"The Cloud Minders" takes the serious issue of social stratification to an almost absurd abstraction, separating the literally sky-high "intellectual society" from the cave-dwelling laborers below. This story only makes sense as cast; no serious development could have produce such a split despite the lip service paid to "centuries" of evolution in the script. The occupants of the cloud city Stratos (where are the occupants, anyway?) are kept as free from realistic constraints as they are kept from gravity's pull, sadly sapping efficacy as social commentary.

Any faults in the premise are patched by a superior production however. Rare camera angles pop up throughout the episode, including an extended overhead crane shot near the beginning. These angles make the most of the spartan Stratos set, as the trademark Theissian costume makes the most of Diana Ewing's Droxine (no navel hiding here!). It does have a few rough edges; though the view from the sky city is impressive, the brave but poorly animated plunge of the suicidal troglyte is not. Jeff Corey plays High Advisor Plasus as duly deserving the receiving end of Kirk's "usual diplomatic balm;" unrestrained by the Prime Directive, Kirk has orders to secure the zenite and he rapidly avoids the High Adviser's authority where necessary to fulfill his mission.

And what's with the silly Spock voice-over musing about the superimposed women of Ardana? Then there's the interesting juxtaposition of Spock and Droxine discussing Vulcan mating habits while Kirk all but gives Vanna a direct lesson in the adjacent room. And since when did Spock become chatty regarding his mating habits anyway? Another example of odd Spock behavior is his neglect of the nerve pinch during the troglyte attack. Fortunately Scotty and McCoy make appearances too brief to be odd (including transporters, one with viewscreen one without, suggesting multiple such rooms aboard Enterprise).

The story hints at the difference in violence from reality and theory, but this theme gets neglected behind the plot device of the gas filter. What might have redeemed it better would have been an examination into the methods the non-violent Stratos dwellers would have taken towards the recovery of the zenite. (Maybe that's why David Gerrold backed away from this script, since as it stands it does little except wrap up unrealistically tidy.) How nice that the pie-in-the-sky pacifists are a bunch of ill-tempered (or impossibly pampered) air heads, sharing their planet and heritage with savage cave-dwellers that somehow practice sensitive diplomacy. Ah well, at least there's a scrumptious work of art to look at.