What Are Little Girls Made Of?

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"
Star Trek: The Original Series episode
Episode no. Season 1
Episode 7
Directed by James Goldstone
Written by Robert Bloch
Featured music Fred Steiner
Cinematography by Jerry Finnerman
Production code 10
Original air date October 20, 1966 (1966-10-20)
Guest appearance(s)

"What Are Little Girls Made Of?" is episode seven of the first season of the American science fiction television series, Star Trek. It was first broadcast October 20, 1966, and repeated, two months later, on December 22, the first episode of the series to be repeated on NBC. It was written by Robert Bloch and directed by James Goldstone. The title of the episode is taken from the fourth line of the 19th century nursery rhyme, "What Are Little Boys Made Of?."

In the episode, Nurse Chapel searches for her long lost fiancé, and uncovers his secret plan for galactic conquest.

Plot

On stardate 2712.4, the Federation starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, travels to the icy planet of Exo-III to search for the exobiologist Dr. Roger Korby (played by Michael Strong), known as the "Louis Pasteur of archaeological medicine." Korby is the fiancé of Dr. McCoy's temporary assistant, Nurse Christine Chapel who has been searching for her missing lover for quite some time and signed on to the Enterprise for just this reason.

At Korby's request, only Kirk and Chapel beam down. When Korby is not there to meet them, Kirk has two security guards, Matthews and Rayburn, beamed down, but they are quickly disposed of by a large humanoid-looking figure in the caves: Matthews is pushed into a bottomless pit and Rayburn is suffocated. Kirk and Chapel find the doctor living in an underground complex of caves, left by an extinct race who once lived on Exo III. He refers to them only as "The Old Ones". Korby shows Kirk and Chapel machinery which creates androids. With the help of Ruk, a still functioning android left behind since the days of the Old Ones and the one who killed the two security guards, Korby has created more androids, one being a lovely woman he calls "Andrea".

Chapel recognizes Korby's aide Dr. Brown, but is surprised the man does not remember her. In reality, Brown is also an android created as a prototype for Korby's plan to replace key personnel in the Federation with android duplicates under his control.

Korby keeps Chapel at his side, but creates an exact android duplicate of Kirk as a shocked Chapel observes. As the Kirk android is created, the real Kirk repeatedly says, "Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I'm sick of your half-breed interference! Do you hear?" The new Kirk android is so like Kirk himself that it can fool even Chapel. The Kirk android even knows Kirk has a brother named George Samuel Kirk, whom only he calls "Sam".

Korby has the duplicate Kirk beamed aboard the Enterprise with orders to go to Minos V to begin the spread of android duplicates throughout the galaxy. Korby is convinced the duplicate Kirk will fool the Enterprise crew, but Spock realizes something is wrong. When Spock questions the Kirk android's orders, it repeats the insulting words Kirk had said during his replication, a sentiment which the real Kirk does not hold, as he holds his first officer in high esteem. Spock, realizing that this is not the ship's real captain, forms a security team and follows the Kirk android back down to Exo-III to investigate his activities.

Meanwhile, the real Kirk, while being guarded by Ruk, convinces the android that his master Korby is a threat to his continued existence and must be destroyed. Bestirred, Ruk remembers a similar clash between the Old Ones and the androids led to his civilization's demise centuries ago, and concludes that under present circumstances, conflict is again inevitable. Korby enters and Ruk confronts him, but Korby destroys Ruk with a phaser. Shortly afterwards, in a struggle with Kirk, Korby gets his hand caught in a door. When the skin tears back, it reveals to Chapel's horror that he is also an android.

Believing it to be the original, Andrea destroys the duplicate Kirk with a phaser when "he" refuses to kiss her.

It is now revealed that Dr. Korby, when dying from severe frostbite, had transferred his mind to an android body so that he might live on. Chapel is repelled by what her fiancé has done to himself and the insanity that was evidently the result of it. Realizing she loves Korby, Andrea kisses him and in despair, Korby fires Andrea's phaser between the embracing pair, destroying them both.

Spock arrives with the security force, but finds that the crisis has passed. When Spock inquires about Dr. Korby's whereabouts, Kirk replies: "Dr. Korby was never here." In the end, Chapel decides to stay on with the Enterprise and finish out her tour of duty.

Production

The episode was written by Robert Bloch, but received rewrites during shooting by Gene Roddenberry, leaving the production two days behind schedule.[1] Reference to the works of H. P. Lovecraft was briefly made in Bloch's script, with its mention of "the Old Ones" and the look of the pyramid-shaped doors in the caverns.[2]

Reception

Zack Handlen of The A.V. Club gave the episode a 'B+' rating, noting that the "repetitive plotting" took away any real sense of threat and that without Spock or McCoy to play off, Kirk's character is less interesting.[3]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Herbert Franklin Solow; Robert Justman (1997). Inside Star Trek The Real Story. Simon & Schuster. p. 204. ISBN 0-671-00974-5.
  2. ↑ Asherman, Allan (1989). The Star Trek Compendium. Titan Books. pp. 40–41. ISBN 1-85286-221-1.
  3. ↑ Handlen, Zack (January 22, 2009). ""What Are Little Girls Made Of?"/"Miri"". The A.V. Club. Retrieved June 12, 2009.
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