Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 36: Wolf in the Fold [VHS]

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Kirk and McCoy decide to take Scotty, who is recovering from a head wound accidentally caused by a female crew member, to a nightclub on the planet Argelian. Scotty becomes infatuated with a lovely dancer at the club and they leave together. In the meantime, Kirk and McCoy decide to sample some of the planet's other pleasures and leave. A scream sends them to a foggy alley to find the dancer dead with Scotty holding a bloody knife. McCoy suggests that perhaps Scotty's subconscious distrust of women, since his accident, has manifested itself in murder. Hengist, the local authority, wants to arrest Scotty, but Kirk intervenes and seeks the help of a priestess of an old psionic cult. Unfortunately, she's killed and once more the blame seems to fall at Scotty's feet. Before she dies, the priestess says that something with an insatiable hunger and hatred of women is present in the room. Scotty still claims to have amnesia during the time when the women were killed. In the end, the entity turns out to be an ancient life form, Redjac, previously known on Earth as Jack the Ripper. It now appears in true form; a non-corporeal vampire who thrives on others' fear. It preys on women because they are more easily frightened. It has been living in the body of Hengist and, when discovered, kills Hengist and flees to the U.S.S. Enterprise. McCoy administers tranquilizers to everyone on board so that the creature cannot evoke fear. Enraged, it is forced to return to Hengist's body. Kirk, knowing this would happen, beams it into space at maximum dispersal, where it will die for lack of nourishment.

"Wolf In The Fold" is an exciting episode of the original Star Trek. A woman is killed and Scotty's fingerprints are the only ones anybody can find on the knife that killed her. Eventually 2 more women are killed and Scotty is the closest one to both of them when the lights come back on. Scotty and the USS Enterprise crew must proceed to a court session along with 2 men that are from the planet on which the murders occurred. They must determine who is the killer of these 3 women.

"Wolf In The Fold" is an exciting Jack The Ripper tale. Is it a creature killing the women? Or is it Scotty or some other person? I recommend getting "Wolf In The Fold" in order to find out. It starts getting real exciting and suspenseful once the court sessions begin onboard the USS Enterprise. You'll also become familiar with the talking computer of the Enterprise.

Kirk, McCoy and Scotty are in a bar in Argelius II, engaged in a bit of shore leave. The enjoyment includes the gyrations of a belly dancer named Kara. Scotty, who recently suffered a head injury, offers to walk the girl home through the foggy night air. There is a scream and Kara is found stabbed to death and Scotty is holding a bloody knife, which proves to be the murder weapon.
This starts a murder investigation involving Prefect Jaris, the highest official on Argelius, his wife Sybo and a Mr. Hengist, an outside administrator hired by the Argelians. When Scotty cannot remember anything, Kirk agrees to a séance with Sybo as the principal. However, before that can happen a female Lieutenant from the Enterprise is also brutally stabbed to death.
The seance starts and Sybo identifies a killer, lists several names and calls it "a hunger that never dies." However, she is killed before she can complete her statements. At this point, Kirk asks Jaris to beam everyone up to the Enterprise where the investigation can continue using the Enterprise computers. A word search determines that one of the names Sybo listed was a euphemism for Jack the Ripper. By examining records of mass killings of women, Spock identifies a pattern of a killer moving outward from Earth. The last recorded killing session was on Rigel IV, the planet where Hengist came from.
The killing entity flees Hengist and settles in the Enterprise computers. McCoy is ordered to tranquilize the crew and Spock gives the computer a highest priority task to compute the exact value of pi. Since this is an impossible task, the computer ceases doing anything else and the entity flees back into the body of Hengist, which is immediately tranquilized. His body is then beamed out into space with wide dispersion and the crisis is over.
This episode is a strong one; the depiction of an entity that kills humans and feeds off their emotions is a realistic one. As the sad history of the human race has demonstrated, many humans derive great pleasure from inflicting pain and suffering on others, both human and animal. There is no reason to think that other creatures would not enjoy the same pleasures. The guest characters of Jaris and Hengist are well played and this episode gives James Doohan a chance to be the focus of an episode. Finally, despite the tension and the presence of a mass killer, it ends on a very humorous note, as Kirk and Spock are the only two members of the crew not injected with the happy juice.

While on shore leave, Scotty blacks out and is accused of murdering a local tavern girl. Kirk wants to clear Scotty of the charge but, for diplomatic reasons, must submit to the planet's own judicial process. The guilty party turns out to be an evil entity who was also responsible for the Jack the Ripper murders centuries earlier on Earth. This might sound far-fetched, but the episode unfolds step by step as a gripping murder mystery, so that when the revelation is finally presented, it does not seem so absurd.

Several features make this episode of interest.

The planet is made up neither of barbarians nor an advanced species, but rather a highly civilized, peace-loving people whose technology lags behind our own yet don't particularly need Federation help. The sets and costumes are vaguely Middle Eastern, but these people are not necessarily Muslims.

The values of this culture differ from Earth's, in that the people seem content with a late Medeival (or early modern) level of technology and value simple pleasures over industrialization. But unusually for Trek, this culture is not ultimately seen to be invalid or inferior to our own! Indeed, the leader of the planet prefers his way of life but is not so closed-minded as to refuse technology when needed to save the life of an innocent man. The law of the planet is "the Law of Love," he declares. Strangely, the penalty for murder is "death by slow torture," which would seem to contradict the Law of Love. This contradiction is resolved only by imagining that there have been no murders for many years.

Another notable aspect of this episode is that it is one of the few "hard science" episodes -- or rather, hard math. When the entity flees into the Enterprise computer, Kirk and Spock neutralize it by giving the computer a command that can never be completed: calculate pi to the last digit. This task so overloads the computer banks that the entity is forced to flee into another body, where Kirk finally defeats it.

Finally, another delightful aspect of the episode involves a "happy drug." The entity feeds not so much on death as on fear and terror. Therefore, to fight the entity, McCoy injects the entire crew with a drug to induce giddy euphoria. George Takei (Sulu) has one of his all-time great scenes, responding to Kirk's orders while being stoned.

One of the best suspenseful Star Trek original series episodes, albeit somewhat sexist by today's standards. It follows the trial of Scotty charged with murder of some women on the pleasure planet of Argelius. I really enjoyed the speculation on Jack The Ripper

Kind of a spooky episode, but it gets a little dull when everyone is brought on board the Enterprise.