Title: The Lights Of Zetar
Airdate: 1/31/1969
Plot Summary
The Lights Of Zetar begins with the Enterprise heading to Memory Alpha, a planetoid that’s home to the Federation’s central library. Lieutenant Mira Romaine is accompanying them to take her assignment at Memory Alpha when they run across an odd storm.
The storm affects Mira the most, and they realize that the lights were some kind of life forms that wish to take over Romaine’s body. Scotty is most smitten with her and helps her get free of these weird life forms.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk does his best, tries to avoid the lights, and then fires on them when there’s no other choice. But he stops immediately when it appears one of his crew is in danger. He’s also quite amused that McCoy, Spock, and Scotty all agree on something.
Logical
Spock is the one who figures out that the energy signature of the Zetarians is the same as Mira’s brain is now.
He’s Dead Jim
McCoy does his medical thing and makes sure Romaine gets out of the chamber correctly.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is somewhat surprised that Scotty would take to such a brainy type. He also does his best to avoid the Zetarians, but to no avail.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov replies that it isn’t her brain that Scotty is all in a tither over.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura tries to raise Memory Alpha, but no answer cause they are all dead.
My Wee Bairns
Well, once again Scotty has a love interest that turns into a complete shit show, though this time it seems to turn out for the best. But yeah, in this day and age, there were times he was being a complete condescending jerk. His heart was always in the right place, but when that poor, stupid female starts to tell him something is wrong, he just pats her on the head and says it’s just space sickness. Really Scotty? With all the shit you’ve been through? Not to mention the whole crazy alien lights that just threw her for a loop. Maybe, just maybe, there’s something more to it. Yeesh.
Canon Maker
So The Lights Of Zetar reminds me a bit of the TNG episode Power Play, where the Enterprise runs across a bunch of disembodied minds that want to take over bodies. So I guess this episode made it a thing that could happen to species here and there.
Memory Alpha is established as a library for all to use as necessary. This is what the major fan site is named after.
Canon Breaker
While this isn’t really a canon break. I have to agree with Kirk’s exasperation at the idea that the builders of Memory Alpha wouldn’t put any defenses up to protect it. Sure, maybe attacks are probably not going to happen, but weird space phenomena always do. I find it ludicrous that they wouldn’t put up at least the bare minimum just in case. Seriously stupid, though this episode makes a note of that.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No red shirts die, but the entire station complement at Memory Alpha is all killed. Interestingly, they were a nice mix of Federation races, a Tellarite, a few Andorians, and some humans. I appreciate the little details, especially since all the makeup was probably a pain just for a dead body.
Technobabble
So I guess the pressure chamber that was introduced in Space Seed is now also an anti-gravity chamber as well. There must’ve been some upgrades.
I Know That Guy:
Jan Shutan plays Mira. She did a lot of guest star roles, but really had a ton of work in commercials. She sold everything from cigarettes to soap suds.
An interesting note is that this was written by Shari Lewis and her husband, Jeremy Tarcher. Lewis is best remembered as the kids’ TV host with her puppet Lamb Chop.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I can’t find anything egregious about The Lights Of Zetar per se, but I really don’t like it. There’s a reasonably interesting sci-fi plot here, but it’s thin and takes way too long to get where it’s going. The first half isn’t bad. The lights attack, Mira makes weird guttural noises. Then the lights attack Memory Alpha leaving everyone dead. We then get the clues that Mira could see what’s going on and is tied to the lights after the first attack.
At that point, you know exactly what’s going on. She’s tied into them, and they want to take her over. It’s clear as they keep coming back. But now we have to have this long investigation and them dicking around for 20 minutes to get to the damn point.
Then out of nowhere, they just know how to kill the aliens using a pressure chamber. Wait, what? There’s nothing that makes any sense. These are energy beings, and they run around in space at warp speeds. They can go through walls and shields, what is air pressure going to do? This made zero sense.
Scotty isn’t helping matters, as every time they give him a love interest, it’s like fingers on a chalkboard the way he acts. He acts like a puppy dog AND a condescending jerk all at the same time. You just want to slap some sense into him.
Mira isn’t exactly likable either. To be fair, we only get the one scene with her and McCoy right after she was hit with the lights but she comes across so ridiculous and combative that you just want to slap her too.
Yes, she does apologize for it, and you could chalk it up to the Zetar brain bending causing her some issues. The problem is we’ve barely gotten to know her yet, so this is a first impression. She doesn’t exactly endear herself the rest of the way either. I don’t know if it’s the actress or what, but I had such a hard time rooting for her.
All in all, The Lights Of Zetar has a promising start that just fizzles out at the end.
