Evil Kirk is just great to watch! Shatner embraces the “bestial” side of his character without going too over the top hammy.
This week’s plot is caused by “a yellow ore that had highly unusual properties”. Take THAT, technobable!
Much is often made of the fact that Scotty lets Kirk ride up in the Transporter BEFORE a full check can be made, just the machine itself says it’s OK. This indicates a pattern behaviour that we will see later on, that people of the 23rd century are completely beholden to their intricate machinery and reluctant to distrust or let it go.
However, when beaming up Kirk he does use a different pad than the one Wilson arrived on, suggesting that Scotty believed any harm was limited to just that one (and why he asks Fisher to fetch a synchronic metre to double check). TOS tech-talk in later episodes suggests that each pad generates its own “beam” so this may have been in the mind of the writers when they concocted this situation.
Evil Kirk’s attempted rape on Rand is extremely harsh and visceral. On a family show, no less! Unfortunately, how she is treated following the attack is EXTREMELY 1960s and dates the show worse than any of the costumes or special effects. I think Spock’s remark to her at the end of the episode was supposed to be indicative of their close friendship (another concept will never be developed) but as it stands doesn’t present our First Officer in the best light.
We are starting to get an indication of where everything is on this USS Enterprise. Crew quarters (or certainly senior staff) are on Deck 12 – Kirk’s cabin was here last week as well. Sickbay is on a different deck (Kirk and Spock take the turbolift there). Engineering is in “the lower levels” (unless Kirk was suggesting TWO different locations for his doppelganger to hide in?)
Speaking of sets; that Engine Room is beautifully lit to be suspenseful and moody. They do decent job playing hide & seek around what are essentially two large stage blocks to convey the impression of a “maze” within the ship’s engineering facilities. We also finally see one end of the curved corridor set and witness the functionality of the rotating wardrobe in the cabin set (specifically, Rand’s)
Even though it was only last week that saw the first bit of banter between McCoy and Spock, he apparently has been pranking the Vulcan since. “Our good doctor's been putting you on again…I'll tell him you were properly annoyed”. And speaking of Spock, we get the first explicit statement of his two warring halves and how he lives his life day by day. Good, meaty character stuff, to be further expanded upon in future episodes.
If only the Enterprise had these smaller ships that would be docked in some kind of landing bay that could leave the ship and pick up a landing party without the need for the transporter. They could call them...shuttles or something.
It's possible that the high winds would make shuttlecraft rescue impossible (they're not really outfitted for severe atmospheric flight). However, given what we've seen so far I'm not convinced that the Enterprise HAD any working shuttles at this stage in the series. The ones they had may have been destroyed or cannibalised for parts in WNMHGB and while replacement kits were probably issued when McCoy and the new uniforms came on board, this crew use the Transporter for
everything, so why worry?
Now, there isn't enough time to assemble the shuttle kits before the landing party freeze to death.
It would be better to beam up the landing party, stun and imprison their evil halves than leave them on the planet to freeze to death.
Agreed - except that by the time Spock & Kirk capture the "imposter" (which was their primary focus, to protect the ship) the Transporter system has been knocked out of commission. These events seem to happen pretty fast (perhaps only within an hour or two) and Kirk's ability to make fast, effective command decisions is degrading throughout.
Okay, what if the Enterprise fired its phasers onto the planet near the landing party and heated up the area?
Actually, have we seen the Enterprise fire phasers yet? I guess not. Nevermind, we don't know they have ship's phasers yet.
They used main phasers to destroy the cube in
The Corbomite Manoeuvre. Maybe they are not precise enough to risk doing that with the crew so nearby? Or perhaps the terrain is particularly rough and the "nearest area" would not be accessible before the crew froze to death on the way. Good points though.
Finally - more dialogue at the end supporting how much Kirk loves his ship. We got that in WNMHGB when debating how to deal with Mitchell, from Balok when he compares how similar he and Kirk are, from Mudd when discussing the captain with Eve and now, Evil Kirk's biggest worry is that his other half wants to "destroy the ship".
Do you get the message yet?
