Star Trek: The Original Series
"For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"
Air date: 11/8/1968
Written by Rik Vollaerts
Directed by Tony Leader
Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan
The Enterprise encounters an asteroid that actually turns out to be a huge alien bio-dome-like spaceship—carrying passengers who think they're living on an actual world. This spaceship, navigation having malfunctioned, is on a collision course with another populated world.
Meanwhile, McCoy learns that he has a terminal illness that leaves him with a maximum of one year to live. Upon beaming to the spaceship to investigate, Kirk, Spock, and Bones find that the inhabitants are at the mercy of an apparently computerized oracle that dictates thought and speech—speak the forbidden words and it kills you. Bones is elected to keep Natira (Kate Woodville), the landing party's host who finds herself enamored with McCoy, busy while Kirk and Spock try to figure out how to gain navigational control of the planet-ship.
The "spaceship planet" idea and some of the social implications are genuinely intriguing. There's an implicit analysis of a society built on censored thought, but the story doesn't dig as deep as it could've. Also unfortunate is that Bones' romance with Natira—a key emotional focus point in the story and a good idea—is a major letdown, severely lacking punch and devoid of passion or sweetness, thereby reduced to a plot element. It's a real shame, because I like Bones and would've liked to see this side of him more believably brought to the surface.
Previous episode: Day of the Dove
Next episode: The Tholian Web
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27 comments on this post
Sun, Dec 2, 2012, 4:47pm (UTC -6)
The real problem with the episode is that Shatner and Kelley seem really off. Shatner's reactions to learning that one of his closest friends is dying is far too muted. And the good bye scene was weird, too.
Shatner's performance could be overlooked, but Kelley really drops the ball. For somebody who was willing to leave the Enterprise to be with a woman he just met, he sure doesn't seem very happy to be with Natira. He hardly smiles!
I wonder if Kelley tried to play Bones in a weakened state? If so, it was a bad call.
Tue, Oct 29, 2013, 2:55pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Feb 17, 2014, 8:56am (UTC -6)
I think the main pitfall is the unfortunate lack of an emotional punch. Wether it was the actors or the director or simply an uninvolving script, it leaves you strangely unmoved at times when you should be completely hooked and in the heart of the moment.
Coupled with a very slow pace and a failure to actually do anything interesting or original with its good concepts; it wasn't one of my favourites despite me being a big McCoy fan.
I would rate it a 2/4. I didn't hate it but I was left feeling very indifferent to it which isn't much better. As a side note, I love the episode title and I noticed TOS has a tendency for really cool sounding titles (excluding Spocks' Brain of course)!
Sun, Sep 28, 2014, 11:27am (UTC -6)
The bigger interest and bigger letdown is McCoy's story. McCoy is *dying*; and then he finds the possibility of a year of happiness, even if he has to give up a great deal for it, and he takes it. I was actually fairly willing to accept the somewhat implausible and mostly low-chemistry Natira romance provisionally, on the hopes that it would lead to something of a good story. And there are hints of one. With time running out, McCoy realizes that he really doesn't want to die alone, and his priorities shift with the recognition that this is his last real chance at love. The understated way he deals with the news with Kirk and Spock has some pros and cons -- I agree that the Kirk/McCoy stuff feels a little underwhelming, but there is something very affecting about Spock's reaction all the way through, his completely snark-free touching of McCoy and McCoy's surprised reaction. It's a big development in the Big Three dynamic, which really has continued to evolve throughout the series. It's also a recognition that the Big Three bond, important as it is, is not actually a substitute for romantic love and peace of mind.
But then the computer is destroyed and McCoy just...decides to leave his wife? What exactly has changed here? Now, more than ever, he wants to go out there and find a cure! Um, okay. I mean, yes, it makes sense for McCoy to want to do all he can to work on finding a cure, but I hardly see what has changed between now and when he agreed to give up his freedom for the chance at love and peace. I guess the destruction of the machine thing and his inability to stave off his curiosity made him realize that he couldn't actually sit quietly and wait for the end, but had to look into it? Maybe? But if all it takes is a couple of days of realizing how curious he is, it seems like that marriage thing was a pretty bad decision. I guess it was -- an impulsive stupid decision that was always going to end. Which...is actually a potential story choice, because people who just learned they are going to die in a year are likely to make some bad decisions, but the story's portrayal of McCoy and Natira is much more akin to tragic star-crossed lovers than a guy who loses all ability to evaluate himself in the wake of a terminal diagnosis and makes a life commitment that he can only honour for, I don't know, probably a week or something (hard to keep track of the episode's time scale). McCoy should be a lot more apologetic, I guess is what I'm saying.
And then he gets cured anyway! So now his reason for leaving his wife for his remaining year is gone! And so he...still leaves, because, uh...he...actually much prefers being on a starship, I guess. Which again is fine -- but wow, does he even think twice about how his *stated reason* for leaving his wife now being gone might change things? It all just underlines how little McCoy's commitment to Natira meant, and how little his realignment of values in the wake of his potential death has any bearing on his actual view of himself once that proximate threat is gone. It's a shame, really, because there is a potentially interesting story there, and further, if the story more explicitly examined McCoy just bouncing back to his old values after like a day it could be a story about how fundamentally, one shouldn't make decisions in the immediate wake of tragic news, and how McCoy understandably but very regrettably made a stupid call that hurt himself and Natira too. Alas.
I...guess 2 stars?
Tue, Sep 29, 2015, 11:16pm (UTC -6)
Sat, Mar 25, 2017, 7:29am (UTC -6)
A thousand times this.
I liked the Priestess actor in this and it would have made a good two parter.
Wed, Apr 19, 2017, 4:25am (UTC -6)
2 stars from me.
Sun, Jun 4, 2017, 1:17pm (UTC -6)
Fri, Jun 23, 2017, 10:20pm (UTC -6)
McCoy's romance with Natira doesn't work - it makes sense to have McCoy get this opportunity but Kelley doesn't do the part justice. Natira wasn't too convincing either.
I liked the romantic music for Natira/McCoy which is also used in "The Empath" for Gem. TOS had some wonderful musical scores.
What also doesn't work for me is how McCoy has 1 year to live so I guess he goes along with the idea of marriage and living on Yonada but then a cure is found in the extensive library behind the Oracle and then there's no more romance.
I think the episode has a good premise -- the Creators building Yonada to escape the destruction of their solar system some 10000 years ago. But it goes off course etc.
I don't know why the Oracle decides to heat the room when the Big 3 violate it instead of using electrocution again -- this miscalculation gives Kirk & Co. time to get the book etc. So it's somewhat convenient how this leads to solving the problem as everything else falls into place nicely.
I'd give this a strong 2 stars, nearly 2.5 -- seems like this episode dropped the ball a few times, unused potential.
Sat, Jul 8, 2017, 2:47pm (UTC -6)
Tue, Aug 29, 2017, 2:15pm (UTC -6)
As the general consensus is, it had a beautiful potential but was executed poorly and not given much thought in writing so was lacklustre, which is a shame because there isn't much McCoy central episodes and it would have been nice to have a sucessful McCoy themed episode as he one of my faves. I guess i'll just imagine a better version of the episode in my head... hahaha.
The few good and convincing parts of this episode was McCoy and Spock, where Spock actually shows he cares and is worried for him, which is sweet and really contributes to the mccoy/spock friendship (or ship lol). Shame Kirk was not as involved but then again he already knew before the episode began, and maybe he just didn't know how to react on knowing this information, perhaps he never believed it was true.
Mon, Nov 27, 2017, 5:57pm (UTC -6)
The A-B story structure in this episode, where a character's personal drama works within a larger Sci Fi plot, really resembles what most Star Trek episodes from TNG onward will look like. Indeed, this structure is a hallmark of TOS Season 3, and it's easy to imagine the show would have further developed into what TNG became had it not been cancelled after this season. Season 4 would have developed many of the minor characters like Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura, as happened on a smaller scale in the 30-minute episodes of TAS. Indeed, episodes like "For the World is Hollow" truly debunk the fans who draw a sharp dividing line between TOS and everything from TNG-DS9-VOY-ENT, as if there's nothing in common between TOS and the later shows. Season 3 of TOS proves that these shows are all cut from the same larger fabric, as much of the stuff we see here provides germs for later shows.
Anyway, I do like McCoy getting his own story, perhaps only the second time (if we don't count "The Man Trap" where he was really just a jumping-off point) since "Friday's Child" in Season 2 that this has happened. And I actually think Kelley, as much as we might criticize his low-energy and downbeat portrayal of a man facing death, makes an acting choice here that fits his character: McCoy may be irascible, but he's not the type to have an emotional scene after being diagnosed with a terminal illness that won't really affect him for a year, and it's quite possible that someone with so lively a personality might well react with denial and/or muted depression to this kind of news. So I find McCoy's behavior here plausible enough.
But I just really love the central concept of this story about a generational ship hurtling toward its doom. The priestess character is sharply drawn and the society of people who don't realize they live on a ship is a fascinating idea. The idea of the ship computer ruling over people like a god and the imposition of previous generations' ideology on the society's future are worthwhile concepts adequately executed here. And, as with many third season TOS stories, I find this show fairly thought-provoking and unpredictable overall. I appreciate the effort at doing something fresh.
Mon, Mar 18, 2019, 11:53am (UTC -6)
Thu, May 23, 2019, 2:23am (UTC -6)
The McCoy Instant Big Romance was more convincing than Jadzia's in Meridian, because at least he had the excuse of terminal illness to explain his crazy decision. But points off this ep right there, for making me think of Meridian.
Very little chemistry though the actors were charismatic enough. Natira looked about 20 yrs younger than the Doc, which didn't help. And there was almost zero interaction before undying love was declared. Ugh.
Some good Spocky moments and I liked the interaction with Christine.
I think maybe there was meant to be some parallel between McCoy's hollowness and the asteroid's, and how crisis can reveal what's lacking and give direction and purpose to our journeys.
Average.
Sat, Aug 31, 2019, 8:26pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Oct 17, 2019, 8:08pm (UTC -6)
I think it was meant to be his Paradise Syndrome, but it didn't really convey the poignance of the road not taken. Perhaps if Natira, like Miramanee, had died … But that would have been just the same story, wouldn't it?
Wed, Feb 26, 2020, 3:40pm (UTC -6)
Sun, Oct 18, 2020, 3:18pm (UTC -6)
I think that McCoy getting married is 1960’s for “had sex”.
The takeaway I have is that Arthur C. Clarke seems to have gotten a small seed of inspiration from this episode for his Rama series- at first, they think it’s an asteroid, but it turns out to be a generational ship. His story is better in my opinion though.
Fri, Nov 13, 2020, 2:18pm (UTC -6)
It is probably based on The Stars My Destination by Alfred Bester (aka Tiger Tiger in the UK), which was written about a decade before TOS. In a chapter that would be completely offensive today, the main character crashes into an asteroid. The original inhabitants, 200 years prior, were scientists, but the descendants are “savages” (Bester’s words) who practice superstition and are very religious.
Personally, I think it’s cool to see how sci-fi stories influence each other. For example, Discovery’s new storyline about being flung into the future makes me think of Tau Zero by Poul Anderson, in which the ship’s crew must deal with the psychological effects of being flung very far into the future. And Tau Zero itself seems to have been influenced by TOS in some respects. Tau Zero’s constable character also seems to have influenced the character of Odo in DS9.
I could go on all day long but yeah sci-fi is cool :)
Fri, Dec 25, 2020, 5:51pm (UTC -6)
Mon, Jan 11, 2021, 12:18am (UTC -6)
- the exploration of closed-off cults,
[After Spock removes the Instrument of Obedience]
NATIRA: He is not part of our people. You've released him from his vow of obedience.
- silly old men as truth tellers,
NATIRA: Forgive him for he was an old man, and old men are sometimes foolish.
- RTFM!!!,
NATIRA: This is the Book of the People, to be opened and read when we reach the new world of the promise. It was given by the creators.
MCCOY: Do the people know the contents of their book?
NATIRA: Only that it tells of our world here and why soon, one day, we must leave it for the new world.
- friendship versus love (h/t @William B),
NATIRA: You have lived a lonely life?
MCCOY: Yes, very lonely.
And so much more packed into one tiny hour!
It is also a shame that Bones and the high priestess have zero chemistry. As @Trek fan points out, "Friday's Child" could have been a model here - maybe the actress was lacking?
So far this season, Kirk has been tempted to leave by Miramanee, Spock by the Romulan Commander, Bones by Natira, and Chekov by Sylvia. Who's next?
@Rama, interesting write up about "The Stars My Destination". Of course JMS was a huge Al Bester fan, and named the character played Chekov on Babylon 5 after him.
You might enjoy the Babylon 5 novel "Final Reckoning", which is the last stand of Alfred Bester.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/77251.Final_Reckoning
Wed, May 5, 2021, 2:46am (UTC -6)
The main problem - which no-one has said - is that the main idea (great sci-fi) is really too large for less than 50 minutes of a space adventure series. It would have made a better movie if given 90 minutes to fully develop the themes, for example McCoy’s romance with Natira. I have to forgive the writers for shoehorning the whole story into the allotted time, and applaud the producers for recognising a great thing when they saw it. Just a shame that the regular format of TOS could not accommodate it.
As for the criticisms about the Oracle being a metaphor for religious oppression - couldn’t it just as equally be the only method, as foreseen by the “creators”, that a society would be kept “on course “ for the original purpose and destination if it was not allowed to deviate into a chaotic state, which might have happened naturally over generations? Yes, it was authoritarian, but the society - constrained by circumstances - was happy and stable if somewhat stagnant.
A good idea and another proof that Series 3 wasn’t so bad after all.
Sat, Jul 3, 2021, 3:08pm (UTC -6)
As for Natira falling in love with McCoy just by looking at him, well, she's an alien. Who knows how their biology works. I guess there was some evolutionary reason for females behaving this way on her planet. Right?
Thu, Sep 30, 2021, 10:24pm (UTC -6)
The total lack of chemistry or romance between McCoy and Natira made their scenes together cringeworthy. (Shatner was WAY better in the Paradise Syndrome and his ”wife” was a much better actress and more interesting character than Natira.) The only good scene in this episode was the old man who delivered the title line when they first got to the spaceship world. The rest of it: Ugh! 0 stars.
Mon, Dec 27, 2021, 11:12pm (UTC -6)
Thu, Oct 27, 2022, 7:32pm (UTC -6)
The concept of a generational ship was invented before any of the Star Treks, so I am afraid neither this nor Voyager's version was fully "original." These are not even the only two occurrences within Trek. The episode "By Any Other Name," for example, shows the Kelvans as being on a journey spanning generations.
I'm not sure I'm following what you mean about this one not really being a generational ship. Natira's people have been on a journey from their former planet to one they intend to settle on, and the journey is taking them a number of generations. Isn't that what a "generational ship" is?
Sun, Nov 27, 2022, 12:14pm (UTC -6)
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