The Tholian Web (episode)

While trying to rescue the Starfleet ship USS Defiant, Captain Kirk disappears when the dead ship is pulled into interspace. The Enterprise is then attacked by a mysterious local race, the Tholians.

Teaser
As the Enterprise searches for the USS Defiant (NCC-1764), which vanished without a trace in unsurveyed space three weeks earlier, they encounter a glowing object that apparently is not there according to sensors. As the ship moves closer, Kirk identifies it as the Defiant, and prepares to board the ship. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Chekov beam over in environmental suits on the Defiant's bridge, and discovers the entire bridge crew dead.

Act One
When the party sees the ship's captain having been strangled by a crewman and the dead bridge crew, Chekov asks if there is any record of a mutiny on a Federation starship, and Spock says, "Absolutely no record of such an occurrence, Ensign." When they discover there are no life signs on the vessel, the party splits up to investigate.

McCoy checks out the sickbay and finds many dead crewmen, some restrained to the biobeds, while Chekov finds life support and engineering are littered with dead bodies. After giving his report to Kirk, Chekov suddenly becomes dizzy and loses balance. McCoy reports that the crew of the Defiant seemed to have killed each other but he doesn't know why. According to the ship's log, the surgeon on board didn't know what was going on either. He encounters a translucent dead body and can pass his hand through it and a table in sickbay. He determines the Defiant is dissolving. As the Defiant starts to "blink" on and off, repairs are under way on the Enterprise's transporter, which Scott reports has become "jammed up." When Kirk and party are ready for beam-out, only three of the landing party can go at once. Spock requests permission to remain behind but Kirk orders him back to the Enterprise and stays behind himself.

During transport, Scotty has trouble getting the three officers to materialize. The Defiant continues to "blink" on and off, and Scotty eventually gets Chekov, Spock and McCoy onto the Enterprise. Kirk waits while the Enterprise tries to beam him aboard. The Defiant disappears and Kirk is lost with it.

Act Two
Back on the bridge, Spock explains that Kirk has slipped into another universe. He has determined that an interphase occurs for short periods in which one may travel between universes occupying the same point. In two hours, the computer calculates, another interphase will occur. However, the Enterprise must not expend any energy or the dimensional rift will be damaged and Kirk will be lost forever. During this explanation, Chekov becomes enraged and must be subdued. The Enterprise crew is subject to the same plague of madness that destroyed the crew of the Defiant.

The conversation is interrupted by an approaching geometric, rainbow-colored ship. A Tholian, Commander Loskene informs the crew that they are trespassing on territory of the Tholian Assembly and they must leave immediately. Spock says that the Enterprise is engaged in a rescue mission but Loskene points out that there is no other ship present. In the interests of "interstellar amity," Loskene agrees to wait until the Defiant reappears from the interspatial rift precisely at the time Spock had calculated.

When the time comes for the interphase, everything goes wrong. In sickbay, an orderly attacks Dr. McCoy, who was trying to find a cause of the mental derangement. Nurse Christine Chapel administers a hypospray to subdue the orderly. The time for the interphase comes and goes, but the Tholian ship's engines have disrupted the timing of the interphase. McCoy reports that the sickness is not due to an infectious agent. Instead, the area of space they are in is damaging the human nervous system. This conversation is interrupted when the Tholians fire upon the Enterprise. (Spock mutters, "The renowned Tholian punctuality.")

Spock does not wish to attack but locks phasers on target and hails the Tholians. They do not respond, and he orders Sulu to fire. The Tholians stand down but the ship's power converters become fused and the Enterprise is adrift. Another Tholian ship appears, and the two touch aft ends briefly before separating, weaving a web between them. Spock analyzes the web and concludes that it is made of energy. However, "there is no analog to this structure in Federation technology." He announces that if the structure is completed, the Enterprise will not make it home.

Act Three
Approximately two dozen crew members assemble for Kirk's memorial service. Spock speaks, noting Kirk's concern for his crewmembers that led him to stay aboard the Defiant. Spock repeats the sequence of events that led to Kirk's disappearance and says that the crew must accept the fact that Kirk is no longer alive. One of the crew members becomes unstable at this point, screaming and yelling, and must be removed. Spock concludes that "I shall not attempt to voice the quality of the respect and admiration Captain Kirk commanded. Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts." Scotty calls the crew to order, and they observe a moment of silence.

After the crew is dismissed, McCoy informs Spock that Kirk has left a message in Kirk's quarters that was to be played in the event that the captain is declared dead. McCoy persuades Spock to view the message but first berates Spock for attacking the Tholians and reducing the Enterprise's chances of escape. McCoy accuses him of attempting to usurp Kirk's command. They play the message, and in it Kirk asks Spock to temper logic with intuition, and if he needs help with the latter he should consult with McCoy. He also tells McCoy to remember that Spock is now the captain.

Meanwhile, Uhura is in her quarters. She feels a sudden pain, and when she recovers she sees an image of Kirk wearing an environmental suit in her mirror. She tells McCoy, but he takes her to sickbay as if she had been hallucinating. She wants to tell Spock, but she faints. In the engine room, another crewman goes berserk and attacks Scotty. McCoy is attempting to synthesize an antidote that will counteract the debilitating effects of interspace. When McCoy returns to the bridge, Scotty reports that he also sees an apparition of Kirk. Scotty returns to the bridge. Spock and McCoy are talking there when suddenly McCoy appears to be fainting. Spock catches him and then turns to see the image of the captain, who appears to be trying to shout something.

Act Four
When Uhura is released, the crew's fortunes begin to change. Spock and Scott have calculated the next time that Kirk will appear. McCoy has found an antidote for the mental degradation with a diluted theragen derivative – theragen being a Klingon nerve gas which, while toxic in its pure form, merely acts as a powerful nerve blocker when dissolved in alcohol. Spock is understandably reluctant to take this antidote, but McCoy orders him to. Scotty, on the other hand, likes it well enough that when he leaves he takes the rest of the bottle with him, presumably to see how it will taste mixed with Scotch.

At the next interphase, Kirk appears in space near the Enterprise. The ship attempts to rescue Kirk, but the ship is thrown clear of the web when it tries to resist a Tholian tractor beam.

McCoy and Nurse Chapel stand by in the transporter room with a hypo of tri-ox compound, as Kirk's environmental suit is running out of air and he is about to suffocate. Kirk is successfully beamed back aboard the Enterprise and revived.

Kirk is back in the captain's chair, and tells Spock and McCoy that after the Defiant was thrown out of the interphase, he had a whole universe to himself, but prefers one with crowds. He asks them how they got along, and Spock and McCoy say that things went all right. Kirk says he hopes his last orders were helpful, but Spock and McCoy lie and say that they were so busy that they never got a chance to listen to them.

Log entries

 * Captain's log, stardate 5693.2. The Enterprise is approaching the last reported position of the starship Defiant, which vanished without trace three weeks ago. We are in unsurveyed territory. 

Memorable quotes
"The renowned Tholian punctuality."
 * - Spock, as the Tholian ship fires on the Enterprise

"I shall not attempt to voice the quality of respect and admiration which Captain Kirk commanded. Each of you must evaluate the loss in the privacy of your own thoughts."
 * - Spock, declaring Kirk dead

"He was a hero in every sense of the word, yet his life was sacrificed for nothing."
 * - McCoy, on Kirk's death

"Doctor, I am in command of the Enterprise."

"I would like to remedy that situation."
 * - Spock and McCoy, before viewing Kirk's last orders

"You might find that he is capable of human insight and human error."
 * - Kirk's last orders to McCoy, on Spock

"He's alive! He's alive, Doctor!"
 * - Uhura, dashing to McCoy after seeing Kirk

"In critical moments, men sometimes see exactly what they wish to see."

"Do you suppose they're seeing Jim because they've lost confidence in you?"
 * - Spock and McCoy, on the sightings

"I'm sure the captain would simply have said: 'Forget it, Bones'."
 * - Spock, accepting McCoy's apology

"One good slug of this, and you can hit a man with phaser stun, and he'd never feel it or even know it."

"Does it make a good mix with scotch?"

"It should."

"I'll let you know." *Scotty walks out with the beaker*
 * - McCoy and Scott, on the antidote

"I must say I prefer a crowded universe much better."
 * - Kirk, commenting on his interspace experience

"Orders, Captain?"

"What orders are you referring to, Jim?"
 * - Spock and McCoy, denying that they viewed Kirk's last orders

Production timeline

 * Story outline, entitled "In Essence – Nothing"
 * Teleplay,
 * Revised first draft teleplay by Judy Burns and Chet Richards,
 * Revised teleplay,
 * Final draft script,
 * Filmed: –
 * Original airdate,
 * Rerun airdate,
 * First UK airdate
 * Remastered episode airdate,

Story and production

 * Ralph Senensky began the direction of this episode but was fired and replaced by Herb Wallerstein. Senensky used the camera effect to show the viewpoint of a person affected by interspace. This technique had previously been used by Senensky in . (The Trek 25th Anniversary Celebration)
 * This is the first episode with Al Francis as the director of photography, replacing Jerry Finnerman. Previously Francis worked on the series as Finnerman's camera operator.
 * Judy Burns, a freelance writer, penned this episode, co-written by her husband Chet Richards, to earn money for a study trip to Africa.
 * Burns came up with the idea of spirits floating in space and around the Enterprise. However, Gene Roddenberry specified in the Writer's Guide for the series that the stories of Star Trek must be based on science and cannot feature unexplained supernatural events. Hence, Burns came up with the idea of the interdimensional rift.
 * Several changes were made from Burns and Richards' early draft ("In Essence – Nothing") to the final draft ("The Tholian Web") including:
 * The USS Defiant (NCC-1764) was originally the "USS Scimitar."
 * The Tholian Loskene was originally named "LoCene."
 * The crew wore "life support shields" (personal force fields, akin to the life support belt) rather than their environmental units.
 * International adaptations of this episode's title include:
 * Japan – "Crisis of Captain Kirk, Who Was Thrown into Different-Dimensional Space"
 * Germany – "The Spider Web"
 * Portugal – "The Web"
 * France and Quebec – "The Tholian Trap"
 * Nichelle Nichols described and "The Tholian Web" as two of her favorite shows. In "The Tholian Web", "we think Kirk is dead and I see him floating through the walls of my quarters. That was fun to do – of course, I enjoyed anything that I was able to get out of uniform." (The World of Star Trek, pg. 113)
 * This is one of the few episodes in which all of the regular second and third-season characters–Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scott, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Chapel–appear.
 * In the scenes in which Captain Kirk's head is partially obscured by his spacesuit, William Shatner does not wear his frontal hairpiece.
 * The close-up of McCoy's hand as it goes through a dead body in the Defiant's sickbay, was filmed in post-production, on an insert stage.

Sets and props

 * This episode introduced a more spaceworthy environmental unit, replacing the suits first seen in . These suits were designed by William Ware Theiss and consisted of silver with a fabric helmet with screen mesh visor.  This allowed the actors to breathe more easily while wearing the suit. (The Trek 25th Anniversary Celebration)
 * The space suits were made from a very slick material resembling silver lamé and featured no zippers in order to achieve a completely smooth, unseamed look. As a result, when any of the actors had to visit the men's room, they had to completely remove the costume, then put it back upon returning to the set. This ate up precious shooting time.
 * The space suits were later reused in.
 * 'Dr. McCoy's Space Suit from "The Tholian Web"' was sold in the 40 Years of Star Trek: The Collection auction. The auction estimate for the suit was $6,000 to $8,000; the sale price was $120,000 ($144,000 with premium). Mr. Spock's suit was previously sold in the Profiles in History auction.
 * The ship's chapel, which had previously appeared in, was a redress of the briefing room. (The Making of Star Trek incorrectly states it was a redress of the transporter room.)
 * Denis Russell was involved with the Tholian starship's special effects.
 * This is the first appearance of a Tholian in Star Trek. In this appearance, the Tholian was portrayed simply by a mask, created by Mike Minor. (Star Trek Encyclopedia)
 * The antique Napoleon III ebonized cabinet pedestal found in Spock's quarters had previously appeared in the films ' and '. The piece, which was originally part of the RKO Property Dept., later came into the possession of Paramount Pictures, and was sold in late as part of the "Profiles in History" auction where it was sold for $6,000.
 * The lab apparatus and tubing that McCoy uses in attempting to synthesize the theragen derivative appears to have been recycled from The Devil in the Dark, where it was used as part of Scotty's makeshift replacement for the main circulating pump of the PXK pergium reactor.

Continuity

 * This is the third time that the Enterprise has encountered another starship with the entire crew dead. The others were in  and.
 * The Defiant is not among the names of the fourteen Constitution-class starships that were established in The Making of Star Trek.
 * The Exo III graphic from reappears in the sickbay of the Defiant.
 * According to Mike Sussman, and  was written to be 'a prequel to  and a sequel to "The Tholian Web",' two of his favorite episodes.  In regards to the creating a sequel, "For me, it was an irresistible idea that the USS Defiant from "The Tholian Web" was still floating out there somewhere in interphase, and we never knew what happened to it," Sussman said. "To me that was a tantalizing story idea I wanted to explore."
 * No insignia was created for the Defiant crew's tunics, however, in creating "In a Mirror, Darkly", the wardrobe department came up with something new: "a variation on the standard Starfleet arrowhead, tilting it and adding an extra angle to its shape." In the original TOS episode, some Defiant crew members may be seen wearing the Enterprise assignment badge.

Awards

 * Star Trek was nominated for an Emmy Award for the special effects in this episode.  The effects were a collaboration by Mike Minor and Van der Veer Photo Effects.

Remastered information
The remastered version of "The Tholian Web" aired in many North American markets during the weekend of. Some of the effects shots were virtual recreations of the original footage, whereas others were more dynamic and showed angles of both starships never before seen. The Tholian starship retained the essential design elements of the original model, but more detail and internal lights were added. The scene involving Commander Loskene was left intact and no new images of the Tholians were shown.


 * The next remastered episode to air was .

Video and DVD releases

 * Original US Betamax release:
 * UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 33, catalog number VHR 2385,
 * US VHS release:
 * UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 3.3,
 * Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 32,
 * As part of the TOS Season 3 DVD collection, (region 2) and  (region 1)
 * As part of the TOS-R Season 3 DVD collection, (region 1)

Starring

 * William Shatner as Captain Kirk

Also starring

 * Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
 * And
 * DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy

Co-starring

 * James Doohan as Scott
 * George Takei as Sulu
 * Walter Koenig as Chekov
 * Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
 * Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel
 * Sean Morgan as Lt. O'Neil

Uncredited co-stars

 * Barbara Babcock as Loskene (voice)
 * Majel Barrett as the computer voice
 * William Blackburn as Hadley
 * Bob Bralver as a berserker engineer
 * Frank da Vinci as Brent
 * Louie Elias as a berserker at funeral service
 * Roger Holloway as Roger Lemli
 * Jay Jones as a dizzy engineer
 * Jeannie Malone as a yeoman
 * Unknown actor as an orderly
 * Paul Baxley as the Defiant's captain

Stunt doubles

 * Frank da Vinci as stunt double for DeForest Kelley
 * Jay Jones as stunt double for James Doohan
 * Jesse Wayne as stunt double for Walter Koenig

External link


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