YMMV / Star Trek S3 E20 "The Way to Eden"

• Anvilicious: Adam literally dies on Eden after eating an apple. And Spock is sure to spell that out for us (although this may have been meant as an example of He Had a Name).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • In the aftermath of incidents like the Manson murders, Dr. Sevrin's actions become a lot more disturbing. He was originally meant as a Timothy Leary Expy, of course, but long before the Manson murders, people clearly had the idea that something like that could happen. Stories about rock- and acid-addled hippies running criminally amok, obeying an insane or evil "guru", were rife. Jimmy Olsen comics even contributed with Hippie Olsen's Hate-In (dated March 1969, it probably hit the stands in early January, seven months before the Manson killings).
  • Furthermore, the plot of hippies' often-failed attempt at colonization in far-off lands (they did very well in Goa and in some places in Ireland, for instance) became a mirror to Jonestown where an entire Commune — not hippies in this case, but devotees from the Peoples Temple of the Disciples of Christ^note The Disciples of Christ is the official name for the familiar First Christian Church, of which the Peoples Temple was an affiliate — began to suffer poor living conditions and harsh discipline by leader Jim Jones. Most of its inhabitants were forced to commit mass suicide at gunpoint under the order of Jones, who had finally gone insane from paranoia in 1978.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • A female hippie gets nowhere trying to seduce Sulu, who has a big grin on his face the whole time, and asks her, "How do you know what I want?" Note that George Takei's co-workers all knew or suspected he was gay by then.
  • Kirk actually gives the order to "engage" in the teaser, in regards to a tractor beam. It's weird hearing that order before Jean-Luc Picard made it famous. ("Engage" was resurrected for TNG from the original pilot, "The Cage," along with Picard calling his first officer Number One.)
  • Charles Napier plays Adam, the one singing all the corny songs and dropping all the alleged hippie slang. Twenty-six years later, Napier would return to Trek — specifically, an episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine — as an army general, as far from a hippie as you can get.
  • Later on, we learn that these aren't the only social outcasts looking for Eden.
  • A world that’s lush, but ultimately deadly to humans? A character saying “I see you” to express understanding? Perhaps they were looking for Pandora instead!
• Narm: Only in season three would we get space hippies. Complete with slang that's either outdated or just awkward. If Adam's songs were any cornier they'd need butter. That said, while much of the hippies' behavior is pretty Narmy, the scene where Spock jams with them might be Narm Charm.
• Special Effects Failure: Except for "the big number" with Spock, Adam's singing is poorly lip synched and recorded on different equipment. Maybe he just naturally has that analog warmth built right into his vocal cords?
• Theiss Titillation Theory: Another rare example where males bare as much flesh as the females. Most of the men may as well be topless and Irina's dress has no back or midsection.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • We learn here that the artificial atmospheres the Federation use (including the one on the Enterprise) are breeding extremely powerful diseases that apparently cannot be cured. Had the infected Villain of the Week been a threat to rival Khan — Sevrin is simply ridiculous — we could have had the crew battle an horrific plague whilst trying to prevent an invader from stealing the ship.
  • Plus, the idea that there would be rebellion against authority even within the supposed Utopian future of the series. The franchise would later revisit this with far more attention with the Maquis, though even then not much was really done with the idea of questioning how perfect the Federation really is.
  • Spock gets along better with the hippies than anyone else, since he identifies so much with outsiders. That's some really effective character insight... and it had to come in this episode!
• Values Dissonance: Aside from the Manson cult mentioned above, in general most people now view the hippies of the episode's time period as harmless if not beneficial — in part because they simply grew up and became the next generation.

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