Television Review: Is There in Truth No Beauty? (Star Trek, S3X07, 1968)

Is There in Truth No Beauty? (S03E07)

Airdate: October 18th 1968

Written by: Jean Lisette Aroeste
Directed by: Ralph Senensky

Running Time: 50 minutes

For “trekkies” Season 3 of Star Trek: The Original Series (TOS remains a bittersweet chapter. By 1968, the show was visibly struggling under budget cuts, rushed scripts, and network interference, with episodes often dismissed as lacklustre or formulaic. Yet amid the creative fatigue, Is There in Truth No Beauty? emerges as a defiant reminder of the series’ latent brilliance. This episode, often overshadowed by its era’s mediocrity, stands as one of the most philosophically rich and stylistically daring installments of early Star Trek, offering a compelling blend of science fiction introspection and psychological tension.

The episode’s plot centres on the Medusans, a non-corporeal alien race whose navigational expertise is unmatched—but whose physical form, if glimpsed by humans, induces madness. Ambassador Kollos, a Medusan representative, arrives aboard the USS Enterprise in a sealed casket-like container. His mission is supervised by Dr. Miranda Jones (Diana Muldaur), a telepathic, Vulcan-educated scientist eager to perform a mind-meld with Kollos, and Larry Marvick (David Frankham), a brilliant but emotionally volatile engineer tasked with designing advanced engines for the Medusans. When Dr. Jones warns Captain Kirk that a murderer lurks among the crew, tensions escalate. Marvick, consumed by unrequited love for Jones, attempts to sabotage the mission by killing Kollos. In doing so, he accidentally beholds the Medusan’s form, descends into psychosis, and nearly propels the Enterprise beyond the galaxy at warp 9.5. To avert disaster, Kirk must rely on Spock to perform the mind-meld with Kollos, gambling that Spock’s half-human heritage might shield him from the creature’s maddening visage.

What elevates Is There in Truth No Beauty? is its unlikely origins. The script was written by Jean Lisette Aroeste, a university librarian and self-professed Star Trek enthusiast who submitted her work unsolicited. Her debut effort so impressed co-producer Robert H. Justman that it earned her a second script (All Our Yesterdays), though her career never extended beyond these two episodes. Yet Aroeste’s work here rivals that of seasoned sci-fi writers. The episode grapples with themes of alienness, perception, and the limits of human cognition, framing the Medusans as a truly “other” species whose existence defies anthropocentric understanding. The twist revelation that Dr. Jones is blind—her blindness concealed via sensory prosthetics—recontextualizes the narrative, adding layers of irony and tragedy. This innovation, far from a gimmick, prefigures The Next Generation’s Geordi La Forge, whose VISOR similarly expands sensory perception beyond human norms.

Aroeste’s script is not without flaws. The subplot involving Marvick’s obsessive love for Dr. Jones veers into melodrama, his descent into madness feeling abrupt and undermotivated. However, the core narrative’s exploration of telepathy and interspecies empathy remains compelling. The episode’s most haunting idea—that some truths are so alien they shatter sanity—echoes H.P. Lovecraft’s cosmic horror, albeit refracted through Star Trek’s humanist lens.

Ralph Senensky’s direction further elevates the material. In his final TOS outing, Senensky employs disorienting camera angles, distorted close-ups, and stark lighting to externalise the characters’ psychological states. The Enterprise’s corridors warp and fracture as Marvick’s grip on reality falters, while the sterile glow of Dr. Jones’ sensory chamber evokes a clinical detachment that mirrors her emotional guardedness. Critics have compared the episode’s surreal atmosphere to European art films like Last Year at Marienbad, a nod to its ambition to transcend the constraints of 1960s television sci-fi.

The performances, too, are uniformly excellent. Leonard Nimoy relishes the rare chance to depict Spock’s vulnerability and emotional fluidity, particularly in the climactic mind-meld sequence, where his face contorts in silent anguish. Diana Muldaur, who had previously appeared as different character in Return to Tomorrow, however, steals the show. Her Dr. Jones is a complex figure—intellectually formidable yet emotionally aloof, her blindness a metaphor for her self-imposed isolation. Muldaur’s nuanced portrayal avoids reducing Jones to a victim or a trope; instead, she embodies the tension between logic and ambition, pride and fragility. Her later role as Dr. Katherine Pulaski in The Next Generation’s second season suggests a thematic continuity: both characters challenge the male-dominated hierarchies of Starfleet, albeit with differing degrees of cynicism.

Is There in Truth No Beauty? is not a perfect episode. Its pacing stumbles in the middle acts, and Marvick’s one-note villainy feels like a concession to melodrama. Yet its strengths far outweigh its weaknesses. It dares to ask whether humanity’s quest for knowledge might sometimes lead to encounters with the ineffable—and whether some bridges between species can never truly be crossed. In an era of Star Trek where stories often defaulted to Cold War allegories or moralising lectures, this episode’s willingness to embrace ambiguity feels radical. In retrospect, Is There in Truth No Beauty? serves as both a swan song for TOS’s creative potential and a blueprint for the franchise’s future.

RATING: 7/10 (+++)

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