Who Mourns for Adonais?
Who Mourns for Adonais? (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is a rather smart little episode where the Enterprise stumbles upon the hiding place of the Greek God Apollo.
To fulfill the corny quota, he stops them with his giant green space-hand. Then he requests the officers to join him on his planet. Kirk and friends oblige. Chekov, who as far as I know isn’t an officer, gets to come along for his first on-screen away mission.
Apollo wants the crew to stay and worship him, to be his servants and he their protector. Pretty standard stuff.
But this episode gets at a few deeper points. Gene Roddenberry was a staunch atheist, and held fast to the idea that in his future, humanity had progressed beyond a belief in gods. This episode tilts heavily toward this viewpoint, but at one point, Kirk quips that “mankind has no need for gods. We find the one quite adequate.” So it appears that there’s still at least a monotheistic view still surviving.
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And in the final line of the episode, Kirk wonders aloud if they had tried to learn a bit from Apollo by behaving for a while, as thanks for services rendered five thousand years ago. Kirk and Bones obviously acknowledge that Apollo was an important part of their racial history, and they know that they should respect that more than they do.
This episode also waxes poetic about another of Roddenberry’s favorites, how humanity must stick together. It’s well known that before he died Roddenberry decreed that no Trek would feature wars among the humans. And here, we have Kirk talk at length– and rather well– about what connects the Earthlings.
Kirk: Give me your hand. Your hand! Now feel that. Human flesh against human flesh. We’re the same: we share the same history, the same heritage, the same lives. We’re tied together beyond any untying. Man or woman, it makes no difference: we’re human, we couldn’t escape from one another even if we wanted to. That’s how you do it, lieutenant: by remembering who and what you are, a bit of flesh and blood afloat in a universe without end and the only thing that’s truly yours is the rest of humanity. That’s where our duty lies.
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But a side plot of this episode is just bizarre. It starts out in the cold open with this dialog:
McCoy: Lieutenant, you look a bit tired this morning.
Pretty Young Thing: Well I was up all night working on this report, sir.
Scotty: Well in that case there’s nothing like a wee bit of coffee to get you back in shape. Join me, Caroline?
Pretty Young Thing: All right, Scotty. Just let me give this to Mr. Spock.
Kirk: Bones, could you get that excited about a cup of coffee?
McCoy: Well even from here I can tell his pulse rate’s up.
Scotty: Gentlemen!
Scotty: [To the Pretty Young Thing] Come along, my dear.
McCoy: I’m not sure I like that, Jim.
Kirk: Why, Bones? Scotty’s a Good Man.
McCoy: And he thinks he’s the right man for her. But I’m not sure she thinks he’s the right man. On the other hand, she’s a woman. All woman. One day she’ll find the right man; off she’ll go. Out of the service.
Kirk: Um-hm. I like to think of it not so much as losing an officer as gaining a… [Beat] Actually, I’m losing an officer.
All alone, this is just a bit of banter. But in the full context of the series, it’s a tipping point. This show treats women terribly. There are no strong female characters. Yeoman Rand was the closest they came, and they axed her character midway through the first season. When a woman appears, she’s inevitably a love interest for someone, and she often has some special skillset that the crew needs but that she neglects because she’s smitten.
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This episode fits this formula perfectly, and then at the end throws in a surprising strength on the woman’s part. On the one hand it’s admirable that she gets to be the one who saves the entire crew, but on the other hand the audience is led to believe that you can’t trust her to do her job, because she’s a girl.
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In spite of it’s shortcomings, however, this is a well-done episode that manages to talk about multiple topics while keeping an interesting plot aloft. Good job.
Grade
A-
