Series: Star Trek (TOS)
Pilot episode title: “The Man Trap”
Original transmission date: September 8 1966
Total seasons (to date if current): 3
Span: 1966 - 1969
Writer(s): George Clayton Johnson
Director: Marc Daniels
Basic premise: Visiting an outpost planet, the
Enterprise crew meet what appears to be Dr. McCoy’s ex-girlfriend. But as will become usual, things are not as they seem.
Mood: Dark, depressive
Setting(s): Enterprise, Planet M-113
Themes: Loss, obsession, murder, hunger, survival, racial extinction, shapeshifting
Things I liked: The cute plant in Sulu’s quarters, sort of foreshadowing a Tribble; the most action for Janice Rand until her almost-rape scene in “The Enemy Within”; the more mature nature of the episode in general.
Things I didn’t like: The awkward flirting between Spock and Uhura (well, all Uhura really)
Timeline: 23th century
Stardate: 1513.1
Vessel: USS Enterprise
Registry: NCC-1701
Class: Constitution
Location: Alpha Quadrant
Mission(s): Standard health check and supply run
Dramatis Personae:
Main:
Captain James T. Kirk
Mr. Spock, Science Officer and S-I-C
Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Ship’s Chief Medical Officer
Hikaru Sulu, Helmsman
Supporting:
Dr. Robert Crater, archaeologist
Nancy, his wife
Yeoman Janice Rand
Ancillary:
Crewman Darnell
Crewman Greene
Crewman Sturgeon
Starring (Main Cast): William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy (RIP), DeForest Kelly (RIP), James Doohan (RIP), George Takei, Nichelle Nichols (RIP)
With: Alfred Ryder, Jeanne Bal, Michael Zaslow, Grace Lee Whitney, Bruce Watson, Francine Pyne, Vince Howard, John Arndt
Note: in the following category ratings, in general this refers to the series as a whole, if I know it. If I don’t, then it has to refer to the episode I get to watch.
Writing: 8/10
Acting: 7/10
CGI: 5/10
Soundtrack/effects: 5/10
Costumes: 8/10
Probability of watching more: n/a
Balance between animation and live-action: 3/10
Gender balance: 3/10
Synopsis
On the dead planet M-113, archaeologist Dr. Robert Crater and his wife are conducting research. Nancy was once Dr. McCoy’s lover, so this mission is a little hard for him ooer, but when he meets her all is not yadda yadda yadda. He sees her as the young woman he fell in love with twelve years ago and remarks that she hasn’t aged a day, and she hasn’t: not for him. But Captain Kirk sees her as she is, a grey-haired, much older woman. Crewman Darnell, the third in the party, sees her as a woman he knew, also young and pretty. When he goes outside she lures him away. Dr. Crater (they call him doctor and professor, so I’m just going to go with Doctor) seems unhappy to see them when he arrives, saying he wants to be left alone with his wife. Other than a supply of salt, he wants nothing from them. McCoy however is under orders to check on their health and will not be brushed off. There’s probably a little jealousy, too, that Crater got his girl, though his professional manner doesn’t allow that to show.
Dr. Crater seems concerned that Kirk and McCoy both see Nancy as quite different in age, but he brushes it off with the air of a man who does not want to broach a subject that may end up landing him with more questions to ask. Then Nancy screams, and they rush to find Darnell dead; Nancy says he ate a poisonous plant. Back on the ship however Spock and McCoy agree that, after an examination of Darnell, he was not poisoned. So why did Nancy say he was? And what is her weird obsession with salt? McCoy can’t even understand what killed the crewman. After a further examination, he finds that Darnell has no salt in his body, but he had no idea how he could have lost it.
They beam back down to the planet, but again Crater is unhelpful when they demand to know why he needs all the salt he has requested. Meanwhile, two more crewmen have been killed, and Nancy now seems to take the form of Greene and when they again beam up to the ship she goes with them. She wanders the ship but is unable to find any salt, or manage to take any victims (it has now become obvious she is some sort of shapeshifting alien, who needs salt to survive, and that she is responsible for the deaths of the crewmen down on the planet) until she comes across McCoy’s quarters. Meanwhile a dead crewman (yes, another one) is found in the corridors, and Nancy takes McCoy’s form while he sleeps under her power.
Kirk and Spock return to the planet, where Crater has gone over the edge, threatening them with a weapon. They find the body of Crewman Greene, so Kirk now knows that whatever beamed up with them was not him, and raises an alert on the Enterprise. They* get the jump on Crater, and while stunned he reveals that Nancy is not Nancy, but an alien shapeshifter. Taken to the ship, he recognises the creature in McCoy but says nothing, as together they try to plead the alien’s case, Crater pointing out that it is the last of its kind, that it is not dangerous (a claim that can be readily refuted as the bodycount mounts!) and that it needs salt, but also love. Kirk is not impressed with his comparing it to the buffalo on Earth, and Crater refuses to help.
As a result, the creature ends up killing him. It would have killed Spock too, but his blood is based on copper, and the salt content is not to its taste. It returns to McCoy and rouses him, turning back into Nancy. When Kirk and Spock come for it, he stands in their way. Kirk offers the creature salt, and while he and McCoy tussle the creature grabs Kirk and entrances him, preparing to kill him by extracting all the salt from his body. Spock enters and growls at McCoy to kill it, or his captain will die. Torn by indecision, he waits, as Spock wades in but has his arse kicked by the creature. He snaps “Could Nancy do that, Doctor?” and as the creature again fastens onto Kirk, McCoy sees it for what it is, and fires. The creature, wounded,* briefly reverts to Nancy but McCoy knows it now for what it is, and finishes it off.
Comments
Although of course it worked, I feel the producers took a chance here, a real one. This opinion is, I’m not surprised to find, shared by almost everyone involved with the show. As
Star Trek was to become known for its easy, friendly, almost family atmosphere between the crew, this episode, as a basic pilot, has none of that. It’s very dour, very serious, and everyone is intent on their job. There’s no ribbing between the three main characters - very much a feature of the show as it progressed, and possibly one of the main reasons for its success and longevity - there’s little in the way of friendship, though there is some sympathy for McCoy, though pretty much only from Kirk. Spock remains aloof, as above, and makes no comment. Even when the message comes back that one of the landing party has died, he merely acknowledges it, though he has no way of knowing this is neither the captain nor the doctor. Uhura berates him on his lack of feeling, and perhaps it was decided he was too cold?
It’s very much a product of the fifties and sixties science fiction movies of its day, with a kind of monster-of-the-week to be tracked down, and while there is a certain humanity towards the creature - only expressed, it must be said, by Crater, who has something to gain, and the creature itself while in the form of McCoy - they still kill it in the end. Look, for a comparison, at the Horta in “Devil in the Dark”. The difference in the way the crew treat this creature is staggering, and remember, both have been killing humans, but there is a better understanding, mostly due to Spock’s mind melding with the creature, so it’s a pity they didn’t use that here. But at this point the mind meld was perhaps not even thought of, as otherwise they could have got the information they wanted from Crater that way, instead of using the old CIA standard, truth drugs.
It would also be a feature of TOS that there would be, generally, few “sad” or “dark” endings, to the effect that a large percentage of the episodes would end up with Kirk and crew laughing at some joke, thereby leaving the viewer with the indelible impression of a group of friends, or even a family, jaunting around the galaxy and having fun. This definitely does not convey that kind of feeling. So all in all, a poor one to begin with. The cardinal rule of writing is hook them in the first sentence or few sentences, but once you’ve done that you have to retain that attention, and ideally give them a happy, or at least satisfactory ending. To see one of the crew have to kill a representation of the woman he had loved and probably be haunted about it ever afterwards, is not what you’d call a happy ending. So I think it was a bad choice to showcase the series, but as time and history shows, they overcame any initial doubts and got enough of the audience’s attention to make them come back the next week, and the week after that, and the week after that. Soon, the new series was a phenomenon, and a legend was well on its way to being born.