The Enemy Within

I watched The Ememy Within the other day and I was wondering why they didn't pick up Sulu and the others off the planet with a shuttle pod. I mean I get why the they didn't want to use the transporters but the three left on the planet could have died in the cold. Any theorys??

 

Although it is visually obvious that there is a shuttle bay installed in the aft section of the Enterprise, there had yet been no mention of it. They came up with the transporter idea mainly to save costs on the additional sets and model shooting required for a shuttle craft. Although the budget was eventually secured and we got to see a shuttle craft used by the crew of the Enterprise on several episodes, they hadn't yet been constructed when "Enemy Within" was filmed. Aside from omission of the idea for using a shuttle craft, one could assume that the terrain was far too rough or atmospheric conditions too hazardous to make rescue by shuttle craft viable.

 

A little trivia: if my understanding is correct, the full size mock-up of the shuttle Galileo was built by the model company AMT in exchange for the rights to sell the model kits of it.

 

Which led to the abandonment of Jefferies' original design, since the flat-sided shuttle we got was far easier (and cheaper) for AMT to produce than his much curvier (and far more elegant) concept.

 

IMHO, said "elegant" concept was a humdrum pulp scifi design, whereas the flying brick we actually got at least had novelty on its side.

For the audiences of the 1960s, it would have been pretty easy to understand if our heroes had said that weather prevented the use of shuttles. Later audience generations tend to think the shuttles should be capable of weathering a hurricane, yet Trek is fairly consistent on the shuttles actually being very fragile and unable to cope with bad weather.

Should the episode have featured an explicit reference to bad weather (say, those high winds that seemed to tear clouds to shreds above the campsite)? Possibly. But the episode did throw a veritable hail of rescue ideas at the audience, only to debunk them one by one (either because there was a tech reason for them not working, or because the indecisiveness of the "good" Kirk made the ideas outdated by the time they might have gotten a clearance). We basically got the impression that our heroes know their stuff, that they know what is possible and what is not. If they didn't use the shuttles, then, it was probably for a good reason.

Timo Saloniemi

 

You've been reading star trek 365 me thinks. Love the episode enemy within but I cringe when I see that dog with the horn stuck on it's head bad effect I think for the day ?

 

I didn't realise they didn't have shuttles yet, I just remembered an episode with Spock in a shuttle craft....I am sure it was in season 1. I don't know the name of it though. I have only seen TOS series 1 once and too my knowledge I haven't seen any of series 2 or 3. I am re-watching then now.

 

A classic episode about the duality of man(his good side as well as his bad side). If not one about the exploration of man's dark side(or darker side, depending on your point of view).

In the spirit and tradition of Robert Louis Stevenson's classic "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde", this episode is definately one of Star Trek's most finest.

 

Woof! Yes- that alien "dog" was awful!

 

I feel obliged to point out that the subplot about the crewmen stuck on the planet was not Matheson's idea and was not in his original script. That was added later by somebody else. (Roddenberry?)

This is discussed in the new book Richard Matheson on Screen by (full disclosure) my friend Matthew Bradley.

 

I'd think it would have to have been either Roddenberry or John D.F. Black at that point. Either way, I think it was a good addition; it externalizes the threat and provides Kirk with a ticking clock to get his "problem" solved and the transporter working as quickly as possible.

 

It was already established that both Kirks were dying because of the separation. I'm not sure the second ticking clock of the freezing landing party makes the story more exciting. And it makes one wonder what interesting scenes had to be excised in order to make room for freezing landing party stuff.

More comments here:

http://www.trekbbs.com/showpost.php?p=4463475&postcount=40

 

We already know that the structure of the script was changed by the director and editor for the sake of drama. You can see the original script version in this reedit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-olilLSyyYE Goodness knows who added what to the script. GR may get a lot of the blame for this sort of thing, but DC Fontana may have had a hand in it, as well as John DF Black.

 

While it's true enough that "Kirk in danger" already provides a ticking clock for the story, I maintain that there is greater dramatic tension (and a higher degree of tension at that) if the danger is not only to Kirk the man (in the form of his continued existence as a whole being), but to Kirk the captain (in the form of danger to his crew).

 

Maybe this was just bait to catch a nit-picker, but D.C. Fontana and John D.F. Black are one in the same. Note the middle initials.

 

I've never heard that assertion before, and it's pretty ridiculous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._F._Black
http://memory-alpha.org/wiki/John_D.F._Black

Or are you saying the guy in the picture is DC Fontana?

 

Hm. Come to think of it, you never actually see John D. F. Black and Dorothy Catherine Fontana together at the same time.

 

LOL, not sure if I'd recognize either these days. But how he came up with John DF Black = DC Fontana just threw me for a loop. The things fans make up...

 

It's true, though. And both of them are also H.R. Pufnstuf.

 

However, neither of them was Lamont Cranston or The Shadow.