This post is making the rounds on FaceBook and it deserves to be read by all. Regretfully, I cannot find the actual writer's name - they are merely known under the handle Silver Screen Hub.

Posted June 5th, 2025
For anyone who’s ever complained that *Star Trek: The Original Series* wasn’t bold enough, let me direct your gaze to “The Mark of Gideon,” which aired in 1969, smack in the middle of the show's weird and often audacious third season. On the surface, it looks like your standard Kirk-gets-kidnapped-and-flirts-with-an-alien story. But under that misleadingly stilted opening is a searing ethical critique dressed in the snug jumpsuit of sci-fi allegory, dealing with bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and the weaponization of innocence. And oh boy, does it get *uncomfortably* relevant fast.

So let’s break this madness down. Kirk beams aboard what he *thinks* is the Enterprise, except it's deserted. Eerily silent. Not even a redshirt to trip over. Pretty soon, he finds Odona, a wide-eyed, dreamy brunette who has all the hallmarks of a Starfleet crush-of-the-week. But then she starts collapsing, spiraling into vague poetic dread, and we realize something fishy is going on—and it’s not just the wonky lighting. Turns out, surprise: it’s not the Enterprise. It’s a *life-sized replica* of the Enterprise built on a planet so overcrowded that people can't sneeze without giving someone else the flu. The planet is Gideon, and their idea of solving overpopulation is less about infrastructure and more about…biological warfare.

Here’s the kicker: their big idea is to abduct Kirk because he's carrying a disease (Vegan choriomeningitis—yes, it *does* sound like something you’d get from a trendy green smoothie) and use him to infect their population, thus gently trimming the numbers through viral attrition. You know, *euthanasia, the fun way.* Odona, being the ultimate idealistic daughter of this plan, volunteers to be Patient Zero—with full knowledge she might die in the process. But, don’t worry, she’s oddly giddy about it. Like she’s got a crush on death and it’s texting her back.

And here's where the episode takes a giant swing into *sharp, topical social commentary*. Kirk—grappling with the absurd logic of a society that won’t use birth control but is totally down with voluntary genocide—confronts Odona’s father, Hodin. The man, with the serene smugness of every dystopian leader ever, insists that life is so sacred, they can't possibly interfere with its creation. “We love life too much,” he says, while actively plotting mass death. Kirk, being Kirk, cuts through this with one of the most devastating mic drops in Trek history: “Yet you can kill a young girl.” Boom. Shatner might ham it up from time to time, but when he hits, *he hits.* And in that moment, he’s not just Captain Kirk—he’s the mouthpiece for every viewer watching in horrified disbelief.
(My favorite part, so I'll bold it here)
Let’s be clear: this episode’s critique of “pro-life” absolutism is *light-years* ahead of its time. This is 1969. America was still wrestling with The Pill, Roe v. Wade hadn’t happened, and here comes Gene Roddenberry’s crew tackling the moral schizophrenia of a culture that exalts life while systematically denying people the tools to manage it responsibly. You can practically hear the network execs sweating through their suits.

And yet, for all its high-concept guts, the episode gets downright surreal if you think too hard about it. For instance—where exactly did they find the *space* on an overpopulated planet to construct an entire fake Enterprise? Did they evict a few thousand people to make room? How did they keep it secret? Also, how are these people still reproducing? Did everyone suddenly become contortionists? The answer: don’t ask. Just go with it. Suspension of disbelief is the fare you pay for this bus ride through existential dread.
Odona, by the end, doesn’t die. Kirk beams out with her, alive but emotionally scuffed, while the Federation likely files a strongly-worded memo. It’s a haunting episode, not because of any monster or phaser battle, but because it dares to ask a question so few stories ever touch, even today: what happens when the sanctity of life becomes an excuse to abandon reason, compassion, and common sense?

This is *Star Trek* at its best—masking razor-sharp commentary behind technicolor sets and latex foreheads. It may not be the most polished episode, but it’s one of the most daring. And in that final Kirk glare—equal parts horror, rage, and sorrow—you can feel the weight of a future that’s still figuring out how to balance the right to live with the right to choose.