re: Star Trek: TOS Watchers - S2 - Return to Tomorrow *Page 14*

*METAMORPHOSIS*



Kirk, Spock, McCoy and a federation official crash land in a shuttle on a planetoid inhabited by warp drive inventor Zephram Cochrane (who appeared young and healthy, despite being 150+ years old and long since presumed dead) and a mysterious creature - a creature who apparently arranged for the shuttle crash to provide company for Cochrane.

Elinor Donahue



An on-screen "stepsister" of a sort, to Leonard Nimoy, as she played the daughter of Jane Wyatt's character on "Father Knows Best" (Jane Wyatt playing Spock's mother in "Journey to Babel" and Star Trek IV: TVH.)

The "companion" special effect:



provides a direct link to Star Wars - as its designer, Richard Edlund would go on to become one of the fourteen founding members of Industrial Light and Magic and win an Academy Award for Star Wars: A New Hope.

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METAMORPHOSIS

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Love this EP, I need to watch it again.

Zephram Cochrane was good in First Contact, glad the earth isn't all Borg now...

The voice of the companion (uncredited) was by Elizabeth Rogers. She would return in 2 subsequent episodes as Lieutenant Palmer:



- in relief of Lieutenant Uhura in TOS episodes The Doomsday Machine and The Way to Eden.

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I still have questions about the nature of the joining and how much Hedford is present in the new entity, but I don't think we're supposed to dwell on that.

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I agree - the way it was done, with the dual tracked voice was excellent. I guess the deal goes down like this (or some approximation):

"Unfortunately and although I did not intend this, my actions have resulted in your impending death. I can't directly fix that now. However, I can make amends in the following way - I give up my existence, merge with you, and that should give you back the balance of the life you would have had. Downside, you will be merged with me - permanently, and we have to live here. I'm sorry, but that's the deal. If you say no, I understand, but - unfortunately, you will perish and I cannot do anything about it."

I guess that is less than fully consensual, but understandable under the circumstances.

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You can always tell when an episode has a Gene Coon influence and this one definitely did. Looks like DC Fontana had her say as well.

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Not sure about Fontana, but Geen Coon wrote this script, so, spot on for that analysis. Of course, this episode was produced during the period where he was the showrunner for TOS, as well. He only wrote/co-wrote/story for 12 TOS episodes, but some of the very best were his.

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Said in the credits that she was a script adviser or something like that.

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"Story editor" (or whatever they called it) - was a position she held, rather than a creative credit. She took over that position late in Season 1 and held it until the end of Season 2 - you should see her as whatever that credit was in the credits after every Season 2 episode.

Dorothy Catherine did write/co-write/story 10 TOS episodes, 1 TAS, 5 TNG and 1 DS9 story - which is not bad (just not Metamorphosis).

ETA: She might have polished the script or approved a change needed by the director or whatever required/allowed by the position, it just wasn't substantial enough to get a script credit for this particular episode.

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*FRIDAY'S CHILD*



For a change, McCoy is the cultural expert for a mission. The Capellans have mineral rights desired by the Federation and the Klingons - in a barely disguised Middle East/oil conflict allegory.

The Klingon was portrayed as almost craven - and this is possible as we were still in the Advent era, and he wasn't valued enough to command a ship or be a warrior. Looking back, it appears that the concept of the Capellans (a race of large, code-bound warriors) was merged with the TOS Klingons to make the Klingons of TNG/DS9 - but that is just my observation.

Also, Julie Newmar -



And - in a nice twist, McCoy gets the girl -- (sort of).

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Damn, I missed this thread, was wondering if you were going to continue, I've got some catch up to do.

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Only slight change is that we're taking a whole week on each episode. I hope it picks up - it's mainly me talking to myself - so far for Season 2 - although we've had a couple of other contributors (which I appreciate).