The Enemy Within (6 Oct. 1966)

A transporter malfunction splits Captain Kirk into two halves: one meek and indecisive, the other violent and ill tempered. The remaining crew members stranded on the planet cannot be beamed up to the ship until a the problem is fixed.

Director:

Leo Penn

Writers:

Richard Matheson, Gene Roddenberry (creator)

Stars:

William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley

Cast

Episode complete credited cast:
William Shatner	...	Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. McCoy
Grace Lee Whitney	...	Yeoman Janice Rand
George Takei	...	Sulu
James Doohan	...	Scott
Ed Madden	...	Fisher (as Edward Madden)
Garland Thompson	...	Wilson
Jim Goodwin	...	Farrell

Storyline

While beaming back aboard the Enterprise, a transporter malfunction results in two vastly different Captain Kirks being beamed aboard. His personality has in effect been split into two. One Captain Kirk is weak and indecisive, fearful of making any kind of decision; the other is a mean-spirited and violent man who likes to swill brandy and force himself on female crew members. Meanwhile, as Scotty struggles to repair the transporter, the landing party is stuck on the planet below with temperatures falling rapidly.

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Plot Keywords:

dual role | 23rd century | attempted rape | date rape

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Genres:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

6 October 1966 (USA)

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Desilu Productions, Norway Corporation

Technical Specs

Runtime:

50 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Petroleum jelly was applied to William Shatner's face when the "evil" Kirk beamed into the transporter room to give an aggressive look.

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Goofs

After the dog-like creature dies, Dr. McCoy orders an autopsy on the animal; the term he should have used is "necropsy", which is used to describe post-mortem examinations on animals.

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Quotes

Sulu: Enterprise, this is Sulu.
Captain James T. Kirk: Kirk here, Mr. Sulu.
Sulu: Hot line directly to the Captain. Are we that far gone?
Captain James T. Kirk: I gave everybody the afternoon off. I'm watching the store.

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Connections

Referenced in Mind Meld: Secrets Behind the Voyage of a Lifetime (2001)

User Reviews

Psychological "thriller"

This episode explores the "duality" of man. The ying-yang of how and what drives and keeps a man sane. Shatner is challenged as an actor to give us two extremes of one character; a bipolar portrayal, so to speak. The audience witnesses the theory of what drives a man, and that which stables his more aggressive tendencies.

Is the premise true? A single Star Trek episode certainly cannot answer nor adequately extrapolate in a single dramatization, but it is an interesting character study from a purely psychological point of view. While other TV shows were concerned about what dad would do when he got home, Star Trek was examining deep human issues on all levels emotional and scientific levels (or as could be expected by a dramatization of science fiction).

Spock sums up the episode's and author's thrust near the end. And Kirk makes the final observation after being thrust into a kind of psychological rehabilitation courtesy Scotty's "finicky piece of machinery", remarking on a man's self observance. The idea here is to view ones' various personality traits, reign them in, then expunge them to reconfigure the subject back to psychological norms.

Not an episode that comments on any real deep social issues, but one that asks the viewer to look at a fractured man and his reconstitution.