DIANA MULDAUR

3)    "Is There In Truth No Beauty"  

          A very elegant actress, we have to believe it is a true part of her persona, for she continues to bring it to her roles again and again.  Perhaps the only female guest star to appear in two separate episodes, Miss Muldaur displays why she was in such high demand in both.  Her other-worldly presence and beauty were a good match for this ground breaking science-fiction television series.  In "Is There in Truth No Beauty", she rips through scenes as Doctor Miranda Jones, a companion to the Medusan Ambassador, Kollos.  No one can look at the Medusans with the naked eye, less they go stark raving mad.  To communicate with the Medusans, one must look at them with special shaded glasses.  Doctor Jones is the only one on the ship who can look upon the Medusans because she is blind, a secret she guarded till the end from the Enterprise crew.  The episode starts with her denying the marriage proposal of a Starfleet Engineer who goes mad looking at Kollos and then puts the ship in peril.  It is a well weaved story of love, jealousy, and pride.  Miss Muldaur gives a commanding performance of a woman seething in her disability, yet relys on it to be near Ambassador Kollos, a relationship that she also guards with marked determination.  In the end, she comes to terms with her love, jealousy, and disability with stern words form Kirk and McCoy.  She saves the ship, Spock, and herself.  It would be nice to say that this episode displayed a hallmark element of morality and pathos, fortunately it was an element seen in almost all of the original episodes of "Star Trek" forcing it to stand apart form all that have followed.   

"Return to Tomorrow"

           In "Return to Tomorrow", Miss Muldaur portrays Dr. Ann Mulhall, who along with Kirk and Spock, have their bodies inhabited by powerful beings of pure energy.  The beings intend to inhabit their bodies long enough to create androids to house their energy and being.  One of the beings has other intentions and things go awry.  It is a rare chance for Leonard Nimoy to flex his substantial acting muscle.  The only thing greater than Nimoy's acting is the striking beauty of Diana Muldaur.  She is absolutely wonderful portraying Mulhall and the being who inhabits her body, Thalassa, who is also having second thoughts and is tempted to stay in the body of Dr. Mulhall.  It is just another brilliant story of ethics and morality played out on the Star Ship Enterprise.  Diana Muldar's association with "Star Trek" may be prolific now with her role as Dr. Katherine Pulaski (below) in Star Trek: The Next Generation.

  On a purely personal note, because of the treatment of her character on LA Law, I no longer watch any dramas on television.  If you've seen one TV show on lawyers you've seen them all.