Podcast Enterprise: S1E25 The devil in the dark

Space, the final frontier. These are the podcasts of the Podcast Enterprise. Its only mission: to explore story structures, to analyze our favorite characters and plotlines, to boldly talk what everyone has seen before

We will analyze all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series or TOS for short using the following guiding structure:

1. Synopsis or summary of the episode
2. Story structure
3. Character analysis
4. Our likes and dislikes

The synopsis: On the planet Janus VI, a mining colony, the miners have deployed a security detail to the underground caves.

And everybody’s afraid because apparently there’s something that comes out of those tunnels. It creates more tunnels, it comes out and it kills miners. And 50 people have been killed already. So when the teaser ends, you find that one more person has been killed and nobody knows what is doing the killing.

And they’re also expecting the Enterprise here. So by the time the Enterprise arrives, so many people have died. And Captain Kirk, Spock and McCoy, they beam down to this mining colony. It’s underground. And The head of this colony, Chief Vanderberg, he is really worried about this.

It seems that whatever this creature is, it burns him to a crisp and there’s very little left of the body after the creature is done with them and nobody knows what it is. And after Spock talks to him a little bit, it seems that this creature started attacking them after they opened the tunnel to the lower levels. So there’s some sort of connection there. And Spock also notices that there are these silicon nodules that the miners have been collecting. Chief Vanderberg says that they are useless, trinket type things, there’s no value to them.

So that’s all very peculiar. Eventually what happens is that the creature attacks again, and even Kirk closes some security officer to this creature, and it seems that it has a pattern to its killing. And McCoy also discovers that this whatever this monster is, it’s not exactly setting the it’s victims on fire.

It’s using some sort of corrosive acid, and this acid is so strong that it’s able to bring down walls and the creature soon realize is quite intelligent. It manages to attack or it manages to break its way into the nuclear reactor and it takes a pump from there so that the reactor is going to go super critical.

Everything is a huge mess. Kirk has to find a way to attack this creature, surround it, kill it, and free the miners because they’re also mining something very important, which we will talk about. And then as things do, Kirk comes face to face with the creature, and it’s very surprising because the creature is not what they thought it was.

It’s a silicon life form for one. It calls itself Horta secondly, and it seems to want something. And there is where you see Spock using the mind meld with an alien creature. He finds that it’s a she. She’s trying to defend her nest and her eggs. Those silicon nodules that the miners kept finding and destroying were actually her eggs.

So she was trying to defend her territory and eventually what happens is, they find a way to work together with Horta so the miners can mine for the Pergium or what the element that they’re looking for. And this Horta will help them. They’ll live in mutual coexistence and that’s how it ends.

That brings us to the end of this episode. Thank you for listening to the Podcast Enterprise. Please do share your reviews with us and please share this podcast with any of your writing friends or trekkies. Live long and prosper!

Stay tuned in for our next episode! Enjoy!

Acknowledgements

1. Intro music: Music from anchor.fm
2. Shotcut for editing the podcast
3. References: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/