Metamorphosis tries really hard to be feminist, but misses the mark to a modern audience. On the surface it is a very scifi story about an immortal energy cloud, but deep down it is about how a woman may achieve success, but what she really wants is love. This time the godlikeness of the energy cloud is toned down a bit and it can't leave the tiny rock it lives on for more than a few days. On the planetoid though it is your garden variety pseudodeity.
The episode begins with Kirk, Spock and McCoy flying a shuttle with Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford. It is never explained why the hell they are in a shuttle instead of on the Enterprise, other than for plot convenience. It makes even less sense than you think though, because the commissioner has contracted a deadly disease and will die unless they make it back to the Enterprise, in four days. Suddenly Spock notices something on the scanners, a flashing cloud of energy which seizes control of the shuttle from them and takes them to a tiny planetoid.
They find their shuttle totally disabled along with their communications equipment. They are startled to hear someone calling out greeting them. It is a human named Cochrane who has been marooned here for years. He eventually admits that the same energy cloud brought him here is called the Companion, and that it both made him young again and has kept him from aging ever since. Kirk thinks he recognizes him, and it turns out he is in fact the same Zephram Cochrane who invented warp drive (and played such a bit role in First Contact). While attempting to repair the shuttle Spock is attacked by the Companion with a powerful electric shock. Meanwhile the commissioners condition is deteriorating.
Spock realizes that if it is made of electricity it can probably be disrupted and Cochrane agrees to help them, he is tired of living alone on a rock. Spock rigs up a disruptor, but the Companion overwhelms them and almost kills Spock and Kirk, but Cochrane intervenes. Kirk then directs Spock to rig the universal translator to try and communicate with it. They do and discover it is female and cares deeply for Cochrane. The commissioner is about to die and reveals that despite her amazing career, her one regret is never knowing love. Kirk explains to the companion that since it isn't human it can never love so it merges with the commissioner giving up immortality to live with Cochrane. At first he is put off by the idea, but realizes he love her and decides to stay with her until the grow old together.
Conversation: This episode is both touching for it's humanity, and kinda sexist for its depiction of woman as only being able to have jobs or love interests, not both. The commissioner half the the merged being at the end seems perfectly happy to give up her life as one of the most important people in the galaxy to live on a tiny rock for the next 50 years. I had mixed feelings about some of the messages, but I enjoyed watching it.
7 out of 10
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