Star Trek 2x12 "The Deadly Years"

rating: ****

Memory Alpha summary

"The Deadly Years," or the Geriatric Years, or the one where we see a prognostication of seeing all these actors in old age for real.

via TOS Trek Core. Uncanny?

Later in the franchise, old age make-up recurs in every series ("Too Short a Season," "Unnatural Selection" from Next Generation; "Distant Voices" from Deep Space Nine; "Before and After," "Timeless" from Voyager; "Twilight" and "E2" from Enterprise; only "Before and After" and "The Counter-Clock Incident" from The Animated Series feature de-aging; DeForest Kelley gets another treatment in Next Generation's "Encounter at Farpoint").  I think the whole idea is not exactly fantastic, but clearly people in Hollywood love the idea.

This is actually a Romulan episode.  You'll be forgiven for not thinking of it in that way.  Brink of war material. Kirk uses his corbomite gambit again.  Other hallmarks including the first instance of Sulu nearly getting a taste of command (the infamous never-happened moment in The Wrath of Khan being the more famous one, which is what Star Trek Into Darkness draws on, which finally happens in The Undiscovered Country), and Kirk and Spock disagreeing for a moment.  (It passes.)

All said, it's a memorable moment in the series, clearly another gimmick episode but a good one.

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