[TOS] The Enemy Within

[TOS] Season 1, Episode 5 (Netflix: S1 E6): The Enemy Within

Rating: 2
This episode has some interesting elements but it ends up seeming like a missed opportunity to have a deeper episode on human nature. In fact, you probably will only enjoy it if you don’t take it seriously. It’s most memorable for Shatner’s insane portrayal of “Evil Kirk.” All of this gives it a rating of 2.
Read more at Memory Alpha
Watch episode here
Notes:

Poor dog. Also, why did Sulu bring his dog?

This yellow dirt causes some kind of transporter malfunction that splits people into a good and evil version. So we were really close to having an episode about the good and evil side of geological technician Fisher. Bummer

File under: Transporter Accident

Evil Kirk! We can tell because all of a sudden the lighting is different. And he wears eye shadow.

Evil Kirk really likes computer consoles

Bones keeps some brandy in the sickbay

The priority of beaming people up from the surface was 1. Geological Technician Fisher (because he was injured) 2. Captain Kirk 3. Sulu’s freak dog? all by itself?

Wow, evil Kirk really is evil. Poor Rand

File under: Grace Lee Whitney (Janice)

Why do they keep working this dog into scenes? They must know how dumb it looks. Right?

Right?

They try to address some interesting ideas about human nature, but it’s also kind of weird. Is it really due to our darker side that we can remember what we were doing? And be able to make decisions?

According to memory alpha this was before they established that the Enterprise had shuttles, just in case you were wondering

Shatner actually does a pretty good job as “Good Kirk”

Aw, the first “He’s dead, Jim” is about a dog

There’s a long gap between when you see where the episode is going and when it actually gets there. In the end scenario it should have been pretty easy for everyone to tell which Kirk is the evil one.

Spock: “the impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say, yeoman?” Why would Spock say that to her? Is the desire to rape her an “interesting quality?”

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