10 More Classic Star Trek Episodes Based On Real-Life Events

Broadcast on October 27, 1967, this episode gave TOS its first and only Holiday episode. Written by Robert Bloch, of Psycho fame, the story would have been totally justified in playing it for laughs, but instead tries to play it straight, and nearly succeeds.

Exploring an uncharted planet, Kirk makes the mistake of not going down with the first landing party. Naturally, the series regulars disappear, and the walk-on character gets carried off. Kirk, Spock and McCoy go down on the second landing party, as they really should have done in the first place. On the planet, they discover a haunted castle, a giant black cat, a warlock, a witch who threatens to destroy the ship with voodoo, and zombie versions of Scott and Sulu. (Are we sure this wasn't a comedy??)

No, it all comes down to a basically serious back-story about an extra-galactic scouting party casing the Milky Way for future colonization, and aliens who take their imagery from the schlockiest... er, deepest recesses of the human mind. Luckily, the Enterprise crew is dressed for Trick or Treat every day, especially Spock. Kirk resolves the situation by seducing the alien space chick, which wasn’t totally cliched this early in the series.