Having conquered television, movies, videogames, comic books, paperbacks and lunch boxes, the original Star Trek crew moves into high definition this week. The first season of Star Trek: The Original Series beams onto store shelves Tuesday in an HD DVD/DVD combo pack that looks better than ever.
To celebrate, we're reliving the glory of 10 of the best monsters and creatures to stomp, ooze or float across the screen in the groundbreaking TV series. Thanks to the magic of high def, and a painstaking digital remastering effort, you can now see these monsters in more detail than ever before – although, to be fair, that doesn't make them look any more convincing.
Vote on our picks (and nominate your own favorite Star Trek aliens) on the Underwire blog.
Left: Salt Vampire
Episode: "The Man Trap"
Description: Looking like a cross between a lamprey and a troll doll, this creature needs salt to live. Rather than just hitting the Wendy's drive-through, it starts jumping Enterprise crewmen and sucking the salt from their bodies. It can change shape, or maybe just make people think it's changing shape. Either way, Bones totally had the hots for it.
Powers: Shape changing, salt sucking, standing up to Spock's hammer punch.
Weaknesses: Phasers, chastity.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "Arena"
Description: A big lizard guy who sounds like a cross between a leaky steam pipe and a constipated pirate. He's strong and tough, but so slow-moving you'd think he worked for the DMV. Kirk fights him on the Asteroid of Unlikely Mineral Deposits, defeating him by inventing gunpowder and blasting him with a diamond the size of William Shatner's ego.
Powers: Strength, imperviousness to fake-looking Styrofoam rocks, flint knapping.
Weaknesses: A diamond to the gut, godlike aliens.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "Devil in the Dark"
Description: The single remaining example of a race of practical-joke vomit piles, the Horta protects the unhatched next generation by killing miners with acid. In spite of being silicon-based rather than carbon-based, Spock can mind-meld with it, Bones can heal it, and Kirk can seduce it. OK, I'm guessing on that last one.
Powers: Acid baths, rapid tunneling, iffy grammar.
Weaknesses: Type 2 phasers, an implausible life cycle.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "Operation – Annihilate!"
Description: Looking – and moving – like a half-digested Frisbee, these creatures are part of a large organism that takes over humans' nervous systems and forces them to infect other planets, kind of like Borg without the fashion sense. This is also the episode where we learn that Spock has nictitating membranes. That doesn't have much to do with the monster. It's just creepy.
Powers: Flight, mental possession, nigh-invulnerability.
Weaknesses: Light, Spock's impressive yet ill-defined mental abilities.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "Wolf in the Fold"
Description: As it turns out, Jack the Ripper was actually a swirling pool of colorful clouds that traveled with humanity into space, killing ever more women and taking on ever more stupid names. It takes control of the Enterprise's computers, and is defeated by a combination of Bones injecting everyone with happy juice and Spock telling the computer to calculate π to the last digit.
Powers: Serial murder, fear eating, starship control.
Weaknesses: Drugs, math.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "The Trouble With Tribbles"
Description: The most insidious invaders ever to threaten the Enterprise, these fuzzy little low-budget infiltrators first win Lt. Uhura's affections, prompting her to take one aboard. From there they sneak into the air vents, storm the bridge and drink Kirk's coffee. Only one thing keeps them from taking over the Enterprise and from there, the galaxy: No hands, man.
Powers: Eating, reproducing, making Klingons edgy.
Weaknesses: Poisoned grain, hammers (presumably).
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "The Immunity Syndrome"
Description: This giant glowy amoeba looks like something a go-go dancer should be writhing in front of, but it's actually a massive single-celled organism that sucks all the energy out of the immediate vicinity, just like your Uncle Louie. It tries to destroy the Enterprise, and we all know how well that generally goes.
Powers: Energy sucking, starship stealing, grooviness.
Weaknesses: Antimatter, elaborate metaphors about viruses and antibodies.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "A Private Little War"
Description: This white gorilla with a horn and spines has the curious habit of randomly appearing and attacking people whenever the plot starts to drag, injecting victims with a powerful toxin that can only be cured by a primitive Cher wannabe. Luckily, once you stop worrying about protecting the natives from forbidden knowledge, phaser fire takes it down pretty good.
Powers: Poison, brute strength, surprising stealth.
Weaknesses: Women in bright-orange fun fur, blatant flouting of the Prime Directive.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "The Spectre of the Gun"
Description: These sort-of-telepathic brain-reptile space creatures with light-bulb eyes sent Kirk and pals into a re-creation of the Old West so that they could be shot to death by Wyatt Earp. This is a surprisingly roundabout form of execution, and one might suspect that the Melkotians have a bunch of leftover props from television westerns that they want to reuse.
Powers: Telepathy, historical re-enactment.
Weaknesses: Skepticism, Spock's ego.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
Episode: "The Savage Curtain"
Description: These sedentary rock creatures are yet another race that makes the crew of the Enterprise fight with archaic weapons to prove some nebulous point. They create the illusion of Abraham Lincoln, or turn into Abraham Lincoln, or re-create Abraham Lincoln or something. It doesn't really matter – the important thing is Space Lincoln!
Powers: Matter control and manipulation, making guys fight.
Weaknesses: None, unless you count the phenomenon that one of them apparently changed into Abraham Lincoln and got killed by a pointy stick.
Image: Courtesy CBS Home Entertainment
