The Galileo Seven
A shuttlecraft accident leaves Spock and a landing party on a desolate planet. With a primitive tribe in pursuit, he must win the loyalty of illogical humans if they are to survive.
So, Spock's command methods are objectionable . . . what genius sent a little shuttle into a mysterious and volatile quasar in the first place? Stuffed with his entire senior staff? Not a bright move from Kirk. But our captain does step out of the spotlight to let his first officer take charge. As such it's a good character study. The clash between the emotionally distraught officers and their distant commander creates plenty of dramatic moments. The best is the crew begging for "some inspiration" as Spock grapples with his possible errors in judgment and the tribal creatures attack the shuttle. The planet's natives are not convincing, seeming to change size from 8 ft. to 50 in seconds. (Sloppy prop work to blame.) Kirk and the commodore are least interesting, but at least they don't totally give up looking for the their essential officers.
Spock Saves the Day: The Vulcan makes a completely logical decision to jettison the fuel, alerting the Enterprise of the shuttle's presence.
Oops: The number-one rule on away missions: don't let low-ranking officers wander off alone. They will not return.
Developments: The crew shouldn't be so surprised by Spock's final actions, since he's made seemingly-spontaneous leaps before. Indeed, it's not done out of emotion, but intellect working at hyper speed, or what Kirk would call intuition. Spock has the makings of a great commander but does need to work on those "people skills." As a close observer of humans, he should realize that certain behaviors annoy them, and conversely, he should figure out how to win them to side. Though the first officer does slowly learn the subtleties of interaction, McCoy will always be there to provide emotional outbursts. It seems to take the two of them to equal Kirk. In Command provides more details.