"Metamorphosis" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: The Original Series Season 2
Added 2024-02-09 19:00:02 +0000 UTCSync up with me using your own copy of the episode!
Comments
Thank you, a comment that was a joy to read! I would definitely say you two have succeeded in "growing old together" and hope for many more years together! I hope my hubby and I can do the same.
bunnytails
2024-09-05 17:57:24 +0000 UTCThere are so many episodes that touch us in so many ways, and it is always amazing to see stories resonate across generations and still be relevant. Thank you for sharing. A little bio backstory on me to give an example. I was born in 1959, so I was clearly "a boy" when Star Trek first aired. My mom adored SciFi, so she let me stay up for episodes every once in a while. Seeing them as a child you get one perspective. (For example, as a boy seeing "What Are Little Girls Made Of" i had no idea Andrea was "hot" and I thought Ruk was totally badass.) My dad repaired TVs, so I had crappy ones in my room from a very young age. In the 70s I watched a lot of reruns, Hogan's Heroes, Get Smart!, I Dream of Jeannie, Green Acres... but Star Trek was always my favorite. I watched a ton in the 70s, probably averaging 4-5 episodes a week for a good, solid 9 years. If you do the math, that would mean I saw each episode about 25 times by the time I graduated from high achool, more or less. But over the years, as you mature and see the same stories again, your perspectives change, and you pick up different things. This one has a much greater impact on my now than it did fifty years ago, to be sure. More life details... I met my wife when I was 18. We married at 21. We have been married 44 years. Having both recently turned 65, I guess you could say we have "grown old together." The biggest lesson I have learned (and I wish more people today learned it, too) is that true love should change everything, even more so in a marriage. We start by trying to find the right person, the one who will make us forever and always happy. That ideal person does not exist, as we all have flaws. Always struggling to find the "right person to bring us joy" is a fool's errand, but some people spend a life pursuing that, and either end up in numerous broken marriages or none at all. Both circumstances appear to be a lot of "not joy." For me, once I got married, I realized "I made my choice, now I need to make it work." So the entire focus of my life has shifted from "trying to find the right person to love" to "trying to BE the right person FOR the one I love." Sure, sometimes I have to make concessions. As Kirk says to Charlie X, "there are a million things in this universe you can have, and a million things you can't." When you take that and pair it with doing everything you can to be the perfect spouse, then you have found a great source if joy. Being a swell guy means nothing. Being the best husband you can be to make the life of the one you love complete - that is the best life, for as long as it can possibly last. Whew. Deep. So, if you look at the epidode, the companion was the perfect partner to Cochrane, giving him everything he needed. Even if she could not express love, she gave up everything for him. And in the end, he became the perfect partner for her - giving up everything to be exactly what she needed. And that is love. The scene that always gets me is when the companion, in human form, looks at Cochrane through her transparent and color-blotchy scarf to see him again as she first saw him in her original blob of colored energy form - reliving that "first kiss" if you will.
John DiGiantomasso
2024-09-05 03:51:28 +0000 UTCElinor was so beautiful here. I always enjoyed this episode. Are you watching the remastered version Bunny?
Tony Silva
2024-02-12 09:47:07 +0000 UTCThanks, I will check out this podcast!
bunnytails
2024-02-11 17:12:04 +0000 UTCThank you, Mark <3
bunnytails
2024-02-11 17:11:11 +0000 UTCI'm glad this episode resonated with you as well!
bunnytails
2024-02-11 17:09:16 +0000 UTCThanks!
bunnytails
2024-02-11 17:08:45 +0000 UTCA Judas Goat is a trained goat used in animal herding. Typically it's used to lead sheep to the slaughter house.
Carlos Stevens
2024-02-11 05:28:27 +0000 UTCWonderful. I've seen this episode a hundred times, but it took your reaction to bring a tear to my eye.
J. Scott Phillips
2024-02-10 08:47:49 +0000 UTCAlthough I'm always happy when you enjoy an episode, I wish this one hadn't brought up so much pain for you. Here's hoping you and 'husbando' have many happy, healthy years together. If "Catspaw" is the Halloween episode of TOS, then "Metamorphosis" could very well be the Valentine's Day episode. The theme of love will continue to appear in future episodes, but I think this is its best realization. In closing, I'd like to recommend a superb TOS podcast called "Enterprise Incidents." Each installment focuses on a specific TOS episode, and their "Metamorphosis" show featured the director Ralph Senensky (still alive at the age of 100 and sharp). If you enjoy behind-the-scenes details, there's no one better to get them from than the person who directed the episode. (Another point in the podcast's favor: they covered TOS in production order as well! So, no spoilers for future episodes.)
Lee
2024-02-10 01:51:47 +0000 UTCI think Cochran likened his relationship with the Companion to that of a pet and its owner, which he was fine with. But when he realized the alien was female, he was disgusted by the possibility that his "joinings" may have been a kind of "mating". (And not everyone is into alien saax.) The Commissioner was, IMO, poorly written. Her character created a "race against time" that felt contrived especially because she wasn't very likeable. But yeah, I was looking at your face toward the end and thinking "What is going in her mind right now? She is completely silent lol". Is that good or is that bad?
SuicuneSol
2024-02-10 00:42:59 +0000 UTCIn the Star Trek timeline Zefram Cochrane would be alive today, in 2024. Taking that into consideration, how would a person today respond to discovering they were involved in an intimate relationship with a totally alien being. On a personal note, I'm keeping you and your family in my prayers. Take care, you're not alone,
Mark Chrisco
2024-02-09 21:52:16 +0000 UTCYea, me too, Bunny. Look, swear with a Non-Disclosure Agreement, I tear up every time when I watch it. The music, color, and story hit truth. A very pleasant and in-depth episode. Yeah, a romantic here at heart. Commissioner Hedford played Father Knows Best TV daughter back when. Glad to hear your story is positive. I really like this episode. It's been with me for many years. While using it to help through rough and unfamiliar life encounters. Glad you're enjoying Star Trek. LOL "But wait, There's More" Zelda, GTA, and such are great games, I wonder what a game about commercials and being stuck in them, trying to escape would be like. Ha Ha
timothy w moyer
2024-02-09 20:29:39 +0000 UTCFirst off, Bunny, always love your reactions but this one really was amazing from you. Some things speak to us even more then do other things due to the fact that we can relate or connect to them in a personal way. I can totally understand, given what has happened to you, why this episode hit really hard for you, even if it didn't land the same way with me. That also made me think about this episode in a new way -- as you often do with your reactions -- and I think perhaps in the past I was a bit too harsh on it. For me, this episode was one of those 'really deep' episodes that Star Trek is known for and does now and then -- not much action, just a lot of questions tossed at you without much of explanation and your left to ponder the greater meaning of things. As a rule, while I DO like those episodes, I never felt this one handled it the best way, for the reasons you mentioned in the episode. Also I always thought it was kind of slow and plodding, the whole consent issue really did bother me, and the fact that it seemed like the writers had a idea in mind and they were going FORCE the plot to go that way no matter how many loopholes or problems with it they found. However, I think I'm seeing this in a new light....I still wouldn't rank it in my top 10, but I think you helped me to understand the episode in a new way, plus other things have happened in my life to help with that. To me, my mind drew the connection right away to a recent movie that also made a strong impact on me, watching this episode again -- the movie Passengers with Jennifer Lawrence. I'm not sure if you've seen it, but at it's core it deals with the same issue -- how one man can life his entire life with no contact, whatsoever, and what happens to him. The movie got panned, and I agree it's not the BEST movie, but the emotional impact of that landed hard with me and still sticks with me today. I may work from home and go a whole week without seeing another human being, but at least I TALK to people every day online, and interact and connect with them, and even form friendships. That just is not possible for someone like the main character in Passengers, or Cochran in this episode, so it's a whole another degree of isolation that you can't even imagine. I'm not sure how much you recall about the movie First Contact, but Cochran was a key figure in the movie (in fact you could see the whole movie really revolved around him) and while it shows him as a very different age -- he was already an old man when he invented the warp drive -- the personality at least was a good match to what we saw in this episode. My parents have been married 53 years now and despite my Dad's struggles with his mental and physical health, and this wearing my Mom ragged, I know how much they still love each other and want to stay together till the very end. It's all we can ask for, and at least this episode of Star Trek ended on a happy note -- although the casual way that Kirk just dismisses how important the Commissioner was ALWAYS bothered me and still does. Thank you again for your great reactions and for all you do!
Greg Polander
2024-02-09 20:23:39 +0000 UTCVery interesting episode getting to meet the man whom innovated Warp Drive for Earth Starfleet. Remember Zephram Cochrane bunnbunn, he will be of critical importance for the far later TNG movie First Contact and some more subtle gravitas in the prequel series Enterprise.
Matt B
2024-02-09 19:44:50 +0000 UTCGreat episode. Unique and the start of a handful of episodes with music by George Duning, giving it a really different feeling than previous shows
Skyman's Follies
2024-02-09 19:02:53 +0000 UTC
