0172NOTApollo_Roddenberry

ogcma@byu

ClCv241

Mastery

MythMatters

Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the crew travel to the planet Pollux 4*, where they discover the Greek god Apollo (played by Michael Forest in a gold lamé toga). Apollo explains that the Greek gods were powerful aliens who travelled to Earth, where they thrived on the worship of the sheep-herding humans. As human society evolved, they stopped worshipping the gods, and as human belief dwindled, so did the power of the gods. Apollo is the last of the gods still living. He demands that the crew of the Enterprise worship him, and in return he will provide for all of their earthly needs. When Captain Kirk turns down his offer, Apollo, becoming angry and vengeful, attempts to hold the Enterprise hostage and force them to worship him. Unsurprisingly, this does not sit well with Captain Kirk, and the empire crew has to band together and figure out how to defeat Apollo.

"The episode's title... derives from high culture and may at first strike viewers as pretentious. 'Who Mourns for Adonais?' is a quotation from line 415 of Shelley's "Adonais: an Elegy on the Death of John Keats" (1821), which in turn is based on the ancient Greek poems by Theocritus and Bion on the death of the proverbially handsome youth Adonis (or Adonais). The death of the young poet and the extinction of the god of poetry are instances of loss and causes for mourning." Winkler p. 90

This episode is the only one where we learn the Enterprise has on board an officer of "Archaeology, Anthropology, and Ancient Civilizations."

*Presumably as in "Castor and Pollux."

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