Podcast Enterprise: S2E02 Who mourns for Adonais

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: When this episode begins, you first of all, you find that Scott is flirting with a new ensign on the bridge. Her name is Carolyn Palamas.He seems to have an interest with her, which is something very new. We haven’t seen that before. After that, we learned that the Enterprise is en route to a planet called Pollux 4. And as they near the planet, some sort of an energy field crops up and it takes the shape of a giant green hand.

And it holds the Enterprise in place.And this energy field is so powerful that the Enterprise cannot move, it cannot fire, it cannot break free. And as Spock notes, this energy field, even though it looks like a hand, it is not made of any sort of organic matter. It is not a living thing. It’s just plain energy. So this is very confusing because what sort of an entity can create that sort of an energy field and then they find a certain figure come up on the viewing screen. It’s just a head but it looks human it’s got a laurel wreath on its head and it claims to be Apollo and as the Greek god Apollo and it’s not going to let the Enterprise go.

So Kirk and a small landing crew including the Ensign, the new ensign, have to teleport down to the planet where they’re met with this strange muscular huge man who claims he’s the greek god Apollo he lays claim to the ensign Caroline and he’s interested in her and he takes her away and she is obviously taken in by him also. He wants the landing party to stay back on Pollux 4. And he also wants all of the crew aboard the Enterprise to come down and make themselves slaves to himself.

He believes he’s a God and it seems that he is a God and Kirk somehow reasons that he probably is the actual Greek God Apollo. And he believes that these beings, all of these gods, are actually some sort of space travelers that came to earth a long time ago and sort of bedazzled and primitive inhabitants of the planet and took on the guise of gods.By the end, they find that Apollo is very very capricious he’s got some sort of a lightning bolt from his fingertip he can destroy things he can kill people but each time he does something to that effect. He weakens.

And this is noticed by Chekhov. Long story short, what happens is somehow Kirk and the others have to get out of this planet.They have to have the Enterprise released. So basically, they have to get away from there. They have to prevent the rest of the crew from getting enslaved by this character. And Kirk decides the only way to do that is to try and turn Ensign Carolyn against Apollo. And her loyalty will be tested. Therefore he tells her something and finally she sees the truth and she spurns Apollo.That makes him go into a meltdown.

And Spock from the Enterprise out in orbit discovers that it is possible to punch some holes into that energy field and fire the phasers. So they discover that the temple where Apollo is lodged has some sort of energy source, and if they fire the phasers there, they’ll be able to destroy that temple and Apollo’s energy.

They do that, they’re released, and Apollo becomes heartbroken, he cannot have any more followers, he says, and he disappears. It’s some sort of a death, as we understand, but not exactly, and he disappears. And they go back to the Enterprise, free from this entity that they don’t really understand.

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!

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Acknowledgements

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