"The Man Trap" captures the essence of the series it starts. Enterprise visits planet M113 to replenish the scientific expedition of Dr. Robert Crater and his wife Nancy. Nancy happens to be Dr. McCoy's old flame and the doctor is astonished to observe she hasn't aged a day despite a dozen intervening years. As noted in a rather ridiculous log entry ("We were totally unaware") however Kirk sees an older Nancy while a lusty and bored security guard sees a voluptuous girl he recalls from several planets away. "Nancy" it seems is capable of projecting illusions into the minds of those who behold her, using this opportunity to isolate crewmembers to lure them to a mottle-faced, freaky salt-sucking doom.

George Clayton Johnson's script (apt original title "The Unreal McCoy") nicely meshes a monster story over a science fiction backdrop. It works quite well as a story and largely fits the larger TOS universe to come, even though the episode scarcely examines any other alternative to the creature than extermination whereas clearly it could have been captured and preserved. (And studied! What kind of telepathic power is required to command multiple projections simultaneously?) Comparing the Salt Vampire with the Horta shows how far and how fast the morality of Star Trek matured early on though as the last of its kind, devoid of its last "friend" after killing Crater, perhaps its death at the hand of Plum is poetic.

The painfully slow, deliberate directing may reflect the production times but also the novel tempo of the material. Alfred Ryder is perfect as Robert Crater, grumpy, dirty, curt and in mood so unexceptionally unattractive it staggers the imagination to wonder how a younger Leonard McCoy could have been considered less commendable. Jeanne Pal is superb as Nancy Crater in all her forms, with subtle characterizations throughout to highlight her performance including her mesmerizing last ditch attack on Kirk.

Fortunately the cast is already full into character, with Kirk's mysteries and bellyaches and snapping appropriately at his lovesick CMO, stoic Spock brimming with logic while delivering a vicious clasped two-handed fist strike on "is that Nancy, Doctor?" (with what must be assumed as lethal Vulcan force). Uhura shows astonishment at the logical First Officer while Sulu and Rand babble badinage over the horrifically low-tech goofiness that is "Beauregard"/"Gertrude." We also get Bruce Watson as creepy crewman Green, and Darnell the first "redshirt" (though not redshirted) to die a grisly alien death in TOS, a species soon to flourish and multiply, unlike the buffalo.