THE STAR TREK FRANCHISE REWATCH PARTY #73: "The Lorelei Signal"
WARNING: This thread WILL contain unhidden spoilers for this entry. Because this re-watch is in a slightly-subjective chronological order and not in production order, please refrain from talking about the content of other episodes or movies in this thread. If you do, please put that content inside spoiler tags. Some people here may be watching Star Trek for the first time.
#73: Star Trek: The Animated Series, season 1, episode 4 "The Lorelei Signal"
Written by Margaret Armen, directed by Hal Sutherland.
Stardates 5483.7 through 5843.9 (early 2269)
"It does resemble a summons." - Commander Spock
After Federation diplomats meet with the Klingon and Romulan governments, the Enterprise is dispatched to investigate why ships disappear exactly every 27.3 star years from a certain sector of space. Shortly after the Enterprise arrives, Commander Spock detects a strange signal coming all the way from the Taurean System at the far end of the sector - a signal that sounds like music. Captain Kirk orders the ship to follow the signal to its source. Once there, it appears to Lieutenant Uhura that all the men on the bridge have become entranced by it and calls Nurse Chapel to observe. Despite her vocal concerns, Kirk leads an away team down to the planet and are drawn to a temple filled with beautiful women who welcome them. Shortly after they arrive, they all lose consciousness and are taken to chambers by the women. With the away team disabled, and the men still aboard the Enterprise becoming unresponsive, Uhura assumes command of the Enterprise and assembles teams of female security officer to prevent more men from beaming down to the planet while her and Chapel take an armed away team down to the planet to rescue their missing crewmembers.
Originally released: 29 September 1973
"The Lorelei Signal" on Memory Alpha (mirror)
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What did you think?
2 replies
This… is one of my personal favorite episodes of Star Trek ever. Not simply because feminism, but the way Uhura just takes absolutely no crap from the Taureans. It’s such a good Uhura episode, and even gives Majel Barreet’s Nuree Chapel a moment in the spotlight.
She doesn’t need time to think, she doesn’t doubt her abilities, she just does what needs to be done.
When they all beam into the temple, Nurse Chapel is mistakenly drawn wearing red, in the very next scene she’s correctly wearing blue. But wouldn’t it be cool if Uhura temporarily deputized her as part of the security team?
Gene Roddenberry had a draft script for a very similar episode of TOS that never got filmed. Likely due to the network execs unwillingness to accept Uhura as Captain.
When Nichelle Nichols was reading the script for this episode, she read aloud her line “Taking command of this ship!” then said “At last!”
The siren’s song! It’s always fun when the writers treat the Enterprise like an old sailing ship or a submarine. Watching TAS for the first time, I also kept thinking it would be nice if they would give Uhura more to do, considering they went to all the trouble to get Nichelle Nichols. And to my delight, they did!
My favorite part was when the crew broke out the phasers. The leader of the planet has the most hilarious “oh shit!” look when the firing starts.