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Star Trek Re-Watch: “Turnabout Intruder”

Turnabout Intruder
Teleplay by Arthur Singer
Story by Gene Roddenberry
Directed by Herb Wallerstein

Season 3, Episode 24
Production episode: 3×24
Original air date:  June 3, 1969
Star date: 5928.5

 

Mission summary

The Enterprise has arrived at Camus II where a team of researchers exploring a long-lost civilization have sent out a distress signal. When they beam down they find that only two scientists have survived the mysterious circumstances: Dr. Coleman, the surgeon, and Dr. Janice Lester, the expedition’s leader and an old flame of Kirk’s. Dr. Lester is bedridden from radiation poisoning and seems on the brink of death. Kirk goes to her, but she can barely speak. (He’s just that impressive.) He stays with her as Spock, McCoy, and Dr. Coleman detect weak lifesigns elsewhere on the station and exit in pursuit.

While Kirk and Dr. Lester arbor some residual tenderness towards one another, they have some resentment issues like you wouldn’t believe:

JANICE: I hoped I wouldn’t see you again.
KIRK: I don’t blame you.
JANICE: The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive.
KIRK: I never stopped you from going on with your space work.
JANICE: Your world of starship captains doesn’t admit women. It isn’t fair.
KIRK: No, it isn’t. And you punished and tortured me because of it.
JANICE: I loved you. We could’ve roamed among the stars.
KIRK: We’d have killed each other.
JANICE: It might have been better.

Kirk, in his wisdom, doesn’t respond to that particular remark. Instead he explores the room he’s in a little bit. Short attention span, that captain. Against the back wall of the sick room is a lighted structure, with some kind of alien markings all over it. With his back turned to Janice, Kirk inspects the strange wall. Seems… wall-y. Yep. Well, that was productive. Meanwhile, Janice pulls out a remote control and points it at Kirk. With a buzz from the remote he is pulled against the wall and immobilized. It’s a trap!1 Dr. Lester, smiling, gets out of bed easily–so much for radiation sickness–and walks toward him. On the side of the structure are two switches, and she flips one and then stands beside Kirk against the wall. Thanks to the wonders of crappy special effects, we see a shadow of Kirk lift out of his body and overlay onto hers, while a shadow of Lester lifts out of her body and onto the captain’s. They’ve switched bodies!

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4

Star Trek Re-Watch: “The Conscience of the King”

“The Conscience of the King”
Written by Barry Trivers
Directed by Gerd Oswald

Season 1, Episode 13
Production episode: 1×12
Original air date: December 8, 1966
Star date: 2817.6

Mission summary
This week on Masterpiece Theater… Shakespeare’s Macbeth! We get a play within a play with this episode as Kirk and a Dr. Thomas Leighton quietly watch Anton Karidian ask, “Will all great Neptune’s ocean wash this blood clean from my hands?” (Answer: Umm, no.) Dr. Leighton is convinced that the man is actually “Kodos the Executioner,” a former governor of the Earth colony Tarsus IV who ordered the execution of 4000 individuals nearly 20 years ago. Leighton, under the pretense of having invented a synthetic food that could end famine on a nearby colony, has invited Kirk to the performance to prove his theory.

Kirk, furious at being duped, assures Leighton that Kodos is dead—his charred body was discovered after the massacre. It was never positively identified, but he’s definitely totally 100% dead…isn’t he? Leighton pleads with Kirk, the two of them being only a handful of people who ever actually saw Kodos, to expose Karidian for who he really is. Kirk firmly tells him this is nonsense and returns to the ship.

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