"Metamorphosis" is the ninth episode of the second season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Gene L. Coon and directed by Ralph Senensky, it was first broadcast on November 10, 1967. In the episode, a shuttle crew from the USS Enterprise encounters a man out of history and his mysterious alien companion. It is the franchise's first mention, and first appearance, of Zefram Cochrane. Plot Assistant Federation Commissioner Nancy Hedford is being ferried by shuttlecraft to the USS Enterprise to be treated for Sukaro's disease - a potentially fatal condition - before resuming a peacemaking mission. A glowing energy field appears in the shuttlecraft's path, and pulls it down to a nearby planetoid with an Earth-type atmosphere. All communications are blocked, and the shuttlecraft is totally inoperable. Soon afterward, a young man calling himself Cochrane appears. He tells the party that he has been marooned on the planet for years and that a damping field is preventing their systems from working. Cochrane takes them to a shelter built from material salvaged from his crashed ship. In the course of their visit, Kirk and Spock and Dr. McCoy notice a glowing mass resembling the phenomenon that brought them to the planetoid. Cochrane calls this entity "the Companion", and explains that as an old man, he took one last flight, intending to die in space, but his crippled ship was intercepted and rescued by the entity, which restored him to youth and has been keeping him alive since. The Starfleet officers are stunned to discover that he is Zefram Cochrane, the inventor of warp drive. Cochrane then reveals why they were brought to the planetoid: he had told the Companion that he would die without the company of his own kind, believing it would release him. Instead, the Companion hijacked the shuttle. When the Companion attacks Spock as he works on the shuttle, Spock deduces that the entity is largely composed of electrical energy. Kirk and Spock attempt to disable the Companion with an improvised electrical disruptor, but the Companion retaliates violently, and only Cochrane's intervention saves Kirk and Spock from being killed. With Hedford's condition rapidly deteriorating, Spock modifies the shuttle's universal translator to communicate with the energy force. Kirk discovers it has a female personality and is in love with Cochrane. The Companion declares that it has stopped all of them from aging, and will