1.32 --- The Star

Directed by : Gerd Oswald Written by : Alan Brennert (story by Arthur C. Clarke) Starring : Fritz Weaver, Donald Moffat First aired : 20th of December, 1985. A space exploration starship, aptly titled "Magellan", accidentally uncovers a planet in a faraway system which, by all acounts, should have been torched when the local sun went nova. Ship's crew, consisting of father Matthew (Fritz Weaver, Demon Seed, Creepshow) and dr. Chandler (Donald Moffat, The Thing, The Right Stuff), soon lands down, discovering traces of a rich, advanced culture, which stashed away all its cultural and scientifical heritage in a safe shelter before their world was destroyed. While analyzing the exact date of this civilization's demise, father Matthew discovers something which deeply unsettles him - the star which went nova and burned down all those planets was no other star than the star of Bethlehem, which shone so bright when Jesus was born. Stricken with grief, Matthew is unable to realize why would God terminate such a great civilization, but dr. Chandler arrives to comfort him. He reads him a poem he found in the vaults, in which the late people of little planet say they had no regrets. Chandler then tells Matthew that, in his opinion, those people "fulfilled their duty" and passed the torch, saying that one such thing might even happen to us one day - a theory which father Matthew finds agreeable. *** The Star, directed by Gerd Oswald, is an interesting little episode based on a short story by the great sci-fi writer Arthur C. Clarke (in case there are people unaware of his work reading this, he wrote 2001 : A Space Odyssey amongst other things). Veteran actors Weaver and Moffat are great to watch, but there are some kinks in this one which I didn't quite appreciate. The way the episode set itself up, I felt Clarke was ready to unleash hell upon church establishment. The highly original set-up (admit it, you never even thought of it that way) looks and feels great, but the eulogy-cum-explanation delivered by dr. Chandler seems like an olive branch...thus slightly copping out from controversy, and making dr. Chandler one most unusual character, a scientist who willingly accepts the "hey, they fulfilled their destiny" rationale. What was Clarke's intention here, I would not know, but I do know I would have greatly preferred the ending in which Chandler does not deliver his sermon. The other flaw is directly related to the prior one. At the beginning, dr. Chandler tells father Matthew that the ship sensors are picking up a message being repeatedly broadcasted in some alien language. But at the end, he just magically pulls out a poem he found in the vaults and reads it in normal English. I know, I know, it's future and they might have some great new device which translates just like that...but even if you would pair up 25 supercomputers, how exactly do you even translate most basic things of an alien language last heard several thousands of years ago without any prior knowledge of it, let alone poetry ? I'm not exactly the type of guy to go anal on any little glitch found in a movie or TV series, but this was somehow just too obvious. Still, The Star is not a bad way to spend 12 minutes, and definitely a good closer of the "christmas medley". TZ Trivia : would you believe it, both lead roles in The Star are Serling alumni ! And note I said Serling - Donald Moffat appears in The Night Gallery episode Pickman's Model, while Fritz Weaver appears both in The Night Gallery (A Question of Fear) and The Twilight Zone (Third from the Sun, 8th of January 1960. and The Obsolete Man, 2nd of June 1961.).