By 
Title: Obsession
Airdate: 12/15/1967
Plot Summary
In Obsession, Kirk becomes obsessed with destroying an entity he was unable to in his youth, an encounter he still blames himself for. Is he also putting that blame on one of his young officers?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is correct on what he’s obsessed about. I know the theme is undeserved guilt, but this thing turns out to be a huge threat. I look at The Doomsday Machine, everyone could see the threat so they were hell bent on destroying it. Here, they can’t except for Kirk. I think Kirk’s actions here make a lot of sense given what he knows.
When he sees it on a different planet, he knows that this thing can move from place to place. The point is, I’m not sure he was really all the “obsessed” if you view obsession as a “single-minded pursuit of a goal irrespective of other factors.” I think the damage this thing could cause warrants his tenacity.
In fact, I’m not sure Spock and McCoy’s skepticism made any sense, given how often Kirk is correct. He deserved a little more benefit of the doubt.
That being said, he’s definitely not himself. He takes out his unresolved guilt on Garrovick and it was really uncalled for. Garrovick’s hesitation was not out of line. Spock and Bones attempt to call him out on this but Kirk’s having none of it.
Logical
Spock comes to McCoy for advice in Obsession and McCoy responds with alcoholism, completely bowled over by Spock coming to him for his opinion.
Spock has a flair for the dramatic, apparently waiting outside Kirk’s cabin until McCoy decides to bring him in.
He’s Dead Jim
Bones starts with Kirk to try to talk him down as a friend. But he ups the stakes quite quickly to a competency discussion with Spock. Bones may be loyal, as is Spock, but he takes his duty seriously.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is absent in this episode.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov works the science station for some of Obsession to find the creature when Spock is unavailable. He also fires phasers and photon torpedoes at the creature to no effect.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura is there but has very little to do other than to watch the cloud on the screen.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty is a little taken aback when Kirk accuses him of conspiring. To his credit, even Kirk realizes he stepped over the line and apologizes which Scotty accepts gracefully.
Canon Maker
Lieutenant Kirk served on the Farragut 11 years ago under Captain Garrovick.
It’s formally established in Obsession that the Chief Medical Officer can determine the command fitness of the captain.
Canon Breaker
So if The Deadly Years set in canon how to do a competency hearing, then this episode breaks it. In truth, I think the way they went about it in this episode makes a lot more sense. Also, I didn’t have much else that I would consider a canon breaker.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
We lose a lot of red shirts on this one, 6 to be exact. But what this episode does is focus on one of them, the son of the captain that Kirk served with earlier, and also how he deals with it, and how he creates a bit of a friendship with Kirk at the end. It’s nice to see, too bad it wasn’t expanded upon.
Technobabble
Dikironium is something that exists. (Sure.) It’s what the creature is made of. You can also set phasers on disrupter-B which I guess is different than disrupter-A. Don’t know where “stun” and “kill” went but now disrupter settings? Eh.
Cordrazine makes a re-appearance. Bones seems to not have any concerns even though last time he messed with stuff, it nearly destroyed the entire space time continuum.
I Know That Guy:
Steven Brooks plays Garrovick in Obsession. He’s a bit bland but ok. He was best known as Special Agent Jim Rhodes in the series The F.B.I. from 1965-1967.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Obsession is a bit of a “some good/some bad” episode. The Moby Dick aspect is interesting and certainly the idea of unresolved and undeserved guilt is compelling. But some of the reasoning escapes me.
For instance, if the thing is not intelligent, Bones and Spock seem to think that it’s silly to go after the thing. But if it’s intelligent, well that’s a different deal. NOW it needs to be destroyed. This really ticks me off. In TNG, there is an episode with the crystalline entity where they discover it’s intelligent and try to communicate with it. They wanted to avoid killing an intelligent being at all costs. Here it’s the opposite.
Now I don’t have a problem with it being intelligent or not intelligent but what difference does it make? It’s clearly a threat, it’s clearly dangerous. We just let the thing roam from planet to planet if it’s just a dumb animal but if it’s intelligent, we kill it? Makes no sense. In fact, it would seem to be a lot more palatable to destroy it if it’s unintelligent. I just really hated their attitudes on this.
Kirk is a bit obsessed, true. The storyline of forgiving oneself and in turn getting Garrovick to forgive himself as well was pretty good. That part of the story I liked. It’s just it felt like some of the writers were bending over backwards to make is seem like Kirk might be unhinged when clearly he wasn’t.
I did like this version of the “fit for command” trope much better than The Deadly Years. Kirk, Spock, and Bones handle it professionally but with a little humanity as well. Bones switches from old friend to Chief Medical Officer and back as the situation warrants. Kirk for his part shows he holds no grudges, pointing out that they acted appropriately. As opposed to last week when Kirk called Spock a big old traitor. Just much better handled all around.
I also quite liked the focus on a red shirt this time. Finally we see they are more than cannon fodder. Garrovick is actually compelling and acts to save his captain. He also is a young and foolish but you like him for it. True, he is a stand in for the young Kirk, the Lieutenant who didn’t have to carry the guilt that Kirk did. But he is his own character as well.
Nurse Chapel gets a nice moment, you can see the sassiness that would become Lwaxana Troi later.
The updated version has a nice touch, when the Enterprise leaves the planet you can see the big crater from the blast on its surface.
Overall I like this episode’s strengths a lot but really don’t like its weaknesses. Weirdly they don’t cancel each other out exactly. When it’s strong, it’s very strong. When it’s weak, it’s really weak. I guess I’ll give it a 50 percent and call it a day.
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