Talk:This Side of Paradise (episode)

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Contents 1 Episode talk page 1.1 Maintenance links 2 Health spores 3 Removed Text 3.1 Other Information

[edit] Health spores

The enterprise discovers a spore on this planet that gives you perfect health, apparently regardless of your present condition, and that can be removed simply by inciting anger in the host. Does anyone see the loophole here? The federation should have built a hospital station to orbit this planet as the medical benefits are impossible to deny. Don't get me wrong, I love this episode to death, but it really bothers me that a perfect cure with easily removeable side effects was so easily trivialized.

Sure, they get perfect health, but they also get a bit of their Humanity stripped away as they are reduced to docile, peaceful beings, essentially altering their personalities. Anger, pain, and internal struggles are part of what makes us human, and the spores seem to eradicate that. --From Andoria with Love 04:33, 13 May 2006 (UTC)

The health benefits evidently remain after the spores have been eliminated by strong emotions. Witness McCoy's final scene on the bridge: "They're all in absolutely perfect, perfect health. A fringe benefit left over by the spores." I agree with Shran that we need the things that are stripped away by the spores, but we can have those things back after the spores do their repair work. The OP has a terrific point.Spider 21:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

A reminder to everyone involved that this is not what article talk pages are for. --OuroborosCobra ^talk 22:53, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removed Text

I removed the following bloopers:

• A small blooper occurs in this episode. When Spock beams back to the Enterprise at Kirk's request, the transporter chamber does not blink.

• Another minor mistake: During one of Kirk's voice-over log entries, he refers to the planet merely as "Omicron III."

• When Kirk packs up his belongings as he prepares to leave the Enterprise, he uses a very twentieth-century type suitcase.

-- Renegade54 17:14, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

• I originally added the item about Kirk's suitcase to the article, and I put it back in, as it's not really a blooper. And, I feel it kind of dates the episode. I flew to France with my girlfriend last year, and I didn't see that style of suitcase used at all. In fact, I didn't even use that type myself; I used the style with wheels and a handle. - Adambomb1701 16:08, 13 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Other Information

• An episode of The Outer Limits ("Specimen Unknown") also had alien plants that shot spores, although they killed their victims. Wah Chang and Projects Unlimited created those plants and likely, Chang made the ones seen in this segment of Star Trek as well.
• Mystery Science Theater 3000 paid tribute to this episode during the opening host segment in episode 503, "Swamp Diamonds". Crow T. Robot and Tom Servo were obsessing over the scene where Spock does not want to go back to the ship. Crow was Spock, Tom was Leila, and Joel Robinson had to play Kirk angering Spock to make the 'bots snap out of it.
• Futurama also paid tribute to this episode in its Star Trek homage, "Where No Fan Has Gone Before." When speaking with Leonard Nimoy in the head museum, Fry reminds Nimoy of this episode, referring to it as "that episode where you got high on spores and smacked Kirk around."
• In Stone Trek, this episode was spoofed as the "The Deadly Ears".
• The episode draws many parallels with the encounter with the lotus eaters in Homer's Odyssey.

Removed the above as it belongs on the tributes page and not adding information to every single episode... — Morder (talk) 21:23, November 23, 2009 (UTC)