For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky

McCoy is dying. He has but a year to live. Of course, he will not allow Kirk to divulge this to the crew. After a thwarted missile attack, the Enterprise locates the source. It is an asteroid/planet where people live inside, unaware of the grandness of space. They are part of a civilization that built a huge ship when their sun went nova and have been traveling the galaxy for thousands of years. The usual trio beams down to the planet and is taken hostage by a group of soldiers wearing really weird hats and colorful robes. They are also met by a beautiful priestess. It turns out that there is a creator in their past who has been looking out for them, but they must don a kind of implant that forces their obedience to an oracle. Since McCoy and his illness are center stage here, he becomes the focus of this episode. The priestess is so taken with him that she proposes marriage and he accepts. The other, more critical plot element is that this asteroid is on a collision course with a very populous planet; the resulting impact would be devastating. As with the American Indian episode, they must find a way to get things to change course. The twosome must work their way to adjust a force that could destroy them. This is a pretty typical ST episode, neither good nor bad.

"For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky" (Nov. 8, 1968) Old TV Guide synopsis: 'The Enterprise encounters a spaceship ruled by an oracle, who prevents his people from knowing that their "world" is on a collision course with another planet.' A McCoy episode in which he informs the captain that he is dying of an incurable disease, with only a year left to live. Kate Woodville plays Natira, leader of the world of Yonada, all unaware that their 'planet' is actually a ship designed to transport them to a new destination since their people were wiped out by a supernova 10,000 years before. The obstacle that prevents Kirk and Spock from making a course correction is the feared Oracle, imposing the penalty of death through the 'instrument of obedience' implanted in their temples. It's highly improbable that Natira and McCoy could fall in love so swiftly, but such is the way for hour long television (no long courtships allowed).

Whilst there is no doubt that William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are the undoubted stars of the greatest science fiction show of all time, ultimately Star Trek only deserves that title in part due to superb performances from a wider ensemble cast and Deforest Kelly as Dr McCoy is at the head of the remaining crew. In many episodes his conflicts with Spock, his outbursts of moral indignation, or his exhortations for Kirk or others to follow a particular course dominate, but here we have an episode more or less devoted to McCoy. It's a cracking one at that.

This has everything you'd want to see in a Star Trek episode. Mystery, exploration, encounter with unknown, and a personal insight into one of the characters which lets us know him/her better. I thought this was one of the better episodes and quite enjoyed it.

A quite sizable population or entourage, have managed to conceal and to camouflage, their ship in a void, of a large asteroid, a space travelling meteoric comet mirage.

A rock is a hard place to change the culture and mind-sets when they've been cast away for so long.