Do you think Kirk and Spock ever left the ship? The western town and
the villains never physically existed, but what about when they beamed
down and were in the fog?

When I was small I thought this was a terrible ep, but it holds up
well because of Chekhov getting shot and the thing about the nerve
gas. The chemistry between the characters is just perfect - it's why
we've loved the show for so long.

It's not like a good Scotsman to admit it, but I'm not up on Western
lore - weren't the Earps considered heroes by some, and not the other
way around?

In article p25g2000hsf.googlegroups.com>, Richard Fangnail excite.com> wrote:

Actually NO, The Earps basically took over the town thru force and
intimidation. So even though they...

No. That's why when it's all over they are still on the ship and have
yet to approach the planet. The entire episode was a specter of the
mind, uh gun.

In movie/television mythology the Earps are always depicted as the
"good guys." (My Darling Clementine, Gunfight at the OK Corale,
Tombstone, etc). As far as I know, this Star Trek episode is the only
time the Earps are given the role of black hat wearing bad guys.

As far as real history goes -- the Earps were the lawmen. Not good
lawmen by today's standards, but lawmen nonetheless. The Clantons were
murders, cattle rustlers and horse thieves. While there is plenty of
gray shades here, if you want to go black and white, the Earps were
the good guys and the Clantons were the bad guys. But the real
historical point is that the final gunfight was blown up media (yellow
journalism) hype. In the annals of Western history, it was really no
big deal.

On Wed, 23 Jul 2008 07:36:50 -0700 (PDT), Bones yahoo.com> wrote:

You saw this episode very differently than I did. The Earps and Holliday
were still the good guys. Making the Trekkers the Clantons made *them* the
bad guys ..

I agree. They were "good guys" only in the sense that they had our
sympathy. We were rooting for them, which I guess made them sort of
anti-hero heroes.