The Enemy Within

I was just watching this episode on blu ray and just wanted to make some comments about it. It is one of my fave episodes. I love how Kirk got split into two halves. I was wondering why they kept calling the dark side of Kirk an imposter. That would imply he wasn't Kirk at all but someone pretending to be him. Also why would Spock not know it was the dark side Kirk when he came onto the bridge and told the helm to warp out of orbit because the landing party couldn't be saved. Certainly the good Kirk would do everything possible to save the crew stranded on the planet.

Also when Kirk is on the transporter platform holding the dark side Kirk, what does he mean "Mr. Spock, if this doesn't work...." What does he expect Spock to do?

I was touched when Spock was delaying beaming Kirk back, you could sense the tension. What if he died, like the dog-like creature did earlier. McCoy says "Well, Mr. Spock?" and Spock hesitates.

My one big complaint in this episode is when Spock makes a comment to Yeoman Rand about the 'interesting' qualities the imposter had" you mean like being brutal to her and attempting to rape her? oh yeah, Mr. Spock, REAL interesting

 

What other explanation would there be? That he was Kirk? Sounds way too fantastic to be true.

I mean, Spock would have reason to believe in duplication, and indeed in evil duplication: the dog experiment had already been conducted. But he couldn't let the rest of the crew know that the (evil side of the) Captain was to blame for the attempted rape and possible other nastiness: his position through and through was of protecting Kirk's reputation. Of course he would have to insist on calling the evil Kirk an impostor, an intruder, anything to detract from the facts.

1) That's what a Vulcan would probably do, so would Spock really be suspicious?
2) The good Kirk did not do everything possible; he just sat there and whined. Declaring defeat and leaving might just be another symptom of Kirk being too good for his own good.
3) It's not as if we'd really see Spock being mistaken. He has time to squeeze out one line, and he does that with Vulcan lack of passion, even if he doubts Kirk all the time.

The first two ideas are just idle rationalization. The third is what happens in the scene in the dramatic sense - things proceed fast, and the evil duplicate is immediately exposed, even though he desperately (and rather pathetically, almost gaining our sympathies there!) tries to confuse the issue.

Do we need to know? In-universe, we know he has prepared a nice video-testament that will clarify everything. In-universe, we also know the good Kirk would have been unable to finish even this simple sentence to any degree of coherence, being a wimp and all. But out-universe, all the necessary meaning is implicitly there.

There was supposed to be this devilish side to Spock at first, especially as regards women. Some of it survived till "Omega Glory", a rehash of an unused pilot script.

Even if some of that was toned down eventually, Spock still tries to be a Vulcan. And Vulcans probably beat their wives a lot, unless they don't walk two steps behind their husbands as in "Journey to Babel". Makes Spock all the more interesting as a character...

Timo Saloniemi

 

I think that was his way of telling Spock, "Don't blame yourself."

As for the terms good/bad, light/dark the author could have inserted any other adjectives to produce the desired result in the audience at a given time. Indecisive or Wimpy versus Impulsive or Strong. The story was a brilliant new angle on the Jekyll & Hyde theme. Kirk needed both aspects of himself. So how could one be deemed "bad"?

I no longer have a copy of Letters To Star Trek, but I vaguely recall a letter from a headshrinker lauding the episode and describing how he used it with his patients to help them come to grips with their own devils.

 

I love it, too; I think it's a fascinating meditation on the nature of a human being. According to Marc Cushman's These Are the Voyages, the writer, Richard Matheson, was just intending this to be a re-telling of the Jekkyl and Hyde tale, so the episode was originally written with real Kirk and imposter Kirk. But Roddenberry -- who, from all accounts, knew very well what it was like to have a dark side -- rewrote the episode to split Kirk into good and evil and also added the "B" plot about Sulu's landing party on the planet. I think that treatment made the episode much stronger than it would have been just as a straight "Jekkyl and Hyde in space."

I wondered that, too, so much that I actually made a thread about it a few years ago, asking people what they thought that meant. You can see what people replied here.

I'm old enough (just barely! :-D) to remember what the world was like in 1966 and what the worldview of the time was. Mainstream American culture has changed ENORMOUSLY in that time. Really, if you haven't lived through it personally, you would not believe what a huge cultural shift there has been in only fifty years. (The cultures and mindsets of other countries have changed, as well; I mention American culture because Star Trek was mostly written and produced by Americans, so that's the culture whose attitudes influence what we see on the screen in the TOS episodes.)

One of the things that has changed a lot is in cultural attitudes towards rape. In my opinion, things still aren't where they should be in our culture's attitude towards rape, but we have a MUCH more enlightened attitude today than we did in 1966. In 1966, it was a truism that "all women secretly want to be raped."

Yes, yes, I know that's stupid and sexist and pernicious and WRONG. But it's what people thought back then. Star Trek was forward-thinking in many ways, but it was a product of its time in many other ways, and to modern eyes, it has moments of extreme sexism that apparently were invisible at the time.

The line assigned to Spock, about the "imposter" having interesting qualities, was a product of that mindset; Spock was saying, "It excited you that Evil Kirk tried to rape you, because we 'know' that all women secretly want to be raped." It's a horrible attitude to attribute to so ethical a character as Spock, but the mindset of the time was so pervasive that the writer -- we don't know if it's Matheson who wrote that line, or one of Roddenberry's edits -- probably didn't realize what a terrible thing he was having Spock say there.

It's clear with the benefit of modern attitudes that Spock wouldn't say any such thing. We don't know who, exactly, is responsible for that egregious line, but the "real" Spock, if there is one, never said any such thing; it was clumsy writing that put that line in the poor guy's mouth.

One of the interesting things about TOS is that it's a time capsule from fifty years ago. Some things have changed very little in that time, and other things have changed hugely. When something in TOS seems completely bizarre, it's often that time capsule element at work. While it hurts to watch so beloved a character as Spock speak such a horrible line, if we take a step back and view it as a bulletin from the past, we can see how much attitudes have changed in fifty years ... and rejoice that they have.

 

Yeah, I'd be interested in whether there are other more benign interpretations of that line, as well as what it was in earlier drafts. I've never been able to think of a way to read it that isn't misogynistic. One of the worst lines in TOS.

 

In fact, I do think that principally, as written, as intended by the writer, it indeed is "not misogynist", in a sense - because it's not about Rand at all. Rand is just a prop here, not a female character, and the interesting thing is that Kirk has in him a yearning for Rand. Not a capacity for being a rapist, which is uninteresting, but a yearning for Rand, something Spock expects to be part of the reintegrated Kirk as well, and a source of intrigue in the upcoming days, months and years.

It's supposed to be a compliment, really. "Sure, the evil side tried to rape you, but ignore that irrelevant aside because that just goes to show that the real Kirk loves you - so do feel suitably thankful, expectant or even repulsed if you so wish. It's your choice, but I'm winking at you because I just brought this to your attention and I'm sure it's news to you."

Essentially, Spock still assumes Rand to be a stupid doll for not figuring it out herself. But it's only to be expected, and in-universe even to be excused, because Spock assumes everybody to be a stupid doll, compared to himself, and regardless of gender.

Timo Saloniemi

 

Fail.

 

Timo may be right. That "women long to be raped" nonsense was more likely to work its way to the surface in some script then than it is now, but it was more of an attitude to be expressed in private, by a-holes, of which there were plenty, admittedly... not openly as a a mainstream belief...

Could that be true, that Roddenberry actually rewrote Richard Matheson and improved his script? Yes, who needs Jeckyl and Hyde again? The flaw in this story is the very idea of good and evil in a science fiction story, those being subjective human judgments... But if you assume the validity of the idea, it was handled very well, especially the idea that what we call "evil" could be a vital, necessary part of who we are.

 

And that's not misogynistic ... how?

 

You both are right:

I agree with timo. Looking through the lense of the 60s, this is also how I interpreted Spock's comment. Not "you enjoyed being raped" but rather "Kirk, free from inhibitions, showed he is interested in you" - albeit evil Kirk showed his interest in less than gentlemanly ways.

When viewed thru the lens of 2016, the interpretation is much much uglier. And, when viewed from that perspective, I agree with corporal captain.

Old movies, old tv shows, old books, history, all need to be viewed in context of what the soccietal norms were in that era.

 

I think the Spock - Rand interaction looks less creepy if you consider that they were originally intended to have a closer friendship than ever made it onto screen. Spock is teasing a friend rather than I insulting a victim of sexual assault albeit that his lack of emotion means he may struggle to understand the emotional impact of such an attack. There is also an element of be careful what you wish for since both Spock and McCoy are aware of the attraction. I lament that they didn't give Rand more time to develop.

However, the attitudes of the time are clear. Rand's testimony is disbelieved. She is put in front of her attacker and challenged to prove her case. She's very deferential and forgiving to her boss even when she thinks he's guilty. Without trying hard to justify Spock's comments he just looks like a dick.

I was hopeful that IDW would have re-imaged the episode but nuRand should have kicked drunk Kirk's ass.

 

Beats the hell out of me. Who said it wasn't?

 

Vulcans do not lack emotion. They are extremely hot-blooded, but suppress impulsive behavior as a society-wide philosophy. Sounds like a powder keg waiting to explode, if you ask me. Imagine the Vulcans and Terrans facing off for the FFL (Federation Football League) championship. (The humans played most illogically.)

But I agree that long-term self-suppression of that sort might leave Spock "struggling to understand emotion" since he must first examine his own. That is what made the character all the more interesting.

Of course, the K&S Women would have a different interpretation of Spock's fascination with the "impostor."

 

Spock initially suggested that the "evil" Kirk was an imposter after they had already established that the transporter had produced two space dogs with opposite temperaments. As it turns out, a couple of scenes in this episode were intentionally edited out of order. The director felt that the first act needed a stronger hook before the commercial break, and felt Spock's declaration was a better hook than Kirk saying "Oh my" in the transporter room. Originally Spock supposed an impostor was on board before they were called to the transporter room. You will notice they go to the transporter room, evil Kirk attacks Rand, then Kirk and Spock go to sickbay, and when they come back from commercial break they are suddenly back in the transporter room with no explanation. Both transporter room scenes were initially one complete scene.

Once the suggestion of an impostor had been made, it probably seemed like a good "cover story" to sell to the crew, although I think the writers used it again later to goad the evil Kirk into a fit of rage for our viewing pleasure.

As for what Kirk left unsaid in the transporter room, I always felt it was something like "If this doesn't work . . . then you'll be in command. Take good care of my ship."

 

No, they suppress the emotion itself. It's not possible to do that completely, but with extreme mental discipline, much of which has become part of their basic nature, over time, they manage it for the most part. They control mind first, and that takes care of behavior. It's not enough for them to "suppress behavior". "Pain is a thing of the mind, and the mind can be controlled". That applies to all other parts of life. Mental discipline, changing fundamentally the way they experience. Vulcans are not hot-blooded people who have just learned to be well-behaved.
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The whole idea of Vulcans is to comment on the impulsive violence of human society. It was only later, in the Berman shows, where they introduced the idea that Vulcans needed this discipline more than humans. There was that line in All Our Yesterdays "violent even by Earth standards". before someone goes AHA! and points that out... But it doesn't portray Vulcans as being much worse, or necessarily worse at all. Vulcans are always pointing to human violence, and recommending their way as the cure.
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Now, I don 't think the makers of TOS were convinced humans need to go so far, but I think they were saying Look how violent we are, we'd better do something drastic before WW3 happens...

 

Or then they don't. There's no onscreen suggestion that they would - except as refers to Kolinahr, a state most Vulcans supposedly fail to achieve (if they even try).

Naah. It's to introduce an intriguing character with the potential to be everything that 1960s TV censorship won't let him be.

Timo Saloniemi

 

They do more than "suggest", they hammer it home to us all the time. When Spock says flat out that Vulcans did away with emotion, I think that we're not meant to consider him a liar. Though he tends to be overconfident about this. They all are, probably. Again, it's not about emotions being non-existant for them, but under firm control. They really did fill the episodes with this idea. Saying they didn't is a bit like saying they never really suggested they were traveling in space.

What about Spock would censors hate? If you're talking about criticisms of human society, that's just what I'm talking about. Trek was full of questioning of human society. Good science fiction does that a lot. It's part of what it's for. Roddenberry was very keen on working this into Trek.

 

I can't come up with an in-universe reason not to send a shuttlecraft to get Sulu and the other 3 men. Real world, I guess it's because shuttlecrafts were not introduced by the writers until ep 16 the Galileo 7? Not a 100% sure there.

In universe I got nothing.

 

I think that's exactly what we are meant to consider. We spend 78 episodes hoping to see Spock exposed, just like we spend 78 episodes hoping for one of Will Theiss' contraptions to spectacularly malfunction. It's the big lie that hooks us.

All the things the audience secretly loves, or is supposed to: animalistic passion in all its forms. The character that is just that one tiny step from having his way with all the women in the show, beating all the villains and assorted competitors to bloody pulp and pissing on their corpses, and (in this case) also outsmarting everybody and then laughing at their humiliation, is the character every hero desires to be but few have a valid excuse for being. Spock's alien "oath of celibacy" is the trick that makes it work here.

Timo Saloniemi

 

High winds. Those crash shuttles in Trek often enough, and in a couple of occasions also defeat attempts at using the transporter.

The place feels like some sort of a high Tibetan plateau, with temperature extremities to match. The "sky" is lit, on purpose or by serendipity, to suggest incredibly violent winds tearing clouds to cometary tails. And the orbital shots at least aren't in disagreement... It's just that the encampment is set in a protective depression that can't be easily reached without crashing the craft.

Timo Saloniemi