“The Enemy Within”
Air Date: October 6,
1966
Mom Title: “Good and Bad Kirk”
Yet another early episode with a plot straight out of EC Horror Comics. This one is a particularly disturbing take on the Jekyll and Hyde story, where Jekyll not only has to stand face to face with Hyde, but acknowledge the need for him as well.
Or at least acknowledge the
need to the personality type required to command a starship. I’m guessing that learning that the violent,
horny and drunk side is the primary component of Captain Kirk’s effectiveness
may be a key reason as to Janice Rand jumping ship.
The first glimpse of
Captain’s Log weirdness happens in this story.
Good/Wimpy Kirk records a log indicating that “Unknown at this time” his
double beamed aboard. Well, if it was
unknown, how are you logging it?
As the cat and mouse
game between Captains goes on, we get another detailed tour through the
Enterprise. Not all the action is aboard
ship though. Poor Sulu and company are stuck down on planet Alpha 177. Apparently all the Shuttlecraft are having an
oil change that week, because the transporter malfunction leaves them
stranded. They nearly die because of
Starfleet’s, once again, fantastically inadequate preparation protocols. On a planet where night temperatures reach a
hundred and twenty below zero, they only beamed down with divisionally color
coded bed sheets in the survival packs.
Sulu continues to show his awesomeness by making jokes about lowering
coffee on a long rope, but he spends the rest of the series much happier when
he’s in the Helmsman’s chair than a landing party.
A Star Trek mystery is
solved here. “Bad” Kirk covers up the
scratches on his face with make-up found in his own cabin. That explains why the Captain always looks
like he’s wearing eye shadow.
“Mudd’s Women”
Air Date: October 13,
1966
Mom Title: “Harry Mudd
and, um… his Women”
It’s kind of amazing
Harry Mudd is in this series at all. He doesn’t quite fit. Personally, I think he’s much more like a character
from Doctor Who; not
the main enemy, just a bit of extra confusion and a foil to cross paths in
the tale.
Some general “Hey- cool
thing!” moments:
It’s the first time Majel
Barrett voices as the computer, which had to confuse first time viewers after
seeing and hearing Nurse Chapel two weeks before.
The vampy music for the
ladies gets used later for gangsters in “Piece of the Action.”
Speaking of those
ladies, Spock’s grin when he brings them to Kirk’s cabin, and pretty much all
of his expressions at other crewmen’s flustering over them are priceless. I guess he can control all his emotions
except snarkiness.
It’s kind of a shame
Uhura stayed in the background for this one, her reactions to the women would
have been even better. Although, since
she was better looking than they were, keeping her out of the story was
probably a wise decision.
Those were some
impressive placebo pills, weren’t they?
Self-esteem, plus hair styling and make-up all in a capsule form. Really, women don’t need those things; guys are stupid enough on our own.
Considering what Mudd
pulls in this episode and his later appearances, Kirk’s usual reaction would be
to kill him, or at least beat the tar out of him. He doesn’t, because this is the first time we
get to see the Captain meet an adversary that’s like himself. Those get treated
differently.
Despite all their
differences, their combined delivery of a line in the pill reveal scene
illustrates their bond.
"There's only one
kind of woman."
"Or man, for that matter."
"You either believe in yourself, or you
don't."
Jim and Harry are clearly
the former.
“What are Little Girls Made Of?”
October 20, 1966
Mom Title: “Robot Kirk
and Lurch”
The Spock-Uhura romance
progresses here. Once she finishes
kidding Chapel about swooning girlie stuff, she casts a long and meaningful
look at her pointy eared beau.
The Trek standards start
to come into play here. The first red shirt bites it, for one. Kirk uses a secret previously undefined signal
to tip the hand to Spock. And, of course,
the good Captain fools around with a robot.
Amazingly the culture
far beyond 24th Century technology couldn’t build androids as good
as Data, though they do have the same emotion contradictions the Enterprise D positronic
brained crewman has.
I guess the robots were
as high tech as possible, considering they were created using 1990’s radio
station patch bay technology.
And the prize for “Scene
that would be disturbing in any other context” goes to:
Captain Kirk wielding a
giant obscenely shaped Styrofoam stalactite attacking Lurch in a dress right
after he spoke in a female voice.
“Miri”
Air Date: October 27,
1966
Mom Title: “Kim Darby
and Michael J. Pollard say Bonk Bonk on the Head”
The Starfleet disease
protection protocols still suck, placing the landing party into the medically
driven plot problem of the week. With
the antagonists as children (or at least pretending to be children) the
predicament is at once stupid and terrifying.
We get a glimpse at
Spock’s tortured upbringing when he flashes back to when he was constantly
teased as a youth for not being a full Vulcan.
I am basing this on his horrified look at the Onlies chant of, “Nyah
Nyah!”
Perhaps I am looking too
deeply into things.
A couple of interesting
points about McCoy finding the cure:
The first is that for
all his cantankerous complaining that he needed the ship’s computer, he saved
the day without it…because he’s awesome.
The second is that
Janice Rand is actively working with McCoy on developing the serum, until Kirk
sends her away. Add that to her taking
the Helm back in “The Naked Time” and her speech that she always tried to get
Kirk to notice her legs, and it certainly makes it look like she goes out of
her way to impress the Captain by pretending to be the dumb blonde.
Note that when she talks
about it, there’s no indication that Kirk ever noticed her legs, which is a far
cry from the reputation he’ll develop. Again, I have a theory about that, which
we’ll get to in the next episode.
Kirk continues to make
captain’s log “recordings” throughout this one.
That’s a feat considering there are no computers and later on, their
communicators were all stolen. Luckily
they showed the planet during those scenes, as seeing Jim wandering around
talking to himself may have undermined his appearance as a competent commander.
There is also a more
easily acceptable character moment for our favorite Vulcan beyond childhood
trauma. He holds McCoy’s hands after Bones
appears to have possibly killed himself testing out the antidote, and smiles
when he gets better. See, they do really
like each other.
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