Who Mourns for Adonais?

A huge energy field in the shape of a glowing green hand appears and grabs the USS Enterprise, halting its movement. Captain James T. Kirk tries to shake the ship free, but to no avail. A humanoid apparition appears on the bridge viewscreen and addresses the ship's crew. Kirk demands that the ship be set free, but the being responds by tightening its grip, threatening to crush the ship until Kirk agrees to the being's demands that the ship's crew be beamed down to the planet below.

Kirk leads a landing party that includes Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas (Leslie Parrish). The team arrives at what appears to be an ancient Greek temple, where they encounter the humanoid who identifies himself as the god Apollo (Michael Forest). He informs the party that he will not allow them to leave, and renders the team's communicators and transporter room nonfunctional. He indicates that he expects the crew of the Enterprise to worship him as their ancestors had done, and in return promises to provide for all their needs and desires. Kirk refuses.

Apollo's attention shifts toward Carolyn, angering Mr. Scott, who steps forward to defend her against Apollo's advances. Apollo destroys his weapon and announces he will take Carolyn as his consort. After displaying his power, Apollo appears tired, and vanishes along with Carolyn.

Kirk and McCoy speculate that their captor was one of a group of powerful aliens that visited Earth millennia ago and became objects of worship to the ancient Greeks. Having noticed Apollo's apparent fatigue, Kirk decides to try to provoke Apollo in order to test the limits of his power, perhaps weakening him enough to allow the landing party to overcome him. Meanwhile, Carolyn learns that Apollo belonged to a group of travelers, god-like in the sense of having the power of life and death, but unable to exist without love and worship. He is the last of their kind, the others having given up hope that humans might one day turn back to them.

Kirk's plan to provoke Apollo is frustrated when Carolyn intervenes to protect the landing party. Apollo instructs Kirk to begin making arrangements for the remaining crew to come down to the planet. Kirk takes Carolyn aside and tells her that she must reject Apollo to save them all from slavery. She reluctantly agrees.

Meanwhile, Mr. Spock locates the power source for the force field holding the Enterprise, and finds a way to fire phasers through it. Sorrowfully putting responsibility before her romantic desires, Carolyn lies and tells Apollo her interest in him is purely scientific. Angered and hurt, Apollo calls down thunder and lightning to intimidate her. Kirk orders Spock to fire on the power source.

Defeated, Apollo addresses his fellow gods, admitting that there is no room left in the universe for them, and begs to be taken away. He fades to nothing. Carolyn is devastated. Kirk shows some remorse, remarking that humans owe their moral code to the Greek civilization - and thereby, in all likelihood, to Apollo and his kind.

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a C+ rating, noting that it was occasionally memorable, but "undone by lazy scripting and bizarre dialogue".[3]

The title is a quotation from the poem Adonais by Percy Shelley lamenting the death of John Keats, which is loosely based upon A Lament for Adonis by the Greek poet Bion.

• "How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth" – An episode of the animated Star Trek series about an alien that had long ago visited Earth and now demands worship as a god by the Enterprise crew.
• Star Trek: New Frontier, a series of novels written by Peter David. One of the characters, Mark McHenry, is a descendant of Apollo. (In the novelization of the episode, but cut from the final shooting script, Carolyn Palamas is pregnant with Apollo's child, whom she names Athena. Athena is Mark McHenry's grandmother.)
• In the photonovel Star Trek: New Visions issue #11 "Of Woman Born" John Byrne retells the episode's ending and continues with the events during Carolyn Palamas' pregnancy.[4]
• The first episode of Star Trek Continues, entitled "Pilgrim of Eternity", was a 2013 fan-based sequel to the episode. In it, Michael Forest reprised his role as an elderly Apollo who asks the Enterprise crew for help.
• Apollo's "green hand" is mentioned in dialogue in Star Trek Beyond as well as being seen in the movie's credits. [5]

Wikiquote has quotations related to: "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" at StarTrek.com
• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" on IMDb
• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" at TV.com

• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki)
• "Who Mourns for Adonais?" Review of the Remastered version at TrekMovie.com
• Apollo at Memory Alpha (a Star Trek wiki) - the main antagonist of the episode.