Who Mourns For Adonais
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"Who Mourns for Adonais?" is the second episode of the second season of the American
science fiction Science fiction (often shortened to sci-fi or abbreviated SF) is a genre of speculative fiction that deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts. These concepts may include information technology and robotics, biological manipulations, space ...
television series ''
Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the Star Trek: The Original Series, series of the same name and became a worldwide Popular culture, pop-culture Cultural influence of ...
''. Written by
Gilbert Ralston Gilbert Alexander Ralston (January 5, 1912 – March 18, 1999) was a British-American screenwriter, journalist and author. He was a television producer in the 1950s and a screenwriter in the 1960s. He created the television series ''The Wild Wi ...
and
Gene L. Coon Eugene Lee Coon (January 7, 1924 – July 8, 1973) was an American screenwriter, television producer, and novelist. He is best remembered for his work on the original ''Star Trek'' as a screenwriter, story editor, and showrunner from the middle ...
, and directed by
Marc Daniels Marc Daniels (January 27, 1912 – April 23, 1989), born Danny Marcus, was an American television director. He directed on programs such as ''I Love Lucy'', ''I Married Joan'', ''Gunsmoke'', ''Star Trek'', ''Mission: Impossible'', ''Hogan's He ...
, it was first broadcast September 22, 1967. The title is in line 415 of the 1821
elegy An elegy is a poem of serious reflection, and in English literature usually a lament for the dead. However, according to ''The Oxford Handbook of the Elegy'', "for all of its pervasiveness ... the 'elegy' remains remarkably ill defined: sometime ...
''
Adonais ''Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.'' () is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and best-known works.Percy Bysshe Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
and roughly means "who mourns for gods?" In the episode, the crew of the ''
Enterprise Enterprise (or the archaic spelling Enterprize) may refer to: Business and economics Brands and enterprises * Enterprise GP Holdings, an energy holding company * Enterprise plc, a UK civil engineering and maintenance company * Enterpris ...
'' are held captive by the
Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...
god
Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
.


Plot

A huge energy field in the shape of a glowing green hand appears and grabs the USS ''Enterprise'', halting its movement. Captain James T. Kirk tries to shake the ship free, but fails. A
humanoid A humanoid (; from English ''human'' and '' -oid'' "resembling") is a non-human entity with human form or characteristics. By the 20th century, the term came to describe fossils which were morphologically similar, but not identical, to those of ...
apparition appears on the bridge viewscreen and addresses the ship's crew. Kirk demands that the ship be set free, but the being responds by tightening its grip, threatening to crush the ship until Kirk agrees to the being's demand that the ship's crew be beamed down to the planet below. Kirk leads a landing party that includes Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas (
Leslie Parrish Leslie Parrish (born Marjorie Hellen; March 13, 1935) is an American actress, activist, environmentalist, writer, and producer. She worked under her birth name for six years before changing it in 1959. Early life As a child, Parrish lived in Mas ...
), whose specialties include Greek mythology. The team arrives at what appears to be an ancient Greek temple, where they encounter the humanoid who identifies himself as the god
Apollo Apollo is one of the Twelve Olympians, Olympian deities in Ancient Greek religion, ancient Greek and Ancient Roman religion, Roman religion and Greek mythology, Greek and Roman mythology. Apollo has been recognized as a god of archery, mu ...
(
Michael Forest Gerald Michael Charlebois (born April 17, 1929), better known as Michael Forest, is an American actor who provides the voices for many animated titles, and played the god Apollo on Star Trek. Early life Forest was born in Harvey, North Dakota ...
). He informs the party that he will not allow them to leave, and renders their communicators and transporter nonfunctional. He indicates that he expects the crew of the ''Enterprise'' to worship him as their ancestors did, and in return promises to provide for all their needs and desires. Kirk refuses. Apollo's attention shifts to Carolyn, angering Mr. Scott, who steps forward to defend her against Apollo's advances. Apollo destroys his phaser and announces he will take Carolyn as his consort. After displaying his power, Apollo appears tired, and vanishes along with Carolyn. Kirk and McCoy speculate that their captor was one of a group of powerful
aliens Alien primarily refers to: * Alien (law), a person in a country who is not a national of that country ** Enemy alien, the above in times of war * Extraterrestrial life, life which does not originate from Earth ** Specifically, a lifeform with ext ...
that visited Earth millennia ago and became objects of worship to the ancient Greeks. Chekov having noticed Apollo's fatigue, Kirk plans to provoke Apollo to test the limits of his power and allow the landing party to overcome him. Meanwhile, Carolyn learns that Apollo belonged to a group of travelers who subsist on love and worship. He is the last of their kind, the others having died over the eons. Kirk's plan to provoke Apollo is frustrated when Carolyn intervenes to protect the landing party. Apollo instructs Kirk to begin making arrangements for the remaining crew to come down to the planet. Kirk takes Carolyn aside and tells her that she must reject Apollo to save them all from slavery. She reluctantly agrees. Meanwhile, Mr. Spock locates the power source for the force field holding the ''Enterprise'', and finds a way to communicate and fire phasers through it. Forced to prioritize responsibility over romantic desire, a broken-hearted Carolyn tells Apollo her interest in him is purely scientific, likening him to a new strain of bacteria. His feelings hurt, Apollo invokes a thunderstorm while Kirk orders Spock to fire on and destroy the power source. Defeated, Apollo addresses his fellow gods, admitting that he was wrong, and begging to join them. He fades away. Carolyn is distraught. Kirk notes that humans owe their moral code to the Greek civilisation and mythology, and (along with McCoy) regrets having to destroy Apollo.


Reception

Zack Handlen of ''
The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was created in ...
'' gave the episode a C+ rating, noting that it was occasionally memorable, but "undone by lazy scripting and bizarre dialogue". In 2024 '' Hollywood.com'' ranked this episode at number 37 out of the 79 original series episodes.


Cultural references

The title is a quotation from the poem ''
Adonais ''Adonais: An Elegy on the Death of John Keats, Author of Endymion, Hyperion, etc.'' () is a pastoral elegy written by Percy Bysshe Shelley for John Keats in 1821, and widely regarded as one of Shelley's best and best-known works.Percy Shelley Percy Bysshe Shelley ( ; 4 August 1792 – 8 July 1822) was an English writer who is considered one of the major English Romantic poets. A radical in his poetry as well as in his political and social views, Shelley did not achieve fame durin ...
lamenting the death of
John Keats John Keats (31 October 1795 – 23 February 1821) was an English poet of the second generation of Romantic poets, along with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley. His poems had been in publication for less than four years when he died of tub ...
, which is loosely based upon ''A Lament for
Adonis In Greek mythology, Adonis (; ) was the mortal lover of the goddesses Aphrodite and Persephone. He was considered to be the ideal of male beauty in classical antiquity. The myth goes that Adonis was gored by a wild boar during a hunting trip ...
'' by the Greek poet Bion. The song "Who Mourns for Adonais" was recorded by The Vulcan Dub Squad


See also

* "
How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" is the fifth and penultimate episode of the second season of the American animated science fiction television series '' Star Trek: The Animated Series'', the 21st episode overall. It first aired in the NBC S ...
" – An episode of the animated ''Star Trek'' series about an alien that had long ago visited Earth and now demands worship as a god by the ''Enterprise'' crew. * '' Star Trek: New Frontier'', a series of novels written by
Peter David Peter Allen David (September 23, 1956 – May 24, 2025), often abbreviated PAD, was an American writer of comic books, novels, television, films, and video games.Buxton, Marc (March 29, 2014)"From 'Future Imperfect' to '2099': Peter David's Grea ...
. One of the characters, Mark McHenry, is a descendant of Apollo. (In the novelization of the episode, but cut from the final shooting script, Carolyn Palamas is pregnant with Apollo's child, whom she names Athena. Athena is McHenry's grandmother.) * In the
photonovel Photo comics are a form of Sequential art, sequential storytelling using photographs rather than illustrations for the images, along with the usual comics conventions of narrative text and word balloons containing dialogue. They are sometimes ...
''Star Trek: New Visions'' issue #11 "Of Woman Born", John Byrne retells the episode's ending and continues with the events during Palamas's pregnancy. * The first episode of ''
Star Trek Continues ''Star Trek Continues'' is an American Fan labor, fan-made web series set in the ''Star Trek'' universe. Produced by the nonprofit Trek Continues, Inc. and Dracogen, and initially co-produced by Far from Home LLC and Farragut Films (who previous ...
'', "
Pilgrim of Eternity "Pilgrim of Eternity" is a Star Trek fandom, fan-produced ''Star Trek'' episode released in 2013, the first in the web series ''Star Trek Continues'', which aims to continue the episodes of ''Star Trek: The Original Series'' replicating their visu ...
", was a 2013 fan-based sequel to the episode. In it, Forest reprised his role as an elderly Apollo who asks the Enterprise crew for help. *Apollo's "green hand" is mentioned in dialogue in ''
Star Trek Beyond ''Star Trek Beyond'' is a 2016 American science fiction film, science fiction action film directed by Justin Lin, written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. It is the 13th film in the ''Star Trek'' franchise and the third installment in List of Star ...
'' as well as being seen in the movie's credits.Archived a
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Wayback Machine


References


External links

* * *
"Who Mourns for Adonais?"
Review of the Remastered version at
TrekMovie.com TrekMovie.com is a news website about the ''Star Trek'' media franchise. It features news reports about the feature films, television and web series, and other related ''Star Trek'' fandom. History The site was founded by ''Trek'' fan Anthony ...
* - the main antagonist of the episode.
Star Trek transcript - Who Mourns For Adonais?
{{Star Trek: The Original Series episodes, 2 1967 American television episodes Star Trek: The Original Series season 2 episodes Television episodes about ancient astronauts Greek and Roman deities in fiction Religion in science fiction Apollo Television episodes directed by Marc Daniels