The Enemy Within (TOS episode)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Star Trek: TOS episode
"The Enemy Within"
Kirk's evil twin makes advances toward Yeoman Rand. The Enemy Within
Episode no.	5
Prod. code	005
Airdate	October 6, 1966
Writer(s)	Richard Matheson
Director	Leo Penn
Guest star(s)	Grace Lee Whitney Jim Goodwin Edward Madden (actor) Eddie Paskey Garland Thompson Don Eitner
Year	2266
Stardate	1672.1
Episode chronology
Previous	"The Naked Time"
Next	"Mudd's Women"

"The Enemy Within" is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series, and was broadcast October 6, 1966. It is a first season episode #5, production #5, and was written by Richard Matheson and directed by Leo Penn.

Overview: A transporter mishap creates two versions of Captain Kirk, one good and one evil, but neither is able to function separately for long.

[edit] Plot

On stardate 1672.1, the USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, is on a geological exploration of the planet Alfa 177. Geological Technician Fisher falls from an embankment and injures his hand. He's immediately beamed back to the Enterprise for medical treatment. During the beamup, the transporter system behaves oddly. Nearly losing the technician, Mr. Scott immediately checks over the transporter equipment, but finds nothing wrong. He only notices magnetic dust from some ore samples covering Fisher's uniform when the technician materializes. Scotty orders him to have the uniform decontaminated.

Soon afterward, Captain Kirk beams back to the ship. The transporter seems to work smoothly, but Kirk feels disoriented. Scotty escorts him out of the room, leaving it empty. A moment later, a second Captain Kirk materializes on the transporter pad and no one is aware of his arrival. This Kirk is the "other half" of the Captain's split persona; a physical manifestation of his more selfish and evil qualities.

The first thing the "evil" Kirk does is head to Sickbay, where he demands a bottle of Saurian brandy from Dr. McCoy. McCoy doesn't understand this sudden, aggressive mood swing.

Back in the transporter room, Scotty beams up an animal specimen from the landing party. It's a small, horned, dog-like creature; however, two dogs arrive on the transporter pads. One is extremely vicious and the other very timid, yet both look identical. Confirming that the team only beamed one animal to the ship, Scotty realizes that something is very wrong with the transporter system. He's forced to strand the remaining landing party (including Lt. Sulu) on the planet until further notice.

Meanwhile, the evil Kirk, appearing drunk and disorderly, enters the quarters of Yeoman Janice Rand and lies in wait for her. When she arrives, he grabs and assaults her. She manages to fight back, scratching his face with her sharp fingernails, and then tries to escape. She cries out for Crewman Fisher to call Mr. Spock. Unfortunately, the evil Kirk incapacitates Fisher before he can help. Simultaneously, elsewhere on the ship, the good Captain Kirk begins to show signs of weakness, apparently losing his ability to make decisions and give orders.

The evil Kirk acquires a phaser from a crewman, whom he also incapacitates, and then hides in the lower levels of the ship. Anticipating his moves, the good Kirk finds him on the Engineering Deck and Spock disables him with a Vulcan nerve pinch. Spock is unsure how to proceed until he observes the evil Kirk showing signs of fatigue, which indicates that he may be dying.

It's quickly surmised that neither Kirk can survive for long in his separated state. Time is running out not only for the Kirks, but also for the stranded landing party, which is slowly freezing to death as night falls on Alfa 177.

Scotty reports that the transporter unit ionizer is damaged and would normally take a week to repair; however, he and Spock jury-rig a connection to power the transporter from the ship's impulse drive. They fail to recombine the dog-creature, which dies as a result of the strain. Not giving up hope, Scotty continues to work on the problem.

In the meantime, the good Kirk releases his opposite's bindings in Sickbay when the evil Kirk promises not to fight back. However, the opposite does just that: He overpowers the good Kirk and rushes off to the bridge, where he orders the ship to leave orbit. The good Kirk follows and confronts him. The evil Kirk soon collapses from the strain. Good Kirk takes him to the transporter room, where Scotty says the reintegration process should now work. With fingers crossed, Scotty dematerializes both Kirks, and finally a single Kirk returns. True to form, his first words are, "Get those men up here fast!". Scotty beams up the landing party, which, aside from a little frostbite, is fine.

Back on the bridge, Kirk is himself once again. He tells Spock, "Thank you, from both of us." When asked what to tell the crew, Kirk says the intruder is back where he belongs and to leave it at that.

[edit] Trivia

• The behind-the-scenes reason why the shuttlecraft wasn't used to retrieve the landing party is because it hadn't yet been developed. Desilu decided to defer constructing its sets until the second season, but then along came the first-season episode The Galileo Seven, which pushed up the construction plans. The noncanon Star Trek novel Ship of the Line offers a possible in-series explanation as to why the shuttlecraft wasn't used in The Enemy Within. Participating in an historical recreation program on the holodeck, Captain Jean-Luc Picard asks Captain Kirk why they're not using shuttlecraft, and Kirk replies that atmospheric conditions on Alfa 177 made it impossible to land a shuttle on the surface.

• The film is reversed left-to-right for the first 20 minutes or so; note that William Shatner's hair is parted on the wrong side and that the shirt he wears has no insignia on it.

• In the 1995 film, Virtuosity, this episode was shown while Darryl Lindenmeyer (played by Stephen Spinella) was flipping through channels in his hotel while hiding out.

• This is the first episode in which Spock uses the Vulcan nerve pinch.

• In a 1986 Saturday Night Live skit, William Shatner claimed he was performing the Evil Kirk from "The Enemy Within" after losing his temper and telling a roomful of Trekkies to "get a life". Shatner, though, referred to "The Enemy Within" as "episode 37," when, in fact, it was episode 5.

• This is the first episode in which Kirk wears the green command shirt with rank stripes on the collar. He wears it again in "Charlie X."

[edit] External links

• The Enemy Within article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki.

Last produced: "Mudd's Women"	Star Trek: TOS episodes Season 1	Next produced: "The Man Trap"
Last transmitted: "The Naked Time"		Next transmitted: "Mudd's Women"