Episode of the Week : The Enemy Within

[Botany Bay]

Each week we're having a look at a TOS episode, going through the series in production order. Please rate the episode out of ten, and have your say below. I'll record the scores each week and save them so we can rank TOS in order of popularity.

If you're new to TOS, please watch along with us and ask anything you like about the episodes. TOS veterans, feel free to add any bits of trivia, or stories about the production of the episode as well. Some great websites to get you started :

Memory Alpha
Episode transcripts
Unseen elements of the Original Series
Star Trek Fact Check

Happy watching and reviewing!



This week, something sure to cause division : The Enemy Within

 

[CrazyMatt]

Solid seven--gutsy to portray attempted rape so early in the show's production.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

I'm of two minds on "The Enemy Within." My good half thinks it was great to give Shatner such an expansive, stretchy role and let him open up the throttle on us. But my evil side finds the premise too farfetched and theatrical. Overall I still say it's a good episode.

 

[Pauln6]

It's a really fun episode but the logic, especially for the crew on the planet, doesn't hold up that well. It is very sinister Grace was sexually assaulted by a studio exec around the same time and was then fired a few weeks later (although I think it was one of a number of issues that might have impacted that decision). A great injustice. Shatner does ham it up quite a bit though doesn't he?

 

[ZapBrannigan]

It is very sinister Grace was sexually assaulted by a studio exec around the same time and was then fired a few weeks later

It's well-understood now that the "executive" was the Great Bird, and by bringing it up publicly but never naming him, the victim cast a cloud of suspicion that hung in the air for years over a number of innocent men.

 

[BillJ]

6.

Hampered by the transporter not being well thought out, poor logic and an awkward ending.

 

[mach7]

For me "The Enemy Within" is the first real miss.

Despite Shatner's great performance this episode is just kind of off.

There are too many inconsistency's.

They can't use the shuttlecraft?

Why not beam down some kind of shelter? Or Fire wood?

Why such a wide variation in the planets day/night temperature?

How/why does the transporter beam good kirk up, and then wait
to materialize bad kirk?

How does a repaired transporter "recombine" the 2 Kirks?

There are also the goofs with the scratch's on Kirks face switching sides and
Kirks command insignia reappearing in some shots.

Some of the good:

A good episode for Sulu

The Vulcan neck pinch

Overall I give it a 5

 

[Silvercrest]

There are too many inconsistency's.

They can't use the shuttlecraft?

Why such a wide variation in the planets day/night temperature?

How/why does the transporter beam good kirk up, and then wait
to materialize bad kirk?

How does a repaired transporter "recombine" the 2 Kirks?

These are not inconsistencies.

They can't use the shuttlecraft?

Not well thought out, but not an inconsistency since the shuttle hadn't been introduced yet. Properly speaking, any episode featuring the shuttle later would have to be called inconsistent with this one unless the difference was explained away.

Why such a wide variation in the planets day/night temperature?

What is this inconsistent with? Earth climate?

How/why does the transporter beam good kirk up, and then wait
to materialize bad kirk?

How does a repaired transporter "recombine" the 2 Kirks?

Unexplained and inconsistent are not the same thing. The only thing these are inconsistent with is the normal operation of the transporter ... and I bet you'd have a tough time explaining how that works, too.

Is the transporter "inconsistent" when it's working normally just because it's unexplained? (Actually, yes, but that's another debate.)

Actually it's entirely consistent to suggest that if a transporter can split one person into two, then it can also do the opposite. Inconsistent would be claiming that it can do one but not the other, just "because".


I'll give you all the others, though. Regarding the firewood and so on: In a similar thread last year, someone asked why they didn't beam down blankets. My answer was that they'd be split into "good" blankets which keep you warm, and "evil" blankets which make you colder. Hence, no net gain.

 

[The Old Mixer]

A personal favorite. I love this episode, hangar bay-sized plot hole and all. I love the concept...I love the Shat's hammy tour de force. And it's noteworthy for establishing the Spock/McCoy relationship and the neck pinch.

 

[Warped9]

It is very sinister Grace was sexually assaulted by a studio exec around the same time and was then fired a few weeks later

It's well-understood now that the "executive" was the Great Bird, and by bringing it up publicly but never naming him, the victim cast a cloud of suspicion that hung in the air for years over a number of innocent men.

Not saying you're wrong, but how is this now "well understand?" What's the source for this assertion?


This episode is a 9 for me. Love it!

After stumbling a bit over Harry Mudd Star Trek gets back on its game with this riveting story. Shatner delivers the goods portraying Jekyll and Hyde versions of Kirk, each despising the other and struggling to stay alive until mutually accepting they need each other to exist.

There is a lot of attention to detail in this episode in terms of setting and effectively putting across the story. We also get our first look at the first version of Kirk's alternate command tunic---in my opinion the best of the lot with it's distinctive wraparound design, collar and shoulder braiding. Sexism rears its head again as this time they can't resist Kirk going topless, something that will continue periodically. We also get our first look at the Vulcan nerve pinch. Cool.

For me the only flub in this episode is Spock's out of character moment at the end. Otherwise it's a first-rate effort.

 

[mach7]

Silvercrest,

Call them what you want, It just plain sloppy.

The shuttle craft, A hanger bay was designed into the Enterprise from the beginning.
The Shuttle mock up was already being built.
The Galileo seven was in pre production.
The fact that they didn't even mention it was a huge gaff.
They should have at least had a line explaining why they could not use it.

Day/night temp variation, It goes against physics, the laws of thermodynamics, and everything we know about weather. The mass of the planet and breathable atmosphere have a measurable and known thermal lag. That much energy can't just magically vanish.

The transporter was very consistent thru out the series. Except in this episode.
A better way would be to have both Kirks materialize at the same time, then you would
only have the problem of mass. Where did the mass come from to create a whole new Kirk? E=MC2. That is a constant.
But the fact that they had evil Kirk materialize later was very, very lazy.
Then you beam down Good and Evil Kirk together and the transporter "knows" that
the 2 Kirks now need to be one. The transporter is designed to reassemble things exactly as they were disassembled. But then we have the whole mass thing again.

Just saying, and as always this is just my opinion,
except was is science.

 

[Silvercrest]

I think you're pushing the point with most of these — but if we know or assume there was always going to be a shuttle (which is reasonable), then yes, it's an inconsistency for the show to forget about it.

As to the temperature-- okay, if it's inconsistent with weather/thermodynamics/physics as we understand them (and I'm not sure that's true), it's a pretty small thing to pick on. Warp drive and the transporter violate the laws of physics every episode. Half the planets encountered by Enterprise have impossible conditions. Biologically it's ridiculous to imagine that Vulcans and humans could breed. Etc. etc.

The transporter behaves consistently? There are so many implications to the ability to convert energy to matter and back that simply using it for one thing and nothing else is already inconsistent.


Actually, if I was going to pick on this episode for only one thing, it's this: The transporter was intended to be visual shorthand to avoid having to depict shuttle landings. As such, there's nothing wrong with it. It's no different than having the UT to avoid issues of communication and language.

But with any of these: the second they use it as the focus of an episode, it justifies more and increasingly outlandish stories. Each one throws the implausibility of the device in the viewer's face and shouts that it's normal ... "except that this time, something went wrong!"

First it was "transporter gone wild" episodes. Later it was "holodeck gone wild" episodes. Please. Just leave the gadget on the periphery of the plot where it belongs. Don't make it the plot.

I like "The Enemy Within" fine. I just don't like where it led.

 

[Maurice]

Good episode but only gets a 6 from me because of:

• just a bit too much ham from Shatner
• editorial rearrangement of scene which make our heroes look stupid
• Spock's awful comment on the end
• stupidity of handling the men on the planet (effing beam them down 400 blankets and anything flammable)

 

[Pauln6]

It is very sinister Grace was sexually assaulted by a studio exec around the same time and was then fired a few weeks later

It's well-understood now that the "executive" was the Great Bird, and by bringing it up publicly but never naming him, the victim cast a cloud of suspicion that hung in the air for years over a number of innocent men.

Not saying you're wrong, but how is this now "well understand?" What's the source for this assertion?

I think many people assume it was GR but my understanding was that, while she refused to name the individual, she had denied that it was Gene. All those men are innocent until proven guilty, including Gene. I'm certainly not going to cast the one person who is definitely the victim in a bad light because other people are willing to judge the potential suspects without evidence - that's their bad, not hers.

I'm ambivalent about Spock's comments at the end. Originally, Spock and Rand were going to develop a close friendship and one could argue that this was a jibe because he knows that she fancies Kirk, i.e. that 'evil' Kirk was willing to act on his feelings while normal Kirk wont, but that relationship was never really developed. It's a misfire but in context not as bad it actually looked isolation.

I was quite proud of Rand for standing up to him but her comment, 'He IS the captain,' is downright creepy and it's true that a lot of women in the workplace have to put up with sexual harassment even today.

 

[Runetouch]

8. Shatner's performance was great, but I hated Spock's joke at the end.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Five.

Great idea to kick off with, but it never reached its potential.

The evil Kirk was the more interesting half, and the episode analyzed his traits fairly thoroughly. On the other hand, it seemed to imply that the good Kirk was handicapped, but I was never satisfied that an answer was clearly indicated for why that was the case, beyond the general weakening that both halves experienced. Of course, by the title, it advertised itself as about the evil side, instead of both sides equally, and it delivered on that account.

I don't understand in what century Spock's rhetorical question at the end was appropriate.

The whole landing party in peril was a pretty big plot hole for lots of reasons. According to Memory Alpha:

The subplot of Sulu and three other crewmembers stranded on the planet were not present in Matheson's original script, and was added in staff re-writes. Matheson did not like the idea, as he explained, "I hate B-stories. They truly slow the story down. (...) My script stayed entirely with Bill [Shatner] having this trouble of his two selves, on the ship. (...) They added a whole subplot about people down on the planet, ready to freeze to death, because they have [a] transporter functioning problem. (...) I stuck entirely with Bill." [3]

 

[Lance]

Was the 'evil twin' ever done before this?

It seems to have become the progentior of the genre, anyway. Most TV shows that have done the idea since seem to have taken some sort of inspiration from this.

It's arguably lost some of its impact because of this.

Evil Twin plots having become a cliche.

But speaking personally, I still find the setup satisfying.

I really like the idea that it isn't simply a case of "Good Kirk" and "Evil Kirk" -- in fact, both sides of his personality are a part of the sum total that is James T. Kirk, and "Good Kirk" needs his darker characteristics in order to be an effective leader. The so called 'evil' Jim Kirk has got all of Kirk's confidence. One side can not live without the other.

 

[Warped9]

The inspiration for "The Enemy Within" is the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but Star Trek used science fiction in retelling the story. That said duplicates, evil or otherwise, had been done before in comics at least. Superman had been duplicated in good and evil forms. Mind you the Trek writers might not have been aware of it having been done in comics. And it could well have been done in SF literature before TOS.

 

[AtoZ]

Plot holes, Spock's closing remarks to Rand and the missing insignia aside, I always rather enjoy this episode. I always appreciated that we glimpse Sulu assemble a phaser pistol and its ability to fire three beams simultaneously. That's the kid in me of 40 years ago talking....but those moments still ping within me. The "no shuttle craft" point always bothered me, though.

For the aformentioned points and for its willingness to push the envelope, and for its fun...I give it a solid 6.

 

[jgvinha]

The one with the space poodle