Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 1 Episode 5
Original airdate: 6 October 1966

“I have to take him back inside myself. I can’t survive without him. I don’t want to take him back. He’s like an animal. a thoughtless, brutal animal. And yet it’s me. Me!”

We’re now five episodes in and it seems the ‘mad bastard on the ship’ gimmick is already starting to jump the shark a bit.

This time the mad bastard in question is none other than Captain Kirk himself, albeit a second version of him that’s pure evil. As you do.

After a landing party’s finished exploring a nearby planet – which seems to be the opening for most of these episodes, incidentally – they start beaming up to the ship.

One crewman, who’d taken a nasty fall while on the planet, beams back with some odd yellow ore on his suit. Magnetic dust from the ore ends up knackering the transporter, unbeknownst to the crew.

When Kirk beams back later, nobody notices a second version of him beaming back too. It soon turns out that the transporter has split Kirk into two versions – a ‘good Kirk’ and a ‘bad Kirk’.

This theory is discovered when – and this isn’t a joke – the crew beams up an ‘alien creature’ which is blatantly a dog in a costume, and it too materialises in both good and evil forms.

So what we have, then, is an evil version of Captain Kirk roaming about and being a bit of a dick to everyone.

It actually gets surprisingly dark when he – well, let’s be blunt about it – tries to rape Janice but is thankfully caught by another crewman.

This episode is the first that seems to actually get a bit philosophical, as it emerges that without his evil side Kirk loses his feeling of authority and with it the confidence to make decisions. Spock ends up having to take over as Kirk essentially becomes a big shitebag.

Eventually Good Kirk and Evil Kirk have a bit of a scrap and both end up in the transporter together, where they’re beamed together to make one Kirk again. Cue the theory that we all need a good side and a bad side in order to feel complete and such.

I liked this one. It’s got everything I expected when I used to think of Star Trek: bullshit science, William Shatner acting like a womaniser and a dog dressed up as an alien.

Yes, we’re now at five ‘crazy person tries to destroy the ship’ episodes out of five, but I’m feeling happier about that than I was yesterday.

Other thoughts:

• While all the shit is going on in the ship, the rest of the landing party including Sulu are stuck down on the planet in temperatures that eventually reach 60 degrees below zero. He manages to survive by putting a blanket over himself though, so that’s good.
• Somehow I have a faint recollection that evil versions of people in Star Trek were supposed to have beards. I think South Park imitated it once or something. Evil Kirk doesn’t have a beard but maybe that starts happening later on.
• In case you’re wondering, the good and bad alien dogs die. They try to send them both through the transporter to merge them but it doesn’t work. It only works later when the Kirks do it because Shatner’s contract.
• How can you tell Good Kirk and Bad Kirk apart? Not only does Bad Kirk have a scratch on his face after his failed rape attempt, Good Kirk also wears a weird green jumper throughout the episode for no reason.

Up next – Star Trek episode 6: Mudd’s Women. Based on the title alone I predict it’ll be about a man called Mudd who lives on another planet and runs a brothel, but one of his prostitutes gets onto the Enterprise and threatens to destroy it from the inside. Prove me wrong, Star Trek.