Captain Kirk seeks revenge against a gaseous entity that killed the crew members of the USS Farragut.
This is a reasonably good episode that has a fairly silly premise, but some strong character moments
The plot is one of Star Trek's many tributes to Moby Dick and works well if you can buy into the concept of a cloud monster as the villain. Personally, I struggled to suspend the required disbelief, but it may be my own lack of imagination as opposed to a sci-fi concept that hasn't aged well. We see hand phasers being fired at the cloud, ship phasers and photon torpedoes and it all seems frustratingly pointless.
I enjoyed the character portrayals, particularly Spock and Bones who show concern about the Ahab-like tendencies displayed by Kirk. These for me are easily the best scenes. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are on great form. William Shatner plays the obsessed Kirk with enough restraint to convince that he is still in control. Although the writing of Kirk's character 'feeling' the creature's intentions is somewhat dubious and plot-convenient.
The visuals are as good as they can be given the concept. There's only so much menace that can be generated by a smoke machine or graphics of a cloud following the Enterprise through space. The final action sequence with Kirk and Garrovick facing the creature is quite well done.
For me it's a 6.5/10 but I round upwards.
This is a reasonably good episode that has a fairly silly premise, but some strong character moments
The plot is one of Star Trek's many tributes to Moby Dick and works well if you can buy into the concept of a cloud monster as the villain. Personally, I struggled to suspend the required disbelief, but it may be my own lack of imagination as opposed to a sci-fi concept that hasn't aged well. We see hand phasers being fired at the cloud, ship phasers and photon torpedoes and it all seems frustratingly pointless.
I enjoyed the character portrayals, particularly Spock and Bones who show concern about the Ahab-like tendencies displayed by Kirk. These for me are easily the best scenes. Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are on great form. William Shatner plays the obsessed Kirk with enough restraint to convince that he is still in control. Although the writing of Kirk's character 'feeling' the creature's intentions is somewhat dubious and plot-convenient.
The visuals are as good as they can be given the concept. There's only so much menace that can be generated by a smoke machine or graphics of a cloud following the Enterprise through space. The final action sequence with Kirk and Garrovick facing the creature is quite well done.
For me it's a 6.5/10 but I round upwards.