"Enemy Within" - Scotty to blame?

[Melakon]

Was Mr. Scott at fault for Kirk's transporter accident? He already knew the transporter was performing oddly after Fisher's beamup, and was waiting for a technician to return with a synchronic meter so they could doublecheck circuitry. Yet he beams Kirk up anyway.

[HGN2001]

Must be where he learned his lesson to multiply his repair estimates by a factor of four.

Harry

[Bad Atom]

I blame the writer. This is one of the most poorly-written episodes of the whole series. Ridiculous plot holes and gaps in logic, nonsensical character motivations, and creeping sexism to boot. Even allowing some slack for the fact that it was the 60's and it was only the fifth episode, it's still a complete mess.

[sbk1234]

If I was a member of the Tea Party I'd blame Rand.

[Timo]

Well, the primus motor character is supposed to be suffering from nonsensical motivations here. And his second-in-command is a creepy alien we don't know all that well yet, nor do the writers, but they have a vague idea that he's got a misogynist streak. On those counts, the episode only delivers what it intends to.

But yeah, while Scotty isn't the master of his own priorities any longer after the "good" Kirk starts messing with his work, he already makes some odd professional choices at the start of the adventure. Not double-checking for the captain? Not following his orders not to leave the transporter room unattended?

Timo Saloniemi

[Garrovick]

Well, Scott did do a check of the transporter equipment before beaming Kirk up, and nothing was apparently wrong. And Fisher, once he materialized, didn't seem to be any the worse for wear other than the dust on his uniform and the cut on his hand. It appeared to be a one-time only thing with no damage to the machinery. Why shouldn't he have beamed the captain up? And even if Scott had stayed in the transporter room, the duplication still would have happened, although the second Kirk would have been spotted and caught sooner than he in fact was.

It always amazed me that a ship the size of the Enterprise only seemed to have the one transporter room. But I don't recall any on-air references to other transporters on the ship, although they must have existed, for cargo loading/unloading and emergency evacuations if nothing else. In the episode "What are Little Girls Made Of?", Korby speaks of removing the android-making equipment from Exo III to the ship, but how would he ever have gotten it aboard? Certainly not with the transporter that we saw on the ship, and it couldn't have been loaded on a shuttlecraft either. There must at least have been cargo transporters.

[Haggis and tatties]

I blame the lighting studio hands myself. lol

[Timo]

Why shouldn't he have beamed the captain up?

Scotty first says he wants to double-check, then beams up Kirk! That's callous. If there's a need to double-check, this should be done before the Captain is beamed aboard. If there isn't, Scotty shouldn't waste time doing unnecessary checks.

It always amazed me that a ship the size of the Enterprise only seemed to have the one transporter room. But I don't recall any on-air references to other transporters on the ship

Well, the appearance of the set changed from episode to episode - door color changes, different items decorating the aft wall, sometimes a viewscreen and a food slot near the console and sometimes not. Either the engineers had way too much spare time, or then we are actually witnessing several different rooms.

Also, while the "locally relative" positioning of the room never changed much (because after the pilot, it was a fixed part of the main corridor set), we got conflicting data on the deck where the transporter might be located. In "Dagger of the Mind", not only does the transporter room have a rare circuit board thing on the back wall, but it also delivers Dr van Gelder to somewhere near Deck 14. Possibly a secondary hull location, as the transporter was supposed to be moving only cargo, and the holds are somewhere down there. Indeed, this unique room may be one of the cargo transporters of the ship - possibly with bigger sisters somewhere nearby. Or then there are no bigger transporter, but there are bigger shuttlecraft (as seen in TAS)...

Timo Saloniemi

[Melakon]

Timo wrote:

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Scotty first says he wants to double-check, then beams up Kirk! That's callous. If there's a need to double-check, this should be done before the Captain is beamed aboard. If there isn't, Scotty shouldn't waste time doing unnecessary checks.

This is what bothers me about the teaser, as it looks like Kirk's entire predicament is because Scott didn't wait for Wilson to get back with the feinberger analyzer.

I'm still impressed with that little dog extra though, he seemed pretty content wrapped up in that costume.

[Garrovick]

Timo wrote:

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Well, the appearance of the set changed from episode to episode - door color changes, different items decorating the aft wall, sometimes a viewscreen and a food slot near the console and sometimes not. Either the engineers had way too much spare time, or then we are actually witnessing several different rooms.

Also, while the "locally relative" positioning of the room never changed much (because after the pilot, it was a fixed part of the main corridor set), we got conflicting data on the deck where the transporter might be located. In "Dagger of the Mind", not only does the transporter room have a rare circuit board thing on the back wall, but it also delivers Dr van Gelder to somewhere near Deck 14. Possibly a secondary hull location, as the transporter was supposed to be moving only cargo, and the holds are somewhere down there. Indeed, this unique room may be one of the cargo transporters of the ship - possibly with bigger sisters somewhere nearby. Or then there are no bigger transporter, but there are bigger shuttlecraft (as seen in TAS)...

Timo Saloniemi

It's true that the appearance of the transporter room did change quite a bit over time - but one could say the same thing about the Engineering deck - the show's creative personnel didn't have any qualms about adjusting sets to serve the needs of whatever script they were shooting that week. But I think "The Enemy Within" makes a pretty strong argument in favor of there only being one transporter room on the ship. There's no reason that the contamination from Fisher's uniform should have affected other disconnected transporter circuits. There are also many many script references to "the Transporter Room" instead of "Transporter Room One" or something similar as was done on TNG, VOY, etc. Of course, I know it's all educated guesswork since it's not as if we have the actual transporter circuit diagrams to study. And I realize that the constant script references to a single transporter room could have just been shorthand for a single preferred transporter room by the senior staff. But it seems clear to me that, at the time the show was produced and aired originally, that the intent always was for the ship to have a single transporter room, even though it doesn't really make sense for that to be the case.

[Timo]

But we learn in this very story that the transporter room isn't what makes or breaks a transporter. A bundle of wires down at (one of the) Engineering room(s) is crucial to all transporter operation! Clearly, we're talking about a centralized system with severe bottlenecks, and this allows us to believe in single or multiple transporter rooms because the effect of these bottleneck failures would be the same on both.

There are also many many script references to "the Transporter Room"

Script references as such don't count for much - they should be considered about as "real" as the fact indicated therein that Kirk is actually an impostor named William Shatner all along. But aired dialogue also refers to "the transporter room" several times. Then again, it also refers to "the shuttlecraft", in singular, even though the ship holds at least two and in TAS is indicated to hold a minimum of six. Or to "the turbolift", of which there may be dozens, and our heroes are infamous for picking unlikely ones when going from A to B, meaning they have to walk significant lengths of corridor at one end or both. It's just the old TV trope of the "floating date", that is, "meet you in Dallas" without mention of exact time or place; the characters are assumed to have unvoiced knowledge of the details.

a single preferred transporter room by the senior staff

And/or perhaps a rotation system, so that the room currently undergoing maintenance would never be considered, and the morning briefing would have established which one it was.

the intent always was for the ship to have a single transporter room

Intent in TOS never amounted to much, as lack of effort with continuity kept shooting it down. What is "real" about TOS, in-universe, is the end result as viewed after the airing of the final episode, with many a thing having gone against the initial wishes of the makers.

Timo Saloniemi

[Garrovick]

The transporter unit ionizer, which "negative" Kirk shot with the phaser after being neck-pinched, did indeed create problems, but the transporter as a whole was already down due to the previous malfunction. Before that, all work relating to the transporter seemed to have been done in the transporter room. Granted that there is no reason why additional work couldn't have been going on elsewhere, but we never saw it in this episode. The only other time I can think of off the top of my head where transporter-related repair work was shown being conducted outside of the room itself was Scott's work on the main transporter circuitry in a Jeffries Tube in "The Doomsday Machine" - which seemed to have been located near the room itself. I always figured that the transporter ionizer in the engine room, despite the technobabble-sounding name, was simply a conduit to get power to the transporter room - which I feel is supported by Spock and Scotty's being able to bypass the circuitry and connect the transporter directly to the impulse engines.

I think that "shuttlecraft" is also the word when describing them in plural - I believe there is a reference in "The Omega Glory" to the effect that "all four shuttlecraft" were still aboard the Exeter. Not sure about the turbolift, but I always figured the word "turbolift" was used in the singular to refer to the system as a whole, not individual cars.

It's probably overall another case of over-analyzing a TV show that never really was intended or expected to come under the level of scrutiny that it's received over the years. All I'm saying is that the episodes of Star Trek TOS in general, and "The Enemy Within" in particular, do not support the idea of the Enterprise having multiple transporter units, although it doesn't make sense for there not to be. Of course, "The Enemy Within" doesn't support the idea of the Enterprise having shuttlecraft, either.

[ssosmcin]

Garrovick wrote:

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I think that "shuttlecraft" is also the word when describing them in plural - I believe there is a reference in "The Omega Glory" to the effect that "all four shuttlecraft" were still aboard the Exeter.

Yup, like deer being singluar and plural. "Shuttlecrafts" sounds awkward.

"The shuttlecraft is inoperative."
"So take another."

and

"The shuttlecraft are inoperative."
"All of them?"

Set changes are never something I use to "prove" we're seeing multiple rooms. Otherwise we'd have multiple engine rooms or sick bays. Obviously the walls were changed for production and script reasons. Trek was reasonably consistent, but watch Lost in Space or Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea to see rooms, walls and control panels changing weekly. It's not like there were multiple Jupiters 2. You have to draw the line somewhere between internal reality and "needs of the story."

One transporter room in the original series. Otherwise, they could have beamed down both landing parties simultaneously in The Apple. "Meet me in THE transporter room." If there were more than one, someone would have asked "um, which one, Cap'n."

[Timo]

Otherwise we'd have multiple engine rooms or sick bays.

Multiple engine rooms is a highly desirable thing to have. After all, Engineering is repeatedly described as a vast maze where the villains of the week can hide basically indefinitely; no single set would ever match the description, and even a location shoot in a brewery only scratches the surface of what this really means.

And the more rooms McCoy has, the merrier. Only three beds for convalescent patients? Doubling as diagnostics units for incoming patients? There are bound to be more rooms like this elsewhere, as the facility is supposed to handle casualties in addition to the routine ailments. Much as with the DS9 Promenade set, one would assume the existing arc of rooms to represent something like one-third of the overall Sickbay complex.

You have to draw the line somewhere

Well, that's easily drawn: right between Star Trek and LiS!

One transporter room in the original series. Otherwise, they could have beamed down both landing parties simultaneously in The Apple.

Why? It's not a synchronized swimming contest. If Kirk were assaulting a fortified position or something, then it might be necessary to get everybody down simultaneously. But when there's no hurry, it's obviously much better to have the entire team gather in the same transporter room for briefing and equipping, and then beam down at whatever rate is convenient. Plus, it might be an "Advance team sends all clear, bring down the Doctor" sort of a deal anyway; Kirk was worried about contact with the locals from the very beginning.

It's not a question of only being able to beam six people at a time, that much we know: nine were beamed up simultaneously in "Day of the Dove". And the number of pads is unrelated to the number of items being transported, or their positioning, as witnessed every time cargo, or people unable to stand up straight, are being processed. (Although "Where No Man" does seem to indicate that the only way to survive being transported is to stand upright and keep your arms tucked in - even unconscious people are required to do so! This is contradicted in many episodes thereafter.)

"Meet me in THE transporter room." If there were more than one, someone would have asked "um, which one, Cap'n."

Floating date. They'd know a priori.

And,

I think that "shuttlecraft" is also the word when describing them in plural

Sure. But the singular is also used in the "floating date" sense. For example in "Immunity Syndrome":

Kirk: "Very well. Prepare the shuttlecraft for launching."

This is not a craft whose identity would be known at that point, but a generic example from the lot, admittedly to be fitted with mission gear and thus made unique but only following Kirk's command.

Even better, somewhat earlier on in the episode:

Kirk: "The closer we get [to the monster of the week], the faster our energy drains out. We're barely surviving at this distance."
McCoy: "Perhaps we could risk the shuttlecraft. Perhaps with a protective shield-"

McCoy clearly says "the" here. He's not talking about risking a fleet of shuttlecraft; only a single craft would be involved, with "a" shield. But no shuttlecraft have been mentioned in the dialogue prior to this; the definite article is used just like our heroes use it with the transporter, turning a known "multiple choice" issue into something sounding quite unlike one.

Timo Saloniemi