There was a great concept at the core of this story, but unfortunately, it got frittered away with a script that eventually proved embarrassing. The concept had to do with Lieutenant Romaine's (Jan Shutan) brain wave pattern being altered by an alien presence, a cluster of ten life forms in a single entity that arrives aboard The Enterprise as a cloud of twinkling lights. They really could have gone somewhere with this, but instead, went to a place no man had gone before.
Let me back up a bit though. Are we to believe that the Federation was naive enough to establish Memory Alpha, a cultural and scientific repository of all the member planets, on a planetoid WITHOUT a protective shield? What??!! With the example of Kirk's crew facing some kind of danger in almost every episode, wouldn't anyone have been concerned that maybe, just maybe, a Federation enemy might want to sabotage all that knowledge. Klingons... Romulans... anyone? At least the Captain showed some astonishment over the idea.
But then Kirk did the unimaginable - he fired phasers into the brain community because they weren't responding to Uhura's hailing frequency. Did you see the look on Spock's face when Kirk ordered the phaser fire? Man, I thought the Captain was setting himself up for a Vulcan nerve pinch.
The resolution of the story was uninspired as well. How do you pressurize a non-corporeal entity into submission? I'm trying to get a grasp on that; it would be like trying to squeeze a radio wave until the receiver couldn't produce a sound any more.
But you know what really got my attention? I don't know if anyone else noticed, but considering the fact that Lieutenant Romaine was on her first assignment as a specialist, and maybe even the fact that Scotty had an enormous crush on her, how is it that Kirk and Bones found it OK to call her 'girl'? It happened more than once and had a jarring effect whenever I heard it. I hope the Captain wasn't jealous.
Let me back up a bit though. Are we to believe that the Federation was naive enough to establish Memory Alpha, a cultural and scientific repository of all the member planets, on a planetoid WITHOUT a protective shield? What??!! With the example of Kirk's crew facing some kind of danger in almost every episode, wouldn't anyone have been concerned that maybe, just maybe, a Federation enemy might want to sabotage all that knowledge. Klingons... Romulans... anyone? At least the Captain showed some astonishment over the idea.
But then Kirk did the unimaginable - he fired phasers into the brain community because they weren't responding to Uhura's hailing frequency. Did you see the look on Spock's face when Kirk ordered the phaser fire? Man, I thought the Captain was setting himself up for a Vulcan nerve pinch.
The resolution of the story was uninspired as well. How do you pressurize a non-corporeal entity into submission? I'm trying to get a grasp on that; it would be like trying to squeeze a radio wave until the receiver couldn't produce a sound any more.
But you know what really got my attention? I don't know if anyone else noticed, but considering the fact that Lieutenant Romaine was on her first assignment as a specialist, and maybe even the fact that Scotty had an enormous crush on her, how is it that Kirk and Bones found it OK to call her 'girl'? It happened more than once and had a jarring effect whenever I heard it. I hope the Captain wasn't jealous.