Turnabout Intruder

Or his ever expanding, fluffy wig?
JB

 

Interesting idea. Poor Bill would then be left out of the later movies though.

It's interesting that in the episode, Janice (in Kirk's body) mentions that Spock would be in command because Kirk (in Janice's body) could not be captain. The stereotypes of the 1960s were very strong. But, your idea would have been very bold and interesting and would have highlighted those improper stereotypes.

Being a Captain should be more in the mind, than in the body. (Not that a woman's body would be in any way deficient for the job.)

 

Oh, and I should have also got a joke in.

That would give new meaning to "To boldly go where no man has gone before".

(Hey, if I didn't say it, someone else would have)

 

Is that the reason Kirk could not be captain in Janice's body?
I think its more because no one believes that Kirk is in Janice's body.

I know GR said he deliberately wanted to show in this episode that there are just some jobs women are not capable of.because of his anger at his ex-wife but what would Starfleet's explanation be? Do they need captains who are good at fisticuffs or ruthless. Surely they could find some women with those characteristics.
I'm still going for the explanation that Lester was insane and that women could be captains.

 

I cannot imagine any TOS fan would have found any part of that a worthy conclusion for Kirk.

 

Yes of course they could, we saw it in "The Menagerie." Whatever Lester is talking about at the beginning of the episode is extremely suspect.

 

I think the notion that the writers of the episode gave a frak about continuity, especially at this point in the show, is extremely suspect.

*checks who wrote the story and who wrote the screenplay*

Spoiler

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Arthur_Singer
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Gene_Roddenberry

 

Sure, but if one wants to try to establish what is "true" within that fictional setting, it seems a lot easier to dismiss Lester's testimony. Her comment of "We could have roamed the stars together" seems at odds with both of them having ambitions of starship command, unless husband-and-wife co-captains are a thing.

 

What is interesting is that Janice (in Kirk's body) says "it is self evident" (EDIT: actually he says inevitable!). One has to interpret this. Is it "self evident' that no one would believe in transference, or it is self-evident that a transgender captain would never be accepted?

I don't know, but I did think that through previously. My thought is that Vulcans are in the federation. So, any number of witnesses could be brought in to verify that the transference had occurred. Kirk (in Janice's body) could also be tested for competence as a captain. It seems plausible that the transference could be eventually believed and transgender-Kirk could be a competent captain.

It would not be an easy process, but it does not seem "self-evident" to me that Kirk could not retain his captaincy. But, to mainstream 1960s thinking people, it would be self-evidence that a transgender captain can't be accepted in the military.

 

Where is the self-evident line?

 

Sorry, my memory is faulty. I went back to that scene and see he says, "it is inevitable" not "it is self-evident".

I always thought that the first signs of my senility would be miss-remembering Star Trek lines.

 

(As yet uncreated by the time of the writing of "Tunrabout Intruder") Robert April and his wife Sarah did it first, though he was the captain and she his CMO.

 

That's a good point, because Janice made it abundantly clear that situation would have been unacceptable to her, she'd want her own ship and maybe they could have been on maneuvers together like when the task force tried out M-5. She was blinded by ambition for the worst reasons which is exactly why Star Fleet wouldn't have wanted her, or anyone else like that, they already had Captain Garth try to kill the Antoshians (sp) and Captain Tracey killing Yangs.

BTW, I really don't think the security would have followed through with illegal orders, Sulu and Chekov were rightly scared about it, but that doesn't mean they would have gone through with it.

 

Members of the same fleet? Who would take the lead?

In the mirror universe, mirror Janice Lester wants mirror Kirk to be her "Captain's man".

 

I would have loved to see the redshirts be the heroes that save the day in the final episode. What a fitting revenge after being the cannon fodder for 3 years.

 

FYI, as they were assembling this episode, the teaser was shortened considerably. Among the many portions that wound up on the cutting room floor, parts of this one might have some relevance to the current discussion:

 

I always find it kind of a bummer that for the final episode of Star Trek, Shatner really isn't even playing Kirk.

I don't know why...but that always struck me as regrettable.

 

I'm sure that in the Mirror universe that Janice was either dead, killed by Kirk perhaps or a very nice saintly person at odds with the Terran empire and the way of their reality!
JB

 

If women couldn't be captains (at least not Starship captains) then why did Lester even enter the academy (I'm assuming she did). Was the real problem was that she could never be a Starfleet Captain. Or that she and Kirk wouldn't work out on a Starship together?

 

"Turnabout Intruder" is just a hacked-together rip-off of Thorne Smith's novel Turnabout or the 1940 film on which it was based, in which a husband and wife temporarily swap bodies and in the end decide that things work best if they stick to the traditional gender roles.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turnabout_(film)

We fans are collectively far more concerned with the continuity implications relative to TOS as a whole than Singer or Roddenberry were.