The Enemy Within (episode)
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(written from a Production point of view)
| "The Enemy Within" | ||
|---|---|---|
| TOS, Episode 1x04 Production number: 6149-05 First aired: 6 October 1966 Remastered version aired: 26 January 2008 | ||
| ← | 5th of 80 produced in TOS | → |
| ← | 5th of 80 released in TOS | → |
| ← | 55th of 80 released in TOS Remastered | → |
| ← | 5th of 727 released in all | → |
| Written By Richard Matheson Directed By Leo Penn | ||
| 1672.1 (2266) | ||
A transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two people – one good and one evil, and neither capable of functioning well separately.
Contents |
[edit] Summary
[edit] Teaser
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 ore. He beams up to the USS Enterprise for treatment. Detecting a curious overload in the transporter circuitry, 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 – but is in fact, a shadow of himself.
[edit] Act One
Due to this transporter accident Kirk is split into two beings. The first to materialize embodies all of Kirk's positive qualities. Moments later, after everyone has left, Kirk's evil twin materializes.
Some time passes before the mishap is discovered, during which the evil Kirk roams the ship. He demands liquor from McCoy, assaults crewmen, and even tries to sexually assault Yeoman Rand. Finally, he is cornered in the engine room, and captured – but not before his errant phaser shot damages the transporter further.
[edit] Act Two
Kirk's good half considers abandoning his evil half. It is a hateful thing, and he does not like to acknowledge that it is part of him. But as he weakens, and begins to lose the ability to make decisions, he realizes that he needs it, that neither part of him can live without the other.
[edit] Act Three
Meanwhile, on the planet below, the remaining landing party is suffering through increasing cold. Attempts to beam heaters and other support devices produce only non-functional duplicates.
Finally, Scotty and Spock believe they have isolated and repaired all the damage. A test animal, previously split, is sent through to see if it will reintegrate. It does, but rematerializes dead.
[edit] Act Four
Crippled with indecision, Kirk must decide what to do. He is able, barely, to make the trip, and his two halves are re-integrated. Confident once again, he gives the order to beam up the landing party, saving them moments from freezing.
[edit] Log Entries
- Captain's log, stardate 1672.1. Specimen gathering mission on planet Alpha 177. Unknown to any of us during this time a duplicate of me, some strange alter ego, had been created by the transporter malfunction.
- Captain's log, stardate 1672.9. On the planet's surface, temperatures are beginning to drop; our landing party there in growing jeopardy. Due to the malfunction of the ship's transporter, an unexplained duplicate of myself definitely exists.
- Captain's log, stardate 1673.1. Something has happened to me. Somehow in being duplicated, I have lost my strength of will. Decisions are becoming more and more difficult.
- Captain's log, stardate 1673.5. Transporter still inoperable... my negative self is under restraint in sickbay... my own indecisiveness growing... my force of will steadily weakening. On the planet condition critical, surface temperature is 75 degrees below zero. Still dropping.
- Captain's log, stardate 1673.1, entered in by Second Officer Spock. Captain Kirk retains command of this vessel, but his force of will rapidly fading. Condition of landing party critical. Transporter unit still under repair.
[edit] Memorable Quotes
"You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much woman."
- - Kirk's evil duplicate, to Rand
"You can't afford the luxury of being anything less than perfect. If you do, they lose faith, and you lose command."
- - Spock, to Kirk's good duplicate
"I'm Captain Kirk. I'm Captain Kirk!!!"
- - Kirk's evil duplicate
"And what is it that makes one man an exceptional leader? We see 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."
- - Spock, to McCoy
"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."
- - Sulu and Kirk's good duplicate
"Any possibility of getting us back aboard before the skiing season opens down here?"
- - Sulu
"He's like an animal. A thoughtless, brutal animal. And yet it's me. Me!"
- - Kirk's good duplicate, on his evil counterpart
"We all have our darker side. We need it! It's half of what we are. It's not really ugly. It's human."
- - McCoy, to Kirk's good duplicate
"The intelligence, the logic. It appears your half has most of that. And perhaps that's where man's essential courage comes from."
- - McCoy, to Kirk's good duplicate
"He's dead, Jim."
- - McCoy, on the test animal
"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."
- - Spock, on merging the two Kirks
"Can half a man live?"
- - Kirk's good duplicate, to his evil counterpart on the bridge
"I want to live!"
- - Kirk's evil duplicate
"I've seen a part of myself no man should ever see."
- - Kirk to McCoy, after the successful reintegration
"The ... impostor had some ... interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?"
- - Spock, to Rand
[edit] Background information
[edit] Production timeline
- Teleplay by Richard Matheson: 31 May 1966
- First draft written: 6 June 1966
- Final draft written: 8 June 1966
- Score recording: 14 September 1966
[edit] Story and production
- Grace Lee Whitney recounts 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. [1] After the scene was shot, he later apologized.
[edit] Props and sets
- The sensor 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. [2] This Feinberger reappeared in "The Naked Time", "The Doomsday Machine", and "Obsession".
- In this episode we get to follow Kirk behind the large engine room machinery components in the first trip to the engineering deck (which dialog identifies as being in the lowest parts of the ship). To allow this to happen, the new set had to be temporarily expanded to hide the sound stage beyond it. After the double is rendered unconscious by the first neck pinch in the series, the quickly-assembled wall behind the three characters can be observed to have a very rough edge where it meets the floor. Pieces of sets that were designed to be added and subtracted easily were called "wild." Although Kirk pursues Ben Finney into these components in "Court Martial", this is the only time we get to see the space behind them. The view of the tubed structures behind the grille was a forced perspective set. The tubed machinery appears to be many dozens of meters long, but this is an illusion created by making each vertical piece much smaller than the one in front of it. Diminishing numbers were later printed on the tubes immediately behind the grid to add to the illusion. In episodes where the engines were under stress, lighting effects were used inside the tubed-machinery room. The set was extensively remodeled between the first and second seasons.
[edit] Special effects
- The showering phaser effect used when Sulu heats the rock is never used again. Just before he sprays the rocks, Sulu also appears to be fitting his hand phaser into its pistol mount—again, a maneuver that is never repeated.
- This episode contains a rare glance of the main viewscreen with no picture on it whatsoever. It is just a plain white blank screen with a black frame with no blue glowing strip around it, and can be seen behind negative-Kirk when he is on the bridge.
- There are two split screens used: after Kirk's double is neck-pinched and, in sickbay, when he takes the hand of his counterpart. All other instances of the two Kirks appearing in the same shot were done using doubles.
- The visual effect of the planet Alfa 177 from orbit was reused as M-113 in "The Man Trap" (although "The Man Trap" ended up airing first), Tantalus V in "Dagger of the Mind", both Planet Q and Benecia in "The Conscience of the King", Gothos in "The Squire of Gothos", the iron-silica planet in "The Alternative Factor", Beta III in "The Return of the Archons", Janus VI in "The Devil in the Dark", Organia in "Errand of Mercy", Planet Mudd in "I, Mudd", Argus X in "Obsession" and Ardana in "The Cloud Minders".
[edit] 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.
- This episode introduced the first season version of the captain's wraparound tunic. It reappears in "Charlie X" and "Court Martial", and in Kirk's briefcase in "This Side of Paradise".
[edit] Cast
- Although Nichelle Nichols does not appear in this episode, her voice is heard on the intercom in several scenes.
[edit] Continuity
- This was the first episode 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" the evil 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)
- 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. (Star Trek Encyclopedia)
- Shots of Scotty's hands operating the transporter were reused many times throughout the series as recycled footage. Namely in "The Naked Time", "The Menagerie, Part I", "Arena", "Space Seed", "Operation -- Annihilate!", "Patterns of Force", "Assignment: Earth", "Elaan of Troyius", "The Tholian Web", "The Lights of Zetar" and "The Way to Eden".
- 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 the negative-Kirk enters Kirk's quarters. The initial was first spoken in "Mudd's Women", but that episode aired after "The Enemy Within".
- A similar transporter accident happens to Riker in TNG: "Second Chances" - although the resulting duplicates, one continuing as Will Riker while the other became known as Thomas Riker, were perfect duplicates, capable of surviving independently of each other and both being equally valid versions of the original Riker-, and a kind of reverse of this accident integrates Tuvok and Neelix into the entity known as Tuvix for a short time on VOY: "Tuvix".
[edit] Other information
- William Shatner, playing himself on a guest appearance on Saturday Night Live, made a reference to this episode. In the sketch, Shatner had just finished delivering a rant imploring an audience of Star Trek fans at a convention to "get a life", then explained the rant was a "recreation of the evil Captain Kirk from episode 37, the name... The Enemy Within." In fact, the 37th TOS episode produced was "The Changeling" and the 37th aired was "I, Mudd".
- If you look very closely when Scotty reaches into the cage containing the "negative side" of the alien canine (just before their plan to reintegrate the two halves), you can briefly see the absence of the middle finger on James Doohan's right hand, the result of an injury during World War II.
- A reaction shot of Spock on the bridge is recycled from "The Naked Time".
[edit] Video and DVD releases
- Original US Betamax release: 1985.
- Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 3, catalogue 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.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Starring
- William Shatner as Capt. Kirk
- Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock
[edit] Featuring
- DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy
- Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand
- And:
- George Takei as Sulu
- James Doohan as Scott
- Edward Madden as Fisher
- Garland Thompson as Wilson
- Jim Goodwin as Farrell
[edit] Uncredited co-stars
[edit] Stunt double
- Don Eitner as the stunt double for William Shatner
[edit] References
abort control circuit; Alfa 177; Alfa 177 canine; autopsy; coadjutor engagement; coffee; exposure; frostbite; hand phaser; impulse engine; leader circuit; magnetism; ore; post-mortem; protoplaser; rice wine; Saurian brandy; ship's manifest; shock; skiing; survival training; synchronic meter; thermal heater; tranquilizer; transporter; transporter circuit; transporter unit ionizer; velocity balance; Vulcan nerve pinch
[edit] External link
- The Enemy Within at Memory Beta, the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
| Previous episode produced: "Mudd's Women" | Star Trek: The Original Series Season 1 | Next episode produced: "The Man Trap" |
| Previous episode aired: "The Naked Time" | Next episode aired: "Mudd's Women" | |
| Previous remastered episode aired: "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" | TOS Remastered | Next remastered episode aired: "The Changeling" |
