Dagger of the Mind

Season 1, episode 9. The Enterprise is going to drop off some supplies to the famed Dr. Tristan Adams - he is well known for his humane treatments of mental patients. The enterprise beamed down the supplies and beamed up some records - but they also ended up beaming up a man that seems to be a madman, a patient of Dr. Adams. That patient is Dr. Simon van Gelder, a man that was Dr. Adams' assistant. Kirk beams down to the surface with the ships psychiatrist, Helen Noel. Spock and Dr. McCoy get a hold of van Gelder, restrain him in medical and Spock ends up doing a Vulcan mind-meld in order to get a clearer understanding what van Gelder is trying to tell them. It seems Dr. Adams is conducting treatments that allows him to control the minds of others.

It's too bad the captain didn't use the equipment on Dr. Adams in order to control his mind back to the "good side", steering him away from his sadistic and twisted ways.

7/10

Kirk visits a penal colony and makes a disturbing discovery.

I enjoyed this episode for the character moments, themes and campiness.

The plot is okay but somewhat random at times, with certain events supposedly having consequences that never actually materialise. It is notable as the first showing of a famous Vulcan technique that we come to see many times in later shows and movies. Speaking of Vulcan techniques, who needs that neck pinch when a nicely executed chop to back puts a man down in much the same fashion?

That being said I really enjoyed the episode theme of the psychological 'cure' for the criminal mind. This was a popular topic in the sixties with books such as 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest', addressing it. Here it's done in a very Star Trek way with a 'mad scientist' type formula with the heroic Captain Kirk at the centre of it, alongside a beautiful love interest of the week.

For me, 'Dagger Of The Mind' has some of the most memorable dialogue of the series, with Spock delivering the great line quoted in my review title in a nice exchange with Bones. Kirk's line about the advantage of being captain is also good.

William Shatner is great as always but strays over the top on a few occasions. This for me though is all part of the fun of the original series. Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelley have great chemistry and their scenes are always a pleasure. All the guest actors do a fine job in some key roles.

The visuals are great, with some good focus on actors facial expressions and a great colourful plastic sixties feel to everything.

A violent escaped inmate from the Tantalus penal colony hides inside a cargo crate that is beamed aboard the Enterprise; when the criminal is apprehended, he claims that he is Dr. Simon van Gelder (Morgan Woodward), assistant to Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory), a renowned pioneer of prison reform. Doc McCoy suspects that something is up and convinces Kirk to investigate.

The captain beams down to Tantalus with sexy psychotherapist Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), and is given a tour of the prison by Adams. When Kirk shows interest in a machine called a neural neutraliser, used to calm violent prisoners, Adams claims that it is still in the experimental phase and isn't effective. Kirk isn't convinced by Adams' story and, sneaking into the room with Helen, uses himself as a guinea pig to test the apparatus. When the machine is activated, Helen is able to plant thoughts into Kirk's mind -- something that the doctor has clearly been doing to his inmates, turning them into obedient slaves (to what end, we never find out).

Dagger Of The Mind is a rather run-of-the-mill episode that is made marginally more memorable for the fact that it features the first instance of Spock's mind-meld technique, which he uses to open the tortured mind of van Gelder, and for the eye-candy in the form of shapely Ms. Hill, who crawls around air ducts in her regulation figure-hugging Starfleet mini-dress, gets in a couple of clinches with the lucky captain (the pair having previously flirted at a Starfleet Xmas party), and is tasked with shutting down the penal colony force field like a sexy Obi-wan Kenobi, a job that requires her to kick some butt (she even sends one of Adams' guards into a high voltage circuit!).

5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.

Dagger of the Mind has everything one would expect from a good Star Trek episode: suspense, great dialogue and a subtle reflection on a contemporary issue, in this case the medical treatment of insane people.

The Enterprise is orbiting around a planet that serves as a prison colony, specifically designed for the criminally insane. When an inmate manages to get on the ship, Spock and McCoy do everything in their power to capture him, while Kirk and the crew's psychiatrist, a woman with whom - what a surprise - he appears to have a history, beam down to the planet to talk to Dr. Adams, whose revolutionary discoveries are well known throughout the galaxy. The truth, it turns out, is rather different from what they thought: the escaped convict is actually someone who used to work at the facility, and has been driven mad by Adams' latest creation, a device that allows him to control the human mind. And now, in order to protect his secret, the doctor intends to use it on Kirk.

The episode originally aired at a time when psychiatric hospitals and various forms of treatment for mentally ill patients were still a controversial subject (Frederick Wiseman's harrowing documentary Titicut Follies, which was banned for its explicit look at what goes on in a "mad house", was released in 1967), and so the writers used the excuse of Trek being nothing but an average sci-fi show - which Gene Roddenberry always stressed it wasn't, and still isn't - to get away with their own look at the issue, hidden under the usual mix of thrills and wit.

Fans also remember Dagger of the Mind fondly because it introduces the famous Vulcan "mind meld", which is essentially a form of telepathy used by Spock to get information when all other methods have failed. It adds a lot to the alien nature of the character, and went on to become a recurring element throughout the series. An iconic moment, and undoubtedly one of Leonard Nimoy's best on the show.

A distress call from the prison planet Tantalus has the Enterprise investigating. When an escapee from the colony Morgan Woodward manages to board the Enterprise William Shatner together with psychiatrist Marianna Hill goes to investigate.

Of course they're given a grand tour by the head of the colony James Gregory. On board the Enterprise we see the first use of the Vulcan mind meld as Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley investigate themselves with Woodward as a subject.

Gregory must have studied under Dr. Moreau because he's turned one room of his prison into the house of pain. He's got a machine up there that can cause all kinds of psychological damage if people are exposed too long. Gregory is taking a sadistic delight in his work even practicing on a colleague like Woodward

Gregory has an appropriate ending much like Bela Lugosi in The Island Of Dr. Moreau.