Spock's comment at the end of 'The Enemy Within'

[Sir Rhosis]

Originally, the script had Rand commenting that she hoped that Kirk's evil side was not entirely gone, saying he had some rather "interesting qualities," as she coyly bounces off. Never been able to fathom why a writer of Matheson's caliber would go for either line (assuming the first draft I own is legit).

Sir Rhosis

 

[A beaker full of death]

Never been able to fathom why a writer of Matheson's caliber would go for either line (assuming the first draft I own is legit).

Why? Why shouldn't she be able to acknowledge her own dark side?

 

[Navigator_NCC2120]

Never been able to fathom why a writer of Matheson's caliber would go for either line (assuming the first draft I own is legit).

Why? Why shouldn't she be able to acknowledge her own dark side?

She should be able to acknowledge her own dark side. Perhaps the producers felt that the NBC Censor would not allow it and therefore, rewrote that scene. Having Yeoman Rand lusting after Kirk may have appeared immoral to NBC back then. Didn't NBC object to Vina appearing as the Green Orion Slave Girl in the pilot "The Cage" because it was considered too sexually arousing?


Navigator NCC-2120 USS Entente
/\

 

[Destructor]

Never been able to fathom why a writer of Matheson's caliber would go for either line (assuming the first draft I own is legit).

Why? Why shouldn't she be able to acknowledge her own dark side?

I think it would have been fine (empowering, even) if Rand had said something along the lines of 'I am glad Kirk was integrated with his darker self because that is where his lust comes from and he needs that part of himself.' the episode as it plays was that Rand was quite traumatized by the event.

 

[A beaker full of death]

^ Just rolls off the tongue.

 

[Mallory]

it sounded more like he was saying: "You kinda liked being attacked like that, didn't you?"

That's exactly what he was saying. There are many women like that -- especially in Roddenberry's mind, but also in reality. And certainly in movies of the day. How many times in older movies do you see a woman literally fighting off a man only to give in lustfully as he kisses her?

Yeah, it was a ham-handed and confused attempt by the writer to tease the character with "now you know that the Captain secretly lusts after you just like you do him."

Disagree. Rand wanted to be taken hard. Art imitating life for Whitney.

This post is both tasteless and offensive, and very, very close to earning you an infraction for trolling. You might consider moving on to another thread should the subject come up again.

 

[Captain Robert April]

I was thinking about commenting on the irony of it all, considering what happened to Whitney, but couldn't figure out a way to properly phrase it.

I think it's safe to say that that wasn't it.

As for having Rand deliver the line, I think the overall gist would've been more along the lines of Rand teasing Kirk with a "So, you are interested" kind of gibe.

Having Spock say the line is basically him teasing Rand over how she's pining over Kirk, in her own professional way, and how she finally got an indication that Kirk is interested in her after all.

Very clumsily handled, but a far cry from Spock endorsing rape as a form of courtship.

 

[A beaker full of death]

I was thinking about commenting on the irony of it all, considering what happened to Whitney, but couldn't figure out a way to properly phrase it.

I think it's safe to say that that wasn't it.

Guess not. It seems I'm trolling. Not sure whom I'm trolling, but whatever makes the watchers happy. It's their playground.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Just remember a simple rule, rape is never funny. Especially when it really happens and is not just a hypothetical scenario.

 

[A beaker full of death]

^ Actually I had in mind her sex addiction, not the rape allegation.
In any event, I seem to have good and truly derailed this thread. Sorry about that.

 

[Captain Robert April]

Hm. Still in rather poor taste, but slightly less heinous.

 

[T'Bonz]

That's exactly what he was saying. There are many women like that -- especially in Roddenberry's mind, but also in reality. And certainly in movies of the day. How many times in older movies do you see a woman literally fighting off a man only to give in lustfully as he kisses her?

There are "many women like that?" Let's say that some women like pain or some sexual things that the majority doesn't like, but I've *yet* to meet the woman who wants to be raped.

As for movie plots or romance novel scenarios, they are fiction, written by ignorant people. The harm in them is having people like you think that a woman wants to be "taken."

Disagree. Rand wanted to be taken hard. Art imitating life for Whitney.

What a horrible thing to say. You're lucky Mallory got here first. First of all, read my words: WOMEN DO NOT WANT TO BE RAPED! In the show as Rand, she liked Kirk but she FOUGHT HIM OFF when he tried to rape her. And this was someone she liked. Rand very obviously did NOT want this to happen and she was not egging him on. Spock's comment at the time was ghastly. As a woman, I winced at it and wonder what asshole wrote such a line.

Whitney may have had a sex addiction, but even with that, there is a big difference between wanting sexual contact and wanting rape. Whitney did NOT want to be raped.

Very few women would ever want to be raped. And what was offered in that show was rape. And what Spock joked about was an attempted rape, which is horrible for anyone to joke about.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Oh please. This episode was all about the dark hungers and needs and fears and ugliness inside us. The things that make us who we are, the things we're mortified about other people finding out. That's why it's so absurd when people call this an "evil twin" episode, because, of course, it's nothing of the kind.
Rand wasn't on some pedestal in this episode. They way it was written and played, she wanted to give in. She wanted what Kirk wanted. But she was in control, and would not breach her duty and position. Kirk was out of control - his control had literally been torn from him.
What sets this series apart from so many that came after was that its characters were HUMAN. Rand wasn't a virginal paper cut out, and frankly it's an insult to the writer and the actress to pretend she was.
So go ahead, give me a warning for disagreeing with you. Knock yourself out.

 

[T'Bonz]

Oh fucking bullshit. She did NOT want to "give in." If you really think that she was fighting in the hope that he would "subdue" her, well, you're flat out wrong.

If anything, she was appalled that this man upon whom she had a crush was resorting to such behavior.

I actually found Spock's comment much worse. Kirk's behavior was due to something over which he had no control. Spock was *supposed* to be logical and rational.

I don't warn for disagreeing with me. Regrettably, warning for offensive statements, unless there is trolling intent, is not something with which I agree. We don't warn when people say stupid shit either. Tant pis...

 

[Pauln6]

The position Rand found herself in was a curious one. She fancied Kirk like mad and here he was in her quarters, but drunk and aggressive. She only gave him as much 'rope' as she did because as she says, 'he is the captain' and a non-com is hardly in a position to be too rude to their commanding officer. How many women have had similar difficulties with a lascivious boss at work throughout the last 60 years? She clearly understands that this is NOT what she wants from Kirk and so not only does she fight him off but she reports him to Spock. More power to her I say.

And don't get me spitting blood about how Whitney was treated overall. Her loss to the show was a blow to the female dynamic of the show in my view. At the very least she should have been allowed to return as an occasional guest star. The only good thing that came out of her loss was that Uhura's part was increased slightly to take up some of the slack.

Chauvanistic attitudes to females in sci fi is my pet hate (as I'm sure people have noticed by now). Sometimes it can be hilarious how modern-day ingrained sexism leads many fans (and many female fans) to defend the status quo where women in Trek are not treated equally on screen. The funniest was the suggestion that the Romulan officer who tried to seduce Shinzon was performing a 'standard miltary manoeuvre' to gain the upper hand as if she couldn't use her intelligence, guile, and miltary experience because she had boobies.

 

[Brutal Strudel]

I actually found Spock's comment much worse. Kirk's behavior was due to something over which he had no control. Spock was *supposed* to be logical and rational.

Thing is, Spock's "joke" is consistent with how he is presented in this episode. When he is discussing the situation with ineffectual Kirk and McCoy, his insensitivity causes Bones to snap "That's the Captain's guts you're analyzing" or words to that effect and Spock avidly says "Yes!" But he then goes on to talk about his own duality and internal conflicts. I see his "joke" to Rand in much the same vein.

Bonz, you make the point that the romanticized rapes we see in movies and romance novels and tv shows are presented by "ignorant" creators and have no basis in reality. I'll grant that they have no basis in reality but I do think they are an accurate reflection of a fantasy which, in the days before widespread women's lib, was alarmingly widespread. When Rhett Butler maritally rapes Scarlett O'Hara and when Luke rapes Laura, these were scenarios presented primarily for the delectation of women who were too repressed to take responsibility for their own sexual desires. This episode is to be praised for showing the ugly, violent, terrifying reality of the situation and doing it with the hero of the show, since bestial Kirk is as much Kirk as ineffectual Kirk. And as for Spock, in the early episodes he was a scary son of a bitch. I miss that about him.

 

[Timo]

The funniest was the suggestion that the Romulan officer who tried to seduce Shinzon was performing a 'standard miltary manoeuvre' to gain the upper hand as if she couldn't use her intelligence, guile, and miltary experience because she had boobies.

More like "as if she couldn't have boobies and use them without permission from Paul6"...

The idea of "equal treatment" is fallacy and folly as long as the audience consists of more than one person, because everybody's idea of equal treatment is different. I'd automatically dismiss the ideas of everybody save the person being treated, because she's the only one who has any sort of legitimacy in deciding what is equal and what is not. Except this basically means nobody has legitimacy, as the person being treated in the general case is fictional and thus doesn't exist.

Trying to argue that a character must act in a specific way (that is, be written to act in a specific way) is always a case of trampling on her liberties (in certain cases, the liberties of those represented by the fictional character). In a free society, liberties are trampled on only for the cause of common good, and common good is defined as carefully as possible to minimize the trampling. To say that a woman can't act (be written to act) in a specific manner is contrary to the principles of a free society unless it can be clearly demonstrated that the act jeopardizes the society, that it hurts others. And the mechanism of hurting here is difficult to demonstrate: nobody is obligated to feel sympathy for Spock in the "Enemy Within" case, or take Rand as a role model, or start phasering transporter power conduits or smearing yellow dust on his coveralls, just because this episode was written the way it was. Fiction has its villains, and realistic fiction has villainy characteristics in the heroes and sympathetic ones in the villains...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

Lol - that's true up to a point, and if the Romulan had been Vash, her behaviour would have been understandable to me. The problem arises where the 'sexist' women are portrayed in a particular light more often than men and a Romulan milititary commander hitting on her boss for no reason just made me cringe. How often have we seen male Romulan commanders hitting on their bosses? It was a disservice to the character and totally unnecessary to the plot. There were lots of other ways that she could have obtained the information necessary within the plot that didn't involve whoring herself out for a promotion and I make no apology for suggesting that. Azetbur was pretty cool and didn't have to shag anybody to be heard, and that was with the sexist Klingons, so it is possible to have women who are just good at their jobs. We just need to see a lot more of them so that the odd skanky ho character doesn't overshadow the others.

As for Spock - lack of emotion does equal lack of empathy. I'd be very happy to see a more 'callous' version of NuSpock and how that affects nuUhura but I seriuosly doubt it. They made him too touchy-feely already. I can only envisage NuSpock getting his mojo back if NuUhura dumps him.

 

[Timo]

How often have we seen male Romulan commanders hitting on their bosses?

Spock did that in "Enterprise Incident". That his Romulan counterpart did the same simultaneously only adds to the universal validity of the concept...

It was a disservice to the character and totally unnecessary to the plot.

It's a disservice to a character that she acts when others cower? That she gains insight into the character of the main villain, and formulates her own policy based on that, then converts the weak male characters to her cause? I'd say it's both raising the profile of the character, and vital for the plot, in the sense of giving story legitimacy to the Romulan allies' abandoning of Shinzon.

There were lots of other ways that she could have obtained the information necessary within the plot that didn't involve whoring herself out for a promotion and I make no apology for suggesting that.

For suggesting what? I thought it was my suggestion that whoring oneself out is a commendable course of action, requiring no apology...

Kirk frequently whored himself out in order to complete his mission. It sounds highly inequal if female characters aren't allowed to do the same!

As for Spock - lack of emotion does equal lack of empathy.

Yet Spock was written as highly emotional, indeed emotion-torn, in "Naked Time" already. I doubt the early writers would have been instructed to characterize him as a cold fish. A devilish and cruel ego-deflator, perhaps - that's a sound way of characterizing somebody who controls his own emotions, and no doubt radiates some of that control to the emotions of others as well...

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Pauln6]

How often have we seen male Romulan commanders hitting on their bosses?

Spock did that in "Enterprise Incident". That his Romulan counterpart did the same simultaneously only adds to the universal validity of the concept... .

Very true but that WAS central to the plot in many different ways.

It was a disservice to the character and totally unnecessary to the plot.

It's a disservice to a character that she acts when others cower? That she gains insight into the character of the main villain, and formulates her own policy based on that, then converts the weak male characters to her cause? I'd say it's both raising the profile of the character, and vital for the plot, in the sense of giving story legitimacy to the Romulan allies' abandoning of Shinzon.

She didn't have to hit on him to obtain that information. In fact he had his fit after he'd rebuffed her; her attempt at seduction was superfluous.

There were lots of other ways that she could have obtained the information necessary within the plot that didn't involve whoring herself out for a promotion and I make no apology for suggesting that.

For suggesting what? I thought it was my suggestion that whoring oneself out is a commendable course of action, requiring no apology...

Kirk frequently whored himself out in order to complete his mission. It sounds highly inequal if female characters aren't allowed to do the same!

Lol - true but then Kirk's willingness to take one for the team has become a running joke and it's often turned on him these days to underscore this. Marta, NuUhura, and Gaila spring to mind.

As for Spock - lack of emotion does equal lack of empathy.

Yet Spock was written as highly emotional, indeed emotion-torn, in "Naked Time" already. I doubt the early writers would have been instructed to characterize him as a cold fish. A devilish and cruel ego-deflator, perhaps - that's a sound way of characterizing somebody who controls his own emotions, and no doubt radiates some of that control to the emotions of others as well...

Timo Saloniemi

Yeah Naked Time was a good one for Spock too but I just love him when he just stands there and raises an eyebrow at the vulgarity of emotion and delivers an assessment that is stinging in its truth. Plus it means we get to see McCoy swear a lot, which is always nice.