Who Mourns for Adonais?

I remember seeing this episode as a child and never thought much of it. It was one of the ones I didn't really like. I'm older now and I watch things like ancient aliens a lot. Anyone who has watched ancient aliens knows who Erich Von Daniken is!!! Yes he's the guy that seemingly knew that the gods that the ancient world believed in were simply just aliens!!!! So something I find fascinating is that he wrote his most memorable book about this 1 year after this episode of Star Trek Was aired!!! 🤔

I think there is more symbolism in this episode than is normally acknowledged or commented upon. That they choose Apollo as the particular Greek god to meet somewhere out in space, apparently as if he had been waiting millenia for the earth creatures that resemble himself to develop spacefaring technology and eventually find him... while in reality, after millenia of looking at the night sky, naming the stars and planets, telling our seasons by them, and thinking up fables and superstititions about them, the program to actually land and walk on another world happened to be the Apollo Moon Program. And the moon, only feasibly reachable within the recent decades before it was actually done, and once thought a god 'himself' by many cultures, proved reachable, after all, without any god. So, as we were to soon reach what was thought a god, it was in fact not a god, nor was a god's help needed; it was pure applied science. And knowing Roddenberry was an agnostic, perhaps an atheist, the point is clear: there are powers and forces in the universe, but it was humans that invented the god hypothesis to explain them on the elementary level, and this hypothesis can be destroyed, and that will be one facet of our scientific legacy. But the god he really had in mind, of course, was not the loyal friend of (loser) Hector of Troy, but the God most of the western world eventually turned to, originally of the ancient Hebrews. He is not necessarily saying that that God (or his race of beings) may be found some day as having been Wizard of Oz type "humbugs," but it is at least such a thought experiment to that effect.

As for Apollo being a potential tragedy (slavery; everlasting indebtedness in the episode) we would have to deal with... this episode (and presumably its inception) came a few months after the launch pad fire of Apollo 1. The moon program, as is well known, had progressive success in the early and mid 60's and became overconfident and began to 'move too fast;' that is, too fast for safety in order to meet the deadline of landing on the moon before the decade was over. And in hindsight, many historians look back and say a disaster was inevitable. To phrase it in correspondence with the episode-- If we don't get Apollo under our control, Apollo will ruin us; even if we destroy the 'end of the decade' objective, we must get a grip on Apollo, and we cannot place ourselves forever in debt to 'him.'

I think the above 2 paragraphs are more of what ST was attempting to say, rather than anything in particular about the ancient astronaut theory, though that certainly was around at that time, just before Erich Von Daniken published his first book. Indeed, the 'getting back to nature' theme was more pronounced, but with the addition of "not because we are being forced to." There was a movement, of course, at that time of getting away from the unfriendliness, the pollution, the overly-mechanized cities, and living more in harmony with nature. Hippie communes, 'bedroom communities' with homes on large tracts, time-share getaways, et al, were manifestations of this idea. And shows like Green Acres parodied the idea. Perhaps "Who Speaks for Adonais?" was also another angle of parody of "away from mechanization; back to nature," or "weren't the ancients lucky to have no other way?" (the answer being obvious).

This is all in all a pretty good episode. All members of the original cast appear in this episode and a couple have pretty good roles. I always enjoy when Checkov has some lines as he is a solid contributor and he is intergral in this episode. Scotty is prominent as well but is a bit on the annoying side as he not using good judgement.

The Greek god Apollo is the foil in this gem and Kirk and company eventually break him down and defeat him. Nice build up on what made the Greek gods tick and how they eventually died off with only Apollo holding up hope that his minions would eventually return.

In the end, the combined efforts of Kirk and landing party on the planet and Spock back on the Enterprise working independently to sort out the challenge and prevail.

While telling the landing party about himself, Apollo states that his father is Zeus and his mother was Lito, a mortal or human. In that case Apollo would actually be a demigod or a Titan.

Lito was actually a Titan princess, which did make Apollo a God in all sense and manner. I would consider this only a blooper by the writers of the show and did not take away much of the enjoyment.

My all time favorite was shown the other night. City on the Edge of Forever. Now that was the all-time best Star Trek episode of any of the Star Trek series. It's too bad that few of the original cast are still around.

The theory that the gods worshipped by ancient civilisations on Earth were in fact space travellers with advanced powers was popularised in Erich Von Daniken's 1968 bestseller 'Chariots of the Gods?', but this episode of Star Trek addressed the issue first. In 'Who Mourns for Adonais?', the crew of The Enterprise encounter one such being, Apollo, who has spent the last few thousand years residing on a planet waiting for the human race to advance into space so that he can once again be revered and adored. Of course, Kirk isn't about to kowtow to an alien, not even one that can shoot lightning bolts from his fingertips.

The story starts with The Enterprise halted in its path by a field of energy in the form of a giant green hand - a bizarre image that sets the quirky tone for this memorable adventure for Kirk and company. Beaming down to the planet below, a landing party discovers an ancient Greek temple where they encounter Apollo (Michael Forest), who renders their equipment useless and declares that they must stay on the planet and worship him. The deity also takes a shine to Lieutenant Palamas (Leslie Parrish) and seduces the woman, much to the annoyance of Scotty. In order to defeat Apollo, Kirk and his crewmates attempt to locate the source of his power and destroy it.

There's a fair amount of fun to be had with this one, Apollo growing to giant size to tower over the landing party, transforming Palamas' uniform into a more revealing outfit befitting the queen of a god, and hurling impetuous Scotty backwards with bolts of energy. The one big problem I have with the episode is the notion that Apollo requires a 'source' for his energy, the temple apparently acting like a powerful battery: it begs the question, 'Did he lug that temple all the way to Earth and back all those years ago?'.