October 6th, 1966, "The Enemy Within"
The Fiver (by Kira)
Memory Alpha Page
Transcript by chakotea.net
The Episode:
* Ah yes, another "this event that is unknown to us" Captain's Log. More proof that these things are recorded after the fact.
* Combine the events of this episode with the Tom Riker and Tuvix incidents and we pretty much have confirmation that the transporter doesn't send your original matter along to be reconstituted.
* That still doesn't explain the delay in the materialization of Evil Kirk. More contrivance. If the ship had a second transporter room, I would've preferred that Evil Kirk had been shunted to said empty transporter room for simultaneous materialization.
* One missed opportunity is having Evil Kirk make his own Captain's Logs to show us what he's thinking.
* Couldn't the shuttle have been used offscreen for budgetary reasons? Sure, the attempt would have to fail to preserve the sense of urgency, but surely just a few shots of Sulu being shaken around by a storm and giving up was within the budget.
* Ah yes, "Hey crew, the imposter has face scars. That's right, the only way to tell us apart at first glance is something that's easily concealed. Good luck!" Don't dermal regenerators exist yet? Surely it would be easier to say "I'm staying on the bridge with Spock. If you see a Kirk wandering around alone it's the imposter, arrest him"?
* (Stolen from the Nitpicker's Guide) Spock considers his Vulcan half the alien one? Huh?
* Even back then I considered "Can half a man live?" to be quite profound. It reminds me of Picard in "Tapestry." We are the sum of our acts, good and bad. Mistakes give us the chance to grow and do better next time.
The fiver:
Captain's Log: Spock forgot to check the weather channel before our away mission, but I'm sure nothing will happen to strand any of us on this frozen wasteland.
Fisher: Ow! My hand! And I'm covered in this weird dust!
Apparently I have a poor sense of pattern recognition.
Don't worry about it, Jim. Starship captains will be making that mistake for centuries to come.
Evil Kirk: Say Bones, have anything to drink around here? Some Saurian Brandy, perhaps?
McCoy: I'm a doctor, not a bartender.
I think Doctor Boyce would claim that the two aren't mutually exclusive, Bones.
Evil Kirk: I must be Good Kirk, right?
Wilson: Hm, there
is that evil music playing in the background. And the fact that your speaker credit is "Evil Kirk."
Looking at speaker tags is a common fiver thing, this technique would come in awfully handy during real episodes as well. What a shame.
Spock: Could there
be any more plot complications?
When did Spock turn into Chandler Bing?
Memory Alpha discussion:
* Apparently this is the first appearance of Kirk's green wraparound tunic. I always did hate that thing.
* The first appearance of the neck pinch. Can you imagine how the franchise would be different if Nimoy hadn't inspired it's creation?
Nitpicker's Guide notes:
* Apparently this was the first time a keen-eyed viewer could see that James Doohan is missing a finger.
* In the opening scene several characters were missing their chest emblems (I still call them
Cochrane deltas for reasons explained elsewhere). Memory Alpha thinks that they had been removed for cleaning and someone forgot to put them back on before shooting. I'm leaning more toward's Phil's theory can removing them lets the production staff flip the camera horizontally to make the planet set look larger.