MY FAVORITE TV WESTERN EPISODES FROM TV SHOWS WHICH AREN'T WESTERNS #1

Here's a theme I'll be running each Monday this month:

MY FAVORITE TV WESTERN EPISODES FROM TV SHOWS WHICH AREN'T TV WESTERNS.

Let's kick it off with one which I think would be pretty popular even among people who don't like TV Westerns....

'STAR TREK'

"SPECTRE OF THE GUN"

From the IMDb:

When the Enterprise trespasses into uncharted territory, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott and Chekov are transported to a location that has all the trappings of the American Old West. It's October 26, 1881, and Kirk soon realizes they are in Tombstone, Arizona, on the day of the famed gunfight at the OK Corral between the Clanton gang and the Earps - with Kirk and company representing the ill-fated Clantons. If history is to be repeated, they will fairly all be killed so must use whatever resources availed to them to defeat the threat and survive. The solution, however - and the only way of escape - lies within them. 

From Wikipedia:

"Spectre of the Gun" (originally titled "The Last Gunfight") is an episode from the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek, first broadcast on October 25, 1968, and repeated on April 4, 1969. The show was the last episode to air on NBC at 10p.m. on Fridays. It is episode #61, production #56, and was written by former producer Gene L. Coon (under the pseudonym of Lee Cronin) and directed by Vincent McEveety.

In the episode, having been found trespassing into Melkotian space, Captain Kirk and members of his crew are sent to die in a re-enactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.

For more of the Wikipedia entry, click here.

From Memory Alpha:

On a mission on behalf of the Federation to establish contact with the reclusive and xenophobic Melkotians, Captain Kirk decides to ignore the message of a space buoy warning the Enterprise to immediately withdraw from Melkotian space and go back the way it came. It speaks this warning in Vulcan, English, Russian, and Swahili, which Spock, Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura hear in their own individual languages. Kirk orders Uhura to further contact the Melkotians, but there is no response to his hails.

When Spock, Kirk, Scott, Doctor McCoy, and Ensign Chekov beam down to Melkot, they materialize in a fog bank not recorded by sensors. Their tricorders and communicators do not function. The landing party encounters a Melkotian. The Melkotian emerges from the fog and tells the Enterprise officers that their warning was plain, they have disregarded it, and will now be punished.

For more of the Memory Alpha entry, click here.

And to kick off this weekly theme for August right, here is a visual comparison of the effects from "Spectre Of The Gun".  On the left is the original version and on the right is from the remastered version when the entire was series was upgraded....

Happy trails!