What it’s mainly about
Can you really have a life worth living without making some sort of effort? Is it a paradise to have no needs and feel (artificially) jolly all the time? Kirk doesn’t think so, but when everyone else in the crew gets sucked in to the false promise of a planet they visit, it’s up to him to break the spell.
Down on the planet, Dr. McCoy acts as if he’s had one mint julep too many — but it’s the spell that’s made him giddy.
Why it’s awesome
Spock has a profound romantic connection in this episode — the spell of this paradise rekindles an old flame (in the young and lovely form of Jill Ireland). How he handles the surge of emotions is interesting: we know that Spock tends to value emotion less than full humans do. Kirk is also fascinating for the way that he, alone among the Enterprise crew, recognizes the folly of yielding to the spell. Best of all is the scene in which Spock and Kirk, one under the spell and the other not, must fight it out. Some of the best moments and dialogue in Star Trek appear in this episode.