Star Trek Epsiode 20, Season 1:
The Alternative Factor
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Episode #: | << 20 >> |
|---|---|
| Air #: | << 27 >> |
| Season: | 1 |
| Air Date: | 1967-03-23 |
| Stardate: | 3087.6 |
| Writer: | Don Ingalls |
| Story: | |
| Director: | Gerd Oswald |
| Guests: | Robert Brown (Lazarus?), Janet MacLachlan (Lt. Charlene Masters), Richard Derr, Eddie Paskey |
As the Enterprise maps a planet with iron-silicon surface and oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere and begins heading towards Starbase 200, the ship is twice subjected to massive disturbances. Spock reports that the magnetic field of the surrounding space "blinked" and the gravity of the planet momentarily reached zero. Spock then finds a human life form on the planet's surface and Spock, Kirk, and a security detail of 3 beam down to investigate.
They find a spaceship and a bearded man who yells something about having time to still stop "him," then jumps or falls off a cliff. Kirk discovers that the blinking phenomenon drained the Enterprise's dilithium crystals, leaving only 10 hours before the orbit decays. Starfleet command reports that every quadrant of the galaxy has been subjected to magnetic, gravimetric, and electric disruption, and Kirk and Starfleet fear it may be a prelude to an invasion.
Kirk interviews the fallen man, who claims he is chasing a murderer who destroyed his entire civilization. He himself was saved because he was inspecting magnetic communication satellites. He attempts to enlist Kirk in his fanatic pursuit. It turns out that the strange phenomena are caused as the man, whose name is Lazarus, battles his anti-self in a corridor between parallel universes and that the ship on the planet surface is a time-travel machine. The universe is returned to normal when Kirk destroys Lazarus's ship, sealing the corridor off at both ends, and trapping Lazarus and his anti-self inside to fight each other for all eternity.