Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 26: The Devil In the Dark [VHS]

There's an emergency on Janus VI, a seemingly uninhabited planet rich in metals and rare minerals crucial to Federation operations. There's a lot of money to be made by the mining contractor involved, but there's a swift-moving, unseen monster roaming the snaky tunnels of Janus's interior, turning miners into acid-drenched goo. Fifty men have died, and it's up to the Enterprise to find the alien culprit and defuse the lynch-mob mentality spreading among the paranoid miners. Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) beam down to initiate the detective work, leading Spock to quickly conclude that the thousands of silicone balls mysteriously strewn about the planet's deepest caves might have something to do with the reasons behind the atrocities. Written by series guru Gene L. Coon and directed by mainstay Joseph Pevney (who alternated directorial chores with Marc Daniels during the show's second season), "The Devil in the Dark" is a breathlessly paced episode reflecting a delightful variety of cross-genre influences--Westerns, creature features, gritty noir. Add one of the most effective and moving instances of the Enterprise's search for new life on Star Trek (plus McCoy's infamous complaint, "I'm a doctor, not a bricklayer"), and this is a memorable program indeed. --Tom Keogh