Michael Forrest as Apollo in “Star Trek” episode ‘Who Mourns for
Adonais?’ (first aired September 1967). While the world was discovering
the joys of the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, Trekkies
got to sit down to watch what is, in a way, a classic sci-fi/Star Trek
premise: a supernatural alien being, the last of his kind, meeting
humans who have also travelled so far from Earth to now encounter him
again, constellations and centuries apart. Its mystery and tense
combative atmosphere feel very much like ‘The Corbomite Manoeuver’ (one
of my favourites, with the terrifying Balok turning out to be an
adorable little Clint Howard), and perhaps another early take on
fallibility and obsolescence. Apollo is a Q/Trelane of a kind, facing a
Swiftian reversal of power, no longer feared or admired, needed or
wanted, and therefore quite sad.
With all its Grecian columns and pan pipes, the story sounds like it should be out of place in the Trek universe but it isn’t at all, maybe because the ending matches the way Kirk likes to exhaust all computers gone rogue haha (offsetting any silly dialogue or weakness in the plot), a strange conflict between the idyllic past and the atomic age optimism of a technological future. And maybe I also love it because (the frankly gorgeous) Michael Forrest plays his role in all seriousness, with an unrestrained Shakespearean weight and operatic sympathy that suits the series so well. Other plus points: it also has one of the most exquisite, unrealistically tailored Bill Theiss dresses ever, and one of William Shatner’s more understated but faithfully Shatner performances (which I unashamedly love haha) Xo
With all its Grecian columns and pan pipes, the story sounds like it should be out of place in the Trek universe but it isn’t at all, maybe because the ending matches the way Kirk likes to exhaust all computers gone rogue haha (offsetting any silly dialogue or weakness in the plot), a strange conflict between the idyllic past and the atomic age optimism of a technological future. And maybe I also love it because (the frankly gorgeous) Michael Forrest plays his role in all seriousness, with an unrestrained Shakespearean weight and operatic sympathy that suits the series so well. Other plus points: it also has one of the most exquisite, unrealistically tailored Bill Theiss dresses ever, and one of William Shatner’s more understated but faithfully Shatner performances (which I unashamedly love haha) Xo
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