"Dispatched to the mining colony on Janus VI, the Enterprise is tasked to investigate rumors of a strange, subterranean creature responsible for destruction of equipment and the deaths of fifty miners. Kirk and Spock discover a silicon-based life form, a Horta, which lives in the surrounding rock"
I’ll be honest, I barely remember this episode. But I was pleasantly surprised by it. It starts off on a super down note though. This mining planet has an issue in which the miners are being killed by a creature. And a good thing too because these guys are terrible actors. The Enterprise is called in and Kirk, McCoy and Spock beam down. Spock theorizes that the creature is a carbon based life form. They search for the creature through these vast networks of tunnels (So far this episode is very reminiscent of the X-Files).
Here’s where the magic happens. Kirk and Spock encounter the creature and it’s pretty dumb looking, picture a bloody puppet booger. Kirk figures out that it is intelligent and Spock mind melds with it. This scene is very emotional as we get to see the tremendous pain and sadness that plagues this creature. Leonard Nimoy is remarkable in this scene. We find out that she is a mother protecting her babies, of which thousands have been killed by the miners. This part of the episode is done so well that you actually start to feel sympathy for this ridiculous looking puppet booger. The creature is injured and dying, but McCoy cures it (I’m a doctor not a bricklayer). Kirk then negotiates an agreement between the miners and the creature. Spock has become close to the creature as well, at the end he sort of gloats about how the booger found his ears to be quite attractive. This was a surprisingly great episode. The moral is: never have sex with a miner.
ST TOS COUNTDOWN: 26 down 54 to go
6 comments:
Brilliant story, and one of the best Star Trek has ever tried to tell. However, the story may have been too brilliant for the production levels of the time, since the Horta looks pretty awful. But it's still a great episode.
When I was a kid I'd go over my friends house and his mother would make meatloaf. She'd put a bunch of ketchup on top of it (?!?!) anyways that's what the Horta reminds me of in this episode...my friends mother.
I don't recall you ever eating meatloaf over my house ... but my mother does look like that! No, actually she also dumps ketchup all over the top of the meatloaf.
Mugato I obviously have other friends besides you!!! That being said I was never a big fan of ketchup on the meatloaf.
"Stacy's mom has meatloaf goin' on..."
Was that funny?!!
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