Melkot
Star Trek got away from the unsettling imagery of the early episodes and by the end of season two, most aliens were just some form of human-looking thing. While there were still some interesting, weird and at times gross aliens the more macabre, horrifying ones were put out to pasture.
That was until the first episode of season three; Spectre of the Gun.
The episode focuses mostly on James Kirk and the crew dealing with a wild west scenario where they’re in a blood feud with a group of people called the Earps. Yes, those Earps. This isn’t a time travel episode, however, no it was due to the devious and at times maleficent Melkots.
Stuck in this wild west setting, the crew essentially has to find a way to survive from these near-omnipotent aliens. Their abilities alone make them horrifying but their actual presence is what seals the deal.
They’re crusty, green heads. That’s it. They have the texture of a tortoise’s skin, with beady yellow eyes and no mouth, and boy, do I wanna scream looking at these things.
Yet, the worst part is that these things clearly used to have a body. Their necks, if you can call them that, look like they have dangling flesh at the bottom; suggesting that these aliens quite literally lost their heads, pulling themselves off their bodies as their powers developed.
If that theory holds water, yikes.
How depraved were the alien designers on the original Star Trek?