“Metamorphosis”
Written by Gene L. Coon
Directed by Ralph Senensky
Season 2, Episode 9
Production episode:
Original air date: November 10, 1967
Star date: 3219.8
Mission summary
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are escorting Assistant Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford in the shuttlecraft Galileo to the Enterprise for emergency medical care. In the middle of delicate negotiations on Epsilon Canaris III, she contracted Sakuro’s disease, a rare illness that is fatal if left untreated. She’s anxious to get back to prevent a war, but when they’re only four hours away from rendezvous with the ship, scanners pick up a weird cloud in space blocking their way. Hedford whines about the situation, but that has no effect. The cloud sucks the shuttle in and whisks them off course.
The shuttle is deposited in a cave on a small planetoid with an Earth-like atmosphere. Since they didn’t bring any red shirts along for the trip, Kirk sends Dr. McCoy to reconnoiter while Spock examines the shuttle. The dead ship appears to be undamaged. “Nothing wrong and nothing works,” Kirk says. The only explanation is the ionized space cloud that brought them there, which McCoy’s tricorder indicates is now on the planet with them. A moment later they find out that someone else is around: a man calls out “Hello!” and waves to them in the distance. He makes his way over the rocky terrain, as excited as a schoolboy. “Are you real?” he asks. “We’re real enough,” Kirk replies.
The stranger introduces himself as Cochrane, and takes a particular interest in Commissioner Hedford. He immediately sticks his foot in it: “You’re food to a starving man.” But he recovers nicely by hurriedly adding, “All of you.” Cochrane tells them he’s been marooned on the planetoid for a long time—long enough that he’s never heard of the Federation. Yet he recognizes Spock as a Vulcan, and the only thing he finds as interesting as Hedford is their shuttle. Cochrane informs them there’s a dampening field that’s interfering with their ship and invites them over to his place to get to know each other. “I can even offer you a hot bath,” he says to Hedford. “How perceptive of you to notice I needed one,” the diplomat snaps back.
While Spock explains warp technology to Cochrane, McCoy reminds Kirk that Hedford needs to get back to the Enterprise. They compare notes and realize that Cochrane looks familiar to both of them and decide to accept his hospitality. At his house, they examine his collection of antique equipment, which he calls his “instruments.” Hedford begins to develop a fever, the first sign of her illness. Spock spots the cloud creature outside the window and Cochrane plays dumb until Kirk demands an explanation. He reluctantly admits that he calls the cloud “the Companion.” It found him dying of old age in his disabled ship and brought him to its planetoid, where it saved his life and restored his youth. He doesn’t know what it is exactly, but he can at least communicate with it.
McCoy shows some unusual skepticism considering what they’ve seen so far: “That’s a pretty far out story.” Kirk asks Cochrane for his first name, which he gives as Zefram. (No wonder he didn’t mention it earlier; all the kids probably made fun of him in school.)
KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, the discoverer of the space warp?
COCHRANE: That’s right, Captain.
MCCOY: But that’s impossible. Zefram Cochrane died 150 years ago.
SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
KIRK: Isn’t your story a little improbable, Mr. Cochrane?
COCHRANE: No, it’s true. I was eighty-seven years old when I came here.
KIRK: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty-seven?
COCHRANE: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That’s all.
SPOCK: True, his body was never found.
COCHRANE: You’re looking at it, Mr. Spock.
SPOCK: If so, you wear your age very well.
Cochrane explains that the Companion keeps him young and provides everything he needs. Well, almost everything. Hoping it would free him, he complained he would die of loneliness, so it brought their shuttle there to keep him company. Hedford completely flips out:
“No! No! No! That’s disgusting! We’re not animals! No! Oh, no! It’s inhuman! No! No!”
She’s obviously getting worse. McCoy only gives her another few hours to live. He drugs her into silence and makes her lie down. Kirk asks Spock to find him a weapon to use against the Companion. Spock asks if he’s going to kill it, and Kirk immediately gets defensive, stating they will do what it takes to escape and get Hedford some help. Kirk convinces Cochrane to help them by telling him about all the cool stuff that he’s been missing out on:
We’re on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything’s alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven’t begun to map them. Interesting?
Kirk’s play works. Cochrane is bored of immortality, and agrees to help. Outside, by the shuttle, the Companion sneaks up on Spock while he’s running some scans. Spock attempts to touch the creature and it zaps him, shorting out the shuttle’s electronics for good measure.
Cochrane summons the Companion, which appears and surrounds him in its sparkly cloud. McCoy and Kirk discuss the odd symbiotic joining, realizing that it seems like the Companion loves Cochrane. Even so, Cochrane reports that the Companion can do nothing to help Hedford, sealing her fate. McCoy finds the electrocuted Spock outside of the shuttle. Spock now has firsthand knowledge that the creature is largely electrical, which the doctor concludes means it can be shorted out.
Spock puts this information to good use and develops a device that will “scramble every electrical impulse the creature can produce” with the flick of a switch. Cochrane’s unhappy at the prospect of betraying the Companion and potentially killing it, but they peer pressure him into luring it into their trap. When he summons it back, it surrounds him as before and Spock switches his device on.
The creature zaps Cochrane unconscious and comes for them in the house. It destroy’s Spock’s toy and starts choking Kirk and Spock while McCoy desperately begs it to stop. Cochrane recovers and calls off the cloud. Kirk despairs, blaming himself for their predicament and convinced there’s no way to fight such a powerful being. McCoy chides him, “Maybe you’re a soldier so often that you forget you’re also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?” Struck by the novelty of talking to a new life form instead of killing it, Kirk orders Spock to adapt the Galileo’s universal translator to communicate with the amorphous creature. Meanwhile, Hedford’s condition worsens, and on the Enterprise, Chief Engineer Scott launches a search for the missing shuttlecraft.
Cochrane calls the Companion again and they try out the translator. It works! The Companion speaks to them in a female voice, surprised that the device is communicating her thoughts to them. Spock says, “The matter of gender could change the entire situation.” Kirk agrees, assigning her the role of lover instead of pet owner or zookeeper. At least this explains why the Companion seems to be made entirely out of soft focus.
Kirk uses his best computer-destroying logic on the Companion, insisting that humans need freedom, and telling her that Hedford will die if they don’t leave. The Companion doesn’t fall for it:
Your impulses are illogical. This communication is useless. The man must continue. Therefore, you will continue. It is necessary.
Then she takes off. Cochrane’s confused by the Companion’s female voice, and they break the news that she views him as a lover. “I’m a what?” he says. He’s completely disgusted by the way the creature has used him, and even more disturbed when McCoy reassures him with, “You get used to those things.”
SPOCK: Your highly emotional reaction is most illogical. Your relationship with the Companion has for one hundred and fifty years been emotionally satisfying, eminently practical, and totally harmless. It may indeed have been quite beneficial.
COCHRANE: Is this what the future holds? Men who have no notion of decency or morality? Maybe I’m a hundred and fifty years out of style, but I’m not going to be fodder for any inhuman monster.
SPOCK: Fascinating. A totally parochial attitude.
Cochrane goes out for some air and Hedford marvels that he’s upset at being loved. Maybe it’s the drugs or the fever, but she weeps:
No. I don’t want to die. I’ve been good at my job, but I’ve never been loved. Never. What kind of life is that? Not to be loved, never to have shown love? And he runs away from love.
Kirk tries to convince the Companion again, this time explaining that humans need obstacles to overcome, but that she removes all of them. When this fails to sway her, he tells her that she can never love Cochrane because she isn’t human. He’s a man, she’s a cloud, it’ll never work out. “If I were human, there can be love?” she asks. Hmmm.
MCCOY: What did you hope to gain by that, Jim?
KIRK: Try to convince her of the hopelessness of it. Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice. I thought maybe if she loved him, she’d let him go.
So much for that. But just as it seems there’s no hope, Hedford appears at the door, remarkably healthy. “Zefram Cochrane,” she says. This time he’s swifter on the uptake, instantly understanding that the Companion now shares Hedford’s body, which is now stronger than ever. She joined with her just before Hedford would have died. The new symbiotic being approaches Cochrane and he steps back in fear. She understands now, too:
Zefram, we frighten you. We’ve never frightened you before. Loneliness. This is loneliness. Oh, what a bitter thing. Oh, Zefram, it’s so sad. How do you bear it, this loneliness?
Now that the Companion is in a beautiful female body, she doesn’t seem so bad. She tells them that they’re free, that she can’t stop them from leaving now that she’s human. She has given up her power and her immortality to be with Cochrane. They go for a walk together, holding hands, while Spock checks out the shuttle and Kirk contacts the Enterprise, which is still searching for them.
Cochrane excitedly tells the Companion/Nancy about all the planets they’ll visit, but she reveals that she can’t leave her planetoid for long, because her life is linked to it. Faced with abandoning her for his freedom, he suddenly understands that she loves him. He decides to stay, and they kiss.
He breaks the news to Kirk, who tries to tempt him with all the honors waiting for him in the galaxy. But he’d rather stay there and grow old and die with the woman he loves. “That’s been happening to men and women for a long time. I’ve got the feeling it’s one of the pleasanter things about being human, as long as you grow old together.” Kirk wishes him luck with that and promises not to tell anyone about discovering Cochrane alive. When McCoy reminds him about the war on Epsilon Canaris III, the captain flippantly responds, “Well, I’m sure the Federation can find another woman somewhere who’ll stop that war.”
Analysis
We’ve seen this all before. “Metamorphosis” engages with themes popular in Star Trek: loneliness, love, alien contact, responsibility, immortality, humanity, and a sense of wonder for the unknown. Kirk almost repeats himself verbatim from “This Side of Paradise” when he says that man needs obstacles to overcome, and once again immortality is portrayed as boring, at least without companionship. It isn’t surprising that a show about space travel would revisit these ideas over and over again, but I think this episode brings them all together in a way we haven’t seen before, and does so more successfully than any of its predecessors. Moreover, because these ideas have been explored previously, it allows the story to focus on other things, like character, instead of becoming all about eternal youth or first contact.
If there’s one aspect of the episode that could have been handled better, it’s Nancy Hedford. As with many Star Trek plots, “Metamorphosis” ultimately fails to fully develop the female guest star of the week. Hedford primarily serves as a problem to solve and a ticking clock—they must get her back to the Enterprise before she dies. She’s a relatively strong female at least, as she’s responsible for mediating a planetary dispute that could lead to war (though there’s something dismissive about Kirk’s comment that they can just find another woman to do it for her, unless I’m misreading him). This time, it seems more like a failure to give her an actual personality and allow us to care about her, so we feel some sympathy for her loveless life and loss when she merges with the Companion. Unfortunately, as strong as she must be, she’s also shrewish and whiney, and is only a sexual object to Cochrane. She spends most of the episode feverish and unconscious, which is kind of a relief since she is so annoying. (Though I do love how she keeps referring to “The Starfleet”.) The fact that she complains about following her career but wishes someone had loved her is moving, but stereotyped. It’s also pretty damned convenient, as it turns out, though I wonder how predictable the fusion with the Companion was for those who watched this for the first time.
We do have a second strong female character: the Companion. She is supremely powerful, but slavishly devoted to Cochrane and also yearns for love, though she doesn’t know it until she has a human body to process the emotions. My jaw practically dropped when Spock said “the matter of gender could change the entire situation,” and Kirk later claimed, with no one arguing otherwise, that “the idea of male and female are universal constants.” This seems a little too simplistic, even for the sixties. I’m also a little troubled by the symbiotic union between Cochrane and Hedford. Since we don’t have a better sense of Hedford’s personality, it’s hard to tell, but it sure seems like the Companion completely subsumes her, providing the mind to her body. That’s pretty screwed up, isn’t it?
Another trope of Star Trek is Kirk wanting to kill a strange new lifeform while Spock wants to study it. It happens so often, I propose a new term for it: “Spock-blocking.” It’s unfortunate that first contact often coincides with a threat to their lives, but it’s strange for a compassionate explorer like Kirk to choose murder so easily, and I’m glad that McCoy calls him on it this time. Despite his reputation as a diplomat, Kirk is definitely a military man first and an explorer second.
This episode is probably most notable because it provides some background into the development of the warp drive, inspiring the plot of Star Trek: First Contact, in which the Borg travel back into Earth’s past to prevent Zefram Cochrane from launching the first warp-capable ship. James Cromwell’s portrayal of Cochrane as an embittered man pushed to greatness strays so much from Glenn Corbet’s naive and wistful performance, they’re like entirely different characters. In a sense, they are, as we only see him in the moments before and after his great discovery. It isn’t hard to see the man from the movie disappearing to die in space and choosing to hide from those who would honor him. It seems odd that Kirk and McCoy didn’t recognize him sooner, though perhaps it’s understandable in the seemingly impossible context of his youthful appearance.
This episode has many interesting moments: Kirk napping in the shuttle, betraying a rare moment of public weakness; the first real explanation of how the universal translator works, even if it doesn’t make any sense; and Scott’s calm handling of the search and rescue, even in the face of Uhura’s irksome pessimism. There’s a beautiful scene where the Companion in Hedford’s body holds up her scarf and views Cochrane through it, simulating the way she’s always seen him through her electrical cloud.
And there are minor problems of course. How does Spock’s device work when there’s apparently a dampening field on the planet? We also haven’t avoided the inevitable religious implications, with the Companion’s veiled reference to God as “the maker of all things” (unless she’s referring to Roddenberry) and Cochrane talks about planting a fig tree, which sounds suspiciously like yet another reference to the Garden of Eden. McCoy once again exercises his poor bedside manner when he tells Kirk that Hedford only has a matter of hours to live, well within earshot of his patient. I found Cochrane slightly hypocritical, since he’s disgusted by the Companion’s feelings for him until it’s in a female human body, suggesting that he’s not lonely so much as he’s interested in sex.
But overall, I thought this was a thoughtful story, with realistic, human reactions to first contact with a new species and a difficult, high-pressure situation. My rating is high because I’m not deducting for the fact that the episode covers well-traveled ground; this is the best exploration of the complexities of love and companionship in the series so far.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 5 (on a scale of 1-6)
Torie Atkinson: I don’t know that I can write anything coherent now that I’ve got “Spock-blocking” in my vocabulary.
Eugene touched on most of the points I had, particularly the problematic gender politics of this episode. We finally meet an interesting, powerful, otherworldly female alien, and she turns out to be desperate for love. Great. I assumed that this would be another salt vampire episode, with the Companion dying tragically in the end, so it certainly surprised me with the body possession thing (and she’s still better than a Pah-wraith). I think Hedford got the short end of the stick here, though—if she has any desires or opinions they’re entirely subsumed by the Companion’s. (I know there’s some question of how much of Hedford is left at the end, and I’m inclined to believe none. The Companion, when in her body, claims to discover loneliness for the first time. If we’re to believe Hedford’s deathbed regret, it’s that she knew loneliness very well indeed.)
Unlike Eugene, I was very disappointed with this episode, mostly because of Cochrane. He was an entirely tepid, milquetoast character: a total non-entity. Every scene he entered felt drained by his vacuous presence. I’m certainly spoiled by the delightful James Cromwell in his turn as a very different Cochrane, but this guy was a big yawn for me. What has he been doing for a hundred and fifty years? Decorating his shack, it looks like. He supposedly discovered warp and yet has no aspirations, no yearning for science or discovery, no desires, no curiosity, no passion. He’s a great hero of history, a legend, but when we finally meet him he’s the anti-human, content with being idle and unchallenged for centuries.
Kirk claims men can’t live without challenges or obstacles, and yet here’s Cochrane, living proof that Roddenberry’s moral truth is a lie. So which is it? If we’re to believe Kirk, Cochrane should be miserable, despondent, desperate for escape, feeling inhuman and monstrous by the lack of stimuli. “We’re not animals!” Hedford screams. But he seems fine, I guess. He doesn’t leap at the chance to leave the planet, and is only briefly filled with a sense of wonder at the one hundred and fifty years that have passed. Are you serious? I fondly remember James Doohan’s turn in Next Generation, where Scotty has been trapped in a Dyson sphere for seventy-five years and is reconstituted by Geordi La Forge. The two talk excitedly of the technology that has developed in all that time. He wants to know what the future is like—a sentiment shared only briefly, and extremely mildly, by Cochrane.
And yet this passionless dead fish is suddenly filled with the warmth of love at the end? I don’t buy it, and it didn’t work at all for me. I was also baffled by his mysterious change of heart when he learns the creature is female. Suddenly it’s “used” him? Used him for what? If it had been male how would that have been different?
Luckily, the Second Shift Show starring Scotty and Uhura was a delight, and helped tide me over through the boring Cochrane scenes.
Torie’s Rating: Warp Factor 3
Best Line: Spock: “A most fascinating thing happened. Apparently, the Companion imparted to me a rather quaint, old-fashioned electric shock of respectable voltage.”
Syndication Edits: The middle section of Cochrane approaching the Galileo; Hedford snapping at Cochrane about needing a bath and Kirk asking more questions; McCoy’s examination of Hedford and prognosis, along with more of her complaining and Kirk’s questioning; Cochrane explains how he summons the Companion; McCoy begging the Companion to stop choking Kirk and Spock; Scotty’s log entry and the scanners losing the Galileo’s trail; Kirk and the others return to Cochrane’s house after attempting to contact the Companion before Cochrane rejoins them.
Trivia: The sparkling effects accompanying the Enterprise’s phasers in “The Apple” originated with this episode and will be seen again in “Obsession.” The patterns on Hedford’s scarf were intended to mimic the Companion’s energy field; the scarf itself was also used to disguise a drooping neckline since actress Elinor Donahue lost weight over the course of production, according to her foreword to a Bantam foto-novel adaptation of this episode. In the first draft of the script, Scotty was in the shuttle Edison with Kirk, McCoy, Spock, and Hedford, and gets zapped instead of Spock. The head-on shot of the Enterprise is unique to this episode. Actress Elizabeth Rogers provided the voice of the Companion, and appears twice onscreen as the non-Uhura communications officer, Lt. Palmer. Footage of the Galileo in space is recycled from “The Galileo Seven,” which explains why the ship is still in use, although a photo still reveals unused effects shots with a shuttle named Galileo II.
Other notes: Cochrane reappears in Star Trek: First Contact and his voice is featured in the Enterprise pilot episode, “Broken Bow,” both played by James Cromwell. There is a sequel comic to this episode titled “A Warp in Space” (written by George Kashdan with art by Alden McWilliams), issue #49 of Star Trek from Gold Key Comics.
Next episode: Season 2, Episode 10 – “Journey to Babel.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.
Check the Star Trek Re-Watch Index for a complete list of posts in this series.
Eugene Myers is finally getting his new computer this week. If you never hear from him again, look for him in Star Trek Online, and send help.
Torie Atkinson must find a way to incorporate “Spock-blocking” into daily conversation. Suggestions welcome.
“Fig tree” is a Biblical reference, but not to the Garden of Eden; a common expression for peaceful times in the Old Testament is “every man with his own vine and fig tree”, i.e. living on your own land in peace and quiet.
(That would be an interesting conversation for future novels: how many references to things commonly understood in the 60s go right over the heads of modern audiences? And I’m not just talking about polyester and miniskirts.)
Totally in agreement with Torie on this one, I’m afraid. I’ve always been lukewarm about this episode, but never really sat down to figure out what I disliked about it specifically.
I think, even as a kid, the whole male/female ‘universal constant’ thing struck me as odd, as did Cochrane’s attitude toward inter-species relationships and Hedford’s bizarre outburst when they learn what the Companion has in store for them (though I suppose Hedford could be excused on account of her illness).
I think Kirk struck me as a bit too willing to shoot first and ask questions later, though I suppose he does this in ‘The Devil in the Dark’ and ‘The Man Trap’ as well. Certainly in ‘Errand of Mercy’ he points out that he’s ‘a soldier, not a diplomat’. So I guess all that touchy-feely training that Picard must have received wasn’t standard curriculum at the Academy yet.
McCoy’s cries for mercy to the Companion, who’s busy choking the life out of the two aliens who just tried to murder her, seem a bit unreasonable to me. What’s he expect? Lucky for them, she’s more interested in Cochrane than in revenge.
One thing I wonder about is that Cochrane, with his youthful virility restored, must have been doing a fair bit of wanking over a century and a half. Did the Companion notice? Did she get any ideas? Telepathically impart any fantasies? She really had to wait for the Feds to show up with a universal translator and a dying female diplomat to be able to communicate with this guy? Hm.
And, yes, he seems pretty happy to give up the whole idea of getting off the planet and exploring the galaxy once he feasts his eyes on Hedford Redux. That seemed a bit too easy; not a lot of soul-searching going on there.
Torie mentions that the Uhura/Scotty show was the best part of the episode, and she’s right. In particular the one line from Uhura, ‘It’s a big galaxy, Mr Scott’, delivered in a mimicked Scotty accent, is brilliant.
Otherwise, a pretty meh episode that, in addition to failing to develop the Hedford character into anything really interesting (unlike, say, the Ambassador Fox character in ‘A Taste of Armageddon’) missed the chance to really delve into the early history of the Federation, the wonder of warp drive, the desire to escape fame and humanity and to die alone — all the things that would have made Cochrane an interesting character instead of a cipher.
Before anyone decides to comment on Torie’s reference to Pah-wraiths, please be careful not to spoil her on DS9! Try to restrict those discussions only to “The Assignment” or tag it as a spoiler. Thanks!
As for Cochrane, I think he seems pretty interested in the Galileo, and Kirk re-ignites his curiosity in the stars, but to his credit, he does owe the Companion his life, they’ve been together for a long time, and he hasn’t seen a woman in a long time. His love is sudden and a bit suspect, but you can travel the whole universe and not find someone to love. And he’s still not that enthusiastic about people learning he’s alive. All in all, I don’t think his decision is that surprising.
spock-blocking. roflmao
@@@@@ 1 tonyz
You can add to that list “Judas goat” and “catspaw,” both of which I had to look up after watching ST.
@@@@@ 2 NomadUK
I wrote off Hedford’s outburst as madness brought on by the disease.
Kirk’s trigger-happiness doesn’t surprise me anymore, but it’s still disappointing. But remember that Picard wasn’t always the loveable hippy he is in the show! Recall the famous “PLAY DOM-JOT YOOMAN!”
Re: McCoy, he was utterly wasted in this episode. I wonder why the entity didn’t attack him?
Re, er, virility: the Companion probably just thought he was performing maintenance.
I am so with you on that last paragraph. Can you imagine how great it could have been if we had gotten that insight into Cochrane? Maybe I am just spoiled by James Cromwell.
I take exception to the use of the word “murder”; although relatively benign, the Companion is still a jailer and should expect that sort of thing.
The Companion herself- how could she keep Hedford’s body working when she couldn’t repair it? Perhaps she saw an opportunity and took it.
And that would count as murder- normally, witholding life-saving help is reprehensible but not illegal, but she kidnapped the
Ambassador, preventing her medical cure.
And lastly, what is up with shuttle spacedrive? It almost has to be FTL, but was short ranged in Court-Martial. It bugs me on an almost subconscious level.
Otherwise, I liked the episode maybe 4 stars’ worth.
And where is that Picard outburst from @5?
@sps49 #6 — that was actually from a Nausikaan, talking to a fresh-out-of-the-Academy, cocky-and-hair-intact Ensign Picard. The TNG episode is “Tapestry.”
I’d question if “jailer” is appropriate, though; that would require an understanding of humanity that we’re supposed to believe she lacks.
@Torie #5, “Maybe I am just spoiled by James Cromwell” — I think it’s more that the opportunity is spoiled by the script. Corbet didn’t exactly bring the world to the role, but one gets the feeling that the Gene Coon just kind of phoned this one in; Kirk’s repeating the same speeches with the same point, even while they don’t make any sense given the context, and come across just as transparently irrelevant platitudes. There’s not a whole lot of solid inter-character association among the three (they don’t even seem to form the usual Emotional Spectrum Trinity), and Bones in particular is underutilized. Ultimately it’s Kirk taking the opportunity to preach, rather than characters that really talk to each other, and I don’t think anyone really gave much thought to Cochrane’s situation & circumstances beyond as a setup for the plot elements that were supposed to unfold. & I think that’s why the Scotty-Uhura show reads as so much better: the characters are actually interacting and demonstrating their personalities by doing what they’d do, Scotty with his stubborn methodical doggedness, and Uhura questioning and playful. And they actually talk to each other.
None of the flaws in the A-plot are fatal; they just detract from a scenario that had a lot of unrealized potential. Ultimately the episode to me felt more like a parable than a story — the emphasis was on The Point, which wasn’t anything new and was applied a little too directly, while the nature of the characters involved was kind of secondary.
ecmeyers@3: you can travel the whole universe and not find someone to love
Now, that’s true, and would make a great Star Trek line in itself. I wish they’d used it in this episode.
torie@5: Re: ‘catspaw’, ‘judas goat’, ‘fig tree’: The loss of our culture due to lack of education in the classics is depressing; I don’t exempt myself, as I fully acknowledge that my education in this regard was abysmal.
Here’s a game — hell, make it a drinking game: Tell whether or not a given episode title (TOS only, I’m afraid, as the newer series pretty much abandoned any literary pretensions) has a literary, historical, or cultural reference and, if so, name it.
Re: McCoy, yes, why does he get a pass? Maybe she figures if she only kills the other two, there’ll still be one human left to provide additional companionship for The Man.
Re: James Cromwell: It’s hard not to get spoiled by James Cromwell, as I don’t think I’ve ever seen him do work that was less than really good (even when, as with Star Trek: First Contact, I didn’t care for the film). And putting the competent but workmanlike Glenn Corbet up against him — well, it’s just no contest.
By the way, like your new picture!
deepthought@7: Interesting perception about Gene Coon and the script quality. Maybe you’re right; I don’t know. This is, though, one of those second-season episodes that feels to me much more like a third-season, Fred Freiberger job. Interesting how uneven the episodes are over the course of a season. Examining the production order (as opposed to the air date order) lends no clues: ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’, ‘Operation: Annihilate!’, ‘Catspaw’, ‘Metamorphosis’, ‘Friday’s Child’, ‘Who Mourns for Adonais?’, ‘Amok Time’. So we have two utterly brilliant episodes sandwiching a few mediocre ones (though ‘Friday’s Child’ is certainly fun). It’s all down to script quality and direction, and presumably these were the best scripts, so there must have been some really bad ones rejected.
One last thing: What’s that ungainly thing on the right breast of Cochrane’s shirt? Are chest insignia de rigueur fashion items in the 23rd century, as corporate logos on shirts are now? One could do an entire article on the utter lack of imagination shown in designing emblems for the other ships of the Starfleet; no wonder they pitched them all and just kept the one for Enterprise.
Like NomadUK, my reaction to this episode has always been meh. Nothing really works for me: the motivations, the acting, the characters, any of it. Cochrane should have been utterly insane after 150 years of total isolation. He must have read every book in his ship’s computer a thousand times, he’s had no one to really talk to, no mental stimulation. At least it explains why he’s slightly less emotional than Spock.
And Ambassador MacGuffin doesn’t really provide much either. She’s a stereotypical 60s career woman: cold, bitchy, zero personal life. Her only real function in the whole thing is to provide a vessel for the Companion at the end.
This was always one of those episodes that I might or might not leave on if it came on. And it was never more than background noise while I did something else. Meh, meh, meh.
@@@@@ 8 NomadUK
Lack of education in the classics? I’m not following here, and not just because I was nearly a Classics major. “Catspaw” dates to the 18th century, the fig tree reference is Biblical, and I can’t find a single citation for the origins of Judas goat but it seems to relate to relatively modern agricultural practices (and WWII).
TNG and DS9 actually had a ton of literary/historical references, and not just in the titles. Granted, there’s not all great. There’s a really terrible DS9 episode that beats you unconscious with Les Miserables. Eugene and I were just discussing last week how much TNG played with Shakespeare (too many to name!), Moby Dick (First Contact, for sure), and others. Voyager I’m not as familiar with, as I’ve never gone back to re-watch it, and Enterprise I never saw, aside from the pilot.
Re: chest insignia, maybe they were Gilbert and Sullivan fans? (Oh man, can you imagine how fantastic a G&S ST episode would’ve been?)
@@@@@ 9 DemetriosX
Glad I’m not the only one!
torie@10: Lack of education in the classics?
Hm. Poorly phrased, I guess. But how does one describe the cultural vocabulary that allows one to recognise such terms, which the script writers clearly thought were commonplace enough that a typical viewer would understand them? This wasn’t that long ago, after all; what’s been lost in the meantime?
Regarding TNG, DS9, et al., and the classics, I bow to your superior familiarity; I just never have watched those series closely enough to see all these references.
But I meant the episode titles themselves, which I think in TOS were a bit more of that nature than were those in other ST series. Still think it would make a great drinking game.
I think they could have slipped some serious Gilbert & Sullivan into I, Mudd.
Wow, I would have thought the term Judas goat was a lot older and I could have sworn that cat’s paw was Shakespearean.
I think they did some G&S stuff with TNG, either in an episode or two or in a movie. For some reason I connect Worf with it.
At least next week we’ll have something to talk about.
@@@@@ 11 NomadUK
Fair enough. TNG did it more often in the plots than the titles. For the latter there are only a handful: “Where Silence Has Lease” (from a Robert Service poem), “Who Watches the Watchers” (Juvenal), “I, Borg” (Asimov), and that’s all I can think of now.
TOS has some absolutely fantastic titles. It also had a lot more established SF authors writing, though, so that may explain it.
@@@@@ 12 DemetriosX
Patrick Stewart is actually an excellent singer and would’ve done a fantastic job in a light opera version of Star Trek… but I digress. :)
I don’t recall the episode you’re talking about, but it’d probably be Worf, as they relied on him for comic relief a bit too much.
@@@@@ 12 DemetriosX
You’re thinking of Star Trek: Insurrection, where Data, Picard, and Worf sing something from HMS Pinafore.
Memory Alpha just reminded me that Dr. Crusher arranged a production of The Pirates of Penzance in “Disaster”.
@@@@@ 13 Torie
Glancing at an episode list, TNG also had “Elementary, Dear Data”, “All Good Things…”, “Thine Own Self”, “Sub Rosa” (Latin!), “A Fistful of Datas”, “Time’s Arrow”, and probably some others.
I think Eugene has it @14. I think in my head I had merged that bit with Worf’s promotion hazing in Generations. Worf was, unfortunately, good comic relief, so he got laughed at the way Scotty, O’Brien, and Harry Kim got the crap beat out of them. I’m sensing a trend.
DS9 also had its references: Through the Looking Glass, The Die is Cast, Hippocratic Oath, Let He Who is Without Sin…, as well as a lot of pop culture references (often involving Vic Fontaine) and wordplay (often an indication of a Ferengi story).
I have clearly been unfair to TNG and DS9 regarding the quality of their episode titles! Almost makes it worth going back and watching the repeats….
@@@@@ 17 NomadUK
I would say that most of the DS9 episode titles were pretty bland, often only one word and not very descriptive or evocative. Perhaps a study of the better episodes will reveal that they also have the more interesting titles…
@NomadUK #11:
But how does one describe the cultural vocabulary that allows one to recognise such terms, which the script writers clearly thought were commonplace enough that a typical viewer would understand them? This wasn’t that long ago, after all; what’s been lost in the meantime?
Fair enough; but I think this is just an issue of language changing. Of the three cited examples, one is a legitimate reference (to the Bible, which is a less culturally all-important document these days than even the ’60s); two are just expressions. Expressions come and go as language changes. We wouldn’t recognize 1920s gangster slang or Napoleonic-era naval cant, and expressions that have fallen out of use turn up all the time in works as recent as Dickens or Hardy; to worry about it too much is like worrying that we don’t speak Elizabethan English — something is being lost from everyday use, but it is well-documented and likely to be preserved as at least available for access. Beyond that preservation, there’s not much we can do; the alternative is to define the peak of cultural literacy as whatever we ourselves are most familiar with, and I don’t think that’s viable.
To tie this back to Trek, one of the things that bothers me (but is inevitable) about a character drama in a sci-fi setting is that the language is always dated, the characters too much a product of our time. There’s no way to avoid a spaceman from a 1960s show talking about 1960s common knowledge, but it makes the work dated later on; and the TNG characters’ obsession with twentieth-century Earth and its concerns is a little disingenuous. There are so many cultures (nominally) in ST; why didn’t they ever talk about their great artistic achievements? Geez, we never even see anybody talk about non-European Earth culture! TNG at least made a nod to this with the “Ancient West” episodes, acknowledging that it would’ve been more than “Old” by then, but even so, you see Crusher and Troi in aerobics warmup gear and it’s just so obviously a product of a specific late-80s cultural moment that it takes you out of the setting…
DeepThought@21: You’re probably largely right about expressions and so on, but, on the other hand, Shakespeare coined any number of expressions that are still in use today, so I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect educated people to recognise more of them than they do.
And I agree with you about the curious way 20th-century Earth keeps affecting the 23rd-century Federation. Who knew we were so important?
At least in ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’, Kirk does make a passing reference to the idea that they could well have ended up in Outer Mongolia instead of a Paramount back lot set up as 1930s Anycity, USA — as if! I think that’s about the only time that sort of observation is made, though.
Anyway, all the time Americans and Nazis. How about an episode where McCoy goes back and keeps the British Empire from falling? Or the Persians?
Cochrane’s reasons for leaving his life for space and ending on this planetoid are well explored in the novel “Federation”. Great novel, unfortunately fairly contradicted by the later-produced Star Trek: First Contact.
Hats off to you people for liking this episode — whatever its flaws I have always found it extremely touching. In fact even after having watched it countless times, it is virtually impossible for me not to sit through it without shedding a tear, so emotional do I become. Data Logan — I haven’t read “Federation” yet but absolutely hated the movie “First Contact” — it turned Cochrane into some type of cynical jerk totally out of character with the warm person we remember, and when the crew went on a mad Borg-killing spree, well, what happened to the prime directive anyway? I was almost starting to root for the Borg.
I have to agree…. just getting into the original series and this episode irked me like crazy…
Cochrane is like, this hyper-famous hyper-inventor, almost a god-like figure in the trek universe, infamous presumably for his intellect and creativity…. and I was waiting for the reveal that he had brain damage or was suffering some kind of hypnosis from the Companion…
He’s boring, uncreative and seems a bit dense actually…strangely not THAT exited for seeing other human beings after 150 years….he’s like, “gawrsh, good to see you fellas! m’am…” Wouldn’t this guy understand Kirk’s motivations better? Be a little more helpful? It was so strange and frustrating to watch….again, MAYBE if it was just some random guy…. but this is like, one of most famous mythical genius in star trek lore…
He’s surprised that love is involved? I think after 150 years he would be like…”um…. yeah…. so me and the Companion, we definitely have a thing going on. The Companion….can DO things…. quite…shocking things…. it’s….complicated.” After 150 years, you aren’t typically unsure about the nature of a relationship. Maybe a few months in, you could deny your feelings…..but after 150 YEARS? Three lifetimes? You’d be pretty accepting I would guess…. I would have rather seen him struggle with communicating that to the crew, finding out the depth and character such a long, interesting, unique relationship must have had…. especially with a creative genuis like Cochrane….
But here was my biggest problem with this episode: the treatment of Hedford character. Um…. she DIED. Like, that totally sucks…. I was hoping the whole episode she would make it back…. I’m not sure why, but I was rooting for her… and the episode treated the ending as this happy, sweet ending but…. SHE DIED basically and was left on the planet…. I dunno. Seemed sad and disapointing to me…. and she was trying to help people, too…. I kind of liked her. They seemed happy with the way things worked out, but imagine the questions later… “Wait, you guys just LEFT her there? Are you sure she was stuck and not being controlled and influenced by the Companion? But…. her family…. the hundreds of people depending on her….. she loved her career, and she wants to stay on a small weird planet? Guys we have to go back, she’s clearly under hypnosis by this energy being who tried to kill you and stuff…”
Anyway. These are the kinds of issues that make TOS hard for me…. I like the injection of realism with the later series. BUT I will keep moving forward and give TOS the benefit of the doubt… most episodes have been pretty trippy and rad… but this one made me just go, “wh….what?”
@@@@@#25 Starfoxsixty4: You make some interesting points about Cochrane but as far as Nancy is concerned, I feel that you are totally missing the main point of the whole episode. Nancy did not die, but rather her life force entered into a symbiotic partnership with the Companion. Considering the fact that she was seriously ill and would have otherwise died anyway, this was a win-win solution for everyone. Her life was saved and she and Cochrane (who had both been lonely) were able to experience love together, and even the Companion, in partnership with her, was finally able to be with Cochrane as well. What’s not to like here? A win-win for all 3 — Nancy, Cochrane and the Companion. Maybe it seemed a little weird that Nancy and the Companion had to be combined so to speak, but all 3 of them seemed so damned happy in the end that one couldn’t help thinking it was all for the best. :-)
@@@@@#25 Starfoxsixty4: I must concede your point that they had a real problem on their hands as far as how to explain what happened to Nancy (unless they told the truth, which they obviously could not do). For some odd reason I never thought about this, and it really is a very interesting point to ponder.
The treatment of the character Nancy in this episode made me crazy. As well pointed out by Torie, the ‘combined’ Nancy-gas creature seemingly discovers loneliness for the first time near the end, when Nancy had already expressed that emotion while suffering her illness earlier in the episode. This implies either the creature had filled taken Nancy’s body and it was an empty vessel (akin to murdering her), or is a stupid oversight from the writer. Also the fact that she can’t leave anyway after being subsumed just rubbed salt on the wound.
Additionally I see the defence of this arrangement/‘symbiosis’ that oh Nancy was going to die anyway….but she was only dying because the gas creature wouldn’t let them leave and thus allow her proper medical treatment. This certainly justifies Kirk and crews aggressive actions.
While going through the original series the main deficits in writing and ultimately main problem with these older episodes is very often the characterisation of the women characters. This is probably the most egregious one yet.
Definitely my least favourite episode because of that ending. Just the bizarre way Kirk and the gang just cheerily go off into the sunset. Also the implication that he’ll never check on them again is scary as hell since their relationship could obviously just deteriorate and then they’d be trapped together-hellish.
Well I’m sure that’ll be among the low points of the whole run/series and it’ll be better from here! :)
@28/MarshStrickland: Me, I love this episode, and one of the reasons is that both Hedford and Cochrane make the same decision, independent of gender. Cochrane longed to see the galaxy and the new world he had woken up in, and then he decides to stay with her instead. I like that especially because the main characters frequently make the opposite decision and reject love in favour of work. So both preferences are portrayed as equally worthwhile.
I don’t think it’s likely that their relationship will deteriorate, either. They have already spent a hundred years together (well, two of the three of them) and probably know what they’re getting into. Besides, they’re adults. If they want to be left alone, it’s only polite to do so.
Funny how differently people react to these stories. I recently showed “Spectre of the Gun” and this episode to a friend who had never watched Star Trek before, and after this episode she said: “I’m beginning to understand why you love this show so much.”