As Milhous would say, “When are they gonna’ get to the fireworks factory??!” This episode begins with the urgent, urgent need to get a Starfleet Ambassador back to the Enterprise for an antidote to a rare disease so she can get back to a planet and prevent a war. Interplanetary war — seems like a big deal, yes? But when they get marooned on a planet and the floating blob (which is able to bestow immortality on a 200+ year old Earth Man, but can’t innoculate our dying ambassador) has to fuse its consciousness with her shapely form, no one seems to mind when she decides to stay behind. The Earth Man in question is Zephram Cochrane, who we know from First Contact but acts nothing like him. I leave it to others to rationalize that discrepancy. Also, for some reason both the Ambassador and Dr. McCoy make references to “The” Starfleet. Never heard that one before. This episode also makes the presumption that all life forms must not only be male or female but heterosexual — something that not only doesn’t exist on Earth, but will later be seen as untrue in the Star Trek Universe. (The male/female bit, not so much the heterosexual bit.)
