2x07 Catspaw

[5.3/10] At some point it becomes churlish to complain about Star Trek’s pacing. The show is what it is, and while the rhythms of a sixties sci-fi show on network television may not conform the breakneck pace of more and more genre shows of today, to some degree, you have to simply take the show as it is.

The other side of the coin is that “Catspaw” is pretty much the nadir of an episode where about 10-15 minutes worth of incident is stretched out to an entire hour. There is a very specific rubric to the episode and it goes as follows. Our heroes come across something weird. They stop and look puzzled about it for a little while. They consult among one another to see if anyone knows what the weird thing is. And then after agreeing that they’re not sure, they wander on to the next weird thing.

Now don’t get me wrong. Part of the Star Trek DNA is the gang encountering some unusual phenomena and having the senior staff debate and theorize what’s happening. But when Kirk and company are strolling through a would-be haunted house, and when that approach is repeated over and over again, it gets tedious very quickly.

There’s also some odd psychology at play that makes “Catspaw” harder to warm to. For one thing, it’s uncomfortable to hear Spock philosophizing with Kirk about the “racial memory,” and the theory that there are certain universal symbols of fear buried in the subconscious of different species throughout the universe is a pretty odd one, even by Star Trek standards. It’s one of those strange attempts to explain an uncommon situation, steeped in 60s-isms, that doesn’t read quite right to a modern viewer.

That said, one of the few things that boosts the episode is the way that it embraces the mystery of its antagonists rather than overexplaining who they are or where they come from or how their powers work. While one could ascribe that to laziness, it creates an air of intrigue about them beyond the fact that they’re yet another set of god-like beings our heroes run across in their travels.

We know enough about Sylvia and Korob as we need to know, and the episode is nicely stingy with the details. They’re trying to study the human mind, which they view as inferior. They’re testing the crew of the enterprise, under the auspices of some unknown elder ones. And they’re not used to feeling things or experiencing things in this way.

That last notion provides the most interesting material in the episode. Sylvia and Kirk’s romantic scene together is the steamiest stuff The Original Series has been able to muster thus far, with Shatner and guest star Antoinette Bower conveying real heat between the pair despite it being part of a deception from Kirk. Despite his usual affections for anything in a skirt, Kirk normally just makes googly eyes at the babe of the week, or has a movie star kiss with his co-star. But here, the more flourished tactile exchanges between the pair sell the way that Kirk is playing on Sylvia being new to such experiences and trying to overwhelm her.

That idea is the core of this episode, and while the execution is lacking, like many TOS episodes, there’s a compelling hook to it at least. The notion of a species for whom such sensations are foreign, even forbidden, to take on human form for the purpose of examining a lesser species only to find that the hedonistic and emotional experiences of that form are too much to give up is an interesting one. By the same token, the conflict between Korob, who wants to fulfill their duty and move on, and Sylvia, who has clearly gone native, provides some sparks for the episode as well.

It also speaks to the odd strain of seeming Macbeth homages in the episode. Maybe it’s just the three witches who initially warn Kirk (who were legitimately creepy and a little unnerving with their disfigure makeup). But there was something about Sylvia imploring Korob to act, and the entire castle setting that seemed to be trying to evoke Shakespeare (and one of his most gruesome plays) as much as it was shooting for a generic haunted house feel.

Many of the effects and ideas that played up to that haunted house vibe came of pretty campy to the modern eye. Again, I’m loathe to complain about the special effects from a show made on a TV budget five decades ago, but it’s hard not to laugh at a fluffy cat running around a miniature set being the big threat at the end of the episode. By the same token, the voodoo tricks the antagonists perform on the Enterprise, heating it or trapping it by use of a cheap-looking starship keychain, couldn’t help but provoke some chuckles.

Even that last stretch of the episode, where Kirk and Spock are desperately trying to escape, feels pretty perfunctory. We’ve done Bones and Sulu being brainwashed and turned against their crewmates before. We’ve done the half-speed scuffle where Spock and Kirk use their Federation Kung Fu before. We’ve done the “Kirk destroys the power source and everything goes back to normal” bit before.

With all of that well-worn territory brought up again, “Catspaw” comes off like an episode with one good idea that it can’t quite stretch out to fill the full runtime, and so the powers that be chose to have the good guys wander around looking befuddled to fill time, and tacked on the standard TOS climax to the end of it. There’s something undeniably compelling about the idea of creatures who do not know the feeling of attraction or betrayal or other such “unevolved” sensations finding themselves enraptured by the opportunity to try it out, but it’s surrounded with a bunch of stalling for time and generic Trek stuff, with a little psychological mumbo jumbo to boot. There’s something spooky enough about “Catspaw” at times, but on the whole, it’s less scary than it is boring, which makes it a tough watch during anything other than the electric moments when Sylvia is plotting, feeling, or cajoling her captives and comrades, like Lady Macbeth might.