual clear-thinking stud, this time he's a bit obsessed and the crew begin to doubt his objectivity and even sanity as he risks it all to destroy a cloud that destroys by sucking the life over areas it occupies! Kirk is concerned that if the creature isn't stopped at all costs, that many, many more will die--plus, he remembers this same creature that attacked his settlement years earlier and killed many of his loved ones. Negatives about the show were the over-acting by Shatner and rather dullness of the plot. It just didn't seem all that engaging--probably because fighting a cloud just isn't all that interesting. The writers of STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE should have learned this lesson!!

The worst Red Shirts ever...

[fedor8 · 31 March 2022]

The lack of professionalism among the crew never ceases to amaze me... Kirk gives simple enough instructions - "fire at a gas cloud if it appears" - and yet one of the red shirts stupidly hesitates, hence condemning all three extras to Red-Shirts Heaven, where they join all the other luckless extras that had to be killed off in order to prove how real a threat was.

Some time later, a new red-shirt HESITATES for too long before firing, despite also being given clear instructions to fire at the cloud. Considering that both red-shirts KNEW that they were expecting a cloud - as opposed to a horned three-headed frog-lizard - they couldn't have been so shocked as to freeze like such dim-witted amateurs. In fact, I'd expect this kind of brief fear reaction more in case of an attack by a three-headed frog-lizard then a damn cloud. Those things are so menacing...

Still, it's awesome how one of the red shirts uses the metric system when asked about the deadly cloud gas. It would seem the 23rd century will finally do away with pounds, gallons, inches, feet, yards and other American nonsense! It's a pet-peeve, yes...

But hold your horses... Just a minute later the red-shirt uses yards. I guess it's gonna be tough to teach an old American horse new tricks, after all, even in this "advanced" 23rd century.

What makes even less sense is that the allegedly logical Spock is skeptical about the cloud having an intelligence. Jesus wept, considering all the weird things they'd encountered throughout the years there is no reason for such misplaced skepticism. It's like that dumb, bland, nepotist dullard from "X-Files" constantly being skeptical - when she'd had ample opportunity to start believing in little green aliens. Of course, I hate that lame show... Spock and McCoy have enough evidence, yet they believe - exactly what? That this cloud COINCIDENTALLY snuck up on their crew - twice - then killed them, and then disappeared AGAIN by accident? That'd be one helluva efficient cloud considering it's not sentient.

Even AFTER the Enterprise starts chasing the cloud across the galaxy, Spock still refuses to be admit that the cloud has purpose i.e. Intelligence! I mean, what does a killer gas have to BLOODY DO to impress a stubborn, slow-witted Vulkan?! To sing "Oklahoma" while juggling 11 tennis balls?! What?

Minutes later, Spock finally gives the cloud the respect it deserves. Except McCoy, of course, who still has doubts...

Speaking of flawed logic, I don't quite understand why the killer cloud withdrew from the scenes of the crime, considering that human weapons were ineffective against it. Likewise, it makes no sense for the red-shirt to not put 2 and 2 together regarding his failure to fire at the it on time: he was on the bridge, witnessing the use of lasers and "photon-torpedoes" against the cloud, so he should have been able to instantly realize that his indecisiveness made no difference at all. Just as Kirk needed Spock to explain this obvious fact to Kirk, the red-shirt needed Kirk to explain it to him. So perhaps the cloud is intelligent whereas Kirk and the red-shirt aren't? Spiffing. By this point the score was Cloud 17 Humans 0.

How Kirk managed to guess that the cloud was heading back to the location of the first encounter between it and Kirk from 11 years ago... Well, that's anybody's guess. Kirk's "intuitive explanation" certainly sounded muddled and unconvincing.

Even more unconvincing is the nonsense that transpires on the planet. Kirk freezes, just like the useless red-shirts, so another plan is necessary. Kirk gives an order to the red-shirt to beam back up, but the red-shirt proceeds to chop-sokey Kirk, which is daft. They then actually start FIGHTING!

The whatever it is.

[amusinghandle · 8/10 · 24 November 2023]

Another episode of Shatner putting on an acting clinic in the form of a man battling his guilt and desire for revenge/justice. I am a fan of psychological star trek and this episode helps to humanize Kirk as a man who is capable of human frailties.

There is good writing in this episode with the execution of the Garrovick story arc amplifying Kirk's guilt about what happened on the Farragot.

Spock plays a minor role but his 'logical' attempt to remove Kirk's guilt about his perceived failure was quite moving to me.

Thankfully, Kirk's obsession leads to the death of this malevolent creature. Not all obsession is destructive, right? Some of our greatest inventions have likely been the product of a geniuses obsession --- you just need to be able to channel it into something product, i guess.

One of, if not THE worst episode

[lanechaffin-964-63190 · 6/10 · 10 July 2023]

I am a big fan of Star Trek. I have seen each episode multiple times, and I have noticed before that on "Obsession" how it seems different from other episodes. I saw it again last night and again was struck by how odd of an episode it is. First of all, it seems like the idea of the story never really made it to the screen. What Obsession? Kirk's pursuit of a known killer is not at all unusual, the only thing that's unusual is his very strange demeanor and the fact that he could have told everyone everything he knew right off the bat instead of dropping vague clues about it. Which laughably, McCoy doesn't even look at. I suppose Kirk's unpleasant overacting is to try and fit the story that he is "obsessed" , and I agree i wish he'd snap out of it too, but it just comes off really weird.

I see no reason for this story to be told like this. A true obsession should be much more involved than this simpleton tale. This episode is remarkably similar to "The Conscience of the King", where Kirk suspects Anton of being the mass murderer from the past, Kodos. When Kirk and Garavich beam down with the cobalt bomb, why do they move away from the hemoglobin? Why were two men required anyway? There are many small details that don't equate in this episode. Perhaps some important parts were left out in editing but it seems kind of ill thought out and/or rushed to me. Also, what a coincidence the fog should reappear now with young ensign Garavich on board. What are the odds. But to return to my original comment, they should have either named this episode something else or if they wanted to do an episode about a personal obsession they should have wrote a story that pertained to that. I bet they didn't know where to go with the story so they just settled on the obsession angle and tried to make it about that but its really about Garavich and his connection to Kirk. The obsession part just ruins it.

Call me Ishmael

[snoozejonc · 7/10 · 28 August 2021]

Captain Kirk seeks revenge against a gaseous entity that killed the crew members of the USS Farragut.

This is a reasonably good episode that has a fairly silly premise, but some strong character moments

The plot is one of Star Trek's many tributes to Moby Dick and works well if you can buy into the concept of a cloud monster as the villain. Personally, I struggled to suspend the required disbelief, but it may be my own lack of imagination as opposed to a sci-fi concept that hasn't aged well. We see hand phasers being fired at the cloud, ship phasers and photon torpedoes and it all seems frustratingly pointless.

I enjoyed the character portrayals, particularly Spock and Bones who show concern about the Ahab-like tendencies displayed by Kirk. These for me are easily the best scenes. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are on great form. William Shatner plays the obsessed Kirk with enough restraint to convince that he is still in control. Although the writing of Kirk's character 'feeling' the creature's intentions is somewhat dubious and plot-convenient.

The visuals are as good as they can be given the concept. There's only so much menace that can be generated by a smoke machine or graphics of a cloud following the Enterprise through space. The final action sequence with Kirk and Garrovick facing the creature is quite well done.

For me it's a 6.5/10 but I round upwards.

New Star Trek Motto: To seek out new life and kill it! "Revenge Trek"

[wwcanoer-tech · 2/10 · 28 March 2022]

A terrible concept poorly executed.

The writers wanted to show the Captain obsessed, so he must take risks that others do not understand, but it felt very weak that he would chase this creature rather than complete their mission to pick up and deliver critical medical supplies because the creature did not pose a significant risk. But the most ridiculous part was that the doctor and Spock both state that he was right to chase the creature.

It's nearly impossible for there to be only one sentient creature because it will have evolved from something. The chances that a single event created a sentient creature is zero. Perhaps one could say that it's come from another dimension and can't get back but that's not mentioned.

And if there was only one, the idea that it would be hunted and killed goes against all the Star Trek stands for!

Out of nowhere, other than Kirk's perception of the creature saying "home", Spock says that it is going home to spawn and will create thousands more. This doesn't make any sense.

Everything about the creature's behavior doesn't make sense.

Why did the creature go to this planet? The Enterprise stopped there to evaluate it its mineral resources. If the creature was preparing to spawn, it would be going somewhere that it could eat a lot. So, they should have deduced that it was eating something on the planet but then found humans to be an easier or tastier version. It would be nearly impossible that it only feeds on humans. For example, we could have seen a briefing before the away mission that stated to be alert for a certain dangerous animal that is plentiful but when they got there, there were no animals, or only dead animals. Then it would attack the crew as if it were any other animal. But then the Captain wouldn't have the desired illogical obsession because the creature would have been a true planetary threat.

Why did the creature leave the planet? If it wanted to hunt the humans on the ship, then it would have simply done that at the first planet.

When the creature was defeated by the crew that chased it and tried to harm it with phasers, photon torpedoes and radiation and then proceeded to chase it again, then why would it run home?! The idea that the Enterprise randomly encountered it when it was urgently needing to spawn is ridiculous. Plus, it continued trying to feed on this planet, which again appears devoid of all animal life, so why would it live there? Why would it even need to go to a planet to spawn? More logical if it went to some star or astronomical energy source rich in something that it needed. Maybe some dense oxygen source, which is why it needed hemoglobin.

It made sense that Kirk is overly harsh on the officer who made the same mistake that he did 11 years ago, but doesn't make sense that he is later absolved because the mistake would not have made a difference. It would have been far far stronger if the Captain had admitted that he was overly harsh because he had made the same mistake but as Spock had explained, it's part of our nature that is very difficult to overcome, so he will not hold it against the officer. Of course, can still say that both feel better that their mistake did not cost any lives.

"I need your advice." "Then I need a drink."

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 30 September 2023]

Kirk encounters a mysterious cloud-like entity which he had previously dealt with approximately a decade ago (when he was a lieutenant on a different starship). Harboring an inordinate amount of guilt since the resulting tragedy, Kirk truly obsesses over understanding, and ultimately defeating this entity. This he does despite knowing that the Enterprise *needs* to transport some perishable medication to another planet in a timely manner.

'Obsession' is a decent episode with an interesting "antagonist" and a heavy psychological approach. It really does oblige the viewer (and the ever-logical Mr. Spock) to think about human idiosyncrasies, namely the tendency to *fixate* on a certain thing, to the possible detriment of other things. In the end, Kirk is going to have to learn to stop blaming himself. And, in the same position in the current time frame, is a young ensign (Stephen Brooks, 'Days of Our Lives') who also hesitated at a critical moment, and feels shameful about it.

Shatner is in fine form, doing some of his finer acting on the series to date, and Majel Barrett likewise has one of her best moments so far as *Chapel* uses some psychology on the ensign to get him to *eat* something.

In the end, it's typically entertaining watching Spock attempting to understand human frailties such as irrationality; he and Bones do express concern over Kirks' behavior, until it becomes clear that the Enterprise *will* have to do something about this creature.

This wasn't up there with the truly great episodes for this viewer, but it's certainly a good, thought-provoking one.

Seven out of 10.