Line #32 Recap/StarTrekS2E20ReturnToTomorrow


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/return_to_tomorrow.png]]
2	[[caption-width-right:300:''"Lungs filled with air again. To '''see''' again. '''[[PunctuatedForEmphasis Heart! Pumping! Arteries! Surging,]]''' with blood again. To [[ColdHam feeeeeeel]] again. After half a million years..... to '''be''' again."'']]
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4	'''Original air date:''' February 9, 1968
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6	The Enterprise's mission leads them to uncharted territory, hundreds of light years beyond the territories explored by any Earth ship, pursuing a mysterious signal that turns out to originate from a world dead half a million years, sent by an alien that calls itself "Sargon" and begs the Enterprise for assistance.
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8	It turns out that Sargon is one of only three aliens who survived the cataclysmic war that destroyed the planet millennia ago, and only at the cost of secluding their mental energies inside of orbs and forsaking their physical forms. Sargon begs with the Enterprise to allow the three of them to temporarily borrow the bodies of three of the Enterprise's crew, that they can have bodies long enough to employ their hyper-advanced technology and create robot bodies to inhabit instead.
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10	After much deliberation, Kirk, Spock and [[RedShirt Dr. Mulhall]] agree to become the hosts for the three aliens. Unfortunately, Henoch, the alien who chooses Spock's body, decides he would rather keep an existence of stolen flesh and blood, and makes plans to sabotage Sargon's plan by indirectly killing Sargon and persuading Sargon's wife, Thalassa, to side with him.
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12	''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'' fans will recognize this plot as the one re-used for that series' episode [[Recap/GargoylesS2Possession "Possession."]]
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14	!!Return to Tropes:
15	* AgonyBeam: Thalassa and Henoch both use their mental abilities to inflict pain. Thalassa [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone grows a conscience and stops.]] Henoch, [[SoftspokenSadist on the other hand....]]
16	* AtmosphereAbuse: The Enterprise finds a planet whose atmosphere was ripped away by a cataclysm half a million years earlier.
17	* CessationOfExistence: Sargon says "Thalassa and I must now also depart into oblivion" before he dies, implying a disbelief in any sort of life after death. The idea is muddled a bit by his suggestion that him and Thalassa will be together forever after their deaths, which sort of requires them to still exist after death.[[note]]The inconsistency is a result of the original draft by John Dugan saying they would still exist "into eternity" -- just as disembodied spirits. Roddenberry changed it to match his atheistic philosophy, which upset the devoutly Catholic Dugan.[[/note]]
18	* CradlingYourKill: In the James Blish novelization of the episode, Kirk, nearly breaking down in tears, does this with [[TheNotLoveInterest Spock's]] 'dead' body after Henoch has been forced to flee. Kirk didn't give the lethal injection himself, but it was done on his orders.
19	* DareToBeBadass: Some would call this the franchise's greatest monologue (though the fact that StatusQuoIsGod [[BrokenAesop kind of ruins it]]):
20	-->'''Kirk:''' They used to say if man could fly, he'd have wings. But he did fly. He discovered he had to. Do you wish that the first Apollo mission hadn't reached the moon, or that we hadn't gone on to Mars and then to the nearest star? That's like saying you wish that you still operated with scalpels and sewed your patients up with catgut like your great-great-great-great-grandfather used to. I'm in command. [[TheChainsOfCommanding I could order this.]] But I'm not... because... [[StrawmanHasAPoint Dr. McCoy is right in pointing out the enormous danger]] potential in any contact with [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien life and intelligence as fantastically advanced as this.]] But I must point out that the possibilities, the potential for knowledge and advancement is equally great. Risk... risk is our business! That's what this starship is all about... that's why we're aboard her! You may dissent without prejudice. Do I hear a negative vote?"
21	** There's one particularly awesome thing about this speech - at the time it was written, months before the script was submitted to the production team and a full year before this episode aired, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_1 Apollo 1]] malfunctioned and killed all three astronauts. All the proceeding tests were unmanned, and the program itself was in danger of being cancelled. The writers of Trek were delivering this speech to ''all of humanity''.
22	* EnergyBeings: Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch qualify.
23	* {{Foreshadowing}}: Henoch's comment about wondering that the Vulcans had not conquered Earth could be an early sign that he's the bad guy.
24	* GilliganCut: "You're going to WHAT?"
25	* AGodAmI: Apparently, Sargon's people developed this attitude as a result of [[SufficientlyAdvancedAlien their minds becoming so powerful]], which led to the war that destroyed their world. Thalassa has a moment of this when [=McCoy=] tells her he won't trade Mulhall's body for Kirk's life ("You dare defy one you should be on your knees worshipping? I could destroy you with a single thought!") and uses her powers to torture him, but quickly becomes [[MyGodWhatHaveIDone horrified with herself]].
26	* GrandTheftMe: Henoch, unbeknownst to the others, has permanent designs on Spock's body, and convinces Thalassa to attempt the same.
27	* GreenEyedMonster: Henoch has more than a little of this.
28	* KillTheHostBody: Kirk resorts to injecting Spock's body with lethal poison to destroy Henoch. Subverted when it turns out that Sargon arranged for them to ''think'' that the hypo was deadly so that Henoch would flee and render himself vulnerable, and that Spock's consciousness was hidden within Nurse Chapel.
29	* KissingUnderTheInfluence: Sargon and Thalassa are a very HappilyMarried couple who smooch no less than 3 times while borrowing Kirk and Mulhall's bodies.
30	* LargeHam:
31	** When Sargon is in Kirk's body, the hamminess is up to eleven. Yes, even by Shatner's standards.
32	** Nimoy is clearly having a ball getting to play someone completely different from Spock.
33	* OurGhostsAreDifferent: The G word is never used, but this is essentially what Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch are.
34	* PossessionBurnout: Possessed bodies have their metabolic and heart rates shoot up to dangerous levels [[YourMindMakesItReal (presumably native to the aliens' original forms)]]; Spock's Vulcan physiology can tolerate it for several hours, but the humans can only take it for a few minutes before risking death.
35	* PowerEchoes: When the aliens possess humans they gain echoing voices.
36	* PsychoticSmirk: Henoch gives a few in Spock's body.
37	* ReadingsAreOffTheScale: Dr. Mulhall announces this while she and [=Dr. McCoy=] are scanning Sargon's underground sanctuary.
38	* RedShirts: Two of them are ready to beam down with the landing party, and no doubt breathed a sigh of relief when they didn't beam down after all.
39	* RightForTheWrongReasons: [=McCoy=] naturally has his doubts about letting Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch borrow bodies. His concern proves well founded, but not for the reasons he expected as the danger comes from Henoch refusing to leave Spock's body and plotting to kill Kirk's body to ensure Sargon's death.
40	* SenseFreak: All of the aliens enjoy the sensations of life again after taking human bodies, and Henoch does use the fact that their robot bodies will not have this sensory ability to try and persuade Thalassa to side with him.
41	* SoulJar: The spheres that contain Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch function as these. Later, Sargon uses Nurse Chapel as one for Spock's mind.
42	** There's a brief moment where [=McCoy=] sees Chapel leaving sickbay and yells "Nurse Chapel, what in the devil?!" -- right after Spock's consciousness was stored in Chapel's body. ''That's him.'' Majel Barrett actually got to play Spock for those few seconds.
43	* SufficientlyAdvancedAlien: Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch, aliens who survived the destruction of his world half a million years ago by becoming EnergyBeings of pure thought.
44	* {{Telepathy}}: Sargon, Thalassa and Henoch are capable of this. Henoch abuses the power to brain wipe Chapel.
45	* TogetherInDeath: Sargon and Thalassa ultimately choose this, deciding that they do not fear [[TheNothingAfterDeath oblivion]] so long as they are together.
46	* WillingChanneler: Essentially what they're all doing, although Roddenberry and Gene Coon insisted on removing anything that seemed the least bit "spiritual", to the point that author John Dugan, a devout Catholic, used his pseudonym Kingsbridge on this. Roddenberry had rewritten the final scene to say that the Arretians departed into "oblivion" rather than just deciding to go on existing without bodies in "eternity" or "infinity" as Dugan had wanted it. He was a university professor and all his students and colleagues knew his beliefs.

Context Recap / StarTrekS2E20ReturnToTomorrow