Writer: Robert Sabaroff
Director: Joseph Pevney
Producer: John Meredyth Lucas
Like "The Doomsday Machine", I've always felt this episode presents a scenario that could have made for a good Star Trek movie. Like that episode, it gives us a big, fantastic threat to life in the galaxy at large - but while that installment was basically all action/adventure, this one also has a decent sci-fi premise that allows the Enterprise to journey forth into the unknown.
The premise is that there's a giant amoeba (I know, bear with me) surrounded by a protective sphere of "negative energy" that's going around basically killing everything and absorbing it's energy into itself, until it has enough to split and reproduce. And basically just keep doing this until it's destroyed the whole galaxy.
The Enterprise learns of this when the Intrepid is destroyed by the thing (a ship full of Vulcans in a weird bit of detail that never quite seems congruous with how the rest of the series treats Spock's position in Starfleet). Spock feels the ship's death like he's goddamned Obi-Wan Kenobi sensing a disturbance in the Force, and so we're off to investigate. The key is that we need to find it's weakness, but the best way to do that is to take a shuttlecraft into the thing itself and investigate it -- a sure death sentence given the way it absorbs energy.
It comes down to Spock and McCoy vying for a chance to go on the suicide run and Kirk put in the position of choosing which of his friends to go out to die. This is really the heart of the episode. Spock is the science officer (and has the revenge motive), but McCoy is the xenobiology expert. Ultimately it's decided Spock should go, utilizing McCoy's research and planning.
The work this episode does with Kirk's relationship with these two men, and their relationship to each other as well, is very laudable. It acknowledges the friendship, love and dependency of these men on each other, while also playing up their rivalry. This is one of the best episodes of the series for fans of the Trinity.
Trekkies with an eye for these sorts of things will also notice that "The Immunity Syndrome" shares elements (destructive force surrounded by an energy shield, Spock risking his life to journey inside and probe its secrets) that when combined with elements from "The Changeling" (destructive force headed for Earth, in reality an old probe altered by aliens) basically come together to form Star Trek: The Motion Picture. But the episode really is a great hour, worth seeing on its own values, with a really cool sci-fi hook about whether the true destiny of the Enterprise is to be an "anti-body" repelling this "virus" invasion of the "body" of the galaxy.
Even if the giant amoeba itself is a bit hokey.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
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