"Metamorphosis" changes the usual uplifting and invigorating format of TOS into a bland, plodding, and somewhat sinister effort that can't quite pass quickly enough. For some reason all senior officers of a starship are required to fetch an ailing Federation representative in a shuttlecraft that gets dragged off course to an unexplored planet (one albeit within Galileo's range of a interstellar war, as well as any path of Cochrane's considerably earlier ship). The "dragger" is the Companion, an amorphous mass of ionized hydrogen resembling either a spackled scarf or a sparkly cloud that happens to be intelligent, emotional, dangerous, and preternaturally swift. Found marooned at its home is Zefram Cochrane of Alpha Centauri, hero lost to history snatched similarly from space near death then revivified to endure decade after decade of unobstacled boredom. He is kept biologically immortal while the Companion "loves" him. Kirk, Spock and McCoy have been brought to Cochrane's side to assuage his loneliness.

Sadly the guest stars do little to lighten an otherwise drab episode. Glenn Corbett's Zefram Cochrane is positively monotonous even before comparison with the wilder side currently associated with the character. Elinor Donahue has no choice but to play Nancy Hedford as curt and antagonistic, blaming Starfleet for her predicament understandably if not rationally. Her priorities change once her sapped, hopeless spirit starves after being captured and kept like an animal. (The Companion apparently is the last of its kind for nothing similar is seen, with the ominous exceptions perhaps of the vampire cloud and those detestable Zetars.)

It's always good to see Galileo, and Kirk's brief sketch of a multitude of inhabited worlds still thrills. But why NCC-1701 just didn't warp over to fetch her remains a mystery atop a pile of such unsatisfied riddles that devalue the episode. More alarming is the clearly involuntary contribution of Commissioner Hedford's corporeal solution to the Companion's emotional problem. It's disturbing to observe her lingering agony, undisguised yet also unnecessary in the plot, waiting to die alone on some strange rock so that the Companion can up and take her place. Means, motive, and opportunity seem an apt description, though being bound to a not-so-big dead ball of iron and nickel for God knows how long could drive anyone nuts. After one hundred and fifty years of solitude Cochrane may manifest a symptom or two also. They're both likely deranged from loneliness and should they find any solace, as they slowly die alone, more happiness to them. Enterprise does well to put this in the rearview.