The Lights of Zetar

Season 3, Episode 18, Aired
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Episode Summary

The Enterprise must deal with discorporeal cloud-like aliens who have already destroyed the inhabitants of a library planet and plan to eliminate the Enterprise crew if they cannot acquire a human host.
6.7
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EPISODE RATING: Fair
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Fan Episode Reviews (4)

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  • Interesting concept, but blah execution

    7.1
    "Good"
    By Gislef, Oct 05, 2011 Report Abuse
    Like many third-season episodes, this one tries to be rather experimental. It's very much a horror/possession story: The Zetars (Zetarians?) aren't really aliens as much as a demonic "I am Legion" type of force intent on taking over the life and body of a human being for their own purposes.

    Despite this fact it comes from Shari Lewis of "Lambchop" fame, it features some definitely creepy scenes: the deaths on Memory Alpha, Romaine's possession episodes, the scenes of the possessed technician/Romaine changing face-color and making that weird garbled noise (a recycle from the aliens at the end of "Catspaw"?), and the grotesque form of death aliens bring. And we get another alien race, powerful, mildly apologetic, but with iron-willed determination to save themselves. Again, we get another "alien" alien in the third season. And the idea of a Federation library.

    Unfortunately, how it plays out is kind of flawed. James Doohan purportedly wasn't thrilled with the romance, and it's not surprising. Despite his best efforts (and some really awkward dialogue), there's not any chemistry between the two romantic leads. Jan Shutan does the horror elements well, and the character's late-in-the game "I will not be taken over" determination, and she's not conventionally drop-dead gorgeous. However, she doesn't really sell her side of the romance angle.

    There's also that excruciating log entry by Kirk at the beginning ("When a man of Scotty's years..." wow, way to rub it in), and the whole "high pressure can kill the aliens" angle that comes in from left field.

    So I'd give it around a 7 for general creepiness and alien alienness, but it doesn't really make it into the top tier. Just cruising along in the middle of the middle range.moreless

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  • Lt. Romaine, who Scotty has fallen for, seems to become possessed by the mysterious lights of Zetar.

    6.0
    "Fair"
    By Celedorian, Jan 07, 2011 Report Abuse
    As far as Star Trek "horror" episodes go, this one didn't turn out too badly though it can still be a little dreary. (It's hard to believe that Shari Lewis and her husband wrote this one perhaps with help from Lamb Chop as well.) Jan Shutan guest stars as Lieutenant Mira Romaine, and she's fine, though the series could have done better (such as casting Shari Lewis, which is what she had in mind when she wrote the thing.) The real gem of a performance here belongs to Scotty, who looks upon the girl with the love struck eyes he usually reserves for only the Enterprise engines. Director Herb Kenwith does a capable job directing his only Star Trek episode. Unfortunately, most of the episode lacks anything worth getting excited about, due in part to the fact that we really don't care what happens to Mira, and the regulars aren't really put in jeopardy.moreless

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  • Leave it to Scotty to choose a girlfriend who talks with a guy's voice and floats in mid air

    5.4
    "Mediocre"
    By hrtonslv, Dec 28, 2010 Report Abuse
    I continue to say that I think this one is creepy. I still have to look away from the screen when they see the dead body on Memory Alpha in the library. I was reading one of the notes or trivia comments and they mentioned that it would have been so easy for the Zetarians to leave that pressure chamber the same way they came onto the ship. By simply moving away. They had no problem moving through that bulkhead. Great comment. Most of the trivia I knew about and shared the opinion, but that was a real good observance.moreless

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  • At Memory Alpha, a planet full of library records, the Enterprise crew are temporarily incapacitated by mysterious energy-based life forms, which posses Lt. Mira Romaine, who Scotty has fallen in love with. Another average third season story...moreless

    6.5
    "Fair"
    By Jay-Spacedust, Dec 28, 2010 Report Abuse
    (I am resuming my goal to review every episode of the Original Series. As if the third season wasn't enough of a slog in the first place, my DVD set had two damaged disks (one of them containing this episode) and I had to replace them. Oh well, back on track)

    "The Lights of Zetar" is another one of those average-at-best third season episodes that has nothing particularly outstanding about it.

    Memory Alpha, a planetoid that is a library for Federation records, is a very interesting concept, but deserves a story more solely devoted to it here it rather just ends up as the standard 'endangered location of the week'. The title of Memory Alpha is now used as the name of a popular 'Star Trek' wiki.

    I don't find the love interest between Mr. Scott and Lt. Mira Romaine to be convincing at all. Although the late James Doohan appears to do his best with the material he is given, but there is little real spark between the pair. The interest seems purely one-way, with Scotty, I have to say, rather appearing as the lusty old man after the sexy young girl.

    ...Following on from which, there are some very out of character moments for Scotty. Yes he is in love with Mira, but I couldn't believe that he would deliberately disobey Kirk's orders and follow her to sickbay; nor would he not report Mira's strange condition that soon emerges.
    As with Scotty's previous love interest in the second seasons "Who Mourns for Adonais?", this is the last we ever heard of the girl (although several non-canon novels have included Mira).

    When Mira becomes possessed by the energy-based aliens, things started to become a tamer version of the first season's "Where No Man Has Gone Before". However, the story didn't follow up on the quality of that episode, and I didn't really buy the later moments of this instalment. I didn't fully grasp the climatic scene in the pressure chamber, and it didn't really feel like a pleasing nor believable solution to the premise.

    All-in-all, not really an outstanding episode. In seasons one or two, this would have served as filler offering at best; unfortunately, the third season is rather full of these middling stories, and is a prime example of why the third season is widely regarded as the weakest of the three seasons of the Original Series.moreless

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Trivia, Notes, Quotes and Allusions

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  • Trivia

    ADD TRIVIA
    • Mira is supposedly weightless in the pressure chamber, but her tunic skirt remains perfectly flat and her long hair doesn't even float - it's hanging straight down below her head. Edit
    • When the landing party beamed down to the library planet after the "storm" hit, Kirk's voiceover said it was an "onimous" sign, instead of "ominous". "Onimous" isn't even a real word. Edit
    • Kirk has Romaine put into the pressure chamber and increases the pressure one atmosphere per second. At that rate, she'd have been flattened more than a pancake in under a minute. Edit

  • Notes

    ADD NOTES
    • The second-season end-title theme music returns for use in the last 7 episodes of the third season. Edit

  • Quotes

    ADD QUOTES
    • Kirk: Scotty, where've you been? Where are you? Scotty: In the sickbay. Kirk: Are you sick? Scotty: Oh, no. I was just checkin' on the lass. She's going to be fine. There's nothing wrong. Kirk: Well, I'm relieved to hear your prognosis, Mr. Scott. Is the doctor there, or will I find him in Engineering? Edit
    • McCoy: Somehow I find transporting into the darkness unnerving. Edit
    • Kirk: (speaking into his Captain's log) When a man of Scotty's years falls in love, the loneliness of his life is suddenly revealed. His heart once throbbed to the sound of the ship's engines; now all he can see is the woman. Edit

  • Allusions

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