What Are Little Girls Made Of?
It has been five years since nurse Christine Chapel last saw her fiancé. Dr Roger Korby, eminent scientist vanished on the desolate world of Exo III, researching the ruins of the ancient civilisation there, hoping for some insight into medicine. Chapel joined Starfleet in an effort to keep her hopes alive, but two previous expeditions have failed to find evidence of Korby’s survival. Now the Enterprise is paying Exo III a visit, a last attempt to locate the missing Doctor and his team, and Spock’s reticence when asked about the odds of survival speaks volumes. Then comes a transmission that puts a smile on everyone’s faces. Korby is alive, and he invites Kirk to beam down to evaluate his research. Curiously he stipulates that the Captain must beam down alone, though revises that invitation to include Christine when he learns of her presence on the ship. When they aren’t met on the planet, Kirk orders two security men to beam down in addition. Unfortunately they are wearing red. Korby attempts to explain away their deaths down to the treacherous nature of the caverns, but when he reveals the nature of his research, it becomes apparent that he isn’t being totally forthright. His plan to revolutionise medicine involves replacing human bodies with machines, using a process left behind by the planet’s ‘old ones’ to create androids. His means of demonstrating his ideas also leave much to be desired, when he creates an android replica of Kirk. While Christine watches in horror at what five years of isolation have done to her fiancé, Kirk realises the truth of the situation lie in the memories of the last of the original androids, a behemoth named Ruk.
My introduction to the Original Series was a belated one, and came by an odd path. While I had seen a few episodes as a child, my appreciation was that of a four year old. I was enchanted by the primary colours and scared by the aliens, caring little for the stories. My first true appreciation for Trek was through the first two films, and after that, I began buying novels and books, eager for more Trek. I first truly appreciated the original series episodes when I read the James Blish adaptations (The series was no longer being televised at that point). And I saw the stories in my mind’s eye, in 2.35:1 widescreen with movie era special effects. What Are Little Girl’s Made Of? took place in a desolate arctic wasteland, with deep echoing chasms. The underground caves were truly cavernous, and the alien technology that sustained this was truly alien, gargantuan and impressive. The android creation sequence was truly something spectacular I can tell you. In my mind’s eye that is.
Naturally, when I truly began to watch the television series in earnest post 1987, it came as something of a culture shock to be presented with the sixties television series. But of all the episodes, it was this one that shattered my illusions the most. Aside from a single stock footage moment at the outset, it was wholly studio bound, and the sets were nothing like my imaginings. It was all so small. The alien technology, far from being ‘alien’ was controlled by a couple of rheostats, the creation of an android, far from being wondrous was accomplished with a pile of clumsily crafted papier-mâché placed on a vaguely sparkly turntable. To this date, I hold an irrational dislike for this episode in particular for that very reason, despite the fact that it shared production values with the rest of the series. This was the one that disappointed me most.
Not that the story doesn’t lack for problems, in fact it really only has the one problem, and that is Nurse Chapel herself. I can understand the model of sixties television, that the hero had to solve all, be the focus of the story, and let’s face it, Kirk was always going to save the day. But this is Chapel’s story. It’s her reunion with Korby that should be at the heart of the story, it is she whose reaction we should see as the tragedy unfolds, as she learns what has happened to her fiancé and how his values have been warped. For God’s sake woman, you haven’t seen this man in five years, and he greets you by holding you and your Captain captive, announces a hair-brained scheme to export immortality through the universe, and has no qualms over the deaths of innocents. Add to that he’s created a fembot of his very own, and all we get, other than a little jealousy is a woman who passively observes events, barely passing comment. She should have been yelling and screaming at the man, at the monster he had become, but she had all the passion, the emotion of a limp fish. Perhaps a throwaway line can explain some of that, in that Chapel was once a student of Korby. If he’s one of those typical Hollywood dirty old men professors, who chooses to bed his more attractive pupils, then he may have preferred his conquests to be submissive.
It’s still a blot on an otherwise interesting story, especially if like me, you’ve been a fan of the Terminator. A society creates a race of machines to serve it, and those machines turn on their creators to wipe out their illogic. Replace Ruk with Arnie, and you’re almost there. There are no time travel shenanigans to deal with here, but Korby’s plan to use android bodies as a means to immortality amounts to much of the same thing, a war against organic life forms through the galaxy. Kirk sets a precedent or two, outwitting a machine through instinct and intellect alone, or when that fails, making out with it. Which is where I pause to take a moment and say. Oh my god! Andrea. Sherry Jackson as the provocatively clad fembot has the power to get any pulse racing.
Roger Korby’s central conceit was that he could transfer the soul from a person to a machine, to achieve immortality, and yet in the final, tragic analysis he is proved wrong, when his replicated android self cannot exceed its programming. I wonder just how much of its plan was Korby’s and how much was Ruk’s, for that is the ultimate irony of What Are Little Girls Made Of. Where the Korby android was a pale reflection of the original man, it was Ruk and his peers who so long ago had outgrown their programming and destroyed their organic forbears, and in the end it was Andrea who had outgrown her programming and began to experience attraction and even love. By their tragic and destructive acts, they had proved Korby right when his own replicant had failed to do so.
It’s astounding to see how much original Trek relied on tragedy and melodrama to elicit emotion from its audience. Barely 9 episodes in, and we’ve seen the tragic figures of Vina, Gary Mitchell, Nancy Crater, and Charlie Evans. We’ve seen Kirk, Spock and Chapel tormented by a virus, Kirk literally split into light and dark, and Angela Martine’s wedding tragically cut short. While Star Trek’s stories had a quite unprecedented degree of intelligence, they are so appealing generally because they touch the more fundamental emotions in us all.
The fact that he could reach up into his hood was also rather absurd. Worst. Containment Suits. EVER. 
Does anyone know if this one was a demand of Standards & Practices?
). It's nice to know that I'm not typing away in vain. 
