This episode, written by the creator and writers of Lamb Chop - Shari Lewis and her husband Jeremy Tarcher, has a lot more happening than just a bunch of fancy lights floating around.
It is Jan's performance, that has convinced me, has always convinced me when I first saw this episode when I was eight years old, on the night when it was first broadcast. There is something going on behind her eyes during this entire performance. Even before her unwilling connection to these mysterious flashes of light, there is something going on, something very deep.
And of course she is attracted to Scotty. This is a completely mutual attraction, total devotion to each other. Unlike the previous one-sided relationships Scotty has had that ended badly, where his girlfriends of the time were victims of "RedJack", or dumped him for Apollo. According to the fan show "Star Trek Continues" sequel " pilgrim of eternity" where the actor that plays Apollo reappears in aged state, Scotty never got over that jealousy that almost got him in serious dren when he was confronting Apollo. This is a lot different than that, in this situation, there is a mention that Mira's father is a retired chief engineer... guess what Scotty is? Only not retired. Which might be why Lieutenant Romaine is attracted to him, looks up to him, and listens to him, and sincerely believes him when he spouts his "space legs" pseudononsense...
He tries to rationalize what is happening to her by his own experiences or by what he knows from others, it was refreshing to hear him admit that he was wrong, and we know how bullheaded Scotty is/was.
As far as the nature of these flying doodads, it becomes less unbelievable as an explanation for what they are finally comes out.
This episode also, instead of telepathy or other overused and overabused para-abnormalities, talks about a persons "pliability", The ability to be faced with new situations and I guess a good word is, subdue them.
With that explanation there, this episode is moved away from "the paranormal" to ideas that may in fact have real world connotations.
It's too bad that the actress never continued the role in the later episodes or perhaps the original series movies of the 80s. A relationship like this would have lasted. There should have been a mention of it in further Star Trek Canon. But this was 1960s episodic television, we rarely saw the return of a character from a previous episode.
As far as the story, it was a totally enjoyable, typical Star Trek story. And once again unfairly panned, just like The Cloud Minders and Spock's Brain, where the only problems were those of production, not of story. Especially in the third season, Star Trek did not have the budget for production. You will notice that between the first episode filmed which was the pilot episode that produces god-men and the last episode, "Turnabout intruder", the hallways of the enterprise were stripped of the extras that were always seen running back-and-forth doing incomprehensible tasks with incomprehensible machinery.
I totally enjoyed this episode and I was affected on a personal level by Jan Shutan's performance. A gorgeous actress, and she's not attracted to Kirk. That is another aspect of this particular episode that is interesting. Kirk is usually the one kissing women on the bridge, this time, "Scotty gets the girl", and what a woman. We get the impression that, she is representing a character that isn't just a "bubble headed booby", she is as good at her job as Scotty is doing his job. So this is a match made in engineering.
It is Jan's performance, that has convinced me, has always convinced me when I first saw this episode when I was eight years old, on the night when it was first broadcast. There is something going on behind her eyes during this entire performance. Even before her unwilling connection to these mysterious flashes of light, there is something going on, something very deep.
And of course she is attracted to Scotty. This is a completely mutual attraction, total devotion to each other. Unlike the previous one-sided relationships Scotty has had that ended badly, where his girlfriends of the time were victims of "RedJack", or dumped him for Apollo. According to the fan show "Star Trek Continues" sequel " pilgrim of eternity" where the actor that plays Apollo reappears in aged state, Scotty never got over that jealousy that almost got him in serious dren when he was confronting Apollo. This is a lot different than that, in this situation, there is a mention that Mira's father is a retired chief engineer... guess what Scotty is? Only not retired. Which might be why Lieutenant Romaine is attracted to him, looks up to him, and listens to him, and sincerely believes him when he spouts his "space legs" pseudononsense...
He tries to rationalize what is happening to her by his own experiences or by what he knows from others, it was refreshing to hear him admit that he was wrong, and we know how bullheaded Scotty is/was.
As far as the nature of these flying doodads, it becomes less unbelievable as an explanation for what they are finally comes out.
This episode also, instead of telepathy or other overused and overabused para-abnormalities, talks about a persons "pliability", The ability to be faced with new situations and I guess a good word is, subdue them.
With that explanation there, this episode is moved away from "the paranormal" to ideas that may in fact have real world connotations.
It's too bad that the actress never continued the role in the later episodes or perhaps the original series movies of the 80s. A relationship like this would have lasted. There should have been a mention of it in further Star Trek Canon. But this was 1960s episodic television, we rarely saw the return of a character from a previous episode.
As far as the story, it was a totally enjoyable, typical Star Trek story. And once again unfairly panned, just like The Cloud Minders and Spock's Brain, where the only problems were those of production, not of story. Especially in the third season, Star Trek did not have the budget for production. You will notice that between the first episode filmed which was the pilot episode that produces god-men and the last episode, "Turnabout intruder", the hallways of the enterprise were stripped of the extras that were always seen running back-and-forth doing incomprehensible tasks with incomprehensible machinery.
I totally enjoyed this episode and I was affected on a personal level by Jan Shutan's performance. A gorgeous actress, and she's not attracted to Kirk. That is another aspect of this particular episode that is interesting. Kirk is usually the one kissing women on the bridge, this time, "Scotty gets the girl", and what a woman. We get the impression that, she is representing a character that isn't just a "bubble headed booby", she is as good at her job as Scotty is doing his job. So this is a match made in engineering.