The Tholian Web

An away team boards the USS Defiant to find the crew all dead.

This is a strong character episode that has a few story issues but is well made.

The plot has a decent ticking clock premise and contains a few interesting concepts, slightly too many, but it is told in an entertaining way due to the focus on characters.

Spock and Dr McCoy have most of the limelight, as Captain Kirk is absent for a large part of the episode and their dynamic is quite compelling. Bones is slightly infuriating at times, but that makes it all the more satisfying when Spock puts him in his place with some calmly delivered reminders of who's in charge.

U'Hura, Chekov and Scotty have some decent moments, particularly Nichelle Nichols getting a rare opportunity of do more than just open hailing frequencies. James Doohan has some funny moments and so does Walter Koenig (albeit some unintentional).

Visually it works wonderfully well, as there is a lot of storytelling done with the camera. I love the scenes on the Defiant, and the odd camera angles indicating the perspective of characters suffering space madness. The effects used for the web and the interspace phasing are also good.

The Enterprise enters a region of space where space itself phases in and out. Another starship, the Defiant, and her crew have already fallen victim to this spatial malady. Kirk beams over to the shifting Defiant with Spock, McCoy and Chekov; we get to see the crew wearing funky spacesuits in this one. In an eerie sequence of scenes, we see that the Defiant's crew appears to have killed each other. This shifting space also affects the brains of humans, causing a degeneration into insanity. These and later scenes recall the bouts of insanity in "Is There in Truth no Beauty?" earlier this same season. Unfortunately, Kirk should have left Chekov on the Enterprise; Scotty is able to beam back only 3 of them at a time and the Defiant fades away before they can get Kirk back - he's gone, all the way gone (there's something about the number 3 on this show). They even hold a funeral service for Kirk later; yes, this is Kirk's final episode...just kidding. Then the Tholians show up. They're territorial and want the Enterprise outta there!

Like about half of the 3rd season episodes, this is saddled with a snail pace in spots, but the alien Tholians almost make up for this. While we were still seeing actors in lame appliances 20 and 25 years later on the later series (TNG, DS9, etc.) to display alien reps, here we see a truly innovative attempt at visualizing an alien race, complete with an unusual audio signature. You won't soon forget the Tholians. Their energy web - well, that's another matter: seems to me this tactic would work only if an enemy vessel sat unmoving for an hour or two, not using its weaponry. How often does that happen? This episode is also unusual in that Kirk shows up only in the pre-credits scenes, the first act and then disappears until the last 5 minutes (not counting his shots as a ghost). Hence, we observe a new group dynamic shifting into place to fill in the gap: Spock & McCoy further their tense relationship, while Scotty moves in to complete a new trinity. There's an interesting scene with the trio in Spock's quarters near the end, just before final maneuvers are to be made and Scotty walks off with obvious plans to get drunk.

Even as a casual "Star Trek" fan I know about the somewhat difficult circumstances that the series' third and final season were made under. Creator Gene Roddenberry all but checked out, the budget was slashed and the show was moved to a Friday night dead zone time slot. In short, the writing was on the wall.

These challenges led to the show having to adapt and become less ambitious in terms of its scope and scale relative to seasons one and two. This has given the perception that season three is, for lack of a better word, "bad". However in recent years season three seems to have been re-evaluated a bit and many fans, both hardcore and casual, have found that there are more than a few very strong episodes to be found there. Take "The Tholian Web".

Character focused and story driven, this episode is smart, efficient and often compelling. It's a case where the lack of resources probably forced the writers and producers to focus on the fundamentals rather than try and distract us with baubles and beads.

As I write this, I'm struggling to place "The Tholian Web" into a Trek tier. Is it an all-time, top-ten? No. Though to be fair I'm still making my way through the series. But it seems to fit nicely on that shelf just below, and I'd have absolutely no qualms about revisiting it again in the, um, future.

One of the highest quality productions in TOS universe. Kirk is trapped alone in a hidden, unpredictable, parallel universe. Spock deals with the building tension of Enterprise systems failures, Tholian attacks, Kirk's disappearance, and McCoy's ranting in such a calm manner it only adds to the tension. With the crew going berserk, Kirk's ghostly 'phasing in and out' and the Tholians closing the trap, the well-written interactions between McCoy and Spock are the one thing the viewer can hang their sanity on. There's a lot going on and the writers and production staff did a stellar job in telling the story.

"The Tholian Web" (Nov. 15, 1968) Old TV Guide synopsis: 'Spock takes command when Kirk vanishes into a hostile segment of space where matter disintegrates - and men are seized by madness.' A Federation starship is discovered with its captain and crew all dead, having killed each other in a power draining section of Tholian space. Only Kirk is left behind by a transporter malfunction, caught in another dimension until the next interphase can take place, a strict timeline broken by the arrival of Tholian ships that start building a web to entrap the Enterprise. The assumption that their captain is dead adds more pressure to Spock, and the moments he and McCoy spend viewing Kirk's final orders is an absolute gem, easing the tension in their bickering.