The Devil in the Dark
Kirk and Spock face a deadly subterranean creature on Janus VI.
The first season of Star Trek reached its twenty-fifth episode with "The Devil in the Dark," which debuted on March 9, 1967. Directed by Joseph Pevney from a script by Gene L. Coon, the story sends Kirk and Spock to a mining colony to confront a dangerous creature living underground. This episode also introduced Doctor McCoy's signature line, "I'm a doctor, not a ..."
Quick Facts
- Series
- Star Trek: The Original Series
- Season
- 1
- Episode
- 25
- Production
- 026
- Air date
- 9 March 1967
- Writer
- Gene L. Coon
- Director
- Joseph Pevney
- Photographer
- Jerry Finnerman
Facts from the source article.
Plot
The USS Enterprise arrives at a pergium mining colony on planet Janus VI to help with an unknown creature that has killed 50 miners and engineers and destroyed equipment with a corrosive substance. Captain Kirk, Spock, and McCoy meet mine supervisor Chief Engineer Vanderberg. Spock notices a silicon nodule on Vanderberg's desk, which Vanderberg dismisses as a geological oddity. The colony's nuclear reactor is threatened when its main circulating pump is stolen; the part is out of production, and a jury-rigged substitute fails.
The reactor will go super-critical in 10 hours unless the part is reinstalled, or a manual shutdown will suffocate the miners. Kirk and a security team search for the creature. Spock, suspecting silicon-based life, modifies phasers. They encounter a molten-rock-like creature and fire, breaking off a piece.
The creature burrows through rock. Spock analyzes the fragment, finding fibrous asbestos-like composition, and deduces the creature secretes the corrosive substance to burrow. His tricorder confirms it is the only silicon-based lifeform for miles.
Production
The silicon-based creature known as the Horta was brought to life by stunt performer and acrobat Janos Prohaska, who also built the costume. The producers told Prohaska that if his creation impressed them, they would lease the suit and hire him to act in it. After Prohaska gave an unplanned demonstration at the studio, writer Gene Coon was won over by the design. While this episode was being shot, William Shatner’s father passed away.
Shatner chose to continue working, and he later said the support from the cast and crew made him feel more connected to them. This installment introduced Doctor McCoy’s famous line pattern, “I’m a doctor, not a …!” Here, when Kirk tells him to treat the Horta, McCoy protests, “I’m a doctor, not a bricklayer!” The creature’s name was borrowed from Sam Horta, a well-regarded sound effects and music editor at the time.
Sam later established a Burbank sound editing business called Horta Editorial, and his daughter Eileen went on to lead the Motion Picture Sound Editors.
Reception
William Shatner wrote in his memoirs that "The Devil in the Dark" was his favorite original Star Trek episode, calling it exciting, thought-provoking, and intelligent. In the documentary 50 Years of Star Trek, Leonard Nimoy named it an interesting episode about the fear of the unknown and learning that an enemy may no longer be an enemy once understood. In 2009, Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode an 'A' rating, describing it as a classic and praising the acting of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy for elevating a potentially silly scenario into gripping drama; he later included it as one of ten must-see episodes of the original series.
A 2015 retrospective by Keith R. A. DeCandido for Reactor magazine called it iconic and one of the greatest episodes of Star Trek, praising its inversion of the deadly monster trope by revealing the creature was a mother protecting her young, and noting that such a twist was unexpected for its time. He also liked how the episode, along with others like "Charlie X" and "Arena," shows the Enterprise crew treating foes honorably and compassionately.
The episode has appeared on many lists: in 2012, the Christian Science Monitor ranked it the eighth best original series episode; in 2016, Empire ranked it 2nd in the top 50 episodes of all Star Trek; in 2017, Business Insider ranked it 4th best of the original series; in 2018, Silas Lesnick of Collider ranked it 10th best original series episode; PopMatters ranked it number one best original series episode. In 2015, the New York Public Library rated it as having Spock's fourth best scene in the show, and Vox included it on a list of 25 episodes providing a good overview of the Star Trek franchise for newcomers.
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