February 6, 2024 • 30 mins
In this engaging episode of "Father and Son's Guide to the Galaxy," hosts Ethan and Anthony offer an in-depth analysis of "The Enemy Within," a standout episode from the original Star Trek series. This podcast episode is a must-listen for Trekkies and sci-fi enthusiasts, delving into the complex narrative where Captain Kirk faces his own duality due to a transporter glitch, resulting in two distinct versions of himself - one embodying his positive attributes, and the other his darker impulses.
The hosts skillfully discuss the psychological and philosophical themes of human nature's dualities presented in the Star Trek episode, emphasizing the balance necessary between our darker and lighter sides for effective leadership and decision-making. This conversation not only explores the intricacies of Captain Kirk's character but also ties into broader discussions about the nature of humanity and the importance of diversity, as depicted in the Star Trek universe.
Listeners interested in the intersection of classic sci-fi storytelling with contemporary issues will find the hosts' reflections on the portrayal of serious themes like sexual assault within the 1960s context thought-provoking, considering how these might be approached with today's sensibilities.
"Father and Son's Guide to the Galaxy" continues to captivate its audience with insightful commentary on Star Trek's timeless episodes, contributing to the ongoing discussion about the series' impact on our understanding of leadership, humanity, and the future. Fans of Star Trek, sci-fi analysis, and philosophical discussions on human nature will find this podcast episode particularly enriching.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Anthony (00:00):
Hey everybody.
(00:00):
Before we begin this week'sepisode, we wanted to give you a
heads up that towards the end ofthe show, we have a brief
segment where we discuss a scenefrom the star Trek original
series episode that we'll betalking about today that
involves sexual assault.
We wanted to be sensitive to ourlisteners about that subject
matter.
We don't get into any graphicdetail or anything like that.
(00:21):
And it's a fairly brief segment,but we did want to give you a
heads up.
Thanks and enjoy the show.
Ethan (00:45):
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Father and
Son's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm your host, Ethan.
And I'm your co host, Anthony.
And today, we will be going overepisode 5 of Star Trek, the
original series, which istitled, The Enemy Within.
Yeah.
Anthony (01:01):
Great episode, a psychological deep dive into
human nature.
So at the beginning of theepisode, some of the crew are
down on a planet doing ageological exploration and one
of the crew members is injuredand so Kirk tells him to beam
back up to the Enterprise and goget checked out at sickbay.
(01:23):
And so Mr.
Scott in the transporter roombeams this crewman up.
And there seems to be some issuewith the transporter, but it
ends up working and the guymaterializes on board the
Enterprise.
But Mr.
Scott notices that there's likesome dust on the guy's uniform
(01:45):
of some ore samples.
And he Posits that maybe that'sthe reason that the transporter
was acting a little funky.
And after that, Kirk goes tobeam up and when he materializes
in the transporter room, he'skind of like disoriented.
He seems to have a headache.
(02:06):
And so Scotty sees that and heHe said, let's go see Dr.
McCoy.
So Scotty leaves with him totake him to sick bay.
And so nobody's in thetransporter room.
And then shortly after thatAnother Captain Kirk
materializes in the transporterroom.
But this Captain Kirk is clearlyvery evil.
(02:28):
We'll call him the bad CaptainKirk or the evil Captain Kirk.
And so he leaves and, and goesoff to start.
doing bad stuff on the shipwhich we'll get to in a minute.
And then after that, an aliendog that was found on the planet
it looks like a dog.
It was a real dog, but they madeit kind of look like an alien.
(02:50):
And so it was native to theplanet that they were doing this
geological exploration on.
They wanted to beam the dog upto the Enterprise.
And it ends up that two dogs getbeamed up to the Enterprise.
The dog splits.
And one of the dogs is verysweet and kind of docile, and
(03:11):
the other's clearly veryaggressive and vicious.
And so Scotty theorizes that thetransporter malfunction is what
caused the split of the dogs.
And so we now have two of thesame dog with opposite
personalities, so to speak.
And, and of course nobody knowsat this point that evil Kirk or
(03:33):
bad Kirk is on the ship.
And so, evil Kirk beginsbehaving badly is very
aggressive.
And he actually tries tosexually assault Yeoman Rand.
She ends up getting free,scratching his face.
And then eventually, Goodkirkand Spock and McCoy figure out
what has happened.
(03:54):
That there's this other version,alternate version of Kirk on the
ship.
But.
In the meantime, as they'retrying to decide how to deal
with this problem, the goodKirk, is kind of indecisive and
weak, and he can't seem to makecommand decisions.
Yeah,
Ethan (04:09):
so then, in the meantime, the away team that was on the
planet, they end up nottransporting them back to
prevent future incidents withthe transport that would, like,
split them again, and it wouldbe a bunch of chaos and trouble
up for the Enterprise.
So they tell them to stay downthere, but the problem is, is
(04:30):
that this planet, when it getsdark, will reach about 120
degrees below zero.
And so now, in addition tofinding the bad Kirk and, like,
figuring out what's going onwith good Kirk, they are also on
a race against time to fix thetransporter to get the away team
back on the Enterprise.
(04:51):
So then while they're doing thatScotty ends up believing he's
fixed the transporter and hasfound out a way to merge the the
dog back together as well asgood and evil Kirk.
And so then Scotty decides to goand test it on the dogs first.
But then, the dogs end up dying,and then Spock theorizes that
(05:16):
the dogs died of shock becausethey didn't have a logical
explanation for what washappening.
And Dr.
McCoy was saying we should do anautopsy first to see if there
was a malfunction in thetransporter that killed them.
Eventually, what, after somedebating in between Spock and
Dr.
(05:36):
McCoy, They tell Captain Kirkit's his choice whether you want
to go through with this or Waita little longer to see if it was
a transporter cause of death andnot Just shock from the dog not
knowing what was going on
Anthony (05:52):
Right, which would possibly risk the death of the
away team if he waited too
Ethan (05:56):
long.
Yeah, so the indecisive Kirk,the good Kirk is left with a
really big and important choiceSo, that was a very interesting
scene.
Especially because he wasagreeing with both sides at the
same time.
While they were trying toconvince him which one to do.
(06:17):
So then Goodkirk ends up makingthe choice that he wants to go
through with the transporterthing.
So, he goes and finds Badkirk,who They had found previously
and had managed to restrain himto sickbay with like the
physical restraints because theydidn't know if they would be
(06:38):
able to put him on like a drugor something to keep him under.
So then he's talking withBadkirk for a bit and Badkirk
eventually agrees.
But then he goes and attacksGoodkirk.
And then tries to impersonateGoodkirk, which then leads to
(06:59):
him taking over the bridge.
And then there's this wholeconflict in between Goodkirk and
Evilkirk on the bridge of who'sthe real one.
A classic clone thing thathappens.
Nobody knows which one's theoriginal.
So then, finally, Good Kirkmanages to convince Bad Kirk
that they aren't whole withouteach other because you can't be
(07:24):
human without the bad thingsabout yourself.
So, Bad Kirk reluctantly agreesafter some convincing that he
will still live through theregular Kirk.
When they are merged backtogether.
So eventually they get themtogether and they merge them
(07:44):
through the transporter.
And Spock's theory that the dogdied through shock was correct.
And Kirk is back to normal.
And they manage to beam up theOA team.
And Dr.
McCoy says a line about how theyhave severe exposure and
hypothermia, but they'll live.
Yeah.
Anthony (08:02):
Yeah.
So pretty interesting episode, Ithought.
Obviously, it seems to have beeninspired by the classic novel,
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
There's a lot of this Jekyll andHyde thing going on throughout
the episode.
And it, it explores this idea ofduality in human nature.
(08:27):
What was your take on that themeand how they addressed it?
Ethan (08:30):
I just thought it was really interesting how they
addressed the theme of, like,you can't be all good to be,
like, actually able to executethings.
Like, Kirk's issue when it wasjust the good Kirk, he lost his
ability to command a crewproperly.
He was indecisive, he couldn'tmake the choices, but his so
(08:54):
called evil counterpart wasextremely decisive and could
make quick choices.
And it just showed that heneeded his quote unquote evil
side to be whole and to be ableto function properly in society.
Anthony (09:12):
Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting take on
the idea of duality.
That you need that evil aspectin order to make decisions and,
like you said, be functional insociety, but it has to be
balanced with The goodtendencies that you have as a
(09:35):
human.
Ethan (09:36):
Yeah, and that was One thing I thought they explained
pretty well was the negativeside of Kirk was extremely
impulsive, and that made thepositive side of Kirk's job
mainly to, like, keep theimpulsive side under control.
So it could be managed in such away to be useful.
(09:57):
Right, right.
Anthony (09:58):
And Kirk's split, if you will, was kind of a literal
interpretation of the internalconflict that each of us has.
Right?
Because each of us deals withdifferent aspects of emotion.
And we have tendencies to maybebe impulsive or aggressive or Or
(10:21):
mean but we also have tendenciesto be good and kind and
compassionate.
And sometimes that's a realrustle.
Sometimes for example, peopledealing with mental health
issues, that can be a realchallenge, right?
Right.
To try to deal with those, thosepolar opposites pulling you from
one extreme to the other.
(10:42):
What did you think about thisidea that good and bad are
necessary aspects of humanity?
Do you agree with that?
Ethan (10:52):
Well, I mean, yeah, I can agree with that because I can't
really think of any human beingthat I know that would have,
like, zero good or zero bad inthem.
I mean, like, Even the worstperson you could possibly think
of probably had some form ofgood in them.
(11:12):
Cause that's just what humanityis.
Is that sort of balance betweengood and evil.
And sometimes it sways more oneway than the other.
But you can't be human if youdon't have the aspects of being
both good and bad.
Anthony (11:25):
Yeah.
Yeah, I thought about an examplewhere extreme goodness could
actually be a negative thing, solet's say you, you want to help
the homeless or help someunderserved population or
marginalized population, and youwant to do that by Giving away
(11:47):
all of your money and all yourbelongings and you spend so much
time,, being philanthropic thatyou end up losing everything
that you have because you can'tmake money to survive on your
own and you end up, you know,just spending it on what you
think is a good cause, butyou're not thinking enough of
(12:08):
yourself to where, Eventually,you can't function in society,
does that resonate at all?
Ethan (12:16):
I would think of it more like in airplanes with the sort
of like safety instructions theygive you, and if they tell you
to like put those masks on inthe plane they tell you put
yours on first before you put onanyone else.
Because if you don't put yourson, but you start putting it on
other people, You're more likelyto pass out, and then you can't
(12:39):
help people.
Yeah,
Anthony (12:40):
yeah, that's a really good analogy there.
Another thing that I thoughtabout was it seemed like this
this idea of our differentnatures or duality was really
part of a larger theme of StarTrek.
And, and that's this idea thatthe Differences that we have are
(13:07):
valuable, right?
So on a crew of a starship, youhave a diverse crew with
different abilities and skillsand backgrounds and cultural
experiences, and then across thegalaxy, you have interspecies
relationships that strengthenthe galaxy, right?
And there is a great strength inthis kind of diversity of skill
(13:32):
sets and ideas and cultures andso forth.
Ethan (13:36):
Yeah, I can see the perspective on that.
One thing that intrigued meabout the episode a lot was just
the use of the dog, cause youknow, I like dogs.
I thought the costume design onit was really funny.
Because you could visibly seethat it had the face of a dog
and it acted like a dog and itsounded like a dog.
(13:57):
But then it had this reallyweird like tail and like a
lion's mane.
It was, it was really funny.
Anthony (14:02):
Yeah, that was kind of cute.
I liked that they used like areal dog for that part.
It was sad that he died though.
Another
Ethan (14:11):
thing that I thought was really funny is When they had
the evil dog and they had totranquilize it to bring it to
the transporter I could, I couldvisibly see that it was like a
little stuffed animal Just basedon how it was grabbed and like
how much it like squished inYeah, and then you notice in the
scene the actual dog Starts likesniffing it and like because
(14:35):
they placed it next to eachother So he's kind of like
sniffing it and he's like, whatis this?
So it was just a really funnylittle thing I noticed.
For
Anthony (14:44):
sure.
The transporter malfunctioningas a plot device.
I wondered if that was kind of ametaphor for, For us, like, when
we malfunction you know, withour own emotions or dual natures
if one part of us is toodominant versus the other, like
(15:06):
we were just talking about aminute ago, did that strike you
at all as maybe symbolic of ourown disfunction of humanity?
Ethan (15:16):
Yeah, I, I think that makes a lot of sense because
there's just things in your lifethat go wrong and then you, you
have this mental stimulus, likethings tend to shut down
sometimes and you lose somerational thought, your emotions
take over and sometimes you havemore emotions take over than.
(15:38):
Others would, like, if you'refrustrated about something, your
anger is gonna take over.
And, unless you know how toproperly cope with that, your
anger is gonna have some kind ofoutbreak, depending on how bad
the cause was.
Yeah.
Anthony (15:57):
What role does our intellect play in all of this?
Ethan (16:02):
When it comes to the intellect, I would say there's,
there's times in like, mentalcrisis, and your emotions are
just like, completely takenover.
If you're able to take a stepback, a deep breath.
And, like, start trying to thinkrationally about things.
(16:23):
That's what kind of tames the,the emotions.
Yeah.
And brings you back to a, astate of normalcy in a way.
Right.
Anthony (16:33):
And Spock in the episode kind of touches on that
idea, right?
Because he says, he has thisown, Dual nature, being half
human and half Vulcan, and thosetwo halves are, are battling
with each other.
But he says he can control itthrough his intellect.
And so his use of logic is whatallows him to, kind of, keep the
(16:55):
extreme human emotions at baybut also continue to be
compassionate and, andthoughtful, and, a good person.
Ethan (17:04):
Yeah.
And that was also present inCaptain Kirk because the good
Kirk was saying, like, What do Ihave?
And Spock kind of tells him,like, The good Kirk, he has his
logic and reasoning, While thebad Kirk has the ability to
command, the decision makingskills, But it's also hyperly
(17:29):
aggressive, and angry and thingslike that.
Anthony (17:32):
Yeah, yeah.
And I thought it was, I thoughtit was a bit ironic that the
good Kirk was the one who doesmake the decision to go forward
with this experiment with thetransporter at the end, right?
He's, he's indecisive the wholeepisode pretty much, but he
realizes that He needs the otherKirk, and, and the other Kirk
(17:57):
realizes that they need eachother.
And it's the good Kirk that, youknow, that makes it makes it
happen to where they go back tothe transporter and are
eventually merged back into one.
So, he didn't totally lose hisability to make decisions, but
(18:17):
it was very, very difficult forhim to do
Ethan (18:21):
so.
I think the choice was basedmore on, like, an emotional
response, like a response ofcompassion more than anything
else because he made the choiceafter hearing that transmission
from Sulu that they couldn'thold on much longer and they
(18:42):
needed to be transported back tothe ship as soon as possible.
And I think that sort oftriggered the compassionate side
of Goodkirk, because that wasanother one of the qualities he
had, even with the instantbefore the dog died, and they
were trying to tranquil tranquiltranquil tranquilize tranquilize
(19:04):
it.
I still can't say it.
Trying to sedate the dog.
There you go.
They said he he told them not tohurt him, cause I mean, they
even explained it earlier thathe was extremely compassionate,
and so it was that compassionthat drove him to make that
choice.
Yeah,
Anthony (19:22):
that's a really astute observation.
I think that's spot on.
Once he allowed his compassionto kind of take the lead, if you
will, he was able to make thenecessary decision.
To see if the transporter wouldFunction so that they could save
the away team
Ethan (19:42):
Yeah, so, Kirk's compassion is definitely a
really good feature about himbeing a it's what makes him a
great captain, right?
And so, I don't know, justthinking about that kind of
reminded me of this, of a line,I don't remember in which like
Star Trek content it was said,or like what show or movie it
(20:05):
was from, but there was thisline I heard in in a piece of
Star Trek content that was like,Vulcans usually don't make good
captains because of their lackof emotion.
And I, I think like, that's oneof the reasons we never really
see Spock become captain in StarTrek unless you take the J.
(20:28):
J.
Abrams movies where he was for abit.
Right.
It's like, because he doesn'tnecessarily feel the compassion
necessary that captains have,but it's also I feel it's good
to have, like, a Vulcan high inyour chain of command because
they will provide the logicalresponse in a time of, like,
(20:50):
emotional turmoil and
Anthony (20:52):
Yeah.
Yeah, I can see that.
And what we really learn aboutCaptain Kirk in this episode is
that he's sort of the ultimateleader, right?
Like the, the, or the idealleader, like he has the type of
characteristics that you wouldwant to have if you were you
know, in charge of a militaryunit or leading a big company or
(21:17):
you know, whatever kind ofleadership in a church or
community organization, thosecharacteristics of compassion
but also decisiveness andrationality.
And a tamed sense of aggression,you know, aggression maybe is
too strong of a word, but asense of you know, wanting to
(21:37):
move forward and wanting to getthings done.
Like, that's, that's the kind ofleader that we love, right?
We love to work for, we love tobe around he, he's sort of the
ideal of leadership.
Ethan (21:51):
Yeah, I think they've, like, even called him in Star
Trek something along the linesof Starfleet's Golden Boy or
something.
Anthony (21:58):
Yeah.
So, yeah what else did we learnabout Kirk's character through
this whole ordeal in theepisode?
Ethan (22:07):
I, I think one thing we learned is when it comes down to
the wire, I mean, Kirk canreally, He can make the hard
choice.
I mean, we kind of just talkedabout this earlier with his
being able to make the choicewith his compassion, but It kind
of just proves Even when hismind isn't sound or it isn't
(22:27):
there completely, part of him'smissing He can still make the
important choice.
He also refused to give up hiscaptaincy, which I thought was
really interesting He wanted tostay in command even though he
was losing his ability tocommand.
Anthony (22:41):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting too because I
actually thought that he wasgoing to relinquish command of
the ship and have Spock takeover because he was struggling
so much with making decisionsand figuring out the next step
to deal with this problem of thebad Kirk.
So I was actually a littlesurprised by that.
And I think it just drives homethat point that Captain Kirk is
(23:03):
the real deal when it comes toleadership and being in charge,
like he, he's the one that youwant to be your captain to get
you through the hard times.
And, and he understands thatabout himself.
Right.
And he understands even When hewas in this vulnerable state,
and feeling indecisive, and allthat, he understood the weight
(23:23):
of that responsibility.
We've talked about that in otherepisodes, I think, the weight of
taking care of his crew, andmaking sure that everybody's
safe, and that they're beingsuccessful in their missions,
and
Ethan (23:34):
all that.
Yeah.
Anthony (23:36):
So, one other aspect that I thought It was
interesting to explore was therewas the scene in the episode
that we mentioned where evilKirk goes into Yeoman Rand's
quarters and At first she's likekind of surprised to see him.
She doesn't realize that it'sbad Kirk.
She thinks it's the real Kirkright and then he gets really
(23:59):
aggressive with her and he hebasically starts to try to rape
her and she's able to get out ofit.
She's, I think she scratched hisface and he, you know, reacted
to that and she jumped up andwas able to get out of the
situation.
Thank goodness.
And then later when she'stelling McCoy and Spock and the
(24:23):
Goodkirk what happened, thinkingthat the Goodkirk was the the
one that tried to assault her.
She was met with a little bit ofskepticism, right?
And I wonder if that samestoryline was shot today in
2024.
How would that be different withour, kind of, modern
(24:45):
sensibilities, our, our moreprogressive understanding of
the, the issues that women facein you know, in the workplace,
and in other, other parts oflife the pervasiveness of sexual
assault in particular, how, how,if, if at all, would that be
different if it was shot today?
Ethan (25:07):
Yeah, one thing I found interesting about the whole
interaction, like, afterwardswith the aftermath is she went
to the superiors, but they alsohad Kirk in the room when they
weren't aware that evil Kirkexisted yet.
So that kind of just struck meas a little bit odd in that
(25:29):
scene.
Anthony (25:30):
that she went to her superiors?
Ethan (25:32):
No, no, not that she went to her superiors.
The fact that Kirk was in theroom listening in
Anthony (25:37):
on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a good point because he'sthe accused, right?
And so how could she fairly beable to report what happened if
he's there, right?
He's still the captain of theship.
He's got this authority on theship over her and she thinks it
was the good Kirk that tried todo that to her and, and he's
(26:01):
there when she's discussing it.
That's a, that's a good point.
So yeah, maybe that would havebeen shot differently.
I don't know.
I, I, I think for the time thiswas 1966, so I think for the
time it was probably a fairlythoughtful way of exploring the
issue of sexual assault and, andsome of the challenges that
(26:22):
women faced.
I, I think it might have beendone with a little more
sensibility if it was shottoday, but overall, I thought
they, they handled it fairlywell.
Ethan (26:33):
Yeah, I could agree with that.
But I wasn't really You weren'talive in that time either, but
you were closer than I was.
Yeah, I'm not that old.
Whatever you say, old man.
Yeah, so you probably have alittle bit more of like a kind
of frame of reference to thattime period than I do.
(26:55):
So I don't really Yeah, knowwhat how that kind of stuff
happened back then in comparisonto how it happens today, you
know, right, right Yeah,
Anthony (27:04):
that's that's a good point.
That's what makes this podcastinteresting, right?
We have different perspectivesbecause we come from different
generations
Ethan (27:11):
generational differences from A modern youth to an old
man.
Anthony (27:16):
That's right.
We're diverse in our in our lifeexperience so Overall, I really
enjoyed the episode.
I gave it an A minus and theonly reason I gave it an A minus
is because some of the actingwas a little cheesy.
Kirk.
(27:36):
In particular, I, I, I, WilliamShatner, I actually think is a
really good actor, and he'sgotten kind of some slack over
the years for maybe not being agreat actor, but I, I actually
think he's a very talentedactor, but in, in this episode,
he did a great, good job, but Ithought at times when he was
playing the evil Kirk, he wasjust a little over the top, it
(27:57):
was more of a caricature than ayou know, a real, yeah, Person
and so that's why I knocked itdown for you know to an a minus,
but I still really liked theepisode I thought the themes
were interesting and certainlycertainly a one worth Watching
and revisiting from time totime.
Yeah,
Ethan (28:14):
and one thing I noticed odd about evil Kirk It I don't
know if you notice this it kindof looked like he was wearing
like Eyeliner.
Yeah.
Anthony (28:22):
Yeah, you could see his makeup
Ethan (28:23):
for sure.
I think that the goal was tomake their faces look visibly
different Yeah, cuz like GoodKirk kind of had this just like,
dazed, confused face, while EvilKirk had a very brooding face, I
guess you could say.
Anthony (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, it was, the makeup job wasn't great.
But, you know, it was the 1960s,so they were limited on what
they could do.
So, yeah,
Ethan (28:52):
so they put all of Starfleet in spandex.
Right.
Anthony (28:57):
So what, what letter grade did you give
Ethan (28:59):
it?
I, yeah, I'd probably give itlike the B plus A minus range.
Like it was a good episode.
I liked the concept, but I hadsort of the.
same issues you did with some ofthe acting like I feel like they
they did they played bad Kirk tolike a little Bit too much of
the extreme like he is supposedto be the extreme negative side,
(29:21):
but not like that far Yeah,
Anthony (29:24):
yeah Yeah, I think that's fair.
I think that's a fair assessmentof the episode, but but still,
good stuff Star Trek, we love iteven when it's bad, we love it,
right?
There's something about StarTrek that's, that's so great.
So.
Yeah, so I think that's allwe've got for today's episode.
So we'll look forward to beingback again next week.
(29:46):
In the meantime, we hope youguys have a great week.
We appreciate everybody that'slistening to the show.
Our downloads continue to growand that's exciting to see.
We've noticed that we've hadsome listeners Even from outside
the United States.
So thank you, thank you, thankyou for listening.
And we hope you keep coming backand we'll keep doing our best to
create good content.
(30:07):
Please follow us on social mediain the show notes.
It's got our social mediahandles and you can also email
us if you have any comments orideas of things you'd like us to
discuss on the show.
We'd be more than happy to hearyour thoughts on that.
Ethan (30:22):
Yeah, so we will see you all in the next episode.
Have a good rest of your day.
Take care.
Hey everybody.
(00:00):
Before we begin this week'sepisode, we wanted to give you a
heads up that towards the end ofthe show, we have a brief
segment where we discuss a scenefrom the star Trek original
series episode that we'll betalking about today that
involves sexual assault.
We wanted to be sensitive to ourlisteners about that subject
matter.
We don't get into any graphicdetail or anything like that.
(00:21):
And it's a fairly brief segment,but we did want to give you a
heads up.
Thanks and enjoy the show.
Ethan (00:45):
Welcome, everybody, to another episode of Father and
Son's Guide to the Galaxy.
I'm your host, Ethan.
And I'm your co host, Anthony.
And today, we will be going overepisode 5 of Star Trek, the
original series, which istitled, The Enemy Within.
Yeah.
Anthony (01:01):
Great episode, a psychological deep dive into
human nature.
So at the beginning of theepisode, some of the crew are
down on a planet doing ageological exploration and one
of the crew members is injuredand so Kirk tells him to beam
back up to the Enterprise and goget checked out at sickbay.
(01:23):
And so Mr.
Scott in the transporter roombeams this crewman up.
And there seems to be some issuewith the transporter, but it
ends up working and the guymaterializes on board the
Enterprise.
But Mr.
Scott notices that there's likesome dust on the guy's uniform
(01:45):
of some ore samples.
And he Posits that maybe that'sthe reason that the transporter
was acting a little funky.
And after that, Kirk goes tobeam up and when he materializes
in the transporter room, he'skind of like disoriented.
He seems to have a headache.
(02:06):
And so Scotty sees that and heHe said, let's go see Dr.
McCoy.
So Scotty leaves with him totake him to sick bay.
And so nobody's in thetransporter room.
And then shortly after thatAnother Captain Kirk
materializes in the transporterroom.
But this Captain Kirk is clearlyvery evil.
(02:28):
We'll call him the bad CaptainKirk or the evil Captain Kirk.
And so he leaves and, and goesoff to start.
doing bad stuff on the shipwhich we'll get to in a minute.
And then after that, an aliendog that was found on the planet
it looks like a dog.
It was a real dog, but they madeit kind of look like an alien.
(02:50):
And so it was native to theplanet that they were doing this
geological exploration on.
They wanted to beam the dog upto the Enterprise.
And it ends up that two dogs getbeamed up to the Enterprise.
The dog splits.
And one of the dogs is verysweet and kind of docile, and
(03:11):
the other's clearly veryaggressive and vicious.
And so Scotty theorizes that thetransporter malfunction is what
caused the split of the dogs.
And so we now have two of thesame dog with opposite
personalities, so to speak.
And, and of course nobody knowsat this point that evil Kirk or
(03:33):
bad Kirk is on the ship.
And so, evil Kirk beginsbehaving badly is very
aggressive.
And he actually tries tosexually assault Yeoman Rand.
She ends up getting free,scratching his face.
And then eventually, Goodkirkand Spock and McCoy figure out
what has happened.
(03:54):
That there's this other version,alternate version of Kirk on the
ship.
But.
In the meantime, as they'retrying to decide how to deal
with this problem, the goodKirk, is kind of indecisive and
weak, and he can't seem to makecommand decisions.
Yeah,
Ethan (04:09):
so then, in the meantime, the away team that was on the
planet, they end up nottransporting them back to
prevent future incidents withthe transport that would, like,
split them again, and it wouldbe a bunch of chaos and trouble
up for the Enterprise.
So they tell them to stay downthere, but the problem is, is
(04:30):
that this planet, when it getsdark, will reach about 120
degrees below zero.
And so now, in addition tofinding the bad Kirk and, like,
figuring out what's going onwith good Kirk, they are also on
a race against time to fix thetransporter to get the away team
back on the Enterprise.
(04:51):
So then while they're doing thatScotty ends up believing he's
fixed the transporter and hasfound out a way to merge the the
dog back together as well asgood and evil Kirk.
And so then Scotty decides to goand test it on the dogs first.
But then, the dogs end up dying,and then Spock theorizes that
(05:16):
the dogs died of shock becausethey didn't have a logical
explanation for what washappening.
And Dr.
McCoy was saying we should do anautopsy first to see if there
was a malfunction in thetransporter that killed them.
Eventually, what, after somedebating in between Spock and
Dr.
(05:36):
McCoy, They tell Captain Kirkit's his choice whether you want
to go through with this or Waita little longer to see if it was
a transporter cause of death andnot Just shock from the dog not
knowing what was going on
Anthony (05:52):
Right, which would possibly risk the death of the
away team if he waited too
Ethan (05:56):
long.
Yeah, so the indecisive Kirk,the good Kirk is left with a
really big and important choiceSo, that was a very interesting
scene.
Especially because he wasagreeing with both sides at the
same time.
While they were trying toconvince him which one to do.
(06:17):
So then Goodkirk ends up makingthe choice that he wants to go
through with the transporterthing.
So, he goes and finds Badkirk,who They had found previously
and had managed to restrain himto sickbay with like the
physical restraints because theydidn't know if they would be
(06:38):
able to put him on like a drugor something to keep him under.
So then he's talking withBadkirk for a bit and Badkirk
eventually agrees.
But then he goes and attacksGoodkirk.
And then tries to impersonateGoodkirk, which then leads to
(06:59):
him taking over the bridge.
And then there's this wholeconflict in between Goodkirk and
Evilkirk on the bridge of who'sthe real one.
A classic clone thing thathappens.
Nobody knows which one's theoriginal.
So then, finally, Good Kirkmanages to convince Bad Kirk
that they aren't whole withouteach other because you can't be
(07:24):
human without the bad thingsabout yourself.
So, Bad Kirk reluctantly agreesafter some convincing that he
will still live through theregular Kirk.
When they are merged backtogether.
So eventually they get themtogether and they merge them
(07:44):
through the transporter.
And Spock's theory that the dogdied through shock was correct.
And Kirk is back to normal.
And they manage to beam up theOA team.
And Dr.
McCoy says a line about how theyhave severe exposure and
hypothermia, but they'll live.
Yeah.
Anthony (08:02):
Yeah.
So pretty interesting episode, Ithought.
Obviously, it seems to have beeninspired by the classic novel,
Dr.
Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson.
There's a lot of this Jekyll andHyde thing going on throughout
the episode.
And it, it explores this idea ofduality in human nature.
(08:27):
What was your take on that themeand how they addressed it?
Ethan (08:30):
I just thought it was really interesting how they
addressed the theme of, like,you can't be all good to be,
like, actually able to executethings.
Like, Kirk's issue when it wasjust the good Kirk, he lost his
ability to command a crewproperly.
He was indecisive, he couldn'tmake the choices, but his so
(08:54):
called evil counterpart wasextremely decisive and could
make quick choices.
And it just showed that heneeded his quote unquote evil
side to be whole and to be ableto function properly in society.
Anthony (09:12):
Yeah, I thought that was a really interesting take on
the idea of duality.
That you need that evil aspectin order to make decisions and,
like you said, be functional insociety, but it has to be
balanced with The goodtendencies that you have as a
(09:35):
human.
Ethan (09:36):
Yeah, and that was One thing I thought they explained
pretty well was the negativeside of Kirk was extremely
impulsive, and that made thepositive side of Kirk's job
mainly to, like, keep theimpulsive side under control.
So it could be managed in such away to be useful.
(09:57):
Right, right.
Anthony (09:58):
And Kirk's split, if you will, was kind of a literal
interpretation of the internalconflict that each of us has.
Right?
Because each of us deals withdifferent aspects of emotion.
And we have tendencies to maybebe impulsive or aggressive or Or
(10:21):
mean but we also have tendenciesto be good and kind and
compassionate.
And sometimes that's a realrustle.
Sometimes for example, peopledealing with mental health
issues, that can be a realchallenge, right?
Right.
To try to deal with those, thosepolar opposites pulling you from
one extreme to the other.
(10:42):
What did you think about thisidea that good and bad are
necessary aspects of humanity?
Do you agree with that?
Ethan (10:52):
Well, I mean, yeah, I can agree with that because I can't
really think of any human beingthat I know that would have,
like, zero good or zero bad inthem.
I mean, like, Even the worstperson you could possibly think
of probably had some form ofgood in them.
(11:12):
Cause that's just what humanityis.
Is that sort of balance betweengood and evil.
And sometimes it sways more oneway than the other.
But you can't be human if youdon't have the aspects of being
both good and bad.
Anthony (11:25):
Yeah.
Yeah, I thought about an examplewhere extreme goodness could
actually be a negative thing, solet's say you, you want to help
the homeless or help someunderserved population or
marginalized population, and youwant to do that by Giving away
(11:47):
all of your money and all yourbelongings and you spend so much
time,, being philanthropic thatyou end up losing everything
that you have because you can'tmake money to survive on your
own and you end up, you know,just spending it on what you
think is a good cause, butyou're not thinking enough of
(12:08):
yourself to where, Eventually,you can't function in society,
does that resonate at all?
Ethan (12:16):
I would think of it more like in airplanes with the sort
of like safety instructions theygive you, and if they tell you
to like put those masks on inthe plane they tell you put
yours on first before you put onanyone else.
Because if you don't put yourson, but you start putting it on
other people, You're more likelyto pass out, and then you can't
(12:39):
help people.
Yeah,
Anthony (12:40):
yeah, that's a really good analogy there.
Another thing that I thoughtabout was it seemed like this
this idea of our differentnatures or duality was really
part of a larger theme of StarTrek.
And, and that's this idea thatthe Differences that we have are
(13:07):
valuable, right?
So on a crew of a starship, youhave a diverse crew with
different abilities and skillsand backgrounds and cultural
experiences, and then across thegalaxy, you have interspecies
relationships that strengthenthe galaxy, right?
And there is a great strength inthis kind of diversity of skill
(13:32):
sets and ideas and cultures andso forth.
Ethan (13:36):
Yeah, I can see the perspective on that.
One thing that intrigued meabout the episode a lot was just
the use of the dog, cause youknow, I like dogs.
I thought the costume design onit was really funny.
Because you could visibly seethat it had the face of a dog
and it acted like a dog and itsounded like a dog.
(13:57):
But then it had this reallyweird like tail and like a
lion's mane.
It was, it was really funny.
Anthony (14:02):
Yeah, that was kind of cute.
I liked that they used like areal dog for that part.
It was sad that he died though.
Another
Ethan (14:11):
thing that I thought was really funny is When they had
the evil dog and they had totranquilize it to bring it to
the transporter I could, I couldvisibly see that it was like a
little stuffed animal Just basedon how it was grabbed and like
how much it like squished inYeah, and then you notice in the
scene the actual dog Starts likesniffing it and like because
(14:35):
they placed it next to eachother So he's kind of like
sniffing it and he's like, whatis this?
So it was just a really funnylittle thing I noticed.
For
Anthony (14:44):
sure.
The transporter malfunctioningas a plot device.
I wondered if that was kind of ametaphor for, For us, like, when
we malfunction you know, withour own emotions or dual natures
if one part of us is toodominant versus the other, like
(15:06):
we were just talking about aminute ago, did that strike you
at all as maybe symbolic of ourown disfunction of humanity?
Ethan (15:16):
Yeah, I, I think that makes a lot of sense because
there's just things in your lifethat go wrong and then you, you
have this mental stimulus, likethings tend to shut down
sometimes and you lose somerational thought, your emotions
take over and sometimes you havemore emotions take over than.
(15:38):
Others would, like, if you'refrustrated about something, your
anger is gonna take over.
And, unless you know how toproperly cope with that, your
anger is gonna have some kind ofoutbreak, depending on how bad
the cause was.
Yeah.
Anthony (15:57):
What role does our intellect play in all of this?
Ethan (16:02):
When it comes to the intellect, I would say there's,
there's times in like, mentalcrisis, and your emotions are
just like, completely takenover.
If you're able to take a stepback, a deep breath.
And, like, start trying to thinkrationally about things.
(16:23):
That's what kind of tames the,the emotions.
Yeah.
And brings you back to a, astate of normalcy in a way.
Right.
Anthony (16:33):
And Spock in the episode kind of touches on that
idea, right?
Because he says, he has thisown, Dual nature, being half
human and half Vulcan, and thosetwo halves are, are battling
with each other.
But he says he can control itthrough his intellect.
And so his use of logic is whatallows him to, kind of, keep the
(16:55):
extreme human emotions at baybut also continue to be
compassionate and, andthoughtful, and, a good person.
Ethan (17:04):
Yeah.
And that was also present inCaptain Kirk because the good
Kirk was saying, like, What do Ihave?
And Spock kind of tells him,like, The good Kirk, he has his
logic and reasoning, While thebad Kirk has the ability to
command, the decision makingskills, But it's also hyperly
(17:29):
aggressive, and angry and thingslike that.
Anthony (17:32):
Yeah, yeah.
And I thought it was, I thoughtit was a bit ironic that the
good Kirk was the one who doesmake the decision to go forward
with this experiment with thetransporter at the end, right?
He's, he's indecisive the wholeepisode pretty much, but he
realizes that He needs the otherKirk, and, and the other Kirk
(17:57):
realizes that they need eachother.
And it's the good Kirk that, youknow, that makes it makes it
happen to where they go back tothe transporter and are
eventually merged back into one.
So, he didn't totally lose hisability to make decisions, but
(18:17):
it was very, very difficult forhim to do
Ethan (18:21):
so.
I think the choice was basedmore on, like, an emotional
response, like a response ofcompassion more than anything
else because he made the choiceafter hearing that transmission
from Sulu that they couldn'thold on much longer and they
(18:42):
needed to be transported back tothe ship as soon as possible.
And I think that sort oftriggered the compassionate side
of Goodkirk, because that wasanother one of the qualities he
had, even with the instantbefore the dog died, and they
were trying to tranquil tranquiltranquil tranquilize tranquilize
(19:04):
it.
I still can't say it.
Trying to sedate the dog.
There you go.
They said he he told them not tohurt him, cause I mean, they
even explained it earlier thathe was extremely compassionate,
and so it was that compassionthat drove him to make that
choice.
Yeah,
Anthony (19:22):
that's a really astute observation.
I think that's spot on.
Once he allowed his compassionto kind of take the lead, if you
will, he was able to make thenecessary decision.
To see if the transporter wouldFunction so that they could save
the away team
Ethan (19:42):
Yeah, so, Kirk's compassion is definitely a
really good feature about himbeing a it's what makes him a
great captain, right?
And so, I don't know, justthinking about that kind of
reminded me of this, of a line,I don't remember in which like
Star Trek content it was said,or like what show or movie it
(20:05):
was from, but there was thisline I heard in in a piece of
Star Trek content that was like,Vulcans usually don't make good
captains because of their lackof emotion.
And I, I think like, that's oneof the reasons we never really
see Spock become captain in StarTrek unless you take the J.
(20:28):
J.
Abrams movies where he was for abit.
Right.
It's like, because he doesn'tnecessarily feel the compassion
necessary that captains have,but it's also I feel it's good
to have, like, a Vulcan high inyour chain of command because
they will provide the logicalresponse in a time of, like,
(20:50):
emotional turmoil and
Anthony (20:52):
Yeah.
Yeah, I can see that.
And what we really learn aboutCaptain Kirk in this episode is
that he's sort of the ultimateleader, right?
Like the, the, or the idealleader, like he has the type of
characteristics that you wouldwant to have if you were you
know, in charge of a militaryunit or leading a big company or
(21:17):
you know, whatever kind ofleadership in a church or
community organization, thosecharacteristics of compassion
but also decisiveness andrationality.
And a tamed sense of aggression,you know, aggression maybe is
too strong of a word, but asense of you know, wanting to
(21:37):
move forward and wanting to getthings done.
Like, that's, that's the kind ofleader that we love, right?
We love to work for, we love tobe around he, he's sort of the
ideal of leadership.
Ethan (21:51):
Yeah, I think they've, like, even called him in Star
Trek something along the linesof Starfleet's Golden Boy or
something.
Anthony (21:58):
Yeah.
So, yeah what else did we learnabout Kirk's character through
this whole ordeal in theepisode?
Ethan (22:07):
I, I think one thing we learned is when it comes down to
the wire, I mean, Kirk canreally, He can make the hard
choice.
I mean, we kind of just talkedabout this earlier with his
being able to make the choicewith his compassion, but It kind
of just proves Even when hismind isn't sound or it isn't
(22:27):
there completely, part of him'smissing He can still make the
important choice.
He also refused to give up hiscaptaincy, which I thought was
really interesting He wanted tostay in command even though he
was losing his ability tocommand.
Anthony (22:41):
Yeah, I thought that was interesting too because I
actually thought that he wasgoing to relinquish command of
the ship and have Spock takeover because he was struggling
so much with making decisionsand figuring out the next step
to deal with this problem of thebad Kirk.
So I was actually a littlesurprised by that.
And I think it just drives homethat point that Captain Kirk is
(23:03):
the real deal when it comes toleadership and being in charge,
like he, he's the one that youwant to be your captain to get
you through the hard times.
And, and he understands thatabout himself.
Right.
And he understands even When hewas in this vulnerable state,
and feeling indecisive, and allthat, he understood the weight
(23:23):
of that responsibility.
We've talked about that in otherepisodes, I think, the weight of
taking care of his crew, andmaking sure that everybody's
safe, and that they're beingsuccessful in their missions,
and
Ethan (23:34):
all that.
Yeah.
Anthony (23:36):
So, one other aspect that I thought It was
interesting to explore was therewas the scene in the episode
that we mentioned where evilKirk goes into Yeoman Rand's
quarters and At first she's likekind of surprised to see him.
She doesn't realize that it'sbad Kirk.
She thinks it's the real Kirkright and then he gets really
(23:59):
aggressive with her and he hebasically starts to try to rape
her and she's able to get out ofit.
She's, I think she scratched hisface and he, you know, reacted
to that and she jumped up andwas able to get out of the
situation.
Thank goodness.
And then later when she'stelling McCoy and Spock and the
(24:23):
Goodkirk what happened, thinkingthat the Goodkirk was the the
one that tried to assault her.
She was met with a little bit ofskepticism, right?
And I wonder if that samestoryline was shot today in
2024.
How would that be different withour, kind of, modern
(24:45):
sensibilities, our, our moreprogressive understanding of
the, the issues that women facein you know, in the workplace,
and in other, other parts oflife the pervasiveness of sexual
assault in particular, how, how,if, if at all, would that be
different if it was shot today?
Ethan (25:07):
Yeah, one thing I found interesting about the whole
interaction, like, afterwardswith the aftermath is she went
to the superiors, but they alsohad Kirk in the room when they
weren't aware that evil Kirkexisted yet.
So that kind of just struck meas a little bit odd in that
(25:29):
scene.
Anthony (25:30):
that she went to her superiors?
Ethan (25:32):
No, no, not that she went to her superiors.
The fact that Kirk was in theroom listening in
Anthony (25:37):
on it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a good point because he'sthe accused, right?
And so how could she fairly beable to report what happened if
he's there, right?
He's still the captain of theship.
He's got this authority on theship over her and she thinks it
was the good Kirk that tried todo that to her and, and he's
(26:01):
there when she's discussing it.
That's a, that's a good point.
So yeah, maybe that would havebeen shot differently.
I don't know.
I, I, I think for the time thiswas 1966, so I think for the
time it was probably a fairlythoughtful way of exploring the
issue of sexual assault and, andsome of the challenges that
(26:22):
women faced.
I, I think it might have beendone with a little more
sensibility if it was shottoday, but overall, I thought
they, they handled it fairlywell.
Ethan (26:33):
Yeah, I could agree with that.
But I wasn't really You weren'talive in that time either, but
you were closer than I was.
Yeah, I'm not that old.
Whatever you say, old man.
Yeah, so you probably have alittle bit more of like a kind
of frame of reference to thattime period than I do.
(26:55):
So I don't really Yeah, knowwhat how that kind of stuff
happened back then in comparisonto how it happens today, you
know, right, right Yeah,
Anthony (27:04):
that's that's a good point.
That's what makes this podcastinteresting, right?
We have different perspectivesbecause we come from different
generations
Ethan (27:11):
generational differences from A modern youth to an old
man.
Anthony (27:16):
That's right.
We're diverse in our in our lifeexperience so Overall, I really
enjoyed the episode.
I gave it an A minus and theonly reason I gave it an A minus
is because some of the actingwas a little cheesy.
Kirk.
(27:36):
In particular, I, I, I, WilliamShatner, I actually think is a
really good actor, and he'sgotten kind of some slack over
the years for maybe not being agreat actor, but I, I actually
think he's a very talentedactor, but in, in this episode,
he did a great, good job, but Ithought at times when he was
playing the evil Kirk, he wasjust a little over the top, it
(27:57):
was more of a caricature than ayou know, a real, yeah, Person
and so that's why I knocked itdown for you know to an a minus,
but I still really liked theepisode I thought the themes
were interesting and certainlycertainly a one worth Watching
and revisiting from time totime.
Yeah,
Ethan (28:14):
and one thing I noticed odd about evil Kirk It I don't
know if you notice this it kindof looked like he was wearing
like Eyeliner.
Yeah.
Anthony (28:22):
Yeah, you could see his makeup
Ethan (28:23):
for sure.
I think that the goal was tomake their faces look visibly
different Yeah, cuz like GoodKirk kind of had this just like,
dazed, confused face, while EvilKirk had a very brooding face, I
guess you could say.
Anthony (28:41):
Yeah, yeah, it was, the makeup job wasn't great.
But, you know, it was the 1960s,so they were limited on what
they could do.
So, yeah,
Ethan (28:52):
so they put all of Starfleet in spandex.
Right.
Anthony (28:57):
So what, what letter grade did you give
Ethan (28:59):
it?
I, yeah, I'd probably give itlike the B plus A minus range.
Like it was a good episode.
I liked the concept, but I hadsort of the.
same issues you did with some ofthe acting like I feel like they
they did they played bad Kirk tolike a little Bit too much of
the extreme like he is supposedto be the extreme negative side,
(29:21):
but not like that far Yeah,
Anthony (29:24):
yeah Yeah, I think that's fair.
I think that's a fair assessmentof the episode, but but still,
good stuff Star Trek, we love iteven when it's bad, we love it,
right?
There's something about StarTrek that's, that's so great.
So.
Yeah, so I think that's allwe've got for today's episode.
So we'll look forward to beingback again next week.
(29:46):
In the meantime, we hope youguys have a great week.
We appreciate everybody that'slistening to the show.
Our downloads continue to growand that's exciting to see.
We've noticed that we've hadsome listeners Even from outside
the United States.
So thank you, thank you, thankyou for listening.
And we hope you keep coming backand we'll keep doing our best to
create good content.
(30:07):
Please follow us on social mediain the show notes.
It's got our social mediahandles and you can also email
us if you have any comments orideas of things you'd like us to
discuss on the show.
We'd be more than happy to hearyour thoughts on that.
Ethan (30:22):
Yeah, so we will see you all in the next episode.
Have a good rest of your day.
Take care.
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