History Recap / StarTrekS1E21TheReturnOfTheArchons

* ShadowDiscretionShot: Director Joseph Pevney arranged to show a man attacking a woman, as a shadow on the wall of a building. He managed to get a rape scene past the censors and did it in such a way that it contributed to the overall ambianceof the story.

* PretendToBeBrainwashed: With the help of Marplon, the Master Assimilator who is [[spoiler:secretly part of the underground resistance]], Kirk and Spock fake being absorbed by Landru.

* ShadowDiscretionShot: Director Joseph Pevney arranged to show a man attacking a woman, as a shadow on the wall of a building. He managed to get a rape scene past the censors and did it in such a way that it contributed to the overall ambiance of the story.

The next day, though, someone tips the Brown Cloaks off to the landing party, and attempts to "absorb" them into the LotusEaterMachine. Fortunately, Kirk's uncanny ability to LogicBomb any computer-like being saves the day, and they escape with Reger to a safer location...but not without picking up the Red Shirt, now a member of the machine, against Reger's warnings not to. Once out of danger, Reger explains the whole thing: he is a resistance fighter against the Brown Cloaks and their master, Landru, who controls the people via MindControl, and polices them with the Brown Cloaks; anyone out of its thrall is told YouWillBeAssimilated (so, nothing like the Borg, then), and are killed if they can't be. Even worse, Landru can pull entire an starship out of the sky to assimilate its crew, which is what it's doing to the ''Enterprise'', currently. Unfortunately, since the Red Shirt ''has'' been assimilated, Landru finds the group through him, and knocks them out in an attempt to capture and assimilate them.

The next day, though, someone tips the Brown Cloaks off to the landing party, and attempts to "absorb" them into the LotusEaterMachine. Fortunately, Kirk's uncanny ability to LogicBomb any computer-like being saves the day, and they escape with Reger to a safer location...but not without picking up the Red Shirt, now a member of the machine, against Reger's warnings not to. Once out of danger, Reger explains the whole thing: he is a resistance fighter against the Brown Cloaks and their master, Landru, who controls the people via MindControl, and polices them with the Brown Cloaks; anyone out of its thrall is told YouWillBeAssimilated (so, nothing like the Borg, then), and are killed if they can't be. Even worse, Landru can pull entire starships out of the sky to assimilate its crew, which is what it's doing to the ''Enterprise'', currently. Unfortunately, since the Red Shirt ''has'' been assimilated, Landru finds the group through him, and knocks them out in an attempt to capture and assimilate them.

The landing party finds themselves deep in Landru's sanctuary, on call to be assimilated, and with no hope of escape now that the Brown Cloaks have adapted to Kirk's {{Logic Bomb}}s (again, no Borg similarities here). In a stroke of luck, though, it turns out Marplon, the master assimilator, is a member of Reger's underground, and manages to keep Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. After subduing their captors, he introduces them to Landru...which turns out to be a giant computer.

Concerned by this turn of events, Kirk takes a landing party down to scope things out. What they find isn't promising; a giant LotusEaterMachine disguised as a 19th-century town, where every Victorian-clad citizen is nice and friendly and not at all a StepfordSmiler...until the evening falls, during which they, well...aren't. Nice, friendly, and a StepfordSmiler, I mean; for the entire night, everyone goes crazy and destructive, like the entire cast of ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' went off their Prozium at the same time and started going through the withdrawl symptom of violent mood swings. The away team finds shelter at a local boarding house run by a man named Reger, who grows interested in their lack of going nuts like the rest of the town and questions if they're "Archons", referring to the crew of the ship that the ''Enterprise'' came to the planet to find; Kirk refuses to say, thanks to that pesky [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]].

The landing party finds themselves deep in Landru's sanctuary, on call to be assimilated, and with no hope of escape now that the Brown Cloaks have adapted to Kirk's {{Logic Bomb}}s (again, no Borg similarities here). In a stroke of luck, though, it turns out Marplon, the master assimilator, is a member of Reger's underground, and manages to keep Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. After subduing their captors them to Landru...which turns out to be a giant computer.

The next day, though, someone tips the Brown Cloaks off to the landing party, and attempts to "absorb" them into the LotusEaterMachine. Fortunately, Kirk's uncanny ability to LogicBomb any computer-like being saves the day, and they escape with Reger to a safer location...but not without picking up the Red Shirt, now a member of the machine, against Reger's warnings not to. Once out of danger, Reger explains the whole thing: he is a resistance fighter against the Brown Cloaks and their master, Landru, who controls the people via MindControl, and polices them with the Brown Cloaks; anyone out of its thrall is told YouWillBeAssimilated (so, nothing like the Borg, then), and are killed if they can't be. Even worse, Landru can pull entire starships out of the sky to assimilate its crew, which is what it's doing to the ''Enterprise'', currently (though with heat beams...yeah, major ArtisticLicensePhysics, there). Unfortunately, since the Red Shirt ''has'' been assimilated, Landru finds the group through him, and knocks them out in an attempt to capture and assimilate them.

The landing party finds themselves deep in Landru's sanctuary, on call to be assimilated, and with no hope of escape now that the Brown Cloaks have adapted to Kirk's {{Logic Bomb}}s (again, no Borg similarities here). In a stroke of luck, though, it turns out Marplon, the master assimilator, is a member of Reger's underground, and manages to keep Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. After subduing their captors (why they didn't do that, before, is anyone's guess, as is why Landru bothered to bring them to his inner sanctum to assimilate them instead of having the Brown Cloaks touch them with their Swiss Rolls), Kirk has Reger and Marplon take them to Landru...which turns out to be a giant computer (what else?).

As it turns out, Landru was once a real person, a leader of the colony on the planet, who built the machine to help him keep the peace over the people; once Landru died, the computer took over his name, identity, and purpose, and went through a ZerothLawRebellion, force-assimilating people into the HiveMind in order to keep order. When the Archon crew came, it saw them as a threat to its perfect society, and assimilated them, just like it's trying to assimilate the crew of the ''Enterprise''. Unfortunately for it, Kirk regains his LogicBomb mojo and makes it explode by forcing it to realize it's harming the very people it sought to protect by stifling their free will and creativity (how {{Anvilicious}} of you). Kirk leaves the ship's sociologist to guide the colony to a more "human" existence, and goes gallivanting off to a new adventure.

The next day, though, someone tips the Brown Cloaks off to the landing party, and attempts to "absorb" them into the LotusEaterMachine. Fortunately, Kirk's uncanny ability to LogicBomb any computer-like being saves the day, and they escape with Reger to a safer location...but not without picking up the Red Shirt, now a member of the machine, against Reger's warnings not to. Once out of danger, Reger explains the whole thing: he is a resistance fighter against the Brown Cloaks and their master, Landru, who controls the people via MindControl, and polices them with the Brown Cloaks; anyone out of its thrall is told YouWillBeAssimilated (so, nothing like the Borg, then), and are killed if they can't be. Even worse, Landru has the ability to pull entire starships out of the sky to assimilate its crew, which is what it's doing to the ''Enterprise'', currently (though with heat beams...yeah, major ArtisticLicensePhysics, there). Unfortunately, since the Red Shirt ''has'' been assimilated, Landru finds the group through him, and knocks them out in an attempt to capture and assimilate them.

* ArtisticLicenseSpace: "Heat beams" (known today as "lasers") are not going to threaten a starship's orbit. Especially to the degree to which irreversible orbital decay will occur in ''six hours''.

Down on the planet of Beta III, Sulu and a RedShirt are being hounded by a group of brown-cloaked figures wielding the world's longest Swiss Roll™; the RedShirt runs off and disappears, while Sulu is beamed aboard the ''Enterprise'', but not before being touched by the Swiss Roll, converting him into a hippie ditz. Concerned by this turn of events, Kirk takes a landing party down to scope things out.

What they find isn't promising; a giant LotusEaterMachine disguised as a 19th-century town, where every Victorian-clad citizen is nice and friendly and not at all a StepfordSmiler...until the evening falls, during which they, well...aren't. Nice, friendly, and a StepfordSmiler, I mean; for the entire night, everyone goes crazy and destructive, like the entire cast of ''Film/{{Equilibrium}}'' went off their Prozium at the same time and started going through the withdrawl symptom of violent mood swings. The away team finds shelter at a local boarding house run by a man named Reger, who grows interested in their lack of going nuts like the rest of the town and questions if they're "Archons", referring to the crew of the ship that the ''Enterprise'' came to the planet to find; Kirk refuses to say, thanks to that pesky [[AlienNonInterferenceClause Prime Directive]].

The away team finds themselves deep in Landru's sanctuary, on call to be assimilated, and with no hope of escape now that the Brown Cloaks have adapted to Kirk's {{Logic Bomb}}s (again, no Borg similarities here). In a stroke of luck, though, it turns out Marplon, the master assimilator, is a member of Reger's underground, and manages to keep Kirk and Spock from being absorbed. After subduing their captors (why they didn't do that, before, is anyone's guess, as is why Landru bothered to bring them to his inner sanctum to assimilate them instead of having the Brown Cloaks touch them with their Swiss Rolls), Kirk has Reger and Marplon take them to Landru...which turns out to be a giant computer (what else?).

* [[SpaceDoesNotWorkThatWay Orbital Mechanics Does Not Work That Way]]: "Heat beams" (known today as "lasers") are not going to threaten a starship's orbit. Especially to the degree to which irreversible orbital decay will occur in ''six hours''.

As it turns out, Landru was once a real person, a leader of the colony on the planet, who built the machine to help him keep the peace over the people; once Landru died, the computer took over his name, identity, and purpose, and went through a ZerothLawRebellion, force-assimilating people into the HiveMind in order to keep order. When the Archon crew came, it saw them as a threat to its perfect society, and assimilated them, just like it's trying to assimilate the crew of the ''Enterprise''. Unfortunately for it, Kirk regains his LogicBomb mojo and makes it explode by forcing it to realize it's harming the very people it sought to protect by stifling their free will and creativity (how {{Anvilicious}} of you). Having ruined yet another idyllic society[[note]]well, idyllic if you don't count the fact that Tula was ''very'' upset after Festival and the dialogue makes it abundantly clear that Bilar raped her[[/note]] Kirk leaves the ship's sociologist to guide the colony to a more "human" existence, and goes gallivanting off to a new adventure.

* LaResistance: Reger and his buddies are this, but because they're so scattered and lacking in numbers/influence, aren't able to do much.

* AIIsACrapshoot: Landru. At least it had good intentions.

* StepfordSmiler: The people of Beta III are seemingly numb, always smiling, always peaceful folks. The real reason for that is because they are living under the control of the computer Landru.

!!This episode contains the following tropes:

As it turns out, Landru was once a real person, a leader of the colony on the planet, who built the machine to help him keep the peace over the people; once Landru died, the computer took over his name, identity, and purpose, and went through a ZerothLawRebellion, force-assimilating people into the HiveMind in order to keep order. When the Archon crew came, it saw them as a threat to its perfect society, and assimilated them, just like it's trying to assimilate the crew of the ''Enterprise''. Unfortunately for it, Kirk regains his LogicBomb mojo and makes it explode by forcing it to realize it's harming the very people it sought to protect by stifling their free will and creativity (how {{Anvilicious}} of you). Having ruined yet another idyllic society, Kirk leaves the ship's sociologist to guide the colony to a more "human" existence, and goes gallivanting off to a new adventure.

* SimpletonVoice: Bilar, the first to address the landing party seems to be this, which he seems to do in a childlike voice which was to suggest that he was mentally slow. It may not have been fully attributed to being "part of the body" as other adults appeared to speak normally. When they inquire about lodging, he introduces them to Tula, whose father (Reger) owns a hotel.

* LogicBomb: Kirk, as was to be expected, does this to the computer.

* SimpletonVoice: Bilar, the first to address the landing party seems to be this, which he seems to do in a childlike voice which was to suggest that he was mentally slow. It may not have been fully attributed to being "part of the body" as other adults appeared to speak normally. When they aquire about lodging, he introduces them to Tula, who's father (Reger) owns a hotel.
--->'''Bilar:''' Your daddy can put them up for the night, can he?