The Lights of Zetar

What a masterpiece. Scotty in love? This is one of my favs of season 3 and of the entire Trek series. From this episode forward all season 3 episodes are good with the exception of the last one which was terrible. I have seen season 3 in full before but recently have gone from the first season to the last in order and once I finish season 3 will go back and re-watch many episodes I saw only once from the first two seasons.

This episode is freaky in a way and kinda reminds me of a season 1 episode where Kirk's good friend turns into an alien or something after he got zapped by something in space. I sure wish Scotty's girl would have been in more episodes.

 

A rather novel description of Where No Man has Gone Before, the second pilot.

 

Masterpiece.

 

Ah, Scotty in love!

I go back and forth between who's the absolute worst in Trek at playing love scenes: Doohan, who becomes utterly goofy, or Frakes, who just comes across as smarmy.

 

It's not one of my favorites, because Scotty seems out of character to me.

Requiem for Methsnoozala.

 

You prefer "Lights of Zetar" to "Metamorphosis"?

Well, that's what makes horse races, as they say.

By the third season, the Captain's Log could just as well have been called the "Captain's Voice-Over Exposition." In at least one episode -- "All Our Yesterdays" -- Kirk makes a "log" entry while trapped in a planet's past without a tricorder.

 

The log was originally openly portrayed as ex post facto narration (the visual recordings of a starship do deserve some explanatory voice-overs). Just check out "The Enemy Within", where Kirk tells what is going on and then adds with perfect hindsight that "unknown to us", evil things are also afoot...

The logs are also malleable, and Kirk along with Spock and the Records Officer has the authority/means to tamper with even their visual content, as indicated in "Court Martial". I'm pretty sure Kirk spends most of the weeks between the adventures re-dictating his old logs for greater clarity and dramatic impact!

Timo Saloniemi

 

We can safely assume that the "historical records" we're viewing recounting the adventures of NCC-1701 have been thoroughly declassified for public viewing.

 

'Lights of Zetar' - so so episode to me.
Nothing particularly great about it, nothing particularly bad.

Might have been better if they played the Scotty/Mira romance more seriously. You get the impression it may be a one-sided crush by Scotty again. I would have felt more for Mira if it had seemed like a more mature relationship.
I also felt they should have done more to help the Zetarans. They only really wanted to survive.

 

It's sort of hard for me to feel any sympathy for the Zetarans after they say "You will all die!"

 

I love this episode, but mostly for superficial, stylistic reasons.

- Great re-use of WMN's powerful music score. As so often happened on Lost in Space, tracking in music from early in the series elevated a show's enjoyability far beyond its own script and action scenes.

- For some reason, I love the color photography in "Zetar." The bridge and the uniforms all seem more vivid and striking in this show. Jan Shutan's blue dress looks a lot better than the one they gave Marianna Hill in "Dagger of the Mind," and I'm not sure it's just the better fabric. Maybe "Zetar" was shot on a better-than-average batch of color film, I don't know. You sometimes hear the knock on Al Francis, that he wasn't as artistic as Jerry Finnerman, but I think he did just fine.

- Jan Shutan's beauty and eerie performance. To me she's total eye candy.

She said in an interview that she was embarrassed to wear the uniform because of her chubby thighs, but really, her legs in this episode are sensational. I have no complaints.

 

"Eye" candy...interesting choice of words: I agree she is very attractive, but those eyes of hers are sort of creepy for some weird reason. Interesting, though, since her eyes were used so prominently in the episode with all the zoom-ins.

The Memory Alpha scenes are creepy, as well. And that poor woman. her last dying words not words of her own at all, but some alien language...and dying with her face in that twisted grimace...I'm practically getting chills thinking about it! Great scene, even if a tad disturbing!

Maybe Scotty was being a bit school-boyish in this one, but it was worth it to see McCoy rolling his eyes as Scotty stuck up for Mira in sickbay. And Kirk's line about "Is Dr. McCoy there, or will I find him in engineering?" was funny, too!

But overall, a pretty good alien possession-type story. I even remember back in the 80's when the episode video tapes became available, this was one of the first dozen or so I ordered.

 

OMG WURST EPASODE EVAR. Scotty acts TOTALLY unprofessionally with his girlfriend, a Starfleet officer would NEVER EVER do that while on duty, NEVER.




(seriously, I remember thinking that crackling noise whats-her-name made when possessed was creepy)

 

Not the best and not the worst, but worth watching again...

 

I wonder if this episode gave Fred Freiberger the idea to zoom in on the eye whenever Maya transformed into something stupid in Space:1999?

I agree with Zap, the use of WNMHGB music here is fantastic. That, coupled with some of the more cold third season library cues, helps to make this episode very chilling. Watch this one at 2 am and the feel is totally different. Jan Shutan had a unique face that was very spooky when under the Zetarian influence. One of the many third season episodes that freaked me out as a kid. Especially the shadowed shots of the Memory Alpha corpses.

 

Well, Kevin Reilly was pretty unprofessional in Conscience of the King...crewman Compton was pretty unprofessional in Wink of an Eye (though he did try to redeem himself in the end)...Marla McGivers, too...though she was certifiably nuts anyway, in my opinion.

You've never known a guy to get all goofy where a woman is concerned?

I'm not saying The Lights of Zetar is a classic in the annals of science fiction, but it's enjoyably moody and has some good moments.

 

I really like the actress playing Scotty's crush. She's really cute and seems sweet, especially with how she's too nice to hurt Scotty's feelings enough to give him the "Just Friends" speech. I'm also kind of fascinated by her make-up, when the camera zooms in, really tight, over her eyeball. The psychodellic effects, distorted facial expressions and odd vocalizations are sometimes laughable. But as usual, the sincerity of the performances find me being swayed. And we get to know her enough where we care if she gets saved at the end. I can't help but to genuinely enjoy this episode - almost despite myself, really.

 

Not a great episode but not awful either. The constant reference to Mira as a girl grates on the modern ear though.