Okay, I picked this one because the title and the premise really freaked my knife-scarred clogs off. If it weren't for Shatner and his Kirkified acting, this could easily have been The Twilight Zone. In space. With a hot Vulcan Science Officer. As it is, it's really great birth control.
Kirk, Spock, and Bones beam down to the ubiquitous brown carpet and Westminster Presbyterian Church's castoff scenery from our seventh grade rendition of the parable "A Rock and Hard Place" to investigate the whys and wherefores of a distress call they received from a Federation science station on a planet called "Triacus." See how I'm already making with the Biblical references this early in the episode? That's what two years of confirmation classes where they talked about masturbation being a time to see God will do for you. The Triacus Trio surveys the carnage. Bodies with no visible wounds lie everywhere as the spray-painted balsa wood gently smokes. The away team checks out the bodies, and Kirk notices one of them still moving. "Professor Starnes!" Kirk calls out. Prof. Starnes lurches toward him, clutching a gun, with no sign of recognition on his face. The professor collapses on some fake rocks. Bones scans him: "He's dead, Captain." Kirk comments that he didn't seem to know him. After Kirk takes some sort of box from around the professor's neck, they roll over one of the women. Her face looks bruised and dirty. Kirk takes a vial from her mouth, sniffs it, and hands it over to Bones, who also sniffs it and whispers, "Cyalodin!" "Self-inflicted," Kirk states, and turns on the box he took from the professor. A tiny screen shows that this planet did not have basic cable, and some guy's voice cries out, "We must destroy ourselves. The alien is upon us -- the enemy from within -- the enemy!" Kirk again states that everyone is dead from mass suicide. You know, I don't see anyone with punch mouth, so I'm going to withhold my opinion for now. At this point, the sound of laughing children reaches them. A carpool load of underagers runs happily through the bodies of their parents and stops when they see alive grown-ups. That scene really disturbed me. The tallest kid -- a shoo-in for Huck Finn with red hair and freckles -- asks who Kirk is. Kirk tells him, and Huck Fink introduces himself as "Tommy Starnes," then introduces the rest of Our Gangsters. The one called "Mary" with blond pigtails tugs at Kirk and insists that he play with them. The kids form a ring around Kirk and play "Ring Around the Rosie." Spock, Bones, and Kirk all exchange disquieted looks. I'm with you, dudes. The kids laugh and squeal and continue on with their game. Kirk stands there and looks very upset.