Star Trek:
Metamorphosis
Loved Up!
by Vince Stadon
First published in Outside In Boldly Goes
I'd like to think that Kirk was at Woodstock.
Not William Shatner (though I'd hope he was
there too), but Star Trek's Captain James T Kirk, somehow right there in
the blissed-out gathering of flower children, with the sun on his face and his
phaser on stun, waiting for The Jefferson Airplane. And I like to think that he would be there,
at Woodstock, on a mission to tell the young people all about love in the 23rd
Century. And also, to watch Love, the band. Kirk would be at Woodstock in the guise of a
Love Guru, and he would speak eloquently (if eccentrically, with odd pauses) of
love flourishing in wild and beautiful forms out there in space, the final
frontier. And with the events of Metamorphosis
fresh in his heart, Kirk would perhaps use as an example the touching ménage à
trois between Zefram Cochrane, Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, and the
mysterious alien entity known as The Companion.
For theirs' is a love story well worth telling, and it is a tale that
only takes fifty minutes, including ad breaks.
As dusk
falls, and Jerry Garcia moves into the final hour of his guitar solo, Kirk
would light a small camp fire with his phaser, and he would sit near the
flickering flames, and the hippies would gather round him, sharing food and
drink and chemically-induced grins. Kirk
would make eye contact with each of them in turn, and then he would begin,
raising his voice to drown out the bum notes in Jerry Garcia's epic guitar solo
drifting down from the far-away main stage.
In the
telling of this love story, Kirk would concentrate on the three lovers,
omitting entirely the peripheral players (Spock, Bones, Scott, etc), and
judiciously editing out his own blunders of command (there are many because Kirk
is impulsive and aggressive; when faced with an amorphous alien blob of
frightening power – a frequent occurrence in his line of work – his instinctive
reaction is to shoot at it... which proves to never, ever, be a smart
decision). He would begin with beautiful
Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford, for all good love stories (or at least
those suitable for prime-time television in the 60's) begin with a beautiful
woman. Nancy, a passenger aboard the
shuttle craft Galileo, is headed for Epsillon Canaris III
(coincidentally, the working title of a Grateful Dead song) on a diplomatic
mission to broker a peace accord between two warring factions. But much more importantly for the purposes of
the love story, Nancy is beautiful. A
little distant and career-focussed, perhaps, but undeniably beautiful, with
very lovely hair. Alas, Nancy's crucial
mission is put on hold because she's fallen ill with Sakuro's disease
(coincidentally, another working title of a Grateful Dead song), and Kirk is
piloting the Galileo back to the USS Enterprise, where she can
receive medical treatment and touch up her hair. But an amorphous alien blob of frightening
power drags the shuttle off course and pulls it down to an unidentified planet
of primary coloured rocks.
Living
there on this unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks is the tall and
handsome Zefram Cochrane, a man seemingly devoid of any personality
whatsoever. Because he is such a blank
state, Kirk muses, as he prods the fire with a stick, Zefram perhaps represents
every man: every square-jawed hero in every story ever told – or at least those who graced the narratives
on prime-time television in the 60's.
Yes, rather than being a disastrous combination of poor scripting and
wretched acting, Zefram Cochrane is in fact an inspired artistic choice: his
very lack of definition stands as a powerful statement on masculinity. (Kirk's brilliant anagnorisis has the hippies
nodding in admiration, though those hippies closest to the fire wish that Kirk
would stop showering them in burning embers, a few at the back have no idea
what 'anagnorisis' means because they dropped out of college, and at least one
of them suspects that Kirk is using the word 'anagnorisis' incorrectly.)
Also on the
unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks, continues Kirk, is an amorphous
alien blob of frightening power. The
very same amorphous alien blob of frightening power that dragged Galileo
off course and dumped it on the unidentified planet of primary coloured
rocks. This thing has been Cochrane's
only companion for decades, and because he has about as much imagination as a
primary coloured rock, he has named it Companion. Companion has brought the crew of Galileo
to the unidentified planet of primary coloured rocks because it has an
empathetic bond with Cochrane, and senses that he is lonely. He is a man with needs, after all.
Oddly,
Cochrane barely looks at the beautiful Nancy, even though her condition is
worsening and she has awesome hair (though, admittedly, her hair needs a good
wash and a brush after she's spent so much time lying down, expecting to die)
for his attention is fully on Companion, who soon speaks with a seductive
female voice. Companion has been keeping
Cochrane alive and virile, providing all he needs to survive, but now he
hungers for a woman, and it seems Nancy just isn't for him because she isn't an
amorphous alien blob of frightening power.
(Finally, Cochrane demonstrates some personality: he's incredibly choosy
when it comes to dating.)
The solution,
of course, is for Companion to merge with Nancy, curing her of her illness and
restoring her hair, and providing Cochrane with someone to love. The merging of Nancy and Companion into
Cochrane's One True Love is a love metamorphosis, two souls becoming one,
unified in unconditional devotion to a man with zero charisma. This is, says Kirk, as he stands and looks up
at the stars, a very beautiful thing.
Love in the 23rd Century is wild and strange and enduring;
for it is a time when women with beautiful hair, and amorphous alien blobs of
frightening power can work together to stop a man from being lonely in his
bed. Men, announces Kirk, you need not
fear: the future is going to take care of you.
The hippies
applaud and Jerry Garcia finally ends his guitar solo, and Kirk walks away,
into the beguiling night. He has spoken
of love, and now he's off to find some, because he too has needs and he isn't
choosy. It's a beautiful thing.
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