Another episode with an important later tie-in, with Zefram Cochrane making his first appearance. He’ll be back in the movie First Contact. He must have aged in a pretty strange way, judging from the later movie. Also, I look forward to some eventual explanation as to why he was described as “Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri”.
This isn’t that bad an episode. It’s an interesting idea, the mysterious energy entity that falls in love. Actually, so far the Star Trek cliche of the energy entity hasn’t been used that much so far – this is the first one that’s a pure ball of energy really.
And I cheered a little at McCoy’s line that Kirk forgets he’s also a diplomat, not just a soldier. It’s nice to see that just blowing stuff up blindly isn’t the solution this time. Another of the interesting contrasts to later Star Trek of course is just how often the force approach does seem to work.
(BTW, wasn’t the Galileo shuttlecraft destroyed last season?)
38 down, 699 to go. And back on schedule.