I'd forgotten how little the Tholians are in "The Tholian Web."

I rewatched "The Tholian Web" on H&I last night, and man... That title is really a misnomer, isn't it?

At no point is the Tholian Web the main problem our heroes have to deal with. They're much more concerned with the Defiant going in and out of the interphase, Enterprise crewmen periodically going mad, and the fact that Captain Kirk is missing and presumed dead. The Tholians are really just a device to keep the Enterprise in the immediate area while they're in danger of fading away, and at no point is there a whole lot of Tholian-ing or webbing going on. It makes our heroes look kind of dumb for helpfully staying in place while the Tholians sloooooooowly weave a web around them. And their escape from the web at the end of the episode is rather easy and perfunctory.

Heck, it's never even really clear if this the first encounter with the Tholians or not. The Enterprise is totally mystified by the Tholian web, which seems to be one of their go-to moves, but then Spock talks about "The renowned Tholian punctuality," as if Starfleet is familiar with them from previous encounters.

Really, I now think of this episode as something akin to "Journey to Babel." It's got so many different things going on that it never really develops any of its plot devices as fully as it should.

The Tholians and their web are the main things we remember from the episode because they're such striking visuals, but really, the episode should've been called "The Interphase Intrigue" or something.

 

"Face to Interphase"

 

When I first read the title I thought, “You mean the Tholians are midgets?”

 

Well, since we only see them on the viewscreen, I suppose they could be.

 

Possibly phrasing it "...how briefly the Tholians appear..." might have caused less confusion; but it wouldn't have been as funny.

Actually, for years I also assumed what we saw on the bridge viewscreen was the entirety of the Tholian's anatomy. This notion was reinforced by a page in the "Starfleet Medical Manual" which suggested they directly interfaced with their technology that was also crystalline in structure. Thus, seeing the crystal "dryder" in "A Mirror Darkly" made me reflexively wonder, "Whoa! That's not right!" I think I was more accepting of the concepts presented in "The Worlds of the Federation" that depicted a Tholian's "head" resting upon a "shard" of crystal, suggesting they manipulated objects through electro-magnetic force.

 

Some other poster mentioned that it sure took a long time to build that web, almost as long as the overflight of V’Ger in TMP.

 

You brought up some good points. I’m guilty of being so enthralled by the Tholians and their web that I didn’t realize that they are almost secondary to the main plot.

 

Thanks. I wish if the Tholians were meant to be a race that Starfleet or the Federation were already familiar with, there had been some line in Kirk's log at the beginning like, "Also complicating the situation is that we are near the territory of the Tholians, a race that is still largely a mystery to the Federation." Just a little foreshadowing would've been nice.

I have a feeling that another draft or two would've solved most of these story problems.

 

If the Enterprise moved, it would disturb the fragile space-fabric and Kirk would be lost.

But you make a good point about the web itself. If an enemy is already so disabled or neutralized that you can gradually spin this web around him, then the web isn't necessary. You could just capture him with a tractor beam or blow him to bits with a torpedo. The web does serve as an exotic, alien kind of creeping menace though, worthy of The Twilight Zone.

 

Too bad that we didn’t get to see more of the inside of the Tholian ships, other than the brief background shown here.

 

I was so happy to finally see a complete Tholian in the Enterprise mirror episode. I was a bit disappointed in the Tholian base holding the Defiant, it looked too conventional after seeing the tri-symmetrical ship designs and exotic physiology

 

Same here but I wouldn't use the term midgets.
I was wondering how you could tell their height anyway, Maybe they could using the viewscreen and doing some calculations.

 

Oh, okay. How about.....

 

The Tholian intersection must have been quite near to Klingon space as later on in TNG we learn that Tholian forces might become involved in a Klingon civil war! Not really possible if both regions of space are far apart!
JB

 

They're not in it much but they do have quite the presence. Only the head (crystalline) is shown and the effect and color hues are superb.

And you nailed it, the opening statements do not match up with Spock's mid-episode statement about renowned punctuality. Unless that's all that's known about them, but if Trek were to follow up with the Tholians then future episodes where one or two sprinkle in dialogue fleshing out enough of the past, there's nothing here that justifies a whole prequel series to put out half a dozen episodes, half of which wouldn't fit in to begin with as that's a long-standing issue with prequels no matter how good they are.

It's still a great high concept episode mixing fantasy and the unknown with some horror, wonderfully directed (Chekov weird mouthless scream aside) one of TOS's high points regardless of season. But one still marvels over the lack of connecting piece similar to what jonnyQuest037 suggested.

 

Loskene did say "You are trespassing in a territorial annex of the Tholian Assembly."

I think they knew about the Tholians but not too much, didn't expect them to be there, and the web was new to them.

And you have a very good point, but I think it's the title of the episode, not the indicator of the main plot.

As titles go, it does it's job, no one gets confused about what episode it is. If we went the Friends route, it could be "The one with the Tholians" but it could also be "The one with the Defiant"

But the Tholians were mostly just a complication of the existing plot about the strange nature of space that afflicted the Defiant and her crew, that would have been plot enough. But then, there would have to be some "deadline" thrown in there somehow, how many countdowns have we had? So I much prefer the Tholians than the antimatter is falling asleep and if we don't leave in x hours we'll have to get out and push again.

 

It’s a catchy title; better than City on the Edge of Forever, which is WTH does that have to do with the story?

 

"The Oppositional Defiant Disorder", fitting on several levels with the name of the ship and violent disorder the crew exhibited:
Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) is a behavioral disorder in children characterized by a clinically significant level of negative, disobedient, and defiant behavior.

 

Which only tells us what the Tholians' POV is. It doesn't tell us anything about what the Enterprise knew about the Tholians.

All of which you have to assume because the episode never makes any of that clear.

"City on the Edge of Forever" is one of TOS' very best titles, Harlan Ellison was traditionally great with titles. In the original script, it referred to a city visible on the horizon on the Guardians' planet, but it also refers to New York City in 1930, which is a focal point in time. The double meaning was lost in the final episode, because there was no city on the Guardian's planet, only ruins around the Guardian, but it's still a beautiful and poetic title, unlike "The Tholian Web," which is perfunctory at best, and not even as intriguing-sounding as "The Corbomite Maneuver."

 

It's still better than the title of the original spec script, which was called, "In Essence -- Nothing."

These days, that just makes me think of George Costanza...