Kirk gets all sensitive with a tough, hard-bodied alien woman, breaks down her defenses, then outwits a bunch of colored brain blobs who live in one of those handle hockey arcade games. Meanwhile, Spock keeps telling everyone how stupid they are when he correctly tells them they need to travel a long ways to find the Captain.. Lesser fun episode.
The hippie episode. Ironically, the leader of the group was played by Skip Homeier, who guested in Season 2's Patterns of Force as the power-mad rogue Nazi Melacon. But his character here is even more unhinged, going as far as to nefariously sound wave the heck out of the rest of the ship while he and his groovy followers (who kept the crew busy with an extended jam session) sneak out to a supposed "Eden" planet. Sure it's clichéd to hell and back but there are no shortage of goofs which gives the program a certain demented flow.
One of two things happen when I begin to watch The Empath - A) at some point, I get bored and change the channel because I figure I can watch it another time, or B) if I make it to the end, I say to myself - "what was the point?" She was a nice girl, you have no real control over her, and you interrupted three other persons' lives just to prove some stupid point no one cares about.
