Star Trek TOS S1E24: This Side of Paradise

The lurking fear of hippie paradise.

Apr 28, 2023

∙ Paid

See the Star Trek TOS Rewatch Index page for links to all the episodes covered so far.

“THIS SIDE OF PARADISE” Rating: 9.8/10

Star Trek did its first riff on Invasion of the Body Snatchers in “Return of the Archons,” a muddled anticommunist parable that gets lost in ramshackle world-building. Undeterred, writers D.C. Fontana and Jerry Sohl tried again a few episodes later with “This Side of Paradise”. The result is a feverish, gloriously ridiculous classic of anti-hippie paranoia. It’s a stern Reefer Madness for the space age, and the series’ first near-perfect episode.

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