Why wasn't Kirk tempted in "The Man Trap"?

[The Squire of Gothos]

Just wondering, now that I've got the DVD sets for Christmas, why didn't Vampire/Nancy tempt Kirk when he first arrived?

McCoy saw someone he met when she was 25, Darnell someone he met on Wrigley's pleasure planet, Kirk someone who was handsome but not as pleasing as McCoy thought.

Is this Kirk's ideal woman? Someone mature and capable of taking him on? Or was Nancy unable to spread her influence over more than two people?

 

[blakbyrd]

Kirk's ideal woman is the Enterprise.

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Maybe Kirk should have seen the 11' model of he Enterprise "walk" into the room.

 

[Outpost4]

Kirk saw his own apparition - a Nancy Crater as she should look like. Notice how his Nancy became everyone's Nancy.

But agreed, not his type.

And duty before sex.

 

[Christopher]

The Kirk of the first season was a much more no-nonsense military type than the womanizing rogue his later reputation would suggest. His romantic storylines often involved him resisting women who were throwing themselves at him (Eve in "Mudd's Women," Helen Noel in "Dagger of the Mind,"* Janice and Miri in "Miri"), and when he did seduce women it was a coldblooded tactic to manipulate them (Andrea in "What are Little Girls Made Of," Lenore in "Conscience of the King") -- or else the action of an unleashed part of himself that he usually kept under tight rein (evil Kirk's assault on Rand in "Enemy Within"). Even in "The Naked Time," under the virus's effects, he only lamented about his loneliness rather than going after female crew, and in "This Side of Paradise" it was his unrelenting discipline and hardnosed sense of duty that made him resistant to the spores. We saw a couple of women he'd apparently cared about in the past (Areel Shaw, Ruth), but they seemed to be serious relationships rather than casual flings. And then of course there was Edith Keeler. In that case, Kirk's strict discipline did give way to his passions, but presumably the idea was that Edith was so special that she was the one woman who could break through his shell.

*(Okay, technically Kirk threw himself at Helen in "Dagger," but only after he'd been brainwashed into thinking he was in love with her. Until then, he was quite uneasy with her reminders of their flirtation at the earlier Christmas party. And it was she who very unethically implanted a false memory of them making love after the party.)

Clearly this changed in the later two seasons, where Kirk's reputation for chasing everything in a skirt became more fully established. I wonder how much of that was at Shatner's insistence and how much was at the network's (since the girl-in-every-port Kirk was more in keeping with the standard '60s TV action hero type). But first-season Kirk was a somewhat different character, defined largely by his seriousness and discipline. So it's consistent that his perception of Nancy would've been the most detached and unromanticized.

 

[sbk1234]

I figured - now it's been a while since I've seen this episode, so my memory may be off - that by this time in the story, "Nancy" was getting so desperate for salt, feeling like a trapped, hunted animal, that she was getting panicky. Perhaps not thinking clearly, and at the point where it was "get salt at any cost." So she didn't use that skill of appear the way the victim wants.

 

[McCoy]

The image that Kirk saw was probably Crater's. It was likely the way Nancy looked when it killed her. I expect that is the creature's "default" appearance, since it has become so dependent on Crater.

With McCoy it found a strong image at the front of his mind (Nancy as he last saw her), and the crewman may have been daydreaming about this girl he met at the moment the creature noticed him, and its instinct kicked in.

Kirk may have been the only one not thinking primarily about a woman at the time. He may have been thinking about Crater (the leader of the expedition and the one Kirk was under orders to make contact with), with an awareness that he had a wife but no idea what she looked like, so the creature projected Crater's image of Nancy into Kirk's mind.

 

[Redfern]

My only concern with this episode is when the "creature" is beamed aboard the ship. Since it was established in the prologue different people perceived different versions, we can assume (I know, a dangerous activity) the creature's ability is telepathic and not a physical metamorphosis.

Realistically, one would expect the transpoter mechanisms to detect something "other" than human was beaming aboard.

I'm not bashing the episode by any means, but it will prove interesting to read any "trek-planations" for this scenario.

Sincerely,

Bill

 

[TigerOfDarkness]

Taking it more seriously, I think the "Nancy" Darnell sees is the strange one.

Both Kirk and McCoy see what they expect - McCoy sees Nancy as he last saw her ( presumably derived from his strong memories ) and Kirk sees an older woman who could have been McCoy's girlfriend from years back.
Darnell sees a very unlikely ex-girlfriend of McCoy.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Redfern said:Realistically, one would expect the transpoter mechanisms to detect something "other" than human was beaming aboard

Good call, when someone calls to the enterprise that there are "three to beam up", one would expect them to check that it is the three of the landing party that are being beamed up.

Christopher, never thought of that explanation, its a good take and would go hand in hand with a Kirk exposition of how he loves the Enteprise as his woman in the same episode.

 

[cooleddie74]

The Squire of Gothos said:
Good call, when someone calls to the enterprise that there are "three to beam up", one would expect them to check that it is the three of the landing party that are being beamed up.

GREAT observation there. Yeah, you'd think that TOS-era transporters had subroutines in their pattern buffers to scan the patterns of subjects and determine if they were really crewpersons or not. If TOS transporters could remove or deactivate weapons in transit and during rematerialization, why couldn't they run a genetic/molecular scan to see if someone was really a human or Vulcan or not?

 

[Christopher]

^^Presumably for the same reason they couldn't detect the absence of a planet below them when a security detail got beamed down into empty space in "And the Children Shall Lead." And for the same reason the transporter has occasionally beamed aboard energy beings and the like without anyone knowing it at first. Because the script says so.

 

[cooleddie74]

Ahhhh, yes.

I think they teach that paradox at the Academy.

 

[Ronald Held]

Enough said!

 

[indranee]

Christopher said:
The Kirk of the first season was a much more no-nonsense military type than the womanizing rogue his later reputation would suggest. His romantic storylines often involved him resisting women who were throwing themselves at him (Eve in "Mudd's Women," Helen Noel in "Dagger of the Mind,"* Janice and Miri in "Miri"), and when he did seduce women it was a coldblooded tactic to manipulate them (Andrea in "What are Little Girls Made Of," Lenore in "Conscience of the King") -- or else the action of an unleashed part of himself that he usually kept under tight rein (evil Kirk's assault on Rand in "Enemy Within"). Even in "The Naked Time," under the virus's effects, he only lamented about his loneliness rather than going after female crew, and in "This Side of Paradise" it was his unrelenting discipline and hardnosed sense of duty that made him resistant to the spores. We saw a couple of women he'd apparently cared about in the past (Areel Shaw, Ruth), but they seemed to be serious relationships rather than casual flings. And then of course there was Edith Keeler. In that case, Kirk's strict discipline did give way to his passions, but presumably the idea was that Edith was so special that she was the one woman who could break through his shell.

*(Okay, technically Kirk threw himself at Helen in "Dagger," but only after he'd been brainwashed into thinking he was in love with her. Until then, he was quite uneasy with her reminders of their flirtation at the earlier Christmas party. And it was she who very unethically implanted a false memory of them making love after the party.)

Clearly this changed in the later two seasons, where Kirk's reputation for chasing everything in a skirt became more fully established. I wonder how much of that was at Shatner's insistence and how much was at the network's (since the girl-in-every-port Kirk was more in keeping with the standard '60s TV action hero type). But first-season Kirk was a somewhat different character, defined largely by his seriousness and discipline. So it's consistent that his perception of Nancy would've been the most detached and unromanticized.

Christopher, bravo! very nice analysis. ITA.

 

[Ryan Thomas Riddle]

Christopher said:
^^Presumably for the same reason they couldn't detect the absence of a planet below them when a security detail got beamed down into empty space in "And the Children Shall Lead." And for the same reason the transporter has occasionally beamed aboard energy beings and the like without anyone knowing it at first. Because the script says so.

I'd prefer to believe that the transporter has a plot buffer that allows anything on board that moves the plot or places a certain amount of danger into the plot.

 

[Nebusj]

cooleddie74 said:
If TOS transporters could remove or deactivate weapons in transit and during rematerialization, why couldn't they run a genetic/molecular scan to see if someone was really a human or Vulcan or not?

Could they? Did the Original Series transporters ever remove or deactivate weapons through the beaming process?

 

[Zycho32]

TigerOfDarkness said:
Taking it more seriously, I think the "Nancy" Darnell sees is the strange one.

Both Kirk and McCoy see what they expect - McCoy sees Nancy as he last saw her ( presumably derived from his strong memories ) and Kirk sees an older woman who could have been McCoy's girlfriend from years back.
Darnell sees a very unlikely ex-girlfriend of McCoy.

It's not actually surprising- after all, Darnell is pretty much the most 'detatched'- when it comes to Nancy Crater as well as the many mission details- of that first landing party. He was basically a lowly assistant or whatever serving some kind of utility role amidst the party. (Speaking IC. OOC, he was the precursor to the Redshirt Phenomenon. Not bad for a guy who didn't wear red.) He had no connection with Kirk or McCoy beyond serving a superior officer, and likely had no real attatchment to the mission or the people involved in it.

Had there been an opportunity in the episode, you'd probably have seen the same general things from Crewmen Green, Sturgeon, and even Barnhart of the 'Phantom' Division.

And as far as Kirk being 'tempted'- when was there a chance for this to happen? On the first and second landing parties he stuck with Professor Crater and every time he was with the creature up until the final act, the creature had to assume a different kind of identity in order to 'fit in' properly without betraying its true nature.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Perhaps the creature had a default setting for its camouflage, what if the older Nancy was what Crater preferred, his last image of the real Nancy in his mind.

Following on from what others have mentioned above, the creature might, as an evolution of its feeding system, seek out those most vulnerable to its charms. Then it would expend a little bit more energy to affect them, but everyone else would just see this default Nancy.

 

[Christopher]

Nebusj said:
Did the Original Series transporters ever remove or deactivate weapons through the beaming process?

Yes. "Day of the Dove."