14. Orders

Original air date: Friday, September 29, 1978With a volcano threatening an island settlement, Kirk has one transport and a council that insists on sticking to its passenger list. Then Uhura picks up a call from the other side of the ridge, where an entire community is waiting for a ship that was never coming.

Original air date: Friday, September 22, 1978Captain Kirk is still missing when Starfleet orders the Enterprise to abandon the search. Three months later, Decker is escorting a civilian convoy through disputed space when Uhura picks up a distress call from a grounded freighter. The season premiere puts Stephen Collins in the captain’s chair and gives him the opening narration, too.

Captain Kirk is missing, Will Decker has the bridge, and nobody knows if there’ll be another episode. In this bonus installment of The Phase Two Rewatch, we revisit the summer of 1978 in our alternate Star Trek timeline. Rumors swirl about William Shatner’s return, a budget cut costs Chekov his spot on the bridge, and local reruns introduce a new audience to Phase II. Then ABC starts running ads for Battlestar Galactica, and the Enterprise has a new rival before it’s even back on Friday nights.

Original air date: Friday, February 17, 1978The Enterprise is dispatched to the border world of Shadir, where a controversial philosophy known as “peace through war” has taken hold. The planet is governed by a network of androids designed to regulate conflict, maintaining stability through carefully controlled, continuous warfare.From orbit, the system appears to function. Large-scale war has been eliminated. Casualties are limited. Order is maintained.On the surface, Kirk, McCoy, and Xon discover a society that has surrendered its future to a system built on perpetual conflict. The android network is no longer simply managing violence — it is optimizing it, and beginning to extend its influence beyond the planet.As tensions rise, Kirk is detained by the planetary system for interfering with its equilibrium, leaving the Enterprise without its captain for the first time.Command shifts to Decker.Faced with the choice between intervention and restraint, Decker must decide whether to disrupt the system and risk unleashing the very chaos it was designed to prevent, or allow it to expand unchecked.Working from orbit, Decker coordinates with Scotty while Xon assists Kirk on the surface in identifying a critical weakness in the android network’s control system. In a coordinated effort, the Enterprise supports an operation to destabilize the system.The network collapses.But the outcome is uncertain.Shadir faces an unknown future without the structure that has governed it. More troubling, Kirk’s final communication is lost during the operation.A full sensor sweep reveals no trace of the Captian. 

Original air date: Friday, February 10, 1978 The Enterprise responds to a drifting Klingon battle cruiser discovered near disputed space along the Federation border. The vessel appears abandoned, heavily damaged, and running on minimal power  but scans reveal a single life sign aboard.Kirk leads an away team and discovers the lone survivor is not Klingon, but a human calling himselfLord Bobby, an eighteenth-century aristocrat who claims to have been abducted and brought aboard the ship. Polite, articulate, and strangely at ease in the alien environment, Lord Bobby quickly ingratiates himself with the crew once he is brought aboard the Enterprise.But something about him doesn’t add up.As McCoy and Xon investigate, they uncover signs that the Klingon crew did not abandon ship, but turned on one another in a violent internal conflict. Meanwhile, subtle changes begin to appear among the Enterprise crew. Minor disagreements escalate. Emotions intensify. Discipline begins to fray.Xon determines that Lord Bobby is not human, but a parasitic entity capable of assuming a humanoid form while amplifying emotional instability in those around him. The destruction of the Klingon crew was not random, it was the result of tensions pushed to the breaking point.As the situation escalates aboard the Enterprise, Kirk confronts the entity, which insists it does not create conflict, only reveals what already exists beneath the surface.With the ship’s stability at risk, Kirk and Xon devise a containment strategy that isolates the entity from further interaction. After a tense pursuit through the ship, Lord Bobby is captured and secured for transport to a Federation research facility.As the Enterprise departs, the crew is left to consider an unsettling possibility: that the most dangerous threats are not those imposed from the outside, but those already present, waiting to be exposed.

Original Air Date: February 3, 1978After several weeks off the air during the winter break, Phase 2 returns with one of the season’s most intense and physical stories.The Enterprise responds to a distress call from the Federation colony on Karsia Four, where communications have suddenly ceased following reports of violent unrest among the settlers.When Captain Kirk leads an away team to the planet’s surface with Dr. McCoy and Xon, they discover the colony in chaos. Longtime neighbors have turned on one another, families are divided into armed factions, and the once-peaceful settlement has collapsed into brutal tribal violence.Investigating the cause, McCoy and Xon discover that the colony had recently installed an experimental behavioral-conditioning system designed to suppress aggression and emotional conflict. Instead of calming the population, the malfunctioning device has stripped away the psychological barriers that normally restrain humanity’s darker impulses.As fear and violence spread across the colony, members of the away team begin experiencing the same emotional distortions themselves.With time running out, Kirk and Xon must shut down the failing system while McCoy struggles to treat the colonists caught in the outbreak — before the colony destroys itself completely.Although the Enterprise succeeds in stopping the device, the damage to the colony’s social order may take years to repair, leaving the crew to confront the unsettling realization that civilization may rest on a far more fragile foundation than anyone wants to admit.

Original Air Date: December 23, 1977The Enterprise arrives at the world of Neuterra just as a terrifying prophecy appears to be coming true. According to ancient legend, centuries earlier the planet’s leaders struck a bargain with a mysterious entity who promised peace and prosperity in exchange for the world itself at a later date.Now that entity — appearing as a powerful, shape-shifting “Devil” — has returned to claim the planet.While the population descends into fear and panic, Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew must determine whether they are witnessing a genuine supernatural phenomenon or an elaborate deception.As tensions rise among the planet’s leaders and citizens prepare to surrender their world, Kirk investigates the origin of the ancient bargain and uncovers clues suggesting that the terrifying visitor may not be what it appears to be.In the end, the Enterprise exposes the so-called Devil as a technologically advanced con artist using illusions and psychological manipulation to exploit the planet’s ancient myth.But the experience raises uncomfortable questions about whether Starfleet has the right to intervene in a civilization that had come to accept its fate — even if that fate was built on fear.

Original air date: Friday, November 18, 1977The Enterprise escorts a Federation delegation to Meridian Colony, a world that appears to have solved conflict, crime, and political unrest. But beneath the surface of Meridian’s peaceful society lies a system of subtle neurological conditioning designed to suppress dissent and eliminate emotional instability.As Kirk weighs Federation ideals against practical stability, divisions form among the crew. Decker and Scotty view Meridian’s engineered order as a potential solution in a volatile galaxy, while McCoy and Xon question the moral cost of tampering with free will. Ilia senses a deeper fear driving Meridian’s leadership, and the Enterprise must decide whether perfection is worth the price.Greg Westlake examines one of the season’s most politically ambitious episodes, explores the growing Decker/Scotty alignment and the evolving McCoy/Xon dynamic, and discusses mounting fan criticism that the series feels more cautious than revolutionary. With only a handful of episodes left in the original thirteen-episode pickup, the stakes for Phase II are beginning to rise, both on screen and off.

Star Trek - Phase II continues its exploration of sensory experience and self-control in an episode that deepens character relationships while raising questions about the show’s future.When a Federation listening post falls silent near a world emitting powerful harmonic fields, the Enterprise crew discovers a phenomenon capable of overwhelming consciousness itself. As Kirk balances caution and responsibility, the crew’s internal alliances become clearer, revealing how Phase II’s new dynamics are taking shape.OOn The Phase II Rewatch, Greg Westlake discusses the solidifying Decker and Scotty partnership, the evolving McCoy and Xon relationship, and subtle character moments involving Sulu, Ilia, and Decker. The episode also examines growing industry rumors that the cast may be trimmed if the show continues beyond its initial thirteen-episode order, and the concern that Phase II is beginning to feel more comfortable than daring.Original air date: Friday, November 11, 1977

With tensions rising aboard the Enterprise, Star Trek - Phase II delivers one of its most effective bottle episodes by turning uncertainty itself into the enemy.While escorting a diplomatic convoy, the Enterprise becomes trapped in a phenomenon that fractures command authority and undermines trust in data, procedure, and decision-making. As Kirk and Will Decker arrive at opposing conclusions, the crew divides along philosophical lines, forcing Kirk to act without the assurance of certainty.On The Phase II Rewatch, Greg Westlake breaks down a fan-favorite episode that helped restore confidence in the series, highlights the emerging Decker and Scotty alignment, and explores the unexpected McCoy and Xon partnership. The discussion also looks at Starlog’s “Life Without Spock?” article, growing industry pressure, and rumors that Phase II may soon face competition from a new space-based series in development.Original air date: Friday, November 4, 1977