Star Trek - "Metamorphosis" - tv-series Season 2 Episode 9, 11/10/1967
Episode Summary
When their shuttle is diverted to a planetoid, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy encounter Earth's Warp Drive pioneer, Zefram Cochrane, who appears to have survived there alone for 150 years.
(from internet transcript)
(From the doorway, the three see a swirly thing which then disappears. Cochrane comes in with a tray of drinks.)
KIRK: What was that?
COCHRANE: Well, sometimes the light plays tricks on you. You'd be surprised what I've imagined I've seen around here sometimes.
SPOCK: We imagined nothing, Mister Cochrane. There was an entity out there and I suspect it was the same entity which brought us here. Please explain.
COCHRANE: There's nothing to explain.
(He hands a drink to Nancy.)
NANCY: Thank you.
KIRK: You'll find I have a very low tolerance level where the safety of my people are concerned. We find you out here, where no human has any business being. We were virtually hijacked in space and brought here. Now I'm not just requesting an explanation, Mister. I'm demanding one.
COCHRANE: All right. It was the Companion.
KIRK: The what?
COCHRANE: That's what I call it. As a matter of fact, Captain, I didn't crash here. I was brought here in my disabled ship. I was almost dead. The Companion saved my life.
SPOCK: You were injured?
COCHRANE: I was dying, Mister Spock.
KIRK: You seem perfectly all right now. What was the matter?
COCHRANE: I was an old man.
KIRK: You were what?
COCHRANE: Well, I don't know how it did it, but the Companion rejuvenated me, made me young again, like I am now.
SPOCK: I prefer to reserve judgment on that part of your story, sir. Meanwhile, would you please explain exactly what this Companion of yours is?
COCHRANE: I told you, I don't know what it is. It exists, it lives, and I can communicate with it.
MCCOY: That's a pretty far out story.
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, do you have a first name?
COCHRANE: Zefram.
KIRK: Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centuri, the discoverer of the space warp?
COCHRANE: That's right, Captain.
MCCOY: But that's impossible. Zefram Cochrane died a hundred and fifty years ago.
SPOCK: The name of Zefram Cochrane is revered throughout the known galaxy. Planets were named after him. Great universities, cities.
KIRK: Isn't your story a little improbable, Mister Cochrane?
COCHRANE: No, it's true. I was eighty seven years old when I came here.
KIRK: You say this Companion found you and rejuvenated you? What were you doing in space at the age of eighty seven?
COCHRANE: I was tired, Captain. I was going to die, and I wanted to die in space. That's all.
SPOCK: True, his body was never found.
COCHRANE: You're looking at it, Mister Spock.
SPOCK: If so, you wear your age very well.
MCCOY: How do you feel?
NANCY: Terrible. How should I feel?
MCCOY: You're running a little temperature. Perhaps you should lie down.
NANCY: Doctor, will you please just leave me alone. It's the heat.
From 10/12/1915 ( Robert Innes announced the discovery of Proxima Centauri ) To 11/10/1967 ( premiere USA TV series episode "Star Trek"::"Metamorphosis" ) is 19022 days
From 11/2/1965 ( my known birth date in Antlers, Oklahoma, USA, as Kerry Wayne Burgess ) To 12/1/2017 ( ) is 19022 days
Star Trek - "Metamorphosis" - tv series Season 2 Episode 9 - 11/10/1967
(from internet transcript)
KIRK: Mister Cochrane, call the Companion.
[Outside Cochrane's home]
(Cochrane summons the Companion.)
KIRK: Companion. (It leaves Cochrane) We wish to talk to you.
COMPANION: How can we communicate? My thoughts, you are hearing them. This is interesting.
KIRK: Feminine. No doubt about it.
SPOCK: Yes. The matter of gender could change the entire situation.
KIRK: I'm way ahead of you.
SPOCK: Then it is not a zookeeper.
KIRK: No. A lover. Companion. It is wrong to keep us here against our will.
COMPANION: A man needs the company of his own kind, or he will cease to exist. He felt it to me.
KIRK: One of us will cease to exist if we don't get her to a place where we can care for her.
COMPANION: The man needs others of his species. That is why you are here. The man must continue.
KIRK: Companion, try to understand. It is the nature of our species to be free, just as it is your nature to stay here. We will cease to exist in captivity.
COMPANION: Your bodies have stopped their peculiar degeneration. There will be nothing to harm you. You will continue, and the man will continue. This is necessary.
SPOCK: This is a marvellous opportunity to add to our knowledge. Ask it about its nature, its history.
KIRK: This isn't a classroom. I'm trying to get us out of here.
SPOCK: A chance like this may never come again. It could tell us so much.
KIRK: This isn't the time. Companion, what you offer us is not continuation. It is non-existence. We will cease to exist. Even the man will cease to exist.
COMPANION : Your impulses are illogical. This communication is useless. The man must continue. Therefore, you will continue. It is necessary.
(She vanishes, and they all head back indoors.)
[Cochrane's home]
COCHRANE: Captain, why did you build that translator with a feminine voice?
KIRK: We didn't.
COCHRANE: But I heard
KIRK: The idea of male and female are universal constants, Cochrane. There's no doubt about it. The Companion is female.
COCHRANE: I don't understand.
MCCOY: You don't? A blind man could see it with a cane. You're not a pet. You're not a specimen kept in a cage. You're a lover.
COCHRANE: I'm a what?
SPOCK: Her attitude when she approaches you is profoundly different than when she contacts us. Her appearance is soft, gentle. Her voice is melodic, pleasing. I do not totally understand the emotion, but it obviously exists. The Companion loves you.
COCHRANE: Do you know what you're saying? For all these years, I've let something as alien as that crawl around inside me, into my mind, my feelings.
KIRK: What are you complaining about? It kept you alive.
COCHRANE: That thing fed on me. It used me. It's disgusting.
MCCOY: There's nothing disgusting about it. It's just another life form, that's all. You get used to those things.
COCHRANE: You're as bad as it is.
SPOCK: Your highly emotional reaction is most illogical. Your relationship with the Companion has for one hundred and fifty years been emotionally satisfying, eminently practical, and totally harmless. It may indeed have been quite beneficial.
COCHRANE: Is this what the future holds? Men who have no notion of decency or morality? Maybe I'm a hundred and fifty years out of style, but I'm not going to be fodder for any inhuman monster. (leaves)
SPOCK: Fascinating. A totally parochial attitude.
NANCY: Doctor. Doctor.
MCCOY: Right here, Miss Hedford.
NANCY: I heard him. He was loved and he resents it.
MCCOY: You just rest.
NANCY: No. I don't want to die. I've been good at my job, but I've never been loved. Never. What kind of life is that? Not to be loved, never to have shown love? And he runs away from love. (cries)
SPOCK: Commissioner Hedford was dying.
NANCY: That part of us was too weak to hold on. In a moment, there would have been no continuing. Now we're together.
SPOCK: Then you are both here, in the one body?
NANCY: We are one.
(She goes to Cochrane, who takes a step back.)
NANCY: Zefram, we frighten you. We've never frightened you before. Loneliness. This is loneliness. Oh, what a bitter thing. Oh, Zefram, it's so sad. How do you bear it, this loneliness?
- by me, Kerry Wayne Burgess, posted by me: 11:35 PM Pacific-timezone USA Tuesday 10/15/2024
