An egg is an organic vessel in which life -- in the form of an embryo -- commences the biological process of development or growth. An egg develops outside a mother's body, which accounts for its protective shell.
Throughout cult-television history, eggs have frequently appeared and represented different ideas or narratives.
In one style-of-story, a mother entity protects her eggs from danger in areas of human construction or sprawl. This is the story in Star Trek's (1966 - 1969) "The Devil in the Dark," which revolves around a subterranean silicon being called the Horta, whose eggs are mistaken for mere "nodules" and destroyed by miners on Janus VI. Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) realize that the Mother Horta is only protecting her young, and arrange a truce between man and alien.
Kolchak: The Night Stalker's (1974 - 1975) episode "The Sentry" follows a similar narrative, about a prehistoric creature protecting its eggs in subterranean Chicago.
In some TV stories, eggs may also represent life.
For example, in Space:1999's (1975 - 1977) early episode "Earthbound," the Kaldorians and Captain Zantor (Christopher Lee) give the Alphans a gift of several golden eggs to represent the life and fertility now denied their sterile people.
Likewise, in Star Trek: The Next Generation's (1987 - 1994) "11001001," Lt. Data (Brent Spiner) paints alien eggs with Geordi La Forge (Levar Burton), in an effort to explore his "creativity." In this case, the beginning of such creativity represents Data's development as a sentient life form, much as the egg also represents development.
Nasty demons have appeared in egg form at least twice on Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997 - 2002), including in the second season episode "Bad Eggs," and later, in season six's "As You Were." In the latter case, Spike (James Marsters) keeps several demon eggs in his crypt, and the vessels very closely resemble eggs from the Alien film franchise.
Recently, on Game of Thrones (2011 - ), dragon eggs have formed a crucial part of the overall storyline. At first three dragon eggs were given to Daenerys Targaryen as wedding gifts. It was believed that the eggs would never hatch, and that dragons are extinct. However, the eggs did hatch, in a trial by fire that represented the beginning of Daenerys' role as leader of her people. Once more, there was a connection between eggs developing, and a character doing so.
Finally, Vincent Price played a diabolical villain on the Batman 1966 - 1969) series called "Egghead." This character loved all things "eggy" and was prone to making puns about eggs, such as his descriptions "egg-cellent" or "eggs-quisite." One episode involved an egg-fight between this villain and the Dynamic Duo.
In the UK throughout the seventies and early eighties we had a never ending series of terrifying childrens programmes mostly made by ITV regional production companies (Children of The Stones for example). There was a one off play strand called Dramarama wherein characters who by definition did not have to be back next week came to various incredibly sinister ends. One episode involved evil eggs that swayed about on a table by themselves but that's all I can tell you because the few minutes I saw were so unsettling I had to change the channel and watch Inch High Private Eye or something similar.
ReplyDeleteHi James,
DeleteThat sounds awesome. I would love to catch that episode with the evil eggs...
John, I just thought of the ultimate television science-fiction egg. Mork's spaceship from MORK & MINDY. :)
ReplyDeleteSGB
Oh my gosh!!!! How could I forget! I watched that show religiously, and I even have a toy in my office of Mork's egg-ship! D'oh!
DeleteHi John, there is a great scene in Angel Heart where De Niro remarks "some religions think that the egg is the symbol of the soul" before devouring one with great relish!
ReplyDelete