I believe I already kind of asked a similar question previously that how it is even for antimatter Lazarus to exist in our Universe would he be destroyed instantly in one huge explosion? 💥 or how it is even possible that the two normal Lazarus can keep swapping with the anti Lazarus without the aid of the portal on the planet? ➕💥➖

This was a very pretentious episode.

Maybe not too surprising, since as I recall it was originally supposed to star a Barrymore.

You're talking about Drew Barrymore's father, aren't you?

Yes he was. I looked it up again. John Drew Barrymore.

I don't ever remember seeing him in any tv series or movie.

He made some movies and appeared in several TV series-es, but none of it seemed to get much notice.

Thamks.

He was a guest star in Kung Fu, one of my favorite childhood shows. He played a painter who befriended Caine. With genuine concern, he asked our hero to leave town, but he had to stay and figure out who was responsible for a murder.

John Drew Barrymore saved his bacon.

Ginger from Gilligan's Island was there, too.

He was a damned good actor. He likely would have made The Alternative Factor a more interesting episode. Pretentiousness wasn't the story's primary sin. Dullness was. He saw the last minute script changes and backed out. He got blackballed as a result.

I'm pretty sure the Barrymores and the Carradines were good friends, so David Carradine was able to get him guest starring part on the show. It was his last role of any note.

I remember reading that he eventually became an addict and practically homeless. I also read that Drew Barrymore took care of him for the last few years of his life.

Lazarous spooked me out when I was young .. and the idea the two were at each other's throats for eternity really haunted me.

But then think, if they're really some kind of energy forms or something, in that corridor, what does "at each other's throats" even mean?

by knix:

But then think, if they're really some kind of energy forms or something, in that corridor, what does "at each other's throats" even mean?

I get your point ..but I saw the episode when I was a kid ...haven't seen it since ...so I was felt with an impressionable imagine (see below in link on right-hand side )of both Lazarus' at each other's throat ... and the doors closing

https://www.google.com/search?source=univ&tbm=isch&q=Alternative+Factor,+The+%7C+Star+Trek&client=firefox-b-d&fir=DKLwmWgAblr7YM%252CElexu6W_KBgvSM%252C_%253BzJvYOvzHyWAgBM%252CQFkLkyy2G5J97M%252C_%253Bzi_fQlVdlirTGM%252Cb50qRAODQOUHvM%252C_%253BI0tqfpnDj9peLM%252CuA3tSTVFS08qTM%252C_%253BenPPRqi25yn7qM%252CNR_b7AooxTEg6M%252C_%253ByzNpM4pnfu5XiM%252CjfBNtYubRnEMrM%252C_&usg=AI4_-kR_PWUTV_eOw57GUfDnqd6UJRSSNA&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit4vT3guvtAhVf4nMBHRBWA1YQ420oAHoECBAQBA&biw=375&bih=635&dpr=2#imgrc=UgXQbOjk_GmX5M

We can compare the two aliens in this episode with the two aliens in Let this be your last battlefield.

Each set of aliens are battling and chasing each other throughout the galaxy. Both are driven mad because of their rage to destroy the other. At the end neither relents on their quest and are left to themselves in their murderous desire.

Details aside the stories are similar. However one episode is clunky and half finished while the other better written and structured. TAF because of it's seeming incompleteness and odder premise comes across as incoherent and dreamlike at it's best and worst. LTBYLB stands as the obvious moral and political parable it is.

In a way it seems the Enterprise isn't even necessary. The aliens chase each other and the crew is just there to observe before they continue chasing each other in perpetuum.

by znex:

We can compare the two aliens in this episode with the two aliens in Let this be your last battlefield Each set of aliens are battling and chasing each other throughout the galaxy obvious moral and political parable it is.

The two from " Let this be your last battlefield" are relatable ... they hate each other and their feud will end only when one of them is dead.. and like you pointed out there is a moral and political message/ lesson that we can all learn from.

in The Alternative Factor, one of the Lazarus comes from a different universe ... and the two at times met and fight in a corridor that unites both universes.... if both Lazarus would find themselves at the same time in one of the universes this would cause the destruction of both universes.

so there is a lot more at stake in the second story but the story is also not as relatable cause it's fantasy (?).