The Lights of Zetar by: Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis and directed by: Herb Kenwith

 

“The Lights of Zetar” is written by: Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis and is directed by: Herb Kenwith.  It was filmed under production code 73, was the 18^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 73^rd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on January 31, 1969.

 

It’s incredibly strange that this episode of Star Trek has essentially the burning of the Library of Alexandria on a much larger scale as both a central event and basically a footnote.  Okay Star Trek takes place in the future and it’s clear that the knowledge has also been backed up in other places and the episode ends with the resolution to rebuild but casually including the destruction of a planet sized library in “The Lights of Zetar” perhaps encapsulates why the episode has me quite split.  The destruction of a planet is a narrative event that should be given some weight and seeing it as a footnote indicates writers Jeremy Tarcher and Shari Lewis both haven’t fully examined the implications of their script.  Especially apparent is the fact that the planet doesn’t appear on-screen and is largely a background detail of the destination the Enterprise is enroute to.  The episode’s plot is literally about mysterious lights that chase the Enterprise and begin affecting young Lt. Mira Romaine, played by Jan Shutan, assigned to Memory Alpha, the library planet of the Federation destroyed at some point during the episode.  Much of the runtime is dedicated to running away from the lights and slowly discovering what they are, the fact that they are alive is only revealed in the back third and the first mention of Zetar is in the last ten minutes of the episode.

 

Writer Shari Lewis is more well known for her work as a children’s entertainer, creating the puppet Lamb Chop, Tarcher being her husband, and you can tell neither of them are actually writers for narrative television.  “The Lights of Zetar” is an episode whose pace is incredibly slow, even for the standards of 1960s television.  This is helpful for the initial setup of the episode where Tarcher and Lewis build up the character of Romaine and her budding romance with Scotty.  Not only does this allow Shutan the chance to establish herself as the character, it also immediately gets the audience on her side since we already know and like Scotty.  For his part, James Doohan is also aiding by being the standout performance of the episode, having a lot of meat in the script by playing lovestruck and intensifying his Scottish accent to match.  Doohan is also quite strong when the material lacks in the episode’s second act: once Romaine is in sickbay there is this extended conflict with McCoy about Romaine being uncooperative for no particular reason, but Doohan and DeForest Kelley are playing it quite well as the writing are keeping Romaine as a character squarely in the framework of a female character in the 1960s.  The construction of the episode largely falls apart here, Tarcher and Lewis neglecting to establish a proper structure for an A-plot and a B-plot, so the episode is just one extended plot that is attempting to sustain momentum but almost immediately becomes sluggish.

 

The plot is also one that ends in an anti-climax, after discovering the lights are the survivors of the planet Zetar in the form of energy and need a host the thrust becomes just to destroy them because they want Romaine’s body and she rightly doesn’t wish to give them up.  Romaine is thrown into a pressure chamber, the pressure is increased, and the lights are destroyed.  It’s another example of things in the episode just kind of happening without any real connective tissue or motivation to the characters.  It’s also clear that the director of this episode, Herb Kenwith, is trying to make something interesting in the material.  Much of the episode is shot from angles rarely used on Star Trek, the captain’s chair and navigation panels being shot head on is certainly a choice, and there is an almost cinematic zoom into Romaine’s eye at multiple points in the episode that goes further to add to the atmosphere than anything the script is doing.  The first act of the episode is also the most successful because it’s where our characters get some particularly nice character moments.  George Takei and Walter Koenig get a nice little back and forth as Sulu and Chekov, Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel gets a good one-liner, and Nichelle Nichols is always wonderful as Uhura, but this doesn’t save the episode.

 

Overall, “The Lights of Zetar” has a good idea to explore but due to being from entertainers and not scriptwriters the episode becomes largely unfocused.  Much of the episode’s problems are due to the writers not knowing how to structure an hour long episode of television and not providing much interest in terms of what the episode could be doing.  It’s just another in an increasingly large line of middling episodes of Star Trek.  4/10.