Obsession
- Episode aired Dec 15, 1967
- TV-PG
- 50m
IMDb RATING
7.2/10
3.3K
YOUR RATING
Capt. Kirk obsessively hunts for a mysterious cloud creature he encountered in his youth.Capt. Kirk obsessively hunts for a mysterious cloud creature he encountered in his youth.Capt. Kirk obsessively hunts for a mysterious cloud creature he encountered in his youth.
Bill Blackburn
- Lieutenant Hadley
- (uncredited)
John Blower
- Crewman Swenson
- (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci
- Security Guard
- (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone
- Yeoman
- (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey
- Lieutenant Leslie
- (uncredited)
Basil Poledouris
- Security Officer
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writers
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaThe ship which Kirk served on for his first deep space mission is disclosed to be the USS Farragut, and was named after David Glasgow Farragut, a flag officer of the United States Navy during the American Civil War. He was the first rear admiral, vice-admiral, and admiral in the United States Navy and is credited for uttering the phrase, "Damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead!"*, disregarding all danger while charging into enemy waters off the Alabama Coast. -This is an abridged version. He said "Damn the torpedoes. Four bells, Captain Drayton, go ahead. Jouett, full speed."*
- GoofsEnsign Garrovick states that less than one ounce of antimatter is more powerful than 10,000 cobalt bombs but the actual energy yield is only about 1.2 megatons TNT. The implication that a cobalt bomb releases more energy than a "regular" nuclear weapon is incorrect; a cobalt bomb is just an ordinary thermonuclear weapon "salted" with cobalt to produce long-lived Co-60 in its fallout.
- Alternate versionsSpecial Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song
- ConnectionsFeatured in Bring Back... Star Trek (2009)
- SoundtracksTheme
Music credited to Alexander Courage, although it strongly resembles the main title music for 'Hollow Triumph (1948)' by Sol Kaplan
Sung by Loulie Jean Norman
Featured review
It can't possibly exist...but it Does!
Will we ever be free of our monsters, even in the 23rd century? This episode says of course not and, especially in view of what we've seen of the 24th century on the TNG show and other spin-offs, there will always be space-age demons and goblins to terrorize us. Following up on commodore Decker's Ahab-like role on "The Doomsday Machine," now it's Kirk's turn to confront and obsess about his personal devil. Yet, his nemesis, in a key revelatory point of the story, is not some unthinking machine; it really is a predatory monster, killing off red-shirts left and right, like a space-faring shark with malicious tendencies (it breaks the record of red-shirt deaths in "The Apple," even if one of these happen off-screen). Shatner gets to show a bit more range than usual here; he doesn't go off completely half-cocked or deranged, but there's enough edginess in him here to warrant McCoy & Spock briefly teaming up against him, recalling the key scene in "The Conscience of a King."
The story does drive home one point probably a couple of times too many: that Kirk's guilt over not killing the creature years earlier is groundless. McCoy's scene with Kirk, where he points out his captain's possibly overly obsessive approach to the problem, is very good. But then we have Spock going over this ground over and over, it seems, both with Kirk & ensign Garrovick, another guilt-ridden character. Yes, the parallels of what's currently happening in this episode and events of several years ago on the starship Farragut are somewhat eerie, but enough already, Spock. Stop beating the audience over the head with it. Despite this clumsy aspect to story construction, it's a fairly exciting, suspenseful riff on the dangers lurking in outer space, even in Trek's quasi-utopia future. Much later, Captain Picard would be accused of Ahab-like behavior in "Star Trek-First Contact"(96) involving, what else, the Borg. This seems a prevalent theme among starship captains of the Trek mythos.
The story does drive home one point probably a couple of times too many: that Kirk's guilt over not killing the creature years earlier is groundless. McCoy's scene with Kirk, where he points out his captain's possibly overly obsessive approach to the problem, is very good. But then we have Spock going over this ground over and over, it seems, both with Kirk & ensign Garrovick, another guilt-ridden character. Yes, the parallels of what's currently happening in this episode and events of several years ago on the starship Farragut are somewhat eerie, but enough already, Spock. Stop beating the audience over the head with it. Despite this clumsy aspect to story construction, it's a fairly exciting, suspenseful riff on the dangers lurking in outer space, even in Trek's quasi-utopia future. Much later, Captain Picard would be accused of Ahab-like behavior in "Star Trek-First Contact"(96) involving, what else, the Borg. This seems a prevalent theme among starship captains of the Trek mythos.
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- Bogmeister
- Oct 11, 2006
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