I can't really understand all the positive reviews here, though a few others have noted what I did about this episode that makes it subpar. Another episode that has a professional woman (Commissioner Hedford) who doesn't end up playing that role. Instead, she first serves the men coffee and, as sure as it happens in almost every episode, someone (in this case, Zefram Cochrane) focuses entirely on her beauty and talks about her as if she wasn't standing right there. I guess after being kept alive on a planet for 150 years, I guess I could understand his interest in suddenly seeing a human woman again. The problem is, the woman is dying and is a bit preoccupied and annoyed that all the men are standing around kicking their feet about what to do. The gaseous entity that brought them there in the first place (The Companion) doesn't really know what love is, but eventually determines that its behavior was guided by something like love to preserve Zefram Cochrane's life. It keeps Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and Hedford on the planet in order to provide Cochrane some companionship, but really doesn't seem to care whether the others live or die. It says that it can't heal Hedford, but was capable of returning Cochrane from an old man in his 80s back to a young, healthy man in his 30s. Eventually when pressed for information using the universal translator, the Companion's voice comes out of the device as female, because apparently the concept of male and female beings is a universal constant, even among gaseous life forms. How is the universal translator even supposed to determine that? Is that how people in the future will be able to check on someone's gender? By telling them to speak into a device that will somehow determine which type of voice to use for them? Very odd.
Finally, once the Companion realizes that it wants to understand love and other human sensations, it takes over the body of Commissioner Hedford, who apparently was just about to die, and then "they" express their affection for Cochrane. I'm pretty sure that if Hedford's consciousness is alive somewhere in that body, that she is an unwilling participant in this gaseous entity's plans. Also, by taking over Hedford's body, she is returned to perfect health. So what was that about it not being able to heal her? Or did it just refuse to do so and then later just use her body to experience what it is like to be human?
The Companion and Cochrane decide to stay behind on the planet and live together until they both die of old age, because apparently by taking over a human body, the entity is no long able to do the anti-aging trick it had done before. Cochrane asks that Kirk not tell anybody about him or what happened there and when McCoy reminds Kirk that the whole point of their mission earlier was to save Hedford's life so that she could help stop a war on another planet, Kirk doesn't even seem fazed at all and just shrugs it off saying, "Well I'm sure that the Federation can find another woman somewhere who will stop that war." Happily ever after? Are you kidding me? This lack of responsibility for the lives of everyone on that planet and direct orders from Starfleet is uncharacteristic of Captain Kirk. Nobody seemed to be bothered about how the Companion just assumed Hedford's life and was likely keeping her consciousness trapped within the body that was now being preserved. It seems that the Companion never did understand how it was wrong to force someone to stay on that planet against their will because all it seemed to understand was that the preservation of life in any form was what was right.
Finally, once the Companion realizes that it wants to understand love and other human sensations, it takes over the body of Commissioner Hedford, who apparently was just about to die, and then "they" express their affection for Cochrane. I'm pretty sure that if Hedford's consciousness is alive somewhere in that body, that she is an unwilling participant in this gaseous entity's plans. Also, by taking over Hedford's body, she is returned to perfect health. So what was that about it not being able to heal her? Or did it just refuse to do so and then later just use her body to experience what it is like to be human?
The Companion and Cochrane decide to stay behind on the planet and live together until they both die of old age, because apparently by taking over a human body, the entity is no long able to do the anti-aging trick it had done before. Cochrane asks that Kirk not tell anybody about him or what happened there and when McCoy reminds Kirk that the whole point of their mission earlier was to save Hedford's life so that she could help stop a war on another planet, Kirk doesn't even seem fazed at all and just shrugs it off saying, "Well I'm sure that the Federation can find another woman somewhere who will stop that war." Happily ever after? Are you kidding me? This lack of responsibility for the lives of everyone on that planet and direct orders from Starfleet is uncharacteristic of Captain Kirk. Nobody seemed to be bothered about how the Companion just assumed Hedford's life and was likely keeping her consciousness trapped within the body that was now being preserved. It seems that the Companion never did understand how it was wrong to force someone to stay on that planet against their will because all it seemed to understand was that the preservation of life in any form was what was right.