*May contain "spoilers" - so beware...*
Re-using one of my favourite Alexander Courage music pieces (first used in "Where No Man Has Gone", this episode highlights the theme of alien possession, as a young woman called Mira Romaine (Jan Shutan) is used by aliens called Zetars. Although their purpose is somewhat vague, their arrival via a "psychic storm cloud" heralds a bizarre takeover and some interesting side-effects. When the ship approaches Memory Alpha, Mira Romaine starts having visions of impending danger, and the landing party go down to investigate....
Once on Alpha's surface, the backlash of the Zetar arrival is seen. One female technician starts to talk in a slow frog-like garble, then she undergoes a weird horrifying convulsive transformation...and then dies.
Mira is beamed down, but is unable to make head or tail out of what Kirk and the others had witnessed - until she senses that the Zetarians are coming back (apparently sensing their job had not finished 'coz more survivors of their attack have been pinpointed).
Kirk realises the only way to rid Mira of her condition is to subject her to decompression. Scotty, who had taken a serious "fancy" to the "lassie" (apparently having gotten over Lt. Carolyn Palamas "Who Mourns For Adonais" in a big hurry) strongly and uncategorically objects - until he is forced to give in to Kirk's orders.
Mira decompresses, the aliens flee their "host" and the episode concludes with Romaine deciding to stay behind on Memory Alpha to help "clean up" the mess left by the cloud-beings.
Scotty is again left, with a broken heart...poor dude. This was obviously the last hurrah romantically for the engineer since no other lassie has captured his attention away from his "bairns" since...
The viewer has to wonder what the Zetars were, what their intentions were - whether good or for evil - is now left for a new Star Trek series to take on, along with any other dangling plot-thread the original series leaves hanging...
8 out of 10 - only for the afore-mentioned groovy Courage "alien takeover" sequences
Re-using one of my favourite Alexander Courage music pieces (first used in "Where No Man Has Gone", this episode highlights the theme of alien possession, as a young woman called Mira Romaine (Jan Shutan) is used by aliens called Zetars. Although their purpose is somewhat vague, their arrival via a "psychic storm cloud" heralds a bizarre takeover and some interesting side-effects. When the ship approaches Memory Alpha, Mira Romaine starts having visions of impending danger, and the landing party go down to investigate....
Once on Alpha's surface, the backlash of the Zetar arrival is seen. One female technician starts to talk in a slow frog-like garble, then she undergoes a weird horrifying convulsive transformation...and then dies.
Mira is beamed down, but is unable to make head or tail out of what Kirk and the others had witnessed - until she senses that the Zetarians are coming back (apparently sensing their job had not finished 'coz more survivors of their attack have been pinpointed).
Kirk realises the only way to rid Mira of her condition is to subject her to decompression. Scotty, who had taken a serious "fancy" to the "lassie" (apparently having gotten over Lt. Carolyn Palamas "Who Mourns For Adonais" in a big hurry) strongly and uncategorically objects - until he is forced to give in to Kirk's orders.
Mira decompresses, the aliens flee their "host" and the episode concludes with Romaine deciding to stay behind on Memory Alpha to help "clean up" the mess left by the cloud-beings.
Scotty is again left, with a broken heart...poor dude. This was obviously the last hurrah romantically for the engineer since no other lassie has captured his attention away from his "bairns" since...
The viewer has to wonder what the Zetars were, what their intentions were - whether good or for evil - is now left for a new Star Trek series to take on, along with any other dangling plot-thread the original series leaves hanging...
8 out of 10 - only for the afore-mentioned groovy Courage "alien takeover" sequences