Season 3, Episode 71 "Whom Gods Destroy"

"Whom Gods Destroy"

Production Order: 71
Air Order: 69
Stardate: 5718.3
Original Air Date: January 3, 1969

Sorry this took a little longer to post. The wifi thinks it's fun to hiccup today. Fuck you, wifi. I got shit to do.

*******

Maybe we weren't supposed to remember this, but those are
Dr Adams' coveralls from "Dagger of the Mind". Or maybe we're
supposed to believe that the hand-dove-sun motif on his chest is
universal for "imprisonment colony."

Kirk's Log 5718.3: "Orbiting Elba II. It's an asylum for the mentally unstable, and the atmosphere is poisonous. The facility is in a dome. We're taking meds to the governor. They're supposed to make mental instability a thing of the past."

Quick, Trek fans - did you notice the two clever things that TOS kind of did right there? They put the asylum in a sealed dome on a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, making it an intergalactic Alcatraz. Then they named it Elba II after the island where Napolean was banished before he escaped and took over freaking Europe. Ooh, foreshadowing.
So Kirk and Spock beam down with the meds (even though it would probably make more sense to send Spock and Bones), and they meet the governor, Dr Cory. Cory turns the forcefield back on, and jokes that they are now trapped, and that they have no reason now to not stay for dinner. Everybody chuckles (okay, Cory and Kirk do), and Spock gives Cory the medicine. They discuss the newest member of the asylum, Garth of Izar. Apparently, Garth was a starship captain, and Kirk admits that Garth's exploits were required reading at the academy, and that he is one one of Kirk's heroes.
Now, maybe too much time has passed, and he's forgotten, but could someone remind Kirk that way back in season one we discovered that each time Kirk declared someone to be a person he admired, that person would inevitably be the villain of the episode. It seriously happened like three times. Maybe they figured that we would forget as well. But if you were paying attention to the Name Game above, and then matching up the Kirk's-hero-as-villain plot, then you know exactly how this shit is going down.

Think you've seen this dude's coat before? You're right. It was worn by
Commissioner Ferris in "The Galileo Seven", only here they've covered the white
lapels in blue glitter and embellished it with weird jewelry. Star Trek probably figured that
no one would notice, but they weren't banking that, forty years later, some underemployed
blogger with a sharp eye and no life would be scouring these episodes on DVD.

Kirk asks to see Garth, and Cory takes them to a room with three cells. He says there are only fifteen crazy people in the whole facility, so I guess there are a few more rooms like this? Each one is sectioned off like a brig cell, with what looks like an open doorway. The doorways are lined with lights, and Cory clicks a little box to turn off "the forcefield." Clever, Star Trek. Lights lining the doorways is probably cheaper than hiring an animation studio to create force field effects. 

They stop at one cell and a girl Cory calls Marta tries to convince Kirk that she isn't crazy. She's Orion, so we don't know how much we can trust her, given that the last one we met ("Journey to Babel") had surgically altered himself to look like an Andorian so he could fuck up some diplomatic relations. Marta tells Kirk that Cory isn't actually Cory. Cory laughs it off. 

It is driving me insane trying to determine in which episode I have seen this dress.

Guess who is in cells two and three? An Andorian and a Tellarite, both of whom we have encountered before in "Journey to Babel," and both of which Star Trek still has the costumes and make-up for. Putting in the overtime this week, Budget. It's not quite at "Menagerie" level, but still: good job.
Now we come to cell four, and guess who is occupying this one? It's Cory, who is actually floating in the corner. Not sure how that effect was achieved, but it looks pretty good.
"The fuck?" demands Kirk.
"You've been tricked," says the Cory in the cell, wearily.
The other Cory starts laughing. The camera zooms in and unfocuses. There's a boi-oi-oing sound, and then we zoom out and refocus, and Other Cory has morphed into Garth.

Garth has a phaser and the force field clicker, which he uses to turn off the other cells. Marta slithers out of her cell and also out of that dress, to reveal that she is wearing a sort of swimsuit with a skirt attached. The Andorian and Tellarite join them, and now the henchmen are assembled.
Dramatic music!

When we return, Spock has been stunned and is being hauled off by the Tellarite and Andorian, and Kirk has been tossed into the cell with Cory. He's now demanding to be addressed as "Lord Garth." Kirk manages to talk him into letting Cory down from whatever magic is keeping him floating. There's clearly something "off" about Marta. Garth is wearing this fur coat thing that she keeps petting. Then she stares up at the ceiling. Then she plays with her skirt. Repeat, repeat, repeat.
There's also something weird about Garth, who seems to go quickly between calm and demanding, and screaming loudly enough that his voice cracks like a fourteen-year-old. He tells Kirk that he intends to take over the Enterprise, and that Kirk will help him do it. Kirk agrees readily, and I can't tell if he's being facetious, or if he realizes that this guy is out of his mind, and that he should play along for now. It's Garth's plan to hunt down his mutinous old crew and kill them. Marta is now fascinated by a pendant that Garth is wearing, like a squirrel examining a nut. Kirk points out that the E's crew will also mutiny against him, and Garth morphs into Kirk. He tells the E captain that he's destroyed the medicine, which he refers to as "poison." Then he leaves laughing, with Marta on his arm.
"Bye, darling, I'll miss you!" she coos at Kirk.

I have to commend whoever cast this actress as Marta. She really pulls off "not quite there." Speaking of casting, guess which part she also won?

Na na na na na na na na na na na, Star Trek!

You know, I was totally joking last week when I suggested that Star Trek was just hiring whoever had guest starred the week before on Batman, but Yvonne Craig makes the fourth Batman series regular to make an appearance on this show (along with Frank Gorshin, Lee Meriwether, and Julie Newmar). I'm starting to form conspiracy theories, like maybe they were offered BOGO contracts: "By agreeing to play a part in this campy superhero show, you also agree to play a part in this other campy outer space show."
Anyway, back to the story: Kirk talks to Cory. Cory says that Garth claims to have the most powerful explosive in the universe. He says that Garth learned cellular generation techniques from the people of Antos. The regeneration was supposed to help heal Garth's wounds, but he figured out how to manipulate it into being able to take on the appearances of others. The first time they realized it was when Garth morphed into Cory and a hapless guard let him out of his cell. I guess they've played this game enough times to get rid of any other guards on Elba II, because they only other person we see in this episode who lives on this planet is Dr Cory.
Garth goes to the transporter room with his two henchmen, and he contacts the E. Scotty answers the phone.
"Beam me up," says Kirk-Garth."
"Cool," says Scotty. "Queen to queen's level three."
"Huh?" I ask the screen.
"Huh?" asks Kirk-Garth.
"Queen to queen's level three," replies Scotty.
"WTH?" asks Kirk-Garth. "What's with the chess problem?"
"Just following your orders," says Scotty. And he repeats his statement from before.
"Oh. Just testing," says Kirk-Garth, and he signs off.

Once the viewscreen is off, Kirk-Garth throws a massive tantrum, kicking over furniture, tossing his henchmen across the room, and literally beating his fists on the floor, all while screaming. He morphs back into Garth, and once he calms down, pulls his fur coat around him like a blankie.
On the E, Scotty is confused. Kirk was supposed to give him the other half of the code, but didn't. Having a code like that was pretty freaking genius, and I'm kind of surprised that Scotty says that Kirk came up with it. It sounds more like a thing that Spock would come up with. Maybe it was a joint endeavor?
"Captain, it might behoove us to take precautions before beaming up again. The last time that we visited a penal colony, a prisoner escaped and stowed away on the Enterprise."
"That's a good idea, Spock. Maybe a code that only we and Mr Scott know?"
"An excellent idea. May I suggest chess moves?"
Not to say that Kirk isn't smart enough on his own to come up with a plan like that, but... the guy is very leap before you look. There aren't a lot of precautions that exist in Kirk's life that didn't originate with (mostly ignored) Starfleet regulations, or ideas that Spock came up with. Just sayin.'

Scotty asks Uhura to hail the asylum again, but no one is answering. Scotty and Sulu briefly discuss how to get into the dome through the force field. The E is powerful enough to blast through them, but not without destroying the dome and killing everyone inside.
Garth returns to the cell room, all jovial and crap, and reminds Kirk that he invited the captain and Spock to dinner earlier. The henchmen bring in Spock at phaser-point, Marta complaining that she isn't allowed to blow off Spock's ears. Kirk tries to refuse when he learns that Dr Cory is not invited, but Cory tells him not to be foolish.

So the Tellarite is dressed appropriately in what we know by now is the
Tellarite uniform. But the Andorian is wearing a bright orange poncho with
a furry boa collar and lime green-electric blue plaid pants. Normally,
it's the females on this show who look like they got dressed in the dark.

At the dinner party of the damned, they sit at tables laden with food while the henchmen do goofy things for applause. Marta flirts with Kirk. Garth yells at her to knock it off. They start a loud argument, and she says that she's awesome because she paints and writes poetry. She gets up to recite some, and ends up reciting Shakespeare. Kirk and Spock mutter plans to escape.
"You dumb bitch!" yells Garth. "You didn't write that!"
"Yes, I did!" she counters. "He wrote it down hundreds of years ago, and I wrote it down again yesterday."
Technically, she's right. He screams at her in a high-pitched voice that he's going to kill her with his bare hands. She scurries away to hide behind some other inmates.
"Actually," he says in a perfectly calm voice, "she's a really great dancer." This dude is all over the place.
So Marta gets up and does a typical Orion slave girl dance, which is acrobatic, and looks like she should be dancing with a snake. Craig is pretty good at it. Garth asks Spock what he feels about Marta's dance.
"Nostalgic," says Spock. "Vulcan children do a similar dance in nursery school, though they're less-coordinated."
I... I can't decide if Spock is trolling Garth, you guys. Spock has a perpetual poker-face, and is pretty much a level 2000 troll.

When the dance is over, Garth "gifts" Marta to Kirk. Marta pouts, as she should. This is the future, people shouldn't be able to gift people to others.
"Um, thanks?" says Kirk. He's obviously going to leave that particular goody bag on the table on his way out of this party.
"We're friends," says Garth. Then he complements Kirk on his military exploits, and they discuss being space explorers.
"Hey, how come you tried to destroy Antos IV?" asks Spock, who does not chit-chat, but gets right to the point.
"They healed me, I offered them the galaxy in return, and when they refused, I condemned them to death," says Garth casually.
"Um, they're pacifists," says Spock. "Why would you think your crew would be down with that?"
"Because my crew had a decadent weakness," Garth says, even though that shit makes no sense. "You have it, too. Only my new crew doesn't have it, and they are these other crazy sonsabitches." He points to the other inmates. He then goes on a tirade about war.
Kirk interrupts him to say that peace has merit as well, and that peace is what has enabled himself and Spock to become brothers. Garth finds this idea to be goofy, and asks Spock if he considers Kirk to be his brother.
"Kirk is being sentimental, but yes," Spock replies. Whoa. That's a pretty huge thing to admit for Spock.

So Garth goes on about fleets, and says that Spock will command his own ship with Garth's army.
"Dude, where's your fleet?" asks Spock.
"Gonna steal it," Garth replies.
"Bro, you're trying to start the same shit that landed you in here. And you can say all you like that you were betrayed, but you tried to annihilate a race of people, and then you were kindly placed here to get better," points out Spock.
Garth shrieks "Remove this animal!" and Spock is hauled away.

He then attempts to get Kirk to give him the reply to "queen to queen's level three," but Kirk plays dumb. Marta tries to weasel it out of him by saying that if he just gives Garth the reply, that she and Kirk can go away and be together. She sort of purrs it in his ear, like Garth isn't listening to everything she's saying, and he plays along, but whispering in her ear that he can't.

Garth has his lackeys bring in the chair from "Dagger of the Mind." Only this time, the chair has colorful Princess Leia buns attached to the headrest. Kirk recognizes it as a therapy tool, but Garth says he "fixed" it so that now it just administers pain. He puts Cory in the chair and demands to know the response to the queen riddle. Kirk clams up and Garth tortures Cory.

Garth forces Kirk into the chair and turns it on. Kirk refuses to give up the ghost. Marta begs Garth to let him go, and promises that she can get Kirk to talk. He agrees.

There's a brief scene on the bridge where Scotty, Sulu and Bones discuss options, but there really aren't any, so it's back to the drawing board.

In a bedroom, Marta brings a sleeping Kirk some kind of drink. She tries to convince him to give her the answer, but they make out instead. Then she tries to stab him. He manages to push her off, and she grabs the knife off the floor, only to have Spock enter and grab her by the wrist. He then pinches her, and she drops like a fly. They head for the control room. Spock stuns the Tellarite guard, then gives Kirk that phaser. Kirk calls Scotty once inside while Spock drops the forcefield. He requests a contingent of armed Reds, and Spock suggests that Kirk go back upstairs and leave himself behind in charge of the security Reds.
"Reds are ready," says Scotty. "Queen to queen's level three."
"Um, Spock will respond," says Kirk, eyeing his "brother."
Spock turns off the forcefield and *booi-oi-oing!* becomes Garth.
"Ha! I gave you a dead phaser!" Garth crows at Kirk.

Kirk tries to talk Garth down, reminding him that he was once a well-respected member of Starfleet, and that people looked up to him. It goes about how you'd expect: Garth is actually going along with it, remembering the ol' days, but then of course it all falls apart when Kirk says that Garth is sick now and needs treatment to get back to the guy he was before. He goes off on a rant about old Earth rulers who got too big for their britches and didn't succeed at world domination (yep, he mentioned Napoleon), and how he was going to do better than all of them. Kirk makes a rush for the forcefield controls, but Garth stuns him.
Dramatic music! Commercial break!

When he comes to, Kirk is being held by the Tellarite and the Andorian  Telly and Andy, and Garth tells him that they are getting ready for the coronation. He asks Kirk if he'd like a larger role in the ceremony and suggests that he might be the human sacrifice.
"No, I wouldn't enjoy that at all," replies Kirk.
You know, most of Kirk's jokes are kind of lame, but every now and again, he reaches a Harry Potter level of sass that makes me snicker.
"Meh, I was gonna use someone else for that, anyway," shrugs Garth. "You should be the heir apparent."
What, like his son? Garth is exhibiting the kind of weird behavior that would leave me less than surprised if he requested that Kirk call him "Daddy."
The set-up is done (a chair on top of a table, and a gold table runner or something on the floor), and Garth enters the room again, flanked by Marta, who is carry a pillow with some kind of silver crown on it. There's some horn fanfare, though it isn't obvious where it's coming from, as no one is blowing a horn.
"None of you bitches is illustrious enough to crown me, so I'm gonna do it myself," Garth announces. Notice again, the Napoleon reference. All they're missing is the funny hat and a white horse. He names Marta as his consort, and he puts a necklace on her. Then he announces Kirk as his heir. Yeah, remember earlier when this asshole said everybody but himself and his new psycho friends had a "decadent weakness"? Please, tell me more about your crown and your fur coat and all of your jewelry.

He has Telly and Andy take Kirk to the transporter room, where Kirk tries to reason with the boys. They just aim phasers at him and say nothing. Garth strolls in a moment later. He shows Kirk a shampoo bottle filled with colored beads and tells him that it's the most powerful explosive in the universe, and that if he dropped the bottle, he could vaporize this planet. Is it now up to Kirk to determine if Garth is bluffing, or actually believes that what he has is an explosive? Nope. Because he planted one of those beads in Marta's necklace, and has had two of his guys drag her outside in the poisoned atmosphere.

Hey, look at that: those ridiculous hazmat suits from "The Tholian Web".
Good job, Budget.

They watch through the window as Garth's dudes leave Marta outside to cough up the crappy air.
"Aww, she's suffocating," says Garth. "Poor thing. I'll help her."
He presses a button on some remote control, and there's an explosion. Bye, Marta.
Upstairs, Sulu registers the explosion as a large one, and Uhura confirms that it didn't wipe out everyone on the surface. Scotty commands that they change orbit and blast through the weak point in the forcefield, which is on the other side of the planet. They try a pair of phaser blasts, but nothing doing: forcefield is still holding strong.

Downstairs, Garth is tossing the bottle around like a toy. "How's it going, Kirk?"
"Meh," Kirk replies. "You use that, we both die. Immaterial."
"You're hard to break," muses Garth. "Maybe I'll have them fetch your friend Spock."
Spock, meanwhile, is studying the forcefield in his cell when Andy and Telly come in. He feigns unconsciousness so that Andy and Telly have to each grab and arm and drag him backward through the force fields. Once they're through, he pinches them at the same time, and they drop to the floor. It's clever, if a bit convenient. Spock grabs a phaser off one of them and heads for the transporter room.
"Gonna convince Spock that he should come around to my way of thinking," says Garth.
There's some kind of beep, and he turns on a viewscreen. They can see Spock cautiously wandering the halls with his phaser. Okay: what kind of alarm did Garth have set up? That the equipment should beep if someone is loose in the hall? Or that it should go off if Telly or Andy lose consciousness? Is it a "transporter room proximity" alarm? I dunno. But it finds Spock right away, supposedly through closed-cicuit television.
Spock finds the transporter room, and the door slides open to reveal... two Kirks. I'm impressed, Star Trek. Seeing this scene over Spock's shoulder is an interesting viewpoint, and there isn't even an obvious seam in the film between the two Kirks. Good job.

Okay, there's a faded pinkish line close to the Kirk on the right. But it's subtle, and the film doesn't jump around, indicating that it was spliced together.
Immediately, one Kirk insists that Spock shoot the other. Ah, logic time.
"Queen to queen's level three," he says, stepping fully into the room.
"Not gonna answer that," says one of the Kirks. "Garth wants the answer."
The other Kirk agrees.
"I'm gonna call for security," says Spock, going to the forcefield panel.
"No!" says a Kirk. "Garth's guys could still overpower us, even with Reds!"
"True," agrees Kirk #2.
Spock tries asking about which manuever was used in a certain situation, to which one Kirk immediately answers, but then other points out that said maneuver is common, and every starship captain knows it.
"Fine," sighs Spock. "It must take energy to maintain the Kirk disguise, so I'm gonna wait you out."
He pulls the chair toward himself, but one of the Kirks knocks him out of it, and an altercation begins. There are a few shots where it's obvious that they've used a look-alike, but they typically just show the back of that dude. I wonder if Kirk is enjoying this, fighting himself. I bet he thinks he's a worthy opponent. This is probably also the closest thing he'll get to being able to experience himself as his own lover. Kirk ships it.

One Kirk lifts the chair over his head with the intention of clobbering the other one with it, and yells for Spock to shoot while Kirk #2 is on the floor.
"You have to shoot both us, to ensure the safety of the E!" yells Kirk #2. Translation: "Don't let Garth get his hands on my titanium pussy!"
Spock shoots the Kirk holding the chair, and that Kirk immediately morphs back into Garth. Fuck, dude. You should have just shot them both to begin with. Then you'd two unconscious guys, but they'd be separate people.
Spock turns off the forcefield and calls the E.
"Queen to queen's level three," says Scotty.
"Queen to king's level four," replies Spock.
Clearly, that was the answer, as our next shot is of Andy getting a dose of meds from Bones and Cory. Bones says the medicine should start repairing the affected areas of the brain immediately. Garth is in the therapy chair. Cory gives it a moment, then turns it off. Garth doesn't recognize Kirk or Spock, and he shakes Kirk's hand when Kirk introduces himself. Apparently, he got meds before the chair treatment, and a now-docile Garth is headed back to his cell for some rest. He doesn't remember a damn thing.

Also, check out our boy in red back there. He's just a lineless extra,
an NPC, but he's taking this role of Security Red very seriously. Bet
he's gonna use this footage to land himself a role as "Buckingham
palace guard" later in the year.

"Hey, Spock," says Kirk. "How could you not know your own boyfriend? How come it took you so long to figure out which one of us was me?"
"It didn't," Spock answers. "I decided to see who won the fight. I was banking on Garth to win."
"Hey!" says Kirk, massaging his bruised ego.
"Don't be like that," says Spock. "They kicked the crap out of you with that chair earlier. There's no way you were going to win that fight."
Again, I'm left wondering if Spock is trolling again.
Kirk makes a joke about King Solomon, which leaves Spock pondering, and the captain calls Scotty for a beam-up.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 6
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 0
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 1
Total crew deaths this season: 7
Total crew deaths thus far: 49

No crew deaths, just Marta. Poor, poor, crazy Marta.

This episode is shockingly similar to: "Dagger of the Mind" from the first season. There are a few distinctions, of course. In DOTM, a mad doctor is experimenting on inmates in a penal colony, a bit like Nazi doctors in WWII Germany. Here, the mad doctor is replaced by a mental patient who has taken over the asylum. Both are similar to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" in that one slightly-off dude runs amok with institutionalized people, though "Whom Gods Destroy" lacks a Nurse Wratchet character.

*******

So I was planning on continuing with my Doctor Who sample teas from Adagio this week, but I was out of town this weekend, and it's kind of a pain in the ass to pack one's tea strainer and loose-leaf tea. Speaking of strainers, I happened to see this at my local grocery store:

Now, I have an odd fascination with large-scale human tragedies, but... this is a bit much. It's creeptacular, and kind of really not clever. Some shit, for me at least, will always remain on the "too soon" list.

Anyway, my aunt offered me a cuppa this weekend, so I selected the Bigelow green blend. It was pretty good, though not as fragrant as some other greens, and less floral as well. I guess if you're looking for a less-floral green, this is your brand.

https://www.bigelowtea.com/Shop-Teas/By-Type/Green/Green-Tea#.VQc9Bo7F9bw 

Bratty judges those who buy Titanic tea strainers.

Season 1, Episode 05: The Enemy Within

"The Enemy Within"
Production Number: 05
Air Order: 5
Stardate: 1672.1
Air Date: October 6, 1966


This time, we open on a planet surface set where the crew appears to be gathering samples to study. Supposedly, the "surface sets" are far more expensive to create than the on-ship sets, which is probably why the next two budget decisions were made. Sulu is holding a dog (I think it's a terrier) that's wrapped in orange fur and has a horn and two feeler things. This is the local fauna, apparently.

Hey, kids! Make your own TOS creature at home! Just buy one of these

and some straws (but not the bendy kind, because that would look ridiculous), and a few yards of neon-colored fur from your local craft store - the more Muppet-y it looks, the better. Attach the horn and straws to the top of your dog's head and wrap him/her in the fur. Voila! Your very own dog-thing from Planet Somethingorother.

The other budget-y thing is that one of the crew members gathering "ore" slips and cuts himself and his uniform is covered in yellow paint. It looks like someone literally dipped a paintbrush into a can of Road-Stripe Yellow paint and brushed a strip on either side of his chest. I guess buying powder was more expensive?

Kirk sends the crewman upstairs to get checked out by Bones, and Scotty struggles to get him transported up, as the beamer is hiccuping. It's a few minutes before Scotty can beam up the captain. When he's finally able to do it, Kirk stumbles off the pad, feeling weird. Scotty offers to accompany the captain back to his quarters, and Kirk tells him not to leave the transporter room unmanned, but Scotty replies that he'll only be gone for a second. Gee friends, when would this ever actually be a problem unless it was a plot device? It's like the over-used telephone situation, where one person is on the phone but repeats back to the unknown caller everything they just said so that the audience knows what's going down on the street. In fact, I don't think we even need that line between Scotty and Kirk, because as soon as they leave, the beam glows, and Evil Kirk steps off the transporter pad. How do I know he's evil? He's dramatically lit in an odd way, he's overly shifty-looking, and the music says that he'd like to steal candy from small children. All he's missing is a mustache to twiddle.

 Captain's Log 1672.11 The crew of the Enterprise was doing a specimen-gathering on Alpha 171 when the transporter malfunctioned. They have to get that shit fixed quick because the temps drop to below freezing at night, and pretty much their whole away team is stuck down there until they can fix the beams.

Good Kirk/Bad Kirk sequence: Good Kirk goes back to his cabin to lay down because he doesn't feel well. Bad Kirk goes into sick bay and demands Saurian brandy. Good Kirk does his homework. Bad Kirk terrorizes neighborhood pets. Good Kirk looks both ways. Bad Kirk runs out into traffic, causing several collisions and ruining perfect driving records and low insurance premiums.

Good Kirk is in his cabin, shirtless again. I'm pretty sure that's in his contract or something. Maybe Bill Shatner used to be a nipple model and they're trying to exploit his talents, like how Nichelle Nicholls sometimes sings on the show.

Anyway, Spock comes in and says that Bones tattled on Kirk for roughing up the doctor and taking all the booze like a little bitch. Kirk laughs and says that Bones is just screwing with Spock. The captain gets paged to the transporter room, where Scotty shows them two identical dog-things. The transporter beamed aboard one good dog and a one-headed Cerberus. "The landing party is fucked," says Scotty. They can't beam anyone on board unless they want an evil copy of everyone.

...um, hello? Shuttlecraft?

Just to make things easier for the viewer, the captain has donned a conveniently green wrap-around blouse so we can tell the Kirks apart. This green shirt appears at other times, but is never explained. It's like his "on vacation" shirt, because there are no official uniform markings, but I swear sometimes he wears it while on duty.

Yeoman Rand enters her quarters and attempts to fix her hair, but she fails miserably, as it remains in that basket-weave beehive thing. Evil Kirk jumps out and demands that they knock Federation-issued boots, then he forces and icky-looking awkward kiss on her. They struggle, and she scratches his face. The door opens, and the geologist from earlier (Fisher) is in the corridor. He runs to the intercom to page Spock, but Evil Kirk punches him first.

Spock fetches Good Kirk and tells him what Rand has accused him of, and that Saurian brandy was found in her room. A tearful Rand tells them and McCoy what happened, and that she was unsure, because, you know, he's the capatain, and she didn't want to get him into trouble. Kirk points out that she claims to have scratched him, yet there are no scratches on his face, and she gets confused. But then a roughed-up geologist Fisher comes in and corroborates her story. Everyone is confused but Spock, who says that the only logical answer is that there's an impostor on board. Yes, Spock. I suppose that when you're in a science-fiction drama, the only logical answer is that an impostor exists, and not that your captain is lying.

Captain's Log 1672.9 Temperatures on the surface are dropping and the away team is in danger. Hey, really? We hadn't noticed. I'm pretty sure at this point that log entries are just recaps for viewers who forget the whole plot during commercial breaks. "OMG, that was an amazing ad for Ovaltine! Wait - what was I watching again?"

So Good Kirk is starting to come off as indecisive and unsure. He snuggles the nice version of the dog-thing while talking to Spock. The Vulcan points out that when going after Evil Kirk, they can't kill him, because they have no idea what would happen. he then reminds GK that he doesn't have the luxury of appearing to be less than perfect to the crew. He must not appear wussy, indecisive, overweight, or with less than baby-butt smooth skin. He may never get a pimple, and must always be fit enough to stroll around the ship shirtless. No pressure, though.

1673.1 Good Kirk announces to the crew that there is an impostor on board, who can be identified by scratches on his face. He tells the crew to arm themselves, but to set their phasers to stun rather than kill. Evil Kirk hears the announcement and loses his shit. This is understandable. In his eyes, he is the captain, and now some spineless wimp is declaring himself captain instead? In an effort to make himself look more like Good Kirk, he uses make-up to cover the scratches on his cheek. Maybe he's beamed with it. Maybe it's Maybelline. Evil Kirk opens the door to find a crewman, whom he addresses by name. He tells the crewman to give him his phaser, and they make small talk before Evil Kirk knocks him the hell out.

The temperatures downstairs have reached twenty below. Some heaters were beamed down, but they duplicated and failed to turn on. The attack on the crewman is reported to Spock and Good Kirk. The science officer asks the half-captain where he would go if trying to evade a search. "Engineering," replies GK.

Down in Engineering, the two Kirks play Spy Versus Spy for a bit and Evil Kirk manages to blast a hole in some wiring. GK gives the other a speech about how they need each other to survive. EK starts to scream that he doesn't need Good Kirk, but then Spock rolls up from behind and drops him with a nerve pinch. And that's how they get things done on Vulcan, bitch.

Back in sick bay, Spock waxes poetic about the fact that here was proof that both light and dark sides are needed to survive. He surmises that Good Kirk has become an indecisive wuss because the leadership traits belong to Evil Kirk.

Sulu reports that it's now 40 below. he and the away team huddle under a blanket and he asks if the Enterprise can find a long rope to lower down a pot of coffee or some sake. Dude is probably dying of hypothermia, and he's cracking jokes. Given his penchant for humor, I have to wonder if George Takei wrote any of his own lines. You're pretty much the coolest guy on this ship, Sulu.

Meanwhile, back in Engineering... Scotty has discovered that the wiring that Evil Kirk blasted was running the transporter. Of course it was. ETA on that repair: a whole flipping week.

Good Kirk makes a rather emo log, and Sulu checks in again. 75 below, and he's using hand phasers to heat rocks. He makes a joke about ski season. You know, I'd really like to see the spin-off where Sulu is captain. I would so sign up for that mission. Hell, as long as we're making Christmas lists, I'd like a Doctor Who Christmas crossover special, where George Takei is the companion.
"Where is the heading, Doctor?"
"Not where, Georgie, but when."

 Evil Kirk is dying. Good Kirk takes his hand and gives him the Jack-and-Rose-on-the-raft speech about not letting go. It's a very tender moment for those who ship Kirk with himself. Scotty pages Good Kirk to the transporter room, saying that he's fixed the problem (one week, my ass, Scotty). They decide to knock out the evil dog-thing and send them both through on the same pad. But when they beam them back, only one dead dog-thing returns. They surmise that it died of shock.

1673.1 Spock makes this log, and it's just another recap. "Spock here, everything's the same, life sucks right now, and we're all SOL. More to come!"

Bones plans to do an autopsy on the dog-thing to find out if it really died of shock, or if it was the transporter. he wants some better answers before sending Jim through. Spock wants to finish the repairs to the transporter and risk sending the captains through. Kirk laments on what to do, then decides to do both. Come on, dude. It took the little Mexican girl in the taco shell commercial less time to make decisions.

Deciding that they should both get on the transporter pad, Good Kirk unstraps Evil Kirk from the sick bay bed. EK is nice to him for all of three seconds, then drops the act, and they struggle. Holy crap, Bill struggles a lot in this series. So far, he is always shirtless, wearing ripped clothing, or struggling with someone. I may start keeping track.
Evil Kirk knocks out Good Kirk, and he grabs a green blouse from the captain's quarters so that they look more alike. Running into Yeoman Rand in the corridor, he tells her about the double and how "he scratched my face to make us look alike." An uncomfortable Rand agrees to see him in her cabin later to talk about it.

 He makes his way to the bridge, announces that the away team is toast anyway, and tells the helmsmen to leave. The bridge crew protests, but Evil Kirk tells them to go fuck themselves. Good Kirk enters the bridge and Evil Kirk freaks out, saying that he's going to kill Good Kirk, and that he just wants to live, dammit! The crew seems uncertain as to which one to grab. *sigh* Grab them both, idiots. They're both going to the same place. There's another struggle, and EK gets a hypo to the neck.

In the transporter room, both Kirks get onto the pad, and Good Kirk holds Evil Kirk in a warm embrace, as though they're slow-dancing. No seriously, why do more people not ship K/K?

Spock beams them down and back again, with only one returning. He steps off the pad and booms a command to beam the others on board. Bones remarks that but for a little frostbite, he's sure that the away team will be fine.

So... the guys on the surface have been down there for hours, and this is the first mention of frostbite, despite the fact that that was my first thought. Sulu's last check-in reported that two guys were already unconscious. How have they not all died from exposure by now? Are they really trying to convince me that the technology has advanced so far that their PJ-like uniforms and those thin blankets were keeping them warm enough in temperatures that are twice as low as the lowest temps on Mt Everest? Give me my money back - I'm not buying it.

***

So, setting aside this week's theme of yin-yang/light and dark, an idea sprouts that has since been explored in other science fiction, that of "what happens to The Other?" On the bridge, Evil Kirk yells that he wants to live, and views the rejoining of Good Kirk as a death for himself. He will cease to be as he knows himself, and will be blended back together with Good Kirk to just become Kirk. This "what about me?" idea has been looked at in other mediums and shows, including another Star Trek (Next Gen), where a transporter accident splits Riker into two parts: one that made it back onto the ship, and one that was beamed back onto the now-unmanned station on a planet's surface. Secure in the knowledge that they had Riker on board, the ship leaves, and the other Riker is stranded for some 8 years before being discovered by the Enterprise. In this case, both Rikers are full people, simply created twice by the transporter, and both have full memories of those 8 years. Those years have had their effect on each, and while one continues his career with Starfleet, the other becomes a rebel. In this case, they are not two halves of the same person, but two separate people. There is no talk of splicing them back together again, and the rebel (who changed his name to Thomas) is allowed to go about his business. In another example that I am familiar with, companion Amy Pond falls out of  time sync with her husband Rory and The Doctor while at a medical facility. When they try to rescue her, they find that they have both the Amy that they just left, and an Amy who has lived at the facility, battling euthanasia robots, for a whopping 38 years. The problem here is that if they rescue the Amy who has just entered the facility, they essentially destroy Amy 38. She refuses to help them and requests that they take her with them when they rescue Amy 0. Again, the question is, what happens to that very real person with the very real experiences who wishes to keep on living that way? Do you force them into obsolescence? How will things be altered if left alone?
In this episode of TOS, it is made clear that both halves require each other to live, because the basis is the philosophical idea of a person being made of good and bad, light and dark, and a necessity of balance. Spock insists that he is similar, being made of human and Vulcan parts, and that his intelligence triumphs over both, allowing him to live with his two warring halves.
But sometimes the answer to this question is less clear than "let's put them back together". In the Doctor Who episode, taking Amy 0 back into the TARDIS and not Amy 38 really would wipe out 38's existence. She will have ceased to exist, as well as the memories of things that she had lived through in her years of existing first as Amy 0, then as Amy 38. She pleads her case to Rory and The Doctor, stating that she wants to live.
I suppose that this is not really a problem with a straight-forward answer. It really does depend on the circumstances - can one live without the other? If yes, then what are the other implications of allowing there to be two separate versions of that person? It is not as though they were twins and began life as two people. Both persons were one at some point, and split. It seems as though the passage of time makes a difference.

Okay, sorry for that brief philosophical interruption. I blame it on this week's tea, "Courtesan's Blend" from the Firefly collection by Friday Afternoons (www.fridaytea.com). It's an oolong, with clove, cinnamon, and vanilla flavors, lovely as both a hot tea and a cold one, but a touch too light to be used in a mixed drink, as it would probably be overpowered by the alcohol taste. You can find it listed under Geeky Blends.