This episode opens with Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford aboard a shuttlecraft; they are returning to the Enterprise so that the commissioner can be treated for a rare, and potentially fatal, illness before she can go on to conduct peace negotiations on Epsilon Canaris III. On the way they come across a strange energy field which drains the shuttles systems before guiding it to a small but habitable planetoid. They are surprised to find they aren't the only people there; soon after landing they are met by a man called Cochrane who tells them he has been there since his own ship lost power in a similar fashion. He then tells them that the energy field is in fact an alien entity he has come to call the Companion. It turns out that Cochrane is none other than Zefram Cochrane the first man to discover warp technology; an amazing revelation given that he was an old man when he disappeared a century and a half previously. He says the Companion brought them there because he required human friendship; Kirk has no intention of staying though and time is of the essence as Commissioner Hedford will die soon if untreated.
This is an enjoyable episode if you can overlook the somewhat dated gender politics; Hedford may be a Commissioner on her way to vital peace talks but she is depicted as irrational due to being a woman then later on the Companion's behaviour is explained away as being because she is female and in love with Cochrane odd given that she isn't even humanoid let alone human. Still these details don't spoil the story. The idea of a totally alien falling in love with a human that doesn't even realise she is female, or for that matter any gender, is interesting and lead to a negative reaction from Cochrane which is clearly meant to show his attitudes are old-fashioned in the era he is now in. Guest stars Glenn Corbett and Elinor Donahue do good jobs as Cochrane and Hedford in a story which is more about ideas than action. Overall a good episodes despite some flaws.
This is an enjoyable episode if you can overlook the somewhat dated gender politics; Hedford may be a Commissioner on her way to vital peace talks but she is depicted as irrational due to being a woman then later on the Companion's behaviour is explained away as being because she is female and in love with Cochrane odd given that she isn't even humanoid let alone human. Still these details don't spoil the story. The idea of a totally alien falling in love with a human that doesn't even realise she is female, or for that matter any gender, is interesting and lead to a negative reaction from Cochrane which is clearly meant to show his attitudes are old-fashioned in the era he is now in. Guest stars Glenn Corbett and Elinor Donahue do good jobs as Cochrane and Hedford in a story which is more about ideas than action. Overall a good episodes despite some flaws.