And the saddest thing about the Original Series is that it goes out with a whimper. A pretty non-descript episode wherein Kirk’s body is taken over by his evil ex-girlfriend. S/he immidiately starts acting weird and pretty soon Spock’s doing Vulcan mind melds on the mild mannered twist Kirk’s got holed up in sick bay. There’s a court-martial scene (oh, that again) and some fun Shatner scenery chewing. Alls well that ends well when, for no real reason, the magic spell “wears off.” And then there wouldn’t be any new live action Trek til 1979. What a world.
I agree with most of your synopsis but I would have added with a VERY BAD WHIMPER!
There just was no real point to this one. They wanted to end it and grabbed any old crappy story they could find.
It was the best of Trek, it was the worse of Trek. One the one hand, it had a decent use of the sci-fi trope of mind transference, it showcased all of the regular characters (except Uhura) in a well-working ensemble cast, and it had a fairly high degree of suspense. On the other hand, it was ridiculously misogynistic.