Review

This episode is sort of like an inferior version of The Cage. Two large-headed, intellectual super aliens with the power of illusions entrap the cast for their own seemingly selfish motives which turn out to be rather benevolent in the end, or at least somewhat well intended. While this episode has some strikingly original austere aesthetics from a directoral perspective, unfortunately this version of The Cage's themes doesn't work quite so well from a storytelling perspective.

For starters, the Vians' methods were not terribly scientific and their cruelty remained poorly substantiated even by the end of the story, not the least of which was because there at no point ever appeared to be any consequences for the Vians killing two Starfleet officers. The Vians simply wrote it off as "their own imperfections killed them. They were not fit subjects." And "we did not kill them. Their own fears killed them." Kirk never appeared to follow up on these ridiculous explanations and the Vians never appeared to answer for their crimes.

While it's certainly true that they're from an alien culture guided by an alien philosophy, not much of the story's time is spent on developing their philosophy. We know that they had the power to save the population of one of two planets in this planetary system and were trying to decide which of the two were worthy of survival, but unfortunately that's a rather bold claim for the episode to ask us to simply accept at face value, as it seems rather contrived that it's simply impossible to save the populations of both planets. It would make sense for the Federation to refuse to save the populations of either planet on the grounds of the non-interference Prime Directive, but no mention is made of this. As for the Vians, they clearly were not guided by a similar philosophy and I have a hard time believing that the resources they spent setting up this ridiculous experiment couldn't have been used to save the populations of both planets instead.

What's worse is most of the episode boils down to unsubstantiated torture scenes and long, boring Gem-stares-significantly scenes which brought back bad memories of The Corbomite Maneuver. At one point during the torture scenes a Vian tries to console McCoy by implying that if there was any other way for them to accomplish their purpose, they'd be seeking those means instead. Golly, had the Vians shared their purpose with the landing party any earlier than 39 minutes into the episode, perhaps the landing party could have educated the Vians as to the many possible alternatives!

Aside from that, plenty of other little details add up to a pretty big stinker of an episode as well. Unlike the Vians, Gem is yet another alien race that looks exactly like humans. She is referred to as an "empath" but McCoy incorrectly acts like that term automatically implies and substantiates her remarkable healing powers. When the Vians allowed the landing party to keep one of their devices, Spock makes the ridiculous claim that the only logical explanation is that the Vians let them keep the device so they could reverse engineer it and escape so the Vians could keep McCoy. Why would the Vians do that? If their intent was to let them go, why do it through such indirect means? Why not just... let them go?

Finally, the most obnoxious part of the episode is that the whole thing is Christian theology in (a poor) disguise. In Gem's first scene, she's laying on a bed shaped like a cross. Her healing powers and her theme of self sacrifice mirror the story of Jesus Christ. The Vians play the role of god watching Jesus (Gem) self sacrifice for his (her) entire race. On two occasions the episode even makes direct references to the bible. Early on, Ozaba says "in his hand are the deep places of the earth. Psalm ninety five, verse four. Looks like he was listening." At the end of the episode, Scotty says "I would say she was a pearl of great price. [...] Do you not know the story of the merchant? The merchant, who when he found one pearl of great price, went and sold all that he had and bought it." That's a quote from the Gospel of Matthew, 13:45-46.

As I wrote in my review of Bread and Circuses, this sort of writing is hardly in the spirit of Star Trek which, for the most part, would seem to advocate a progressive future without superstition guiding society's laws and moral code any longer. A few religious characters or a few biblical references here and there in the spirit of realism and good literary referentiality is all well and good, but this episode went well beyond that. The episode itself feels preachy. Its very theme oozes Christian evangelism, which is shameful.