If “The Naked Time” was a gift to Leonard Nimoy, “The Enemy Within” was a peace offering for William Shatner. While less successful and propulsive than the previous episode, we again have an episode more notable for its acting and character work than thematic content. But boy, is this acted.
“The Enemy Within” was written by Richard Matheson, probably best known for I Am Legend. Matheson was a key member of the science fiction author stable Gene Roddenberry recruited to write for the show. Among this group were Harlan Ellison, John D.F. Black, and A.E. Van Vogt, who had written for the influential magazine Astounding Science Fiction back in the late 1930s and early 1940s.1 Star Trek’s writing crew was an eclectic mix of these classic science-fiction types, whose work was heavily influenced by magazine stories that Roddenberry grew up reading, and traditional TV writers who were more concerned with structure and adaptability. Production noted that the science-fiction side were “marvelous storytellers and lousy dramatists;” often, they could not figure out how to write for the screen,2 and Roddenberry would often be forced to heavily rewrite their scripts.3 Because of his often heavy hand, more than one of these writers did not look back fondly on their time writing for Star Trek. It’s not that Roddenberry was unaware of the potential problems with the format. He had created a “Star Trek Writers’ Guide” to ease writers into the universe and the demands of television scripting.4 It just seems to have had only moderate success.
Thankfully, Matheson’s script here is not lousy. The biggest change Roddenberry made was to raise the stakes by adding in the B-plot with Sulu and crew stranded on the slowly freezing planet.5 The A-plot, then.
Kirk and Sulu performing scientific tests on Alfa 177, including its curiously cute native species. I, unfortunately, could not find any information on this dog, which appears to be a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel.
The Enterprise is orbiting Alfa 177 while the science team surveys its surface. A crewman, covered in a strange metallic ore from the planet, beams back up to the ship. This ore causes problems for the transporter. Kirk beams back up but the process is strained, leaving him woozy and disoriented. Scotty escorts him to the sick bay, leaving the transporter room unattended as Kirk beams in . . . again. The rest of the crew are told to wait on the planet while the transporter’s issues are diagnosed, but can only survive until nightfall, when the temperature will drop to -120 degrees.
William Shatner demonstrating his best threatening look. My eyes deceived me; he is so good at carrying his face into the light that I thought the makeup department had upped his eyeshadow.
As becomes clear, the transporter malfunction has a moral dimension too. It splits those that pass through it into two, with the “good” and “evil” qualities separated. The crew realize this after Evil Kirk attempts to rape Yeoman Rand, an assault she fends off by leaving a distinctive scratch down his left cheek. Rand, upon telling the crew, is believed: Spock immediately suggests that there must be an imposter on board the ship. They put out a general notice to the crew to stun him on sight.
Good Kirk initially presents as the familiar, steady Captain from the previous episodes. However, as Evil Kirk evades capture, Good Kirk begins demonstrating decision paralysis. “Somehow, in being duplicated, I have lost my strength of will,” he states. Good Kirk and Spock eventually find Evil Kirk in the engine room and subdue him, but accidentally damage a critical component of the transporter. Sulu and the science team are trapped on the planet with only hours to go.
A leadership crisis then grips the Enterprise. Good Kirk struggles with what to do while Evil Kirk is restrained in the sick bay, yelling in terror and slowly wasting away. Even in a medical sense, the two halves cannot survive without the other. However, Good Kirk refuses to consider letting his evil side back in, having seen the evil he has within him. McCoy, playing philosopher throughout this episode, counsels his captain to embrace the darkness. “We all have our darker side. We need it! It’s half of what we are. It’s not really ugly, it’s human.” Even Spock agrees. Kirk’s decisiveness comes from this darker half, but Spock notes that “The intelligence, the logic[,] it appears your half has most of that, and perhaps that’s where man’s essential courage comes from. For you see, [Evil Kirk] was afraid, and you weren’t.”
These debates give Shatner some great material he chews right through. Shatner’s Good Kirk is familiar by half, there’s a vacantness in the eyes and a lack of verve that’s subtle but intentional. His Evil Kirk devours the screen, ranting, raving, wildly physical and intense. It’s his best performance in the show so far.
Sulu and crew warm rocks with their phasers to stay alive. Takei and Shatner give their characters’ interactions a real tenderness, despite them all being done over radio. The plot was added in by Gene Roddenberry to the original script but provides a necessary emotional hook.
Meanwhile, Scotty and the science team repair the transporter and attempt to “recombine” a creature beamed up earlier from Alfa 177, but it dies in the process. Spock believes that this was merely due to shock; Kirk’s awareness and intelligence will allow him to survive the process. Good Kirk is unable to make a decision. He sits, weak and ineffectual, until Spock reminds him and McCoy of the men freezing on the planet and how familiar Kirk’s situation is.
Being split in two halves is no theory with me, Doctor. I have a human half, you see, as well as an alien half, submerged, constantly at war with each other. Personal experience, Doctor. I survive it because my intelligence wins over both, makes them live together. Your intelligence would enable you to survive as well.
“Mister Spock, ready the transporter room,” Good Kirk says with conviction. Evil Kirk makes one last attempt to escape his fate and rushes for the bridge, attempting to flee, but Good Kirk talks him out of it. "Can half a man live?” he asks, and Evil Kirk yields. The two are put back together, Sulu is saved, and the Enterprise is “steady as she goes” yet again.
Good and Evil Kirks embrace. Most scenes with the two Kirks were achieved with body doubles, although two split-screen effects are used in action scenes.
Matheson self-consciously wrote an updated version of The Curious Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde for a science fiction setting. What’s interesting is that the episode, and potentially the book, take a more argumentative viewpoint towards morality than is often perceived. Despite my self-consciously simple monikers for the two, Good and Evil Kirk are not contrasted as Good and Evil, but instead are primarily positioned as “measured” and “impulsive”.
These are totalizing descriptors. Evil Kirk is impulsive to the point of following any urge divorced from any morality. In an interesting parallel, the first urge he indulges in is sexual, much like Charlie in “Charlie X.” Kirk’s uninhibited nature tracks Charlie’s all-powerful masculinity in portrayal, and as I argued in my piece on that episode, Normal Kirk is an ideal masculine symbol because of the gentleness that underlines his actions.
Good Kirk, on the other hand, is subsumed with self-doubt. He seeks input, data, information, and analysis. He is overwhelmed by potentiality. It is only when Spock logically explains his own dual nature that Kirk accepts he must risk his own death in the teleporter, because he can see an example of a successful kind of recombination in front of him.
In “The Enemy Within,” and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, morality is a matter of self-control. As McCoy says, all men have impulses. A truly good person, as Kirk clearly is, controls those impulses. The mechanism by which a person does this is intelligence. As Spock says, his intelligence dominates his two halves, forcing them to live together. It is Kirk’s intelligence, his awareness of his own predicament, that allows him to recombine where an animal dies.
This perspective is redefining something, and I think it matters what that something is. If it is redefining morality as merely a matter of intelligence, it runs the risk of equating the two. Smart men need not necessarily be good men. Working backwards from that position can lead to justifying almost anything in the name of being “correct.” But if it is redefining intelligence as a matter of morality, I think it provides a somewhat useful lens for how to read people. If someone cannot even act good, how smart can they really be?
Stray Thoughts
This episode was directed by Leo Penn, father of Sean Penn. An “in-demand” television director at the time, he nevertheless went over budget and schedule.6
Dr. McCoy finally utters what would become a famous catchphrase: “He’s dead, Jim.” It is said about that poor little dog in the top picture.
The credited editor here is Fabien Tordjmann, part of the three-man rotating editing crew. Tordjmann was considered the most “experimental” of the three and some of his shot selections prove that out here, in particular a moment where Evil Kirk’s outstretched bloody hand is used to introduce him.7
Unfortunately, I cannot ignore an ugly moment that feels like an artifact both of the time and a tasteless reflection of a poisonous idea. At the end of the episode, Spock approaches Yeoman Rand and asks, “The . . . imposter had some . . . interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say, yeoman?” Regardless of the “unrequited feelings” between Kirk and Rand that the show was still playing with, the line clearly implies Rand enjoyed Evil Kirk’s attempted rape of her on some level, and is the first moment where I’ve felt a true break in the show’s gender politics.
Photo Credits
Kirk and Sulu on Alfa 177: https://www.startrek.com/database_article/enemy-within-the
Evil Kirk Close-Up and Sulu on the planet: https://www.tor.com/2015/04/01/star-trek-the-original-series-rewatch-qthe-enemy-withinq/
Kirks embrace: https://jewishstandard.timesofisrael.com/back-to-the-future/
David Alexander, The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry: Star Trek Creator, p. 239.
Herbert Solow and Robert Justman, Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, p. 128.
Solow and Justman also note that Roddenberry received extra cash for each rewritten script, which may have explained why he so often took a second pass at things. p. 136.
Id. at p. 125.
https://interviews.televisionacademy.com/interviews/richard-matheson
Solow and Justman, p. 203
Id. at p. 177
i totally hated that final comment by spock. when it happened i was seriously like "ok he would not say that."
the rape plot was also super unnerving and uncomfortable. especially where jim was essentially getting offended at being accused. i do appreciate that everyone automatically believed her. but it was just a really upsetting plot and i hope there's no more of the same to come.
i found that cold plotline, specifically kirk and sulu's radio conversation, to be the highlight of the episode. the stakes felt super real and high! sulu was literally dying! george did an amazing job with this one. this has been a great string of episodes for him.
"if this doesn't work - " "understood, captain" i think what he was going to say was "i don't want you like a best friend" taylor swift style but that's just me. i'm glad that whatever it was, spock knew it automatically. telepathy husbands for the win.