Who Mourns for Adonais?

I think there is more symbolism in this episode than is normally acknowledged or commented upon. That they choose Apollo as the particular Greek god to meet somewhere out in space, apparently as if he had been waiting millenia for the earth creatures that resemble himself to develop spacefaring technology and eventually find him... while in reality, after millenia of looking at the night sky, naming the stars and planets, telling our seasons by them, and thinking up fables and superstititions about them, the program to actually land and walk on another world happened to be the Apollo Moon Program. And the moon, only feasibly reachable within the recent decades before it was actually done, and once thought a god 'himself' by many cultures, proved reachable, after all, without any god. So, as we were to soon reach what was thought a god, it was in fact not a god, nor was a god's help needed; it was pure applied science. And knowing Roddenberry was an agnostic, perhaps an atheist, the point is clear: there are powers and forces in the universe, but it was humans that invented the god hypothesis to explain them on the elementary level, and this hypothesis can be destroyed, and that will be one facet of our scientific legacy. But the god he really had in mind, of course, was not the loyal friend of (loser) Hector of Troy, but the God most of the western world eventually turned to, originally of the ancient Hebrews. He is not necessarily saying that that God (or his race of beings) may be found some day as having been Wizard of Oz type "humbugs," but it is at least such a thought experiment to that effect.

As for Apollo being a potential tragedy (slavery; everlasting indebtedness in the episode) we would have to deal with... this episode (and presumably its inception) came a few months after the launch pad fire of Apollo 1. The moon program, as is well known, had progressive success in the early and mid 60's and became overconfident and began to 'move too fast;' that is, too fast for safety in order to meet the deadline of landing on the moon before the decade was over. And in hindsight, many historians look back and say a disaster was inevitable. To phrase it in correspondence with the episode-- If we don't get Apollo under our control, Apollo will ruin us; even if we destroy the 'end of the decade' objective, we must get a grip on Apollo, and we cannot place ourselves forever in debt to 'him.'

I think the above 2 paragraphs are more of what ST was attempting to say, rather than anything in particular about the ancient astronaut theory, though that certainly was around at that time, just before Erich Von Daniken published his first book. Indeed, the 'getting back to nature' theme was more pronounced, but with the addition of "not because we are being forced to." There was a movement, of course, at that time of getting away from the unfriendliness, the pollution, the overly-mechanized cities, and living more in harmony with nature. Hippie communes, 'bedroom communities' with homes on large tracts, time-share getaways, et al, were manifestations of this idea. And shows like Green Acres parodied the idea. Perhaps "Who Speaks for Adonais?" was also another angle of parody of "away from mechanization; back to nature," or "weren't the ancients lucky to have no other way?" (the answer being obvious).

Even though humankind is no longer wearing animal skins, tending sheep and have arrived at his home in space in the Starship Enterprise, the Greek God Apollo demands worship as if it was back in the days of Socrates and Plato. That is something that Captain James T. Kirk is not willing to do nor are any of the rest of his crew.

Michael Forest who did a few peplum pictures back in the day guest stars as a really great physical specimen who claims he's Apollo. And he's certainly performing some feats that would make one think he's got some powers and abilities far beyond those of mortal man. It's the job of the Enterprise away team to find his Kryptonite.

William Shatner theorizes that back in the day a race of super beings did land on earth, maybe gathered at Mount Olympus and certainly would have appeared to have been Gods to the shepherds. And these Gods had all the human vices as well. For that Shatner is depending on archaeologist Leslie Parrish with the away team to help out. And there certainly is a mutual attraction though Jimmy Doohan who kind of likes Parrish himself ain't ready to worship and ain't ready to give her up.

Just as humankind advanced I would have thought that those beings that were labeled Gods also would have advanced a bit and taken account the evolution of humans. It's the main weakness of this episode which makes it impossible for me to give it top rank in the Star Trek tradition.

Enterprise encounters the Greek God Apollo.

This is a fairly weak, mostly annoying, yet bizarrely compelling episode.

It has a standard Crew v God story, similar to 'The Squire Of Gothos' and gets irritating when Kirk and Apollo start posturing. Apollo wants to take life back to when Gods were worshipped by simple folk, but being such a developed society, the crew resist (all apart from Carolyn Palamas who is not as wise, for a woman, as Apollo thinks). Whilst it makes interesting observations about human nature and advancement of society, the tone of it all is a time portal to the 1960s, with gender attitudes more archaic than the visual effects.

Most characters have poor showings, with Kirk, Apollo, Palamas and Scotty all annoyingly written. Apollo and Kirk are equally as patronising when talking about Palamas. Scotty is in creepy stalker mode and shows none of his usual engineering charm. Palamas follows the Marla McGivers blueprint. Even Spock is slightly annoying in his harassment of 'Miss' Uhura's technical work on the communications system. In fact there is a pattern of male characters generally harassing the females. Chekhov does make up for things with some comical Russian cultural references.

Even though the predicament is resolved in an uninspired way, the sequence where Apollo is portrayed quite pitifully is probably the strongest part of the episode. Strangely, it's one that I always have to follow through to the end.

The costumes are camp and glittery on the planet surface and onboard the Enterprise Uhura looks more like a hairdresser than a Starfleet Officer working beneath her console. Giant hands and floating heads in space are memorable but not convincing.

Very few of the actors give likeable performances. Michael Forest does well with some fairly poor lines, as does Leslie Parrish. However, Walter Koenig is the only one of the regular crew who I actually enjoyed watching. DeForest Kelley is solid as ever, but has nothing particularly interesting to do.

I like the concept of portraying the Greek Gods as space travellers, but it could have been so much better.

Alright, where to start. We have on the surface a pretty standard sci- fi theme of old-historic power meets modern man. The two meet and things happen.

We've got this highly self centered and egotistical (and I should add abusive) "god" from Earth's past wanting adoration just like the olden days. But the days of mans' "oohing" and "ahhing" over things like fire, storms and earthquakes are over. Man is the master of his domain (the odd Klingon not withstanding), and needs little for super natural beings to interfere in his life.

But Apollo has other plans.

What strikes me as being interesting about this episode is a notion that the author brought up. The notion that we, mankind, have this primitive nature within us, but that we grow beyond it as we mature. Apollo, as another reviewer stated, is in this essence an immature teenage boy. He's an adolescent with lots of power. So much power that he can stop one of starfleet's finest vessels cold in space.

The story comments on man's primitive instincts and base desires. They're a foundation for a lot of what human's have achieved, but in the end they're only the foundation, and not the higher modes of thought we use in everyday life. Apollo uses his classical Greek god status and powers to try to win over the higher social circle that is the personnel of Starfleet command. He has temporary success, but must ultimately be brought down lest the rest of the Federation see/hear/read about the Enterprise not returning from a mission.

In this way you could use this episode as an allegory for a lot of man's ills, and a lot of history we as humans have created for ourselves because of our inner Apollo. Though the truth is that even though we recognize all those negative or over-energetic and unregulated aspects within ourselves, we still have Apollo-like moments. The key is to not let our inner Apollo over come our inner Kirk :-)

The times being what they were we have a Russian in the episode in the form of Chekov. Scotty, for whatever reason, has beamed down completing the usual "Let's send the ship's senior staff to the planet" motif that seems to be in nearly all Trek episodes. But hey, we wouldn't have a show or story if that didn't happen.

If I had a gripe with this installment of Trek it's that the thing wasn't shot outdoors. It's got that ever oh-so Trek artificiality when it comes to alien planetscapes shot on a stage. Which is too bad because this would have been perfect if Desilu could have found an old Steve Reeves' gladiator set, and had it double for an ancient Greek god oracle. Then again who knows? Anyway, that's how I would've shot it :- )

In any event, give it a whirl. It should entertain.

*EDIT* Hmm, interesting; apparently some of this applies to myself: An egotistical self-centered "god", prone to mood sways and high opinions of his worth than he actually is, has caused some mischief and problems for the traffic ways in the UFP. However, the difference is that for Trek's Apollo, his treatment was forced. Mine was voluntary, and now I've got some sort of plot to get me to "fairer pastures"; note; not greener, but something more suitable? Sorry. It's not going to happen. No matter who is sent to plead the case.

These reviews are done.

Season 2, episode 2. The Enterprise encounters a very large hand made of pure energy. This hand stops the ship dead in it's tracks. Apollo appears on the viewing screen and demands Kirk and crew to come down to the planet.. all but Spock whom he claims reminds him too much of Pan. Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Chekov and Carolyn beams down to met Apollo. Apollo wants Kirk and crew to worship him and uses his powers to stop them from communicating with the ship & using their phasers. Kirk theorizes "what if he really is Apollo?" Apollo is taken by Carolyn and willing to open up to her some. The men are working on who or what Apollo is and how to communicate with the ship. Kirk and crew must find away to deal with Apollo and go on to their next adventure.

Not too bad of a story... kinda interesting where Greek mythology meets science fiction fun.

7/10