Music like Archons

"The Return of the Archons" is the twenty-first episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Boris Sobelman (based on a story by Gene Roddenberry), and directed by Joseph Pevney, it first aired on February 9, 1967.

The crew of the Enterprise visit a peaceful planet whose inhabitants are "of the Body" and enjoy a night of violence during "festival".

The episode contains Star Trek's first reference to the Prime Directive.

On stardate 3156.2, the Federation starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner), arrives at the planet Beta III in the C-111 system where the USS Archon was reported lost nearly 100 years earlier. Lt. Sulu (George Takei) is the only member of the landing party who beams up from the planet's surface, and exhibits strange behavior. Kirk beams down with another party to investigate. They find the inhabitants living in a static, 19th-century Earth-style culture, with little or no individual expression or creativity. The entire culture is ruled over by cloaked and cowled "Lawgivers", controlled by a reclusive dictator known as Landru (Charles Macaulay). The landing party has arrived at the start of "Festival", a period of violence, destruction, and sexual aggressiveness which apparently is the only time Landru does not exercise control over the Betan populace.