Metamorphosis

2x09 I, Mudd Journey to Babel Star Trek: The Original SeriesSeason 2

 WRITTEN BY

Gene L. Coon

 DIRECTED BY

Ralph Senensky

 AIRED ON

November 10, 1967

 RUNTIME

50 minutes

 STARRING

 VIEWS

236

 LAST UPDATE

2024-09-18 13:09:04

 PAGE VERSION

Version 5

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 STORY

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 BEHIND THE SCENES

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 QUOTES

Nancy: I insist you make your scheduled rendezvous with the Enterprise.
Kirk: Miss Hedford, we'll do what we can, when we can. At the moment, we're helpless. You might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

Spock: Gravity is similar to Earth. Most unusual in view of its size. The bulk of the body seems to be iron and nickel. More than an asteroid. Like a small planetoid, I should say. Possibly a remnant of a planet breakup. Totally suitable for human life.

Cochrane: Ma'am. You're food to a starving man. All of you.

McCoy: Talks a lot, but he doesn't say much.

Kirk: Mr. Cochrane, do you have a first name?
Cochrane: Zefram.
Kirk: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri, the discoverer of the space warp?
Cochrane: That's right, Captain.
McCoy: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
Spock: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
Kirk: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mr. Cochrane?
Cochrane: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
Kirk: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
Cochrane: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.

Kirk: Mr. Cochrane, if you left here, what would happen to you?
Cochrane: I'd begin to age again, normally.
Kirk: Do you want to leave here?
Cochrane: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom.

Cochrane: What's it like out there in the galaxy?
Kirk: We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything's alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them. Interesting?

McCoy: It isn't your fault.
Kirk: I'm in command, Bones. It makes it my fault.

Uhura: If there are no further traces, how are we going to follow them?
Scott: We stay on this course, see what comes up.
Uhura: It's a big galaxy, Mr. Scott.
Scott: Aye.

Nancy: I don't want to die. I've been good at my job, but I've never been loved. Never. What kind of life is that? Not to be loved, never to have shown love?

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 REVIEWS

You're food for a starving man (aka All you need is love)

Written by Pike on 2020-05-06
★ ★ ★ ★

Once again, as I go through my second viewing of Star Trek, I stumble another episode with a completely different understanding of it. This one is no different. For instance, take a closer look at my initial review for this episode:
"A forgettable and very boring episode that is not utterly bad but not even average, as there is not much to even remember. No drama, no story, nothing. Feels like it drags for two hours."

Four years later, I revisit this episode with a completely different take on it. I find it fascinating. It is calm but not boring, it is not ridiculous at all.

The episode tells the story of a man who is prisoner on a planet, which gave him the power to rejuvenate. I'm immediately taken back to Interstellar, when we meet the character portrayed by Matt Damon, left alone on a strange planet. This is quite a daunting and fascinating concept. And I really liked both the script and its execution.

VERDICT
I give it 4 out of 5. Very good.

 TRANSCRIPT

[Shuttlecraft]
(Enterprise shuttlecraft NCC1701/7 is being piloted by Kirk, assisted by Spock. McCoy is tending to a lady in a green dress and headscarf.)
SPOCK: We have reached projected point three, Captain. Adjust to new course two oh one mark one five.
KIRK: Thank you, Mister Spock.
MCCOY: (offering a drink) Jim.
KIRK: How is she, Doc?
MCCOY: No change.
NANCY: Small thanks to the Starfleet.
MCCOY: Now really, Commissioner, you can't blame the Starfleet.
NANCY: I should've received the proper inoculations ahead of time.
MCCOY: Sakuro's disease is extremely rare. The chances of anyone contracting it are literally billions to one.
NANCY: I was sent to Epsilon Canaris Three to prevent a war, Doctor. Thanks to the inefficiency of the medical branch of the Starfleet, I've been forced to leave before my job was done.
KIRK: Commissioner, I can assure you that once we reach the Enterprise, with its medical facilities, we'll have you back to your job in time for you to prevent that war.
NANCY: How soon will we rendezvous with that ship of yours, Captain?
KIRK: In exactly four hours, twenty one minutes, Commissioner.
SPOCK: Captain.
KIRK: Yes?
SPOCK: Will you check your automatic scanner, please?
KIRK: That's odd. I've never seen anything like that before.
SPOCK: Nor have I.
(They lower the central shutter to view the approaching swirly flashing thing.)
SPOCK: Heading directly toward us at warp speed.
KIRK: Staying right with us. Sensor readings, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: Vaguely like a cloud of ionised hydrogen, but with strong erratic electrical impulses.
(Sounds of electrical shorts. The lights flicker.)
KIRK: We've got it.
SPOCK: Helm does not answer, Captain.
KIRK: Neither do the pods. Communications are dead. Building overload. Cut all power relays.
SPOCK: Cut, Captain.
NANCY: What's happening? I demand to know.
KIRK: You already know as much as we do, Miss Hedford. Whatever that thing is outside, it's yanked us off course from the Enterprise.
SPOCK: Now on course nine eight mark one two, heading directly toward Gamma Canaris region.
MCCOY: Jim, we've got to get Miss Hedford to the Enterprise. Her condition.
KIRK: I know, Bones, but there's nothing I can do about it.
NANCY: I insist you make your scheduled rendezvous with the Enterprise.
KIRK: Miss Hedford, we'll do what we can, when we can. At the moment, we're helpless. You might as well sit back and enjoy the ride.

[Shuttlecraft]

(The shuttlecraft has landed on a blue and purple planet. It is surrounded by lots of very high cliffs.)
KIRK: Enterprise, this is the Galileo. Come in, please, come in. Enterprise, this is the Galileo. Come in, please. It's no good. We're not transmitting. Bones?
MCCOY: Oxygen-nitrogen atmosphere. Some krypton, argon, neon. Temperature seventy five degrees Fahrenheit. Practically identical to Earth atmosphere.
KIRK: Spock?
SPOCK: Gravity is similar to Earth. Most unusual in view of its size. The bulk of the body seems to be iron and nickel. More than an asteroid. Like a small planetoid, I should say. Possibly a remnant of a planet breakup. Totally suitable for human life.
KIRK: All right, we get out and get up. Issue phasers. Bones, maintain full alert. Commissioner, you'll stay inside.
NANCY: Just how long am I supposed to stay inside, Captain?
KIRK: That's a very good question. I wish I could answer it. All right. Let's go.

[Planet surface]

KIRK: Take a look around, Bones.
(Spock checks the shuttlecraft for damage.)
SPOCK: Most unusual. Unlikely. In fact, Captain, I would say quite impossible.
KIRK: Nothing wrong and nothing works.
SPOCK: Precisely.
KIRK: There must be a reason.
SPOCK: Obviously.
KIRK: Let's look a little further.
(Nancy comes out of the shuttlecraft.)
MCCOY: Jim, I just took a tricording sweep, and I got the same readings almost as Spock got when we were pulled off course.
SPOCK: The ionised cloud.
MCCOY: I think so, only it reads here on the surface with us. It's in that direction, and it doesn't read solid. It's more unstable, tenuous, like a collection of gases.
COCHRANE [OC]: Hello! Hello!
(A figure in an orange jumpsuit waves and runs towards them.)
SPOCK: Fascinating.
KIRK: Bones, get a physiological reading on that, whatever it is.
COCHRANE: Hello! Are you real? I mean, I'm not imagining you, am I?
KIRK: We're real enough.
COCHRANE: You speak English. Earth people?
KIRK: From the Federation.
COCHRANE: The F? Well, it doesn't matter. I'm Cochrane. I've been marooned here who knows how long. If you only knew how good it is to see you. And a woman. A beautiful one at that.
KIRK: I'm Captain James T. Kirk, commanding the starship Enterprise. (they shake hands) This is my first officer Mister Spock.
COCHRANE: You're a Vulcan, aren't you?
SPOCK: Correct.
KIRK: Chief Surgeon Leonard McCoy.
COCHRANE: Doctor.
MCCOY: Pleasure.
KIRK: Oh, and excuse me, Assistant Federation Commissioner Hedford.
COCHRANE: Ma'am. You're food to a starving man. All of you. Hey, that's a nice ship. Simple and clean. Been trying to get her to go again? Well, forget it. It won't work.
MCCOY: He's human, Jim. Everything checks out perfectly.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane. We were forced off our course and taken here by some force we couldn't identify.
SPOCK: Which seems to be on the surface of this body at the moment.
COCHRANE: Well, I wouldn't know anything about that.
SPOCK: You say we'll be unable to get the ship to function again?
COCHRANE: Not a chance. There's some sort of dampening field down here. Power systems don't work. Take my word for it.
SPOCK: You don't mind if we continue to try?
COCHRANE: Go right ahead. You've got plenty of time.
KIRK: What about you, Cochrane? How did you get here?
COCHRANE: Marooned, I told you. Look, we'll have lots of time to learn about each other. I have a small place over that way. All the comforts of home. I can even offer you a hot bath.
NANCY: How perceptive of you to notice I needed one.
KIRK: If you don't mind, Mister Cochrane, I'd like more than just a statement that you were marooned here. It's a long way off the beaten path.
COCHRANE: That's right. That's why I'm so glad to see you. Look, I'll tell you everything you want to know, but not here. Your ship is sure a beauty.
KIRK: Yes, she is. And you've been out of circulation quite a while. The principles may be new to you. Mister Spock, why don't you explain our methods of propulsion to Mister Cochrane?
(Spock and Cochrane go to the other side of the shuttlecraft.)
MCCOY: Talks a lot, but he doesn't say much.
KIRK: I've noticed something else.
MCCOY: What's that?
KIRK: He looks familiar.
MCCOY: Familiar? Now that you mention it, he does.
KIRK: I can't quite place him, but. What about Miss Hedford?
MCCOY: No temperature yet, but we've got to get under way soon, Jim. I guarantee you, it will develop. What are we going to do?
KIRK: Take Cochrane up on his offer.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

(Not a true vertical in the building, and palms in the garden. It looks quite nice and avant-garde.)
SPOCK: You built this, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: Yes. I had tools and supplies left over from my crash.
SPOCK: Not bad.
COCHRANE: Not Earth, but it's livable. I grow vegetables in the fields over that next ridge. Come on in.

[Cochrane's home]

KIRK: All the comforts of home indeed, Mister Cochrane. Where'd you get the antiques?
COCHRANE: You mean my instruments? I imagine things have changed a lot since I crashed.
KIRK: Not that much.
(Hands a piece over to Spock to examine.)
NANCY: Must you keep it so terribly hot in here?
COCHRANE: The temperature's a constant seventy two degrees. Let me get you something cool to drink.
MCCOY: Do you feel hot?
NANCY: I feel infuriated, deeply put upon, and absolutely outraged.
MCCOY: It was quite a hike here. You're tired. Just take it easy for a while.
NANCY: I'll rest later, Doctor.
MCCOY: Temperature, Captain. First sign.
KIRK: Yes, I know. It means we're running out of time.
SPOCK: Captain, Doctor.
(From the doorway, the three see a swirly thing which then disappears. Cochrane comes in with a tray of drinks.)
KIRK: What was that?
COCHRANE: Well, sometimes the light plays tricks on you. You'd be surprised what I've imagined I've seen around here sometimes.
SPOCK: We imagined nothing, Mister Cochrane. There was an entity out there and I suspect it was the same entity which brought us here. Please explain.
COCHRANE: There's nothing to explain.
(He hands a drink to Nancy.)
NANCY: Thank you.
KIRK: You'll find I have a very low tolerance level where the safety of my people are concerned. We find you out here, where no human has any business being. We were virtually hijacked in space and brought here. Now I'm not just requesting an explanation, Mister. I'm demanding one.
COCHRANE: All right. It was the Companion.
KIRK: The what?
COCHRANE: That's what I call it. As a matter of fact, Captain, I didn't crash here. I was brought here in my disabled ship. I was almost dead. The Companion saved my life.
SPOCK: You were injured?
COCHRANE: I was dying, Mister Spock.
KIRK: You seem perfectly all right now. What was the matter?
COCHRANE: I was an old man.
KIRK: You were what?
COCHRANE: Well, I don't know how it did it, but the Companion rejuvenated me, made me young again, like I am now.
SPOCK: I prefer to reserve judgment on that part of your story, sir. Meanwhile, would you please explain exactly what this Companion of yours is?
COCHRANE: I told you, I don't know what it is. It exists, it lives, and I can communicate with it.
MCCOY: That's a pretty far out story.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, do you have a first name?
COCHRANE: Zefram.
KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri, the discoverer of the space warp?
COCHRANE: That's right, Captain.
MCCOY: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
KIRK: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
KIRK: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
COCHRANE: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.
SPOCK: True, his body was never found.
COCHRANE: You're looking at it, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: If so, you wear your age very well.
MCCOY: How do you feel?
NANCY: Terrible. How should I feel?
MCCOY: You're running a little temperature. Perhaps you should lie down.
NANCY: Doctor, will you please just leave me alone. It's the heat.
MCCOY: All right. Try to relax. Jim, it's started, the fever. It's over a hundred, and it's climbing.
KIRK: How long do we have?
MCCOY: A matter of hours, that's all.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, you say you were brought here a hundred and fifty years ago? You don't look over thirty five.
COCHRANE: I haven't aged. The Companion sees to that.
SPOCK: Captain. These instruments, they date from the time indicated. From your ship, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: I cannibalised it. The food, water, gardens, everything else I need the Companion gives me. Apparently, it creates it out of the native elements.
KIRK: You say you can communicate with it. Perhaps you can find out what we're doing here.
COCHRANE: I already know.
KIRK: You wouldn't mind telling us?
COCHRANE: You won't like it.
KIRK: I already don't like it.
COCHRANE: You're here to keep me company.
KIRK: You mean you brought us here?
COCHRANE: No, the Companion did. I told it I'd die of loneliness. I thought it would release me. Instead, it brought you here.
NANCY: No! No! No! That's disgusting! We're not animals! No! Oh, no! It's inhuman! No! No!
(Kirk and McCoy take her to a bed and lie her down. McCoy gives her an injection.)
KIRK: Spock, run additional tricorder readings. Learn anything you can. Find me a weapon to use against this thing.
SPOCK: You ask me to find a weapon. Do you intend to destroy it?
KIRK: I intend to do whatever's necessary to get us off this planet and Commissioner Hedford to the hospital. If the Companion stands in the way, then we push it out of the way. Clear, Spock?
SPOCK: Quite clear, Captain.
KIRK: Very well. You have your orders. (Spock leaves) Mister Cochrane, if you left here, what would happen to you?
COCHRANE: I'd begin to age again, normally.
KIRK: Do you want to leave here?
COCHRANE: Believe me, Captain, immortality consists largely of boredom. What's it like out there in the galaxy?
KIRK: We're on a thousand planets and spreading out. We cross fantastic distances and everything's alive, Cochrane. Life everywhere. We estimate there are millions of planets with intelligent life. We haven't begun to map them. Interesting?
COCHRANE: How would you like to sleep for a hundred and fifty years and wake up in a new world?
KIRK: It's all out there waiting for you, but we'll need your help to get away.
COCHRANE: You've got it.

[Outside the shuttlecraft]

(Spock is working when the Companion appears next to him. He reaches to touch it, and then is flung away. The electrics in the shuttlecraft all burn out.)

[Cochrane's home]

KIRK: You seem to think this Companion of yours can do almost anything.
COCHRANE: I said it was very powerful.
KIRK: Could it cure her?
COCHRANE: I don't know.
KIRK: How do you communicate with it?
COCHRANE: It's on a non-verbal level, but I usually get my message across.
KIRK: We've got to try. We're helpless. See if it can do something.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

KIRK: How do you do it?
COCHRANE: I just sort of clear my mind and it comes.
(He walks to the edge of the garden then stands with his eyes closed. The Companion appears, then moves to envelope him.)
KIRK: Bones, what do you make of that?
MCCOY: Almost a symbiosis of some kind, a sort of joining.
KIRK: Exactly what I think. Not exactly like a pet owner speaking to a beloved animal, would you say?
MCCOY: No, it's more than that.
KIRK: Agreed. More like love.
(The Companion vanishes, so Kirk and McCoy go over to Cochrane.)
MCCOY: Are you all right?
COCHRANE: Yes. It kind of drains me a little, but I'm all right.
KIRK: Well?
COCHRANE: The Companion can't do anything to help Miss Hedford.
KIRK: Then she'll die.
COCHRANE: If there's anything I could do to help, I would, and I will, but we can expect nothing from the Companion.

[Outside the shuttlecraft]

MCCOY: Spock! Are you all right?
SPOCK: Yes. Quite all right, Doctor. A most fascinating thing happened. Apparently, the Companion imparted to me a rather quaint, old-fashioned electric shock of respectable voltage.
MCCOY: It attacked you?
SPOCK: Evidently. Unquestionably, a large part of its substance is simple electricity.
MCCOY: Oh, yes. I'm not a scientist or a physicist, Mister Spock, but am I correct in assuming that anything that generates electricity can be shorted out?
SPOCK: Quite correct, Doctor.

[Cochrane's home]

(Spock is demonstrating the device he has put on the table.)
SPOCK: Put this in the proximity of the Companion, throw this switch, and it will scramble every electrical impulse the creature can produce. It cannot fail.
KIRK: It troubles you, Cochrane?
COCHRANE: The Companion saved my life. It's taken care of me all these years. We've been very close in a way that's hard to explain. I suppose I even have an affection for it.
KIRK: It's also keeping you prisoner.
COCHRANE: I don't want it killed.
SPOCK: We may simply render it powerless.
COCHRANE: But you don't know. You could kill it. I won't stand for that.
KIRK: We're getting out of here, Cochrane. Face up to it. I'll do anything I have to to save all of our lives.
COCHRANE: I suppose from your point of view, you're right.
MCCOY: We understand how you feel, Mister Cochrane, but it has to be done.
COCHRANE: All right. You want me to contact it?
KIRK: Please. Outside.
COCHRANE: What was it they used to call it? The Judas goat? (leaves)
SPOCK: There is some risk, Captain. We do not know the extent of its powers.
KIRK: Nor it ours.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

(Cochrane 'calls' and the Companion comes just as before. When it has enveloped him, Kirk gives the word.)
KIRK: Now.
(The jolt knocks Cochrane out and the Companion comes towards the dwelling, apparently angry.)

[Cochrane's home]

(It enters, blows up Spock's contraption then attacks Kirk and Spock. They are rolling around on the floor inside the sparkly thing, clutching their throats.)
MCCOY: Stop it! You're killing them! Stop it, please! Stop it! You're choking them! Let them go. You're choking them! Stop it!
(Outside, Cochrane hears McCoy's shouts, and somehow calms the Companion. It vanishes.)
MCCOY: You all right, Jim?
KIRK: Yeah.
MCCOY: Spock?
SPOCK: All right.
(They go to the doorway and see the Companion with Cochrane again.)
KIRK: Cochrane got it off of us, but I don't know whether he did us a favour or not.
MCCOY: What kind of talk is that?
KIRK: How do you fight a thing like that? I've got a ship up there somewhere, responsibility for four lives here, one of them dying because of me.
MCCOY: It isn't your fault.
KIRK: I'm in command, Bones. It makes it my fault. How do you fight a thing like that?
MCCOY: Maybe you're a soldier so often that you forget you're also trained to be a diplomat. Why not try a carrot instead of a stick?
KIRK: Spock.
SPOCK: Yes, Captain?
KIRK: The universal translator on the shuttlecraft. We can try that, talk to that thing.
SPOCK: The translator is for use with more congruent life forms.
KIRK: Adjust it, change it. The trouble with immortality is it's boring. Adjusting the translator will give you something to do.
SPOCK: It is possible. If I could widen its pattern of reception
KIRK: Right down your alley, Spock. Get it here and get to work. That thing is still out there. Better go that way.
(Spock leaves, passing Nancy's bed)
KIRK: Any change?
MCCOY: Yes, for the worse.

Ship's Log. Stardate 3219.8. Lieutenant Commander Scott recording in the absence of Captain Kirk. A shuttlecraft bearing the Captain, the first officer, Chief Surgeon McCoy, and Assistant Federation Commissioner Hedford is now definitely overdue for a rendezvous with the Enterprise. We are attempting to backtrack it.

[Bridge]

UHURA: Mister Scott. Computer central reports that we're coming up on the co-ordinates of the last established position of the shuttlecraft.
SCOTT: Thank you, Lieutenant.
SULU: Steady. No, Mister Scott, bearing three ten mark thirty five just cleared. No antimatter residue.
SCOTT: All scanners, spherical sweep. Range, maximum. They'll have to pick it up.
UHURA: If the shuttlecraft powered away, Mister Scott, but if it were just towed?
SCOTT: There'd still be traces of residual matter floating around, Lieutenant.
SULU: Bearing two ten mark forty. Strong particle concentration. We're on it, Mister Scott.
SCOTT: Lay on that course. Maintain scanning.
SULU: Course laid in, sir. Particle density decreasing. Gone, sir. No readings.
SCOTT: Steady as she goes, Mister Sulu.
UHURA: What do you think it means, Mister Scott?
SCOTT: The shuttlecraft was on schedule until it was shy five hours of rendezvous. Then something happened.
UHURA: Well, I'd feel a lot better if it were a little more definite.
SCOTT: It didn't wreck. There was no debris. There's no trace of expelled internal atmosphere, no residual radioactivity. Ah, it's. Something took over. Tractor beams maybe. Something. They dragged it away on the heading we're now on.
UHURA: If there are no further traces, how are we going to follow them?
SCOTT: We stay on this course, see what comes up.
UHURA: It's a big galaxy, Mister Scott.
SCOTT: Aye.

[Cochrane's home]

(Spock is working on the Universal Translator. It is basically a metal tube nearly a foot long, that can be held in the hand.)
COCHRANE: What's the theory behind this device?
KIRK: There are certain universal ideas and concepts common to all intelligent life. This device instantaneously compares the frequency of brainwave patterns, selects those ideas and concepts it recognises, and then provides the necessary grammar.
SPOCK: Then it translates its findings into English.
COCHRANE: You mean it speaks?
KIRK: With a voice or the approximation of whatever the creature is on the sending end. Not one hundred percent efficient, but nothing ever is. Ready, Mister Spock?
SPOCK: Quite ready, Captain.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, call the Companion.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

(Cochrane summons the Companion.)
KIRK: Companion. (It leaves Cochrane) We wish to talk to you.
COMPANION: How can we communicate? My thoughts, you are hearing them. This is interesting.
KIRK: Feminine. No doubt about it.
SPOCK: Yes. The matter of gender could change the entire situation.
KIRK: I'm way ahead of you.
SPOCK: Then it is not a zookeeper.
KIRK: No. A lover. Companion. It is wrong to keep us here against our will.
COMPANION: A man needs the company of his own kind, or he will cease to exist. He felt it to me.
KIRK: One of us will cease to exist if we don't get her to a place where we can care for her.
COMPANION: The man needs others of his species. That is why you are here. The man must continue.
KIRK: Companion, try to understand. It is the nature of our species to be free, just as it is your nature to stay here. We will cease to exist in captivity.
COMPANION: Your bodies have stopped their peculiar degeneration. There will be nothing to harm you. You will continue, and the man will continue. This is necessary.
SPOCK: This is a marvellous opportunity to add to our knowledge. Ask it about its nature, its history.
KIRK: This isn't a classroom. I'm trying to get us out of here.
SPOCK: A chance like this may never come again. It could tell us so much.
KIRK: This isn't the time. Companion, what you offer us is not continuation. It is non=existence. We will cease to exist. Even the man will cease to exist.
COMPANION : Your impulses are illogical. This communication is useless. The man must continue. Therefore, you will continue. It is necessary.
(She vanishes, and they all head back indoors.)

[Cochrane's home]

COCHRANE: Captain, why did you build that translator with a feminine voice?
KIRK: We didn't.
COCHRANE: But I heard
KIRK: The idea of male and female are universal constants, Cochrane. There's no doubt about it. The Companion is female.
COCHRANE: I don't understand.
MCCOY: You don't? 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?
SPOCK: Her attitude when she approaches you is profoundly different than when she contacts us. Her appearance is soft, gentle. Her voice is melodic, pleasing. I do not totally understand the emotion, but it obviously exists. The Companion loves you.
COCHRANE: Do you know what you're saying? For all these years, I've let something as alien as that crawl around inside me, into my mind, my feelings.
KIRK: What are you complaining about? It kept you alive.
COCHRANE: That thing fed on me. It used me. It's disgusting.
MCCOY: There's nothing disgusting about it. It's just another life form, that's all. You get used to those things.
COCHRANE: You're as bad as it is.
SPOCK: Your highly emotional reaction is most illogical. Your relationship with the Companion has for one hundred and fifty years been emotionally satisfying, eminently practical, and totally harmless. It may indeed have been quite beneficial.
COCHRANE: Is this what the future holds? Men who have no notion of decency or morality? Maybe I'm a hundred and fifty years out of style, but I'm not going to be fodder for any inhuman monster. (leaves)
SPOCK: Fascinating. A totally parochial attitude.
NANCY: Doctor. Doctor.
MCCOY: Right here, Miss Hedford.
NANCY: I heard him. He was loved and he resents it.
MCCOY: You just rest.
NANCY: No. I don't want to die. I've been good at my job, but I've never been loved. Never. What kind of life is that? Not to be loved, never to have shown love? And he runs away from love. (cries)

Ship's log, stardate 3220.3. Lieutenant Commander Scott reporting in lieu of the Captain and the first officer. We are continuing our search for the missing shuttlecraft.

[Bridge]

SULU: Approaching what seems to be an asteroid belt, sir. Scanners report approximately seven thousand bodies of sizes running from types A to N.
SCOTT: Atmosphere count?
SULU: Approximately thirty four percent of the bodies of atmospherian types H to M.
SCOTT: All right, then. We'll do it the hard way. All sensors set for life form registration. Automatic selection.
UHURA: Mister Scott, there are thousands of them out there they could be on, if they're on any of them at all.
SCOTT: That's right, Lieutenant. Thousands. And we'll look them over one by one.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

(Another contact session is in progress.)
KIRK: Companion, do you love the man?
COMPANION: I do not understand.
KIRK: Is he important to you, more important than anything? Is he as though he were a part of you?
COMPANION: He is part of me. The man must continue.
KIRK: He will not continue. He will cease to exist. By your feeling for him, you are condemning him to an existence he will find unbearable. He will cease to exist.
COMPANION: He does not age. He remains forever.
KIRK: You speak of his body. I speak of his spirit. Companion, inside the shelter, a female of our species is dying. She will not continue. That is what will happen to the man unless you release all of us.
COMPANION: I do not understand.
KIRK: Our species can only survive if we have obstacles to overcome. You take away all obstacles. Without them to strengthen us, we will weaken and die. You regard the man only as a toy. You amuse yourself with him.
COMPANION: You are wrong. The man is the centre of all things. I care for him.
KIRK: But you can't really love him. You haven't the slightest knowledge of love, the total union of two people. You are the Companion. He is the man. You are two different things. You can't join. You can't love. You may keep him here forever, but you will always be separate, apart from him.
COMPANION: If I were human there can be love? (vanishes)
MCCOY: What did you hope to gain by that, Jim?
KIRK: Try to convince her of the hopelessness of it. Love sometimes expresses itself in sacrifice. I thought maybe if she loved him, she'd let him go.
SPOCK: But she or it is inhuman, Captain. You cannot expect her to react like a human.
KIRK: I tried.
COCHRANE: It's useless. I know.
NANCY: (standing in the doorway) Zefram Cochrane.
KIRK: Bones?
MCCOY: I don't understand it. She's not sick at all.
NANCY: We understand.
COCHRANE: It's her.
KIRK: What?
COCHRANE: Don't you understand? It's the Companion.
KIRK: Bones?
MCCOY: She's perfectly healthy. Heart like a hammer, respiration normal, blood pressure normal. This is medically impossible.
NANCY: We are here.
KIRK: We?
NANCY: Both of us. Those you knew as the Commissioner and the Companion. We are both here.
SPOCK: Companion, you do not have the power to create life.
NANCY: That is for the Maker of all things.
SPOCK: Commissioner Hedford was dying.
NANCY: That part of us was too weak to hold on. In a moment, there would have been no continuing. Now we're together.
SPOCK: Then you are both here, in the one body?
NANCY: We are one.
(She goes to Cochrane, who takes a step back.)
NANCY: Zefram, we frighten you. We've never frightened you before. Loneliness. This is loneliness. Oh, what a bitter thing. Oh, Zefram, it's so sad. How do you bear it, this loneliness?
KIRK: Spock, check out the shuttlecraft. Engine, communications, everything.
NANCY: That will not be necessary, Captain. Your vehicle will operate as before, so will the communications device.
COCHRANE: You're letting us go?
NANCY: We could do nothing now to stop you. You said we would not know love because we were not human. Now we are human. We'll know the change of days. We will know death. But to touch the hand of man, nothing is as important.
COCHRANE: You're very beautiful.
NANCY: Part of me understands. Part does not. But it pleases me.
COCHRANE: I could explain many things.
NANCY: Oh, let me walk, Zefram. Let me feel the earth against my feet. Let me feel the warmth of the sun on my face. You beside me. Let me feel these things.
KIRK: Go ahead, Cochrane We have a few things to do.
(Cochrane and Nancy walk off hand in hand.)

[Bridge]

UHURA: Mister Scott, it's the Captain.
SCOTT: Put him on. Lock on to his co-ordinates. Captain, this is Scotty. Are you all right?

[Outside Cochrane's home]

KIRK: Perfectly all right. Can you get a fix on us.

[Bridge]

SCOTT: The helm is computing your position now, Captain.
SULU: Course two twenty four mark twelve. ETA fifty seven minutes.
SCOTT: We'll be there in 57 minutes, sir.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

KIRK: Very good. I'll continue transmitting. Assume standard orbit when you arrive. We'll transport up in the shuttlecraft.

[Bridge]

SCOTT: What happened, Captain?

[Outside Cochrane's home]

KIRK: Interesting story, Scotty. I can't tell you now because, quite frankly, I don't know how it's going to end. Kirk out.
(Somewhere in the vicinity, Nancy is holding up her scarf to mimic how she saw Cochrane when she was a swirly thing.)
COCHRANE: Everything will be an eye-opener to you. There's a thousand planets out there, a thousand races, and I'll show everything to you, soon as I learn my way around again. Maybe I can make up a little for everything you've done for me.
NANCY: I can't go with you, Zefram.
COCHRANE: Of course you can. You have to.
NANCY: My life emanates from this place. If I should leave it for more than a tiny march of days, I'll cease to exist. I must return, even as you must consume matter to maintain your life.
COCHRANE: You gave up everything to be human? But even if you stay here, you'll eventually die.
NANCY: The joy of this hour. I am pleased.
COCHRANE: Well, I can't just fly away and leave you here.
NANCY: You must be free, Zefram Cochrane.
COCHRANE: You saved my life, took care of me. You loved me. I never understood. I do now.
(He kisses her.)

[Bridge]

SCOTT: We're locked in, Captain. Standard orbit established. Shuttlecraft bay standing by to receive you.

[Outside Cochrane's home]

KIRK: Stand by, Scotty.
(Cochrane and Nancy return.)
KIRK: The Enterprise is waiting, Mister Cochrane.
COCHRANE: I can't take her away from here. If I do, she'll die. If I leave her, she'll die of loneliness. I owe everything to her. I can't leave her. I love her. Is that surprising?
SPOCK: Not coming from a human being. You are, after all, essentially irrational.
KIRK: Think it over, Mister Cochrane. There's a whole galaxy out there waiting to honour you.
COCHRANE: I have honours enough.
SPOCK: But you will age, both of you. There will be no immortality. You'll both grow old here and finally die.
COCHRANE: That's been happening to men and women for a long time. I've got the feeling it's one of the pleasanter things about being human, as long as you grow old together.
KIRK: Are you sure?
COCHRANE: There's plenty of water here. The climate's good for growing things. I might try to plant a fig tree. A man's entitled to that, isn't he? It isn't gratitude, Captain. Now that I see her, touch her, I know that I love her. We'll have a lot of years together. They'll be happy ones.
KIRK: All the best.
(They shake hands, and Kirk walks away.)
COCHRANE: Captain, don't tell them about me.
KIRK: Not a word, Mister Cochrane.
MCCOY: Jim, what about that war on Epsilon Canaris Three?
KIRK: Well, I'm sure the Federation can find another woman somewhere who'll stop that war.

 HISTORY

2024-09-18 13:09:04 - Pike: Added the writer.
2024-09-17 21:30:19 - Pike: Added the director.
2024-09-16 20:15:18 - Pike: New quote added.
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2024-09-16 20:03:19 - Pike: Review modified.
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2024-09-16 19:56:59 - Pike: New quote added.
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2024-09-16 19:53:48 - Pike: Quote modified.
2024-09-16 19:53:17 - Pike: New quote added.
2024-09-16 19:45:40 - Pike: New quote added.
2024-09-16 19:34:27 - Pike: New quote added.
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2024-09-15 12:10:49 - Pike: Added a banner.
2024-09-14 12:58:20 - Pike: Added the air date.