Product Details

• Actors: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan
• Directors: Jud Taylor
• Writers: Gene Roddenberry, David Gerrold, Margaret Armen, Oliver Crawford
• Producers: Edward K. Milkis, Fred Freiberger, Gene Roddenberry
• Format: Closed-captioned, Color, HiFi Sound, NTSC
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: CBS Paramount International Television
• VHS Release Date: April 15, 1994
• Run Time: 46 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6300988708
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,994 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

All the signs that Star Trek was creatively strained late in its third season (following the departures of key creative personnel and the absence of Gene Roddenberry's full attention) can be seen in "The Cloud Minders." David Gerrold, author of the hugely popular "The Trouble with Tribbles," conceived an almost Dickensian story about the exploitation of miners, called Troglytes, on the planet Ardana, and the way Troglyte labor enriches the lives of an aristocracy that literally lives in the sky, above the fray. Third-season producer Fred Freiberger wanted fewer ideas and more action, and he had another writer deeply revise Gerrold's notion that Captain Kirk (William Shatner) should broker positive change on behalf of the have-nots. The finished production finds Kirk more irritated than anything that a domestic problem is slowing his mission to retrieve zienite, a medicinal mineral. Meanwhile, Spock (Leonard Nimoy) uncharacteristically sniffs around an Ardanian cutie who flirts with him, and a ridiculous torture-the-space-babe scene belongs in a midnight movie from the 1950s. "The Cloud Minders" is like a junk-food snack: chunky in its organization and cheesy in its production values. --Tom Keogh

From the Back Cover

Suspicious Troglytes, subservient miners on the planet Ardana, refuse zienite to Kirk and crew. Without this antidote, billions will die on a Federation planet.

TREK TRIVIA
Watch for football great Fred "The Hammer" Williamson as Anka, one of the Troglyte disrupters.
Notice that when Kirk punches Plasus, the rock wall shakes Plasus falls against it!

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars For ST-TOS diehards only, January 15, 2002

By 

Neil L. Inglis "Lord Starlink" (Bethesda, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 74: The Cloud Minders [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Discovering Amazon's second-hand buying/selling service has allowed me to stock up on ST-TOS episodes that I had deliberately ignored in the past. "Cloud Minders" is one such episode.

In all honesty, 3rd-season ST-TOS episodes are nowhere near as bad -- nor 2nd-season episodes as good -- as the conventional wisdom would have you believe. Nearly all 3rd-season episodes have points of interest, but these disparate elements seldom coalesce to form a meaningful storyline liable to appeal to outsiders.

3rd-season ST-TOS episodes are characterized by increasing verbosity and awkward departures from long-established plot and character guidelines. Budget cuts resulted in a different "look" for the show, but ingenious set-designers did everything in their power to cope with the resulting financial constraints ("The Cloud Minders" illustrates this quite well). William Shatner, unjustly maligned as Kirk, invariably acts with giant conviction in an effort to keep the show on the road. Aside from this, however, one comes across all too many poorly acted and abysmally directed passages of dialogue. In 3rd-season episodes there is an increasingly dreary reliance on sadomasochistic plot devices (obedience collars, torture chambers, etc.), which are a scriptwriter's copout. The actresses' costumes are raunchier, suggesting reduced studio censorship (or interest). This isn't the "kiddie format" which the show's regular staff dreaded; but it comes close.

All of the above trends are exhibited in "The Cloud Minders", which, as I have said, is for hard-core fans only. But 3rd-season episodes, for all their flaws, should not be overlooked: note the interesting treatment of contraception in "The Mark of Gideon;" Spock's sputtering encounter with an ancient vulcan hero in "The Savage Curtain;" the eating of the acid fruit in "The Road to Eden;" and best of all, the web-spinning sequence in "The Tholian Web," a special-effects sequence still unmatched for pure shock value and spine-tingling horror.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Most Stylish, if not best acted Trek --- Fun!, January 21, 2004

By 

Therese Bohn (Endwell, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 74: The Cloud Minders [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Kirk and Spock just want to pick up some Zenite antidote from the
planet Ardana, and find themselves in the middle of a class war between aristocratic cloud dwellers and the subservient cave dwelling Troglytes.
Though later in the series, this was one of the more stylish, if not best acted episodes. Just about everyone gets to chew the scenery, (Count how many times different characters exclaim "For What Purpose?") Costume designer William Ware Theiss's creations leave you wondering how they stay on, and Spock gets to flirt with Droxine, the sexy daughter of High Advisor Plasus.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Climax of Season Three Slump (Part I), May 14, 2009

By 

Lokai (Ohio, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 74: The Cloud Minders [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The Cloud Minders is one of the last episodes of the Season Three slump. Now, you may be thinking that this is a good thing. Wrong. As the slump came to an end, the awfulness increased. The awfulness would climax in The Way to Eden. In addition, The Cloud Minders also marked a big decline in quality, even for the Third Season slump.

I can't believe how bad The Cloud Minders is. When Kirk is doing his log entry, it seems like we are going to have a solid show. However, right after Shatner is done with his log, he fumbles his lines like nothing else. It's like man Ozzy Osbourne, get it together. There were more fumbles in Shatner's dialog than in a Washington Redskins football game.

However, things get back on the road once we get to the surface. Unfortunately, things go bad when Droxine arrives. Right when she shows up, Spock starts thinking with the other head. He was so out of it that he took Plasus' joke seriously (Nor I a work of art)! Then Spock can't figure out why the Troglytes would destroy art. Hum, maybe this is their way of commenting on the social system Spock. Then, we go to Spock's awful thought processes (The name Droxine seems appropriate for her). And if that wasn't bad enough (Can she retain such purity by knowing the suffering of the Troglytes)? Sadly, it gets much worse. Spock goes out and talks to Droxine. When Leonard Nimoy found out he had to say this love crap, he protested to Fred Freiberger with little avail. Spock openly admits the Vulcan mating cycle with an outworlder. Rewind exactly 40 episodes and we see Spock dying from Pon Farr and unwillingly to tell his closest friend in the universe. When Spock reenters the resting chamber, he says (Am I intruding Captain)? Oh boy. Then Spock just stands there when Droxine says that Vanna is not accustomed to light and logic. This provokes Kirk to defend the Troglytes while Spock just stands their. This makes Kirk look like an egghead.

Then we come to the awful torture-the-babe scene. This was so cheesy, even more so with the special effects. When Kirk stops the torture, Spock hardly says anything to condemn it. He just leaves it up to Kirk to defend Vanna and appear like an egghead. It is no wonder that Plasus wants Kirk shot on sight if he returns.

Then the episode takes it's biggest hit, the zenite gas. This is the biggest cop out I have ever seen in the series. And the way it is first presented is horrible. McCoy says that it won't be easy dealing with the Troglytes because they are mentally retarded and inferior. He then casually mentions that the gas is causing it.

When Plasus refuses to use the masks, Kirk becomes a barbarian and starts violating many rules. First, he beams down against government orders. Then he abducts Plasus to show him the existence of the zenite gas. After they are all affected by the gas, we are treated to the lamest fight scene in the series. First of all, Jeff Correy is too old. Second, Plasus has not done an hour of manual labor in his life. Therefore, he should be one of Kirk's weakest opponents.

After the lame fight is over, we go back to Stratos where Kirk blathers something about a Bureau of Industrialization and leaves Vanna behind, unprotected in Stratos. We all know that the second Kirk and Spock materialize on the Enterprise, Vanna is going back to the torture booth.

It is a real pity that this is one of the worst episodes in the series because I think it had the potential to be in the Top 10. I like how in David Gerrold's original story that is ended on a deliberately ambiguous note, with the only "triumph" being that Kirk finally managed to establish a dialogue between the groups. When the zenite gas was put in the story, David Gerrold said, "And if we can just get them troglytes to wear gas masks, then they'll be happy little darkies and they'll pick all the cotton we need."