1.5 — “The Enemy Within”
Here we have an exciting episode on a classic theme (hero is a war with his darker side and self-destructive impulses!), marred by a horrendous closing line. Out of curiosity, I performed a search on Amazon for books containing “The Enemy Within” and got back 39,250 titles. The dramatizion of Kirk’s internal battle via transporter malfunction is a new twist on Jekyll & Hyde, and I appreciate the addition of the new-agey idea that Kirk’s dark side is not just his enemy, it is something he needs to integrate in order to be whole. Usually we think of this concept in terms of the need for masculine characters to embrace their feminine side, not to accept their internal marauders and pillagers, but I still found this interesting and insightful. The image of Kirk hugging himself was quite powerful. Spock’s speech about it reminded me what a great character he is, while underscoring the series’ recurring theme of reason overcoming brutality: “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. . . . I survive it because my intelligence wins over both, makes them live together. Your intelligence would enable you to survive as well.“
More good stuff: the campiness is hard to resist. Kirk’s dark side can be identified by the scratches to his face–AND his fabulous eyeliner! The exultation of his darker half reminded me of Jack Nicholson in The Shining. “Heeeere’s Jimmy!” But instead it was “I’M CAPTAIN KIRK!” He’s chewing the scenery here, but you have to admire Shatner’s commitment.
While we’re exploring different sides of Kirk’s personality, I want to know why he has foundation makeup on his dressing table.
Love the dog in suit. A unicorn dog with an armidillo tail? This alien needs a backstory! What’s it called? Does it have a name? What is it doing there at all? Is this Sulu’s fabulous pink pet? Bones gets to say his famous line “He’s dead, Jim” about the Unidillodog. We also get Bones making medicinal use of brandy–charmingly old-fashioned for the 23rd century, but I’d want him on my medical plan all the same.
I love Sulu on the surface. In fact, I just love Sulu–he’s my secret favorite. Always giving and professional, and yet in the most buttoned-down scenes you can still feel his twinkle and the 19th-century swashbuckler underneath. But–why not beam the away team up before solving the problem with Kirk, if they are going to die on the surface anyway? Better to produce more doubles than turn them into popsicles. (It’s worth noting that there is no shuttlecraft in this early episode because the writers hadn’t thought of one yet.)
Buuut I have more questions. What if you put a double back through the transporter and it gets quartered? Would it become an opposite on a different plane of duality? Is a gentle personality really the opposite of a fierce one, anyway? Why not sloppy vs. neat? Or use Myers-Briggs dualities: introvert vs. extrovert, sensing vs. intuition, feeling vs. thinking, judgement vs. perception. My opposite on the M-B scale would be an ISTJ (which does sound quite evil!).
What this episode points out is that the transporter is seriously scary. Where does the dog, and Kirk, go in between materializations? Do they cease to exist? That makes my skin crawl. I thought about this, and other transporter pitfalls, a lot as a kid. McCoy asks “Suppose death was caused by a transporter malfunction?” The day before I heard that question would be the last good night’s sleep I’d ever have on the Enterprise.
Spock’s statement took me aback: “You must surely realize 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. ” (Thank you, Chrissie’s Star Trek Transcript site!) What a crushing burden that would be. It explains a lot about Kirk and the tension of the show. Is it true? When Spock said it, I believed it.
I’m droning on too long, but It must be noted that this episode contains an attempted rape scene. I thought the scenes depicting the predicament of Rand, first being cornered by a superior officer and then reporting the incident, were handled in a grown up way and with sensitively that was a credit to the performers. I don’t fault Star Trek for including these scenes. The closing line of the episode, however, is inexcusable. Actress Grace Lee Whitney’s comment, quoted in this summary from Memory Alpha (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Enemy_Within), cover it well:
Actress Grace Lee Whitney was very unhappy about the last scene of this episode, in which Spock asks Yeoman Rand, if “The imposter 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)
No crew deaths, assuming the away team’s recovery from frostbite.
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