From Newsgroup: alt.tv.star-trek.tos   
   From Address: sdlitvin@earthlink.net   
   Subject: Re: Metamorphosis: my review   
      
   jphalt@gmail.com wrote:   
   > METAMORPHOSIS: THE PLOT   
   > . . . .   
   > Annoying Hot Space Bureaucrat Babe of the Week: Elinor Donahue   
   > provides a solid acting performance, as well as a highly attractive   
   > presence, as Nancy Hedford. Since she fulfills the roles of both   
   > "Annoying Bureaucrat" and "Babe of the Week," she gets to be   
   > considerably more sympathetic than her bureaucratic counterparts in A   
   > Taste of Armageddon and The Galileo Seven were. Still, she spends the   
   > early part of the episode aggravating Kirk, McCoy, probably Spock, and   
   > the audience with her pointless whining about a course diversion that   
   > it is quite clear nobody can help. Once she establishes a connection   
   > with Cochrane, she becomes less bombastic and more sympathetic...   
   > though at this point, most of her dialogue turns into bleating about   
   > love. The role is fairly badly written, but Donahue escapes with   
   > dignity intact, as while as providing very pleasant eye candy.   
   >    
   >    
   > THOUGHTS   
   >    
   > What to say about Metamorphosis? This was an episode that I had no   
   > memory of. Every other episode, I've either vaguely remembered or had   
   > bits and pieces come back to me while watching. This one... Zilch.   
   > Since I probably saw every TOS episode at least four times as a child,   
   > that indicates exactly how much of an impression it made on me.   
      
   I remembered seeing it--once, I think, as a rerun later in the 2nd    
   season.  I never cared enough to watch it again.   
      
      
   >    
   > That isn't necessarily damning. I've found, many times, that episodes   
   > that made little impression on me as a child have played better when   
   > viewed as an adult. Unfortunately, the script - by the usually superb   
   > Gene Coon - simply isn't very memorable. The idea of an energy   
   > creature falling in love with a human has potential... though I   
   > suspect that potential would probably have been better exploited in a   
   > 25-minute Twilight Zone episode than in a 50-minute Star Trek episode.   
   > As presented here, the story is too thin to stretch comfortably across   
   > 50 minutes. This episode moves slowly, and is not helped by blandly-   
   > scripted guest characters.   
      
   The script was not only thin, but the plot was *mild* and talky.    
   Basically, Kirk & company end up on the planet, where they just talk to    
   Zefrem Cochrane and talk to the Companion. Talk and talk and talk.    
   There's one attack by the Companion, and that's the only jeopardy in the    
   entire episode.  TOS had been sold to NBC as action-adventure--but in    
   this episode, the adventure didn't come with much action.   
      
   "The Galileo Seven" was a much better castaway story, in which the drama    
   of survival on a strange planet and the drama of the interplay between    
   the castaways played out nicely.   
      
   There were missed opportunities in "Metamorphosis" too.   
      
   First, here was a man from the 21st century--but the script told us very    
   little about the 21st century.  Spock could have supplied some    
   historical context for Corbett's xenophobic disgust at learning that the    
   Companion loves him as a lover.  Just as Spock had supplied historical    
   context for Khan in "Space Seed."   
      
   Second, Glenn Corbett was frankly miscast as Cochrane.  He did not come    
   off as a scientist.   
      
   Third, Cochrane contacts the Companion to ask it to cure Nancy Hedford.    
       He reports that the Companion told him that it could not help Nancy.    
     Could not--or would not???   
      
   Might the Companion have *preferred* to see Nancy die, because it wanted    
   Cochrane for itself, and it didn't want Cochrane to be tempted by    
   another female?  I always wondered if the Companion lied to Cochrane    
   about whether it could cure Nancy.   
      
      
   > This is a man who, on his deathbed, insisted on flying out into the   
   > stars one last time. Given "love," he chooses to maroon himself and   
   > his new "love" on a planet, and begs Kirk not to tell anyone about   
   > them? OK, you get to have lots and lots of sex with the admittedly hot   
   > Nancy/Companion hybrid - yay! That should carry you happily through   
   > about two years, give or take, before you start to get restless and   
   > realize that you are still marooned on the same planet that's been   
   > your prison for more than a century.    
      
   Very cynical.   
      
   I think the point was that till now, Cochrane had been a loner.  (Though    
   he never explained why a man who had been so honored for his    
   achievements would want to die alone.)   
      
   His wanting to die in space alone suggests that he never married or had    
   a family of his own (else he would have wanted them by his side when he    
   died).  The Companion was his first lover. And now that he had fallen in    
   love for the very first time, being stuck on a planetoid for the rest of    
   his life didn't seem so bad.  As Spock said, the relationship was    
   mutually beneficial, pleasant, and harmless.   
      
      
   > I don't want to be too hard on the episode, however. It's not very   
   > good, but neither is it very bad. The weaker elements are offset by   
   > the intriguing notion of the Companion itself, and by the very strong   
   > way Kirk is characterized in dealing with it.    
      
   This theme of a powerful noncorporeal life form physically joining with    
   a human would be revisited in ST:TMP.   
      
      
   >    
   >    
   > Rating: 5/10.   
      
   Yeah, I agree.   
      
      
      
   --    
   Steven L.   
   Email:  sdlitvin@earthlinkNOSPAM.net   
   Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.   
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