Star Trek Randomized Rewatch: The Devil in the Dark

ST "The Devil in the Dark"

"The Devil in the Dark" is an iconic, foundational episode. The one with the Horta. With "No kill I". The fairy tale of the monster who isn't really a monster, but instead a mother protecting her young from the human monsters. But it is an episode with feet of clay. I intend not to rag on it, but to honestly appraise it as a piece of dramatic television.

Where it succeeds is its quintessentially Trekkian moral. The misunderstood monster is a sentient form of life that demands respect. The framing is a little off, though. The ultimate message of coexistence is in service of very 20th Century stakes: the mining operation that has encroached on Horta breeding grounds is discussed in terms of its profitability, and the arrangement reached with the Horta at the end of the episode feels a little more exploitative than symbiotic. Still, the power of the twist is best illustrated by the reaction of the miners. They're enraged enough to beat Enterprise officers with lead pipes, but upon hearing that they unwittingly killed Horta children, they are conciliatory.

There are plot oddities. After the Horta kills an Enterprise security officer, Spock successfully accounts for all crew members with his tricorder and then Kirk says "I will lose no more men". A second draft was needed there. Later, Spock says that they have about 100 security personnel (redshirts) searching for the Horta. In other words, a fourth of the Enterprise crew are in these tunnels, and they're all security officers!

The centerpiece of the episode is Spock's mind meld with the Horta. Leonard Nimoy goes in for some textbook "seance" acting here, channeling the anguish of the creature with commitment. I realize for the first time, seeing Spock empathically channeling this creature's emotions and yelling "Pain!" several times, that Spock is starting a legacy for TNG's Deanna Troi to pick up.

The two scenes of humor are off the mark. But the most successful bit of comedy in the episode might come from McCoy scanning a human outline on the ground with a tricorder.

Of course the physical realization of the Horta itself is a cheesy effect, but why should that bother anyone? That said, you can see the fringe of the carpet they're using as part of the creature, which recalls the shambling rug monster of The Creeping Terror, as featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000. As Spock says, "Astonishing that anything of that bulk could move so rapidly."

The legacy of "The Devil of the Dark" rightly lives on in digestible soundbites. The episode itself is a respectable runaround in a series of tunnels, admittedly with a twist that embodies the best of Star Trek. 6/10.