Episode Title: The Devil in the Dark
Air Date: 3/9/1967
Written by Gene L.
Coon
Directed by Joseph
Pevney
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty” Barry
Russo as Lieutenant Commander Giotto Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant
Leslie Bill Blackburn as
Lieutenant Haley Frank Da Vinci
as Lieutenant Osborn Ron
Veto as Unnamed Security Guard Ken Lynch as Chief Engineer Vanderberg Brad Weston as Appel Biff Elliot as Schmitter George
Allen as Engineer #1 Jon
Cavett as Guard Dick Dial as Sam Robert Hitchcock as unnamed Miner Monty O'Grady as unnamed Miner Bob Hoy and Janos Prohaska as Horta
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Janus VI
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: This episode
opens with a unique beginning for instead of starting with the crew from the Enterprise we find ourselves with an
entirely different cast of characters.
One miner is being asked to stand guard and he doesn’t like it. Many of their coworkers have already died
under very bizarre and brutal circumstances.
The miner who is being asked to remain is reminded by his superior that
although his concerns are understood the very fact that they’re all under threat
is why they need guards. Help is nearby
and the Enterprise is on its
way. Unfortunately for this guard help
doesn’t arrive soon enough and he becomes another casualty just seconds after
being left alone.
 |
| Humans under threat that they don't understand! |
The Enterprise arrives and the trio of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr.
McCoy all meet with Chief Engineer Vanderberg.
Vandeberg explains to his guests the horror of what has been going
on. He lets the men know that he is lost
over fifty miners by unknown means. He
thinks it’s some sort of creature based on what very few survivors have managed
to report. They’ve tried to stop the
creature with their phasers but it appears immune. This is a very valuable mining operation and many
planets depend on its success. It is
also one of the richest planets in terms of the diverse minerals that they can
mine from it. If the crew from the Enterprise cannot help them they may end up having to abandon this
very valuable operation. In a classic
case of Chekhov’s gun, Mr. Spock notices a strange metallic sphere. Vandeberg explains that they’re not very
valuable but they see them around all the time in many shafts.
 |
| Ever have something that was more valuable than you thought? |
Given the evidence that they are able to
examine Mr. Spock proposes the possibility that what they are dealing with
could potentially be a silicon-based life form.
The possibility has the Captain intrigued but McCoy finds that to be an
absurd fantasy. Dr. McCoy decides his
time is best served seeing the remains of the victims and while he’s gone Kirk
and Spock discuss options. They decide
to bring down security team armed with phaser 2s, as phaser 2 is far more
powerful than phaser 1. When it comes to
dealing with the creature Spock suggest that since this is the only of its kind
they’ve ever seen they might want to capture it for science. Kirk rejects this idea deciding it is far too
dangerous and therefore they should go after it with everything they can.
As Kirk and Spock make their plans, the creature strikes
again. It kills one more guard and then
does something very strange for creature that they thought was mindless. It manages to detach and steal the engine’s
main reactor. Without it the engine will
soon fail that will in turn kill life-support in the colony and mandate an
evacuation. Kirk asked Scotty if he can fix
it. Mr. Scott reports however the colony
relied on such an archaic piece of machinery that in his entire Starfleet
career he'd never worked with the like of it. What they
have on the Enterprise is not
compatible. However Mr. Scott is a
miracle worker and he successfully jury-rigs a temporary replacement which will
buy them about 48 hours.
 |
| Kirk with his finest security officers |
Kirk and Spock prep the security team. As he is giving them instructions it is clear
that Mr. Spock still wishes to potentially capture the creature. Kirk quickly overrides this and commanding
the creature must be destroyed. At one
point Kirk tries to reassign Spock from the hunting party to Mr. Scott's team,
however Spock is able to talk the captain out of that in a very humorous manner
involving mathematical odds. The two of
them even become the first to encounter the creature and fight back after a poor red shirt falls. The creature looks kind of like a pizza ridding on a
moving carpet. They successfully fight
the creature off, using the phasers, blasting a piece off of it. The creature is able to escape however given
its ability to travel through rock like we would travel through air. The important thing is they've now proven the
creature is no longer unbeatable.
The bad news is Scotty’s temporary
replacement reactor is about to give up the ghost. Most of the colony is evacuated with small
group staying behind led by Vanderburg to aid Kirk and the Starfleet security
team in the hunt.
Kirk and Spock head down one of the caverns
that they find littered with the same silicon spheres that Mr. Spock was
admiring earlier. They come to a fork in
the caves and they each go down one tunnel keeping contact with their communicators. Then
Kirk encounters the creature coming out of a wall. As the creature comes at him he aims his
phaser at it. The creature than backs
away, when Kirk lowers his phaser it approaches. It appears intelligent it even shows Kirk its
wound from earlier. He contacts Spock
who demands Kirk defend himself and slay it.
Kirk notes how they have come to switch positions.
As Spock arrives he begins to come
back to his original position. They are
unsure to what they should do so Spock attempts a mind meld. Getting close to the creature Spock is able
to sense its intense pain both physical and emotional. When Spock breaks off the creature attempts
to communicate by melting the words “No kill I.” Not sure of what that means Spock has to
touch the creature for a complete mind meld.
Spock learns that the creature is
female and she is called a Horta. Once
every 50,000 years the entire species dies off except one. That remaining Horta lays eggs for the entire
next generation of the species and raises them when they hatch. Now is one of those generational cycles and
the silicon spheres that they are seeing everywhere are her eggs. Every time they blast open a mine they are
killing her children and thousands of them have died already. Her attacks on the colony and the workers
were purely defensive, as she was only defending her babies. However now she is dying of her injuries and
her entire species is now doomed as a result.
 |
| Horta Eggs, not for eating |
Upon hearing from Spock the pain of
the Horta, Kirk summons Dr. McCoy who when told he has to work on a
silicon-based life form proclaims that “I’m a Doctor, not a bricklayer.” Kirk
insists he try and McCoy gets to work, he gets an idea and communicates to the Enterprise about beaming down the supplies.
 |
| Broken eggs |
When the miners arrive Kirk and
Spock explain to them what happened and about why they had the conflict with
the Horta. The miners feel compassion
for the Horta and sorrow for what happened. They also bemoan for themselves
the loss of the colony with the productive and profitable operation. Kirk then explains it doesn’t have to be the end
of their colony; they can form a symbiotic relationship with the Horta. As the Horta move through rock as easily as
we move through air and in doing so leave tunnels. Vanderburg had complained earlier about the
difficulties of extraction the Horta could solve that problem.
 |
| Kirk meets the Horta |
Spock then points out that the only
problem is the remaining Horta is dying.
Then McCoy jumps in to correct him.
McCoy, who is momentarily stunned by his own awesomeness as a doctor,
proclaims the Horta is saved. McCoy had the Enterprise beam down concrete and he used it to patch the Horta together.
 |
| Uncovering the truth with a mind meld! |
Back up on the Enterprise Kirk gets a message from Venderburg that the newly
hatched Horta are already opening new tunnels and their operation is now more
profitable than ever. As the Enterprise takes off we learn that the
Horta was a fan of Mr. Spock’s ears.
Additional thoughts: William Shatner
lost his father while filming this episode and he credits the cast for helping
him through this dark time. It is
because of what everyone did for him that this became one of his favorite
episodes despite the loss.
The crew of the USS Enterprise has a stated mission to explore new worlds and new civilizations.
This mission by its very nature guarantees and they occasionally will
counter lifeforms there are not necessarily human-like. Now given the production of the series in
terms of budgetary constraints, capabilities of graphics, and the majority of
story ideas, most aliens they encounter will be humanoid in appearance. One of the enduring themes of Star Trek is the continued message of
tolerance. We have a racially diverse
crew that also has an alien, who explore the universe together encountering
many different types of life. Nearly all
life that they encounter has one thing in common: they are carbon-based. Scientists here in the real world have
speculated about the possibilities of life based in silicon, and it’s a great
idea for science fiction to explore. It
would be an easy idea to just make this creature a monster, a horrific thing
the tears apart human beings that needs to be stopped. However by showing this thing is a victim of
human misunderstanding creates a great curve ball for the story.
When the truth of the Horta is
revealed the reaction of Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock is one of compassion, and
what is even better is when this is revealed to the miners they respond with
compassion as well. Just as it would’ve
been very easy to make the Horta a monster it would’ve also been just as easy to
make the miners closed minded and bigoted.
The writers could have made them people who cannot see past their own
pain and made the story a tragedy as they wipe for the Horta off the
face of its own planet. However people of the United Federation of Planets, not
just Starfleet, are people of a different era not prone to throw away something
based solely on hatred. That is part of
what I love about the series and franchise.
On a story point that I was
questioning however is how did the Horta get the engineering knowledge to know
how to sabotage the engine? Not only
that but how did the Horta do it without arms managed to detach the reactor and
carry it away? I mean I can understand it melting the reactor but how did it
detach and carry it without inflicting any damage upon it?
I love the fact that the colony's engineering system was of such outdated technology that Mr. Scott himself had
no experience working with it. Scotty
knows of it as he’s seen such devices in museums and clearly read upon them in
the history of engineering at the Academy.
Working on one however is an entirely different story, he pulls it off
little bit but he does have his limits.
This reminded me of an episode of John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight talking about our nuclear warheads. This can be scary stuff.
The best scene however was Dr. McCoy being so blown away by what an awesome doctor he himself is. He is in awe of himself and the funny thing is McCoy is not wrong about this. McCoy actually is so awesome that he could save a life form based on a different element than all known life. I wish one day I could discover something about myself that is so awesome I am at a loss for words when I discover it. In fact I wish everyone on Earth, with exception to people I despise, could one day feel as Dr. McCoy feels in that moment.
 |
| "I just can't get over how awesome I am." |
On one final note every human
character said that the Horta was ugly in the episode and that the final joke was when Mr. Spock revealed that the Horta also thought that humans were
ugly but like the humans she thought she could get used to us after a period of
time. Funny thing is I thought the Horta
was kind of cute. I would like one as a pet
but that would be degrading to the Horta considering they're intelligent
creatures. Maybe we could be housemates.
FINAL GRADE 5 of 5
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