Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 5: The Enemy Within [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After a transporter decides to go haywire, Captain Kirk gets split into two halves: an evil, unforgiving half and a nice, intelligent half. Not only does the real Captain Kirk have to worry about his other, animal-like half, but he also has some men that are trapped on a freezing, icy planet with nowhere to go. Is it possible to manage a double take of the captain and get the two halves to equal one again?

"The Enemy Within" is compelling, and it provides good entertainment the whole way through. It also has great acting like always from William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, and a memorable line from Spock. Not to mention that you'll see a now-famous maneuver from Spock the very first time it was performed, and something else in this episode that you'll never see in another show of Star Trek.

We must all face our darker side every now and then, but I don't think any of us have ever had to face ourselves the way Captain Kirk must do. I recommend any Star Trek enthusiast to add this episode to their collection.

This episode provided me with some important food for thought, though I didn't completely agree with all of the ideas it presented. It was an unsettling reminder that many of our less desirable traits may be necessary to our effectiveness as human beings.

Wonderfully, it managed to do this without detracting from the very riveting storyline. Can Scotty and Spock fix the transporter in time to save the crewman from freezing? Will Kirk be able to regain the confidence that he has instilled in the crew?

This excellent episode provides Sulu with his best lines of the series and introduces the now classic Vulcan Nerve Pinch. A must for any Star Trek collection.

This was one of the very first episodes in the original series. Captain Kirk beams back up on the Enterprise from a frigid planet after another crewmember contaminated the transporter with a magnetic ore. After Kirk beams on, he becomes dizzy with Scotty escorting him to his quarters, with another Captain Kirk beaming up, a totally evil duplicate. Both his halves have to be transported back together or death will result. While his bad half is running amok the ship, including attempted rape of his yeoman, the good half has become weak and incompetent as a Commander, with the rest of the crew on the planet freezing in subzero temperatures. This was a great idea for an episode, but it tends to drag in many parts and it's painful trying to watch the good Kirk maintain his command abilities. The main complaints I had of this episode were the numerous bloopers. The Enterprise appears deserted in most scenes, there is no insignia on Kirk's uniform in the begining, the scratches on his face change sides, and the bridge viewscreen appears totally blank when the good Kirk confronts the bad Kirk near the end. Also, I don't see why the Enterprise couldn't have landed on the surface of the planet to rescue the men, but of course the show operated on a low budget. However, despite the flaws, it's fascinating watching the evil Kirk, especially the scene where he throws a tantrum in his quarters declaring himself as Captain and crying near the end "I want to live!". Leo Penn, father of Sean Penn, directed this one.

Episode Five ("The Enemy Within") is a good example of what the old Star Treks did best: present a concrete, humanistic problem and explore it with neat, tidy dialogue and pretty respectable acting (a poor man's Plato). Bipolar divisions have become all-the-rage as an area of study and exploration in the late 20th C. Here it is: good/evil; saint/savage; rage/rationality. This episode presents each side and then brashly suggests at the end that the evil or savage side may be the most important characteristic of an effective leader (what would Picard say?). The old episodes seem to provide the most concrete, packaged nuggets of philosophy; and in a way that makes them less Science Fiction than the newer incarnations, which enjoy the multi-million dollar sets and SPFX and, well, science.

Human psychology takes center stage in this episode. A transporter malfunction creates a second Captain Kirk by siphoning out essential characteristics of his personality. Since only negative characteristics are placed in the copy, it is a feral creature, dominated by lust and other primitive emotions. The episode is well acted by all three of the principle characters, Shatner as the good Kirk appears properly drained, showing progressive weakness as he loses the will to command. However, his best performance is when he is playing the feral Kirk, fearful, yet full of animal vigor. Spock serves as psychoanalyst, properly dissecting the Kirk personas as he physically observes both parts. The crankiness so characteristic of McCoy begins to emerge.
It is in this episode where we are introduced to two fundamentals of the show. The first is the appearance of the rivalry between Spock and McCoy and the second is the first use of the Vulcan neck pinch to subdue the evil Kirk. The first time we see the rivalry is when Spock goes to the captain's quarters to investigate McCoy's assertion that Kirk is acting like a "wild man." Kirk's response is that the doctor is putting you on again, stated so routinely that it speaks volumes about the relationship between Spock and McCoy.
However, it is the mind of the captain that makes this story. We see the powerful Kirk vulnerable and afraid, and it is easy to see those two sides in our own personalities when we watch it. We all have our animal sides, and for most of us it rarely surfaces. Which is quite healthy, as a normal person is as repulsed as Kirk when it appears.
An episode that begins to flesh out the two other major characters and also the first time we hear the memorial McCoy line, "He's dead Jim!", it takes an old theme of good and evil and packages them in one person, but two separate bodies. While it is not one of the very best episodes in the original series, it shows us a new way in which a classic story can be told. It also points out that human psychology will remain what it is and clash with whatever technology we manage to develop.

"The Enemy Within" proved early on that William Shatner could certainly act when the spirit moved him; maybe the key factor was not playing Captain Kirk, per se. When Kirk beams back from Alpha 177 a transporter malfunction splits him into two halves: one good, the other evil. When Spock and the others catch on that there are two Kirks they are forced to leave Sulu and the rest of the landing party stranded on the freezing planet. Meanwhile, Yeoman Rand finally has a close encounter with the Captain, which turns out to be not all that enjoyable. Yes, it makes absolutely no sense for the transporter to split Kirk's personality in half like this, but that is why they call it science fiction (besides, the transporter was just a cheaper way of showing the crew getting to planets than doing special effects with shuttle crafts). Plus we get the philosophical discourse on how Kirk needs his "evil" side to be a good starship captain. "The Enemy Within" is an above average episode.

This episode is not the greatest. The actors showed no signs of chemistry. This is weird because if you look at episodes 4 and 6, there is lots of chemistry. It feels like this is the first time the actors met each other. Also, why didn't they just use a shuttlecraft? I know the shuttlecraft wouldn't be seen until The Galileo Seven but it still annoys me.

William Shatner at times could be an outstanding actor and at other times a bit, er, intense. He was best when turning down the melodrama. When he had to be possessed, in lust, or act like a wildman, it wasn't always pretty. In "The Enemy Within," you get the good and bad Kirk, and the good and bad acting.

A transporter accident causes him to split into the "good" Kirk and the "evil" Kirk. But the matter is far more complex than that. The "evil" Kirk is savage but is also the source of willpower and decisiveness. Without him, the "good" Kirk is too weak to lead, turning into a wimp. The thesis of this episode by Richard Matheson is wonderful: that the healthiest personalities successfully >>integrate<< the psyche rather than try to kill the "evil" side. This is more in line with modern theories of psychology than it is, say, with a lot of religion.

The allusion to "Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde" is obvious here but the message is different. The seemingly dark part of the soul -- identifiable as the Id perhaps -- is not evil so much as it is in need of being brought into balance. This is in line with Trek's liberal themes that few beings are truly evil, just misunderstood or in need of psychological cure. While such views are seen as naive in our own post-911 age, classic Trek is refreshing for its defiant optimism about the human condition.

Shatner is wonderful here as the "good" Kirk because you see a man struggling to regain himself, to find within the power to lead that he has lost. But as the "evil" Kirk, he scowls at the camera like a student in a high-school play doing the villain part. Then he screams at Bones for some Saurian brandy and basically tries to rape Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney).

At the end of the episode, after Kirk is put back together again, Spock makes a snide out-of-character remark to Yeoman Rand. "The imposter [the evil Kirk] had some interesting attributes didn't he?" In some ways this is true -- so many women prefer dominant, aggressive men... yet it is dangerously close to suggesting that Earth women enjoy rape. The way Grace Lee Whitney turns her back on Spock and walks away saves this scene from a very bad, very sexist message. You go, girl!

Due to a transporter accident, Captain Kirk is split into two beings, each possessing different facets of Kirk's personality. This episode postulates some interesting ideas about ourselves, including the very nature of human beings. It has given me things to ponder about human nature. Most intriguing.

Interesting plot examining the roles of good and evil in individuals. The only thing that is not good is the way attempted rape is regarded.