25. This Side of ParadiseWHY WE LIKE IT: Mr. Spock in love. It's always interesting to see him display emotions.
WHY WE DON'T: The music gets annoyingly intrusive in this one.
REVIEW: It all starts with an interesting mystery and good use of location shooting (though I have the tendency to call it Star Trek on the Farm), and offers up a number of great moments, almost all relating to Mr. Spock. There's something engaging about seeing Spock deal with actual emotions, and his chance at love is rather moving. The show's last words especially. Kirk getting him angry is also quite effective.
On the flipside, Jill Ireland's Leila doesn't become engaging until her final minutes. I guess that's what happens when your character's high on spores. Indeed, aside from Spock, there's little interest in seeing any of the crew (by the way, glad to see Sulu again nonetheless) hopped up on goodfballs. McCoy's sudden southern drawl is particularly annoying.
But less annoying than the intrusive musical cues from Shore Leave. No shot of Leila comes unaccompanied by the romantic (Ruth) theme, and for some reason, Spock dangling from a branch is scored with the chivalry theme. You shouldn't really notice the incidental music - it should be use to support the tone or whatever - and here, it kept pulling me out of the story. A story I found interesting and even moving nonetheless.
LESSON: The expression "Wake up and smell the flowers" doesn't always apply.
REWATCHABILITY - Medium: It's a good story, especially for Spock, and looks very nice, but the annoying music and another run of "blissful" acting from many of the regulars (see The Return of the Archons and The Naked Time for more examples) kept me from enjoying it more.
Comments
To get rhe colonists and the crew all angry on the surface ? Just give them access to Twitter for a while...