Episode of the Week : The Tholian Web

[Jeyl]

My Tholian brothers/sisters! We are introduced to the universe of Star Trek! Not only is this a 'good' Season 3 episode, it introduces Star Trek to aliens that aren't humanoid! And we're awesome! We've got awesome ships, awesome technology and killer voices. It wasn't until Species 8472 was introduced in Voyager before Star Trek got another alien species that wasn't just a human with a piece of prosthetic somewhere on the head.

*clears throat*

Sorry. Love the Tholians. They're my favorite.

In regards to the behind the scenes article,

"The costumes were skin-tight with no zippers; they would have shown. They had no buttons or snaps. The guys were SEWN into the space-suits."

In the words of SFDebris, god forbid the future have anything as practical as a zipper.

 

[HGN2001]

"The Tholian Web" is probably my favorite of the third season, maybe all of STAR TREK.

 

[RAMA]

I like this episode quite a bit. Watching it after a long period of time when it was first remastered, it amazed me how slowly paced the middle third of the episode is. Other than that, the usefulness of the Tholian web weapon is my only qualm. A solid 8!

 

[Maurice]

"The costumes were skin-tight with no zippers; they would have shown. They had no buttons or snaps. The guys were SEWN into the space-suits."

Which is silly because they could have hidden the closures under the DAMNED TUBING.

 

[Timo]

Other than that, the usefulness of the Tholian web weapon is my only qualm.

It seems to be a bit of a fan misconception that the web was a weapon. The dialogue in the episode itself makes it sound like the Tholian counterpart to the tractor beam - a means of grabbing a helpless starship and towing it home. Sulu explicitly calls it a "tractor web", and Chekov then follows with "We're being pulled out of here". There's no destructive effect shown or implied, just the one of denying our heroes the liberty of movement ("we shall not see home again").

Timo Saloniemi