Star Trek (TV Series) That Which Survives (1969) User Reviews

An adequate episode, dragged down by bad characterization

[aaustin-10 · 7/10 · 25 March 2011]

When the Enterprise investigates a strange planet, a mysterious woman abruptly appears to sabotage the ship and put it in danger of exploding, while simultaneously threatening to wipe out a stranded landing party led by Captain Kirk. Kirk and his crew must find out who or what this woman is, and why and how she is putting them all in such peril, before the ship is destroyed and the landing party killed off.

This episode has a good, steady pace, solid plot, and a genuine sense of the Enterprise crew desperately trying to cope with a sudden, unknown threat before disaster overtakes them all. It manages to convey dramatically the idea that out in deep space our heroes will encounter unexpected and random threats any one of which might be more than they can handle. Also, I like that they take the time to give a little depth to the D'mato character (a likable guy who is enthusiastic about his work in geology) before killing him. And the regular characters treat his death with a little mourning and gravity. Too often on Star Trek the deaths of minor characters are glossed over by episode's end, like in installments where many men died horribly and then the script concludes with a lame joke. It ruins an episode's dramatic heft Here, we really care about D'mato's demise. Also, we get to see Scotty at his best, doing emergency repairs when danger looms, and taking risks because he does not want Spock to be the one to have to do it.

This episode could have gotten a top ranking from me but it gets dragged down by serious mistakes in characterization. For one thing, Spock's personality in this episode is completely different than it is in the rest of the series. The usually composed, polite, patient Spock suddenly and inexplicably is turned into an arrogant, rude jerk who deserves to be demoted for his treatment of his shipmates during a time of peril. Ordinarily, Spock would only criticize someone's illogical thought patterns during laid back moments of reflection and spare-time conversation. Here, he is emotionally shooting people down right and left when he should be concentrating on solving the problem. It is completely inconsistent with everything we know about this character.

To a lesser extent something similar is done with the Kirk character. Early on he is meaninglessly short and callous in his comments during the landing party. He returns to regular form quickly enough, but the damage is done. We now have two regular characters spewing dialogue inconsistent with what we know of their personalities and it serves to remind the viewer we're just watching actors reciting lines rather than actors being characters. It short circuits the drama. This one major error in the script manages to spoil the quality of the whole episode.

This just goes to show you that what is really important in fiction is the characters, and if you get them wrong, you get the story wrong. The writers of this episode apparently thought the only way to create interesting dynamics between characters was to have them say pointlessly abrasive things people would not really say in real life. It is the mark of an amateur, so it is astonishing Gene Roddenberry himself and the great D.C. Fontana were two of the three writers who did this. They may be the admirable giants to Star Trek, but on this episode, they dropped the ball. But the plot's execution, at least, helps keep the episode floating enough to earn a seven out of ten.

What in the world did the writer of this episode...

[SusanJL · 6/10 · 3 May 2019]

...have against Spock? Spock was never before so clueless or so sarcastic!! As Dr. McCoy would say, "that's not Spock!".

decent ST episode

[HelloTexas11 · 7/10 · 15 June 2008]

'That Which Survives' is a good, low-key, atmospheric third-season episode that has a melancholy air to it, especially in retrospect after you learn what happened to Losira and her people. I would definitely rank it as one of the better shows of the last season, though admittedly the bar is pretty low. If there's anything really odd about 'That Which Survives,' it's the dialogue. All of the characters are really snappish with each other. Sulu will say something and Kirk will almost bite his head off. Same thing goes on back at the Enterprise; Spock is more of a smartass than we've ever seen him before. Almost anything anyone says to him is met with a response dripping in sarcasm. It's quite a different approach and frankly it becomes annoying after a while, though some of his lines are funny. I don't recall any other episode of ST with dialogue quite like this. And it's all the more peculiar as the writer, John Meredyth Lucas, was a Trek veteran who wrote four shows including the fine episode 'The Changeling.' None of his other scripts display this odd approach to dialogue. Lee Meriwether is a good choice for the mysterious, lonely Losira and the scenes on the planet are the most interesting.

Spock gets sarcastic and Kirk is afraid of being touched by a beautiful woman

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 15 August 2015]

This episode sees the crew of the Enterprise investigating a mysterious planet; it is only the size of the Moon and is a mere five thousand years old but it appears to sustain life, have an atmosphere and be the mass of the Earth. Just as Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and an expendable geologist beam down to the surface a beautiful woman appears in the transporter room saying they must not got to the planet; she then kills the transporter operator with a single touch! Soon after the away team arrive the planet suffers a major earthquake; when it is over there is no sign of the Enterprise. As they search for anything that might be edible the same beautiful woman appears and approaches the geologist, she says she has come for him before touching and killing him. It isn't that long before she is coming for the others although it becomes apparent that she can only harm the specific person she has come for. Back on the Enterprise the crew discover that the entire ship has been moved to a point almost a thousand light years away and the same woman kills an engineer as he examines the engines after Scotty states that something doesn't feel right. Further investigations reveal sabotage that could destroy the ship as it hurtles back to the planet.

This might not be a great episode but it isn't terrible either. It was nice to see that geologist Lt. D'Amato was given a bit of character rather than being the typical doomed character whose sole purpose is to die in a mysterious way. The fact that the danger came from a beautiful woman was a bit of a cliché; it seems that almost every episode must feature a beautiful guest star dressed in a fairly revealing costume. The way she only came for a specific crewmember each time was intriguing though leaving the viewer wondering if there is one woman, several identical women or she is something else. Spock seems strangely out of character here; he has always been logical but now, as he takes command of the ship, he seems merely obtuse and sarcastic as he is overly precise and criticises any wording that is inexact or even employs metaphor. The story is tense though; I especially liked the scene where Scotty struggles to fix the ship knowing that the slightest mistake could destroy the ship; James Doohan was really good in this scene. Overall a fairly mixed episode with some great moments but also some that are almost laughable… and not in an intended way.

A Grumpy Spock

[sambase-38773 · 7/10 · 6 September 2021]

If Spock would have been like this in every episode he would have been one of the biggest A-ho's in TV history. Either the writer got carried away and didn't realize how badly Spock would come off or he was trying to sabotage the popularity of Spock. I guess we'll never know.

But even with that it's an intriguing episode about death, beauty, and survival. And about hopes that never come true no matter how long you wait. There might be some of us who can relate to that.

Lee Meriwether is terrific as the alien being who keeps trying to kill everybody. Beauty is one of the few good things in life, but what if the beauty is trying to kill you? Well, then beauty is no bargain. And must be dealt with. But how...

Enjoyable episode outside of the oddly grumpy Spock. Season 3 on the whole is underrated I do believe.

"This thing is going to blow up..."

[classicsoncall · 6/10 · 14 February 2011]

Boy, didn't you just want to smack Spock upside the head for his characterization here? He was never more annoying, and even though he's my favorite Star Trek character, I was going 'enough already' with his determination to put down all of his fellow crew members with precision and logic. Come on Spock - couldn't you round 990.7 light years up to a thousand? I think everybody would have been on the same page with you.

On top of that, once Losira turns out to be a hologram, the whole story falls apart. How was her 'touch' so deadly if she wasn't real? I suppose the last of the planet's scientists could have concocted some relationship between the image and the cellular disruption gimmick, but that was never offered.

Another thing - I don't think the Enterprise was ever challenged before with the warp factor established here. If I recall correctly, the ship never, ever reached Warp 10 in any prior episode, but here it accelerated to 11.2, then 11.9, 13.2 and holy asteroids (sorry, thought this was a 'Batman' episode), topping out at 14.1! I think it was established in an earlier show that 10.0 would make the ship a goner, but I could be making that up. Just like they made this one up on the fly.

The one redeeming feature of the show, and I was reminded when I saw her, but I had totally forgotten how gorgeous Lee Meriwether was. I'm sure the Captain would have willingly traded her character for another episode where he got to get up close and personal. Oh well, you can't win them all.

Spock is really annoying in this one

[shakawtwf · 7/10 · 1 October 2007]

Spock jumps on every comment that every person says, correcting their calculations with comments like "I wish you'd be more accurate" and saying things like "We're not here to engage in gambling" when someone asks about their odds of survival (how many times has Spock himself spewed out odds of this and that in the past? His own mother had to cut him off at the knees when he did that once). I've always thought that the "folding Lee Meriwhether" effect was cool but I'm not sure the episode really makes any sense. My main problem with this episode is how annoying Spock is because he's my favorite character in this series.

Losira: The Ultimate Symbol...

[karc-26261 · 8/10 · 3 August 2016]

I read a previous review (granted, from a few years back) that was titled "Symbolism personified" (written by ewaf58 from United Kingdom). In that review, there is mention of various symbols and what they represent. Interesting points are made.

However, I write this review to point out the ultimate symbol: The very name Losira - The Siren. In Greek mythology, the Siren was a woman who enticed explorers - always men - to visit her as they passed by her remote island, so that she could lure them to their death. She was dangerous, yes, but also very beautiful - so beautiful that the men could not resist her call, regardless of the danger. Curiously, there was very little joy in the way the Siren went about this - actually, there was a sense of sadness within her - as if she bore no hatred toward these men, she was just doing what she always did, what she was created to do.

We see much of this in Losira. The sadness and regret she would have felt in killing was apparent (and somehow transferred to her replicas), and integral to the plot.

Incedentally, the casting of Lee Meriwether as Losira was a stoke of genius. While she brought the needed beauty to the role, she also brought the needed sadness. She rarely smiled - and when she did, it was a smile of sorrow and resignation (usually whilst saying "I have come for you"), so as to reassure her victim not to worry, that in a moment he would be at true peace (and a truly restful one at that).

You can clearly see how she struggles, when answering Kirk, to explain why her "coming for" Kirk's men is necessary. She takes no pleasure in it. Indeed, it is as if she has no control over it. So in that way, she is all powerful (killing someone instantly, transporting the Enterprise nearly 1000 light years away in a flash, etc) and yet quite vulnerable. The producers could have chosen from among a host beauties of the 1960's - Jill St. John, Shelley Fabares, Mary Ann Mobley (like Meriwether, a former Miss America), but they went with Meriwether - who was beautiful, strong, intelligent, elegant (in manner) and, above all, determined. That Meriwether was able to include an element of sadness to this role is what makes her performance truly memorable. Also, unlike the previously mentioned actresses, she was not a girl, she was a woman - ALL woman (Meriwether was 34 years old, with 15 years experience in front of a camera, at the time of filming), which brings a level in mature understanding to the character that a younger actress may not have been able to provide.

It is easy to see how Kirk could be (in order) intrigued by her, afraid of her, sympathetic toward her, and ultimately, admiring of her. Indeed, when he is explaining to Mr. Spock that she was the last survivor of the Kalandan race, he said "she must have been a remarkable woman", with a sense of regret and sadness that was much like the way Losira (via her replica) spoke to him. I still can remember the wistful look on his face when he said this - William Shatner really is a fine actor.

As for the rudeness of some of the characters toward each other, there is some truth in this. However, I will point out that the following exchange, between Spock and Scotty is one of the funniest I ever heard in the entire series...

Spock: "Can you give me warp eight?"

Scotty: "Aye, sir. And maybe a wee bit more. I'll sit on the warp engines myself and nurse them."

Spock: "... That position, ... Mister Scott ... would not only be unavailing but also ... undignified."

The beautiful guard they left behind

[bkoganbing · 6/10 · 26 July 2014]

This Star Trek story has the Enterprise coming upon a seemingly deserted planet which has some strange life patterns. Almost as if life was grafted on to it as opposed to evolving naturally. But the away team of Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and a geologist is stranded when a beautiful woman gets on the Enterprise and kills the transporter technician. And then the Enterprise is hurled almost a 1000 light years away.

The beautiful woman is former Miss America Lee Meriwether and she's deadly to the touch as she kills both another Enterprise crew member on board and the geologist on the away team. Remarkable she turns up in two places light years away and causes considerable damage.

But there is a logical explanation for all this and more than Spock endeavor to find it. Her people are the Calandrans and they've left ages ago.

An interesting Star Trek saga.

Beware the cubic disco ball of doom

[chrisbaird-ma · 4/10 · 11 April 2013]

This episode is better than most of the rest of season three, but that's not saying much. There's really not much to the story. A mysterious woman keeps killing crew members and ends up being the projection of a computer (the swirling cubic disco ball of doom!) left on auto-pilot by an extinct civilization. The subplot of the Enterprise being thrown 1000 light years and suffering sabotage seemed added for no reason but to fill out the plot. The scenes where Scotty had to climb in by the plasma flow and make repairs or the ship would explode were entertaining thanks to fine acting by Doohan and nice visuals, but they make no sense from a scientific perspective and seem added for the sole purpose of creating drama.

My wife walked in during the repair scenes and our conversation went something like this. My wife: "Why is Scotty down by those sparks?" Me: "He has to fix a sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo-thingy." My wife: "Why doesn't he turn the sparks off first?" Me: "The enemy did some sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo-thingy to the ship so they can't." My wife: "Why did the enemy do that?" Me: "To create drama. There's no real reason given." My Wife: "How does he fix it?" Me: "He waves a sci-fi-mumbo-jumbo-thingy in a dangerous place." My Wife: "Why is it dangerous?" Me: "To create drama. There's no real reason given. My wife: "Why don't they wait until the power runs out so the sparks go away so they can make repairs safely?" Me: "Because the ship is going to explode in 12 minutes." My wife: "Why is the ship going to explode?!" Me: "To create drama. There's no real reason given."

In summary, these scenes exemplify much of season three: contrived nonsense. Other odd tidbits:

• The woman is just an optical projection of a computer, but for some reason must physically touch people in order to kill them. - The woman's touch is only deadly to one predesignated person at a time and we never find out why. - The woman knows everyone's names and we're never told how. - The disco ball of doom has the power to explode every cell in a person's body from 1000 light years away, yet one phaser shot to and its destroyed (talk about anti-climatic). - The victims have every cell in their body exploded, and yet they look exactly the same on the outside. - Spock is unusually annoying in his demand for precision for no real reason.

The stars are "all wrong" this time around.

[fedor8 · 22 April 2008]

For Trekkies one of the worst episodes, but for me this is the campiest of them all; not as much regarding what happens but what is being said. There are Edwoodesque dialogues here that had me in stitches.

Listed below are some lines/dialogues from TWS. See if you can figure out where the actual dialogue ends and where invented parts begin... (perhaps not that easy!).

1. Sulu: "The Enterprise must have blown up, Captain!" Kirk: "Yeah, well, who cares...?"

2. Helsmwoman: "Mr. Spock, the planet's gone!"

3. Sulu: "Captain, the ship simply disappeared! What does that mean??" Kirk: "Well, it means we're stranded here." Sulu: "But, Captain, aren't you worried about the lives of 400 of your crew??" Kirk: "I already told you: I ain't. This is Season 3, and I'm a little more apathetic about things."

4. Helmswoman: "What bothers me is the stars, Mr.Spock... they're all wrong." Spock: "There's something wrong with your head, Missy. The stars are fine just as they are..."

5. McCoy: "I wonder what killed him..." Kirk: "I don't know... But something or someone did." This is almost the same sort of exchange as in "Plan 9": "I don't know... But one thing's for sure: there's a dead body here, and someone's responsible!"

6. Scotty: "Mr. Spock, the ship feels wrong." Spock: "What do you mean 'feels wrong'?" Scotty: "The field is all wrong." Spock: "Oh, the FIELD is all wrong. I thought you said 'it feels wrong'." Scotty: "I DID say that!"

7. Losira: "I am... from this planet." Sulu: "So the planet IS hollow!" Losira: "No, Sulu, the script-writer's head is hollow."

8. Losira: "I have come for you, Mr.Sulu... I want to touch you." Sulu: "Touch Kirk! I'm gay..."

9. Sulu: "How can such evil BE, Captain?! She's so beautiful..." Kirk: "I know... Evil only comes from ugly people."

10. Sulu: "I'd rather be on the Enterprise." (Translation: "Mommy, I wanna go home!!") Kirk: "I agree, Sulu... I'd rather rest my head between Uhura's massive pillows now than be fighting aliens on this damn planet."

One of the most amazing, absurd, unique hence entertaining aspects of this wildly funny episode is Spock's atypical grumpiness, which manifests itself at least a dozen times in sarcasm(!) and put-downs(!!) of crew members. The cranky side of Spock, that we didn't even know existed until TWS, really comes into the forefront in this episode. Perhaps male Vulcans have their period every seven years?

No-one was safe from Spock's venomous ripostes. Examples:

1. When Uhura asks "what happened?", after the ship is shaken up, Spock proceeds to literally and in full detail explain the physics of his fall - like some demented robot, and without a trace of sarcasm. (He was still warming up for the upcoming sarcastic remarks.)

2. Uhura: "How did she get off the ship, sir?" Spock: "Presumably the same way she got on it." This was such a cheap shot by Spock, the kind of dumb comment one could expect from a 6th-grader!

3. Sick-bay Doctor: "Your guess is as good as mine, Mr.Spock." Spock: "I would suggest you refrain from guessing and focus on the task at hand." So the TWS Spock can dish out sarcasm, but is too dim too detect it from others, or at least to recognize a common phrase when he hears one.

4. Uhura: "What are the chances the Captain and the others are still alive?" Spock: "Lieutenant, we do not engage in gambling." This, coming from Starfleet's Annual Intergalactic Useless Statistics/Odds Champion!

Meriwether, looking vaguely Raquel Welchian, going around killing people in spite of feeling ambivalent about hurting them is a bit amusing, too. (The wishy-washiest killer of them all.) At the end, Kirk and co. even engage in quasi-slapstick, when they keep changing the order of how they stand to avoid being touched by the strange pacifistic-yet-murdering alien woman/robot.

Apart from bombarding the viewer with unintentional nonsense every single minute, TWS is also a visually high-quality episode, with great sets and wonderfully bombastic 60s colours. The Losira-gets-folded special effect is very effective.

Enjoyable

[cdkuefler · 8/10 · 24 March 2019]

To me this is another fun season 3 episode that gets ripped unfairly. Is it cheesy at times? Yes! But this is Star Trek TOS and almost every episode is cheesy. I base my rating on it being fun to watch with high entertainment value. Lee Merriweather was stunning and did a great job in her role.

problematic season 3 episode

[fabian5 · 6/10 · 23 September 2007]

'That Which Survives' is another example of a subpar episodes of season 3 of Star Trek. The premise of the show is not credible: Losira the last surviving defender of the Kalandan colony on the young planet Kirk and his crew men are visiting is so powerful that she can hurl the Enterprise 990 light years away, kill the crewman who was beaming down Kirk's party and home in and cause Kirk's phaser to overload and explode. And yet, once on the planet, Losira doesn't quickly dispose of Kirk and his surviving crew--D'Amato, Sulu and McCoy--on the Kalandan planet with several laser blasts or trap them in a force field and instead has to resort to creating numerous holograms of Losira's image to physically touch--and thus kill--them. The premise is preposterous. Losira is so technologically advanced and yet so weak at the same time?

Then the damaged Enterprise warps back to the Kalandan colony despite the fact that the ship's engines are 'out of sync' due to an explosive problem in the matter anti-matter flow of the Enterprise's warp engines as Scotty informs Spock. Spock and a landing party conveniently save Kirk, Sulu and McCoy just in time from being killed by the various holograms of Losira. Frankly, there is one too many coincidences in this one episode which just proves William Shatner's comments in his book 'Star Trek Memories' that as season 3 of TOS progressed, its scripts actually "regressed, becoming less believable and perceptibly more far-fetched." (p.266) Finally, there was simply no real drama or point to this show. Losira--or the computer which projects her--is far too passive as the last defender of her long extinct colony to be taken seriously.

However, there were some hilarious scenes in the Spock-Scotty and Spock-Uhura interactions which slightly elevated this show. Usually, we never get a Scotty-Spock relationship but in this case, it works--but only barely. We also got to see Sulu in action on the Kalandan colony itself--rather than remaining the Enterprise's helmsman. Perhaps if the episode had better pacing and film execution, 'That Which Survives' would not be an underrated show. As such, I'll raise my rating to 6/10; inferior but just passable for a season 3 episode. Since it was penned by DC Fontana herself (under a psudonym), the script was quite logical but Spock was very irritating in his treatment of Uhura and Scotty. When Scotty saves the Enterprise from exploding from a matter-antimatter flux in the engine core, he says to Spock--"won't you at least thank me?" To which Spock makes the belittling reply: "why do you humans feel the need to be so emotional. Scotty just did the logical thing!" You could almost fall asleep at this point. Its clear that Scotty would have had just as cold a relationship working with Spock as McCoy did with Spock.

Lazy Episode

[Samuel-Shovel · 4/10 · 17 August 2018]

In "That Which Survives", the Enterprise beams down a landing party to a bizarre unexplored planet. After Kirk, Bones, Sulu, and a geologist head down, the Enterprise is inexplicably hurled across 1,000 light years of space. Both parties assume the other have been destroyed. The landing party tries to figure out a way to survive on this poisonous planet. The Enterprise tries to head back for Kirk & Co. as quick as possible.

But a strange woman continues to pop up on both the Enterprise and the surface of the planet. Her touch is deadly, but only if she means to exterminate you! She's programmed to disrupt one person's specific cells and can only kill that person, otherwise she's useless. After learning this, the landing party can defend themselves. Sadly, the geologist dies. The landing party finds a computer system creating these women.

Meanwhile the woman robot on the Enterprise has fiddled with the engines and matter/anti-matter mix. It's rigged to explode until some quick thinking from Scotty and Spock. They show up at the planet just in time to save the landing crew and destroy the computer which turns out to be an automated defense system left by an extinct race.

Spock is my favorite character from The Original Series. I love him. That being said... he's unbearable in this episode. He's hot dogging it all over the place during this episode. He's extremely snarky and over the top with his Vulcan-iness. I'm glad he's normally not turned up to 11 like this.

Regarding the rest of the episode, it's not laughably bad or anything. It's just lazy. They don't try anything exciting, there's nothing fun going on here. The writers, the actors, the director, everyone is just phoning it in here. I'm sensing a bit of fatigue here in Season 3 as we near the end. With limited budget and bad scripts, I can't say I blame them.

A Mysterious Killer Alien Woman, A Comical But Logical Spock

[Rainey-Dawn · 7/10 · 14 January 2017]

Season 3, episode 17. The Enterprise runs across a planet of interest, a geological dream and it's in an evolutionary stage where there might be life forms and maybe inhabitants. Kirk, McCoy, Sulu and geologist D'Amato are in the middle of beaming down when suddenly a woman appears, touches the transporter technician and he dies instantly. He's examined by Dr. M'Benga and finds he died of cellular disruption. Meanwhile, Kirk and crew is now on the planet and it shakes violently. The Enterprise is then thrown 990.7 light years away and Spock must get back to Kirk and away crew as fast as possible. The woman is still on the ship, kills one of the crewmen and sabotages the ship. The alien woman appears on the planet and kills D'Amato, leaving Kirk, McCoy and Sulu to explore it and figure out what is going on. The away crew and the Enterprise must reunite and stop the mysterious alien woman.

This is not the first time Spock's lines has been comical. This episode a little more "Spock Comedy" than usual but he's still logical. I really don't understand why some dislike Spock (his lines) in this episode - I find the "fascinating".

7.5/10

kinda okay, I guess (wow--what unbridled enthusiasm)

[planktonrules · 6/10 · 11 December 2006]

This isn't a bad episode, though it certainly isn't a good one. The problem, though, that makes this such a mediocre episode is the character Lee Merriwether plays--she's robotic in all her ways and this ISN'T conducive to creating a memorable character. I do understand WHY they chose to have her play the part that way, but still, there was just so little life in the show and having SOMETHING exciting occur would have helped. Perhaps Lee could have been seductive or more "real" and then lure the people to their death or perhaps another plot element could have been added. All I know is that the plot was thin and so was the action. While mildly interesting, this isn't a glowing endorsement and this episode is pretty typical of many of the lower quality episodes of season 3.

Symbolism personified

[ewaf58 · 6/10 · 23 May 2009]

Well here we have it - is this everyman's nightmare? While Kirk is pursued by the first Women he certainly doesn't want to be touched by - poor Scotty is in a life or death situation in the Jeffries tube - the latter surely being symbolic of a vagina (The Enterprise is a 'She' after all)

'It's stuck' Scotty moans in reference to his magnetic probe (although this is really a 23rd century dildo) as he tries to control the runaway orgasm - sorry I mean acceleration - of the Enterprise.

The 'climax' of the show involves Kirk and his fellow Men being surrounded by Women - each out to disrupt the cells of their match. This is one instance where another Man coming between me and my girl is welcome.

Freud himself would have been proud of this episode

Some Good, Some Bad

[paulwetor · 6/10 · 5 April 2023]

There's much to complain about here, but there are some good points.

Others have pointed out how annoying Spock is. One benefit is that we can see how Captain Spock could never carry the series. Scotty gets off a few good lines at Spock's expense. Having Kirk back is quite a relief for the crew, and the audience.

Once again we encounter super-beings/computers that can send the Enterprise halfway across the galaxy, appear anywhere at will, and defy phasers. Yet Losira can't push past Sulu and McCoy to touch Kirk. Super-beings always have a weakness, I guess.

Some clever special effects are used with Losira's character. As I am re-watching the series on Blu-Ray, I have to update my opinion of the third season. There are some terrible episodes, but there are some very good ones. This episode demonstrates that the special effects team was still on the job creating new effects.

Why Spock Is Not Himself?

[nickknightforever · 10/10 · 11 February 2018]

Hi, My Theory to why Spock isn't himself is because both of his closest shipmates Captain Kirk & Doctor McCoy are stranded on an unknown planet light years away, another factor might be when the Enterprise recovered from being thrown away from the planet Uhura asks Spock what happened his response simply was he hit his head on the arm of the captain's chair, no permament damage. I did notice similarities to Wrath Of Khan & Search For Spock, first a conversation between Spock and Scotty about saving the ship, the second concerns Losira's planet. Live Long And Prosper.

That Which is Not Very Thrilling

[Bogmeister · 5/10 · 5 March 2007]

This is a typically sub-average episode of the 3rd season and since the 3rd season was not very good compared to the 1st and 2nd seasons, well, you can see where this is going. There appears to be some mystery, action, tension and sf adventure thrown into the mix here but none of it adds up to much by the end. The Enterprise arrives at a planet which even Spock can't explain: it's about the size of our moon but has Earth's characteristics. There's mention, also, that it's only several thousand years old and anyone with minimal knowledge of astronomical/geological time measures knows this is not possible for a natural planet. Kirk beams down with McCoy, Sulu and a geologist (uh-oh, expendable red-shirt alert) and the ship is immediately transported nearly 1000 light years away. Huh? This amazing act of displacement is never really explained. Several 3rd season episodes had such nonsensical contrivances to the plot: this seems an excuse to have a separate storyline on the ship while the landing party struggles to survive on the planet. But, they're zero for two in this one: neither the 'A' or 'B' storyline is up to snuff - slow going in both.

On both the planet and the ship, the crew are stalked and killed by what seems to be a female hologram (Meriwether); they don't refer to it as a hologram, but that's what it seems like to me - an early version of the holodeck from the TNG show. This female disrupts all the cells of a body simply by touching that person; she announces beforehand who she's for, i.e. "I am for you, James Kirk" (the meaning is not what Kirk hopes for). Spock is never more annoying than in this episode; in command of the ship for most of the episode, he takes every opportunity to lecture the other crew members on how illogical they are. This does turn out to be an intriguing comparison to how the ship is usually run (by Kirk). Check out Uhura's annoyed expression when he lectures her about gambling. Dr. M'Benga is back (see "A Private Little War") - I guess he's Doc#2 on the ship. "My guess would be valueless" Spock tells him, almost in anger. And, of course, Spock's verbal attacks on Scotty are never ending; I'm surprised there were no whispers of mutiny by the time they got back to the planet. This repartee is all mildly entertaining but the story is tedious overall, with no interesting revelations about the ancient outpost of a planet or the attacking femme fatale.

A simple but haunting episode

[joshuawarrenmedia · 8/10 · 4 January 2022]

Season 3 of Star Trek is a mixed bag, delivering some of the best episodes of the series, some of the worst, and also some of its weirdest. "That Which Survives" is hardly weird or bizarre in the conventional sense, but it is one of the more unusual episodes of the series, and very much a product of the strange and off-kilter sci-fi of the time. And you know what? I kinda love it for that.

The plot is simple; Kirk and a landing party investigate a planet that defies scientific explanation, the Enterprise is flung far away from the planet by an unknown force, and both the ship and the landing party find themselves--for lack of a better word--haunted by a mysterious woman. It feels almost like a ghost story in space, but without falling into any supernatural cliches. This is entirely a science fiction story, but one which doesn't get bogged down in techo-babble. It allows some mysteries to remain unexplained while explaining just enough at the end to make it seem plausible. Mood and atmosphere is a priority here, two cinematic virtues that defined season 3 but rarely get the attention it deserves (though admittedly other episodes did it even better).

I guess I can't fully articulate why exactly I think this is an underrated episode other than that it manages to be intriguingly different without feeling out of place from the rest of the series. It has less of a clear plot than f.ex. 'Spectre of the Gun'--another off-kilter and atmospheric episode from season 3 (and another favorite of mine)--but I'm completely hooked by this episode every time I watch it.

Aye Shadow...

[Xstal · 5/10 · 17 February 2022]

Losira can kill with a hand, once selected you're fate has been planned, the last of her kind, more than one you will find, her eyeshadow is remarkably grand.

The Enterprise is hurled light years away while Kirk and crew investigate a planet protected by Losira.

a must see!!

[rowens84 · 10/10 · 10 December 2006]

this is my favorite episode of star trek simply because it a side story with Spock and Scotty on the enterprise and Kirk, McCoy and Sulu. very good chemistry between Spock and Scotty's (specifically the scene in the jeffries tube). i think i have seen this episode over 100 times and it never gets old to me. the last second save of the enterprise was a tension filled scene. ( even though you know it will all work out). and the somewhat corny dialog such as "i am for you Sulu" when the program comes to take her next victim. even though it is somewhat cheesy its not cheesy enough to bring down the episode. over all it is a must see for any star trek fan and if you haven't seen or heard of star trek check your pulse because you have been dead for 40 years.

Another poorly scripted episode

[jameselliot-1 · 5/10 · 24 October 2018]

One of my least favorites because of Spock's ridiculous comments and irritating, anal-obsessive behavior. This episode is close to a parody of Vulcan logic and social interaction. I don't know what the writers were trying to accomplish by depicting him in this way.

Spock rules!

[brucewy · 10/10 · 27 September 2020]

Most entertaining episode of all! Suspense and problems at both ends and - against other quotes - the comments and dialogues by and with Spock are hilarious. Maybe it's only the German dubbing, but I thought it gteat.