2.14 — “Wolf in the Fold”
Plot: On shore leave on Argelus II, Scott takes a shy local woman out for a stroll to lecture her about the meteorology of the British Isles. A short time later, Kirk and McCoy are attracted by a scream and find the girl stabbed a dozen times to death, with Scott standing over the corpse holding a bloody knife. Scott claims to have no memory of what happened. Starfleet regulations give local authorities jurisdiction over the investigation and potential punishment. How did this happen–and will the grisly murders continue?
Thoughts: I am of two minds about “Wolf in the Fold.” On the one hand, I enjoy the macabre flavor that teleplay writer Robert Bloch brings to his 3 episodes of TOS (we have already seen “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” and “Catspaw”). A murder mystery in Star Trek is welcome, and the episode’s later scenes on the Enterprise are delicious. The Redjac entity’s taunt, “Your manual overrides are very limited in life!” is something I may have to get tattooed on my body. I love Spock defeating the computer by making it calculate pi, drugged Sulu, and drugged McCoy. It was disturbing, but also intriguing, to see the crew make use of the transporter as a weapon. It was a surprise to see Jack–I thought he had been abducted by Vorlons. Or was it that he was actually a renegade Time Lord? I must be confused.
But. Can I resist going all feminist on this episode? I cannot.
The teaser makes it clear that Kirk, McCoy, and Scott’s vision of paradise is a planet which knows how to enslave its women, and present them as prostitutes. The childlike, simple happiness on James Doohan’s face nevertheless almost makes the scene worthwhile. I guess he has forgotten Lt. Palamas from “Who Mourns for Adonais?” Anyway, the less said about McCoy’s explanation that Scott needs to be exposed to exploited females to stop him from resenting all women after being injured in an explosion, the better.
The dancer seems to be inadequately dressed to go out walking in the fog with Scotty, but never mind.
Then there is the spectacle of our crew ogling local women with the encouragement of the indigenous patriarchy, while generally behaving like frat boys at a stag party. Someone says this is the last planet where you would expect a murder to take place. I don’t know–looks like a recipe for violence against women to me.
It’s a nice fantasy that the Jack the Ripper murders might have been committed by a gaseous alien entity, who only selected female (prostitute) victims because “women are more easily and more deeply terrified, generating more sheer horror than the male of the species.” I’m afraid, however, that violence against women is a real thing done by humans, not UFOs, for reasons that very much depend upon gender. This topic deserves far more careful consideration than it is given here.
Let’s please go back to murdering Redshirts.
(Not next episode, however–the next episode has tribbles!)
2 of 5 Rigellian knives made of boridium and murinite.
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