3x05 Is There in Truth No Beauty?

[9.1/10] Maybe the secret trick to getting a good, spiritual, philosophical episode of The Original Series is just to bring Diana Muldaur in as a guest star. It’s hard to believe that the future Dr. Polaski, who rather irked me in her turn on The Next Generation, is such a shot in the arm to Star Trek, both here and in “Return to Tomorrow”.

Muldaur brings a grace but also a firmness in her portrayal of her Star Trek characters. Dr. Miranda Jones is an interesting role to play, requiring her to be both the equal and opposite of Spock as a human with telepathic abilities raised on the Vulcan home world in order to master her abilities. Muldaur is up to the challenge. Writer Jean Lisette Aroeste gives Dr. Jones agency in the story, and Muldaur gives her a presence, and leans into her resistance to the various individuals fawning over her, in a way that makes her a memorable and important guest star right off the bat.

“”Is There No Truth in Beauty,” true to its name, is an episode that plays in both poetry and irony. While philosophical ruminations on the nature of beauty could be tedious in other hands, Aroeste’s script makes exchanges over dinner, or debates between Kirk and Jones feel lyrical, serious, and engaging. Despite the outlandishness of the premise, Star Trek takes it all seriously, and that pays off.

By the same token, it doesn’t shy away from the elegance or ironies of the situation. The notion of a beautiful woman who is blind, and thus unable to see her own beauty, but also who also understands (and is understandably dismissive) of the effect it has on those around her, is an interesting one. By the same token, her affection for Ambassador Kolos, someone no human can look upon, makes sense.

Full disclosure, it’s tough for me to articulate what makes this episode great because so much of it is in the execution, which is laden with layers of complexity and performance that are hard to put into words. For instance, the alien species introduced here, The Medusans, have a ridiculous name, and the idea that merely looking at them in their true form could make a person go mad, could be a ridiculous plot device.

Instead, “Beauty” turns it into a meditation on the nature of aesthetics, and a compelling premise about what makes us who we are and how we’re shaped by the ways in which we can and cannot perceive the world. To that end, the highlight of the episode comes when Spock mind-melds with Kolos and the two become one.

For one thing, it’s another chance for Leonard Nimoy to stretch his acting muscles a bit and portray a version of Spock who is more expressive. (Though to be fair, the show goes to that well fairly frequently.) It’s a treat to hear Spock laugh, to see him call Kirk a good friend, to have him chuckle with recognition of Bones, and speak poetry to Uhura. Making Spock emotional, practically human, for more than about three minutes would quickly start to feel like too much, but the episode whets the audience’s appetite for this glimpse at the repressed inner feelings of Spock without overdoing them.

At the same time, Nimoy and the script craft a quick but compelling character in Kolos. It fits that Muldaur links this episode to “Return to Tomorrow” because the two installments play at similar themes. Kolos remarks on the odd futility of language, again speaking poetically, and marvels at the way corporeal beings are so alone, limited to their shells. It’s a form of lateral thinking, truly capturing the way a different form of life would respond to the novelty of ours, in a fashion that gives force to Kolos’s short time as a humanoid.

There’s also some outstanding direction, design, and editing work in the episode. There’s more directorial creativity here than Trek’s tight production schedule and reduced budgets allow for. But “Beauty” depicts the madness of seeing a Medusan first-hand well. There is a frenetic, dizzying pace to the scenes where humans confront the Medusans.

The tye-dye flashes are a little cheesy, but for the most part the episode does well to convey the mental unraveling through a rush of images. The quick cuts offering different angles on the same events, seeing things from the maddened character’s distorted perspective, and the rapid jumps from one image to another, communicate the mental chaos well.

In the same vein, Particular kudos are owed to David Frankham, who plays Marvik. It’s a tough thing to play a man who goes crazy in the span of about fifteen minutes without seeming too over the top, but Frankham plays his scary “I simply love you too much” just right and then rants and raves in a way that convincingly portrays Marvik’s depleting sanity.

The episode isn’t perfect. Frankly, it goes about one act too long, with the story beat of having to save Spock’s mind after he sees the Medusan unsheathed feels a bit tacked on, even if it’s a necessary challenge for Jones to overcome her insecurities and inability to mentally link with Kolos. And watching Kirk berate and manhandle her so as to prompt that solution is more than a little uncomfortable.

Still, “Beauty” works as a high-minded reflection on what it is to perceive things and how that shapes what we value and how we identify, but also as an interesting plot progression with murder, unique challenges, and elegant solutions. Reveals that Jones is not only blind, but basically Daredevil with her sensor suit are intriguing and add poetry to the proceedings. Marvik steering the ship into an unknown hole in the time space continuum requiring a Medusan to steer them out of it makes for a clockwork problem.

And on top of all of these, the episode spends time to have the characters debating and challenging one another over what really matters aesthetically and qualitatively in life. Star Trek is, as ever, a bit ironically provincial about such things, but it still crafts interesting, unusual characters to communicate opposing views and enunciate opposing perspectives. “Beauty” is a highfalutin episode of Star Trek to be sure (though it has its share of action and excitement) and it’s easy to see how that might bore some folks or scare them away. But I love when Trek gets high-minded and philosophical like this, and bringing back Muldaur to deliver the lyrical dialogue here (and leaning on the talented Nimoy to do the same) results in a poignant and insightful episode.