We’re taking our time watching The Original Series and I just saw this episode last week … I was excited to go through the episode expecting to see who the actor would be and see and hear the original Sam Kirk … then they just mention he dies, show the body being rolled over, it’s William Shatner with a moustache for 4 seconds and then that’s it, Sam Kirk just appears for that 4 seconds as a dead person. We were very disappointed but at the time, I guess, no one expected any of it to go beyond what they were creating at that moment.
There are a lot of moments like that, where some character will mention something in an offhand comment, and it will become this huge thing in some other series decades later. 
We’re taking our time watching The Original Series and I just saw this episode last week … I was excited to go through the episode expecting to see who the actor would be and see and hear the original Sam Kirk … then they just mention he dies, show the body being rolled over, it’s William Shatner with a moustache for 4 seconds and then that’s it, Sam Kirk just appears for that 4 seconds as a dead person. We were very disappointed but at the time, I guess, no one expected any of it to go beyond what they were creating at that moment.
There are a lot of moments like that, where some character will mention something in an offhand comment, and it will become this huge thing in some other series decades later.