{"id":2749,"date":"2022-01-08T12:00:50","date_gmt":"2022-01-08T12:00:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/?p=2749"},"modified":"2023-03-06T11:08:10","modified_gmt":"2023-03-06T11:08:10","slug":"trekaday-002","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/tomsalinsky.co.uk\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/01\/08\/trekaday-002\/","title":{"rendered":"Trekaday 002: The Enemy Within, Mudd’s Women, What Are Little Girls Made Of?, Miri"},"content":{"rendered":"

TOS S01E05 The Enemy Within <\/strong>(\"4). No Captain\u2019s Log in the teaser! Now that the series has found its feet and established some core concepts, it can start playing around with what else those concepts imply. The transporter was a budget-saving measure \u2013 landing a ship the size of a football field on an alien planet every week was financial suicide. But having invented it \u2013 what else can we do with it? Answer \u2013 duplicate evil Kirk!<\/p>\n

What\u2019s fascinating about this episode is the idea that \u2013 unlike in the mirror universe stories where we have regular old Kirk vs evil goatee Kirk \u2013 Kirk needs this evil side of himself, and without it he\u2019s a weak, indecisive milquetoast. The debate between Kirk and Spock about whether or not to tell the crew is a lovely evocation of this idea. And stranding Sulu on the freezing planet below while the transporter is fixed is a great way of raising the stakes even further (although disliked by original writer, Richard Matheson from off of The Twilight Zone<\/em>).<\/p>\n

Shatner has impressed me hugely so far, but it\u2019s clear that despite his Jewish heritage he has no fear of thickly sliced ham. Here he goes for broke and it\u2019s glorious. He also gets his shirt off again, because of course he does, and the green wraparound top gets another outing. Kirk losing his ability to make decisions upsets the usual dynamic of Spock and McCoy presenting opposing points of view and Kirk casting the deciding vote. His inability to decide whether or not to risk a transporter merger is wonderfully agonising \u2013 but what\u2019s missing is the way I\u2019m sure TNG <\/strong>would have played it: relying on the relationship between the two Kirks to arrive at the decision. Here the evil Kirk is only ever portrayed as a duplicitous monster who must be defeated \u2013 never as a thinking, feeling being who can be understood and reasoned with.<\/p>\n

That weird purple blood is back (maybe they bought a job lot) and, sure, we\u2019re five for five in stories about something nasty sneaking on board the ship when no-one is looking, but this is, if not the very best of the five, very probably the most fun. McCoy even gets to say \u201cHe\u2019s dead Jim,\u201d referring to a weird alien dog thing.<\/p>\n

TOS S01E06 \u00a0Mudd\u2019s Women <\/strong>(\"3.5). Some dynamic camerawork gives a dramatic start to an enjoyably silly episode. Then, as his ship enters an asteroid field, Kirk orders \u201cDeflectors on\u201d \u2013 first mention of shields I think. We\u2019ve had some amusing character moments between the regulars, but this is the first time that a fully-fledged comedy character has been dropped in amongst the ultra-professional Enterprise<\/em> crew. Sadly, while Roger C Carmel is amusing enough, the male crewmembers react to his trio of lovely ladies as if they\u2019re in an episode of The Benny Hill Show<\/em> and the score goes completely nuts as if Kirk and co. have been living an entirely monastic existence to this point.<\/p>\n

Kirk also is accused of having exceeded his authority, but we are still no clearer from whence this authority derives. This also has benefits. When out of lithium (not yet \u201cdilithium\u201d) and struggling to maintain orbit, Kirk can\u2019t call on Star Fleet Command to mount a rescue mission. The ship is exploring the unknown in a way which feels very unfamiliar to regular viewers of most later series (which was the problem that Voyager<\/strong> attempted to solve).<\/p>\n

The interplay between the playful Mudd and the all-business all-the-time crew puts me immediately in mind of Adam West\u2019s gently mocking performance as Batman opposite a gallery of ripe comedy villains. Batman<\/em> had been on the air since January and this went out in October so it\u2019s not impossible that it was an influence, but I\u2019d guess instead that they\u2019re both responding to the same cultural touchstones.<\/p>\n

Compared to the existential crisis of the last episode and the threat to the whole ship the week before, this is pretty flimsy fare, but it\u2019s nice to see the series trying something new \u2013 even if this is yet another version of uh oh, this new arrival on board isn\u2019t quite what they seem, making it six in a row.<\/p>\n

The negotiations with the miners also make it clear that money is still a thing in the 23rd century, and Rigel XII feels like a real alien civilisation in ways that other planets we\u2019ve visited haven\u2019t managed. The underlying premise of the story \u2013 a woman\u2019s worth is in her attractiveness to men \u2013 while it is mildly critiqued, still leaves me feeling a bit queasy. The flip that a placebo can (sometimes) work just as well is neat though \u2013 Kirk cons the conman.<\/p>\n

TOS S01E07 What Are Little Girls Made Of? <\/strong>(\"2.5). We haven\u2019t had a Sulu episode yet, or a Scotty episode, or an Uhura episode. The nearest we\u2019ve had to a McCoy episode is the first one. We haven\u2019t even had a Spock episode really. So far, this has entirely been the Captain Kirk show with everyone else playing second fiddle. But \u2013 here it is! \u2013 the Nurse Christine Chapel episode that the fans couldn\u2019t wait for.<\/p>\n

\u201cSend down two red shirts,\u201d orders Kirk (nearly) and it isn\u2019t long before both of them stumble into a bottomless pit. And that\u2019s Lurch from The Addams Family <\/em>as the murderous android \u201cRuk\u201d, picking up William Shatner like he\u2019s a Captain Kirk action figure. In a rare blunder from the costume department, Dr Brown wears cross-your-heart dungarees in bright blue and puke green. Sherry Jackson as Andrea wears it better. This is the Thiess Titilation Theory in full effect. Andrea\u2019s costume doesn\u2019t get the male audience members\u2019 blood pumping because of how much skin it exposes \u2013 the effect is due to the fact that it has no visible means of support and thus can be supposed to be about to slip and reveal far more. Kirk cracks on to her as soon as they\u2019re alone together \u2013 all in furtherance of the mission of course.<\/p>\n

This slightly fuzzy and sluggish episode can\u2019t quite decide whether it\u2019s about sex robots or free will. It\u2019s too coy to engage fully with the former and its attempts to tackle the latter stumble into a confused muddle of essentialism before everybody kills everybody else. It\u2019s also our second duplicate Kirk in three episodes, but I miss Bones and Spock who are relegated to babysitting the ship till the captain gets back. It\u2019s not bad exactly, it\u2019s just not all that interesting.<\/p>\n

This episode doesn\u2019t revolve around a seeming human on the Enterprise<\/em> who isn\u2019t all that he seems, but the android Kirk does briefly beam back up to the ship and pass himself off to Spock as the real thing.<\/p>\n

TOS S01E08 Miri <\/strong>(\"3.5) opens with another really punchy teaser \u2013 \u201cAnother Earth!\u201d And then before long we\u2019re on the Culver City backlot for, I think the first time. It\u2019s amazing what a difference this makes. Instead of those stagey \u201cexterior\u201d sets we\u2019re in the open air, able to see the sky. And the mystery is fascinating too. Following complaints received after its first UK broadcast in 1970, the BBC did not include the episode in any Star Trek<\/strong> repeats until the 1990s. Three other episodes, Plato\u2019s Stepchildren<\/em>, The Empath <\/em>and Whom Gods Destroy<\/em> were not shown at all until the 1990s. Kim Darby (\u201cMiri\u201d) would be seen a few years later as Mattie Ross in True Grit<\/em> opposite John Wayne. And that\u2019s Moss from Bonnie and Clyde<\/em> as \u201cJahn\u201d.<\/p>\n

The threat is a chilling one \u2013 a wasting disease which first makes victims feral. And rather than one of the red shirts being infected and dropping dead as an early warning, Kirk himself is the first to notice signs of contamination. This also isolates the landing party from the ship which raises the stakes, but unlike last week, we have our core team all present \u2013 and Janice Rand is along for the ride, still seemingly like more of a regular cast member than Sulu, Scotty or Uhura. Don\u2019t get too comfy, Janice.<\/p>\n

This is a brilliantly weird episode, tinged with tiny bit of the same flavour as The Prisoner<\/em> or some of the odder episodes of The Avengers<\/em>. It\u2019s also thematically rich, playing with notions of childhood and the unsettling changes of puberty. It feels like a story which only this show could tell and yet it\u2019s completely different from any of the preceding entries \u2013 not least because there\u2019s hardly any male chauvinism or shirtless cavorting. But the action does flag in the middle \u2013 seven days is a realistic timeframe but too long to really ramp up the tension. And the riddle of the duplicate Earth is never resolved.<\/p>\n

Key takeaways from these episodes<\/strong><\/p>\n