THE PLOT
The Enterprise is assigned to transport Kollos, the Medeusan ambassador, back to his homeworld. Traveling with the ambassador is the beautiful Miranda (Diana Muldaur), a human who studied on Vulcan to learn to control her telepathic abilities. Miranda's assignment is to achieve a "true mind-link" with the Medeusan ambassador, whose formless physical appearance is such that the mere sight of him has been proved to drive any human mad. Accompanying them is Marvick (David Frankham), an engineer who contributed to the Enterprise's design.
At a dinner hosted by Kirk, Miranda senses murderous thoughts. She cannot identify the potential murderer - until Marvick confronts her in her quarters later, declaring his love for her and insisting that she must give up her assignment with Kollos. When Marvick then attempts to kill the ambassador, he gets a good, long look at Kollos and is driven insane.
Marvick rampages his way to engineering, where he uses his knowledge of the ship to take it through the galactic barrier to an uncharted position. By the time Kirk regains control, there is no way to determine where they are in order to pilot themselves back. The only option is for Spock to attempt a mind-link with Kollos. But will Miranda, jealous of her achievements, allow Spock to take her place, even temporarily? And even if the mind-link is achieved, will they be able to recover the individual Spock afterwards?
CHARACTERS
Capt. Hound Dog: Miranda has barely even made it aboard before Kirk starts lusting after her, leering about her being "the most beautiful woman ever to have graced a starship" (and with all due deference to Muldaur, there have certainly been more beautiful women on Kirk's ship), and wondering how "the male population" could have allowed her to take such an assignment. Apparently, being beautiful means a woman is not supposed to seek any kind of achievement. Women who drive themselves to excel in any field can only be ugly ones, per Kirk's evident philosophy in the early dinner scene.
Fortunately, Kirk's characterization improves later in the episode. Once the Enterprise has been put into crisis, his horn dog instincts are buried beneath his instincts as a commander. We see his genuine concern for Spock, in particular, when Spock is exposed to Kollos without his protective visor, leading to a fairly strong scene in which Kirk confronts Miranda about her ambitions. Shatner isn't quite up to his Season One level, but he largely avoids ham here and gives a fairly strong performance.
Spock: His dedication to Enterprise is reaffirmed when we discover that Spock was the first choice for Miranda's assignment, and that he turned it down because his "life is here," on the ship. He attempts on several occasions to honor Miranda for her accomplishments, and is startled when she repeatedly interprets his statements as attempting to undermine her. As in The Enterprise Incident, we see that Spock is not above using his logic for subterfuge. Having identified Miranda's jealousy of any threat to her assignment with the ambassador, he urges Kirk to distract Miranda until he has a chance to perform the mind-link. Leonard Nimoy then gets to relish acting as Kollos/Spock, alternating between the "Spock delivery" we all know so well and the very different and much more emotive delivery of Kollos, making this a particularly good episode for Nimoy.
McCoy: While he is not above following Kirk's lead in flirting with/teasing Miranda both for her beauty and for the nature of her assignment, we do find out that McCoy has knowledge of Miranda's secret and respects her wish to keep it a secret. He only discloses it to Kirk when it becomes a matter of ship's safety. He also clearly respects her. He's as aware as Kirk of the violent jealousy she keeps buried. Unlike Kirk, he believes the best of her, and has faith that she will rise above it. Perhaps too much faith - Given that the way the climax of the episode plays out, it seems unlikely that she would have taken her final major action without Kirk's prompting (I'd have preferred more ambiguity on that point).
Hot Space Babe of the Week: Diana Muldaur is Miranda, a human woman born with telepathic abilities, who studied on Vulcan for four years to learn to filter out the thoughts and emotions surrounding her. A very intelligent, probably brilliant, woman, she is also fiercely jealous of her accomplishments. Her ability to read minds has led her to hate exposure to emotions, though it is clear enough that she is far from immune to those emotions herself.
THOUGHTS
This was another episode where I didn't really know what to expect. I had very little memory of the episode, so did not know if it was one to look forward to or be wary of. Thankfully, Is There in Truth No Beauty represents a big step up from the last two outings. Some dated attitudes toward the sexes seep through, as often happens in TOS, but the story is well-structured and inventively directed. Particularly noteworthy is the use of fish-eye lenses to represent the point-of-view of those affected by Kollos.
At first, I did have a big stumbling block in accepting the episode's premise. After all, we are told multiple times that even with the visor, the sight of the Medusans drives all humans insane. And yet when Spock turned down the assignment, the Federation turned to... a human??? It seemed like a huge hole in the episode, one that I honestly expected to go unfilled. Then, about 30 minutes in, it is revealed why Miranda is specifically immune to the effects of seeing the ambassador. The explanation makes sense in context, even explains one or two seemingly odd choices in Muldaur's performance. At the same time, it nicely foreshadows a major element of Star Trek: The Next Generation, wherein one prominent piece of technology appears to have been the next generation of something utilized here. It's clever, and it works.
The story moves along nicely. The first 15 minutes introduces us to three combustible elements: Kollos, Miranda's jealousy over her assignment, and Marvick's obsessive love for Miranda. These three elements are all made prominent in the dinner scene. Then, a small incident - an argument between Miranda and Marvick - provides the fuel needed to set the plot in motion, with the solution to each crisis (Marvick's control of the ship, the ship being lost on the other side of the galaxy, and Spock's condition) leading directly to the next. It's good, solid structure, which keeps the pace alive throughout. This may not be Trek at its very best, but it's a solid and entertaining outing.
Rating: 6/10.
Previous Episode: Spock's Brain
Next Episode: The Empath
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