Metamorphosis - episode #31
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Metamorphosis - episode #31
METAMORPHOSIS (2nd season; episode #31)
Directed by Ralph Senensky writer: Gene Coon Air Date: 11/10/67
I've gotten to appreciate this episode more as I became older, since it touches on the many aspects of older age: being alone, of becoming out of touch, archaic... and the audience is also offered some different perspectives, not all favorable, on immortality. Sounds a bit depressing, no? The episode may have a slower pace than we're used to from this era of exciting original Trek shows, but it may also linger in the mind a bit longer due to the concepts presented, inviting introspection, of all things.
Most of the episode concentrates on the main trio of regulars and the two guest stars (well, three guest stars, if you count the gaseous Companion); we don't even see a glimpse of the Enterprise or the rest of the crew until the 2nd half of the episode. In the plot, the main trio are escorting a female Federation commissioner (Elinor Donahue) to receive treatment for her rare illness and are shanghaied to an asteroid by some shimmering lifeform. We meet the creator of warp drive (very significant historically) and again see a Galileo shuttlecraft (destroyed in The Galileo Seven episode, so this must be a replacement craft). It begins as a seemingly simplistic tale of captivity in an uncharted region of space, but evolves gradually, due to some revelations, into an examination of personal relationships between two species completely alien to each other.
As in several episodes, non-corporeal aliens always tend to crave physical bodies such as we humans possess, as if our form is the ultimate conduit for finding true love. This seems a conceit due to writing from the human perspective. Though simple physical sensation may be a subject of curiosity (as in Catspaw and By Any Other Name), the deeper sensation of love should be attainable in a variety of ways, not just the obvious one of two entities having similar humanoid bodies. Why, for example, didn't the Companion transform Cochrane into a version of herself?
In this case, the episode does provide a pretty good answer: the concept of sacrifice, a strong indicator of actual love being expressed. But, this non-corporeal lifeform, nicknamed the Companion by Cochrane, is female because two sexes is a universal concept? Really?
Hm, that's comforting to know, if a somewhat narrow universal concept - that's the Earth/human perspective again.
I found the unpleasant character of the human female (very annoying, like all Federation diplomats) to be a bit overdone - this showed, too obviously, the contrast between her and her new self in the post-joining with the Companion. The fact that her essence disappears into the Companion is glossed over - it still seems to me only her body lives on; her mind is dead. And this war she was supposed to avert suddenly becomes a trivial matter at the conclusion. But, other than that, this is a thought-provoking story, like some of the better Trek. BoG's Score: 7 out of 10
Last edited by BoG on Sun May 03, 2015 1:05 am; edited 6 times in total
METAMORPHOSIS REMASTERED
CLASSIC TREK QUOTES:
Cochrane: "I don't understand."
McCoy: "You don't? Why, a blind man could see it with a cane;
_______ you're not a pet, you're not a specimen kept in a cage – you're a lover."
Cochrane: "I'm a what?"
FULL REMASTERED EPISODE:
Cochrane: "I don't understand."
McCoy: "You don't? Why, a blind man could see it with a cane;
_______ you're not a pet, you're not a specimen kept in a cage – you're a lover."
Cochrane: "I'm a what?"
FULL REMASTERED EPISODE:
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