star trek the enemy within

The Enemy Within (episode)

A transporter malfunction creates an evil Kirk.

1.2 Act One
1.3 Act Two
1.4 Act Three
1.5 Act Four
2 Log entries
3 Memorable quotes
4.1 Production timeline
4.2 Story and production
4.3 Props and sets
4.4 Special effects
4.5 Costumes
4.7 Continuity
4.8 Apocrypha
4.9 Preview
4.10 Reception
4.11 Syndication cuts
4.12 Video and DVD releases
5.1 Starring
5.2 Also starring
5.3 Featuring
5.4 Uncredited co-stars
5.5 Stunt double
5.6 Stand-ins
5.7.1 Unreferenced materials
5.8 External links

Summary [ ]

During a survey of Alfa 177 , geological technician Fisher slips down a rock, gashing himself badly and smearing his uniform with a strange magnetic type of yellow ore . He beams up to the USS Enterprise for treatment.

Detecting a curious overload in the transporter circuitry, Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott has Fisher decontaminated before reporting to sickbay , but the problems have already begun; the strange ore has altered the function of the transporter.

Next, Captain Kirk beams up from the planet , before the fault is discovered. He apparently materializes normally and Scott escorts the disoriented captain out of the room. Kirk is, in fact, a shadow of himself. Due to this transporter accident , Kirk has been split into two beings. The first that materialized embodies all of Kirk's positive qualities. Moments later, after Kirk and Scott have left, Kirk's evil twin — Negative Kirk — materializes in the transporter chamber.

Act One [ ]

" Don't fight me, Janice! "

" I said give me the brandy! "

Some time passes before the mishap is discovered. Negative Kirk demands Saurian brandy from McCoy in sickbay and proceeds to roam the ship's corridors drunk. McCoy then informs Commander Spock about this, who then consults good Kirk about McCoy's concerns. Kirk shrugs it off, telling Commander Spock that McCoy was just pulling his leg.

Meanwhile, Negative Kirk, who is now instinctively consumed by lust for his beautiful Yeoman – Janice Rand – is alone with Rand in her quarters, drunk and amorous. Negative Kirk mentions to her the feelings they've been hiding, claiming she is " too beautiful to ignore, " and " too much woman, " and that they've both been " pretending too long. " Negative Kirk suddenly grabs Rand and shouts," Let's stop pretending! " He pulls her in close, put his arms around her, and mutters, " …Don't fight me, Janice. " He then starts kissing her very aggressively, and as she is forcefully trying to fight back, Negative Kirk pushes her to the floor and attempts to rape her. But she defends herself and leaves a large scratch on Negative Kirk's face. During the struggle, Negative Kirk attacks Crewman Fisher, who was walking by Rand's quarters and saw the attack.

In sickbay, a crying and flustered Rand tells Kirk, Spock and McCoy, that the Captain tried to assault her, an accusation Fisher corroborates. Kirk firmly denies having done so, whereupon Spock deduces that there must be a Kirk impostor aboard the Enterprise .

Act Two [ ]

Negative Kirk has been scratched by Rand

Scotty finds that the yellow ore Fisher beamed up with somehow caused an overload in the transporter. The transporter does indeed work but they dare not use it for risk of duplicating Sulu and the rest of the landing party. Kirk tells Spock that he must inform the crew of what has happened to him, since they deserve to know. Spock, with all due respect, tells Kirk that as he is the captain, he cannot afford to be anything less than perfect in the eyes of the crew. If he does appear so, the crew will lose faith in him – and in turn, he will lose command of the Enterprise . Kirk knows this and wonders why he just forgot it just now. Later, on the bridge , Kirk makes an announcement to his crew from his chair about the impostor aboard. While making the announcement, Negative Kirk is rummaging through the captain's quarters. Kirk informs the crew that the impostor can be identified by scratches on his face, and warns the crew to set the phasers for stun and must not injure the impostor. Negative Kirk angrily destroys the captain's desktop monitor and rants at the top of his lungs " I'm Captain Kirk… I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!! "

Negative Kirk goes to Kirk's mirror and finds make-up on the table. He applies some of it to his scratches and they are now barely visible. He opens the door to Kirk's quarters and finds Crewman Wilson walking down the corridor near the room. Negative Kirk asks Wilson for his phaser ; Wilson hands it over and is promptly knocked out. Later, both Kirk and Spock in the briefing room try to figure out where Kirk would go on the Enterprise to elude a mass search. Kirk quickly deduces that Negative Kirk is hiding in the lower levels of the ship – the engineering deck. He and Spock head there. In main engineering, a cat and mouse game ensues between the two Kirks and they confront each other near the warp core . Just as Negative Kirk is about to kill Kirk, Spock knocks him out with the Vulcan nerve pinch , but not before Negative Kirk's phaser accidentally discharges and a shot disables the transporter ionizer, making it harder to rescue Sulu and the landing party who are trapped on the rapidly freezing planet.

Act Three [ ]

Meanwhile, on the planet below, the remaining landing party is suffering through the increasingly bitter cold. Attempts to beam heaters and other support devices produce only non-functional duplicates. Kirk speaks to Sulu in the Enterprise 's briefing room, trying to reassure his helmsman, all the while growing more and more unsure of his command abilities. Spock cuts in and tells Sulu to hold on for just a little while longer.

Negative Kirk is screaming while being restrained on a bio-bed in sickbay, in pain from his body functions having been weakened from the duplication process. Kirk takes Negative Kirk's hand, tells him not to be afraid and to use his mind, rather than his savagery. McCoy takes Kirk aside for a brandy. Kirk realizes through McCoy that he needs his negative side of himself back but does not want it back. McCoy assures his captain that all Humans have a dark side to them and that his strength of command lies in his negative self.

" He's dead, Jim. "

Finally, Scott and Spock believe they have isolated and repaired all the damage. Spock contacts Kirk and asks him to come down to the transporter room. An Alfa 177 canine test animal , previously split, is sent through to see if it will reintegrate. Spock and Scott subdue the fierce canine with a hypospray and place it beside its good self on the transporter pad. Spock and Fisher place the two canines on the transporter pad and Scotty energizes. " If this doesn't work, I don't know what will, " Scotty says. The good and fierce canines become one again, but it rematerializes dead from the shock from having suddenly had its two halves reintegrated forcefully.

Act Four [ ]

Negative Kirk recovers in sickbay while Sulu contacts Kirk from the planet, just before he succumbs to the extreme cold. Kirk decides to release his evil half and have both of them go through the transporter, but Negative Kirk attacks and overpowers Kirk in sickbay and dresses in Kirk's wraparound tunic. Later, heading to the bridge, Negative Kirk, pretending to be the good Kirk, runs into Janice Rand outside a turbolift and explains to her that the transporter malfunctioned, and that the animal part of him was in her cabin with her during the attempted rape. Negative Kirk, again posing as the good Kirk, also points out that the evil Kirk scratched his face to make them more alike. Arriving on the bridge, Negative Kirk orders navigator Lieutenant John Farrell to take the ship out of orbit and abandon Sulu along with the landing party, callously asserting that they cannot be saved. At this point, the good Kirk appears on the bridge with McCoy. At first, Farrell and the others are confused as to which one is the good Kirk, but soon Negative Kirk collapses under the strain – screaming and crying " I want to LIVE! " before falling into Kirk's arms.

Later, both Kirks are taken to the transporter room to be reintegrated as one being. Spock handles the transporter console and promises Kirk that he will take command of the Enterprise if the procedure is unsuccessful. Spock energizes the transporter and the two Kirks disappear. After a few tense moments, Spock materializes Kirk back in the transporter chamber as one person. To Spock and McCoy's relief, the much more confident Captain Kirk steps off the pad and orders that the landing party be rescued immediately. Sulu and the others are beamed back aboard, frostbitten but alive.

On the bridge, Rand awkwardly tries to explain to Captain Kirk what his impostor told her about what had happened and when she tries to elaborate further, Kirk simply thanks her and walks away. When Rand hands a PADD to Spock to sign, the first officer says to her, " The, uh, impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman? " She takes the PADD and stylus from him and walks away in a huff as Kirk orders that the Enterprise lift out of Alfa 177's orbit to continue its mission .

Log entries [ ]

Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2266

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Oh! Captain! You startled me! Is there something that you… can I help you, Captain? " " Jim, will do here, Janice. " " Ooohhh… " " You're too beautiful to ignore… Too much woman. We've both been… pretending too long. "

" You can't afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith, and you lose command. "

" I'm Captain Kirk. I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!! "

" And what is it that makes one man an exceptional leader? We see here indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, if you will, properly controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength. "

" If I seem insensitive to what you're going through, captain, understand: it's the way I am. "

Sulu on Alfa 177

" Do you think you might be able to find a long rope somewhere and lower us down a pot of hot coffee? " " I'll see what we can do. " " Rice wine will do if you're short on coffee. "

" Any possibility of getting us back aboard before the skiing season opens down here? "

" He's like an animal. A thoughtless, brutal animal. And yet it's me. Me! "

" We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly. It's Human. "

" The intelligence, the logic. It appears your half has most of that. And perhaps that's where man's essential courage comes from. "

" Being split in two halves is no theory with me, Doctor. I have a Human half, you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other. Personal experience, doctor. I survive it because my intelligence wins over both, makes them live together. "

" Janice! Hello. The animal part of me came to your cabin. He even scratched me to make us look more alike. I'd like a chance to explain it to you. You don't mind if I come to your cabin later? " " No, sir. "

" Can half a man live? "

" I want to live! "

" I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see. "

" The… impostor had some… interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman? "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

Story outline by Richard Matheson : 4 April 1966
Revised story outline: 22 April 1966
First draft teleplay by Matheson: 25 April 1966
Revised first draft teleplay: 19 May 1966
Second draft teleplay: 31 May 1966
Revised teleplay by John D.F. Black : 6 June 1966
Final draft teleplay by Gene Roddenberry : 8 June 1966
Additional revisions: 11 June 1966 , 15 June 1966
Day 1 – 14 June 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 10 : Ext. Alfa 177 surface ; Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Transporter room
Day 2 – 15 June 1966 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Transporter room
Day 3 – 16 June 1966 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Kirk's quarters , Bridge
Day 4 – 17 June 1966 , Friday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Sickbay , McCoy's office
Day 5 – 20 June 1966 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Sickbay
Day 6 – 21 June 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Engineering , Corridors , Janice Rand's quarters
Day 7 – 22 June 1966 , Wednesday (Half Day) – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Corridors , Briefing room
Score recording: 14 September 1966
Original airdate: 6 October 1966
First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 13 April 1970
First UK airdate (on ITV ): 4 October 1981
Remastered airdate: 26 January 2008

Story and production [ ]

Writer Richard Matheson 's main influence on writing this episode was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , as he envisioned Robert Louis Stevenson 's classic story put in a science fiction context. He eventually came up with the idea of the transporter causing a man to be split into two halves. [1]
The subplot of Sulu and three other crewmembers stranded on the planet was not present in Matheson's original script, and was added in staff re-writes. Matheson did not like the idea, as he had an aversion to B-stories in general, believing they slowed stories down. He explained, " My script stayed entirely with Bill [Shatner] having this trouble of his two selves, on the ship […] They added a whole subplot about people down on the planet, ready to freeze to death, because they have [a] transporter functioning problem […] I stuck entirely with Bill." [2]
The last two scenes of Act One are switched in order from what appears in the script. In the teleplay, Kirk and Spock learn about the assault of Janice in sickbay, then head to the transporter room, where they are faced with the discovery that the transporter is creating duplicates. The act ends with Scotty suggesting, " We don't dare beam up the landing party. If this should happen to a man… " and Kirk exclaiming, " Oh, my God! " In the episode itself, the sickbay scene follows the one in the transporter room, and the act ends with Spock declaring, "There's only one conclusion – we have an impostor aboard. " Director Leo Penn was known to reorganize scenes when he deemed them to be more dramatic in a different order from what was scripted. [3]
In the final draft and the revised final draft of this episode's script, McCoy mused that part of "the Human condition" was having "an enemy within."
Grace Lee Whitney once recounted that, while shooting the scene when a distraught, tearful Janice Rand accuses Captain Kirk of trying to rape her, William Shatner slapped her across the face to get her to register the proper emotion. [4] As they shot the rape scene days earlier, Whitney couldn't get into the same emotion successfully, and it was Shatner's "solution" to the problem. ( The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy , p. 94)

Props and sets [ ]

Scott and Fisher with scanner

The scanning device used by Scott to scan the ore on Fisher's uniform appears to be a modified Nuclear-Chicago Model 2586 "Cutie Pie" radiation detector. [5] This Feinberger reappeared in " The Naked Time ", " The Doomsday Machine ", and " Obsession ".

Spock and Kirk in engineering

A shot, showing two extras ( Frank da Vinci and Ron Veto ) in red technician jumpsuits (and Veto holding the aforementioned "Cutie Pie" prop) in the engineering set was filmed, but cut from the episode. It was probably filmed as an insert shot for scenes at engineering. [6]
The gauzy, red-bordered triangular set piece behind which the evil Kirk emerges briefly in engineering during the hunt scene appears to have been left over from the early briefing room as seen in " The Cage " and " Where No Man Has Gone Before ".
The unit that Negative Kirk accidentally phasers in engineering was recycled as the housing for the main circulating pump for the PXK pergium reactor in " The Devil in the Dark ".

Special effects [ ]

A sketch that Matt Jefferies did for the "Sulu heats rock" sequence

Don Eitner, The Enemy Within, production

Shatner's photo double Don Eitner on set

This is the only appearance of the showering phaser effect, used when Sulu heats the rock to provide warmth for himself and the other stranded on Alfa 177.
There are two split-screen effects used: after Negative Kirk is neck-pinched by Spock; and in sickbay when Kirk takes the hand of his evil counterpart. All other instances of the two Kirks appearing in the same shot were achieved using stand-ins, who kept their faces turned away from camera: Eddie Paskey , who doubled as both Kirk and Negative Kirk; and stunt performer Don Eitner during the scene where Negative Kirk attacks Kirk in sickbay.

Costumes [ ]

At the start of the episode when Kirk is beamed up from Alfa 177, both he and his evil counterpart are missing the Enterprise insignia on their uniforms. Lieutenant Farrell is also missing his insignia at some points during the episode (and also in a shot recycled from this episode in " Mudd's Women "). The Star Trek Compendium (3rd ed., p. 35) suggests that the insignia were removed every time the uniforms were cleaned (union rules required them to be cleaned daily); and during production of this episode, someone forgot to replace the insignia on Kirk and Farrell's uniforms.
The first season version of the captain's wraparound tunic was created for this episode, with the original purpose of differentiating Kirk from Negative Kirk. It reappears in " Charlie X " and " Court Martial ", and in Kirk's briefcase in " This Side of Paradise ". The tunic was constructed of wool crêpe fabric, in contrast to the velour of the standard duty tunics.
Although Nichelle Nichols does not appear in this episode, her voice is heard on the intercom in several scenes.
Frank da Vinci and Ron Veto together had a deleted scene in this episode.
Edward Madden previously played an Enterprise geologist in " The Cage ".

Continuity [ ]

This episode marks the first time on screen that Kirk is duplicated in some form or fashion. This repeats again through " What Are Little Girls Made Of? ", " Whom Gods Destroy ", " The Survivor " and Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country .
Spock's log entry in this episode calls himself "Second Officer Spock", however, in "Court Martial" the computer lists him as "First Officer Spock" and from then on is referred to as a "first officer" until his return in Star Trek: The Motion Picture as simply science officer .
This was the first episode to be produced to show the Vulcan nerve pinch , as well as the first time McCoy says " He's dead, Jim ." Leonard Nimoy objected to the script's directive that Spock "kayoes" Negative Kirk on the head, so he improvised the neck pinch on the spot and demonstrated it on William Shatner for director Leo Penn. ( Star Trek Encyclopedia , 3rd ed., p. 550) The script's original directive survives to this day in the James Blish adaptation of this episode (in the book Star Trek 8 ) as Blish only had access to the scripts and not to the finished episodes.
The transporter was depicted as the only mode of transport between a planet and the ship because this episode was written and filmed before the existence of the hangar deck and shuttlecraft were established, even though both of these locations are clearly built into the studio model of the Enterprise as seen in the episode. As the lack of a shuttlecraft was almost immediately pointed out as a plot error, production and writing staff later stated that perhaps the shuttlebay was simply out of service for repairs during this episode, which would explain why the crew did not use shuttles to rescue their comrades ( Star Trek Compendium [ page number? • edit ] )
This episode establishes that the phaser two unit consists of a phaser one unit fitted into a pistol mount. Sulu can be seen doing this just before he phasers the rocks for warmth. This procedure is not seen in any other episode.
In the sequence of aired episodes, this is the first episode where we see or hear the new middle initial for James Kirk. "Captain James T. Kirk" is briefly visible as Negative Kirk enters Kirk's quarters. The initial was first spoken in " Mudd's Women ", but that episode aired after "The Enemy Within".
In the latter part of the scene where the two Kirks appear together on the bridge, a close-up shot of the Negative Kirk shows the scratches on the right side of his face, although wider shots (and all earlier scenes) showed they were on the left side. This was due to the shot being reversed during editing. Director Leo Penn and cameraman Jerry Finnerman mistakenly filmed the close-up out of axis, breaking the 180-degree rule, and editor Fabien Tordjmann could only help by reversing it, hoping the audience wouldn't notice the resulting continuity error. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed. p. 157)
A reaction close-up shot of Spock on the bridge is recycled from " The Naked Time ". The same shot was used again in " The City on the Edge of Forever ".

Apocrypha [ ]

In the novel Foul Deeds Will Rise , the duplication witnessed here is documented as 'the Alfa Effect', with another character duplicating the effect to give herself an alibi for various murders (One of her appears in public while the other commits the crimes), claiming to have adjusted the balance so that both duplicates share the same personality traits as opposed to the imbalance witnessed here (although the duplicates do demonstrate a divergence later, with one being more violent while the other accepts their failure).
A cat version of "The Enemy Within" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats .

Preview [ ]

The preview contains a Captain's Log recorded solely for the preview, but based on one from the finished episode: " Captain's log, stardate 1672.9. Due to the malfunction of the ship's transporter, an unexplained duplicate of myself exists. "

Reception [ ]

Actress Grace Lee Whitney was very unhappy about the last scene of this episode, in which Spock asks Yeoman Rand , " The impostor had some very interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman? " In her autobiography, she wrote: " I can't imagine any more cruel and insensitive comment a man (or Vulcan) could make to a woman who has just been through a sexual assault! But then, some men really do think that women want to be raped. So the writer of the script (ostensibly Richard Matheson – although the line could have been added by Gene Roddenberry or an assistant scribe) gives us a leering Mr. Spock who suggests that Yeoman Rand enjoyed being raped and found the evil Kirk attractive! " ( The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy , p. 95)
Despite this, Whitney enjoyed this episode. " I liked 'The Enemy Within' because seeing Captain Kirk act in that fashion challenged me as an actress. " ( Starlog #105, April 1986 , p. 49) Several years later she echoed those sentiments, stating " I love "The Enemy Within" because it gave me a chance to really react and act with Bill Shatner. I love it! I loved the whole concept of him breaking into two characters because that really was what Kirk and Rand were about. There were two sides of Kirk and two sides of Rand. Rand was there to be of service to him but she was also in love with him. But she knew she mustn't go over-go the boundaries. " ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , p. 159)
James Doohan stated that he thought William Shatner 's performance in this episode was " pretty okay. " ( Beam Me Up, Scotty , p. 132)
Director Leo Penn also praised Shatner's performance. " William Shatner's a very good actor and gave a very good performance… I had a good time on that show. " ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed. p. 159)
Richard Matheson elaborated, " I thought Bill Shatner was brilliant. I loved what he did. He carried the whole thing. I was a little sorry that Roddenberry put so much emphasis on the crew being stuck on the planet […] But I liked it and I was very satisfied with the production value. " ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed. p. 159)
Roddenberry picked this as one of his ten favorite episodes for the franchise's 25th anniversary. ( TV Guide , August 31, 1991 [ page number? • edit ] )
When first screened in the United Kingdom in 1970, the BBC partially edited the episode, specifically the scene where Negative Kirk attacks Janice. The cuts remained until the 1992-94 repeat run. [7]

Syndication cuts [ ]

During the syndication run of Star Trek , the following scenes were typically cut from broadcast:

Extended scene of Scott preparing to beam Kirk up to the ship.
A longer conversation between Spock and Kirk about Negative Kirk demanding brandy from McCoy.
Extended scene of Negative Kirk in Rand's quarters.
Additional segments of discussion with Rand and Fisher in sickbay.
Extra dialogue between Kirk and Spock, followed by another scene showing the two entering engineering to look for Negative Kirk.
Longer reports from Sulu on the surface of the planet, including a split scene of Sulu speaking to Kirk, then a shot of the Enterprise in orbit, followed by Kirk's reply.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

Original US Betamax/VHS release: 28 February 1985
Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 3 , catalog number VHR 2244, release date unknown
US VHS release: 15 April 1994
UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.2, 8 July 1996
Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 2, 17 August 1999
As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Alternate Realities collection
As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

William Shatner as James T. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

Leonard Nimoy as "Mr. Spock "

Featuring [ ]

DeForest Kelley as "Dr. McCoy "
Grace Lee Whitney as "Yeoman Rand "
George Takei as " Sulu "
James Doohan as " Scott "
Edward Madden as " Fisher "
Garland Thompson as " Wilson "
Jim Goodwin as " Farrell "

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

Nichelle Nichols as Uhura (voice only)
Eddie Paskey as Leslie
Communications officer
Sciences technician 1
Sciences technician 2
Section chief (voice only)

Stunt double [ ]

Don Eitner as the body double for William Shatner

Stand-ins [ ]

William Blackburn as the stand-in for DeForest Kelley
Frank da Vinci as the stand-in for Leonard Nimoy
Jeannie Malone as the stand-in for Grace Lee Whitney
Eddie Paskey as the stand-in for William Shatner

References [ ]

abort control circuit ; Alfa 177 ; Alfa 177 canine ; alter ego ; animal ; announcement ; annoyance ; answer ; assignment ; autopsy ; bank ; base cycle ; bed ; body ; body function panel ; " Bones "; burnout ; bypass circuit ; cabin ; casing ; circuits ; coadjutor engagement ; coffee ; communication line ; compassion ; confusion ; consciousness ; Constitution -class decks ; courage ; decontamination ; degree ; dizziness ; duty officer ; Earth ; easel ; engineering ; engineering deck ; evil ; exposure ; eye ; face ; fear ; feeling ; force of will (aka strength of will ); frost ; frostbite ; full postmortem ; geological technician ; good ; hand ; hand phaser ; hostility ; hotline ; Human ; impostor ; impulse engine ; intellect ; intelligence ; kiss ; landing party ; leader ; leader circuit ; logic ; love ; lust ; magnetism ; main circuit ; make-up ; microtapes ; mind ; mirror ; name ; neck ; opportunity ; ore ; overload ; painting ; phaser weapon ; plan ; pot ; protoplaser ; power generator ; quality ; quarters (cabin); rape ; rice wine ; risk ; rock ; room ; room service ; rope ; Saurian brandy ; savage ; search ; search party ; second officer ; section ; section chief ; ship's manifest ; shock ; skiing season ; specimen ; specimen case ; specimen gathering mission ; status report ; store ; temperament ; surface temperature ; survival procedure ; sympathy ; synchronic meter ; temperature ; terror ; theory ; thermal heater ; time sheet ; training program ; tranquilizer ; transporter ; transporter circuit ; transporter malfunction ; transporter technician ; transporter room ; transporter unit ; transporter unit ionizer ; truth ; unconsciousness ; vacation ; velocity balance ; violence ; Vulcan nerve pinch ; " watching the store "; week ; wild man ; will ; yellow

Unreferenced materials [ ]

Churchill, Winston ; Heaven ; Hell ; malingerer ; nuclear energy ; nurse maid ; power plant ; rattle ; traffic signal ; Truman, Harry S.

External links [ ]

" The Enemy Within " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
" The Enemy Within " at Wikipedia
" The Enemy Within " at the Internet Movie Database
" The Enemy Within " at MissionLogPodcast.com
1 USS Voyager (NCC-74656-A)
2 Daniels (Crewman)
3 Star Trek: Prodigy

The Native American Myth That Inspired Star Trek's The Enemy Within

On the 1966 "Star Trek" episode "The Enemy Within," Captain Kirk (played by one-time /Film writer William Shatner ) beams up from a geological research mission covered in a rare magnetic dust. The dust causes a glitch in the Enterprise's transporter, resulting in Kirk bifurcating into two separate beings. The first Kirk to beam up contains all of Kirk's intelligence and rationality, while the second Kirk — arriving a few moments later — contains all of his aggression or anger. With a "good" captain and an "evil" captain on board the Enterprise, mayhem ensues.

By the end of the episode, both Kirks must face off, and then, naturally, reunite. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) points out that Kirk cannot be an effective captain without his irrational rage and aggression; as a gentle person, he's not complete. The "evil" Kirk is a madman but he's also a vital part of Kirk's core being. "The Enemy Within" points out that we all contain an animalistic id that we must live with; our anger and aggression cannot be so easily shunted from our bodies. This addresses the way certain philosophies view evil. From one perspective, good and evil are separate, warring forces, with one side necessarily having to triumph over the other. From another, good and evil are two parts of the same being. They are not separate. The yin and the yang. The duality of man.

The episode was written by sci-fi luminary Richard Matheson, who also wrote one of the very best episodes of "The Twilight Zone" (among many other things). He once told the UK outlet The Times that "The Enemy Within" was openly inspired by Robert Louis Stevenson's "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde." In Mark A. Altman's and Edward Geoss' book "Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages," however, episode director Leo Penn added that he borrowed from certain Native American myths to address ideas of duality.

The stories of Hiawatha

"Captain's Logs" tracked down an interview Penn gave with Starlog magazine, and quoted him as saying:

"Within certain aspects of American Indian culture, they surmise that evil possesses more energy than good, and Indians believe if they could get to the evil one and comb the snakes out of his hair, he would be cleansed and be able to use that energy for good. One is constantly interested in the struggle between good and evil ... In every human being there's good and bad. Hopefully the good is reachable. There are some leaders who bring out the best in people, and Captain Kirk was certainly such a person."

Penn's comment is an allusion to the myth of Hiawatha. Hiawatha was a real person, credited for co-founding the Iroquois nation, and said to be the leader of the Onondaga nation or perhaps the Mohawk nation, but he is also the hero of many legendary epic tales. The mythic version of Hiawatha was said to have been discovered living in a remote hut by Dekanawidah, the founder of the Iroquois Confederacy. This was a wild Hiawatha who viciously ate human flesh. The story goes that Dekanawidah was so wise and peaceful that Hiawatha was humbled in his presence, received a new peaceful philosophy, and immediately abandoned his early, cannibalistic ways. Hiawatha was thereafter a wise sage and a spreader of peace.

Dekanawidah then sent the now-reformed Hiawatha to the Onondaga people to confront their chief, a wicked tyrant named Tadodaho. This Tadodaho was so evil that he had turned into a literal monster; his hair and his fingers were made of snakes. Hiawatha then combed the snakes out of his hair, a symbol of his redemption. "Hiawatha," literally translated, means "he who combs."

Good vs. Evil

Many modern students might have first learned Hiawatha's name from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's celebrated 1855 poem "The Song of Hiawatha," although Longfellow notoriously cribbed details of Native American society from wildly inaccurate ethnographical "studies" conducted by European scientists who weren't entirely devoted to accuracy. It's also worth noting that "The Song of Hiawatha" is structured like a European epic, and doesn't resemble Native American storytelling traditions in the slightest.

"The Enemy Within," meanwhile, retains the classic conflicts over good vs. evil. Can one comb the snakes from their hair, purify themselves, and be "good" in perpetuity? Or must one, as Matheson wrote, retain their "evil" side in order to be a more complete human being? It's interesting that the writer of "The Enemy Within" and its director seemed to fall on opposite sides of the debate.

A Medium article delved into Iroquois myths even more deeply, pointing out that combing snakes out of one's hair extends all the way back into the nation's creation myths. According to the myth, a pair of twins were born in a realm of evil and pain, similar to popular images of the Christian Hell. One twin — resolute and good — aimed to improve the dark world, hoping to change it for the better. The other twin — wicked and lazy — wanted the evil world to stay the way it was. The good twin is commonly compared to God and the wicked one to Satan, but one can also see a parable of complacency vs. progress. There are good and wicked people on the planet . The good, then, must inspire the wicked with their righteousness.

At the end of "The Enemy Within," the two Kirks are reunited using the Enterprise's transporter, resulting in the good and the evil working together again. It's all very inspiring — and far more interesting than merely using Robert Louis Stevenson as a jumping-off point.

Star Trek: The Enemy Within

7 comments:

‘The Enemy Within’ has always been one of my absolute favorite episodes. Richard Matheson’s script pretty much established the evil double staple as we know it, which is a given since a lot of today’s TV writers all likely grew up watching Star Trek and were influenced by it. There’s certainly something kinda wonderful about William Shatner’s entire performance throughout. As Nasty-Kirk he takes it all the way up to 11 and beyond into realms few actors have ever gone before, while as Nice-Kirk he’s so perfectly understated to be almost comatose. The only sour spot was everyone’s rather insensitive reactions to the attempted rape of Rand. As progressive as Star Trek was in some areas it was also uncomfortably typically of it’s time in others.

OMG Billie -- you remember the Mad parody as well!?! I love that you referenced that scene! It sticks in my mind so clearly -- with Kirk's head at his waist, and nooooo torso in-between. Yarrrgh, simultaneously disturbing and hilarious, the perfect admixture of Trek and those guys from MADison Avenue. (It also came to mind when I saw Trek Movie #1, with the transporter accident at the beginning... Mad Magazine did it first!) You're right on the money I think about this episode's powerful influence. The concept of duality is so key; their leveraging of it here, especially using a HERO (and in the 1960's, that was a pretty darn clear archetype you didn't mess with, at least on tv), made it resonate with real intensity. One of the things that hit my young mind at the time, was that Kirk wasn't good then bad then good, nor was he possessed by bad and then overcame it-- he was BOTH good and bad, and both sides were really him. And, once recombined, he would be good and bad at the same time, together, always. And knew it. Kinda that whole taoism versus aristotelianism (istic-atic-expi-ali-dosis) thing, isn't it. Nothing is just one thing -- every thing is everything, to an extent. Simultaneous multiplicity... and now everyone in me needs a drink. (Well, two are teetotallers, and one is already drunk and giggling.) Definitely shows up all over the place in our beloved series -- Good and Evil Willow ("we love you both, but in verrry different ways"); Xander and XanderPrime; Buffy and fill-in-the-blank (BuffyBot, Faith, BuffyFaith, et al); Good and Evil Angel; Wes Before and After; everyone in Dollhouse (especially Alpha but esPECIALLY Echo) the whole Battlestar Cylonetics thing... and I could go on. No, really; stop me, this is your only hope. Wonder though if part of this ep's resonance isn't also due to that poor little dog being dead, Jim, once recombined -- that was seriously heart-breaking for a kiddo. I mean, knock off all the red shirts you want, but don't hurt those space doggies! (Or cats for that matter, later on in the series.)

When it comes to Matheson, one thing I've noticed is that, like Stephen King, he is more interested in putting an "everyman" character into a situation and seeing how they react rather than the scientific plausibility of if and how something could happen. The biggest example is the novel "Bid Time Return" which is better known as "Somewhere in Time." It makes no good sense that a man can travel in time just by willing himself to do so...but it happens in the book and the novel uses it to explore some other things. Same thing here--oh, magic yellow dust makes the transporter go wonky. Ok, sure let's go with that. As long as we split Kirk in two and can explore that aspect of things it's all good. And I think part of the lack of shuttlecraft is that it removes the dilemma facing Kirk and since this episode was produced fourth, they may not have decided to use them just yet.

Michael, that's a good observation about Matheson. You're right. I've read a good amount of his stuff, and I always tend to react to his work emotionally, so it's easy to leave logic behind.

I watched this episode over and over as a young girl and teenager and never saw the attempted-rape scene as problematic. At 46 and a mother and educator, I certainly do now! The way Yeoman Rand was treated afterwards was the bigger problem for me; she was forced to sit there with a bunch of men and the very man she accused and basically be called a liar or an hysteric. She was expected to 'get over it' and just deal with the abuse of power and get back to work as if nothing had happened. No one to help her or really even explain it to her. And Mr Spock's final words to her on the bridge were completely out of character and more than vaguely threatening. BUT! I love the episode (apart from all that) and can neatly compartmentalise my misgivings because of the era of production. In fact, I find it all the more fascinating for those reasons.

I find Kirk cradling himself in his arms to be both an nice scene and unintentionally hilarious.

The attempted rape was something that I just didn't get as a kid, but as an adult I have to 100% agree that it was a bad situation that was only made worse by how they treated yeoman Rand afterwards. Far and away my least favorite aspect of this one. Barring that unpleasant portion of this episode, it's very good and I have to say that why I too have soured on Shatner over the years, he nails it here. The dichotomy between the all good and all evil Kirks is both interesting and thought provoking, even toady, and it really makes one think about how we function and deal with our own conflicting emotions on a daily basis.

We love comments! We moderate because of spam and trolls, but don't let that stop you! It’s never too late to comment on an old show, but please don’t spoil future episodes for newbies.

Buy the Book…
Reviews Hub

the m0vie blog

Following Us

Adding Our RSS Feed to Your Gmail
Following our Feed in Internet Explorer
Millennium (Reviews)
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Reviews)
Star Trek: Enterprise (Reviews)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (Reviews)
Star Trek: The Original Series (Reviews)
Star Trek: Voyager (Reviews)
The X-Files (Reviews)
X-Files Fandom Poll Form

Check out the Archives

Awards & Nominations

Star Trek – The Enemy Within (Review)

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

One thing that I don’t think the original Star Trek gets nearly enough credit for is the quality of the writers that Gene Roddenberry recruited to contribute scripts. Television obviously operated under a different model at the time, but there’s an impressive selection of science-fiction literary giants who contributed scripts to the show. More than that, it’s impressive how many of those stories became truly iconic Star Trek stories.

The Enemy Within is the work of author Richard Matheson, best known for stories like I Am Legend or What Dreams May Come . It’s very much a high-concept science-fiction story, but it’s also notable because it establishes two of what would become the show’s favourite tropes: transporter accidents and evil duplicates. Indeed, the two devices would be reunited in the following season’s Mirror, Mirror . These narrative elements even featured in the last season of Star Trek: Enterprise to air, in episodes like Daedalus and In a Mirror, Darkly .

Perhaps it’s a demonstration of how important these outside writers were to the development of Star Trek as a franchise that Matheson would effectively codify two stock narrative devices that would still be in use four decades later.

Mirror, mirror…

Of course, Matheson wasn’t the only science-fiction writer of that calibre to write for Star Trek . Harlan Ellison wrote The City on the Edge of Forever , while Theodore Sturgeon wrote Amok Time , with Norman Spinrad contributing The Doomsday Machine . That’s saying nothing of Larry Niven writing for Star Trek: The Animated Series . Outside of writers known for science-fiction, What Are Little Girls Made Of? came from the author of Psycho , Robert Bloch.

Those are some very important names, and they are names that immediately establish the pedigree of Star Trek . The involvement of these iconic science-fiction writers demonstrates that the show is more than merely a western in a novel setting. Instead, these names demonstrate that Star Trek is legitimate science-fiction, with all the high-concepts and big ideas that come with it. I am not, of course, suggesting that the absence of any or all of these names would put paid to the suggestion that Roddenberry was producing a science-fiction show, but their presence serves as an acknowledgement of what the creator was attempting to accomplish with the show.

Kirk always was a bit in love with himself…

To be fair, some of these experiences would be least than pleasant. Harlan Ellison’s foreword to the book collecting his initial work on The City of the Edge of Forever offers a particularly bitter account of how difficult working within the show could be. At least Matheson didn’t have to worry about too much aside from what he felt to be an unnecessary b-plot unfolding on the planet below. Given that it eats up about five minutes of the episode, I think we can forgive it that.

Despite these teething problems, it’s hard to deny the results. William Shatner – writing in Star Trek Memories – credits strong stories like The City on the Edge of Forever for keeping Star Trek alive at the end of its first year in production. While Ellison tends to (deservedly) generate the most discussion about these respected authors working on Star Trek , his work is indicative of one of the greater strengths of the show. In fact, I think that the contributions of the other established science-fiction writers are occasionally overlooked.

Shatner dials it up…

These writers deserve credit for demonstrating that Star Trek was a fascinating avenue for compelling and exciting televised science-fiction. It’s something of which the spin-offs may have lost sight. Star Trek: The Next Generation and the later shows tended to the work of an established writing staff. That said, the shows welcomed unsolicited scripts from outside the office. This is, for example, how they recruited Ronald D. Moore for the third season of The Next Generation . However, there didn’t seem to be a conscious effort to court established science-fiction writers to contribute to television’s largest on-going science-fiction franchise.

Then again, it’s hard to complain about the consistent quality The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine once they got past their first two years, but it does feel like the spin-offs were missing something that had been a vital ingredient to Star Trek . You could argue that the model of television had changed in the years since Star Trek went into cancellation, but that’s hardly fair. Russell T. Davies and Steven Moffat have made it a point to invite established writers on to Doctor Who , to great success. Neil Gaiman wrote the acclaimed The Doctor’s Wife , while Richard Curtis wrote the much-loved Vincent and the Doctor .

On the prowl…

Being honest, it’s clear that Star Trek owes Richard Matheson a fairly significant debt. The Enemy Within is very much an archetypal Star Trek episode. In fact, I suspect it is one of the few stories that ripples around in the broader public consciousness. While evil! Kirk might not be as iconic as goatee! Spock, I think that William Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk’s primal id is one of the most memorable images of the series. I also suspect that this is where Shatner established his reputation for scenery-chewing among the public at large.

The plot of The Enemy Within is relatively simple. In fact, it’s so simple that it would provide the basis for Mirror, Mirror the following season – albeit with the two ingredients inverted. Here, a transporter malfunction sends an evil version of Captain Kirk to the regular Enterprise. In Mirror, Mirror , a transporter malfunction sends the regular version of Captain Kirk to an evil Enterprise. It’s not to suggest that Mirror, Mirror is a rip-off of The Ene my Within . It’s just to illustrate that Matheson has crafted a simply story that effectively establishes two narrative staples of Star Trek .

To be fair, half the cast wanted to do that at one point or another…

In a way, The Enemy Within is effectively an update of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde . Transporter proves itself remarkably unreliable for only the first time in Star Trek history, somehow splitting Kirk into two halves. One half embodies all of Kirk’s best qualities, and the other half contains all his negative attributes. This is, of course, pure scientific nonsense, but it allows for an interesting story and a nice allegory. Plus we get to witness Shatner demonstrating his dramatic abilities in his portrayal of good! Kirk, which is a surprisingly nuanced performance.

One which is, admittedly, overshadowed by his campy turn as evil! Kirk. Even then, it’s work noting that Shatner’s portrayal of Kirk’s rampaging id personified is strangely compelling. As I mentioned above, it’s fair to argue that Shatner’s reputation of a hammy over-actor was cemented here. evil! Kirk poses, pantomimes, screams, spits and shouts. You could make a legitimate argument that evil! Kirk isn’t just a concentration of Kirk’s darker side, but also the embodiment of Shatner’s tendency to go over the top.

Double trouble…

This isn’t the first time that Shatner’s campy tendencies have been on display. We’d seen hints of his hammy-ness at the climax of Where No Man Has Gone Before , as Shatner milked Kirk’s appeal to Denher’s humanity for all it was worth. Still, evil! Kirk is arguably the furthest that Shatner would go off the reservation during the three-year run of Star Trek . Still, there is some skill here. Shatner cannily plays him as more animal than man. He crouches, lurches and swings aggressively. His movements are exaggerated, with Shatner making sure that the audience is aware that this is evil! Kirk in action.

In fact, for all the episode’s fixation on Kirk’s “doppelgänger” , Shatner makes it quite obvious which version of Kirk is which. The crew might be confused, but Shatner’s performance makes certain that we never are. And, to be fair, this isn’t a bad thing. After all, the premise is delightfully simplistic. This is a story where a magic technology can somehow rend a man’s soul in twain. It is not a subtle tale. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a more subtle performance working as well as Shatner’s decision to gleefully chew the scenery.

Just scratching the surface…

I will concede that the characterisation on classic Star Trek was not the strongest. Still, I think that the leading trio were drawn very clearly very early on, and I’d argue that the movies did a great job extending the characterisation of the main characters. Still, for all that The Enemy Within is a science-fiction high-concept, it is hard to see the plot working with any Star Trek captain other than James Tiberius Kirk.

Shatner’s Kirk has a roguish charm to him that is lacking from his successors. We don’t doubt that he’s sincere and that he is a good man, but there’s a darkness lurking underneath Kirk’s charming exterior. Kirk is the most dynamic and physical of the Star Trek leads, the one who isn’t afraid of violence, the one who indulges almost recklessly in casual sex with random women. (In fact, he even winds up with a son he never knew about.) Kirk has wit and skill, but he’s also reckless. He leads away teams into danger and there’s a sense that Kirk gets a vicarious thrill out of high-stakes contests.

And your little dog, too!

In short, there’s a sense of something very sinister hiding behind all that charm. Shatner might not be the strongest actor in the history of television, but he gets Kirk. He embodies the character perfectly. Even when the scripts portray Kirk as an enlightened and sophisticated 23rd century man, Shatner makes it clear that there’s something primal lurking beneath. It’s not for nothing that he turns out to be so damn good at all those crazy gladiatorial contests.

So there is something to split here – two palpable facets of Kirk’s persona that can be separated from one another. Freed of the pragmatic cynicism of his darker half, good! Kirk trusts his crew to understand what has happened. He wants to disclose absolutely everything, including the fact that half of him is a de facto attempted rapist. “Yes, I’ll make an announcement to the entire crew, tell them what happened,” he assures Spock. “It’s a good crew. They deserve to know.”

Keep your shirt on…

It’s not necessarily a stupid position, just an idealistic. After all, Kirk has served with this crew for some time now. He knows them, he respects them; many of them are his friends. However, as Spock points out, he doesn’t have the luxury of indulging his conscience. “Captain, no disrespect intended,” Spock responds, “but you must surely realise you can’t announce the full truth to the crew. You’re the Captain of this ship. You haven’t the right to be vulnerable in the eyes of the crew. You can’t afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith, and you lose command.”

In a weaker story, good! Kirk would be an emotional idealist without any self-restraint. He would wallow in self-pity and guilt for everything he has ever done. Here, instead, he’s simply a decent man constrained by his inability to compromise, to make sacrifices, to be ruthless for the greater good. evil! Kirk is willing to order the ship to abandon Sulu and the away team without a care. good! Kirk can barely bring himself to sacrifice a dog to test the transporter. “Don’t hurt him,” good! Kirk asks Scott.

Putting it all together…

It’s a nice plot point – the idea that Kirk owes some of his strength to something approaching ruthlessness and brutality. Without that darker half, good! Kirk is somewhat impotent. He can’t barely order Spock to call him out on it. “Mister Spock, if you see me slipping again, your orders… your orders are to tell me.” He concedes that, due to the separation, he has lost his “strength of will.” It’s interesting to see Star Trek concede that some of these darker drives are necessary or even useful. The show is generally so idealistic, that such a concession seems a little weird. In fact, Grace Lee Whitney protests that argument in her biography, The Longest Trek .

Indeed, it’s this sort of attitude that would be missing from a lot of the first season of The Next Generation , as Roddenberry insisted that the show present the crew as completely flawless. However, the key isn’t necessarily to completely purge the darker aspects of the human psyche – after all, those are essential parts of ourselves. It’s difficult to relate to the perfect humans of The Next Generation in the show’s first year because they are so perfect that they don’t seem human.

Face-to-face…

“We all have our darker side,” McCoy argues. “We need it! It’s half of what we are. It’s not really ugly, it’s human.” That’s the key right there, and Star Trek has always been as much about exploring the human condition as it has been about charting the final frontier. It has – at its best – about exploring who we are and what makes us human. The Enemy Within might not be subtle, but it is effective. It uses the backdrop of science-fiction to comment on mankind and our relationship with ourselves and the wider universe.

That said, there are some problems. It is very tough to watch the scene where Kirk tries to sexually assault Rand, knowing that Grace Lee Whitney would be sexually assaulted herself a few weeks later, on the set of Miri . The scene isn’t gratuitous or especially problematic of itself, but it’s very tough to watch knowing that Whitney would be assaulted by an anonymous studio executive only a little while later.

A cool reception…

The abuse that Whitney experienced is one of the most shameful moments in the history of the Star Trek franchise, and a demonstration of some of the problems the series had with sexism behind the scenes. Nobody was ever held accountable for it. Whitney herself was let go after her thirteen-episode contract elapsed. For a show about a bright an enlightened future, it seems that the sexual politics behind the scenes on Star Trek were regressive.

Sadly, these problems would continue into the early years of The Next Generation . After all, that show would lose two of its three female leads in the first year. Gates McFadden left because she had trouble working with a male producer . Patrick Stewart has explained that he spent a great deal of the first season protesting sexist scripts. You could make a compelling argument that Star Trek never got quite past its gender issues until Deep Space Nine introduced Kira.

He’ll sleep it off…

Even outside of the context of Whitney’s departure from the series, the show’s final joke would seem to be misjudged. It sees Spock – who seems to have a bit of a weird fixation on evil! Kirk, read into that what you will – make a joke about evil! Kirk’s sexual appeal to Janice Rand. This is the same Janice Rand who was sexually assaulted by evil! Kirk in her quarters only a little while earlier. The scene is quite troublesome, especially because it seems like nobody realised that it really wasn’t an appropriate line to close on.

As Whitney herself notes in her memoirs, The Longest Trek :

At the end of The Enemy Within, there is a badly botched attempt at humor. In a poorly motivated and out of character moment, Mr. Spock needles me about my feelings toward the evil Kirk (who came to be called “the Imposter,” even though he was supposedly every bit as much a part of the “real” James T. Kirk as the good Kirk). There is almost a nasty leer on Spock’s face as he says to me, “The Imposter had some very interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say, yeoman?” My response was to ignore the jibe. I can’t imagine any more cruel and insensitive comment a man (or Vulcan) could make to a woman who has just been through a sexual assault! But then, some men really do think that women want to be raped. So the writer of the script (ostensibly Richard Matheson — although the line could have been added by Gene Roddenberry or an assistant scribe) gives us a leering Mr. Spock who suggests that Yeoman Rand enjoyed being raped and found the evil Kirk attractive! This scene is doubly ironic in view of how wonderfully caring and compassionate the real Leonard Nimoy was a few weeks later after the real Grace Lee Whitney was sexually assaulted and violated by The Executive.

Then again, the show was never especially thoughtful in its portrayal of Rand as a character. It’s just that The Enemy Within strikes closest to home in light of Whitney’s history with the programme.

Some cheek…

Still, despite these awkward moments, The Enemy Within is still a damn fine piece of Star Trek . It’s admittedly got a goofy premise, but it is compelling and fascinating high-concept science-fiction, demonstrating the versatility of Star Trek as a show.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the first season of the classic Star Tre k :

Supplemental: Vulcan’s Glory by D.C. Fontana
Supplemental: Early Voyages #1 – Flesh of my Flesh
Supplemental: Crew by John Byrne
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Corbomite Manoeuvre
Mudd’s Women
The Enemy Within
The Man Trap
The Naked Time
Supplemental: My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
Supplemental: Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne
Supplemental: Errand of Vengeance: The Edge of the Sword by Kevin Ryan
Dagger of the Mind
The Conscience of a King
The Galileo Seven
Court Martial
Supplemental: Early Voyages #12-15 – Futures
Supplemental: Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno
Shore Leave
The Squire of Gothos
Supplemental: Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman & Kevin Ryan
Supplemental: The Fantastic Four #108 – The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archon
A Taste of Armageddon
Supplemental: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II by Greg Cox
This Side of Paradise
The Devil in the Dark
Supplemental: Spock Must Die! by James Blish
Supplemental: The Final Reflection by John M. Ford
Supplemental: The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison/Cordwainer Bird
Supplemental: Crucible: McCoy – Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III
Supplemental: Star Trek (Gold Key) #56 – No Time Like the Past
Operation — Annihilate!

2 Responses

Reblogged this on Hopes & Dreams & Thoughts .

Thanks for the reblog!

Recently tweeted…

"I Simply Am Not There": The Existential Horror of Eighties Excess in "American Psycho"...
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Reviews)
Crime and Pun-ishment: The Art of the CSI One-Liner
"I'm Ready to Communicate With You Now": The Millennial Anxieties of "The Sixth Sense", and Feeling Alone in the City of Brotherly Love...

Available at…

Blogs Well Worth Your Time

1001 Must See Films
Andrew at the Movies
Anomalous Material
Cut the Crap Movie Reviews
Encore Entertainment
Fandango Groovers
FlixChatter
Four of Them
It Rains… You get Wet…
Jameson Cult Film Blog
Jar Watches Films
Let's Go To The Movies
M. Carter at the Movies
Marshall and the Movies
Movie News First
Musings from a Man Lost in La Mancha
Never Mind Pop Film
Paragraph Film Reviews
Roger Ebert's Journal
Ross v. Ross
Scannain.com
Screenwriter (Donald Clarke, Irish Times)
Strange Culture
The Film Cynics
The Pompous Film Snob
The Projection Booth
Things That Don't Suck
Too Busy Thinking About My Comics
Undy a Hundy

Film Nerd Resources

CinemaBlend (News)
Internet Movie Database
Rope of Silicon
The Guardian Film Blog
James Berardinelli
Roger Ebert

Email Subscription

Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address:

Sign me up!

Blog at WordPress.com. WP Designer.

Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
Subscribe Subscribed
Copy shortlink
Report this content
View post in Reader
Manage subscriptions
Collapse this bar

The Enemy Within

Edit source

A transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two people – one good and one evil, and neither capable of functioning well separately.

Episode Preview [ ]

Star Trek TOS - The Enemy Within

We’re fighting to restore access to 500,000+ books in court this week. Join us!

Internet Archive Audio

This Just In
Grateful Dead
Old Time Radio
78 RPMs and Cylinder Recordings
Audio Books & Poetry
Computers, Technology and Science
Music, Arts & Culture
News & Public Affairs
Spirituality & Religion
Radio News Archive

Flickr Commons
Occupy Wall Street Flickr
NASA Images
Solar System Collection
Ames Research Center

All Software
Old School Emulation
MS-DOS Games
Historical Software
Classic PC Games
Software Library
Kodi Archive and Support File
Vintage Software
CD-ROM Software
CD-ROM Software Library
Software Sites
Tucows Software Library
Shareware CD-ROMs
Software Capsules Compilation
CD-ROM Images
ZX Spectrum
DOOM Level CD

Smithsonian Libraries
FEDLINK (US)
Lincoln Collection
American Libraries
Canadian Libraries
Universal Library
Project Gutenberg
Children's Library
Biodiversity Heritage Library
Books by Language
Additional Collections

Prelinger Archives
Democracy Now!
Occupy Wall Street
TV NSA Clip Library
Animation & Cartoons
Arts & Music
Computers & Technology
Cultural & Academic Films
Ephemeral Films
Sports Videos
Videogame Videos
Youth Media

Search the history of over 866 billion web pages on the Internet.

Mobile Apps

Wayback Machine (iOS)
Wayback Machine (Android)

Browser Extensions

Archive-it subscription.

Explore the Collections
Build Collections

Save Page Now

Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future.

Please enter a valid web address

Donate Donate icon An illustration of a heart shape

STAR TREK THE ENEMY WITHIN

Video item preview, share or embed this item, flag this item for.

Graphic Violence
Explicit Sexual Content
Hate Speech
Misinformation/Disinformation
Marketing/Phishing/Advertising
Misleading/Inaccurate/Missing Metadata

plus-circle Add Review comment Reviews

Download options, in collections.

Uploaded by JoeyBrooklyn on May 14, 2023

Star Trek S1 E5 "The Enemy Within" » Recap

Original air date: October 6, 1966

Kirk, Sulu and some unusually long lived Red Shirts are collecting specimens from Alfa 177 when someone falls down a hill and gets a boo-boo. He's beamed up, along with a strange, magnetic ore that he picked up in his fall. Shortly after, Captain Kirk beams up, feeling a little woozy. Scotty leads him away, even as Kirk warns him not to leave the transporter room unattended. What beams up next is... Captain Kirk! You can tell it's an evil Kirk! He's wearing eye liner and sweating like a pig!

The Tropes Within:

Attempted Rape : Poor Janice is subjected to this by Evil Kirk.
Badass in Distress : Sulu is trapped on the planet during its cold night and nearly freezes to death.
Balance Between Good and Evil : The aesop is that a person can't function without both the light and dark sides. Without the light, Evil Kirk is unrestrained and violent; without the darkness, Good Kirk is impotent. Spock: And what is it that makes one man an exceptional leader? We see here indications that it's his negative side which makes him strong, that his evil side, if you will, properly controlled and disciplined, is vital to his strength. McCoy : (to Good Kirk) We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly. It's Human.[...] The intelligence, the logic. It appears your half has most of that. And perhaps that's where man's essential courage comes from.
Braving the Blizzard : Mr. Sulu and three others get trapped on the planet the Enterprise is orbiting. As night comes on, the wind kicks up and the temperature falls dramatically. Due to the malfunction, any heaters transported down are rendered useless, and the landing party is forced to use their phasers to superheat rocks in order to stay warm enough to survive.
Clear My Name : Certainly important to Good Kirk.
Color-Coded for Your Convenience : Evil Kirk wears the yellow command uniform. Good Kirk wears his casual green shirt. That is, until Evil Kirk realizes he can (temporarily) fool people by changing his shirt.
Dirty Coward : Evil Kirk lacks Good Kirk's courage (see Villainous Breakdown ).
It's a bit weird to see Spock call himself "half human, half alien," when for the bulk of the series he clearly identifies as Vulcan.
Sulu and the rest of the exploration team could have been brought aboard had they thought to use the shuttlecraft. The only reason they didn't use it is because they hadn't built the shuttlecraft sets and models yet.
As with a few of the other early episodes, several of Kirk's captains logs are done in the past tense rather than present tense.
Enemy Within : Well, duh! Look at the episode's title!
Enemy Without : How it comes to be.
Everybody Lives : The only fatality is the cute but non-sentient dog-unicorn thing from the planet.
Evil Is Hammy : Good Lord . Evil Kirk makes all of Shatner's other performances look subdued. Evil Kirk: I'm Captain Kirk! I'm Captain Kirk! I'M CAPTAIN KIRK! IIIII'M CAPTAIN KIRRRRRK!!!
Evil Me Scares Me : "I've seen a part of myself no man should see."
Evil Twin : Created by transporter accident. This is a rare case where the evil twin isn't an imposter, but actually is the real person (albeit the negative, disagreeable side of that person).
First-Name Basis : Evil Kirk tells Yeoman Rand to call him Jim, as he calls her Janice.
From Bad to Worse : While Scott is still trying to find out why the transporter split Kirk in two, Evil!Kirk blasts some of the circuitry with a phaser. After discovering this, Scott predicts he will need and entire week to fix it.
Gallows Humor : Sulu cracks a few jokes about just needing a coffee when it's a very real possibility they could die from cold.
Good Eyes, Evil Eyes : Evil Kirk wears eyeliner and his eyes are either narrow and shifty, or wide and crazy.
Got Over Rape Instantly : Evil Kirk almost succeeds in raping Yeoman Rand. While she's traumatized for the rest of the episode, she's back to mooning over Kirk in her next appearance as though nothing had happened. You'd think the very sight of him would make her want to transfer to another ship, but I guess not.
Guyliner : Evil Kirk wears it, as per the Excessive Evil Eyeshadow trope. He also puts on some make-up in attempt to hide the scratches Rand put on him.
Helpless Good Side : Evil Kirk got Kirk's willpower, determination, and aggression, leaving Good Kirk rather meek and indecisive. It's played with in that Good Kirk also got the original Kirk's courage , while despite all his agression Evil Kirk is at heart a coward.
He's Back! : Kirk's halves are put back together and it's obvious he's survived the process, but the real "He's Back!" moment comes when he decisively says "Get those men aboard fast!"
He's Dead, Jim : For the first time in the series! After they attempt the re-merging with the creature, McCoy and Spock examine the limp form that beams up. Spock : It seems the shock was too much. McCoy : He's dead, Jim.
Identical Twin ID Tag : Apart from wearing a different shirt, Evil!Kirk is distinguished from Good!Kirk after Rand scratched his face. This breaks down when Evil!Kirk changes shirts, puts makeup on his face, and scratches Good!Kirk in turn.
Evil!Kirk demands Saurean brandy when he enters sick bay. Later, Bones decides that both he and Good!Kirk need it.
Sulu cracks a few jokes about needing coffee (due to the freezing temperatures of the planet), then says that sake will do as well.
Idiot Ball : Who exactly thought it was a good idea to have Yeoman Rand questioned about her attempted rape by the accused perpetrator? The same people who thought it was a good idea to let the accused walk around after being identified by an eyewitness. Though Good Kirk pretty quickly proved it wasn't him, he has no scratches on his face. This being Star Trek , everyone is immediately convinced that something substantially weirder is going on.
Jekyll & Hyde : A transporter malfunction splits Kirk's good and evil sides.
Literal Split Personality : Kirk of this episode is a famous example. It is learned that the "evil" side proved to be the side with the strength to make tough decisions, proving that both halves are needed for the whole to work. And the seemingly meek, passive "good" side turns out to have more courage than the other, whose angry defiance hides terror of losing independent existence. "Can half a man live?"
Mundane Utility : Sulu uses a phaser to heat up some rocks for warmth. Beginning a long, proud Trek tradition, fully in fitting with its themes, that phasers are as much tools as weapons.
Must Have Caffeine : Sulu asks if it's possible for them to send down a pot of coffee. Or possibly, he just wants something hot. He would've settled for sake.
Negatives as a Positive : After a transporter accident splits Kirk into two people, one good and one evil, it's revealed that his good side isn't capable of command. Spock postulates that it is humanity's faults, tempered by their morals and ethics, that give them the ability to lead.
O.O.C. Is Serious Business : Never has it been more serious! And on both sides: Good Kirk lacks the command presence and decisiveness he's previously demonstrated and which is necessary for The Captain , Evil Kirk lacks empathy, courage, or any real impulse control. The trick is not to figure out which Kirk is which, but that they're both equally not "real" Kirk.
Out-of-Character Alert : Kirk is split into his good and evil sides by a transporter accident, which leaves several of the Enterprise crew stranded on a hostile planet. Spock feels a bad vibe when the evil Kirk, passing himself as the good one, walks onto the bridge. Then he declares that the men can't be saved and orders the ship to leave orbit, at which point Spock knows it's not the real one - since when would James T. Kirk leave his crew to die?
Why doesn't Kirk send a shuttlecraft to collect the stranded men? (The Doylist answer is because they hadn't finished building the shuttlecraft set.)
Why doesn't the Enterprise crew beam down some blankets? It's not like bedding can get split into Good and Evil. The heaters that were beamed down didn't work, but this shouldn't apply to blankets. Or coffee, for that matter.
They could have even beamed the characters up and confined the resulting duplicates until the problem was fixed. Except they had no way of resolving things yet, so why add more complications?
The Power of Hate : When Kirk gets split into Good Kirk and Evil Kirk, Good Kirk is barely able to function because, as Bones points out, he needs the power of hate as well as love.
Ridiculously Cute Critter : Sulu finds something that looks like a mash up of a cocker spaniel, a unicorn and a baby dragon with some screwy looking antenna. And it's flippin' adorable! (When its evil half isn't trying to eat your face, that is.) What a pity that it dies in the end.
Sarcasm Failure : See Gallows Humor . As the (admittedly improbable) cold gets to the stranded crew members, Mr. Sulu's last communication to the Enterprise is laconic and quiet.
Shadow Archetype : The good-yet-indecisive Kirk and his evil-yet-effective twin: "I have to take him back... inside myself. I can't survive without him. I don't want him back. He's like an animal, a thoughtless, brutal animal — and yet it's me. Me." Really though, both the good and evil Kirk are Shadow Archetypes to the real Kirk; he wouldn't want to be either one of them.
Shirtless Scene : Shortly after beaming up, Good Kirk feels a sudden urge to go change his shirt. The ladies (and Mr. Spock) get some eye candy, and there's a reason for the sudden Color-Coded for Your Convenience .
Sick Captive Scam : Evil!Kirk feigns weakness so that Good!Kirk undoes his restraints in Sickbay and assists him to get up and walk to the Transporter Room, then overpowers him and assumes command.
Slurpasaur : The alien creature Sulu finds is simply a cocker spaniel or terrier wearing a horn, antennae, and a thick coat and long rat-like tail.
Take a Third Option : Spock explains how he uses this to live. His human and Vulcan natures are constantly in conflict, but he uses his intelligence to keep both in line and make them work together.
Tantrum Throwing : Evil Kirk throws a fit when he can't get his way.
Tap on the Head : A legendary subversion. When good Kirk is confronted by a phaser-wielding evil Kirk, Spock steps around a corner behind evil Kirk and knocks him out. The script called for Spock to do this by hitting evil Kirk with the butt of his phaser pistol. Leonard Nimoy thought that was inappropriate for a Vulcan — it's so uncivilized — so he and the director improvised the very first use of the Vulcan nerve pinch . Nimoy demonstrated it on Shatner, and Nimoy credited Shatner with selling it.
Technobabble : Spock's explanation of how the transporter was repaired comes off as this.
Understatement : Before beaming up, Kirk tells Sulu that the temperature on the planet gets down to some ridiculously low arbitrary temperature at night, similar to the dark side of the Moon . Sulu replies, "That's nippy."
Villainous Breakdown : Evil Kirk finally gives up when he breaks down, sobbing, "I don't wanna die!" "I don't wanna go back. I wanna LIIIIIIVE!!!!" " We...WILLive!....BOTHuvus !"
Warring Natures : Spock claims that his human side and his "alien" side are constantly doing this.
What the Hell, Hero? : McCoy gives this to Spock when he uses Kirk's situation to coolly analyze the roles of good and evil in human nature. Spock doesn't back away from the accusation, but does offer an apology of sorts to Kirk for his seeming to be uncaring.
Whole-Plot Reference : Richard Matheson 's main influence on writing this episode was The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde , as he envisioned the story put in a science fiction context. He eventually came up with the idea of the transporter causing a man to be split into two halves.
With All Due Respect : Spock tells Kirk that he doesn't have the luxury of indulging his conscience: Captain, no disrespect intended, but you must surely realise you can't announce the full truth to the crew. You’re the Captain of this ship. You haven’t the right to be vulnerable in the eyes of the crew. You can’t afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith, and you lose command.
Writers Cannot Do Math : No matter what scale you use, the temperatures given for the planet's surface mean Sulu's team would have frozen to death before the episode is even halfway over.
Creator/Richard Matheson
Star Trek S1 E4 "The Naked Time"
Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek S1 E6 "Mudd's Women"

Important Links

Action Adventure
Commercials
Crime & Punishment
Professional Wrestling
Speculative Fiction
Sports Story
Animation (Western)
Music And Sound Effects
Print Media
Sequential Art
Tabletop Games
Applied Phlebotinum
Characterization
Characters As Device
Narrative Devices
British Telly
The Contributors
Creator Speak
Derivative Works
Laws And Formulas
Show Business
Split Personality
Truth And Lies
Truth In Television
Fate And Prophecy
Image Fixer
New Articles
Edit Reasons
Isolated Pages
Images List
Recent Videos
Crowner Activity
Un-typed Pages
Recent Page Type Changes
Trope Entry
Character Sheet
Playing With
Creating New Redirects
Cross Wicking
Tips for Editing
Text Formatting Rules
Handling Spoilers
Administrivia
Trope Repair Shop
Image Pickin'

Search this site

Star Trek: The Original Series

“The Enemy Within”

Air date: 10/6/1966 Written by Richard Matheson Directed by Leo Penn

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

Unbeknownst to the Enterprise crew, a transporter malfunction creates a duplicate of Captain Kirk, which somehow receives all of the real Kirk's darker, "negative" qualities. The story documents Kirk and Spock's attempts to track the faux Kirk through the ship as the impostor runs around causing trouble—particularly in one episode where he has a rather nasty encounter with Yeoman Rand.

"The Enemy Within" epitomizes why TOS could be so much fun. We have mood and attitude injected into the anti-Kirk scenes, thanks to a wonderfully bombastic score by Sol Kaplan. We have William Shatner chewing scenery like there's no tomorrow ("I said give me the brandy!" "I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!" "I want to live!") in delightfully entertaining scenes.

And we have an effective balance of good dialog utilizing Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Keeping the story grounded in the intelligent is the idea of the real Kirk's slow demise of will and his eventual inability to function as captain because he has been drained of the aggression that his counterpart possesses. It's an effective revisit to Jekyll and Hyde lore, and even though it can be campy at times, it's quite engaging along the way.

Previous episode: The Naked Time Next episode: Mudd's Women

Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee .

◄ Season Index

Comment Section

136 comments on this post.

This is one thing I loved about this show--the men were all masculine. It did seem to struggle with the whole idea of women, but the men were strong, tough, and had that edge of masculine control and aggression--even Spock, who could take command, throw a punch, or take a risk with the best of them. Give me manly men any day!

So you want to be fisted by manly men? If you say so, sailor. ;)

WHY THE HECK DID NOBODY THINK ABOUT A SHUTTLE CRAFT?!?!

Blah blah... Some problem in the atmosphere... Not enough, I dunno, ohms or something.

As a Kirk-fan, this is one of my favorite episodes from the first season. Also, this episode highlights why I have come to love Star Trek - it's at its best when it raises interesting philosophical questions.

One of the best. Like how the "good half" could not function without the "bad half" sometimes we need that.

I don't like the premise of the episode -- that a transporter malfunction could make a duplicate, one good and one evil. HOWEVER, once I get past that, it's one of TOS' better efforts for reasons already discussed, especially for something early on in the show's run. (Maybe too early if you ask me). Overall, a quite a good episode.

Yeah, the premise is a bit goofy (and the notion that Sulu and the other guys on the surface could survive at such LOW temps, AS IF, even with the best blankets and phasering all those rocks), but this is one of the better TOS episodes, for fun, and for philosophical value. I laughed SO HARD when "Evil Kirk" was introduced in shadow, with an evil grimace. X-D All the scenes with Evil Kirk are so much fun to watch. This is what Shatnerian acting is made for. But all the scenes with "Good Kirk" were well done as well. The notion that we "good" people all need our "evil" sides is a little hokey. (What they should really be saying is that we need our animal instincts, our ID, and we also need our prefrontal cortex, our reasoning, cooperation, compassion, our EGO and SUPEREGO - and that neither the ancient parts of our brain nor the more recently evolved parts are good or evil, they just are). Oh well, it all makes for good drama. Except for the stuffed dog, I just LOL'd at how dumb it looks.

I should add that I really wanted to slap Spock for being so insensitive to Yeoman Rand. I mean, she was nearly raped by Evil Kirk! But oh the '60s - who needs counselling for attempted rape, right?

Huh, I was underwhelmed by this episode. (My kids and I are going through and watching, in order, all the episodes Jammer has given three or more stars to; many of them I saw years ago in syndication but I don't recall seeing this one.) Some of it may be just that certain elements are off because they are still working out the kinks: no acknowledgment that there are shuttles; strange, convoluted terminology to talk about the simple act of setting phasers to stun; the fact that Nimoy seems to be taking longer to settle into his character's groove than the other two of the main trio. But that sort of points to part of the problem: we are only in the fifth episode, yet this is our second consecutive episode involving people being made to act differently from normal and run amok. And in fact, it is the fourth of the first five episodes in which at least one of the main actors deviates from the typical way they would play their character: either because someone or something was causing them to act nutty, or because they were playing an imposter. Shouldn't they have spent longer establishing their characters' normal behavior patterns first? It was cool to hear that first "he's dead, Jim" though.

Jeff Bedard

@Nathan G: the behind the scenes reason for no shuttlecraft is that this early in the series the idea of the Enterprise having shuttlecrafts hadn't been created yet. So for the original audience of this episode it wouldn't have been a concern. But all these years later anyone viewing this episode will have a difficult time letting this in-universe gaffe slide. I enjoy this episode, especially Spock's explanation of what is happening to Kirk and comparing his own inner battle with his Vulcan and human sides. I do wish the "evil" Kirk could have been more talkative. I understand that he is meant to personify Kirk's anger and rage, but EK still has intelligence and reasoning as well. A few filming gaffes (some of the EK scenes are clearly reversed from how it was actually filmed) tend to annoy me a bit, but I like how even for 1966 and just a few episodes in TOS was tackling some wonderful philosophical and ethical issues. And William Shatner (for all the acting bashing he gets) does a superb job (in my opinion) of embodying two diametrically opposed versions of himself.

Good: - I think this is the first aired episode with Spock and McCoy arguing on either side of Kirk. Fun to watch the Trek cliches snap into place. Bonus points for McCoy saying, "He's dead, Jim" about the space dog. - Shatner's overacting in this episode is delightful. - A good Star Trek twist on the idea of split personalities. So good they did it with Xander on Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Bad: - This always bugs me on Star Trek, but particularly in this episode it seems ridiculous that they can beam people up from a planet but can't track somebody on their own ship. No security cameras in the future, I guess. - Spock's last line is way out of line and way out of character. - The pacing drags a little, as per usual. Shows now are much more exacting in how much they reveal to the audience over the episode. I've noticed with this early going in Trek that the audience knows everything all the time, often long before the crew does. Ugly: While I like Shatner's hamminess, I could do without his screams. Overall: Three stars of four.

@Nathan G "WHY THE HECK DID NOBODY THINK ABOUT A SHUTTLE CRAFT?!?!" The shuttlecrafts weren't available until Tuesday.

Well, it had to happen eventually. It was only a matter of time before William Shatner went full-ham. And what a hamfest it was. "I'm Captain Kirk!!!" indeed. I like to imagine that nowadays he does that whenever he sees Christopher Pine. Anyway, I bring that up because, unfortunately, that was probably the worst part of the episode. Yeah, a split personality like that isn't exactly the most original idea in the world, but it had potential. Unfortunately, the dramatic BAD GUY! music every time evil-Kirk shows up, along with the over the top acting, kinda ruined it for me. I would have appreciated a bit more subtlety in his actions and in his interactions with good-Kirk. For example, the scene in sickbay when evil-Kirk tricks good Kirk into freeing him. Good scene! Evil Kirk was cunning, manipulative, and took advantage of goodKirk's indecisiveness and inability to lead. Likewise, the scene in Engineering where good Kirk discovers he isn't afraid while evilKirk realizes he is paralyzed with fear. So there are some good scenes here. Why did they have to ruin it with the over-the-top portrayal as well? Likewise, I was surprised that the goodKirk vs evilKirk plot was so thin and finished about half-way through the episode; I seemed to recall the battle in Engineering to be a lot closer to the end than it actually was. So I guess it was a bit weird that there wasn't much focus on action or intrigue, given that they set up the imposter as being a big deal. Instead, it was mostly some philosophizing about the nature of human duality and worrying about Sulu and company freezing to death. At least those scenes were ok. I mean, I could have done with less Sulu (we know he's in peril, no need to pad it out). But fortunately, while evilKirk was hammy, goodKirk was pretty subdued. I like the lack of ability to command, as if all his testosterone went to evilKirk. He simply looked so drained talking to Sulu, barely able to keep up that task. If the point was to show that a person couldn't function without their base animalistic side, even if said side needed to be properly controlled, then I guess the episode worked. Good Kirk really did seem like half a man, and you could see why he desperately wanted to return to his previous self. It's a bit of a shame that Spock's character wasn't fully established yet. Spock, of course, completely suppresses his emotions, believing them to be a detriment to functioning in society. Yet here, it is shown that Kirk's base emotions are required to function, even if they must be seriously controlled. It shows that Spock perhaps has the right idea to some extent, but helps to explain why Kirk is the captain and he is not. Of course, with Spock's character not fully fleshed out, this comparison to his own nature, which one think could be an obvious parallel, is ignored.

@Skeptical I've just started my TOS recap so I'm not here yet, but to your point about evil Kirk's presentation; 1) the show is a product of it's time, the 60's. The days of stereotypical mustashe twirling villains who tied women to train tracks wasn't relatively long ago. It was still an acceptible and legitimate way to portray the Evil characters. Probably in accordance with the Hays Code, which dictated these things. 2) While likely a concept many sci-fi fans had seen before, during the 60's an evil identical duplicate seperated from our main good character was probably completely new to the general TV audience of the 60's. They probably needed that level of handholding to keep the story straight for them.

Pfft, recap, I meant rewatch. I was also going to mention not quite remembering the episode, instead of implying it, so take my counterpoints with a grain of salt though I think they do stand up.

@ Skeptical, I would suggest to you that 'evil Kirk' was portrayed over-the-top because he wasn't mean to be evil, but rather animalistic and wild. Imagine a directive from the producer that you're supposed to basically be a crazed wildcat or some other vicious animal with no ability for self-reflection. How would you portray that? Animal-Kirk can't even be described on the sanity/insanity scale since he literally lacks higher reason and the ability to contemplate. Have you heard the expression "to go apes**t"? That applies here, especially if you're seen videos of territorial and angry apes. I've seen people IRL or caught on video who were crazed beyond all reason, sometimes about trivial stuff. They still had the capacity to reason but didn't or couldn't; animal-Kirk can't. What seems like 'over-the-top' on TV is probably a product of whitewashed gentile behavior as normally shown on TV, where even 'evil' people are controlled and rational in some sense. But in real life people do go haywire and it can look over-the-top too. Sometimes I observe people IRL and say "wow, that behavior looks so fake" even though it's 100% real. It just means our sense of 'realistic' as defined by TV and film is bogus. I buy Kirk's behavior in this episode, and although I think it's only middling Star Trek my main problem with it isn't how Shatner portrayed the wildness.

Nolan and Peter (and spoilers below as a word of warning for Nolan), The one problem with a counterargument that hammy evil-Kirk is ok is that evil Kirk was not always hammy. The scene in sickbay has evil-Kirk slowly succumbing to good-Kirk's arguments, seemingly agreeing with him while showing fear about the future. But as soon as good-Kirk lets him free he betrays him. He then calmly went through several steps to try to trick the crew into thinking he was good Kirk, like changing his shirt, putting makeup over his scratches, etc. His second attempt to get into Rand's pants was a lot more civilized than the first (even if it was only because they were still in the hallway). What this means, to me, is that he's not just a base, animalistic, primal side. He does show the ability to plan, to think ahead, and to bide his time. Those are signs of intelligence. It's basically a more subtle villain than the I'M CAPTAIN KIRK we saw 20 minutes ago. So I don't think you can just blame this on 60s-era TV making villains wear black hats (besides, Balance of Terror and IIRC Errand of Mercy will show more subtle villains this season). And I don't think you can claim evil-Kirk has no reasoning capacities given his subterfuge. I guess if the entire episode was hammy evil-Kirk, I would just sit back and enjoy it for what it is. But the fact that there were signs of him not being so crazy just ended up frustrating me...

I didn't say animal-Kirk had no ability to reason, Is specifically said he lacked self-reflection. He could reason on a tactical level as well as any animal. Have you seen some of the strategies animals in the wild use to hunt? It's better than what most people could come up with if they sat down and planned it out. It's done by instinct, but on the fly they improvise and implement tactics using the powers of their reason. They are not therefore without intelligence, but merely without the ability to conduct abstract self-examination or to question their choices. Animal-Kirk may have employed various strategies to get what he wanted, but in the end his entire motivation was based on the fear of a trapped animal. In that sense I think we're supposed to eventually see him as pitiable, which is why I refrain from calling him evil-Kirk. He has no moral status because he's not capable of moral judgements. He has just enough wherewithal to see reason in the end - barely.

Did no one catch the horribly dated social norm, when Yeoman Blonde is nearly raped and swears that she wasn't going to tell on the captain, because she didn't want to get him in trouble? Are we supposed to give her a thumbs-up for her loyalty?

The most cerebral of the 1st 5 Star Trek TOS episodes - a take on Jekyll/Hyde and an interesting choice to air so early in the series. Shatner does a good job portraying the 2 Kirks. Spock's character is still evolving -- he seemed to show a bit of excitement theorizing what has happened to Kirk to McCoy; also not a fan of his final line to Rand - very out of character. I guess they didn't take attempted rape very seriously in the 60s. Through 5 episodes, Rand plays nearly the most significant role after the big 3. Have to assume the Enterprise didn't have shuttlecraft yet. The most important thing is that it puts forth a concept of what characteristics might go with good vs. evil, a good subject for Trek to weigh in on. For me, I'd rate it 2.5/4.

Great episode, but as Lal mentioned, that last line by Spock was completely out of line. Whoever added that should be taken out and shot.

Brilliant, a very important acknowledgement of the uncomfortable part of ourselves being actually very useful, and I think present day people could learn a lot from this. I apologise if this is insulting or something but I think the two Kirks can be argued as similar to "the left" and "the right" - the carer/nurturer and the red blooded go getter, and rather than being at each other's throats we need each other. We're living in a time when we're pretty much Kirk vs Kirk right now. Similar with Spock and the battles he shows between his Human and Vulcan sides. I feel sorry for Yeoman Rand - constantly the subject of sexual harassment in I think every episode she's appeared in so far!

OMG! Tuvix! I’d forgotten about this episode. Through a transporter accident Kirk is divided into Kirk1 (the Good) and Kirk2 (the Evil). When it comes time to merge the entities together again, Kirk2 begs for his life: “I want to live!” he cries again and again. Just like Tuvix! Kinda.

This is an entertaining episode, but there are some problems with it. Spock states that thermal heaters were beamed down to Sulu & party, but they were duplicated and inoperable. So, Kirk and a canine-like animal, complex biological organisms, can be duplicated and still function (albeit not perfectly), but a fairly simple piece of equipment cannot function? Also, Spock says that the real nature of the evil Kirk must be kept hidden from the crew. By the end of the episode, at least 3 people (Spock, McCoy, and Rand) besides Kirk himself, know what happened to Kirk. As the old saying goes, 3 men can keep a secret if 2 of them are dead. And while not 100% certain, it appears Scotty know what happens when refers to beaming up Sulu & Company, when he says "they might be duplicated...like this animal" (referring to the dog like animal, but obviously hesitating to mention Kirk). Also, wouldn't Sulu & the landing party figure this out, after the aforementioned heaters duplicated? Finally, toward the end of the episode, good Kirk says to evil Kirk, "Can half a man survive?" Wouldn't the members of the bridge crew then understand what happened? (Not all the bridge crew would be close enough to hear this, but at least some of them should be.) However, my main problem with this episode is the same as Grace Lee Whitney's. In a book she wrote, she stated the central premise of this episode, that we need our evil half, is just plain wrong. I totally agree with her. What kind of message does this episode send, especially to impressionable young children. That being evil is just part of being human, and not something we should try to eliminate?

An enjoyable episode, but highly implausible, that Kirk could be divided into 2 functional beings. I’m inclined to think the episode was going for a yin-yang moment: trying to show that opposite and contrary forces are really complementary, interconnected, and interdependent. I also wasn’t swayed by Spock’s advice to Kirk (the good) not to reveal the truth to the crew: Spock: You're the Captain of this ship. You haven't the right to be vulnerable in the eyes of the crew. You can't afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith, and you lose command. It may only be the fifth episode of the series, but I’m pretty sure that the crew knows that Kirk is very human, and still an excellent captain. And I found it funny that Kirk (the evil) is in Kirk’s quarters and finds makeup to cover the scratches. So men of the 23rd century wear makeup. Good to know.

@ Richard, "However, my main problem with this episode is the same as Grace Lee Whitney's. In a book she wrote, she stated the central premise of this episode, that we need our evil half, is just plain wrong. I totally agree with her. " I would suggest that perhaps GLW was mistaken about the theme of the episode. Even granting that the episode states that we are inseparable from our 'evil half' it doesn't follow from this that we need it or that this fact should be embraced. I mean, ok, Kirk literally does embrace his other half, but to be fair it could be seen as him having compassion for himself over recognizing his own weaker parts. Christian teaching, for instance, is that man is inseparable from his sinful qualities, however this is certainly not celebrated in their view, even though it's acknowledged that there's no way to eliminate the worse parts entirely. That being said, my opinion is that the 'evil' Kirk wasn't meant to be understood as evil at all in a moral sense. They more or less state verbatim in the episode that he represents aggression, instinct, passion, and ultimately Kirk's command ability. He is the primal, action-oriented part of Kirk, which, left uncontrolled, would be a terrible beast, but which is kept in check by Kirk's morality, compassion, and logic. I can see no negative connotation whatsoever to the traits associated with the wild Kirk, other than the fact that if they aren't subject to discipline they would be dangerous. But this is exactly what the utopian setting is supposed to show: that enlightened thinking and culture can use the aggressive and instinctive parts of us to good ends, such as commanding starships and exploring the galaxy. Without those passions and drives the people exploring the galaxy would be little more than placid drones. It's the wild side that probably gives us the need to explore in the first place, and I definitely see this episode as showing that while we may never eliminate the darker parts of ourselves as Dr. Jekyll hoped we could, this fact is redeemed by the knowledge that we shouldn't want to do so anyhow. It would rob us of our energetic spark. Instead we should try to find ways to harness those energies and use them constructively.

@Linda, You raise an excellent point, which I had not considered. Yes, the crew should know that Kirk is not perfect (after all, who is?), and both Kirk and Spock should know this. However, a certain amount of artistic license has to be allowed for these shows to work. Attempting to keep the crew uninformed of the real nature of the "impostor" makes for a more entertaining episode. (Even though, as I stated in my previous post, it don't think his real nature actually could have been kept hidden for very long.)

@PeterG, You are entitled to your opinion, as I am entitled to mine. I wouldn't want to live in a world where everyone agreed with me all the time - that would be boring. I definitely enjoy Jammer's reviews, and the related comments. (I suppose this would be an appropriate time to thank Jammer for hosting this web site, which enhances my (and presume others') enjoyment of the Star Trek experience.) However, I must respectfully disagree with you that GLW did not understand the point this episode was trying to make. The book I am referring to is "The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy" (which, btw, I have read and highly recommend). The relevant discussion is on page 94 of this book. You can read it and decide for yourself if GLW understood but disagreed with the basic premise of "The Enemy Within". (I thought about reproducing her narrative here, however, that might be a copyright infringement. Also, it is a little long - six paragraphs.)

Why couldn't they transport some tents and some hot food and some heaters to the planet? The problem was transporting something up not down.

RandomThoughts

Hello Everyone! @Brian I believe they mentioned something about transporting heaters or something to the surface, but they duplicated and would not work. On the other hand, tents might still work duplicated, or 100 blankets might still work if they were duplicated. Oh, I found the heater lines: KIRK: Isn't there any way we can help them? SPOCK: Thermal heaters were transported down. They duplicated. They won't operate. But I'm fairly certain blankets would work. Heck, they should be able to burn them as well. :) Perhaps take the warhead out of a photon torpedo, fill it with heaters, and find a way for it to make a soft landing... Regards... RT

There's a lot of psychological complexity to this Jekyl/Hyde tale in space, as we see how Kirk requires his dark side -- anyone remember Shatner's "I need my pain!" line from Star Trek V? -- to be whole. Indeed all of us have our dark side and need to work with it if we are to be effective at all; we cannot function with only the light side of our idealized selves. And the director uses a lot of shadows in the lighting scheme -- like several of the first episodes, the ship interiors here are not brightly lit -- in achieving some nice atmosphere fitting to the story. But let's face it, folks, the genius of this one is the Shatnerian acting -- Shatner punching himself, fighting himself, talking to himself, screaming with mascara pouring down his face. Wow. It's hard to look away; say what you will about Shatner, but the man delivers when called upon to go full Shatner. His take on a man struggling to maintain control with his personality split literally into two persons is a joy to watch, buttressed by the really intelligent dialogue -- kudos to Spock's analysis in sickbay -- typical of classic Trek. Richard Matheson was one of the best Sci Fi/fantasy writers of the 20th century and it shows here. In "The Naked Time" and "Miri," we learn Kirk suppresses his attraction to Yeoman Rand, who in turn flirts with him (cf. "I tried to get you to look at my legs" from Miri) intentionally herself. But what's interesting about their mutual attraction is that we learn here in "The Enemy Within" that neither Rand nor Kirk actually wish for their personal relationship to go beyond flirting -- Rand rebuffs the dark half of Kirk and the reunited Kirk maintains his professionalism at the end of this show. Altogether, Rand is actually a character of great dignity in Trek from these early TOS episodes to The Motion Picture and The Undiscovered Country, despite being the subject of many unwanted advances. She and Kirk are adults who choose not to act on their mutual attraction for the sake of professionalism; there are no juvenile seduction games here beyond what occurs through the effects of space phenomenon. Honestly, she's not any worse (and sometimes even better) in this regard than Seven of Nine and Jolene Blalock on later Trek shows which often exploit their looks more egregiously through similar gimmicks. And I think many of the "sexism" accusations people level at TOS overlook how pioneering the show was on gender equality compared to everything else on TV in that era. Trek pushed the limits and it seems self-righteous and anachronistic for us to watch it today and cry sexism, overlooking the even more blatant sexism on some later Trek TV series. There have been times in my life that I failed to appreciate "The Enemy Within," but the more I see it, the more I tend to think it deserves it's place on many lists as top-tier Trek. It's a smart space allegory about what it takes to be psychologically whole and in command of one's own life. I would give it 3 1/2 or 4 stars.

This is it. This is why everyone watches Star Trek. We love to laugh at Kirk and make fun of him, and wanting to be him, and wonder what our own dark and light sides are. That's why the best of TNG is like reading a fine, dusty old book.

This incident was never mention in TNG's "Second Chances" ... they seemed to act like this was totally unprecendented. But VOY's "Faces" would seem to be an even closer nod to this story.

Haven't watched this one in a long time, but I still remember its profound message that we all have positive qualities and character defects and that both are necessary in making us who we are.

Just another fan

Whatever people want to say about Bill Shatner's acting, he does know how to hold the screen, right from his first appearance in this series. I did find the scenes with Yeoman Rand unnerving. What would you do if your boss basically attacked you in your bedroom? Even if you were attracted to him, you wouldn't want to be jumped like that. And her recounting of the story afterwards to Spock and Kirk was also troubling, with Kirk just saying over and over that it wasn't him. And she adds she wouldn't have told anyone that he attacked her! Considering the time period when this was written, it does seem to explain the mindset at the time and why we are just now hearing all these reports of women coming forward with incidents that happened 40 years ago. In this episode, no one believed Yeoman Rand until her male colleague confirmed her story. And this was supposed to be on the enlightened, forward-thinking starship. Afterwards, Spock dismisses her as though she had just fallen and scraped her knee. Sigh, some things never change.

Peter Swinkels

Nice episode. But no shuttles? How cold did it get down there? Can people survive that? Those creatures were quite obviously dogs in a costume. Did some one say one was a stuffed animal? :-)

David Pirtle

This is one of those episodes that I loved as a boy but has somewhat less appeal to me as a middle-aged viewer. Partly it has to do with Shatner's acting as Negative Kirk. The only scene where he really pulls it off is the final confrontation on the bridge, which almost makes up for the rest. The biggest problem of course is how they handle Rand's character, basically having her repeatedly apologize for being attacked and practically raped, starting with almost immediately after it happened, and culminating in one of the most stomach-churning moments in TOS history, when Spock actually implies that she secretly liked it. 30 years ago I probably would have given this full marks. Now, it still deserves 2 1/2 out of four on the strength of its concept and most of its execution. But I can't say I still think it's one of the best.

Did anyone else notice that the Enterprise symbol patch was missing from Kirk's shirt in the first couple of scenes (the evil Kirk as well)?

Didn't Spock have the same choice to make in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?"

This is the first time I have ever watched TOS in order from the beginning (and I only ever saw relatively few TOS episodes as a child 40 years ago). I have mainly watched TNG. The strong sexual undertone is really striking - more 'Mad Men' than TNG - as is the militarism. It seems to reflect (what I imagine to have been) the atmosphere of a US military unit in WW2 or Korea. These episodes tackle much more directly than I remembered the challenge of dealing with sexual attraction and sexual harassment in a mixed sex working environment. This was an emerging problem in the 1960s and of course remains one today. Kudos to the writers for putting the issues front and centre even we cringe today at some of the results.

Was this the episode where Kirk said, "Alas, my ship, whom I love like a woman, is ... disabled."?

must-watch on my trek screening party playlist (i’m captain kirk! books--argh! monitor--take that! oh sweet sweet shanter bringin it home). who says melodrama has no place in ST? Pfft. my ale-pong buddies disagree heartily. anyway. always felt that this episode kind of undermines its own essential claim a bit by leaning too heavily to one side of its ying/yang duality-of-the-soul argument. It posits quite clearly, and then reinforces/reiterates/actively demonstrates how poskirk cannot be a successful captain (human) without his ‘negative’ drives, but really fails to drive home the implied reverse with equal success. for all the profundity it seems to be after in posing its SERIOUS PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION, it never quite manages to sell the (arguably necessary) fact that wildman kirk could not really have run a starship with any more success in the long term than dithering-fence-sitter kirk. perhaps the implication would be enough if negkirk wasn’t ultimately such a cunning impostor for that end bit, but honestly i rather like that he is. it doesn’t have to destroy the exploration of human duality (though duality as a conception for understanding the human mind produces its own limitations) the episode sets up, but without him losing his cool BEFORE the jig is up via poskirk’s entrance on the bridge, it does somewhat. perhaps seeing negkirk’s ability to control his problem qualities gradually degrade in parallel to poskirk’s ability to command decisively might have balanced the scales here and made a stronger case for their eventual reintegration, the realization of their interdependence dawning on both sides independently if not simultaneously. another reading might interpret the personality division in the freudian sense of the unconscious. psychoanalysis’ heyday was 50/60s in the US; so regardless of validity there would have been recognition and a basic understanding of the id-ego-superego paradigm common to most viewers. i mean the obvious kirk-spock-mccoy dynamic alone makes it pretty plain that the freudian triad was a familiar framework for personality deconstruction (appraisal of the human mind and all that) to the original audience. poskirk functioning as superego (intelligence/higher reasoning/long-term planning) to negkirk’s id (bodily needs/animal passions & drives/instant gratification) fits rather better with the end of the story we are given--i.e. Poskirk’s taming of the beast within (who just wants to LIVE!) using reason, convincing him, soothing him, comforting him back into the stable, the gentle embrace on the transporter pad, etc. problem there is that as nicely as the ending aligns with freud’s unconscious, that is NOT what the episode sets up with its patently stated “positive/negative” dichotomy thesis. It asks us to view/decode kirk in specifically binary terms (spock: “appraise the human mind, in human terms, to examine the roles of good/evil in a man” [paraphrasing] etc), and from that stance, even the classic angel-vs-devil-on-the-shoulder personification of the id-ego-superego triangle becomes a stretch in the practical depiction of the conflict as it is presented to us. with kirk’s ego (unified self) totally absent and out of frame, his superego (poskirk) has to do double-duty and function as both in order to resolve the conflict while the id (negkirk) must also act outside the paradigm to get to the bridge in the first place--which to me ultimately creates the same sort of lopsided feel to the action as the failure to balance the intended binary split. still love seeing any trek that is trying this hard to do SOMETHING with itself other than tread water--no one can ever take away the fact that shatner was ALL IN with this before any other part of trek was yet steady on its feet.

typo--yin/yang #notthatignorant

A transporter accident causes Kirk to split into wimpy nice Kirk and decisive nasty Kirk. Some good stuff along with some silly stuff. Shatner really hams it up as nasty Kirk. That little sweet dog in the alien costume is very cute and funny, especially when he's being ferocious. Sulu in his thin little uniform, face exposed, saying it's 20, then 40, then 75, then 140 below isn't very believable. Why aren't they sending a shuttle down? The story is gripping and kept my attention. Spock and McCoy spoon feed us the notion that a man needs all parts of himself, even his animal instincts, to function as he's should. But that's ok. I like the way Spock compares Kirk's situation to his own half human, half Vulcan experience. Nimoy does a good job. I could do without the super-duper, extra-cringy Rand stuff, especially at the end when Spock seems to be almost teasing Rand about her near-rape - but it is what it is. I can't get through this rewatch if I can't put that stuff aside. A good one overall.

Great episode with only one minor nitpick,They shouldnt have shown the reason kirk behavior that early in the show,it would be interesting to string the viewers along as long as they can,thinking that kirk really had lost his mind.

Jim Seigler

Just rewatched this. Interesting how they called "evil Kirk" an imposter. He was a part of Kirk, not a fake version. I recall reading the novelization of all 1st season episodes, and in that, Spock actually noted that "evilKirk" is just as much Captain Kirk as "goodKirk", or that goodKirk was just as much imposter as evilKirk, point being, that neither goodKirk nor evilKirk were the real James Kirk; both had equal claims, and yet while separate, neither was the real artifact. Anyway, interesting the novelizations.

@Jim Seigler I agree completely! Your comment is basically the one I came to make: Neither one of them should be considered an "impostor."

Re-watched this episode (for the umpteenth time -- but 1st time in a long while) and thought the Spock/McCoy dynamic was atypical here as it related to how they assessed Kirk's situation. Normally it's Spock who comes across as more rational and obviously logical whereas McCoy comes across as emotional, impulsive. But it really appears to me that Spock's just talking out of his ass when he speculates that the alien dog was killed by the shock of being transported back together because it didn't have the mental strength to know what was happening, but that with Kirk's mental strength he'll be able to handle it. I think it should really be a transporter mechanical thing. [But this is Star Trek of course.] The part about his human half and Vulcan half being at war inside himself is flawed as they are biologically combined whereas the 2 Kirk's are going to get combined via a transporter. It is at best an analogy, though hardly practical. It really seemed to me here that Spock was wildly speculating -- as he would again do in "Requiem for Methuselah" when he conjectures what killed Rayna. Like how did he surmise that?? Meanwhile, Bones wants to do an autopsy on the alien dog and is suggesting that it's not about mental power or strength that may or may not keep Kirk alive, but that the transporter may just wind up killing him when trying to recombine the 2. That seems far more logical and rational to me - and even so from a sci-fi standpoint. Of course, Bones doesn't have time to do an autopsy because Sulu & co. are freezing their asses off and so they go with Spock's plan. But I think Spock's reasoning comes across as wild fancy here even though I don't think this episode was meant to be a reversal of the usual Spock-McCoy dynamic like "All Our Yesterdays" was. So this episode has its sloppy moments and requires a bit of suspension of disbelief, but it should be considered for how the Spock/McCoy dynamic isn't always Spock rational/logical and McCoy emotional.

@ Rahul, I'm gonna disagree with you about Spock and McCoy on this one. Unlike TNG and other shows where it often came down to the facile "science guy vs humanitarian argument" (or Worf's security vs diplomacy disagreements) McCoy usually takes the 'humanity' route via being the champion of human values and compassion. Spock, on the other hand, is a cold rationalist who does not especially value human nature as such (not yet, anyhow) and in fact views it as an impediment. So in this instance, when Kirk is facing a conflict that Spock knows all too well - having a dark human side in conflict with the rational self - this is his wheelhouse and he knows that the darkness of humanity is a problem. Bones on the other hand wouldn't be so ready to agree that humanity is inherently in conflict with itself; he is too much of an optimist for that. He would rather suggest that people may have things to be cured of, like depression or pain, but I doubt he would cynically state that beating the dark side is a lost cause. Spock, on the other hand, would be completely in character to speak harshly of that dark half, knowing it cannot ever really be defeated; otherwise he would presumably have defeated his own human dark half, given his advantages in intellect and reason over humans. For McCoy to take the "it's a transport problem" seems to me a way of avoiding having to confront the fact that his precious humanity is a flawed and irreparable organism, whereas Spock's zeroing in on humanity itself as the problem - which Kirk needs to overcome with reason - is not only in character but more or less his life's struggle. If I were to complain about something here it would be that this point was barely addressed in the episode since the writers wanted it to be about Kirk; but they did have a missed opportunity to give Spock and important moment and explore it a bit.

@ Peter G., I think you're missing a couple of things. The main one is that, I believe, *both* Spock and McCoy acknowledge the need for the "dark" or "evil" side of Kirk as it relates to making him the captain that he is. Without it, the "good" or "timid" Kirk is indecisive and weak and unable to take command, which Spock especially jumps on. Your comment doesn't seem to acknowledge that the dark half is given some merit by Spock/Bones. That Spock is always at war internally but mostly suppresses the human side is besides the point -- like I said, it is an analogy at best with questionable applicability given the type of combination Spock is and what Kirk has been separated into. The other thing is, I really don't think that McCoy is unprepared to accept humanity's weaknesses -- as a doctor he knows it all too well and I really do think that, from a scientific standpoint, he could well believe that the shock from the transporter recombining 2 beings could simply be fatal. I think it is a good counterpoint to Spock's line of reasoning here where Bones appears to be the more scientifically rigorous one for a change and Spock's arguments are more based on wild faith.

@ Rahul, I'll try to give it a watch tonight if I can to see what comes across to me most on screen.

I think Spock is really just saying only a humanoid brain is capable of sorting out right and wrong, rising above instinct and conflicting emotions instead of drowning in it. I don't think it really takes much of a leap to acknowledge that an animal's brain is less complex than a homosapiens'. I.e. Kirk could almost certainly handle the stress of this incident better than the dog.

SouthofNorth

Nimoy: Bill, the Transporter Special Effect has split your acting self Shatner: What do you mean? Shatner II: GIVE ME THE BRANDY!!!! Nimoy: There's the classical trained actor doing Shakespeare, Ibsen, and Chekhov. A well-reviewed supporting role in "Judgement at Nuremberg" ... Shatner II: THERE'S A CREATURE ON THE WING! WE'RE GOING TO CRASH!!! Nimoy: And then there's the diva, the scene-chewer, a man for whom no line can be under-acted... Shatner II: I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!!! Shatner: What do I do? Help me. Nimoy: We need another Transporter Special Effect to put you back together. The series needs both of you: the classically-trained actor and the over-acting diva. Shatner II: ARRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!! Shatner: What if we just got rid of him? Nimoy: Bill, you couldn't even land a job as a game show host.

The Enemy Within Star Trek season 1 episode 5 "The impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?” - Spock. 3 Stars (out of 4) Spock’s last line is shocking. As my namesake Mal might ask, “define interesting.” As Wash might respond, “Oh God, Oh God, we’re all going to die?” https://youtu.be/PBEUQSpRvSI I’m amazed at how clearly TOS was able - in just 5 episodes - to create a very clear arc for the series that actually takes us forward for decades. As I mentioned in my review of The Man Trap, Spock is emotionally stunted and leans heavily on logic. His failure to even react to news of the death of a crew mate in The Man Trap is an absolute shock to Uhura. It might have been logical. But shocking. On the opposite side, Kirk has to berate Bones in sickbay for being equally unmindful about the cause of death of that crewman - so caught up is Bones in his own infatuation with his ex-girlfriend. Both Spock’s lack of emotion, and Bones’ excessive emotion are liabilities. And Kirk relies on both of them to give him some balance. In my review of Where no One has Gone before, I point out that once again Kirk needs Spock to be a heartless bastard. That doesn’t mean that Kirk will follow Spock’s advice (he does not kill Gary Mitchell when Spock tells him to, only later when he has no choice). But it does mean that Kirk finds Spock’s perspective valuable in coming to his own independent conclusion. And now here with The Enemy Within, we have the natural progression of that Spock/logic versus Bones/feelings dichotomy, with an actual split in Kirk himself. Kirk’s two sides, passion and calculation, are split in two, and neither can do its job without the other. Kirk is a great captain, yes. But he is great because he can be sympathetic to Spock’s heartless logic and sympathetic to Bones’ emotional excesses. Kirk contains both sides. There is line from an old poem by Whitman: I am large. I contain multitudes. A Nobel laureate recently put similar thoughts to music: https://youtu.be/pgEP8teNXwY A key line: I fuss with my hair, and I fight blood feuds. I contain multitudes. @Linda asks about makeup. Well, the man fusses with his hair, and fights blood feuds. He contains multitudes. I completely respect @Richard’s reading of Whitney’s book. But I find myself with a very different take-away from her book than @Richard does. In those pages, Whitney is talking about the dark side and the light side, and bringing balance. She says, “This is also the the concept behind the ‘good side’ and the ‘dark side’ of The Force in Star Wars. The message of ‘The Enemy Within’ is that by managing our passions, character defects, and emotions with reason and logic, we can be whole and well-balanced as human beings. The flesh always wars against the spirit - and when the spiritual aspect of Kirk is stripped away, the raw pulsating flesh reigns supreme in the evil Kirk’s body.” That strikes me as completely accurate. Remember, even Star Wars was not about defeating the dark side. It was about bringing balance to The Force. Balance. That’s what makes this 5 episode arc so incredible. With The Man Trap, Bones was literally at the mercy of flesh. In Where no Man has Gone Before, in advising Kirk to kill Gary before it was absolutely necessary, Spock is at the mercy of logic. Kirk brings a great spiritual balance to these two sides of human nature. "Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most human.” Spock embodied both sides of humanity: logic and passion. Most of the time logic prevailed. Sometimes, like in the incredible scene in The Naked Time, he breaks down crying as passion bursts through. It is only Kirk that is well balanced as between Spock and Bones. That’s why Kirk sits in the Captain’s chair.

The lack of shuttles was because the production just didn’t have them yet, but the shuttle bay was there. This episode is Shatner shatting up to 11!

I got my girlfriend on a bit of a Star-Trek kick and she called me at midnight all but squealing in glee at the adorable space dog. She called me fifteen minutes later and scolded me for not telling her it ends up dead. She also pointed out that when the space dog is split into two space dogs, they are different breeds. Good eye.

The end with Spock and Rand is a real view into how men in Hollywood thought back then 1 - women shouldn't report or make anything public because it would be wrong to take down the man's career 2 - women likely are turned on by rape and attempted rape and its ok for their co workers and other managers to rib her about the assault From everything we have learned the last few years from women's stories, this is actually how Hollywood operated back by with women and the men in power treating them this way.

Much like Kirk himself, I am conflicted. The premise is interesting and I like how it was resolved, but what to make of everything in between? The other Kirk was corny and over-acted, and the last line (i.e. Spock's little joke to Rand) is so tone-deaf as to be inscrutable. Does the show not understand how to deal with women, or is it just an issue with Rand's character in particular? Thus far she hasn't served any real purpose except to be lusted over by out-of-control antagonists (first Charlie X and now Kirk himself, or a part of him). Uhura at least has a seat on the bridge and is good at her job.

Some of the issues here are much worse than what came later in Turnabout Intruder. Like the three male officers standing closely around Rand "what do you mean he assaulted you!!?!" And Spock's very strange comment to Rand at the end that's a very poor joke at best, but really comes across as him either hitting on her or getting some weird titillation out of discussing what the bad side of Kirk did.

In addition to the rape stuff already mentioned, there's another aspect that dates this episode: the hand wringing over Kirk relinquishing command. It would be better for everyone for Kirk to do just that until his predicament is resolved. But macho attitudes make this something terrible. It ends up being Kirk putting pride above the wellbeing of the ship.

It would be interesting to see this redone by a modern Trek. It's 100% believable that the evil Kirk half would attempt rape. I would like to see how this would be handled now. Probably they would never use a main character for this now, because the character would be so badly tarnished. The best part here for me is the "good" Kirk absolutely overwhelmed by the Spock and McCoy arguments. "Yeah, that sounds reasonable" over and over. As for Kirk not relinquishing command, possibly machismo, but also possibly he simply couldn't even make that decision by that point. This is an early episode, and thus an early installment of when can you retrieve the captain? Granted, this is a case so whacky Starfleet would never have thought of it. But split into two halves? Clearly he should be declared incompetent. But to be fair, the Good Kirk wasn't obviously impaired at first. But really, he has no more claim to the throne than Evil Kirk.

*relieve, not retrieve

Proud Capitalist Pig

We're all conditioned to hate the Wild Man in our modern 21st century society. We put him in a box, deny he exists, blame what he does on other people, but we'd be damned to admit we need him. And to me that's the central message of "The Enemy Within." The trick to the Wild Man--our unfettered passionate side--isn't to ignore him, but placate him with safe outlets because without him, we suffer as we aren't complete. The two Kirks here--let's call them "Wild-Kirk" and "Meek-Kirk" because "Good-Kirk" and "Evil-Kirk" belies the point that the show is trying to make--start to crash and burn without each other because we see that a leader can't function without a little reptilian hostility and alertness, and also see that the things missing in a perpetual psychopath, beyond any hope or help, are temperance and compassion--all this brilliantly spelled out by Spock. Meek-Kirk becomes an utterly ineffectual commander without any strength of will, and Wild-Kirk a raging, raping, dangerous threat to his crewmates. Spock essentially states that both the Meek and Wild sides are present in everyone--the danger is imbalance. I liked the personal stakes here. The build-up to the crew realizing what's happened to their Captain is brief but tense. There's a disturbing, heart-wrenching scene when Janice confronts Meek-Kirk when she believes it was he that assaulted her, and another crew member confirms it (I know I've made fun of Janice before, but this episode did have me feeling for her.) Janice was clearly traumatized, and Meek-Kirk's expression after she left the room was absolutely devastating. William Shatner really sold the captain's anguish--dismay that Janice was attacked, and horror that anyone could believe he'd be capable of such an act. The episode got repetitive and obvious after a while, but it's the best episode yet of this show. I cracked up when Wild-Kirk was beamed in the first time. That hammy expression of Shatner's, coupled with the ridiculous music, was 60's Gold. Best line: "You can't afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect." -- Spock to Meek-Kirk My Grade: B+

@Pig "We're all conditioned to hate the Wild Man in our modern 21st century society. We put him in a box, deny he exists, blame what he does on other people, but we'd be damned to admit we need him." 90% of American action movies are about the hero letting out what you call the "wild man". There is no stereotype in US action movie history that is more celebrated than this one. There is no theme in US culture that is more often prevalent then the fear and fascination of the "lure of the animal" to needlessly quote from seinfeld. Boxing, MMA, American Football, the glorification of the military. Saying that people are conditioned to hate the "wild man" is the very opposite of actual reality. There is no western country that values the enjoyment of violence higher than the USA. Arguably (and simplistically), the two strongest parts of our animalistic urges are sexuality and violence. In the USA the sexual side is far more frowned upon than the violent side while in Europe it is often the other way around. Not counting Russia, obviously. Considering that this is an adaptation of the "Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde" it is literally about good vs evil or if you want to go beyond moralistic interpretations the struggle of our civilized selves with our animalistic urges. Still the original tale is about Jekyll wanting to suppress his "evil" urges and the point of the story is that completely suppressing them into the subconscious just makes them more powerful not that they are equally important or 50/50. "all this brilliantly spelled out by Spock. Meek-Kirk becomes an utterly ineffectual commander without any strength of will, and Wild-Kirk a raging, raping, dangerous threat to his crewmates." In the Stephenson novel it is the violent part, not the sexual one, that is the more problematic part of Hyde (Jekyll is also not completely helpless.) It is interesting that they changed the most violent act from murder of a man in the original story to attempted rape of a woman and then let Spock say to the sexually assaulted Rand:"the impostor had some very interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, yeoman?" to which Grace Lee Whitney (The actor who played Rand) later wrote:"I can't imagine any more cruel and insensitive comment a man (or Vulcan) could make to a woman who has just been through a sexual assault!" Making the story effectively about two sides who have both their place misses the point of the original story. With a few disturbing gender issues and the thematic switcheroo of violence and sexuality thrown into the mix. It's a fun episode but mostly because Kirk is reaching new levels of hamminess. The themes itself are pretty much surface level, though.

@Proud Capitalist Pig Thought-provoking comments on what I think of as a prototypical TOS episode -- examining an aspect of humanity through the sci-fi lens. Probably a more instructive way of looking at a breakdown of a human being into wild/meek vs. good/evil. Shatner again gets to show his range of acting, and does so admirably -- another pillar of TOS. When you said: "We're all conditioned to hate the Wild Man in our modern 21st century society. We put him in a box, deny he exists, blame what he does on other people, but we'd be damned to admit we need him." I actually thought of the oil & gas sector and how we will need oil for years to come but the push for green energy + environmentalism etc. are effectively trying to shut it down any way they can. This can also, obviously, be overlayed as the need for capitalism to actually create jobs, economic growth, improve the standard of living etc. while socialists would try to dismantle/besmirch all the benefits by pointing to some of those left behind (as a facade for more nefarious objectives -- but that's a different subject). I agree with you as well that this is "60's Gold" -- clearly they don't make TV like this anymore (they don't make TV anymore like 90's Trek either -- but that's also a different subject). But "ridiculous music"?? Come on. I find Sol Kaplan's score here is terrific and bombastic as Jammer rightly says and it would be one of the most frequently employed soundtracks in TOS S1. These kinds of soundtracks are a huge advantage TOS had over any other Treks. It is what contributes to being 60's Gold for sure.

@Rahul You said, "This can also, obviously, be overlayed as the need for capitalism to actually create jobs, economic growth, improve the standard of living etc. while socialists would try to dismantle/besmirch all the benefits by pointing to some of those left behind (as a facade for more nefarious objectives -- but that's a different subject)." Hey, you and I would get along just fine! I originally wrote two more paragraphs in my comment, one of which directly mentioned what you just said. Then I read it over and decided it might not be pertinent/appropriate to start going off on huge political tangents in the commentary under a guy's Star Trek episode review, but what do I know, I'm a newcomer to this board. Thanks for your thoughts!

@Proud Capitalist Pig Welcome to the board! I think you'll find all kinds of tangents, whether political or otherwise, on various episodes and often it can be unrelated to Trek, strictly speaking. Stuff just happens -- I think it's mostly all good except for the occasional comments that aren't made in good faith. I don't think I've ever had doubts about posting anything. Some of the analogies from Trek to real-world situations that some folks come up with can be quite intriguing. Regarding my quote, I didn't think I was saying anything that most folks don't already realize once they think about things a little bit objectively. But you made me see another angle to this episode that I've seen umpteen times -- and I appreciate that! And that's why I like checking out this forum.

ProudSocialistUrangutan

Capitalism "creates jobs" in the same way feudalism creates jobs. It violently - often genocidally or via forced expulsion - forces people from common land, into market relations, and imposes artificial poverty and scarcity. And capitalism's "economic growth" has always been a red herring. All major studies show that rates of return on capital outpace growth, and have done so for centuries; ie a tiny minority of humanity - those with an artificial monopoly on credit, credit creation, or land - receive this growth. This is why 80 percent of humanity lives in poverty, why over 2 thirds of humanity lives on less than 10 dollars a day, why most of this 2 thirds live on less than 1 dollar 25, why four out of every five dollars of wealth generated in 2017 ended up in the pockets of the richest one percent while the poorest half of humanity got nothing, and why 82 percent of the wealth generated in 2018 went to the richest 1 percent of the global population. So this "growth" is captured by a minority, and most work is stolen, needless and utterly wasted, as it goes into paying artificially imposed interests embedded in every dollar in circulation and so hidden in every purchase or payment; a kind of covert, invisible rentier economy existing embedded within money itself, and below the surface rentier economy (for example the prices of everything we buy is inflated by about 45% - a kind of stealth tax on disposable income toward costs for capital - while about half of our taxes are lost to interest [we would pay 50% less tax were there no cost for capital], the end result being that roughly 50-75% of your average human's gross income is lost to interests caused by the banking sector's artificial monopolies on credit creation, banks being the original "alpha capitalists", whose chief commodity is the money we use to mediate all sub transactions). And as recent studies by economists like Tim Jackson, or papers (http://wer.worldeconomicsassociation.org/files/WEA-WER-4-Woodward.pdf) by the World Economic Review says, $111 of growth is required for every $1 reduction in poverty. On current trends, it would thus take over 200 years to ensure that everyone receives as little as $5 a day. By this point, average per capita income will have reached a rediculous $1million a year, and the economy will be 175 times bigger than it is today. This is itself undesirable if not impossible (environmental collapse is engendered by these escalating production and so heat rates- capitalism historically requires a 2.9 exponential increase in energy consumption - and so heat release - per annum). So the idea that this growth "improves the stands of living" is a lie. The system artificially creates poverty, requires 80 percent of humanity to be an underclass, requires impossible and ecocidal growth rates to maintain its debt ponzi, and keeps this global majority in poverty for centuries. The idea that capitalism can magically "create value" is itself a kind of anti scientific lie, as it rubs up against the limitations imposed by thermodynamic laws. The total order of a thing is always less than the energy needed to create it, and a commoditys creation always engenders greater chaos/entropy. The amount of money in circulation is itself always less than the debts owed within the system at any point in time (money is in a sense an avatar of energy and follows entropic laws- see ecological economists like Herman Daly). No amount of growth will escape this contradiction. Debts will always outpace growth. Profits at X will always create poverty/indebtedness at Y. And the difference will always be placed upon the poor, future generations, or the biosphere (indeed, UN reports show that no major sector is profitable once environmental externalities/costs are tabulated). Beyond all this, you have the various old contradictions of capitalism to content with. For example, as workers are inherently paid less than the aggregate worth of the goods they produce, the system will always tend toward unemployment, bankruptcy, and crises of overproduction and underconsumption. Like a game of musical chairs, this guarantees things like recessions, business cycles, structural unemployment, and an underclass existing, against their will. The Invisible Hands of the market will one day be regarded like we regard Thor, Zeus and the Abrahamic Gods; a shared delusion, anti-scientific, and a kowtowing to psychotics.

Ghoul Dukat

How it deals with the attempted Janice Rand Rape is so appalling it turns my stomach inside out. Without that this could have been one of the best TOS episodes, but the way it is it's one of the most shameful episodes in the franchise's history, right up there with Code of Honor. Zero stars.

@Ghoul Dukat I agree. The snide implication at the end by Spock that Rand found the bad-Kirk's behavior was somehow "interesting" smacks of "women really want to be raped." I'm not willing to give the writers a pass just because it was in the 1960s. I have had discussions on these boards before about similar issues with regard to some other episodes, and I have been disturbed when some commenters don't seem to "get it."

Why men often defend this. Here are a few explanations. - self selection. For men who for some reason want to control women in an illegal way, sex is often the most important part but these men also want to see themeselves as good people. Therefore what is wrong cannot actually be wrong. These men rather think:"I'm not a little rapey, no. I just give women what they want." So the need to paint their own desires as morally fine gives these men a strong incentive to participate in these debates. - self selection2: This topic is uncomfortable for many men. Rape is a crime almost always comitted by men and knowing that one is part of a group that does these horrible crimes lets the non rapey men shy away from these debates. - self selection3: men who have legally acceptable bdsm fantasies and are insecure or maybe ashamed and fear that their desires could be misrepresented, or have to reassure themeselves that everything is allright. Here it might be about the "I'm not a creep." Factor

Lotta femsplainin goin' on here ha. Please tell us more what men really feel.

OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

I most certainly ain't going to defend the atrocious way this episode deals with rape (which is made even worse by the real world background between Gene Roddenberry and Grace Whitney). That being said, Booming's "most men are creeps" speech isn't something I'd defend either. Should I write a 200-word rant full of psychobabble about why "women often" do this? Yech.

I don't think that was Booming's point. Irrespective of the accuracy of Booming's theories, the claim "Most rapists are men" is not the same as "most men are rapists," and points 2-3 are about reasons why many men who are not creeps may feel uncomfortable with the subject.

@ William B, Those two clauses were under the general heading "why men often defend this", not why they may feel uncomfortable about the subject. I think it's reasonable for anyone to be uncomfortable about the subject. But the reasoning that most rapists are men therefore men will feel especially put upon by the topic doesn't track if you use analogous reasoning in other domains. For example: most brutal dictators are men, and yet I've never noticed that men therefore have a hesitancy to discuss the subject. Likewise, most serial killers are men, and yet likewise men don't shy away, and in fact may be even more prone than women to be interested in the topic. I think at least one reason why men might be particularly uncomfortable with the topic is staring us right in the face, in Booming's heading: because they are implicitly (sometimes even directly) told they are complicit. So that is what makes it different from dictators and serial killers; no one implies that all men are responsible in some way for either of those. There are undoubtedly other reasons too, such as the simple fact that men don't have to worry about being raped in the same way women are, and as a result don't *have to* discuss the issue. So it's not something that can be boiled down to a short post. I will point out - although I don't know if it applies to this episode - that there are often compounding reasons for what in hindsight looks like a blatantly offensive line. I'd really have to watch this one again to verify my memory, but often when I hear talk about some older media portraying something that would now be seen as offensive, there is often a more complex context in play that is usually discarded in the monomaniacal urge to morally judge those who came before us. A good example is the oft-mentioned "sexist" skirt uniform for women on TOS. Arguments on this one have ranged from "it was sexist!" to "no it was empowering and feminist!" Now the line to Rand in this one is probably not going to have an analogous divide (no matter which way you dice it, it's not an empowering remark), but...well again I hesitate to suggest anything else without seeing it again.

@Peter, I guess my main point was that I don't actually think Booming was saying most men are creeps. I guess saying "why men often defend" the Rand thing might imply that. But I think it's obvious that the majority of men on the planet don't get involved in this episode (or care about it) so it seems to me that the meaning is more that men disproportionately defend the Rand thing over women, which itself may be untrue but is not that extreme a claim. Again I am not even commenting on whether Booming's theories are accurate, but I think it's worth being clear about what the arguments actually are. As to your other points, I agree that people respond to rape differently than serial killers and so it is worth speculating on why people react differently. I have some theories. You are perhaps correct that people maybe are made to feel complicit in rape for various reasons. As to the episode, I think the most galling thing is Spock's line where he says that Evil Kirk has some interesting attributes, and the accompanying implication that Spock thinks Rand wanted to be assaulted on some level. Evil Kirk being evil is part of the episode's sci fi element, and while the episode could have avoided it, it's not condoning Kirk's attack. I think the idea behind Spock's line *may* have been, in fact, partly to show that Spock is a jerk. If Spock regards human emotions like a bunch of lab rats', it might interest him more how Rand copes with her (definitely present, see Miri) attraction to Kirk when Kirk attacks her than how much pain she is experiencing, basically like Weyoun excited to watch how Worf and Ezri behave under confinement, a sociopathic disregard for humans as anything but animals to be prodded. This interpretation of Vulcan logic as near sociopathic is something the show flirts with (and you've mentioned as a possibility) but is not the direction they largely went with Spock, and doesn't even sit right with his other scenes in this very episode.

Iirc, I think the episode depicts Rand as basically terrified of Kirk, and scratches evil Kirk in self defense, but then still wanting to cover it up and lie for him to maintain his honour (or something). The thing is, I actually think it's kind of frighteningly realistic for how some people in subordinate positions behave, especially back in the 60s, and feel they should behave, when a trusted mentor mistreats (assaults) them. It's not that Rand likes it: she's clearly terrified. It might be that she feels it's her responsibility to protect Kirk from his own evil acts. Or maybe she believes that if she genuinely tried to bring Kirk's acts to light that he would retaliate, from a position of much greater power (destroy her career eg). It's chilling that this is how things would still be in the 23rd century, and further that the episode doesn't explore this further.

@ William B, I also had the thought that maybe the line was saying something about Spock, but that's one of the things I can't remember clearly enough to say. But right out of the gate I *can* say that I think one of the things perennially making the episode hard to discuss is the supposition that it's about an evil/good Kirk divide. Not to throw you under the bus since you may have just been typing quickly, but the episode does go out of its way to show that 'evil' Kirk is actually just the part of Kirk will all forward, aggressive, sexual, and highly energized components. His ability to command, make decisions, have sexual appeal and drives, and fight for Federation values, are all situated in thumos-Kirk, to use the Greek word for 'heat', or passion. The other Kirk, sophos-Kirk (wisdom Kirk) , has contemplative understanding, empathy, and other important moderating traits, but is utterly ineffectual. I mention all of this because to the extent that Rand may be attracted to Kirk, and to the extent that is may involve animal magnetism and the man-woman element (as opposed to admiration for his good judgement, we don't really know), much or even most of what she is after in Kirk is likely situated in thumos-Kirk. So it is at least conceivable that Spock is remarking on how the object of her desire was condensed into a super-charged package, and turned out to be way more than she was bargaining for. What exactly this would be trying to imply beyond "well you wanted the lusty Kirk and you got him in spades" I'm not sure.

To be honest, I'm uncertain where Booming's comment even comes from - I scanned through the comments and didn't note anyone specifically "defending" Spock's comment. So while I take issue with her comment (which is little more than an appeal to motive / ad hominem fallacy of argument), totally aside from anything, I don't even get why she brought it up in the context of *this thread*. Like Peter, I too would need to rewatch the episode to get a better sense of the context of Spock's comment. I certainly understand how it could be considered sexist and I am not saying it isn't BUT (at the risk of being considered a rape apologist by Booming et al.) I will only note that the subtext being read into the comment is implied, not stated overtly. In universe, Spock may simply be stating a fact, which isn't exactly out of character for him, since he repeatedly uses words like "interesting" and "fascinating" throughout the series to describe any number of situations ranging from bizarre to ghastly and nobody ever presumed this amounted to Spock endorsing or approving of what he was describing.

@Jason, Well, I replied to Omicron and not you because sure, maybe Booming's claims are off base, I just don't think that they were that most men are creeps. I am still on phone so I won't do a survey as to whether anyone was defending anything above in the thread. @Peter, I mean, yeah sure. I was typing quickly (and on my phone). What I mean is that the episode isn't condoning the animal Kirk's behaviour or saying people should sexually assault underlings. So here's how I read the tone of Spock's comment and the way Nimoy played it: it's goading Rand to admit that there was something she liked in the animal Kirk, specifically in the context of her being assaulted, and specifically that Spock wants her to admit she partly liked being assaulted. Breaking down why this is what Spock means in that scene as opposed to a more generic "isn't it fascinating that the transporter is a magic story engine" thing is pretty involved, but I think it reads really clear to me that this is the general intent of that moment and what was motivating Spock. Indeed we know that Rand wanted Kirk to notice her legs (from Miri). So Spock is correct that Rand desires some sexual attention from Kirk, but bringing this up in this way is wildly inappropriate to say to someone who has just been terrorized and had to scratch her attacker in order to escape, and who behaves as if she was terrified. Unless, of course, Spock has no interest in being nice or even respectful and is only interested in gaining more data, which I think might be the implication. The broader issue is that the episode is playing a dangerous game in playing with the idea that Rand wants Kirk to display some sexual interest in her, and tie this to his assault of her. It's not that complicated situations should be off limits, because there are lots of times where someone is assaulted by someone they are attracted to and feelings are complicated. But I don't think Rand's POV is given sufficient breathing space. It may in fact be that I am misreading Spock's line. You never know.

Disclaimer: I meant "many men who participate in these debates"I do not mean most men are creeps or rapists. I was reacting to Trish's question.

Ps: Trish's comment, not question. I havent read through the fallout, yet.

William that's a plausible read. You could also read it as something along the lines of "be careful what you wish for". This has shades of the Space Seed discussion. Maybe something along the lines of the idea of the barbaric / animalistic being more appealing than its reality.

Jason, sure. That's Peter's suggested possible read too. I guess the problem with that is that it would require Rand to not only signal her interest but be wishing hard enough to "learn a lesson" (???), if that makes sense. Which might be the intent but feels really weird to me.

pps: I also do not mean most or the majority of men who participate are creeps or rapists. Just a significant part which is linked to the comment Trish made. I only gave the explanations to point out that the "creeps"are basically a loud minority. To maybe lift her spirits a little. Thanks William :)

@ Jason R., Yeah, the Space Seed angle is potentially there but I wanted to withhold judgement until I watched it again. TOS S1 does seem to have a general trend of commenting on older version of manliness or masculinity, and portraying them in light of a future advanced society that can moderate between the good and the bad of what is otherwise an unchangeable human reality. Where No Man Has Gone Before looks at a disjunction between leadership and power, and an utterly powerful but indifferent man is a threat rather than a natural commander. Charlie X is all about (male) urges and how these must be tempered with civilization and rules. The Man Trap...well, need I say more? The Enemy Within is likewise an examination of the different parts of what makes a heroic type figure what he is, and it involves both good and bad things *if you take them apart in isolation*. But even the bad parts become necessary and even good when united in harmonious function. Miri also touches on the male/female thing and how puberty can mark the onset of harmful social realities (in this case, death, but that's a sci fi element). The Menagerie touches quite a lot upon what makes Captain Pike tick, and especially in regard to his relationship with women. Balance of Terror even takes apart the paradigm of the great commander and shows the chips in that suit of armor. The Squire of Gothos IMO also contains elements of an immature and over-powerful individual who is not contained by the civilizing element. And lastly comes Space Seed. So between these many episodes, it's not surprising to suppose that the writing team had an eye toward pointing out that what we admire in especially great people may actually involve elements drawn together - both dark and light - that are held together by a civilizing element, and that if you decompile them or take away the civilizing, you can end up with someone just as 'great' but deplorable rather than admirable. So it is certainly *consistent* that they would have Spock point that out here. Whether in fact that's what they had in mind...I don't know. But the rapey part may be hard to disentangle from the part where we do have to admit that much of what we find exciting in a great person may in fact be elements that - in isolation - are quite scary. Like, take a great athlete, which when contained within the rigid confines of a game, makes for an admirable human figure; but those same athletic qualities may have have also made for an excellent warrior, or killer, or even criminal, depending on what context the person is brought up in. The attribute may be 'hyper aggressive precision', which looks amazing when it's harnessed, but can be terrifying when unleashed in barbaric contexts.

@William "The claim 'Most rapists are men' is not the same as 'most men are rapists' " Exactly. And it is this difference which makes Booming's comment problematic. The idea that men "often" rationalize the trivialization of rape because "most rapists are men" is simply ridiculous. No, we do not "often" do that. As for defending Spock's comment at the end: The only possible in-universe "defense" is that the guy is an alien who (a) has the habit of saying the most insensitive things at worst possible time, and (b) comes from a world where "pon farr" and fights to the death are the norm of how to appropriately mate.

@Booming, you're welcome. @Omicron, I do understand why you read what Booming wrote that way, but I don't think that was the intent. Arguably Booming still exaggerates the extent to which men defend the Rand stuff in the episode, so I see the problem, but I think the point is that even if dudes defend the Rand stuff in the episode it doesn't mean they mean anything that harmful deep down in many cases.

@William "...but I think the point is that even if dudes defend the Rand stuff in the episode it doesn't mean they mean anything that harmful deep down in many cases." I agree. Does this fact do Booming's original comment any favors? I don't think so...

@Omicron, yes it does IMO because that was Booming's point, that points 2-3 were reasons non-creeps might defend the Rand stuff, in response to Trish, as Booming said in her most recent comment.

I don't want to watch entire TOS episodes again right now because I have a sort of agenda to try to get my wife to watch them with me and don't want to spoil it for myself, so I just watched the last two scenes hoping it would help clarify Spock's remark. I must say that line is so mired in strange circumstances it's hard to make head or tail of it, except to say that he does sort of look creepy when he says it. But here are a few thoughts: 1) Kirk continues to call his dark/spirited half as "the imposter" rather than explain to everyone what happened. Maybe to an extent this is a command necessity, since he simply cannot have people going around with the idea that every bad part of that Kirk is actually in him, walking around leading them. They would have to be pretty damn understanding to get over that. 2) Rand approaches Kirk, in a mini-scene so loaded with nuance that it's hard to precisely extract all of it clearly. She seems to be saying she doesn't blame him, while also saying she still admires him, while also saying she still sees him how she always did despite what that Kirk told her. He still means something to her, in other words. And his quick cutoff and acknowledgement seems to say a few things at once too, including he's happy to hear that, but also won't let her finish because he wants to keep some distance between them (maybe for her own good?), and also implying that he on the one hand enjoys her admiration but on the other hand cannot succumb to it and must place his duty and ship first. But he, too, seems to be saying that he is happy to put this affair behind them. The whole exchange is like 5 seconds, but a lot of said, and perhaps agreed upon. 3) Spock's line can't be taken out of context of the above factors: that she is in on what is now a secret, that the imposter was in fact really Kirk; that she just shared a heartfelt moment with Kirk, in whom is contained that Kirk who tried to rape her; and also that Spock has been an onlooker at this torrential display of emotion and chaos. I do think Rand's moment with Kirk carried with it a recognition (unless I'm forgetting the contents of an earlier scene) that the man who attacked her is in a manner of speaking standing before her right now, and that she understands what it means and accepts it knowing that it was always a part of him, whom she admired. And so for Spock to say the 'imposter' had interesting qualities can't be divorced from the fact that she does in fact still find Kirk appealing and therefore does still find those qualities attractive, even though in their naked form separated from the enlightened parts they were horrible. Or at least, I'm assuming Rand understands this; or perhaps that Spock assumes she understands this. So that leaves us asking what he actually meant, given all this context. Was this a dig at an emotional human who saw the ugly reality and still wants it (packaged appropriately inside a good man)? Or is he just poking fun at their little secret that 'the imposter' is standing right in front of them, sharing the joke with her as it were in perhaps gallows humor? And I will note that he smiled a bit when he said it, which in addition to being creepy, does seem to suggest there is some attempt at (probably ironic) humor involved. Or maybe he's just being a jerk. I don't really know which it is, the line is really vague in its implication. Obviously none of this can escape the broader context that she was just terrorized, even though the more immediate context has a bunch of other implications as mentioned above. Maybe the writers meant one thing, and Nimoy decided to play the line sardonically for some reason, muddying its intended meaning. It also occurs to me now that one thing which is being taken for granted by us may not have been taken for granted by them, which is the notion that a woman who was just sexually assaulted and attacked is now probably traumatized or in need a delicate care. I'm not making any statement of my own about it as I'm sure cases vary, but it's entirely possible they opted to portray Rand as being shaken but not traumatized, perhaps on account of her being a Starfleet officer who has a thicker skin than a damsel in distress might. As such, maybe Spock's comment was meant to rile her a little in the same way he and Bones rile each other all the time (sometimes in ways that cut deep). That same ribbing becomes brutal if instead you see her as a rape victim in need of careful treatment. But if she's not a rape victim, if you will, but just another officer who's been through an ordeal (and frankly not as grueling an ordeal as poor Sulu went through), then ending with a friendly taunt is actually in keeping with TOS' habit of trying to make light of a dark scenario with a little levity. This particular one strikes us harshly now because of our current sensibility about bad treatment of women. Anyhow, that's what I could come up with for now. It's not a defense, per se, but then again I don't feel like a piece of media needs defending in the same way a person accused would. To me it's more than it needs explaining; what was it trying to say, what came across, and obviously how does it hit us now. We can explore these things without defending it, or attacking it. If a new script was written with that same line NOW then it would require a defense, though. Or similarly if you decided to refilm that same scene now for some reason with the lines unchanged. Defending your choice would be required.

@William You mean you don't find reasons #2 and #3 that Booming listed as creepy? Because I do. Trivializing rape just because most rapists share your gender? Or because you are "insecure"? I'm sorry but these are terrible reasons. And this isn't the first time that Booming is using psychobabble to "explain" the opinions of other people, either. I'm reminded of the time she wrote that the people here attack communism because "owning things makes them feel important" (a statement which made even less sense in the original context it was made. Feel free to look that discussion up).

@Omicron, "You mean you don't find reasons #2 and #3 that Booming listed as creepy? Because I do. Trivializing rape just because most rapists share your gender? Or because you are "insecure"? I'm sorry but these are terrible reasons." OK, first off, as I say, I don't think that Booming was ever saying that the majority of men defend this episode. I think "often" is reading Trish as saying men often defend tropes like the Rand thing in this episode, and give some relatively anodyne reasons why. As I said, "...but I think the point is that even if dudes defend the Rand stuff in the episode it doesn't mean they mean anything that harmful deep down in many cases." You said you agree. So that is what I'm talking about. The "it" people are defending is not *rape* but *problematic writing surrounding rape*. It's several steps removed. I think Spock's line is garbage and I think the episode doesn't do a good job with it. So I think what Booming was talking about is not "trivializing rape" but "trivializing problematic writing surrounding rape" which is getting further and further removed. So no, if someone has some hangups about rape because rape is a gendered crime or because they don't know how deal with their BDSM leanings and that makes them disproportionately *defend bad storytelling around rape*, then I don't think that's creepy. It's a bad reason, but I think people bring baggage to how they talk about, and defend, storytelling and I would generally not call someone creepy for that reason. I still don't claim that I find Booming's theories convincing. These hypothetical guys (or creeps) might not exist. I get that you don't like Booming or her posts. Many people don't. I just think that her aim was different than the one you identified and was always very far from that "most men are creeps."

Some quick corrections to what I just wrote (having read it over), * "OK, first off" paragraph should be: I think "often defend this" is reading Trish as saying men often defend tropes like the Rand thing in this episode, as a lead-in to giving some relatively anodyne reasons why someone might defend problematic tropes. * "I think Spock's line is garbage and I think the episode doesn't do a good job with it." was meant to lead into "but I don't think it's trivializing rape to think otherwise." Hope this helps. I'll stop white knighting Booming, anyway. I guess I figured I should clarify my position since I started talking about it.

ok guys. This is an episode written by men at a time when rape and even more so sexual assault was rarely reported. 81% of women have been sexually assaulted or harrassed, 1in 5 is a victim of rape. So portraying a sexual assault and shortly after have a man walk up to that assault victim and say something like that is very disturbing. And the discussions some men have about this Trish finds equally disturbing. Me too.

"And the discussions some men have about this Trish finds equally disturbing. Me too." Are those "some men" on this thread? Were you disturbed by something someone here said? I know I haven't seen anything along the lines of what you and Trish have implied on this thread. No one here trivialized sex assault or implied that it's ok. No one is even seriously disagreeing with the sexist nature of some aspects of the episode. But okay. If we are going to play this game, maybe I'll have to keep a watchful eye on you to make sure that the German on this forum has nothing to say about Jews, Judaism, or the holocaust, lest I become "disturbed" by it. Shall we audit our old discussions?

I don't see how Booming is wrong. We know that most sexual harassment is by a minority, but that the majority has historically tolerated it because they're socialized into thinking such is all a normal part of masculinity ("It's just a joke", "Just guys being guys" etc). Similarly, most rape is by a minority, but the majority has historically tolerated it because they're socialized into thinking it's a normal part of masculinity. It was legal to rape your wife in England until 2003, for example, and in Mexico until just recently. These behaviors or laws propagate precisely for the reason Booming said; because most perpetrators are men, because men have historically denied female subjectivity, because men benefit from these actions, or because masculinity (and a woman's role) has been historically coded in a certain way. The laws which forced women into submission throughout the centuries, or the religious mores which sanctioned western sexism (rape is endemic in the Bible, women oft blamed for their own rapes etc), or even the laws which criminalized rape (in Medieval times the first rape laws deemed rape a "property crime"), all exist to uphold a very patriarchal view of the world, and historically got a pass - or rather were not even noticed, were deemed normal, or invisible - because, as Booming said, the people doing this stuff, and benefiting from them, were men. As for this episode, I always looked at it as a companion-piece to "Space Seed". It's about the allure of power, megalomania, and the inexplicable attractiveness of dominant alpha types, even outright tyrants. Khan and Evil Kirk are attractive to our weak-kneed female co-stars because they're bad space boys! I think both episodes handle this reasonably well. It's always clear Khan is a madman, and that Good Kirk's respect, compassion and kindness (toward Rand) is what really makes him a hot space stud. But as others have pointed out, that single line by Spock at the end of "Enemy Within", re-contextualizes and taints the entire episode. What should be an episode about the virtues of Good Kirk, becomes an episode about 1960s dames secretly liking to be slapped around. So to me, Spock single line has always made the whole episode sexist (the idea that every woman is ashamed to admit she wants to be dominated etc), and emblematic of a certain strand of 1950s-60s scifi (John Campbell, early Robert Silverberg). Though perhaps even that reading is wrong. The episode spends it's entire running time arguing that the intellect, morality and so on need to be balanced with aggression and barbarism. And so Spock's kine ("You liked that bastard didn't you yeoman!") may simply be pointing out the obvious. That yeoman Rand - and all women - are constitutionally messy. Also have desires, and lusts, and darker drives, and that's fine. Sexist Spock may actually be some kinda 3D-chess, next-level feminist.

Trent that's a dandy opinion you have. But like Booming you didn't bother to explain where or how anyone on this thread did any of those things. I am actually baffled because I still don't have a clue what set Booming off in this thread. Did a single person here imply that sex assault isn't a big deal?

@ Trent, "What should be an episode about the virtues of Good Kirk, becomes an episode about 1960s dames secretly liking to be slapped around." I don't see why it should have been about this, when the episode is literally saying the opposite of this. That's like watching The Best of Both Worlds and arguing that it made a mistake because it should have been about how a collective consciousness is better than messy individualism. That is simply counter to the premise of the show, rather than being a potential adjustment to it. The fact that you're certain 'evil Kirk' is in fact evil (i.e. bad) is the problem, and that's why any discussion about rape here will be mired in forced speech. Do we dislike rape? Well obviously. But invoke the R word and suddenly it becomes impossible to discuss any kind of nuance. One can both say that spirited-Kirk did terrible things while also saying that he had essential and valuable qualities. One can admire his desperate need to live and his passion, while also acknowledging that these things require another half to give them a noble purpose. Rand can admire the sexual energy and aggression in Kirk without us having to start adding disclaimers about whether she secretly enjoyed being assaulted. Personally I think that is just a counterproductive method of trying to figure out what the episode contains. And let's keep in mind, again, there is a massive difference between looking at media from 55 years ago and looking at something made today. Judging a piece of writing and acting using a completely contemporary standard and implying that its guilty of some transgression because it does not conform to a very recent set of guidelines is really misguided, I think. It's sufficient to say that we would not want to write a scene like that in a new TV show, but that at the time they may have been trying to say something that we would say another way now. If we have updated notions of care for trauma victims now, it doesn't mean we can look at an older format and say they shirked their responsibility.

@Jason "But okay. If we are going to play this game, maybe I'll have to keep a watchful eye on you to make sure that the German on this forum has nothing to say about Jews, Judaism, or the holocaust, lest I become "disturbed" by it." A better analogy would be to say "Germans" (plural), because Booming's comment isn't about one specific poster. It's just a nebulous statement about nebulous men who make nebulous statement. Can you imagine the uproar if somebody said the same thing - with a straight face - about Germans and the holocaust? "Germans often defend the holocaust because..."... Sorry, but I can't bring myself to finish the analogy. Even in full-sarcasm mode, I can't say it.

@Trent The irony is that I just wanted to reassure Trish that guys here are probably allright for the most part. I did not think that some would be triggered. The first reason I gave is a well documented fact. Rapists and men who have these tendencies justify their behavior by saying that the women wanted or deserved it. Now people compare a welldocumted behavior with Germans being pro Holocaust. I don't know why Trish did not participate but this whole episode highlights why women are hesitant to talk about this with men. 81% of women have experienced sexual assault or harassement, most of the time by partners, friends or colleagues. It is not fun or makes a guy desirable, quite the opposite. Rand should have punched Spock. The other two possible explanations were me trying to give the guys here an out. I never said that these are all the reasons or that the reasons are accurate. I also didn't feel the need to point out that I meant a specific subset because I thought that was obvious. This is pointless or worse.

OK Booming.

Jason said: "Trent...like Booming you didn't bother to explain where or how anyone on this thread did any of those things." Maybe you are on Jammer's comment list page. If you go to the review page of this episode, you can see the two comments Booming is responding to. A user called Trish (and one called Ghoul Dukat) were talking about their belief that this episode conveys the idea that women secretly liked to be dominated. Trish was wondering why such behavior is sanctioned or ignored by people. Peter said: "I don't see why it should have been about this, when the episode is literally saying the opposite of this." The episode is saying many things though, and on all kinds of different levels. On an intellectual level, we can parcel out a nuanced message. But on a visceral level,you ultimately have a minor, sidelined female yeoman, who's treated as eye-candy throughout the show, getting almost raped, and then being told by a snarky Spock that "some part of you liked it." This "message" - which Trish argues for - twists the message which you (and Spock?), and I assume the writer, are arguing for. You can argue that Spock is right, but the tropes and conventions this episode is utilizing, and the amount of time it dedicates to Rand, conveys a message of its own. Surely if you want to convey the message that some women do like getting slapped around, during a decade in which women unwillingly got slapped around, you don't do it in a way in which a commenter like Trish interprets it as an episode which (to whatever degree) endorses the idea that "dames" like being slapped around. You argue that TOS did what it could, and was subject to certain limitations imposed by the era and format. Sure, I agree, and I love this episode, but I still think Trish has a point. It's too bad she's not reading these comments, because it would be interesting to see if she ever reconsidered Spock's view. Incidentally, what year did Hitchcock make "Vertigo"? A decade before this episode? In my mind, "Vertigo's" my ideal "Rand gets almost raped by Kirk" story. Hitch gets that balance between empathy and creepy dominance, right.

"Maybe you are on Jammer's comment list page. If you go to the review page of this episode, you can see the two comments Booming is responding to. A user called Trish (and one called Ghoul Dukat) were talking about their belief that this episode conveys the idea that women secretly liked to be dominated. Trish was wondering why such behavior is sanctioned or ignored by people." Yes I read Booming and Trish's original messages - but I assumed Booming was addressing responses to the episode from men on the forum. That was what confused me because I didn't see anyone defending the episode as not being sexist.

@ Trent, "This "message" - which Trish argues for - twists the message which you (and Spock?), and I assume the writer, are arguing for." You need to read more closely. I'm not arguing for anything. Parsing out the content of a piece of media is an exercise in analysis, not judgement. And really this confusion is a general confusion, where the idea of judging the episode gets mixed up with the idea of interpreting it. "You can argue that Spock is right, but the tropes and conventions this episode is utilizing, and the amount of time it dedicates to Rand, conveys a message of its own." No one argued that Spock is "right". Hard to do that when we don't even know what he means. So when you use a word like "you" (as in, "you can argue") it implies someone is doing this, which is either intentionally misleading, or at best a miswording. "Surely if you want to convey the message that some women do like getting slapped around" Since no one took up this hypothetical position why are you addressing it? Certainly no one here said it, and I highly doubt the writers had such a thing in mind. "It's too bad she's not reading these comments, because it would be interesting to see if she ever reconsidered Spock's view." What does this mean?

Jason R said: "That was what confused me because I didn't see anyone defending the episode as not being sexist." I think Peter is defending it as not being sexist. I'd probably defend it the same way too, though I think Trish also has a point. I personally think TOS is too charming, dapper, retro and hilarious to get worked up over (doesn't McCoy slap a pregnant woman in an episode?), but it's fun intellectually pealing some of the episodes apart.

Peter said: "So when you use a word like "you" (as in, "you can argue") it implies someone is doing this, which is either intentionally misleading, or at best a miswording." I'm speaking hypothetically. ie - "You can argue" in the sense that "one might argue". Peter said: "No one argued that Spock is "right"." Depends what you mean by "argued". You offered a couple paragraphs which neatly encapsulates why he might be "right" and why Trish's reading might be wrong. Peter said: "Since no one took up this hypothetical position why are you addressing it?" Because you offered the idea that the Rand arc is about women being attracted to a man's wild, lawless, animal magnetism. You were arguing with William (several days ago I believe, though I only read this discussion today), that Spock's line might not be sexist - as Trish sees it - but rather the point of the episode. Peter said: "What does this mean? " I mean if Trish read William's discussion with you, she might have come to see this episode, and Spock's line, differently.

"I think Peter is defending it as not being sexist. I'd probably defend it the same way too, though I think Trish also has a point." Except he only did that after Trish and Booming already made their original comment so unless Q intervened the causality isn't there. But okay, fine, I mayyyyy have overreacted to Booming's original comment........

Jason said: "Except he only did that after Trish and Booming already made their original comment so unless Q intervened the causality isn't there." Oh, I missed the point you were making. My bad (skimmed your text too fast; trying to rewatch Voyager's "Warlord" and finding it too awful to focus on).

I am alienated by the attempts to rationalise any of this. First, "evil" Kirk tries to rape Janice Rand. Rand had a high opinion of Kirk, possibly a crush, but now he comes into her quarters and tries to rape her. She's severely traumatised. Next, she's in that "questioning" session, moving left and right in her chair in terror while the apparent perpetrator and two of his senior staff are standing around her. She's being traumatised again and it's painful to watch and all I'm asking for is that security or anyone else get her out of there. NOW. Then the episode doubles down again with the scene where reunited Kirk smiles at here in a benevolent "no need to apologise" way. And then it doubles down again with Spock's comment. All the while, the episode tells us that evil Kirk is a necessary part of Kirk, conveniently forgetting about how that means that rape Kirk is a necessary part of Kirk. Rand is apparently expected to accept that full Kirk isn't who tried to rape her, despite the episode sending the opposite message a few moments earlier. The Kirk who tried to rape her is half of the Kirk who's sitting in front of her now, and she's apparently supposed to forget about that. That Grace Lee Whitney was sexually assaulted by a Trek executive makes this even more painful to watch, but even without that it's disgraceful. Meanwhile, "evil" Kirk was shown compassion while Rand's terror was largely ignored. Seriously, how is this not Star Trek being f***ing awful, at least in this episode? What is there to excuse?

"conveniently forgetting about how that means that rape Kirk is a necessary part of Kirk. Rand is apparently expected to accept that full Kirk isn't who tried to rape her, despite the episode sending the opposite message a few moments earlier. The Kirk who tried to rape her is half of the Kirk who's sitting in front of her now, and she's apparently supposed to forget about that." The closest analog I can think of to this is a traumatic brain injury. As a result of such injuries, peoples' personalities change. Sometimes this can result in loss of inhibition and lead to sexual acting out, even assault where the person previously never would have behaved in that manner. Kirk's condition is not unlike a brain injury victim. Even if the setup was some exotic scifi concept, the outcome was the same: his personality was fundamentally changed. Can you accept the premise that most people, good or bad, have dark impulses, and the thing that separates good from bad, is whether they give in to them or not?

@ Trent: "Depends what you mean by "argued". You offered a couple paragraphs which neatly encapsulates why he might be "right" and why Trish's reading might be wrong." Mainly I was proposing a context, and manner of interpreting the scene, which is consistent with what we see. I wasn't 'arguing FOR it' in the sense of saying this is the view I think is correct. But yes, I was constructing a potential argument. I was really not addressing at all the proposition of whether or not the line is sexist. @ Ghoul Dukat, "First, "evil" Kirk tries to rape Janice Rand. Rand had a high opinion of Kirk, possibly a crush, but now he comes into her quarters and tries to rape her. She's severely traumatised." I would just like to point out that the idea that Rand is "severely traumatized" is an interpretation made by you, and not a fact. For instance, we don't have a doctor in the show actually saying she's been traumatized (whatever connotations that may involve). All we know is she's been through a bad situation, but what effect exactly that had on her is sort of an internal thing we don't have access to directly. if the episode doesn't delve into that (which perhaps you could view as a fault) then it remains a black box we can guess at but not know. I feel that your position rests almost entirely on the premise that she's a trauma victim being treated shabbily; but if she's *not* a trauma victim then I'm not sure what case remains on that front. What you've done (and I understand why) is to create a narrative in which, in seeing her as traumatized, there is a through-line of repeated wrongs done to her on account of this. But a different through-line could be read into it if you assume a different premise.

"Can you accept the premise that most people, good or bad, have dark impulses, and the thing that separates good from bad, is whether they give in to them or not?" That's about as much as accepting the Earth isn't flat. In "Violations", Picard has this speech about violence being a thing of the past, but I don't buy it. Unless humans have been replaced by androids, rape will still be a thing in 400 years. Rape is a common result of humanity's worst base instincts, and those base instincts won't go away unless we either replace ourselves with androids, or genetically alter ourselves significantly. It is our responsibility to contain those instincts. But in any way, first and foremost we have to care for the victims. And that is where The Enemy Within utterly fails.

"I would just like to point out that the idea that Rand is "severely traumatized" is an interpretation made by you, and not a fact." Oh, but you are very wrong about that. That is a fact.

@ Ghoul Dukat, "Oh, but you are very wrong about that. That is a fact." I will also point out that you seem to be very adamantly stating as 'fact' what *someone else* is going through and experienced. Putting aside for the moment that The Enemy Within is possibly showing a situation involving trauma from rape, it is noteworthy that there are significant steps being made (at least in America right now) to put personal narratives back into the voice of the person, rather than insisting on an armchair version being the canonized account. Sure, you might be right, but I'm saying you also might not be. Since it's a fictional piece we can't ask Rand ourselves, and so we are stuck with what it shows us. Your notion that it definitely shows a trauma victim is a highly contemporary and idiosyncratic way of seeing bad events. I'm not saying it's wrong, but rather that it's a narrative, one that you are channeling through your own experience. I don't see how you can claim it's any more than your account of what you see, and rises to some kind of objective fact.

Rand flailing around in terror is not evidence enough? The attempted rape would traumatise most people, and the episode doesn't give any incentive to think it wasn't. If Rand was assaulted by Kirk, the episode would have some extreme explaining to do for how that wasn't traumatic, but... it didn't. It didn't even try.

Oh, I'm totally in agreement that Rand may have been traumatized. I'm just saying we can't take it for granted. People of both sexes in TOS go through all sorts of insane stuff without us asking whether they were in need of special care as per our current understandings of trauma victims. Nurse Chapel had to deal with shocking stuff in What Are Little Girls Made Of, Uhura in Plato's Stepchildren (along with the men), and so on. Are these all cases of episodes with trauma victims, or of Starfleet officers having to deal with significant adversity? And maybe people in the military who go through really tough experiences should be understood to require counseling as a matter of course. It's a bigger and more complex issue (as is human psychology) than just reducing it to a binary with a one-size fits all answer.

Starfleet people have gone through all sorts of crap, yes. But rarely have they gone through the same agony that Janice Rand did. When Janice Rand is subjected to her "treatment", in utter terror while her apparent rapist is standing in front of her, flanked by his senior officials, would it be so much to ask that she'd be taken out of that situation? I'm just asking for Rand to be safe, to be rescued from that situation. How difficult is it to save her from that situation?

"It is our responsibility to contain those instincts. But in any way, first and foremost we have to care for the victims. And that is where The Enemy Within utterly fails." Oh ok. So I guess I misunderstood where you were going with this. Not much disagreement between us then.

@ Ghoul Dukat, "Starfleet people have gone through all sorts of crap, yes. But rarely have they gone through the same agony that Janice Rand did." I really don't know where you get this from. Generally I have no problem with the idea that people who've gone through something terrible need that to be addressed rather than dismissed. I just don't know why you're singling out Rand in particular as the pinnacle of victims in TOS. To be frank, it being the show it is, I consider many of the events of the series to be seriously more traumatic and horrifying than to merely be attacked by a crazed dude, even if he does look like someone you admire. I don't even want to go through a list, but it seems pretty obvious to me that this is not even near the top of the list of horrors people on TOS go through. It seems...suspect to me to single out the young woman as being the obvious candidate to treat as a frail victim. Maybe she is, maybe she isn't. The reason we assume disproportionate consideration is needed IRL for women is because they are (a) physically weaker than men, and (b) have existed in structures in which they're disadvantaged. That is on Earth. But in TOS there are plentiful examples of human males who are in situations where they're physically extremely weaker than their adversaries, and are severely disadvantaged in their current environment. From that standpoint I don't see why Rand should require special victim treatment from The Enemy Within any more than Kirk should receive it for what he went through in any number of episodes where he was attacked or even tortured by stronger beings than him. In those cases Kirk was the weaker party, as woman on Earth are often considered to be. So what's the difference then, warranting a special focus on the women being treated as particularly frail by default? Maybe she is, maybe not.

I believe we agree on that. Rape isn't going to go away because as horrible as it sounds, that's one part of human nature. We need to contain it, and we've found ways to contain it, but it's not going to go away without replacing humans by androids. It is our responsibility to keep that crap in check, but if we allow humanity to continue, its dark side will continue as well. Just saying that we should do better about it than this episode did.

@Peter G. Most of the s**t TOS guys get through is from the outside. Rand was assaulted by Kirk. Most of the assaults on the staff is weird alien stuff. That doesn't necessarily represent real-world assault. Kirk's attempted rape of Janice Rand is a very real-world thing. Why did that need to happen, and why is Rand supposed to put up with comments like that from Spock?

Just read the thread. @Ghoul Dukat ... I agree that Janice was traumatized by the Kirk beast and that the episode tries to smooth over a painful event with several closing lines intended to make everyone whole. It was a pretty thin coat of cheap spackle if you ask me. Wouldn't pass muster today.

I haven't read all the comments by any means, but the ones I did read didn't address my biggest problem with this episode: the idea that without "aggression" a person (man, at that time) could not be commanding or effective. This has to have been a core belief of Roddenberry's, as it was repeated almost exactly in "Tapestry" in TNG later. As for all the people complaining about the way Rand's assault was handled, be grateful you live half a century on from the time that was filmed. It was VERY accurate for the times. And you can thank women of my generation for that. You're welcome.

Michael Miller

The lack of shuttlecrafts is the main stupidiy of this episode. Warp Engines, Phasers, Force Fields, Starship with 400 people on boars but no shuttlecraft? I was just itching for Kirk to scold spock "You completely forgot about sending a shuttlecraft you dumb Vulcan! And you lecture me about logic and alternatives and exploring all options?" Hell even without shuttlecraft couldn't they just land the whole ship on the planet and get them? Also, those people on the planet would have died. Even at 0 degrees F, you would get severe hypothermia in 10 minutes with those thin uniforms, and die within a half hour. Yet they seem to be surviving and functional for hours wrapping themselves in cheap blankets as the temp drops to -20, -40, -75, and finally -117! Come on, that's just absurd. It's one thing when they can't keep their Sci-fi consistent but they can't even get regular science right!

I havent seen this episode in a long time so my memory may be faulty but when I first saw it, i had a different take on the infamous Spock last line when I saw it. My reaction was almost "right on, Spock! You go Vulcan!" Perhaps I followed wrongly, but what I recall was thinking all these discussants at the end including Kirk were dialoging rhapsodically about the intriuguing ,necessary, and interesting, downright "cool" aspects of th attemped rapist IN FRONT OF his attack victim. Spock injected cold watersober reality with what I took as a sarcastic put down of the others' moral and conversational myopia while nodding to the real victim "Sure , that rapist was real interesting" he seemed to be saying in a clumsy Vulcan way. Perhaps if I rewatched I'd see the lewdness in delivery and context. BUt i saw it the first time in the 70s as an adolescent something like a conversation among ex-Confederates about the high class elite aspects in aristocratic plantation life in front of a former slave and one sensitive personin the conversation comments directly to the ex-slave " Yes, planation life sure was classy, didnt you notice Mr. Freeman?" A clumsy attempt to shut down the others' talking. In part Iam inclined to interpret that way because R. Matheson (if he wrote the actual line) generally wrote sensitively to human suffering.

Projekt Kobra

I'm Captain Kirk!!!!!!! YAM CAP-TAIN KIIIIIIIIIIRK!!!!!!!!!!! Great episode where the use of shuttle craft, or transportation of jackets or firewood would have made things easier for all involved. And we KNOW they can make firewood, cuz "We can manufacture a TON of these (jewels) on our ship for you, Korab... they mean nothing to us!" And another thing! Even after Scotty tells them that the Space Dog was replicated into two good and evil versions in the transporter, it still takes them like 30 minutes to figure out that there's a, "Captain Kirk" going around violently demanding brandy and raping yeomen! "How can this BE!? It MUST be an, ‘intruder’.” IDIOTS!!!! Then LATER!!!! Spock pinches out Evil Kirk in the engine room, and Evil Kirk reflexively fires his phaser into some equipment. Then like 20 minutes after that, Scotty calls in, "Oh, Captain, we found some 'new trouble' with the transporter.....there's a huge hole torn out of the 'ionizer casing' ....Kinda like as if maybe someone possibly fired a phaser or something into it!?” "OH!! YA DONT SAY!!!???? I CAN NOT imagine how THAT happened." Thanks for the big heads up there, Skip! What a show!

These comment threads never cease to impress me. The internet is usually such a horrid place, it’s refreshing to see people discussing things on such intellectual terms. Particularly the above exchange about poor yeoman Rand and her near rape. This is a tough topic in which to maintain a civil tone. But the folks here seem to be all smart n stuff, bravo! The scene where rand is being questioned about her attack is deeply uncomfortable, as many commenters above pointed out. In the context of the show, rand’s trauma(yes, she’s traumatized) is handled very clumsily, even dismissively, particularly when you take Spock’s final snarky(sarcastic?) line into account. However, I’d offer another possible point of view on the episode in this regard by suggesting the possibility that that was the point. That showing her discomfort, showing her fear, showing her being essentially ganged up on, was a subtle, even subversive statement on the way society at the time treated sexual assault victims. After all the show goes a long way to depict her being attacked and how unpleasant that is for her, it’s one of the central incidents of the episode. In that sense it might be worth considering a broader view of this particular episode’s legacy. We can look back on it and call it sexist or deeply insensitive(both fair assessments I think), and reflect on how we’ve evolved as a society and culture, and call out how garish and horrible this episode treats the topic of sexual violence, but it’s also possible that we’ve evolved a bit on this topic precisely *because* of this show’s depiction of that situation. Perhaps the mishandling of rand’s trauma was intentional, meant to show contemporary 60s society what was wrong with its current mind set, even if on a subliminal level. Perhaps the episode was meant to be more of a mirror than a thesis statement. We are, ultimately all these decades later, digging into the show’s subtext in that very regard. Just a thought. It’s also totally possible that the writers were just trying to foreshadow some romantic arc between Rand and Kirk, and they chose the most tone deaf way imaginable to do so. I guess it depends on how smart you think these people were. Anyway, the episode overall is pretty good. The exploration of the duality of human nature, some first rate school-of-Shatner ACTING, sulu gets a few good lines while freezing his butt off, overall a good time.

@Idh2023: Like many others have said, this episode has too many holes and flaws, but when I rewatch it, it never fails to impress me. Even in the 1960s, the psychological concept behind it – that a person’s character is shaped by opposite or complementary traits – wasn’t new or original, so I think what really makes it work here is the intensity of Shatner’s performance and the magnificent score. While I totally agree that the treatment of Yeoman Rand is off target, to put it mildly, one thing I really appreciate here is the importance given to compassion in leadership. In “Where No Man Has Gone Before”, Mitchell warns Kirk that “command and compassion are a fool’s mixture” – in “The Enemy Within”, the trait of compassion not only advances the plot, it also leads to a positive outcome. It’s Kirk’s compassion with the freezing men on the planet’s surface which snaps him out of his paralysis, and it’s the comfort he gives that convinces his evil counterpart to trust him and agree to go through the transporter together. Throughout the series, compassion remains a distinctive trait of Kirk’s character, an unusual thing for a male hero and leader figure. However, I do wish the episode had ended in the transporter room with Kirk saying: “I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see.” That would have been appropriate.

Hah, I'm surprised Jammer and most commenters like this one so much. This Jekyll and Hyde in space is my least favorite of the first 5 eps of TOS. It's not because of how crass the attempted rape is handled (I'm an impartial observer, sure I'm disturbed by Spock's line at the end but one cannot expect current sensibilities to be retroactively respected, all in all I'm really glad there has been a lot of progress since then and I'm sure ST played its part, at least in fiction and entertainment). No, it's my least favorite because of the pacing. I felt they did a really good job establishing good and evil Kirk early on with what Yeoman has to go through but the writers felt they needed to keep adding scene after scene covering the same ground. Shatner going overboard with it didn't do much for me, either. My favorite part is the dialogue between Spock and McCoy. Their discussion turn antagonist a tad too fast, if only they had cut some of good Kirk moping around to give more time for those two to reach their conflict more smoothly it would be perfect.

I recall watching The Enemy Within circa 1990 and being stunned by Spock's comment to Rand at the end. How had I not noticed that before? I'm still not sure if I had matured subsequent to my prior viewing of this episode, or if that line had been edited out of prior syndicated versions. Even if it reflects a 1960s mentality, it remains arguably the most insensitive dialogue in all of Trek, especially given Nimoy's delivery of the line. Apparently, the shuttlecraft had not yet been invented otherwise it could rescue the landing party. Even as a kid I wondered why the Enterprise did not beam down blankets. Two blankets would arrive, all the better. This plot hole could have been plugged by instead saying that articles beamed down arrived in a partially-materialized state. Blankets that arrived looking like fishnets, for example, or better yet, scattered atoms, would not have helped Sulu. This contains the first example of McCoy saying "He's dead, Jim." It's also the first example of Shatner's acting going over the top. Spock's emotional breakdown drags on too long, IMO, as does the rec room scene with Joe Tormolen, as does Riley's singing. These shortcomings might be ones TNG hoped to correct when it revisited the subject so early in its run. 3 of 4 itchy noses

Alwaysgreat when Shatner out-Shatners Shatner

However the ethical question how they handled the attempted rape- they killed THE DOG! the dog NEVER dies!

I really enjoyed this episode. I really didn't see it as a "good" kirk or an "evil" kirk, but more as yin and yang or positive and negative sides which are complimentary to one another, and thus necessary for each other for survival.

Submit a comment

Star Trek (TV Series)

The enemy within (1966).

User Reviews
Was written by Richard Matheson, who wrote the novel I Am Legend, and six others that would be adapted into films. He also wrote the short story that became Steven Spielberg's Duel (which he himself adapted).
Was directed by Leo Penn, father of actor Sean Penn.
The crew are stranded on the planet because the transporter is malfunctioning. That they don't simply send down a shuttlecraft tells me that they hadn't yet created one for the series (this was the fifth episode).

Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews

User Ratings
External Reviews
Metacritic Reviews
Full Cast and Crew
Release Dates
Official Sites
Company Credits
Filming & Production
Technical Specs
Plot Summary
Plot Keywords
Parents Guide

Did You Know?

Crazy Credits
Alternate Versions
Connections
Soundtracks

Photo & Video

Photo Gallery
Trailers and Videos

Image Unavailable

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 5: The Enemy Within [VHS]

Sorry, this item is not available in
Image not available
To view this video download Flash Player

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 5: The Enemy Within [VHS]

Editorial reviews.

Written by renowned novelist-screenwriter Richard Matheson ( The Incredible Shrinking Man ), the outstanding episode "The Enemy Within" proposes a transporter malfunction that results in Captain Kirk being divided into two versions of himself, one aggressive and brutal, the other sensitive and good. Essentially, the personality mix that makes Kirk an effective leader and balanced man is scattered like so many marbles, and the result is one captain running around mauling women and wreaking havoc while the other is frightened and indecisive. The production is very effectively done, and William Shatner's performance is among his most interesting. --Tom Keogh

Product details

Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No
Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches; 6.13 ounces
Release date ‏ : ‎ April 15, 1994
Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2007
Actors ‏ : ‎ Star Trek Original Series
Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount
ASIN ‏ : ‎ 6300213099

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Amazon Newsletter
About Amazon
Accessibility
Sustainability
Press Center
Investor Relations
Amazon Devices
Amazon Science
Sell on Amazon
Sell apps on Amazon
Supply to Amazon
Protect & Build Your Brand
Become an Affiliate
Become a Delivery Driver
Start a Package Delivery Business
Advertise Your Products
Self-Publish with Us
Become an Amazon Hub Partner
› See More Ways to Make Money
Amazon Visa
Amazon Store Card
Amazon Secured Card
Amazon Business Card
Shop with Points
Credit Card Marketplace
Reload Your Balance
Amazon Currency Converter
Your Account
Your Orders
Shipping Rates & Policies
Amazon Prime
Returns & Replacements
Manage Your Content and Devices
Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
Conditions of Use
Privacy Notice
Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
Your Ads Privacy Choices

More to Explore
Series & Movies

Published Apr 27, 2015

THE ENEMY WITHIN: What's Hiding in Plain Sight?

What's the most dangerous place in the galaxy? Is it Talos IV? Vagra II? Rura Penthe? Maybe. They're certainly all strong candidates, but I'd bet at least a bar of gold-pressed latinum that nobody would've guessed popular Starfleet shore leave destination Ogus II — more specifically, the forest behind one of its arcades. That's where the less careful among us might one day be out for a walk, feel a rumble in our stomach, and reach for a tasty-looking cove palm fruit, which happen to be infested with parasites so virulently nasty that a Galaxy-class sickbay quarantine force field just doesn't cut it; you have to be isolated inside a glass box and hope someone gets you to a starbase medical facility before you keel over. This is a lesson that Willie Potts learned, though thankfully not at the cost of his life, in the S tar Trek: The Next Generation episode " Brothers ."

Get Updates By Email

July 13, 2024 | World Of Warships Launches ‘Star Trek: The Next Generation’ Collaboration – Watch Launch Video
July 12, 2024 | Podcast: All Access Dons Their Visors To Look At The Next Five ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Episodes
July 11, 2024 | Comic-Con Update: ‘Prodigy’ Screening With Kate Mulgrew And IDW Star Trek Comics Panel Announced
July 11, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Finds A New Perspective In “Is There In Beauty No Truth?” [Episode 208]
July 10, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Prodigy’ Goes To The Races In “The Fast And The Curious” [Episode 207]

“Enemy Within” Screenshots

| January 30, 2008 | By: Matt Wright 133 comments so far

Really not much for CBS-D to do with this episode, just lots of orbit shots. We get the good Kirk/bad Kirk, an attempted rape of Yeoman Rand, and a funny little alien dog in a Mugatu costume.

Screenshots

Remastered & Original

I was very disappointed they didn’t take the multi-directional rotating phaser blast and make it a single, wide-angle beam.

After that hard work they put into “Wink of an Eye,” I would have thought something like this would have been relatively easy.

#1 — I was expecting it too

Man, they didn’t even use angles that were as interesting as the original in a couple of shots. Have they given up?

Did they fix the goof where Kirk’s insignia swaps sides and is even missing in some of the shots?

I used to have this episode on VHS and it was one of the things the commented on in the trivia on the box case.

oh boy matt…you are the man thanks for getting this done

Also on interesting plot note, they didn’t use the shuttle to rescue the landing party when the transporter is broken.

Perhaps the writers hadn’t invented the shuttle craft at that early point in the series…

I think that would’ve been far too demanding. The insignia is missing and shots are flipped back and forth for the whole teaser.

I do wish they could have somehow smoothed the jumpcuts from good Kirk leaving the screen/bad Kirk coming in. That may not even be possible.

I don’t think they’ve given up … I think they have bigger fish to fry (ie, “Ultimate Computer” in two weeks).

Man, I do miss the previews and sneak-peek images we used to get.

Okay, so something I never understood about this episode. I understand that the real world reason for not using a shuttlecraft was because they didn’t have one. Presumably that means that the writers had only intended on the transporter to be the way on and off of the ship. However, the model used for the Enterprise has always had the big shuttle bay doors in the back. Were those intended to be something else?

I suppose this episode is just full of holes. Scientifically creating another Kirk through the transporter would require a great deal of energy. Splitting someone into good and evil… well that just really makes no sense.

I knew that wouldn’t take long.

They hadn’t really developed the shuttle yet because of expenses. THey only got the shuttle built for “Galileo Seven” because modelmaker AMT paid for it as part of their deal to get licensing rights for “Star Trek” ships.

Also, one would think they could beam down simple things to keep the crew warm: blankets, sheets of metal for a shelter, matches. If the transporter duplicated those things, no biggie – they could use the extra.

(OK; I’m done for tonight.)

I’M CAPTAIN KIRK!!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRQvfMX38q8

#8- I suppose if they were not Shuttle Bay Doors at that time, they could have been concieved as simple Cargo Bay Doors for loading supplies at starbases

7# Yes probably very difficult ,although, when Star Wars V was redone in 2004 (for the 2nd round of edits?) the exact same sort of mirrored insignia shot problem, was fixed.

Maybe the transporter had more problems than they realised, mirroring people as well!!

#6 The shuttles were on order and wouldn’t arrive until next Tuesday?

That’s always bugged me too.

Peace. Live long and prosper. The Vulcanista }:-|

Thanks Daniel B. #10: That clip was was excellent and so timely. :-)

Couldn’t the tell that the evil Kirk liked to use eyeliner as well a blemish hider?

BTW, Spock’s comment to Yeoman Rand at the end of the episode was very un-Vulcan-like, always bothered me. I realize this is an early episode. But in the military a superior officer would never make such a joke to a subordinate who was nearly raped

Lot’s of things in this episode that are interesting/disturbing. Like when Spock says he knows what it’s like dealing with 2 personalities – his human half, and his “alien” half. He always refers to himself as a vulcan/human mix, but in this episode the Vulcan half is an “alien” part of him. And how about a smirking Spock at the end implying to Rand that “the imposter had some “unique” qualities wouldn’t you say”. Interesting? Like attempted rape? It shows the dated thinking of the time. It was almost like Spock was implying that she was asking for it. Watching that now makes me cringe – very un Star Trek like dialog. Just goes to show how it has evolved, and that the notion of “canon” is absurd.

This episode took place during the Shuttlecraft Maintenance Technicians Union Local #3445 strike of 2266 and the other crew refused to cross the picket lines….

Even if one disregards the whole shuttle issue, which I can’t believe I didn’t think about until today, they still managed to fix the transporter and reintegrate the Mutt-gato. Wouldn’t that imply, despite the animal’s death, that heaters, shelters, rice wine, etc, could now be sent down? They seem convinced shock killed the beastie. All that other junk should work. Why risk the commanding officer? Perhaps because at that point, Sulu and the others were too incapacitated by the cold to set up the equipment. Plus, it’s more dramatic! Nevermind, I answered my own question.

REMEMBER, TOO…

…a lot of these early episodes were produced BEFORE the women’s lib movement really took off in, when, 1970-71?

So yeah, the Spock comment is INCREDIBLY skeevy.

It’s to bad they coudn’t just edit out the Spock line to Rand at the end. Seriously… its just not something the Spock we know would say, and it isn’t funny either. Not to white wash the past, buyt would anyone miss that line if it was gone?

Was Chekov in the show yet? If it was, why wasn’t he the one suffering on the planet?

I presume with all the crazy movie news going on, Tony and the staff haven’t had the same kind of time and energy to devote to TOS-R. And, you have to admit, we comment threaders were *really* hard on some of those reviewers. I certainly was.

I love this episode. Watching it last night, I decided that, of all the original Star Trek, this would be my ideal episode to introduce someone to the series–perhaps even the franchise. It has all the essential character elements, has a freakish sci-fi premise that allows the audience to explore the human condition, and does so while avoiding technobabble. It’s really a beautiful synthesis of some common Trek tropes with great drama and writing to produce a wonderfully representative episode.

Also, it features Bill Shatner wildly overacting, as #10 reminds us.

Also: yes, “The Enemy Within” was written and filmed before the development of the shuttlecraft, which be neither conceived nor constructed until “The Galileo Seven.” Hence, the idea doesn’t occur to a single member of the crew.

we should have more tosr coverage coming up in the next week.

I think maybe it’s a bit of a PC knee-jerk reaction with Spock’s comment to Rand. I’ve always read it as him hinting that he knows she has the hots for Kirk, in a knowing way, and she’d now seen that passions indeed lurk within Kirk, normally suppressed by his professionalism. The writers weren’t condoning rape, as demonstrated by the scene depicting her distress after the attack.

I always thought “early” Spock had a similar creepy moment in “Shore Leave” when he gets ready to go back to the ship. The whole “touch under the chin” he and the caretaker do with the women always struck me as a little demeaning. Fairly innocent when compared to something like James Bond dismissing Dink the masseuse with a swat on the rear end at the start of “Goldfinger”. Boy did this show evolve quickly.

I was expecting a lot more from this episode. When I got the box set, I was really excited, however there was nothing fancy. In the original we were pretty much looking at Delta Vega with another name. Someone said earlier that the phaser fire was bland. I agree!! I thought maybe they could have shown a more aerial view of landing party conditions on the planet. Sometimes it seems that the CBS-d team is not really interested in adding anything new to this project. Maybe they need to hold out an opinion poll and ask us what we think and the winner gets some sort of reward.. I dont know??? Also the soft ore that Fisher brough aboard could perhaps have had some sort of glowing crystal look instead of looking more than sand from the beach.

I thought the white viewscreen shown during the good/bad Kirk confrontation on the bridge could have been fixed to show the planet below…

#8 Kevin: I suppose this episode is just full of holes. Scientifically creating another Kirk through the transporter would require a great deal of energy. Splitting someone into good and evil… well that just really makes no sense.

I agree. Scotty barely gets Kirk through and after he walks away the transporter comes on by itself and evil Kirk comes through lickety split. It would have been more convincing if they appeared together or if Scotty noticed that there was still something in the buffer.

I have always thought that they should have at least tried to beam down something. And when things got desperate enough they should have just said the heck with it and beamed the men up anyway and dealt with the results later. At least they would be alive until they figured it out.

But all nagging aside not a bad episode except for the Spock line at the end!

So why didn’t they beam Sulu down a heater and take the risk it might split into a heater and a fridge?

One of Trek’s best. Shuttlecrafts were all being refit at a starbase. That’s why they didn’t launch one to save Sulu. Transporter duplicate is a great plot device. Stop being so picky.

I’ve always wondered that.

And…..If Bret Favre and the Packers barely survived that cold last week how could Sulu possibly do it?

I am disappointed they didn’t fix: The phaser fire, the insignia problem, the scratches on the wrong side. The scratches are something probably many of us can already do, or could do with 5 minutes of photoshop training.

I like how the increased the size of the planet for this episode. I will give credit and say the old one didn’t look bad.

As for the shuttle issue: the actaul reality of not having the shuttlecraft was budget. As some of you may know (and for those of you who don’t, now you will) the “transporter” came about as a budgetary solution. The shuttlecraft was conceived of before the transporter, but the problem lied in budgeting shuttlecraft takes offs/landings each week. However, someone came up with the genius solution of just “beaming” the crew down. It’s cheap, easy. PRESTO – we have the most famous piece of “technology” in Star Trek.

And now, in real life, I beleive I have seen something on Discovery or something that scientists have been able to transport a photon of light, or something in that nature.

It’s great to see Shatner in this role the first time he played it. As we all know, he would reprise this “evil Kirl” role 20 years later on Saturday Night Live…

Did the transporter duplicate Kirk’s mass or did it actually split him? What would happen to the human body if exactly every other molecule, evenly distributed, vanished? You’d suddenly weigh half as much and probably be very weak, but there wouldn’t be any organs missing either and you could quickly replace your lost water mass. Cell division might replenish weakened tissues. You wouldn’t get your brain back to normal, though, which was the problem in the episode.

ahhhh i miss the light-hearted comments about the TOS-R episodes we all used to have. so much talk about canon over the new film here has made me stop posting for the most part.

but good to have this energy back.

were all the shuttles in for their 10,000,000,000 mile oil change at the time?

right, before shuttles in the show… how about sending down a probe full of goodies with a parachute?

I’m seriously sick of their so-called “realistic planets”. Do these people at CBS-D ever look at space photographs from NASA? Reality is nowhere near as drab as these apparent fans of black & white television want it to be. And thank god for that.

#29 – Wasn’t there a line that said they couldn’t beam them down a heater because the splitting renders the machines inoperative?

“The shuttlecraft was conceived of before the transporter, but the problem lied in budgeting shuttlecraft takes offs/landings each week. However, someone came up with the genius solution of just “beaming” the crew down. It’s cheap, easy. PRESTO – we have the most famous piece of “technology” in Star Trek.”

No. Roddenberry’s description of the transporter (and its limitations, which were initially considerable) go all the way back to his outline for “The Cage.” It was a budgetary and dramatic fix to the problem of getting the characters on shore quickly and cheaply, but no extensive use of the shuttles as landing boats was ever contemplated or considered.

And personally, I think the TOS-R planets look just fine.

Why do people keep bitching about the planets? These new planets actually look like real planets and with realistic atmospheres, clouds, textures and colors. Real planets are not pink, green, purple balls of styro-foam in space like the original had.

Good job CBS -D!!

“Corbomite Maneuver” or “BOT” would be the eps I’d show as an introduction to Trek. The crew characterizations, the story, the tension and all else had gelled into, IMO, what Roddenberry had in mind as the vision for the show.

And thanks, Matt, for reviving the TOS-R thread! I’m really surprised we even had one this week, given the workout this site received over the weekend.

Missing script page :

Interior shot :

Kirk, Spock, McCoy and sulu by sick bay bed.

McCoy to Sulu : You’ll be OK, one more minute down there and that would have been it for you pal.

Sulu to McCoy : Why didn’t you guys send down a shuttle for us?

Spock turns to Kirk and they stare at each other.

Kirk lets out : “D’OH!” while holding up his right hand to his forehead.

Roll end credits.

#22, let me echo that fine comment. The point of this episode is an exploration of humanity. Shuttlecraft, phasers, insignia, and what-not are mere trifle. The transporter accident might seem hokey, but who care, it’s just a set up for the real meat of the episode. Which was some cool-ass Freudian stuff, like which parts of the human mind are truly the essential core components? If you split a rock, it cleaves along fracture points dictated by its internal chemistry. If you cleave a human mind, might it cleave in the same way? Although Freud is largely held in disfavor by scholars today, the basic idea that human minds involve the opposition between a rational component and an animal-survival-emotional component continues to inform contemporary theory. The basic idea of this episode is still *really* cool to this day: strength of will, the courage to command, the audacity to hold a position of authority, all these things come from the same animalistic core that creates evil, horror, murder, rape. It’s profound.

Yes, there are a lot of problems in 60’s TV series that strive to break ground and result in pieons having conversations more than 40 years later. This is a great episode because it’s a great episode. The high concept (never mind the magnificent leap of faith you’re asked to make) of splitting a man’s psyche in two is such that it is the stuff of college courses. Shatner’s acting. Nimoy’s creation of the neck pinch and Shatner’s emotional sale of it onscreen led to a series-long string of ‘moments.’ Sulu getting screentime. Rand getting screentime (with a near rape no less — not something you got a lot of in ’66.) Kelley ending any doubt that there were THREE stars of this show. It’s all here, folks. I care not at all about the shuttlecraft question. If you saw it the first time, you’d never have asked that. I don’t even care about the editing issue (I think Spock pronounces “We have an intruder on board!” AFTER they’ve started the search. duh.) It’s a great ep, that’s that.

Best acting EVER, in the history of EVER. Enough said.

what other tv show from the sixties is still so celebrated and debated, over 40 years later?

trek is quite a phenomenon… fascinating!

You guys all worked up over the attempted rape of Rand and Spock’s comments on “interesting qualities” are in serious need of a reality check.

1. No one approved of the rape attempt but you need to read Star Trek Lives! by Jacqueline Lichtenberg to see what real, honest-to-Friedan 1970s feminists thought about rape. To them, the “rape fantasy” was about the sexiest thing imaginable next to the homosexual fantasy.

2. Back when men still had testosterone, sexually aggressive behavior was expected and women were expected to do what was possible to quench it. In other words, they didn’t play with fire for the kicks.

This is the real reason so many of the original series fans are concerned about the movie, since the new fans are by and large products of the feminist movement, itself an aberration and perversion of human nature.

Get real boyz. Your ideology will die with the generation that embraced it in the name of rebellion.

Was anyone else upset by the absolute HACK job they made of the syndication cut? Here in DC, it was awful…

#42, 43–

Yep. Richard Matheson without a doubt was one of the best writers ever to work on the series. It’s a pity he didn’t contribute more, since unlike some of the other established SF authors who wrote for TOS in its first year I never heard him express any dissatisfaction with Roddenberry or the way his episode turned out.

Despite its virtues I would have to call “The Enemy Within” more fantasy than hard SF, though. But so what?

I think this episode was one of the Shat’s better outings, ’cause he gets to play three different kirks (good wimpy Kirk, evil jerky Kirk, and regular flavor kirk) and actually does a halfway decent job. Note the position of his hands when he’s (chuckle) holding on to himself in the transporter room. They change position between the wider shot of Kirks and the closeup. Pure Star Trek, though, in every way.

I think it’s funny the way people complain that they didn’t fix everything. Maybe I’m not enough of a geek but the phaser thing didn’t cross my mind. Also, it’s nice that they still keep a flavour of the old effects by not changing everything.

Screen Rant

Baldur’s gate 3: storm sorcerer build guide (spells, weapons, & abilities).

Your changes have been saved

Email Is sent

Please verify your email address.

You’ve reached your account maximum for followed topics.

10 Best Solo Class Builds For Baldur’s Gate 3

Detailed bg3 shadowheart cosplay shows a dark justiciar transformation, one unexpected baldur's gate 3 subrace is actually the best for melee combat, quick links, best storm sorcerer races & backgrounds, best storm sorcerer ability scores, best multiclass for a storm sorcerer build, best spells for a storm sorcerer build, best gear & equipment for a storm sorcerer build.

Sorcerers are one of the most powerful classes in Baldur's Gate 3 . Unlike wizards who learn spells, they possess innate magical abilities to enhance spellcasting versatility. The Storm Sorcery subclass focuses on massive AOE damage with lightning spells, prioritizing offense over defense. Relying on companions for support, the build focuses on obliterating groups of enemies quickly.

Known as the Lightning God, the Storm Sorcerer excels in elemental damage output but requires careful planning, especially for a tri-class setup in challenging gameplay. Managing Class Actions and exploiting status conditions are crucial for maximizing destructive potential and dominance in combat in Baldur's Gate 3 .

Although Baldur's Gate 3 provides a team of companions, some prefer to take on the game solo. These builds will help with that massive task.

High Half-Elf; Charlatan

For a balanced and traditional playthrough, the High Half-Elf is an excellent race choice for the Storm Sorcerer build in Baldur's Gate 3 . This option grants you an extra Cantrip , Fey Ancestry, Darkvision, and Shield Proficiency, enhancing your versatility and survivability.

Alternatively, choosing the Human race provides increased carrying capacity, additional skill proficiency, and shield proficiency, making it another solid option for this build.

Charlatan is the ideal background for a High Half-Elf Sorcerer as it provides proficiency in Deception and Sleight of Hand . Deception benefits from a high Charisma score, while Sleight of Hand benefits from a high Dexterity score, both of which will be key attributes in this build.

Dragonborn; Dark Urge

For a Dark Urge playthrough, choosing Dragonborn is the best race choice for your Storm Sorcerer build. Opting for Blue or Bronze Dragonborn grants you a Lightning Breath attack, providing consistent damage without expending spell slots.

With Medicine scaling with Wisdom from two levels of Cleric and Intimidation leveraging Charisma , you'll have two useful proficiencies. Additionally, the Deathstalker Mantle cloak, gifted by Sceleritas Fel within Dark Urge in Baldur's Gate 3 , makes you invisible after every kill, complementing the build's high damage output and mitigating the Sorcerer's vulnerabilities.

Prioritize Charisma & Dexterity

For the Sorcerer, prioritize starting with 16 Charisma to enhance spell success and damage and 16 Dexterity to boost Armor Class (AC). Next, allocate 14 to Constitution for added survivability. This combination of Charisma for damage, Dexterity for AC (since the build uses clothing instead of armor), and Constitution for health ensures a balanced and effective character.

Throughout Acts 1, 2, and 3 in Baldur's Gate 3 , you will have multiple opportunities to increase your ability scores . In addition to improving them through features, various items can significantly enhance your stats.

Acquire the Warped Band of Intellect to raise your Intelligence from a mere 8 to 17. Auntie Ethel's Hair grants +1 to any attribute you choose, recommended for boosting Charisma to 18. Additionally, the Mirror of Loss found in the Gauntlet of Shar provides another +1 to Charisma. Aim to increase Charisma to 20 for optimal combat performance.

Recommended Storm Sorcerer Skills

Intimidation and Persuasion are the best skills for a Storm Sorcerer in Baldur’s Gate 3 , as they complement your class abilities and enhance your effectiveness in various situations.

Both skills scale with Charisma, which this build relies upon, and are used for dialogue Ability Checks. This makes interactions with NPCs more engaging and increases the likelihood of favorable outcomes in conversations and quests.

Sorcerer (9) Cleric (2) Wizard (1)

Functioning as a tri-class build, this setup grants you Level 2 spell slots early and allows for learning spell scrolls efficiently. Ensure you obtain the necessary headband to support this build. After this break, return to Sorcerer in Baldur's Gate 3 for a crucial Ability Score Improvement to maximize Charisma.

Starting as a Storm Sorcerer grants you Tempestuous Magic, allowing you to Fly as a bonus action after casting a Level 1 spell or higher, avoiding Opportunity Attacks until the end of your turn. Key features at Level 6 within the Sorcerer multiclass make it strategic to return to Sorcerer from Level 5 to 9.

At Level 6, you gain Heart of the Storm, causing a small storm that deals 3 Lightning or Thunder damage to enemies within 6m when you cast a spell of Level 1 or higher dealing Lightning or Thunder damage. Additionally, Heart of the Storm Resistance grants resistance to Lightning and Thunder damage.

Speccing two levels into Cleric in Baldur's Gate 3 provides the Cleric Channel Divinity, a Class Action replenishable on Short and Long Rests, before finishing the build as a Sorcerer.

Jay Dunna suggests choosing the Tempest Domain as your Cleric subclass, giving you the Wrath of the Storm Subclass Feature. As a reaction, you can strike back an opponent, dealing 2-16 Lightning or Thunder damage.

Use Sorcerer & Cleric Cantrips

When beginning as a Sorcerer, prioritize taking the following Cantrips in the table below. You'll have one extra slot, which should go to either Firebolt or Bonechill.

Upon leveling up, prioritize Witchbolt and Chromatic Orb for Act 1 due to their Lightning damage and synergy with Twinned Spell . Later, learn Magic Missile to handle high-AC enemies.

At Level 6, Storm Sorcerers gain access to some of the best Sorcerer Spells in Baldur's Gate 3 , allowing you to learn powerful spells such as Call Lightning, Sleet Storm, Gust of Wind, Create or Destroy Water, and Thunderwave. Prioritize Lightning Bolt in the late Sorcerer levels, as it will be your main damage source until acquiring a staff with Chain Lightning .

While Misty Step and Invisibility are useful later in the game, Invisibility can be commonly learned from spell scrolls and Misty Step can be added when you have more spell slots to spare.

Recommended Illithid Powers

While the use of Illithid Powers is optional, they significantly enhance combat abilities and add depth to the story narrative in Baldur's Gate 3 . Exploring and collecting all Illithid Tadpoles in each Act can be a fun and rewarding personal quest.

For a Storm Sorcerer, Illithid Power is completely overpowered in Baldur's Gate 3 , with a few to note. Luck of the Far Realms turns your first successful attack into a Critical Hit, potentially defeating an enemy instantly.

Charm prevents enemies from attacking you until their next turn and is essential for strategically redirecting enemy attacks toward a tank in your party while you focus on dealing damage.

Psionic Backlash is another powerful tool, allowing you to use your reaction to inflict 1d4 Psychic damage per spell level when an enemy within 9m casts a spell. This ability can stack with other party members, making it possible to inflict significant damage collectively and potentially kill the caster.

Prioritize Items That Enhance Lightning Damage

To optimize the Storm Sorcerer build, focus on gear and equipment that enhance spell attack bonuses, spell damage, and Spell Save DC . The table below comprises the best gear and equipment that players should obtain:

Utilizing gear that boosts Lightning or Thunder damage will further enhance your build. A powerful alternative to the Spellsparkler is the Markoheshkir, which allows for the free casting of any spell and Chain Lightning once per Short Rest in Baldur's Gate 3 .

Source: Jay Dunna/YouTube

Baldur's Gate 3

Baldur's Gate

Wave Defense (Updates)

This new game mode expands the social aspect of being a Commander and challenges your ability to strategize and defeat powerful opponents. Section 31 - a brand new Faction - is protecting the best interests of the Federation and they need your loyalty and assistance: assign two of your strongest ships and team up with four other players to defend a Central Entity ( CE ) from waves of increasingly powerful hostiles . Wave Defense launches with two central locations that require defending, an S31 Covert Base and Borg Research Lab ; these will be distributed across 25 new systems.

How does it work?

The game mode will unlock at Ops Level 30, alongside a new building: The Facade. A group of 5 players (they don’t need to be members of the same alliance) will team up and face multiple waves of hostiles. The enemies will spawn in predefined locations and they will move towards the CE, with the aim of destroying it. If a set number of hostiles reach the CE, the WD fails. If the team or the Central Entity is destroyed during the first wave, there won't be any rewards. But if the team survives at least the first wave, they will become eligible to get some loot . For example, if your ships are destroyed on wave 1 but the group completes 4 waves, everyone gets rewards for 4 waves. There will be a total of 10 waves planned for launch, and defeating each one of them will reward players with “ Section 31 Credits ”, a currency that will be used on the brand new “Section 31” part of the Faction Store.

How to start a Wave Defense? They will be launched from within the Central Entity. Section 31 Ciphers are the currency used to start a WD. You can try it out without a full team, although this is not recommended. The Wave Defense will begin either when the timer hits 0, or whenever the leader chooses to start. If you are joining, the ships you decide to take must be docked first and then you can travel with them to the WD system. All ships currently in the system at that time will be part of the Wave Defense, and no more ships will be able to join. Please keep in mind that you can't start a new WD in a system if there’s already an ongoing one.

Who are you fighting against?

Each wave will increase in difficulty. Waves will be composed of a set of Federation Explorers, Klingon Interceptors and Romulan Battleships. Additionally, depending on the level of the Wave Defense, players will need to deal with Swarm, Borg, Actian, Species 8472, Hirogen and Texas-class hostiles. You will need to coordinate to make sure the team has ships to counter each of the incoming hostile types. Note that you cannot repair the ships while in the Wave Defense. Note: if the enemy ship gets too close to the CE, players won't be able to attack it anymore.

Wave Defense Building: The Facade

The building will unlock at Ops Level 30 and it’s an essential part of the Wave Defense. It will provide not only additional Damage against Wave Defense Hostiles but also increase the Ship’s Hull Health and Officer Stats. Materials to upgrade the facility - “ Section 31 Transmitters ” - will be available through the S31 Faction Store.

Wave Defense: Gameplay Basics & Loop

Winning Criteria: Complete all waves (all hostiles are destroyed) AND the Central Entity is NOT destroyed AND at least ONE team member is alive. Losing Criteria: All team members are defeated OR the Central Entity is destroyed. Reminder - if the team or the Central Entity is destroyed during the first wave, there won't be any rewards.

Wave Defense: System View

Q: The new Wave Defense Updates, what are they? A: We will add 2 new Terran Empire themed Wave Defense encounters, these will range from Ops levels 40-50 to 50-65+. They will be located in the same place as the already existing WD systems and the new Directives (Section 31 Mirror Ciphers) for them will be sourced via the Mirror Refinery. The Ciphers will be obtainable by spending 1500 “Section 31 Credits” and will provide enough directives for 1x WD launch every 3 days.

Q: What else is new about the Wave Defense? A: A successful WD encounter might drop Liquid Trellium (based on wave reached) and the new Section 31 Mirror Credits. Those Credits can be exchanged for new rewards in the S31 Faction Store. Q: Is anything new coming to the S31 Faction Store? A: Yes! With the new currency (Section 31 Mirror Credits) an updated list of obtainable items will be rolled out as well. Those will include: the “Agony Booth” Forbidden Tech, shards for the new “Field Repair” Ability and materials for it (Welding Hardware), Elite FKR Rep and Syndicate XP bundles.

Q: How many new Forbidden Techs are you releasing and what are their main benefits? A: Besides the aforementioned “Agony Booth”, we are also introducing the “Tantalus Field”. The “Booth” (focus: FKR Faction Boost) will provide PVE benefits such as: Increasing Apex Barrier against non-Armada hostiles, positive FKR Reputation gains, Hull Health and base damage increases against non-Armada hostiles. The “Field” (focus:PvP Damage Neutralizer) will offer an increase in Hull Health, more Damage, Isolytic Damage and Apex Barrier against other players. Q: Are the “ Field Repair ” Abilities useful? A: They can be the difference between being able to continue combat or having to retreat. These abilities will heal 25% of max HHP out of combat. You will get 1 free activation every day via a free bundle inside the WD Store (Players can hold a maximum of 10 free activations, you can get more activations by using the WD directives in the Store). Q: What’s the cooldown period for the “Field Repair” ? A: The cooldown between uses will start at 10 minutes, but it will decrease 20 seconds with every unlocked ship tier.

The Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2024 (June 2024)

2023 was undoubtedly a bombshell year for television. From the widely anticipated premieres of shows like The Last of Us and The Boys spinoff Gen V to genre standouts like Foundation , The Fall of the House of Usher , and The Wheel of Time , to the series that had their swan song — pour one out for the Roys on Succession — we were spoiled for choice in terms of what to watch on the small screen. But last year was also a year of reckoning with the conditions under which most of these shows are made, and the fight to ensure that actors and writers are compensated fairly for their talents. Hopefully, now that we're officially in 2024, it'll also mean furthering these conversations about bettering the environment that creates some of our favorite series.

In terms of the new year, there are still plenty of shows to get excited about — and the below list barely scratches the surface of the series that Collider's staff has been looking forward to. This list will be updated throughout the year as more premieres are announced and specific release dates are confirmed — but for now, here are our most anticipated TV shows of 2024.

'The Acolyte'

June 4, disney+.

Created by Leslye Headland ( Russian Doll ), The Acolyte is the most intriguing Star Wars project we’ve heard about since Andor . Set at the end of the franchise’s High Republic era (roughly 100 years before Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace ), The Acolyte is a mystery thriller following a Jedi Master’s investigation into a series of crimes. The eight-episode show has a stacked cast list that includes Amandla Stenberg , Lee Jung-jae , Manny Jacinto , Dafne Keen , and Carrie-Anne Moss . Like Andor , The Acolyte is expected to be a darker exploration of the galaxy far far away, but where the previous show focused on grounded human stories, the new series promises plenty of Force users and lightsabers. Based on the trailer, the show appears to be a sometimes-philosophical but always-thrilling murder mystery that puts a fresh spin on the franchise’s recurring Good vs Bad, Light side vs Dark side narrative.

The Acolyte

Release Date June 4, 2024

Cast Lee Jung-jae, Manny Jacinto, Amandla Stenberg, Carrie-Anne Moss, Dafne Keen, Jodie Turner-Smith, Rebecca Henderson, Dean-Charles Chapman, Charlie Barnett

Genres Sci-Fi

'House of the Dragon' Season 2

June 17, hbo.

Those of us who found ourselves burned (no pun intended) by the final season of a certain show might have been reluctant to embrace another spin-off set in the world George R.R. Martin built, but House of the Dragon premiered with just enough of what we love about its predecessor to silence every naysayer and then some. Taking us back in time to a realm ruled over by the infamous Targaryen family doesn't just allow us to have a better understanding of the house that ultimately created Daenerys ( Emilia Clarke ) herself; it also gives us new women to become conflicted about and engrossed by, from Rhaenyra's ( Milly Alcock / Emma D'Arcy ) ascent to power to Alicent's ( Olivia Cooke ) quiet manipulations to ensure that her children will ultimately rule over the Seven Kingdoms.

The tension within the family, which has been brewing over the span of years depicted in the series, finally reached a point of no return in Season 1, when Alicent's son Aemond ( Ewan Mitchell ) and his dragon Vhagar murder Rhaenyra's son Lucerys ( Elliot Grihault ) and his dragon Arrax. It's a loss that will undoubtedly shape the trajectory of the season to come, as Rhaenyra simultaneously grieves her child and, alongside her "Blacks," swears vengeance against the "Greens." Everything comes to a head later this year when Season 2 premieres at a date yet to be announced, and you can bet just about everyone will be tuning in. — Carly Lane

House of the Dragon

The reign of House Targaryen begins with this prequel to the popular HBO series Game of Thrones. Based on George R.R. Martin's Fire & Blood , House of the Dragon is set nearly 200 years before Game of Thrones , telling the story of the Targaryen civil war with King Viserys.

Release Date August 21, 2022

Creator Ryan J. Condal, George R.R. Martin

Cast Emily Carey, Milly Alcock, Rhys Ifans, Matt Smith, Steve Toussaint, Emma D'Arcy, Eve Best, Paddy Considine, Olivia Cooke

Main Genre Drama

Genres Drama, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

Rating TV-MA

Distributor HBO

An internal succession war within House Targaryen at the height of its power, 172 years before the birth of Daenerys Targaryen.

'Orphan Black: Echoes'

June 23, amc.

Clone Club fans rejoice, because Orphan Black is coming back to our screens. Orphan Black: Echoes will expand the world of the original series and follow Lucy ( Krysten Ritter ), a woman with no memory of her past who learns she’s a print-out of Eleanor ( Rya Kihlstedt ). While not a direct sequel to the successful Tatiana Maslany series that ran for five seasons, Orphan Black: Echoes will connect back to the series with the character of Kira Manning ( Keeley Hawes ), the daughter of Maslany’s Sarah Manning. Set in 2052, the series will explore the advancements made in cloning, tackling it through the same ethical lens as the original series. — Arezou Amin

Orphan Black: Echoes

Orphan Black: Echoes delves into a new chapter of the Orphan Black universe, exploring the lives of a fresh set of clones. Set in a near-future society, the series follows a group of women who discover they are part of a vast and complex cloning experiment. As they uncover their origins and grapple with their identities, they must navigate dangerous conspiracies and powerful enemies determined to control their fates.

Cast Zariella Langford, Amanda Fix, Krysten Ritter, Keeley Hawes, James Hiroyuki Liao, Avan Jogia

Main Genre Sci-Fi

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Thriller

Number of Episodes

Network AMC

Franchise(s) Orphan Black

'Land of Women'

June 26, apple tv+.

A comedy-drama thriller series, Land of Women takes inspiration from Sandra Barneda ’s bestselling novel of the same name, though it isn’t exactly an adaptation. Starring Eva Longoria , the series follows a New York socialite called Gala whose husband disappears, forcing her to flee to a Spanish wine town with her mother and daughter when his shady financial dealings come to light, with a pair of inept assassins on their tail. Land of Women also stars Santiago Cabrera , Victoria Bazúa , Carmen Maura , and Gloria Munoz . The show was created by Ramón Campos , Gema R. Neira , and Paula Fernández , who are also credited as the writers. While details are still scarce, Land of Women looks primed to be a great summer watch set in the beautiful Spanish countryside. There’s also the promise of generational conflict and buried secrets, as it’s been mentioned that Gala’s mother has a history with the town they escape to. Add in some small-town quirks and a pair of bumbling assassins, and you have all the ingredients for a delightful dramedy.

Land of Women

Genre Comedy, Drama, Thriller

Debut Date June 26, 2024

'The Bear' Season 3

June 27, hulu.

Created by Christopher Storer for FX on Hulu, The Bear is an acclaimed comedy-drama series set in a Chicago sandwich shop. Jeremy Allen White stars as a successful young chef who inherits the family business after his brother commits suicide, trading in the glittering life of Michelin-starred restaurants for a chaotic kitchen and unruly employees — all while dealing with his own unresolved pain. The show’s supporting cast includes Ebon Moss-Bachrach , Ayo Edebiri , Lionel Boyce , Liza Colón-Zayas , Abby Elliott , and Matty Matheson . An unexpected hit when it premiered in 2022, The Bear has received great praise for its writing, directing, acting, and production values. The show’s previous two seasons have collectively won ten Primetime Emmy Awards and four Golden Globes, so anticipation is understandably high for the series’ third installment. The Bear Season 3 will premiere on June 27, 2024, and there’s already a fourth season on the way that was filmed back-to-back with the third.

Release Date June 23, 2023

Creator Christopher Storer

Cast Liza Coln-Zayas, Ebon Moss-Bachrach, Ayo Edebiri, Jeremy Allen White, Abby Elliott

Genres Drama, Comedy

'Cobra Kai' Season 6

July 18, netflix.

When it was first announced, I like many, was left scratching my head at the thought of Cobra Kai , but two free trials of YouTube Premium later, I was hooked, I just wished I had more people I could talk about it with. Thankfully, that wish came true when Netflix picked up the series and gave it a massive audience. While I’ll be heartbroken to say goodbye to most of these characters in the sixth and final season of Cobra Kai , I also cannot wait to see how Josh Heald , Jon Hurwitz , and Hayden Schlossberg ’s Karate Kid sequel saga concludes. (And to see William Zabka ’s Johnny Lawrence get a second chance at raising a kid.) — Nate Richard

\n "">

Thirty-four years after events of the 1984 All Valley Karate Tournament, a down-and-out Johnny Lawrence seeks redemption by reopening the infamous Cobra Kai dojo, reigniting his rivalry with a now successful Daniel LaRusso.

Release Date May 2, 2018

Creator Josh Heald, Jon Hurwitz, Hayden Schlossberg

Cast Vanessa Rubio, Marty Cove, Mary Matilyn Mouser, Courtney Henggeler, Peyton List, Jacob Bertrand, William Zabka, Ralph Macchio

Main Genre Comedy

Genres Comedy, Action, webseries

Rating TV-14

Streaming Service(s) Netflix

'The Umbrella Academy' Season 4

August 8, netflix.

After three glorious seasons of superhero shenanigans, the Hargreeves are coming back for a fourth and final season. Based on the comic book series of the same name by Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá , The Umbrella Academy 's new season will focus on the aftermath of Season 3 and the Kugelblitz, when most of the Hargreeves lost their abilities and ended up in a universe that has been completely reset after Allision ( Emmy Raver-Lampman ) hit the button. Luther's ( Tom Hopper ) wife Sloane ( Genesis Rodriguez ) is missing, Diego ( David Castañeda ) and Lila ( Ritu Arya ) have run off to raise their (actual) baby, and the family seems to be scattered. The final season promises new characters and villains the Hargreeves must now face without their powers to protect them. — Therese Lacson

The Umbrella Academy

Release Date February 15, 2019

Creator Steve Blackman, Jeremy Slater

Cast Elliot Page, Yusuf Gatewood, Tom Hopper, Robert Sheehan, Marin Ireland

Main Genre Superhero

Genres Superhero, Comedy, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

'Only Murders in the Building' Season 4

August 27, hulu.

Only Murders in the Building is a popular mystery comedy-drama series starring Steve Martin , Martin Short , and Selena Gomez . Created by Steve Martin and John Hoffman , the show follows three strangers who all live in the prestigious Arconia building as they are brought together by their shared love of true crime podcasts. The series explores their madcap adventures as they produce a podcast of their own, investigating a succession of suspicious murders in the building. With three acclaimed seasons to its name, Only Murders in the Building is easily one of the best mystery shows released in recent times. With stellar performances, challenging mysteries, and tons of quirky comedy, the series has received several award nominations, including for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Comedy Series and the Golden Globe Award for Best Television Series – Musical or Comedy. The show’s highly anticipated fourth season takes the story to Los Angeles, introducing an ensemble recurring cast that includes Molly Shannon , Melissa McCarthy , Eugene Levy , Kumail Nanjiani , and more. Only Murders in the Building Season 4 will premiere on Hulu on August 27, 2024.

Only Murders in the Building

Release Date August 31, 2021

Creator John Hoffman, Steve Martin

Cast Steve Martin, Selena Gomez, Martin Short, Amy Ryan

Genres Mystery, Comedy

'Agatha All Along'

September 18, disney+.

Something wicked this way comes this fall on Disney+, and I, for one, couldn’t be more excited. In classic Marvel fashion, a lot of the details about Agatha: Darkhold Diaries are being kept under wraps, but what we do know is already more than enough to have me counting down the days until it’s Halloween season once again. The incredible Kathryn Hahn will be reprising her scene-stealing Wandavision role as the sassy, stylish, and singing centuries-old witch Agatha Harkness, who recruits some unlikely allies on her mission to regain the powers Wanda Maxmioff stole from her. Not only that, but she’ll be joined by a stellar cast, including Heartstoppe r’s Joe Locke , Broadway legend Patti LuPone , and Aubrey Plaza , who recently received her first Emmy nomination for her role in The White Lotus .

Better yet, many of the minds behind Wandavision also have a hand in bringing Agatha’s spinoff series to life, including creator Jac Schaeffe r. Hahn praised the experience of working with Schaeffer in an interview with Collider back in December, saying, “I would work with [her] for the rest of my life. I just love her voice.” Hahn has also teased that fans will be surprised by the series. Considering how groundbreaking and unpredictable Wandavision was, there’s no doubt in my mind that we’re in for a hell of a magical ride. - Taylor Gates

Agatha: Darkhold Diaries

Release Date 2024-00-00

Cast Miles Gutierrez-Riley, Aubrey Plaza, Patti LuPone, Kathryn Hahn

Genres Superhero, Comedy, Action, Adventure

'Outlander' Season 7 Part 2

November, starz.

When Outlander premiered with the first half of its penultimate season last year, it was a much-needed balm for fans who had been languishing in what has lovingly come to be known as the "Droughtlander," but it also represented the first half of an extended Season 7. Although the season prior was regrettably cut short due to the pandemic, viewers were rewarded for their undying devotion to Claire ( Caitriona Balfe ) and Jamie's ( Sam Heughan ) epic romance with an extra-long seventh season, clocking in at 16 episodes.

The only downside? The season has been split into two parts, forcing audiences to wait just a little longer to get the answers to some of their most burning questions. Whether it's finally learning the fate of Jemmy ( Blake Johnston Miller ), even if it comes at the cost of Roger's ( Richard Rankin ) and Bree's ( Sophie Skelton ) separation via the stones, or breathing a sigh of relief alongside Jamie and Claire as they finally lay eyes on Scotland once more, it's never been clearer that Outlander , even as the end is more plainly in sight, still remains as captivating, gripping, and sweepingly romantic as it ever has been. — Carly Lane

Claire Beauchamp Randall, a nurse in World War II, mysteriously goes back in time to Scotland in 1743. There, she meets a dashing Highland warrior and gets drawn into an epic rebellion.

Release Date August 9, 2014

Cast Sophie Skelton, Richard Rankin, Sam Heughan, Caitriona Balfe

Genres Drama, Romance, Action, Fantasy

Studio Starz

'Andor' Season 2

Tba, disney+.

While Andor Season 2 doesn't have a release date yet, we can still hope that the critically acclaimed series will arrive next year. If only to spare us from waiting two years for the final installment of Tony Gilroy 's gritty prequel series to Rogue One: A Star Wars Story . At the start of 2023, fans at Star Wars Celebration in London got a sneak peek of the action in Season 2 , which only ramped up the anticipation for the 12-episode season. That teaser trailer showed Cassian Andor ( Diego Luna ) deep within the rebellion, which is exactly where he was headed at the end of Season 1 when he finally took the steps to be part of something bigger, after being reluctantly pulled into the fray. Fans also got to see a glimpse at where the plots are headed for Kyle Soller , Adria Arjona , Denise Gough , Faye Marsay , Varada Sethu , Genevieve O'Reilly, Stellan Skarsgård , Elizabeth Dulau , James McArdle , and Muhannad Bhaier in the trailer—all of which have the potential to make or break them.

Without question, Andor was one of the best series to debut in 2022, and it is poised to be one of the best series of the 2020s—and not just one of the best Star Wars shows. With Gilroy's keen understanding of meaningful storytelling, a team of impressive writers and directors, and an incredible cast, it has transcended far beyond the "space opera" trope and showed audiences that Star Wars is still capable of telling the poignant, boots-on-the-ground stories that George Lucas once set out to tell with the original trilogy. This is why the final act of the series, which bridges the gap between Season 1 and Rogue One, is one of the most anticipated series of 2024 and beyond. — Maggie Lovit

Prequel series to Star Wars' 'Rogue One'. In an era filled with danger, deception and intrigue, Cassian will embark on the path that is destined to turn him into a Rebel hero.

Release Date September 21, 2022

Creator Tony Gilroy

Cast Diego Luna, Stellan Skarsgrd, Genevieve O'Reilly, Fiona Shaw

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Adventure

Studio Disney+

Franchise Star Wars

Distributor Disney+, Walt Disney Television, Disney Media Distribution

Main Characters Cassian Andor, Mon Mother, Luthen Rael, Bix Caleen, Dedra Meero, Syril, Maarva, Saw Gerrera

Producer Kate Hazell, Kathleen Kennedy, David Meanti, Stephen Schiff

Production Company Lucasfilm

'Daredevil: Born Again'

While Marvel seems to be pulling back on the amount of TV content they’re putting out, fans couldn’t be more excited for one of the few set to premiere in 2024: Daredevil: Born Again , a continuation of the story of Charlie Cox ’s Matt Murdock, a blind lawyer by day and superhero by night. While we briefly saw Matt in both Spider-Man: No Way Home and She-Hulk: Attorney at Law , Born Again will mark the first time Matt’s story has been properly explored since the cancellation of the Netflix Daredevil series in 2018.

The series is expected to continue on from events established in Echo , also premiering in 2024, as Cox and Vincent D’Onofrio are set to reprise their roles as the Devil of Hell’s Kitchen and the Kingpin in both series, as well as Born Again featuring the return of Jon Bernthal ’s Frank Castle, last seen in the second season of The Punisher , another canned Netflix Marvel series. While no plot has been revealed as of this writing, fans are anxious to see more of the lawyer moonlighting as a vigilante, and just what he’ll get up to when he’s properly integrated into the MCU. — Maggie Boccella

Daredevil: Born Again

Cast Vincent D'Onofrio, Jon Bernthal, Charlie Cox, Margarita Levieva

Genres Superhero, Action, Crime

'Kite Man: Hell Yeah!'

Turns out losing Poison Ivy ( Lake Bell ) wasn’t the end of Kite Man’s ( Matt Oberg ) onscreen story, but only the beginning. Harley Quinn spinoff Kite Man: Hell Yeah! will debut on Max in 2024. Originally teased in a trailer following the finale of Harley Quinn Season 4, Kite Man: Hell Yeah! will star Kite Man , a DC Batman villain dating back to the ‘60s.

In this version of the story, Kite Man is a brainless D-List villain whose main power is soaring through the air via kite. A disappointment to his parents, Kite Man, or Chuck Jones, is full of pervy pickup lines and cringey jokes. Yet over the years, he’s proven himself to be a borderline wise fellow – someone who’s given both Ivy and Harley Quinn ( Kaley Cuoco ) nuggets of very sound advice over his time on the series. Last we saw Kite Man in Harley Quinn , he was dating Golden Glider ( Cathy Ang ), who is also slated to appear in the Max spinoff, this time voiced by Stephanie Hsu . The show's premise promises a story about the two love birds taking their relationship to the next level by opening a bar near Lex Luthor’s ( Giancarlo Esposito ) Legion of Doom. Serving drinks to supervillains? Sounds like a Hell Yeah! alright. — Rebecca Landman

Kite Man: Hell Yeah!

Cast Cathy Ang, Matt Oberg, Kaley Cuoco

Main Genre Animation

Genres Animation, Action, Adventure

'The Penguin'

ââWhen it was first announced, I don’t think many people were clamoring for a spin-off of Matt Reeves ’ The Batman starring Colin Farrell as the Penguin. After all, the movie still hadn’t come out at the time, I was far more interested in seeing the movie itself, so why rush into announcing a bunch of spin-offs?

But after seeing Farrell in the film, I totally understood why they were going to do The Penguin . Not only does Farrell look unrecognizable in the role, but he nails it, The Batman was a pretty grim movie, appropriately so, but Farrell’s Penguin was an effective use of comedic relief. While I don’t expect, nor want this series to be a comedy, this has the makings of a Sopranos -like series, but set in Gotham City. Who doesn’t want that? Plus, you have Mare of Easttown ’s Craig Zobel directing the first three episodes? The Penguin can’t come soon enough. — Nate Richard

The Penguin

It follows the transformation of Oswald Cobblepot from a disfigured nobody to a noted Gotham gangster.

Cast Clancy Brown, Colin Farrell, Cristin Milioti, Shohreh Aghdashloo

Main Genre Crime

Genres Drama, Crime, Fantasy

'Star Trek: Prodigy' Season 2

Tba, netflix.

Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 is finally streaming in totality on Netflix, which means it's time to get ready for the second season of the gorgeously animated and thoughtfully written Star Trek series. While Star Trek: Prodigy was designed as a children's series and an accessible entry point for a younger audience, it is a series with a much broader demographic than that. It carries on the Star Trek tradition of tackling big-picture themes with real-world connotations while focusing on the inherent hope for a better tomorrow which has been a mainstay for the franchise—no matter how difficult things get. So much of Season 1 was about Dal ( Brett Gray ) and his rag-tag crew as they faced their pasts and embraced their futures, and Season 2 is poised to build on all of those heartfelt plot points to deliver even richer storytelling.

One of the biggest moments in the Season 1 finale was Gwyn's ( Ella Purnell ) decision to leave the crew of the Protostar to ensure that her people avoided civil war on Solum. While it seems like she may be absent for part of Season 2, hopefully, she isn't gone forever. Especially as her sweet, fledgling relationship with Dal was one of the highlights of the first season. At the end of Season 1, Dal, Rok-Tahk ( Rylee Alazraqui ), Jankom Pog ( Jason Mantzoukas ), Zero ( Angus Imrie ), and Murf ( Dee Bradley Baker ) were welcomed into Starfleet as Warrant officers-in-training, which is bound to change up their dynamic as they head into Season 2, opening the door for a whole new world of storytelling. Star Trek: Prodigy Season 2 doesn't have a release date yet, but when it lands in 2024, it will undoubtedly be a must-watch series for the whole family. — Maggie Lovitt

Star Trek: Prodigy

A group of enslaved teenagers steal a derelict Starfleet vessel to escape and explore the galaxy.

Release Date October 28, 2021

Creator Dan Hageman, Kevin Hageman

Cast Kate Mulgrew, Jason Mantzoukas, Brett Gray, Jameela Jamil, Jimmi Simpson, Ella Purnell, Dee Bradley Baker, Daveed Diggs

Genres Animation, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

Rating TV-Y7

Franchise Star Trek

Showrunner Kevin Hageman, Dan Hageman

'You' Season 5

Tba 2024, netflix.

It’s not hard to see why You Season 5 is one of the most anticipated shows of 2024. Set to wrap up the acclaimed series, Season 5 can either solidify or break its legacy. You follows the – for lack of better words – hopeless romantic that is Joe Goldberg ( Penn Badgley ) who will go to extreme lengths to gain the affection of his love interests. Taking Joe’s quest for love and obsessive tendencies international, You Season 4 delivered masterful twists and a shocking ending that demands the audience’s attendance for Season 5 . The upcoming season will find Joe in an interesting position – not only is he back at ground zero, in New York, but he now commands the means and accessibility that render him untouchable thanks to Kate’s resources and connections.

You premiered back in 2018 on Lifetime. However, it did not gain “global phenomenon” status until it moved to Netflix in 2019. Since its arrival on the streamer, millions have tuned in to watch the erratic killer’s quest for unbridled and accepting love. With the consuming awareness that Joe’s pursuit of happiness and affection is coming to an end , there is understandable excitement to see how the concluding story. With many iconic shows failing to stick the landing – after all, they can’t all be Succession , there is almost a compelling demand to find out if Joe escapes much-deserved justice once more. While it's too soon to tell, it will certainly be thrilling to find out. – Edidiong Mboho

A dangerously charming, intensely obsessive young man goes to extreme measures to insert himself into the lives of those he is transfixed by.

Release Date September 9, 2018

Creator Greg Berlanti, Sera Gamble

Cast Victoria Pedretti, Ambyr Childers, Carmela Zumbado, James Scully, Penn Badgley

Genres Drama

Already Premiered Series

'true detective: night country', january 14, hbo.

As a fan of True Detective , I have to admit that I’ve always been curious about what the series might look like if a season was told in a woman’s voice and from a woman’s point of view. Thanks to True Detective: Night Country , viewers and fans of the series no longer have to imagine that because it has become a reality. The latest installment of this crime anthology, written and directed by Issa López ( Tigers Are Not Afraid ), who is also the showrunner and an executive producer, captures a mood and atmosphere teetering on the edge of supernatural and horror (can you say corpsicle?!).

Detectives Liz Danvers ( Jodie Foster ) and Evangeline Navarro ( Kali Reis ), complex women with a complicated shared history, have to put aside their issues with each other if they’re going to work together to find answers as to why the team of men operating the Arctic Research Station in Ennis, Alaska vanished without a trace. But as often is the case, past history doesn’t stay buried and secrets don’t stay secret for long, and when connections between the disappearance of the men and the murder of a local Indigenous activist start to reveal themselves, Danvers and Navarro find themselves confronting their own demons. The seemingly endless sunless winter days certainly up the unsettling nature of the story while the electric partnership between Foster and Reis will keep you compelled to learn the truth of it all. – Christina Radish

True Detective

Anthology series in which police investigations unearth the personal and professional secrets of those involved, both within and outside the law.

Release Date January 12, 2014

Creator Nic Pizzolatto

Cast Kali Reis, Matthew McConaughey, Rachel McAdams, Mahershala Ali, Woody Harrelson, Colin Farrell, Vince Vaughn, Stephen Dorff, Jodie Foster

Genres Drama, Mystery, Crime

'Masters of the Air'

January 26, apple tv+.

Masters of the Air is an upcoming Apple TV+ miniseries that follows the airmen of the 100th Bomb Group during World War II. The miniseries will craft a complex tale of brotherhood and kinship among the young pilots who risk their lives in air combat missions against Hitler’s army. Having been in development since 2012, and with filming officially beginning almost nine years later in 2021, it is understandable why anticipation for Masters of the Air is quite high.

Beyond the astounding wait time, the series is intended to be a companion story to Band of Brothers and The Pacific — two of HBO's most notable and acclaimed miniseries. Masters of the Air also has the same producers in Steven Spielberg , Tom Hanks , and Gary Goetzman . However, it's not only the powerhouses behind the screen that drum up excitement for the show's January 26 release date. In the time since production began, several of its stars have gone on to become some of the hottest tickets in the entertainment industry at the moment. From Barry Keoghan to Austin Butler and Ncuti Gatwa to name a few, the series all but promises masterful and captivating performances alongside the immersive and visual spectacle seen in trailers and promotional content. With a nine-episode count, the series has enough room to not only fully access and tell its story, but hopefully measure up to the legacy of its preceding companions. — Edidiong Mboho

Masters of the Air

During WWII, five miles above the ground and behind enemy lines, ten men inside a bomber known as a "Flying Fortress" battle unrelenting flocks of German fighters.

Release Date January 26, 2024

Cast Austin Butler, Ncuti Gatwa, Barry Keoghan, Callum Turner

Genres Drama, Thriller, Action, War

Streaming Service(s) Apple TV+

'Mr. & Mrs. Smith'

February 2, prime video.

One of the most interesting prospects of a Mr. & Mrs. Smith TV series is that it will have eight episodes for the characters to get to know each other. From co-creators Donald Glover and Francesca Sloane , the Prime Video original series follows two lonely strangers (Glover and Maya Erskine ) known as John and Jane Smith, who are paired together by a mysterious spy agency to complete high-risk missions as a married couple, traveling the world but never truly knowing who the other is. Initially reluctant to share tidbits about themselves, the more they have to work together and rely on each other to finish their tasks and stay alive, the more complicated things become when they start to really care and realize those feelings could change their priorities.

Due to the nature of the series, a reimagining of the 2005 movie starring Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie , it feels like it’s only a matter of time until something goes wrong and the whole charade blows up in their faces. Until then, the dark comedy, big action, and building romance will keep you tuning in, along with the wild guest cast that includes Paul Dano , John Turturro , Sarah Paulson , Parker Posey , Alexander Skarsgård and Eiza González . – Christina Radish

Mr. & Mrs. Smith

Two strangers land jobs with a spy agency that offers them a life of espionage, wealth, and travel. The catch: new identities in an arranged marriage.

Release Date February 2, 2024

Creator Francesca Sloane, Donald Glover

Cast Donald Glover, Maya Erskine, Paul Dano, John Turturro

Main Genre Action

Genres Comedy, Action, Crime

'Abbott Elementary' Season 3

February 7, abc.

In case you were living under a middle school desk, the best sitcom to come out of primetime in recent years is without a doubt, Abbott Elementary . Following the SAG-AFTRA and WGA strikes, the Emmy-winning workplace comedy by Quinta Brunson is making its highly anticipated return to ABC for Season 3 in 2024 and the critically acclaimed series has everyone’s attention. Between the show dominating trending topics and garnering critical acclaim with award accolades, the sitcom’s sweeping success boils down to its smart, engaging storytelling and wonderful ensemble cast.

With Season 2 of Abbott Elementary elevating the sitcom standard thanks to its charming blend of sharp writing and social commentary, plenty of twists opened up the doors for what Season 3 could bring audiences. Last we left the series , Janine (Brunson) and Gregory ( Tyler James Williams ) shared their feelings for each other after a slow-burn romance that has been a long time coming. But should they even get together? Only time will tell, especially as Janine underwent a very natural character progression in the show’s sophomore year. Not to mention, the threat of Abbott becoming a charter school has added a strong, more nuanced depth to the show that will permeate across its 14-episode season through the characters’ actions and behavior. With the show’s beloved elementary school teachers at the forefront of saving the primary institution across a very real-world dialogue, Abbott Elementary is heading into the next era of its story that will categorically outshine its primetime rivals. — Tania Hussain

Abbott Elementary

A workplace comedy centered around a group of dedicated teachers - and an oblivious principal - in a Philadelphia public school where, despite the odds stacked against them, they are determined to help their students succeed in life.

Release Date December 7, 2021

Cast William Stanford Davis, Chris Perfetti, Sheryl Lee Ralph, Courtney Taylor, Janelle James, Quinta Brunson, Lisa Ann Walter, Tyler James Williams

Genres Comedy

Rating TV-PG

'Halo' Season 2

February 8, paramount+.

The anticipation following the stunning finale of Halo Season 1 comes to an end this February when the show returns for Season 2. Fans will find out if Master Chief John-117 ( Pablo Schreiber ) is still really himself, or if artificial intelligence Cortana ( Jen Taylor ) is still inhabiting his body, and will also find out how this affects his friendships — since to say he’s no longer himself is something of an understatement. While details on the new season are still sparse, fans can also expect John-117 to head out on the search for the Halo, a mega-weapon that could make or break humanity’s future, while the terrifying Covenant prepares to attack. With so many mysteries left hanging, it’s a relief the season premieres early in the year. — Arezou Amin

Aliens threaten human existence in an epic 26th-century showdown.

Release Date March 24, 2022

Creator Steven Kane, Kyle Killen

Cast Bokeem Woodbine, Pablo Schreiber, Shabana Azmi, Natascha McElhone

Genres Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

'Avatar: The Last Airbender'

February 22, netflix.

Making a live-action adaptation of a beloved animated series is a thankless task, but if anyone is going to rise to it, it’s going to be Netflix — just look at 2023’s One Piece adaptation. 2024 will bring us Avatar: The Last Airbender , based on the Nickelodeon series by Michael Dante DiMartino and Bryan Konietzko , follows Aang ( Gordon Cormier ), the titular airbender, freed from a block of ice after 100 years by siblings Katara ( Kiawentiio ) and Sokka ( Ian Ousley ). The three head out on an adventure to help Aang master control of all the elements in order to defeat the Fire Nation, led by Fire Lord Ozai ( Daniel Dae Kim ), whose son Zuko ( Dallas Liu ) is in hot pursuit accompanied by his Uncle Iroh ( Paul Sun-Hyung Lee ). — Arezou Amin

Avatar: The Last Airbender (Live-Action)

A young boy known as the Avatar must master the four elemental powers to save the world and fight against an enemy bent on stopping him.

Release Date February 22, 2024

Creator Albert Kim

Cast Kiawentiio, Gordon Cormier, Paul Sun-Hyung Lee, Ken Leung, Tamlyn Tomita, Daniel Dae Kim

Main Genre Adventure

Genres Comedy, Action, Adventure

'The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live'

February 25, amc.

Ah, The Walking Dead . I wish I knew how to quit you. Having become Collider’s resident expert on the increasingly expansive zombie series, the experience of watching both the original show and the various spin-offs has been a fascinating one. The eleventh and final season of the main run shambled to an overdue end in 2022 with a finale that showed this was merely the start of a new beginning .

Since then, there has been the start of The Walking Dead: Dead City , which was not bad despite its bizarre pairing up of characters, and The Walking Dead: Daryl Dixon , which proved to be the best the series has been in quite a while, that has still all been building to something more (we won’t talk about whatever happened with Fear the Walking Dead ).

That more is The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live which brings back Rick Grimes ( Andrew Lincoln ) and Michonne ( Danai Gurira ) for their own spin-off. To say that is the most promising of all the new incarnations of the series would be an understatement, as setting a story focused around the world’s strongest characters feels like it may finally be getting things truly back to basics. In this case, sometimes less is more and may give room for this unfolding story about the dead to find some new life after more than a decade. — Chase Hutchinson

The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live

The love story between Rick and Michonne. Changed by a world that is constantly changing, will they find themselves in a war against the living or will they discover that they too are The Walking Dead?

Release Date February 25, 2024

Cast Frankie Quinones, Lesley-Ann Brandt, Danai Gurira, Pollyanna McIntosh, Andrew Lincoln

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Horror

Franchise The Walking Dead

Production Company American Movie Classics (AMC)

February 27, FX

There is no new series that has gotten me more hyped than ShÅgun and, considering how 2024 is unfortunately rather lacking for new shows that aren’t somehow related to existing ones, it should absolutely be on your radar too. When you add in the fact that it has the always-great Hiroyuki Sanada at the forefront of a solid ensemble cast, it already looks like it’s shaping up to be something quite interesting. Transporting us back to 17th-century Feudal Japan, which is on the brink of a looming civil war, ShÅgun , based on the novel by the late James Clavell , looks at all the various players in this upcoming struggle for power. It is the type of potential epic that, based on the initial trailer, already looks great and feels alive even as its characters find themselves on the edge of peril.

There is much that can go wrong with this type of series, as many such stories have bitten off more than they can chew, but we’re optimistic based on what we’ve seen so far. In many regards, it already feels like the type of adaptation that has the production value and casting to set it apart from past takes on this type of historical story. Whether it proves to be historic in its own right remains to be seen, but we’re ready to go along for what seems like it may just be a sweeping journey unlike any other. — Chase Hutchinson

Shogun (2024)

When a mysterious European ship is found marooned in a nearby fishing village, Lord Yoshii Toranaga discovers secrets that could tip the scales of power and devastate his enemies.

Release Date February 27, 2024

Cast Yki Kedin, Anna Sawai, Hiroyuki Sanada, Tadanobu Asano

Genres Drama, History, Adventure

March 20, Disney+

While Blade , Spider-Man , and the original X-Men films in the early 2000s are considered largely responsible for bringing superheroes into mainstream entertainment, many of us who grew up in the '90s were first introduced to the possibilities of Marvel through X-Men: The Animated Series . Running from 1992 to 1997, X-Men: The Animated Series was many's first time meeting characters like Jean Grey/Phoenix, Gambit, Jubilee, Beast, Wolverine, Storm, and more—some of which are probably still the best iterations of these characters. But as Marvel begins to finally integrate the X-Men into the larger Marvel Cinematic Universe, this is the perfect time for X-Men ’97 , a Disney+ show that acts as a direct continuation to the original '90s animated series.

Even though we haven’t seen much of X-Men ’97 just yet, the few designs that have been released look in line with the characters we knew and loved from the 1990s. Also, plenty of the original cast will be reviving their roles, including Cal Dodd (Wolverine), Lenore Zann (Rogue), George Buza (Beast), Catherine Disher (Jean Grey), Chris Potter (Gambit), and more. Considering the MCU has been recently reminding viewers how much they love earlier versions of Marvel characters that the studio didn’t have the rights to, X-Men ’97 is an intriguing way to play off nostalgia, while attempting to do justice to these characters. But if they get rid of the original’s perfect theme song, well, we’ll have no choice but to riot. — Ross Bonaime

A band of mutants use their uncanny gifts to protect a world that hates and fears them; they're challenged like never before, forced to face a dangerous and unexpected new future.

Cast Ray Chase, Lenore Zann, Catherine Disher, Chris Potter, Jennifer Hale, Adrian Hough, Cal Dodd

Genres Superhero, Animation, Action, Adventure

Number of Episodes 10

Streaming Service(s) Disney+

Franchise(s) X-Men

'3 Body Problem'

March 21, netflix.

Liu Cixin 's sci-fi bestseller is just the first in a trilogy of novels revolving around humanity's encounter with aliens, but the story dives much deeper beyond your average sci-fi adventure. The story follows Ye Wenjie, a scientist who has been conscripted into the military and sent to a military base where she is working on communicating with extraterrestrials. 3 Body Problem is created by David Benioff , D.B. Weiss , and Alexander Woo . You'll of course know Benioff and Weiss from their work on Game of Thrones , while Woo is best known for his writing on True Blood and as a co-creator for the second season of The Terror . For lovers of hard sci-fi, this series is reminiscent of Isaac Asimov 's Foundation series as it jumps back and forward through time, exploring the repercussions of humanity's decisions while also interweaving into the story complicated physics and mathematical theory. — Therese Lacson

3 Body Problem

A fateful decision made in 1960s China reverberates in the present, where a group of scientists partner with a detective to confront an existential planetary threat.

Release Date 2023-00-00

Cast Jess Hong, Saamer Usmani, Eiza Gonzalez, Benedict Wong, Rosalind Chao, Liam Cunningham, John Bradley, Alex Sharp

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure, Fantasy

April 12, Prime Video

With shows like The Witcher , Halo , and this year’s The Last of Us , video game stories have finally found a great outlet for adaptation. But while these shows have brought to life extensive, massive worlds full of opportunities and possibilities, none are as sprawling and ambitious as the Fallout series. Created in 1997, the Fallout game series follows a post-apocalyptic world as the remaining survivors leave their shelters and find themselves in what remains, known as the Wasteland. Fallout gave the player freedom to tell their story the way they wanted to, a game that allowed the player to become the hero or villain of their own story, where they could either make mankind better, or, hell, blow up another bomb, if they want to.

Prime Video’s adaptation of this series seems to be in good hands, however, as the project has been created by Geneva Robertson-Dworet (co-writer of Captain Marvel ) and Graham Wagner (writer on Portlandia and Silicon Valley ), with the show's first three episodes directed by Westworld co-creator Jonathan Nolan . Already, from the looks of things , Fallout seems like it knows what it’s doing covering the expansive, enthralling lore of this world, featuring everything from the Brotherhood of Steel, to Walton Goggins starring as a Ghoul. Naturally, though, Fallout centers around a Vault Dweller, Lucy ( Ella Purnell ), who goes out into this mysterious world for the first time and into the wreckage of what was known as Los Angeles. There’s plenty of story and world to uncover in the Fallout universe, so fingers crossed this series does this story justice so we can see as much of it as we possibly can. — Ross Bonaime

In a future, post-apocalyptic Los Angeles brought about by nuclear decimation, citizens must live in underground bunkers to protect themselves from radiation, mutants and bandits.

Release Date April 11, 2024

Cast Kyle MacLachlan, Walton Goggins, Johnny Pemberton, Moises Arias

Genres Drama, Sci-Fi, Action, Adventure

'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5

April 4, paramount+.

After over a year since Season 4 came to a close, Star Trek: Discovery is set to return for its fifth and final season. While it's devastating to see the show that kicked off the Star Trek renaissance sci-fi currently enjoying come to an end, the final season is set to give Captain Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) and her team a proper send-off. The final set of episodes is expected to follow the crew of the Discovery as they search for “the greatest treasure in the galaxy,” and deal with new characters played by genre alums Callum Keith Rennie and Eve Harlow .

Over the course of its first four seasons, Discovery took the classic Star Trek edict “to boldly go” to heart and took audiences on adventures beyond our wildest imaginations. Beginning as a prequel series, Discovery launched the spin-off Strange New Worlds following its much-loved second season before rocketing further into the Star Trek timeline than any show or movie in the franchise had gone before. The series also provided groundbreaking queer representation and is expected to serve as the launchpad for the franchise’s next spin-off, Starfleet Academy . As much as we don’t want to say goodbye, it’ll be thrilling to see where Discovery takes us on this last ride when Season 5 premieres in April . — Sam Coley

Star Trek: Discovery

Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Release Date September 24, 2017

Cast Oyin Oladejo, Emily Coutts, Anthony Rapp, Sonequa Martin-Green, Doug Jones, Mary Wiseman

'Bridgerton' Season 3

May 16, netflix.

Ever since Bridgerton premiered on Christmas Day 2020, fans of Netflix’s Regency romantic drama have watched Penelope Featherington ( Nicola Coughlan ) and Colin Bridgerton ( Luke Newton ) circling each other, but never quite taking that step from friends to something more than friends. Arguably, they’ve taken a few steps back with Colin dismissing the possibility in front of his friends, and Penelope’s double life as society gossip columnist Lady Whistledown ( Julie Andrews ) threatening to crash down around her, and threatening her relationship with BFF Eloise Bridgerton ( Claudia Jesse ).

When the series returns for Season 3 in Spring 2024, however, “Polin” fans , particularly fans of the Julia Quinn books on which the story is based, will finally, finally get to see the two get together (and fingers crossed for that carriage scene). The ensemble drama will also check back in with Season 2 fan-favorite couple Anthony Bridgerton ( Jonathan Bailey ), and his hard-won Viscountess Kate ( Simone Ashley ), as well as the rest of the Bridgerton clan and their friends. — Arezou Amin

Set in the glamorous world of Regency London, the Bridgerton family maneuvers through the opulent and treacherous landscape of high society. Daphne Bridgerton, the family's eldest daughter, enters the marriage market, sparking a whirlwind romance with the enigmatic Duke of Hastings.

Release Date December 25, 2020

Creator Chris Van Dusen

Cast Luke Newton, Simone Ashley, Golda Rosheuvel, Ruth Gemmell, Nicola Coughlan, Jonathan Bailey, Rege-Jean Page, Phoebe Dynevor, Julie Andrews, Polly Walker

Genres Drama, Romance

Studio Netflix

The Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2024 (June 2024)

IMAGES

Star Trek Episode 5: The Enemy Within
Star Trek Episode 5: The Enemy Within
"The Enemy Within" (S1:E5) Star Trek: The Original Series Episode Summary
"The Enemy Within" (S1:E5) Star Trek: The Original Series Screencaps
Star Trek The Original Series Rewatch: “The Enemy Within”
The Enemy Within

VIDEO

STAR Trek: the Enemy WITHIN
STAR TREK 1X5
Enterprise: Silent Enemy
The Problem With Mudd's Women
Star Trek TOS
Spock Analyzes Kirk "The Enemy Within" Star Trek TOS!

COMMENTS

The Enemy Within (Star Trek: The Original Series)
The Enemy Within (. Star Trek: The Original Series. ) " The Enemy Within " is the fifth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series, Star Trek. Written by Richard Matheson and directed by Leo Penn, it first aired on October 6, 1966. In the episode, while beaming up from planet Alpha 177 a transporter ...
The Enemy Within (episode)
A cat version of "The Enemy Within" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats.
"Star Trek" The Enemy Within (TV Episode 1966)
A classic Star Trek episode where a transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two halves: one meek and indecisive, the other violent and ill tempered. See cast, crew, plot summary, trivia, reviews, ratings and more on IMDb.
"Star Trek" The Enemy Within (TV Episode 1966)
One Captain Kirk is weak and indecisive, fearful of making any kind of decision; the other is a mean-spirited and violent man who likes to swill brandy and force himself on female crew members. Meanwhile, as Scotty struggles to repair the transporter, the landing party is stuck on the planet below with temperatures falling rapidly. — garykmcd.
"Star Trek" The Enemy Within (TV Episode 1966)
"Star Trek" The Enemy Within (TV Episode 1966) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more.
The Enemy Within
Watch the classic episode of Star Trek: The Original Series where Captain Kirk splits into his "good" and "evil" selves. Stream free and on-demand with Pluto TV.
"The Enemy Within" Review: An In-depth Analysis of Star Trek story no. 5
The Enemy Within. Star Trek came up with one of its best original concepts for a story here in this episode, and then milked it for most of its potential. The central idea of letting the transporter create two versions of Kirk, each with opposite aspects of his personality, was an excellent way to use science fiction to explore the human condition.
The Native American Myth That Inspired Star Trek's The Enemy Within
The myth of Hiawatha influenced the writing of 'The Enemy Within,' a Star Trek episode in which Captain Kirk undergoes something of a personality split.
The Enemy Within
For an in-depth behind the scenes look at The Enemy Within, see These Are The Voyages TOS: Season One page 167-184 (revised edition) by Marc Cushman. [Show Index] [Star Trek TOS]
Star Trek: The Enemy Within
Billie Doux and Ben P. Duck review 'The Enemy Within', an excellent evil double episode of the classic TV series 'Star Trek'.
Star Trek
The Enemy Within is the work of author Richard Matheson, best known for stories like I Am Legend or What Dreams May Come. It's very much a high-concept science-fiction story, but it's also notable because it establishes two of what would become the show's favourite tropes: transporter accidents and evil duplicates. Indeed, the two devices would be reunited in the following season's ...
Classic Star Trek: The Enemy Within
Season One - Teaser Trailer #6"The Enemy Within"Stardate: 1672.9
The Enemy Within
The Enemy Within. A transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two people - one good and one evil, and neither capable of functioning well separately.
STAR TREK THE ENEMY WITHIN
STAR TREK THE ENEMY WITHIN by Gene Roddenberry Publication date 1968-01-01 Topics star Trek, tos, Kirk, Spock, sulu, Mccoy, bones, scifi, TV, 1968
Star Trek S1 E5 "The Enemy Within" Recap
A page for describing Recap: Star Trek S1 E5 "The Enemy Within". Original air date: October 6, 1966 Kirk, Sulu and some unusually long lived Red Shirts are …
"The Enemy Within"
A transporter malfunction creates a duplicate of Captain Kirk with his evil side, causing trouble on the Enterprise. Read Jammer's review of this classic episode, its strengths and weaknesses, and the comments from other fans.
"Star Trek" The Enemy Within (TV Episode 1966)
The Enemy Within is one of the finest episodes of Star Trek's first season, and its central idea has gone on to inspire similar scenarios in other genre shows, most notably Buffy The Vampire Slayer (see episode The Replacement in Season 4).
The Star Trek Transcripts
The Enemy WIthin Stardate: 1672.1 Original Airdate: 6 Oct, 1966 [Planet surface]
Watch Star Trek Season 1 Episode 6: Star Trek: The Original Series
The crew of the starship USS Enterprise boldly explores outer space in the 23rd century.
Episode Preview: The Enemy Within
© 2024 CBS Studios Inc., Paramount Pictures Corporation, and CBS Interactive Inc., Paramount companies. STAR TREK and related marks are trademarks of CBS Studios Inc.
Star Trek
Written by renowned novelist-screenwriter Richard Matheson (The Incredible Shrinking Man), the outstanding episode "The Enemy Within" proposes a transporter malfunction that results in Captain Kirk being divided into two versions of himself, one aggressive and brutal, the other sensitive and good.
THE ENEMY WITHIN: What's Hiding in Plain Sight?
What's the most dangerous place in the galaxy? Is it Talos IV? Vagra II? Rura Penthe? Maybe. They're certainly all strong candidates, but I'd bet at least a bar of gold-pressed latinum that nobody would've guessed popular Starfleet shore leave destination Ogus II — more specifically, the forest behind one of its arcades. That's where the less careful among us might one day be out for a walk ...
"Enemy Within" Screenshots
We get the good Kirk/bad Kirk, an attempted rape of Yeoman Rand, and a funny little alien dog in a Mugatu costume. Screenshots. Remastered & Original. Assorted. Posing like an evil man. Give me ...
Baldur's Gate 3: Storm Sorcerer Build Guide (Spells, Weapons, & Abilities)
Trending SR Exclusives Star Wars Marvel DC Star Trek Best on Streaming Close. ... allowing you to use your reaction to inflict 1d4 Psychic damage per spell level when an enemy within 9m casts a spell. This ability can stack with other party members, making it possible to inflict significant damage collectively and potentially kill the caster.
Wave Defense (Updates)
They will be launched from within the Central Entity. Section 31 Ciphers are the currency used to start a WD. You can try it out without a full team, although this is not recommended. The Wave Defense will begin either when the timer hits 0, or whenever the leader chooses to start. ... Note: if the enemy ship gets too close to the CE, players ...
The Most Anticipated TV Shows of 2024 (June 2024)
The tension within the family, ... Star Trek: Prodigy Season 1 is ... A young boy known as the Avatar must master the four elemental powers to save the world and fight against an enemy bent on ...