This year Star Trek: Enterprise this year gave us an explanation of why Klingons look different in different series and thus cleared up a minor mystery.
It’s also cleared up something else: What a Tholian looks like.
In The Original Series, the Tholians appeared in just one episode ("The Tholian Web") and we never saw more than a weird-lookin’ face (?) on a viewscreen.
Folks naturally wonderd what the whole critter looked like, but until now we’ve never got to see.
Some even wondered whether the crystalline-lookin’ Tholian "face" we saw might be a helmet of some kind or if the critters were really crystalline.
The Tholians were almost totally ignored by later Star Trek series, though they were mentioned a number of times on Deep Space 9. A Tholian ambassador visited the station, though we never saw him. Capt. Sisko also had a conversation about (rare and much prized) Tholian "silk." And the Tholians signed a non-aggression pact with the Dominion before the war broke out. But for all the talk, we never got to see.
Now we have. In the two-part Mirror Universe episode "In A Mirror, Darkly," we finally get to see a Tholian.
Since both parts have now aired in all markets (and since this isn’t a matter of the plot and thus not a plot spoiler), I’ll go a head and show you a pic. Here ’tis:
As you can see, the ugly bugs are indeed crystalline. They also have six legs and two arms, which makes them arachnids.
There’s also a suggestion of motion under their crystalline carapace, which I s’ppose accounts for the weird color variations we saw on The Original Series’ viewscreen.
They live in a super-hot Venus-like environment.
So they’re blazingly hot crystal spiders.
Cool!
Only don’t say that to a Tholian. Probably won’t have the same resonance.
If you cool ’em off too much they start to crack. Need heat to live.
Tholian silk must be woven with asbestos or somethin.’
LEARN MORE ABOUT THOLIANS FROM MEMORY ALPHA (SPOILERS).
Simply the coolest episode I’ve seen in a while. Many years ago as a student at MIT Gene Roddenberry came to give a lecture. Aside from some of the coolest out-takes from the original series, he gave us some clues about the content of the (then) new motion picture. He lamented television generally and went away from the Institute with a model of the Enterprise made entirely out of beer cans (a gift from the Aeronautical Engineering Department.
An intergalactic diplomatic “incident” was nearly sparked when Earth’s ambassador to the Tholians could not supress the urge to brandish a shoe when, on his way to the ice machine, he unexpectedly encountered his Tholian counterpart in the hotel lobby.
Tensions were eased when the Tholian was allowed to suck the filling out of all the good jelly donuts.
I found a couple of things interesting in this two-part episode.
1. That in the mirror and more evil universe that women dressed more unmodestly and the characters acted more lustily. Interesting that this is still seen as negative.
2. When they got hold of the defiant it was strange to see the old style displays on the bridge as appeared in the original series. They just look so dated compared to the what was suppose to be the older Enterprise bridge. I just found it funny for them talking about finding and using all the new technology on such a lame looking bridge with flashing squares on a monitor.
1. That in the mirror and more evil universe that women dressed more unmodestly and the characters acted more lustily. Interesting that this is still seen as negative.
More interesting is that the evil Kira in the DS9 mirror episodes was bisexual and was presented in a wholly negative light, as a murderous megalomaniac with a sometimes tenuous grip on reality.
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