Best episode yet but the "there's an evil entity on the ship" thing has been done this entire season so far.
Why didn't they just send a shuttle to pick Sulu and the others up ? (according to imdb the shuttle was introduced in episode sixteen so at this point there actually wasn't a concept for the ship having any. Plus the whole part with the team being stranded on the surface was not in the original script)
Putting that obvious flaw aside I think this is a great episode. The concept of having a good and an evil side is part of being human is what I love about Star Trek. It takes two sides to make a coin. I believe everyone of us has the cabability to do good or bad things. Is it, like Spock said, our intelligence that helps us deal with that and make the right decisions? I don't know. I once read a quote that being evil is easy, but being good takes an effort.
We also see that Spock really cares for Kirk when he tells him he can't afford to appear weak in the eyes of the crew. The attempted rape of Rand was really creepy and a massive thing for that time period. That could not have been easy to run by the studio. And Janice saying: "what was I supposed to do - he's the Captain" sends another wave of shivers down my spine.
(another bit of information from imdb: Grace Lee Whitney said she got slapped across the face by Shatner to recreate the emotions from the rape scene that got shot days earlier. Whew, that's a disturbing piece of info.)
Shatner helps sell this with his perfomance and for once his overacting (yes, he does) actually is favorable. And this isn't really about if it is good or bad. I think it just worked. It's not nuanced but at the extrem ends of the spectrum. Which is Shatner's acting ability in a nutshell.
they really put a dog in a costume and called it a night, huh
Overall, I love the premise. And to be honest, the episode isn't that bad. But even for 60s pacing, Kirk and Spoke are taking stupid pills. They see a dog that has an evil alter form. Scotty even surmises how bad it would be if it happened to a person, but yet Kirk and Spock are confounded by what people claim Kirk did and what the evidence shows (e.g. the scratch on Kirk's face is missing). I realize the 60s were a different type of story telling, more focused on characters than action, but this is definitely just killing time by making the characters fail to guess at the obvious. After about 30 seconds, one or the other should have mentioned the dog. Instead, it takes 5 minutes and even then Spock seems uncertain to even suggest it.
Also, why the hell don't they have a shuttle to go get the people left on the planet. There is a shuttle bay, but no shuttle to go get the away team? WTF?
I do have to admit that Kirk with a hint of eye shadow is perfect for this. Because, of course, eye shadow indicates someone is evil.
Probably my favorite episode so far excluding the pilot. I'm impressed with William Shatner's acting!
STAR TREK: THE ENEMY WITHIN
WRITING: 70
ACTING: 80
LOOK: 60
SOUND: 70
FEEL: 75
NOVELTY: 80
ENJOYMENT: 75
RE-WATCHABILITY: 80
INTRIGUE: 65
EXPECTATIONS: 80
It’s Kirk vs Kirk in this one, as we explore two vastly different sides fo Enterprise’s dashing captain with Evil-Kirk going down the typical chauvinist and alcoholized route many bad men follow. There’s a high tension from the very beginning, as the relationships between the crew members are tested. Liking the way the Kirk/Spock relationship evolves.
74% = :white_check_mark:
3.9/10. Hoo boy, if you want to get your episode off on shaky ground, premise it on giving William Shatner the acting partner of...William Shatner. Playing two characters who are different sides of the same person would be challenging for any performer, but it is just way outside the realm of Shatner's talents, and calling on him to play both a good-nature but indecisive Kirk and an evil impulsive Kirk is a recipe for so much ham you could ruin 10,000 bar mitzvahs.
To be generous, Shatner goes for broke here. There's nothing subtle about his performance -- it's all high volume and big on the obvious -- but he absolutely goes for it, with a leering, scheming bad guy Kirk and a tortured but ineffectual good guy Kirk. It's clearly his attempt at showing nuance and emotional range and while he never quite gets there, the attempt is intriguing if bizarre and, let's face it, not very good.
In fairness, the rest of the episode isn't especially good either. While the premise of a man being split into his component emotional parts is a solid premise for a sci-fi story, "The Enemy Within"'s examination of it is fairly shallow and trite. The whole discussions about the duality of man, particularly the back and forth between Spock and Bones, is written in such florid, stilted terms that it's amazing Nimoy and Kelly can even spit the lines out. Similarly, there's some interesting notions about the id (impulse) and the ego (altruism) as necessary parts of what makes a person who they are, with intelligence as the superego keeping everything together, but again, the episode doesn't really deliver on the promise of this exploration. And while Spock's speech about knowing the struggle well through his Vulcan detachment is, in the same vein, an interesting parallel to draw, it's more or less wasted here.
"The Enemy Within" is also a surprisingly boring episode for one with the premise of an evil twin rolling around and causing havoc. The main plot developments of the episode are over within the first 15-20 minutes, and then it's just a bunch of agonizing over what should be done and whether Kirk can go on. The ensuing forty-minute character study might be able to work in the hands of a different actor (not that the writers are blameless here), but for the most part it's a lot dull wheel-spinning before the inevitable conclusion, punctuated with Shatner overacting for two.
In the mean time, the episode creates a ticking clock in the form of Sulu (who's pretty amusing here) and an away team being stranded on a planet where the temperature is rapidly declining, waiting for Scotty to fix the transporter malfunction that caused this trouble in the first place. That's all well and good, but mostly creates a "when are they going to get to the fireworks factory?" mentality, and made me wonder why they didn't just send down a shuttle (which is pretty much just nerd nitpickery, I'll concede). To boot, the dog in a Halloween costume posing as an alien lifeform is some of that Sixties kitsch that, no matter how hard are try, makes it really difficult for me to take an episode seriously.
And yet, "The Enemy Within" presents what's been the most terrifying scene in the series thus far. Evil Kirk sexually assaulting Yeoman Janice is legitimately horrifying in its depiction, with a sort of cinema verite approach to it, without many cuts or changes in angle, that makes it feel uncomfortable real. It's hard to know whether to praise the show for its frankness or criticize it for being exploitative, but the moment stands out in an episode where little does.
Credit to Grace Lee Whitney, who offers the best performance in "The Enemy Within," both for the fear and desperation she sells while being assaulted, but also for the conflicted description of the power dynamics that were going through her head in that moment when she's being debriefed later. The gender politics of this 1960s show are, understandably, somewhat retrograde, and the affection hinted at in the end of the episode is a little gross, but "The Enemy Within" at least takes what happened to Janice seriously and treats at as the horrifying event it should be, which is something.
Still, one interesting element, and a potentially interesting premise can't save an episode executed this poorly. Letting Shatner essentially act in front of a mirror for forty minutes is a recipe for disaster, and the clunky writing did him no favors in tailoring the story to his limitations. "The Enemy Within" is the first truly awful episode of the show (and the first one to offer a wacky transporter malfunction), whose failings can be chalked up to a writer's room whose reach exceeds its grasp, and a lead whose acting talents are unsuited for pulling double duty in a shampoo commercial, let alone a full episode of network television.
The good news is that this episode serves as a cinematic parable about the nature of good and evil in humans. The bad news is that it's a bit edgier than usual for this show, particularly when the evil Kirk attempts to rape a woman (not graphic, of course). Hopefully, the further episodes keep things clean.
Content Concerns:
Sex: A man attempts to rape a woman; she successfully fights him off. 2/5
Nudity: Shirtless guy. 4/5
Language: One misuse of God's name. 4/5
Violence: Two or three fisticuffs; a woman fights off an attempted rapist; a guy is bloodied after a nasty fall; two men are seen with scratches on their faces; people are shot at with phasers. 2/5
Drugs: Alcohol is consumed and referenced two or three times. 4/5
Frightening/Intense Scenes: The evil version of Kirk is rather creepy; this episode is rife with emotional intensity. 2/5
Score: 3.5/5
We get our first look at classic Shatner theatrical acting here with the famous "I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!" scene, and throughout most of the episode. It's cringe worthy and fun. I wish there had been more scenes where the crew randomly hold a dog with a unicorn horn.
The attempted rape on Yeoman Rand is horrific and drives a dark mark onto an otherwise fun episode.
It's difficult to say whether the idea of Kirk being split into his good and evil selves seems like such a cliché because of everything we know about both the show and William Shatner, but if nothing else it gives him a chance to play two characters. Mr Shatner has, of course, the ability to lay on the ham like few others and Evil Kirk gives him an excellent excuse to snarl, shout and shiftily look around rooms.
The circumstances are clear: Kirk has come back from a dangerous planet that gets even more dangerous at night, but a faulty transporter means he's been split into two essences and the crew are stranded on the planet until he can reconcile his two natures. Evil Kirk wants brandy and women while Good Kirk is meek, robbed of his confidence. This leads, inevitably, to a confrontation between the two. The two Kirks meet, fight, are reconciled and Kirk learns that Evil Kirk is an essential part of him.
The episode is entertaining; seeing Evil Kirk skulking around on his own is awkward at times but when he comes into contact with the other members of the crew, things get interesting. A modicum of suspense is maintained by the cutaways to Sulu on the planet's surface, getting colder and colder. Also, credit must go to whoever's idea it was to have Sulu cuddle a space dog.
Shout by robinm0VIP 2BlockedParent2024-04-13T14:58:44Z
Sadly, pretty close to unwatchable in parts. Bill Shatner gives an early insight into why his appearances as Kirk on the big screen just don't pass muster. The premise; the transporter fails. Throughout Trek this system appears to be such an unreliable bit of kit in so many episodes that it's surprising it ever gets used at all. Except that generations of writers have needed a plot device. Maybe age has made me too cynical. Ho-hum.
Shuttlecraft, what are they?