I'll be honest from the start here: this is not my favorite all-time episode. I'm sorry, but you cannot keep me from Uhura this long. In fact, I'm going to have a comment on this subject later. Don't let me forget!
The situation is that some of the gang is on a planet, just looking at rocks, when jackass Fisher cuts his hand pretty bad and has to get beamed back and is covered in ore and whatever. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the gang finds a cute hilarious dog/unicorn hybrid, or a unicanine.
Scotty gives Fisher a once-over with his weird-substance-detector, and decides Fisher's cool, don't worry about it. You guys update your software please.
But we're missing the main point here, which is that the ore that Fisher's covered in causes Kirk to split into two dudes: Good Kirk and Evil Kirk (or "Krik," as I have just decided to call him). The primary distinction between the two is that Krik totally wears eyeliner (how is that evil Star Trek what are you trying to say just kidding you're cool) and also staggers around like a freaking troglodyte. He can totally talk, but does so very rarely, like Frankenstein in the original book, and in this example I am that asshole who read the book and is a dick about how Frankenstein's monster can talk.
Kirk goes to take a nap in his quarters, where Rand was just chilling while he was gone, because it's totally normal for yeomen to hang out in a captain's quarters when the captain's not around. Krik, on the other hand, immediately begins causing trouble because the dude does not know who his parents are, or something. He wanders over to McCoy's office and immediately acts like he's about to make out with McCoy because this is a slash fiction episode:
But no Krik just demands booze instead, which luckily the always-drunk McCoy keeps right next to the examination table. Krik begins to wander the halls sipping on bourbon like Ulysses S Grant, until he comes across Yeoman Rand's quarters. He totally TOUCHES a painting she has placed in her room, maybe she was even painting it herself, whatever, dick move, and decides to settle in.
Over in Kirk's quarters, Spock drops by to be like "Bro I heard you almost kissed McCoy and then grabbed his Southern Comfort. This is all plausibly Kirk behavior but certainly seems a bit X-treme. You cool?" Kirk has no idea what he's talking about, so the ever-loyal Spock decides that McCoy, the doctor, is going insane and they shouldn't stress over it. They almost decide to worry about this idea, when they get a call from Scotty, who has discovered a weird thing about the unicanine clone that popped out of the transporter: It is the exact opposite of the regular unicanine. Instead of saying, "Scotty, it is crazy to claim you can tell the difference of personalities between two alien pooches you just met, have you been stealing liquor from the doctor too?" they just say, "Oh, that's weird. Good thing it DEFINITELY DIDN'T HAPPEN TO KIRK." and also realize they can't beam back Sulu and the gang from the planet they were on, which sucks because the planet's getting crazy cold at night. Here's a pretty unnecessary picture of this scene, just because I love almost everything in this picture:
Seriously, Kirk is wearing his leisure shirt, and a worried Scotty is holding that kooky dog, which has definitely been sedated, because the personality differences between the dogs is that one is docile and one is barking like crazy. Sorry, I don't usually use this blog to make fun of Star Trek, but this episode was not my favorite so, sorry.
Next, we head over to Rand's room, where TENSION has been building. I want to comment quickly on the decor. She has a wall that, when you touch it, slides open to become a dresser/makeup table. Why not just have a dresser/makeup table there? The reason is that it was 1966, and as fucking genius Natasha Vargas-Cooper writes, this was an era of clean lines. This was the era that Stanley Kubrick defined the antiseptic future. WHOA. Sorry. On the story, which is awful. Krik tries to rape Rand.
She calls out for help, and that JACKASS FISHER pushes the intercom button and wastes so much time identifying himself that he doesn't even get a chance to say "Krik is trying to rape Rand you guys" before Krik incapacitates him. Damn it Fisher, you're terrible at everything. I'm glad you got your hand cut. Krik returns to Kirk's room to hide and nurse his wounds.
Now comes the worst part of any workplace ever. Rand has reported to her direct superior (Spock, maybe?) that the ship's captain attempted to rape her. Spock responds to this officially filed accusation by having Kirk, himself, and McCoy yell at her until she agrees it wasn't Kirk, and that he must have a double running around the ship. As I mentioned earlier, the Enterprise has a serious protocol problem with sexual harassment, and this is definitely a nadir in Human Resources management. They leave Rand to deal with her ladyproblems on her own, and try to combine the two unicanines. They become one dead unicanine, so no luck, Kirk.
Also, Kirk is weakening and can't make any decisions and is markedly un-Kirk-like. He asks Spock to make a decision for him, and Spock gets furious at him and says a captain must appear perfect or the crew will hate him. Spock, stop working for the Kim Jong-Il administration. Meanwhile, Sulu is getting colder! He claims it's 10 below, which maybe they don't use the same measurements in the future that we do now, because 10 below could kill you (I think?).
Kirk and Spock have an idea of where Krik might be, so they go searching for him in the coolest room ever:
Just to drive this point home: Significant portions of the crew are slowly freezing to death, the transporter's busted, AND an evil guy who looks like the captain is wandering around attempting sexual assault. Clearly you need the captain and the first mate on guessing-where-the-bad-guy-is-and-tryin'-to-catch-him duty. You know where Uhura almost certainly was for this? Doing. Her. Job. Checking on communictions, translating things from Romulan, and decoding incoming transmissions. STOP PLAYING ADVENTURE-SPIES, KIRK AND SPOCK. Get security to look for Krik.
Anyway, after that some stuff happens and things move pretty slow. Krik and Kirk end up on the bridge, and they have a "which one of us is the real Kirk???" moment, but nobody has to choose because the Krik tries to beat people up and they get him to get back into the tranporter, which is fixed now so don't worry Sulu.
My significant other, who is super Jewish, suggests that this is a very Jewish episode. According the Judaism, every person has the Good Inclination and the Evil Inclination in them. And you need both. The Good Inclination helps you, you know, not be a jerk, and the Evil Inclination helps you get things done. Krik is evil, but proactive. Kirk is basically good, but super wishy-washy. When we combine the two, we get the decisive, powerful Kirk we all need. That's a pretty cool analysis. But beyond it, this episode wasn't thrilling. Oh, and the editing was great. Considering it was 1966, they did a great job of showing Kirk and Krik in the same scenes. They used the Stop Trick, invented by Georges Méliès in - wait for this - 1896! So I guess it had been 70 years, which is not incredible, but it's well-executed here. Not Ernie Kovacs-well, but it was good. Sorry for all of these qualifiers. Fuck, whatever, here's the Smug Mug:
The situation is that some of the gang is on a planet, just looking at rocks, when jackass Fisher cuts his hand pretty bad and has to get beamed back and is covered in ore and whatever. More importantly, perhaps, is the fact that the gang finds a cute hilarious dog/unicorn hybrid, or a unicanine.Scotty gives Fisher a once-over with his weird-substance-detector, and decides Fisher's cool, don't worry about it. You guys update your software please.
But we're missing the main point here, which is that the ore that Fisher's covered in causes Kirk to split into two dudes: Good Kirk and Evil Kirk (or "Krik," as I have just decided to call him). The primary distinction between the two is that Krik totally wears eyeliner (how is that evil Star Trek what are you trying to say just kidding you're cool) and also staggers around like a freaking troglodyte. He can totally talk, but does so very rarely, like Frankenstein in the original book, and in this example I am that asshole who read the book and is a dick about how Frankenstein's monster can talk.
Kirk goes to take a nap in his quarters, where Rand was just chilling while he was gone, because it's totally normal for yeomen to hang out in a captain's quarters when the captain's not around. Krik, on the other hand, immediately begins causing trouble because the dude does not know who his parents are, or something. He wanders over to McCoy's office and immediately acts like he's about to make out with McCoy because this is a slash fiction episode:
But no Krik just demands booze instead, which luckily the always-drunk McCoy keeps right next to the examination table. Krik begins to wander the halls sipping on bourbon like Ulysses S Grant, until he comes across Yeoman Rand's quarters. He totally TOUCHES a painting she has placed in her room, maybe she was even painting it herself, whatever, dick move, and decides to settle in.Over in Kirk's quarters, Spock drops by to be like "Bro I heard you almost kissed McCoy and then grabbed his Southern Comfort. This is all plausibly Kirk behavior but certainly seems a bit X-treme. You cool?" Kirk has no idea what he's talking about, so the ever-loyal Spock decides that McCoy, the doctor, is going insane and they shouldn't stress over it. They almost decide to worry about this idea, when they get a call from Scotty, who has discovered a weird thing about the unicanine clone that popped out of the transporter: It is the exact opposite of the regular unicanine. Instead of saying, "Scotty, it is crazy to claim you can tell the difference of personalities between two alien pooches you just met, have you been stealing liquor from the doctor too?" they just say, "Oh, that's weird. Good thing it DEFINITELY DIDN'T HAPPEN TO KIRK." and also realize they can't beam back Sulu and the gang from the planet they were on, which sucks because the planet's getting crazy cold at night. Here's a pretty unnecessary picture of this scene, just because I love almost everything in this picture:
Seriously, Kirk is wearing his leisure shirt, and a worried Scotty is holding that kooky dog, which has definitely been sedated, because the personality differences between the dogs is that one is docile and one is barking like crazy. Sorry, I don't usually use this blog to make fun of Star Trek, but this episode was not my favorite so, sorry.
Next, we head over to Rand's room, where TENSION has been building. I want to comment quickly on the decor. She has a wall that, when you touch it, slides open to become a dresser/makeup table. Why not just have a dresser/makeup table there? The reason is that it was 1966, and as fucking genius Natasha Vargas-Cooper writes, this was an era of clean lines. This was the era that Stanley Kubrick defined the antiseptic future. WHOA. Sorry. On the story, which is awful. Krik tries to rape Rand.
She calls out for help, and that JACKASS FISHER pushes the intercom button and wastes so much time identifying himself that he doesn't even get a chance to say "Krik is trying to rape Rand you guys" before Krik incapacitates him. Damn it Fisher, you're terrible at everything. I'm glad you got your hand cut. Krik returns to Kirk's room to hide and nurse his wounds.Now comes the worst part of any workplace ever. Rand has reported to her direct superior (Spock, maybe?) that the ship's captain attempted to rape her. Spock responds to this officially filed accusation by having Kirk, himself, and McCoy yell at her until she agrees it wasn't Kirk, and that he must have a double running around the ship. As I mentioned earlier, the Enterprise has a serious protocol problem with sexual harassment, and this is definitely a nadir in Human Resources management. They leave Rand to deal with her ladyproblems on her own, and try to combine the two unicanines. They become one dead unicanine, so no luck, Kirk.
Also, Kirk is weakening and can't make any decisions and is markedly un-Kirk-like. He asks Spock to make a decision for him, and Spock gets furious at him and says a captain must appear perfect or the crew will hate him. Spock, stop working for the Kim Jong-Il administration. Meanwhile, Sulu is getting colder! He claims it's 10 below, which maybe they don't use the same measurements in the future that we do now, because 10 below could kill you (I think?).Kirk and Spock have an idea of where Krik might be, so they go searching for him in the coolest room ever:
Just to drive this point home: Significant portions of the crew are slowly freezing to death, the transporter's busted, AND an evil guy who looks like the captain is wandering around attempting sexual assault. Clearly you need the captain and the first mate on guessing-where-the-bad-guy-is-and-tryin'-to-catch-him duty. You know where Uhura almost certainly was for this? Doing. Her. Job. Checking on communictions, translating things from Romulan, and decoding incoming transmissions. STOP PLAYING ADVENTURE-SPIES, KIRK AND SPOCK. Get security to look for Krik.
Anyway, after that some stuff happens and things move pretty slow. Krik and Kirk end up on the bridge, and they have a "which one of us is the real Kirk???" moment, but nobody has to choose because the Krik tries to beat people up and they get him to get back into the tranporter, which is fixed now so don't worry Sulu.My significant other, who is super Jewish, suggests that this is a very Jewish episode. According the Judaism, every person has the Good Inclination and the Evil Inclination in them. And you need both. The Good Inclination helps you, you know, not be a jerk, and the Evil Inclination helps you get things done. Krik is evil, but proactive. Kirk is basically good, but super wishy-washy. When we combine the two, we get the decisive, powerful Kirk we all need. That's a pretty cool analysis. But beyond it, this episode wasn't thrilling. Oh, and the editing was great. Considering it was 1966, they did a great job of showing Kirk and Krik in the same scenes. They used the Stop Trick, invented by Georges Méliès in - wait for this - 1896! So I guess it had been 70 years, which is not incredible, but it's well-executed here. Not Ernie Kovacs-well, but it was good. Sorry for all of these qualifiers. Fuck, whatever, here's the Smug Mug:
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