Okay wait. Why is the episode called Who Mourns for Adonais? I thought it might be an alternate name for Apollo but it's not. Shelley wrote a poem about Keats using that name, but that's all I can find.
No need to rehash the plot, other reviewers have spelled it out. I think this is a very clever bit of writing, as well as good acting. At first you take it seriously, but on repeated viewings I realize that a lot of humor was injected into it. And appropriately so.
"You're no god to us mister!" snaps Kirk. It's fun to see the Enterprise crew using their tricorders and other devices to try to unravel the "cheap tricks" of Apollo and to discover the source of his power.
He almost gets the crew killed by the creature who calls himself Apollo.
I think the point of the episode is to examine the tension between encroaching technology and religion, in our culture. Just as the firestorm was begun by Nietzsche proclaiming that "God is dead", it continues today even in our politics as the evangelicals square off against the liberals. Nothing dated here.
So I don't think that the writer is taking the side of Kirk and the agnostic 'technocrats' who are so scornful of Apollo. I think the writer, as evidenced by a few of Apollo's heartfelt speeches, is expressing the view that man needs a god, someone to worship. Technology has flooded into our civilization, and has rendered obsolete the old pursuits of man. A century ago, most US citizens were farmers -- and church-goers. The story does not clearly answer the question of where Apollo came from, but suggests that Greeks worshipped these advanced aliens, in an arrangement that was beneficial to all parties concerned.
Very well done and with enough tongue-in-cheek or situational humor to make it entertaining.
No need to rehash the plot, other reviewers have spelled it out. I think this is a very clever bit of writing, as well as good acting. At first you take it seriously, but on repeated viewings I realize that a lot of humor was injected into it. And appropriately so.
"You're no god to us mister!" snaps Kirk. It's fun to see the Enterprise crew using their tricorders and other devices to try to unravel the "cheap tricks" of Apollo and to discover the source of his power.
He almost gets the crew killed by the creature who calls himself Apollo.
I think the point of the episode is to examine the tension between encroaching technology and religion, in our culture. Just as the firestorm was begun by Nietzsche proclaiming that "God is dead", it continues today even in our politics as the evangelicals square off against the liberals. Nothing dated here.
So I don't think that the writer is taking the side of Kirk and the agnostic 'technocrats' who are so scornful of Apollo. I think the writer, as evidenced by a few of Apollo's heartfelt speeches, is expressing the view that man needs a god, someone to worship. Technology has flooded into our civilization, and has rendered obsolete the old pursuits of man. A century ago, most US citizens were farmers -- and church-goers. The story does not clearly answer the question of where Apollo came from, but suggests that Greeks worshipped these advanced aliens, in an arrangement that was beneficial to all parties concerned.
Very well done and with enough tongue-in-cheek or situational humor to make it entertaining.