STAR TREK
THE MAN TRAP

From Wikipedia:

"The Man Trap" is a first season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It originally aired on Thursday, September 8, 1966, and was the first episode to be shown on NBC. It is episode #1, production #6, and was written by George Clayton Johnson, and directed by Marc Daniels.

Although it was first aired, it was not the first produced (the pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and several regular episodes had been produced before it). The current official timeline considers "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to be set first.

More here.

The so-called "salt vampire episode." I don't think I'd ever be tempted to place this one on my top ten list. It suffers from the first season irregularities the show had while figuring itself out, making it feel a lot less like Trek than some random scifi offering from the era, but it stands well on its own. That is, it's a good story, with a good alien monster, and good bizarre spaceman deaths. Indeed, the Shatner pain-face displayed when the alien begins absorbing his bodily salt is one of the best of the series. That, in itself, makes "The Man Trap" worth watching.



BONUS!

Read a New York Times story on the new Star Trek movie here.

Read a Daily Kos blogger's ruminations on loving Star Trek here.

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