 PLOT: Although this episode eventually cranks up to be one of Star  Treks very best, capped by Captain Kirks immortal declaration "I  wont kill him...you’ll have to get your entertainment somewhere  else!" it almost doesnt make it out of the starting gate due to  several staggeringly huge plot holes. The episode opens with Kirk  and his companions communicating with the Cestus Three outpost  commander, Commodore Travers, after which they beam down to find the  outpost destroyed, and themselves in jeopardy. Problems:  ...Commodore Travers speaks to Kirk in the manner of an old friend,  yet this is soon revealed to be a "faked" communication...faked by  the Gorns, who we later learn have little or no knowledge or  humanity, and cannot approximate our language without lisping and  hissing; the personalized impersonation of Travers seems far beyond  their abilities. ...The Enterprise transports its senior officers  down to what is supposedly an active Federation outpost, without  scanning it to see that it has been destroyed...or even noticing  that the normal subspace communications activity of such an outpost  is totally missing. When helmsman Sulu contacts Kirk to inform him  that the Enterprise is under attack, no one has "taken the con,"  that is, occupied Kirks command chair (and function) in his  absence...though Sulu seems to be in authority (it should have been  Engineer Scott, as established in other episodes) he is still at the  helm...and is ordered by Kirk to fire first his phasers, then his  photon torpedoes...without bothering to aim either!