Catspaw (episode)

From Memory Alpha, the free Star Trek reference.

(Redirected from Catspaw)
Jump to: navigation, search
This article is written
from the Real World
point of view
This article is written
from the Real World
point of view
"Catspaw"
TOS, Episode 2x01
Production number: 60330
First aired: 27 October 1967
Remastered version aired: 28 October 2006
← 31st of 80 produced in TOS →
← 36th of 80 released in TOS →
← 8th of 80 released in TOS Remastered →
← 36th of 726 released in all →
Written By
Robert Bloch

Directed By
Joseph Pevney
3018.2 (2267)
  Arc: {{{wsArc0Desc}}} ({{{nArc0PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc0PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc1Desc}}} ({{{nArc1PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc1PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc2Desc}}} ({{{nArc2PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc2PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc3Desc}}} ({{{nArc3PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc3PartCount}}})  
  Arc: {{{wsArc4Desc}}} ({{{nArc4PartNumber}}} of {{{nArc4PartCount}}})  

The Enterprise crew finds witches, black cats, and haunted castles on a distant planet.

Contents

[edit] Summary

A landing party of Sulu, Scott and crewman Jackson is overdue for routine check in, when Jackson finally answers the ship's urgent hails. His confusing message: one to beam up. And, when Jackson materializes, he immediately falls to the floor, dead. But his dead lips speak; a sonorous voice tells Captain Kirk his ship is cursed; he must leave or all will die.

"Captain’s log, stardate 3018.2. Crewman Jackson is dead... and there are no apparent physical causes. Mr. Scott and Mr. Sulu are still out of touch on the planet below. Leaving Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle in command of the Enterprise, I'm beaming down to the planet's surface to find my two missing crewmen... and discover what killed Jackson."

With two crewmen missing and a mysterious death, Kirk doesn't plan to leave yet. He organizes a second landing party: himself, Spock, and McCoy. They beam to the point from which Jackson was beamed up. There, Kirk intends to discover what happened to his missing men, and what killed Jackson.

The planet is fogbound, something extremely unlikely given the environmental conditions. Proceeding towards a reading of nearby lifeforms, the landing party encounters three witches; the spectral hags again warn Kirk to leave. Winds and fog try to thwart the landing party, but they discover a large castle – the source of the lifeform readings. Entering, the landing party spies a black cat, and follows it through the corridors, until the floor collapses beneath them, plunging them down to a dungeon chamber, and unconsciousness.

Awakening, the landing party discovers they are chained. Scotty and Sulu appear, and Kirk is at first relieved to see his missing men. Then he realizes they're marching to someone else's drum: alive, but unresponsive and no longer allies. The two enthralled men free Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and herd them towards the door at phaser point; a brief scuffle is halted when the all the men are suddenly – elsewhere, in the presence of a strange robed man.

This is Korob, decked out in wizard's finery, with robe, wand, and black cat. Spock's comment that mapping expeditions have not discovered lifeforms on Pyris VII wrings a small truth from Korob – that he is not native to this world. Korob first plies the crew with food and drink, then with fortunes in gemstones. All to get them to leave, without asking more questions. But Kirk tells Korob he could manufacture such stones by the ton on his ship; they're valueless, a fact that conflicts with whatever research Korob has done. Korob then reveals that the events were staged to test the landing party. He has learned they are loyal, brave, and incorruptible.

Sylvia enters. She tells Kirk that she can read and control the minds of men. Kirk briefly overpowers Scotty, seizing his weapon, and when he refuses to return it, Sylvia reveals another skill: she can perform sympathetic magic. A small model of the Enterprise, held in the flame of a candle – and the real ship, orbiting above, begins to grow hot.

Seizing Sylvia's arm, Kirk removes the model from the flame, and the Enterprise from danger. When he suggests that landing parties will soon appear, Korob seals the model in a block – and above, the ship is suddenly surrounded by a field unlike anything ever encountered, a field that doesn't come from anywhere, but just... is. And, it cannot be analyzed.

Kirk and Spock are returned to the dungeon, while McCoy remains with Sylvia, who intends to question him. Kirk and Spock spend some time speculating about Sylvia and Korob, and Kirk decides they must be stopped. Their questions and interest seems to him a little too sinister.

Elsewhere, Sylvia and Korob argue; Sylvia likes her new sensations. Wherever these aliens call home, they have nothing like it – and she intends to remain here. Korob reminds her they have a duty to the Old Ones, a fact she considers unimportant in light of her new infatuation.

Kirk is returned to Sylvia's presence, where he learns she is infatuated with him, as well. She reveals her plan: to dispose of Korob and join with Kirk. But Kirk is using her, gaining answers through manipulation. Among other things, he learns that the transmuter is the key to her power, a mechanism that facilitates the actualization of thought. But she discovers the deception, and has Kirk hauled back to his cell.

Korob finds Kirk and Spock; he reveals he has released the Enterprise, and he releases them. He also reveals that he can no longer control Sylvia or her pawns, and that he considers her dangerously irrational. He is regretful, offering his opinion that their visit could have been a peaceful one. Time presses, and he cannot explain in detail; instead, he urges the men out of their cell, where they again encounter the black cat – now grown to enormous size. The men are forced to retreat back into their cell.

The cat forces the door of the cell, crushing Korob and giving Kirk an opportunity to retrieve his wand. Escaping through the ceiling, Kirk and Spock are confronted by their own enthralled crew, and a brief scuffle ends with Sylvia's pawns out of action, and the reappearance of the cat, as well as Sylvia. The wand Kirk has retrieved is the transmuter, and Sylvia wants it very badly. She has a less powerful, simpler mechanism; Korob's wand holds the key. Sylvia is reluctant to simply seize the device from Kirk, despite her contention that he does not know how to use it. Finally, she threatens Kirk with a phaser, demanding the wand. Kirk responds by shattering the wand, an act that undoes everything... almost everything. At the landing party's feet, two small aliens wither and fall. Deprived of their transmuter, Sylvia and Korob have resumed their real forms, and are as Sylvia described them: feathers in the wind. They quickly perish, and both landing parties return to the Enterprise.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Recalibrate your sensors, Mr. Chekov. You need help?"
"I can do it, sir! I'm not that green."

- DeSalle and Chekov, riding Chekov hard during his first appearance


"Captain Kirk... Captain Kirk... Captain Kirk..."
"Go back... go back... go back!"

"Remember the curse!"
"Remember the curse!"

"Remember the curse!"
"Wind shall rise..."

"And fog descend..."
"So leave here, all, or meet your end!"

- Three illusory witches, warning away Kirk, Spock and McCoy

"If we weren't missing two officers and a third one dead I'd say someone was playing an elaborate trick or treat on us."
"Trick or treat, captain?"
"Yes, Mr. Spock. You'd be a natural. I'll explain it to you one day."

- Spock and Kirk


"Spock. Comment?"
"Very bad poetry, Captain."
"A more useful comment, Mr. Spock."
"What we've just seen is not real."
"That's useful."

- Kirk and Spock (see Shakespeare and Star Trek)


"Jim, could this be some sort of parallel Earth development...?"

- McCoy (see Hodgkin's Law of Parallel Planetary Development)


"Where did your race get this ridiculous predilection for resistance, hmm? You examine any object. You... you question everything! Is it not enough to accept what is?"

- Korob


"Actually, it's a simple matter for us to probe the minds of creatures like yourself... You like to think of yourselves as complex creatures, but you're flawed. One gains admittance to your minds through many levels. You have too many to keep track of yourselves. There are unguarded entrances to any Human mind."

- Sylvia, explaining her mind-controlling technique


"Tell me about power, captain. How does it feel?"

- Sylvia


"Jackson. The crew member who returned to the ship. You wondered what killed him? I made an image of him. In the essence of my thoughts, the image was Jackson. And when I killed the image, and knew that it was dead, he died!"

- Sylvia


"What about Korob?"
"He is a fool. I'll do without him."

- Kirk and Sylvia, as the wedge is driven between Sylvia and Korob


"I can squash you! And that would be an interesting sensation, yes."

- Sylvia, asserting her power over Korob


"You... are... using me! You hold me in your arms and there is no fire in your mind! You're trying to deceive me! It's here... like words on a page! You are using me!"

- Sylvia, as she becomes aware of Kirk's duplicity


"You will be swept away. You... your men... your ship... your worlds!"

- Sylvia, threatening Kirk


"Captain, a little more alacrity, if you please"

- Spock

[edit] Background Information

  • Kirk calls McCoy "Bones" until he sees the skeleton in the dungeon, whereupon, for the rest of the episode, he calls McCoy "Doc" instead.
  • Although this was the first episode of TOS Season 2 in production (filmed in early May 1967), it did not premiere until the week of Halloween, 1967. It was, in fact, written in a Halloween-type theme for just that reason. This episode also remains to date the only Star Trek production produced as a "holiday special" type episode.
  • Walter Koenig joined the cast as Pavel Chekov in this episode. In an apparent discontinuity in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Khan Noonien Singh remembers Chekov from the previous season's "Space Seed". It is possible that Chekov was already serving on the Enterprise in "Space Seed" but his position was as such that he was not shown on air.
  • This episode marks several changes to the episode credits. From this point on, the episode titles and end credits are in the same font as the main title of the series. DeForest Kelley's name is added to the opening credits.
  • This is the first episode in which a scope can be seen at the engineering station on the bridge. The science station scope was slightly altered for this episode; it is of a lighter color than the science scope used in episodes of the first season and has a circular control added to its left side. The device's second variation, as first seen in this episode, would remain throughout Seasons 2 and 3.
  • A detailed metal prop miniature of the Enterprise was created for this episode, then encased in Lucite as one of Korob's tricks. The miniature was donated to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum by Gene Roddenberry.
  • Theo Marcuse died in a car accident one month after this episode aired.
  • Charlie Washburn, assistant director during the second season, said Antoinette Bower was the most professional actor to appear on the series while he worked on it.
  • Perhaps to give Bower a more artificially-Human appearance, she wears a wig while playing Sylvia. Bower's real hair can be seen (with extensions) in the first of the exotic women she transforms herself into.
  • The role of Crewman Jackson is credited to "Jimmy Jones", apparently the brother of regular stunt performer Jay Jones. Jim Jones is supposed to have a scar by his mouth the "other Jones" does not have. This seems likely as during this episode's teaser there is a closeup of Jackson lying on the ground after dying in the transporter room and the scar is clearly visible.
    (citation needed • edit)
    However, in a 1996 retrospective interview, Jay claimed that the role of Jackson was played by himself as his first assignment on Star Trek and makes no mention of a brother named Jimmy being involved on the show (Science Fiction Televison Series, Mark Phillips and Frank Garcia, McFarland and Co., 1996).
  • In this episode, DeSalle wears a red engineering tunic, unlike the gold command tunic he wore in "The Squire of Gothos" and "This Side of Paradise".
  • Scotty's only dialog in this episode is the statement, "Everything's vanished".
  • Kirk says that the rubies, emeralds, sapphires and diamonds that Korob offers them are worthless: the Enterprise, he argues, could manufacture "a ton" of them. Yet in "Arena", he notes that he is surrounded by "a fortune" in diamonds.
  • The term "catspaw" has a double meaning in this episode. The obvious one is that Sylvia takes on the form of a giant cat; the title refers to her paw. Another meaning is that of a person used by another as a dupe; as McCoy points out, Scott and Sulu are used as catspaws to lure more crewmen down.
  • The short scene of crewmen in turtleneck uniforms walking on a corridor during red alert is stock footage from "Where No Man Has Gone Before". This marks the last time that these uniforms are worn by Enterprise crewmembers.
  • Robert Bloch based this episode very loosely on his own short story "Broomstick Ride."
  • Bloch also wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" In both episodes, the "Old Ones" figure into the guest characters' backstories. Bloch probably worked the reference in as homage to his mentor, HP Lovecraft.
  • When holding his phaser, the fact that James Doohan lost his middle finger can be seen; this was usually hidden on screen.
  • Andrea Weaver became the women's costumer for the series with this episode. She would remain with the show throughout the remainder of the season and half of TOS Season 3.
  • Elements of composer Gerald Fried's score for this episode are similar to his earlier score for "The My Friend The Gorilla Affair," a third season episode of The Man From U.N.C.L.E. aired in December 1966.
  • Several bloopers from this episode can be found in the second season blooper reel. In one, James Doohan trips a bit while blankly walking down the dungeon stairs and promptly laughs. In another, William Shatner slips his left arm out of the shackles he is wearing in the dungeon so he can reach down and scratch his groin. While fighting with De Kelley in the castle corridor, he grabs him by the shoulders but, instead of hitting him, turns to the camera, smiles disarmingly, and releases him. And during another fight sequence, he kicks the mace that Kelley is wielding out of his grip--but instead of merely falling to the floor, as it does in the actual episode, it bounces off the wall and back into Kelley's grasp, causing Shatner to dissolve into laughter.

[edit] Remastered Information

  • "Catspaw" was the eighth episode of the remastered version of The Original Series to air. It premiered in syndication on the weekend of 28 October 2006 and most notably featured new effects shots of Pyris VII from space, as well as the castle on the surface. The transmuter effect was also touched up and visible wires controlling the small aliens were removed.

Pyris VII, remastered

The expanded castle shot

[edit] Production Timeline

[edit] Video and DVD releases

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Starring

[edit] Guest Star

[edit] Co-Starring

[edit] Featuring

[edit] With

[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars

[edit] References

cat; demon; diamond; Earth; Earth parallel development; emerald; ghost; Halloween; heat dissipation unit; iron maiden; ogre; Old Ones; Pyris VII; ruby; saber-toothed tiger; sapphire; Satan; skeleton; telekinesis; transmuter; witch; wizard

[edit] External links


Previous episode produced:
"Operation -- Annihilate!" 		Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 2 		Next episode produced:
"Metamorphosis"
Previous episode aired:
"The Doomsday Machine" 		Next episode aired:
"I, Mudd"
Previous remastered episode aired:
"Arena" 		TOS Remastered Next remastered episode aired:
"The Trouble with Tribbles"
Retrieved from "http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Catspaw_%28episode%29"
Personal tools
In other languages