Search
Cookie Usage Statistics Colour Key Sudden Death Monthly Poll Caption Comp eMail Author Shops
Ships Fleets Weaponry Species People Timelines Calculators Photo Galleries
Stations Design Lineage Size Charts Battles Science / Tech Temporal Styling Maps / Politics
Articles Reviews Lists Recreation Search Site Guide What's New Forum
Bioship Planetbuster Assault Ship Fighter Emissary Kendra Pagh Prophet Solar Sail Additional Cube Probe Singularity Ship Sphere Tactical Cube Transwarp Prototype Yacht Dreadnought Freighter Galor Hideki Keldon Breen Frigate Attack Ship Battlecruiser Battleship Dreadnought Karemma Ship Air Tram Akira Ambassador Antares Centaur Challenger Cheyenne Class F Shuttle Constellation Constitution Constitution Daedalus Danube Defender Defiant Delta Flyer Endgame Nova Endgame Shuttle Excelsior Excelsior II Excelsior Variant 1 Federation Class Raider Scout Trainer Freedom Gagarin Gage Galaxy Galaxy Yacht Griffin Hermes Holo Ship Intrepid Kelvin Luna Miranda Nebula New Orleans Niagara Norway Nova Oberth Olympic Orbital Shuttle Peregrine Polaris Prometheus Ptolemy Raven Refit Galaxy Reliant Rigel Ross Saber Sagan Saladin Shelley Sovereign Sovereign Yacht Soyuz Springfield Steamrunner Sutherland Sydney Travel Pod Trident Type 3 Shuttle Type 6 Shuttle Type 7 Shuttle Type 8 Shuttle Type 9 Shuttle Type 10 Shuttle Type 11 Shuttle Type 14 Shuttle Type 15 Shuttle Type 17 Shuttle Type 18 Shuttle Warp Sled Wells Work Bee Yeager Additional D'Kora Additional Ares Conestoga DY-100 Intrepid J Class Neptune NX Class NX Test Ship Saturn V SS Enterprise The Phoenix Type 0 Shuttle USS Enterprise Valiant Y Class Additional Raider Predator Additional B'rel D'tai D-5 D-7 Early Bird of Prey K'pak K'T'Inga Bird of Prey Cargo Ship Tanker Negh'var Raptor Regency Voodieh Vor'cha Additional D'Deridex Early Bird of Prey Narada Norexan Bird of Prey D7 Science ship Scout Shuttle Scimitar Scorpion Additional Battleship Collector Destroyer Additional Cell Ship Module Ship Salvage Ship Additional Observation Ship War Ship Additional D'Kyr Sh'Raan Suurok Vahklas Lander Additional Aquatic Cruiser Arboreal Ship Insectoid Assault Ship Insectoid Fighter Insectoid Warship Primate Ship Primate Shuttle Reptilian Warship Additional Dauntless Doomsday Machine Kumari class Angosian Ship Cravic Ship Yonada Hirogen Ship Husnock Ship Krenim Patrol Krenim Timeship Krenim Warship Malon Ship Mawasi Cruiser Eymorg Ship Nihydron Ship Pralor Ship Promellian Battlecruiser Tarellian Ship Early Tholian Ship V'Ger Whale Probe Varro Ship Zahl Ship Additional

The Lights of Zetar

ReviewImagesDatapointsQuotesMorals
TimelinePreviousNextYour View
Title :
The Lights of Zetar
Series :
Rating :
0
Overall Ep :
74
First Aired :
31 Jan 1969
Stardate :
5725.3
Director :
Year :
Writers :
Season Ep :
3 x 18
Main Cast :
Guest Cast :
YATI :
Do the Federation buy Romulan hardware? The control room on Memory Alpha has a Romulan control box on the desk.
Worst Moment :
The idea of Memory Alpha was silly, surely each federation outpost should contain this information. Have these people never heard of a backups.
Body Count :
Zero?
Factoid :
Barbara Babcock, who does the Zetar voices, also did the Tholian voices in "The Tholian Web".

Plotline

Enterprise crewman Mira Romain is posessed by an alien being, and the crew must struggle to free her. The Enterprise is transporting Lieutenant Mira Romaine to Memory Alpha, a planet which houses the Federation's central library, so that she can install some new equipment. Whilst en route the ship encounters a mysterious energy cloud, apparently not a natural phenomenon. The briefly penetrates the ship before leaving and moving on to engulf Memory Alpha. It kills the entire staff before moving off.

On the Enterprise it is discovered that Romaine has developed some form of mental link to the cloud as a result of her exposure when it boarded the ship. She predicts that it will return to the Enterprise, which it subsequently does. The cloud posesses Romaine; on investigating the crew find that it is a group of intelligent beings from the planet Zetar. The beings refuse to relinquish control of Romaine, but Scotty uses the ship's hyperbaric chamber to expose her to high pressures. The Zetarians, having become accustomed to the vacuum of space, are destroyed. After recovering Romaine proceeds on to Memory Alpha to restore the library to functional status.

Analysis

Not one of the better efforts, even by season three standards. The idea of Memory Alpha doesn't make a lot of sense - why put this library out in the middle of nowhere, rather than on Earth or Vulcan or some other Federation planet? I suppose the members might want a neutral site for the facility so it is not under the control of any one member (though the episode never says this), but we have seen many times that communications across interstellar distances can involve significant time lags in Trek. Do we really want a library that takes hours to give anybody an answer to any question by subspace radio, and which everybody has to take a ship to get to in person?

I'm no great fan of Romaine's character either. The sudden instant romantic relationship with Scotty seems forced - it's manufactured entirely to make us care more about her, but it's so awkward to have a relationship pop up like that that it never really involves us. I know in the days of TOS long term character developments were very much the exception rather than the rule, and more than a few instant romances came and went, but having such a thing as such a major element of the show just turned me off.

The Zetarians are also a little thin. They seem to be stereotypical bad guys, entirely unconcerned with what they do to others so long as they get what they want. It would have worked much better if the writers had sought some way to make they a bit more sympathetic.
© Graham & Ian Kennedy Page views : 36,468 Last updated : 12 Mar 2013