What Kind Of Animal Did They Use On Star Trek The Enemy Within

I was thinking near separate personalities the other solar day, afterwards having a lengthy chat about the M. Night Shyamalan film Split, and an old episode of the original serial of Star Trek sort of worked its way into my brain, though I couldn't remember the title. I'm a fan but not a fan if yous know what I hateful, just I was sure there was a show that had Captain Kirk 'divide' in some way . . . so, a little enquiry later and sure enough, I was right.

The episode is calledThe Enemy Within, from the first flavor show v, and information technology aired originally on Oct 6, 1966. I own the whole series (of grade) – okay, a fan merely not a superfan – then I plopped myself on the sofa with a bucket-a-hot salted popcorn and gave it a watch. It'd been a long time since I'd watched any TOS so naturally, I was a little dizzy. I mean, those outset notes from the opening theme . . . dang. That's good stuff.

Anyway, the story goes like this. The Enterprise (I'm simply gonna assume that if you're reading this you're already enlightened of what 'Star Trek' is and don't need a general summary of the concept) orbits Alpha 177, a deserted planet where they are meant to do some geological surveys. All good until Technician Fisher (Edward Madden) slips and takes a nasty autumn. He's a scientist, not a rock climber. Hobbling and bloodied, Captain Kirk (William Shatner) instructs him to beam dorsum aboard and get some medical treatment. Good programme, but he brings with him a mysterious yellow substance on his uniform, the first sign that something isn't correct.

Not long afterward, Kirk likewise heads back to the Enterprise, and while he beams up seemingly xanthous muck costless, he arrives a bit empty-headed and unstable. So much and so, he's led off to sickbay by Chief Engineer Mr. Scott (James Doohan). That leaves the transporter room unattended, which turns out to be a bit of a problem because simply moments subsequently, in beams another Captain Kirk. And this one has a strange look in his optics. This is a Kirk up to no skilful.

As you can surely approximate, the second Kirk is sort of a primal version of the original, and that original, now stripped of his rage, lust, and violence, is reduced to a docile, somewhat indecisive leader. That's bad if you're doing all the captainy things a captain needs to captain while Captain of a starship. Right away, Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) notices, and when the bad Kirk makes some, shall we say, unsolicited advances on the lovely Yeoman Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) in her private quarters, well, information technology'south clear there's a real problem on the ship.

In a nice twist, the story doesn't play to the expected where the coiffure believes for the length of the show that the existent captain has somehow gone off the deep cease and is terrorizing the ship on his own. Instead, afterward a chip of a cat and mouse between the captains, the bad one is captured, leaving the other Kirk with a crisis of identity. It'due south not like they can but kill the bad Kirk and be done with it. How might that ultimately affect the existent Kirk? And who is the original Kirk if he doesn't have his "night side" in him?

And this is where I must introduce . . . the pooch. See, the landing party accept beamed upwardly an animal specimen from the planet, a creature that is conspicuously a sedated lapdog in a furry costume adorned with processed cane antenna and a unicorn horn but serves a much larger purpose to the story than the giggles one catches in the back of their throat while watching information technology for the showtime time. (1 can't help but paradigm the rounds of laughter the cast must take gone through when realizing they had to take this seriously while filming.)

Anyway, getting back to the serious, the dog-thing is the thematic parallel to Kirk'southward plight, where the animate being too had a 2d axle aboard that is just about ferocious, leaving the original practically inert. This gives Kirk and Spock the opportunity to further contemplate the Captain'south fate, and more chiefly, a take a chance to test an thought that might be a possible ready to the problem. That this ends upwards in failure in the optics of Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley) and a success to Spock, speaks a lot to the excellent staging of difficult scientific discipline versus human emotion these two represent in the show, and creates a real bind for what Kirk should do well-nigh himself and the men on the surface.

Oh right. The men on the surface. There is a subplot involving others, including Mr. Sulu (George Takei), being stranded on the planet below, the nighttime freezing temperatures at risk of killing them all but helpless equally the transporter malfunctions. It'south a little hokey and I'g not actually sure why they couldn't take deployed the shuttlecraft, but that'due south not actually important here (in truth, the concept for using the shuttle in this episode had been on the table but budget restrictions made information technology incommunicable and the shuttle wouldn't make its first appearance in the series until eleven shows afterwards – okay, okay, a superfan but not a Trekker). Information technology'south driven to add some stakes to the tension of what to exercise with the two Kirks, no thing how unconvincing information technology looks that these men are supposedly freezing to death. Overnice try, Sulu.

Yes, this two-Kirk plot would seem shallow at first, but it ends up far deeper, the docile Kirk wanting to discover a way to help the angry ane, recognizing how badly he needs it to survive, while the angry one just knows to be, well, angry, plotting to do away with the docile one. Spock, being his intellectual self, savors the idea of examining the roles of good and evil in humans and how i can't truly make a person complete if lacking 1 or the other. I similar the philosophical dilemma this leaves these characters in, and it's a clever piffling spin for a low-upkeep sci-fi show in the 60s to become wrapped up in.

What you really need to watch is the great work Shatner does with this duality at play. Notice how he layers the subtle weaknesses of the good Kirk against the menace of the bad one, mostly with shifts in body postures and the wait in his eyes. He's an often underrated actor who may deserve a bit of the fun poked at him, but it's actually his turn as Kirk that gave him the best opportunities to show off his chops, and this is a prime example of him at the superlative of his game, though I however believe what he does in the starting time ii Star Expedition films are his greatest achievements. (And let's not forget that inStar Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Kirk gets a second chance to face himself, though albeit nether entirely unlike circumstances involving a shapeshifting bird woman with xanthous eyes. Star Expedition can be pretty weird.)

Back to the episode, this i, particularly equally it enters the third human action, really finds its footing as the ol' switchero does come about and the bad Kirk makes his fashion to the big chair. I won't reveal where that goes but information technology's good fun and not where it seems prepare to go. Again, overnice work from Shatner.

This is where I need to mention that the episode was written past Richard Matheson, who is best known for his critically acclaimed and highly influential sci-fi/horror novelI Am Legend. It was his but contribution to theStar Trek canon, but easily, one of the most memorable in the three-year run of the kickoff series. This is a dense episode that, similar many in the old days of Star Trek, put accent on the characters and story rather than continuous activity, which I'm non maxim can't be done right, just one of the things I liked all-time nearly these original shows was how and so much could be explored about the human being status through clever setups and smart dialogue rather than shooting and punching. Fan of scientific discipline fiction or Star Trek or not, this is an episode that deserves a sit down-through. Make information technology then. Oh expect. Wrong captain.

Source: https://www.thatmomentin.com/exploring-the-enemy-within-from-from-star-trek-tos/

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