Esteemed horror/science-fiction author Richard Matheson penned this lumpy farrago of technobabble and psychobabble saved by William Shatner’s impersonation of not one, however two huge prime hams. Alongside the best way, the episode half-inadvertently explicates the twin nature of Star Trek’s style commitments, with two toes in utopia and two dug into pulp.
“The Enemy Inside” is ready in orbit round planet Alpha 177, the place an Enterprise workforce led by Lt. Sulu (George Takei) is taking geological samples. Captain Kirk (Shatner) finishes supervision and beams as much as the ship. At which level a transporter accident improbably divides him in half— Kirk and an evil Kirk. With the assistance of First Officer Spock (Leonard Nimoy), good Kirk has to seek out and seize his worse self, whereas Engineer Scott (James Doohan) rushes to repair the transporter earlier than the expeditionary pressure is frozen to dying in in a single day temperatures of 120˚ under zero.
A lot of the enjoyable of the episode is watching Shatner throw the complete sandwich with all of the fixings on the efficiency of evil Kirk. With an help from some red-lighting and studio sweat, he twists his face right into a masks of hate and animal crafty, eyes darting, lips wrapped across the mouth of a bottle of Saurian brandy. Shatner’s attribute tics—particularly his penchant for sudden energy turns into the digicam—are used to good impact, as he wheels in direction of the viewers like an enraged gorilla. You’ll be able to virtually see the spittle flying.
The Mirror Has Two Faces
Shatner’s evil Kirk efficiency is flamboyant, however the good Kirk efficiency is equally over-the-top in its personal method. As Spock and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelly) clarify at some size, the Kirk break up will not be precisely evil/good, or a minimum of not simply evil/good. It would higher be characterised as animalistic/civilized or yang/yin. The animal Kirk is the violent id, however that very same violence provides him pressure, certainty, magnetism, and (stereotypical) masculinity.
With out dangerous Kirk, good Kirk begins to lose his pressure of will and energy of command. Shatner turns imprecise and dithering, enjoyable his facial options and letting his physique language go limp. Consistent with misogynist tropes, he’s comfortable and feminized, unable to make the powerful selections wanted to save lots of the lads on the planet. Dangerous Kirk, in the meantime, unhesitatingly and brutally sexually assaults Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney) in her quarters. The 2 Kirks are both too hypermasculine or too emasculated. It’s solely when reintegrated that the Captain is assertive sufficient to command a starship and restrained sufficient to not attempt to rape his subordinates.
Kirk’s determined battle to discover a excellent equilibrium of virility can be, I believe, the present’s battle. Star Trek, within the early days and all through the franchise’s historical past, has tried to steadiness Gene Rodenberry’s imaginative and prescient of a peaceable, utopian, civilized future with an motion framework reliant on pulp style battle.
The swaggering, brandy-swilling, woman-chasing alpha-male Kirk—the a part of himself Kirk says “no man ought to ever see”—is just a (not very) exaggerated caricature of pulp heroes like Tarzan, John Carter, Errol Flynn, and even the Superman of the early comics.
He’s the man who solves issues along with his fists and his crafty, luring good Kirk right into a false sense of safety after which punching him out, or dynamically crawling and leaping across the engine room. That is the Kirk who’s at all times breaking out of prisons, wrestling Gorns to a standstill, or defeating Khan in nail-biting ship-to-ship fight. And not using a dangerous captain, there’d be no action-adventure.
Good Kirk, in distinction, is the Subsequent Technology Kirk with an earnest furrow within the forehead and a phaserful of compassion. Evil Kirk retains attempting to battle and shoot good Kirk. Good Kirk as an alternative appeals to evil Kirk’s higher nature. “You’ll be able to’t harm me. You’ll be able to’t kill me. You’ll be able to’t. Do not you perceive? I am a part of you. You want me. I want you.” That is the Kirk who refuses to kill the Gorn—the ancestor of all these ship’s counselors and Klingon peace treaties, the Kirk who presides over a multi-national bridge crew. And not using a good captain, there’d be no benevolent house social employee Federation.
If we comply with that metaphor by way of, it’s attention-grabbing that good, vacillating Kirk can be the brave Kirk. Dangerous Kirk is forceful and decided, however he’s additionally deeply motivated by worry. He doesn’t need to be reintegrated as a result of he’s afraid of dying as his separate self, and since he’s afraid that the pressure of the transport will merely kill each Kirks outright. Actual braveness isn’t bounding into the fray to shoot at one’s enemies, per pulp narratives previous. It’s having the braveness to confess vulnerability and to supply a serving to hand to the man who’s acquired the blaster geared toward you.
“The Enemy Inside,” then, means that Star Trek wants that violent Kirk and his adventurous self to be able to make the present operate as a militarized style franchise, devoted to exploration and battle. Somebody has to determine to cross these obstacles and meddle in different cultures. Somebody has to determine to punch the salt monster. There needs to be motion and journey, otherwise you don’t have a captain or a present.
Worry or Love
On the similar time, when the dangerous Kirk grabs onto these style tropes and advertising and marketing realities with a feral grunt, good Kirk is off to the aspect shaking his head sadly on the cowardice. Worry of cancellation and/or dying militates towards a good-Kirk-only present of counseling and empathizing. A bolder Kirk, with out swashbuckler violent Kirk, couldn’t exist on tv in any respect.
Within the final scene of the episode, Yeoman Rand tries to counsel that she is perhaps open to a relationship with Kirk—one the evil Kirk hinted at when he bumped into Rand someday after the sexual assault. Spock is amused, “The, er, impostor had some attention-grabbing qualities, would not you say, Yeoman?” Rand appears embarrassed and exasperated and huffs off.
The “joke” right here is the sexist, frankly merciless implication that Rand loved the sexual assault, or a minimum of that she finds sexual assaulters thrilling and interesting. The informal misogyny built-in into the conclusion mirrors the combination of the evil Kirk into the nice Kirk. Reactionary pulp, full with sexism, is a part of the Star Trek system. As McCoy says, “With out the adverse aspect, you would not be the Captain.”
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Picture Courtesy of Desilu Productions.
Star Trek: The Unique Sequence (“The Enemy Inside”)
Noah Berlatsky is a contract author based mostly in Chicago. His e-book, Marvel Girl: Bondage and Feminism within the Marston/Peter Comics was printed by Rutgers College Press. He thinks the Adam West Batman is the perfect Batman, darn it.
