The Man Trap

Nancy Crater and Dr. McCoy at one time was very close... it's been years since they've seen each other. Naturally Bones was excited to find out he'll see Nancy again while on the planet M-113. Nancy has gotten married to Professor Robert Crater, a man that knows all about Nancy. Nancy is not quite her old self, trying to harm the Starship Crew for Salt.

Off to a great start with the first season, first episode of ST-TOS. It is taken very much seriously - nothing cutesy or funny about it. Like all Star Trek TOS - you'll either like the Captain and Crew or you simply won't.

Oddly, this episode looks and feels like a later episode... one that you know the characters better rather than the very first episode aired for TV audiences in 1966.

7/10

A shape shifting salt vampire-- okie dokie!

This kind of story is what you'd expect in a series late in its run when it's run out of ideas. In TOS terms, you'd expect this from season three.

But this one works well because it's very well produced and the character interplay is great, even when the character is the shapeshifter.

Professor Crater makes a surprisingly convincing and compelling "villain".

The central idea of this story was anticipated by an episode in A E van Vogt's "The Voyage of the Space Beagle" (itself an anticipation of "Star Trek"). A creature that resembles a mountain lion with tentacles sucks the "id" (potassium) from its victims' bodies. (There's no explanation of where other essential nutrients come from.)

I understand why some fans don't much care for this episode. Though not intended as such, it resembles the "monster of the week" sort of story ABC insisted on for "The Outer Limits". As for the creature's failure to ask Kirk for a metric ton or two of salt -- Ryder urgently requested salt, but Kirk failed to provide it.

I like it for a number of reasons, principally that it's cool and low-key (in contrast to the noisier theatrics of almost every episode that followed). The photography is grand, making effective use of pools of light against darker backgrounds. (This would soon disappear.) There's almost no music, with sound effects creating an eerie atmosphere. From a strictly "aesthetic" perspective, "The Man Trap" is arguably the best of all the Classic episodes.

Enterprise visits a planet to make a routine health check on an archeologist.

It is a compelling story about the crew encountering a life-form on the verge of extinction. They are put in a difficult position of having to defend themselves but in the same breath face the prospect of possibly doing something that equates to genocide. This is handled in a plausible way and with some acknowledgement and reflection placed upon the actions taken.

One of its major strengths is that it properly establishes characters in the way an early episode should. A lot of focus is placed on Kirk's command decisions and we learn about him in these moments. Interestingly, he is portrayed slightly more aggressive in nature than usual, particularly towards Bones, who for the majority of the episode, as Kirk bluntly states, thinks with his glands. The banter between the two is enjoyable from start to finish. Spock has some character defining moments in his interaction with U'Hura and also in a more confrontational scene involving Kirk and Bones towards the end.

This is quite a unique episode in several ways. It focuses on some small character moments that never get the same attention later on in the show. Refreshingly, there is none of the dramatic music that made later episodes louder and feel more dated. Also, Kirk's narration is spoken in past tense, which doesn't make a great deal of difference but does unnecessarily explain the situation a bit too much at the beginning.

When the high drama comes during the episode's conclusion, that's when I feel the age of it. We have over-the-top physical acting, the splendour of a dodgy creature costume and I felt an overall sense of unintentional humour. However, this for me is part of the charm of the original series. It was television made during the 1960s and you have to take the positives out of these moments.

Predating the same mistake they made with Seinfeld's second season (specifically, the last four episodes) by 25 years, NBC aired the first episodes of Star Trek out of order (the approved pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, was broadcast as Episode 3). Not that it's a major problem: for one thing, the original Trek is famous for not having any significant narrative continuity between episodes (something that changed with the spin-offs); secondly, The Man Trap is just as good an example of what really makes Star Trek a riot to watch - the interaction between the characters.

Starting, like any other episode, with the "Captain's log, star date whatever" narration by Captain James Kirk (William Shatner), The Man Trap takes place on a deserted planet where a scientist (Alfred Ryder) and his wife (Jeanne Bal) are studying the remains of an ancient society. The starship USS Enterprise is orbiting around the planet so that Kirk can give the two new food supplies and the ship's physician, Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy (DeForest Kelley), can check on their medical condition. This proves to be a bit awkward, since he and the woman were romantically involved once. Greater problems lie ahead, though, as Enterprise crew members are found dead. The cause is salt deprivation, and the strange marks on their necks suggest someone or something is doing this deliberately. Now it's up to Kirk, McCoy and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), the Enterprise's half-human, half-Vulcanian scientist, to find out what's going on and how to stop it.

As is the case with most Star Trek episodes, the plot is quite simple: new planet, weird event, people in danger, Kirk and his pals saving the day. It's essentially the blueprint for the monster-of-the-week stories of The X-Files, not to mention the reason NBC agreed to give the show a chance (the original pilot, The Cage, was rejected because it was considered "too cerebral"). The apparent simplicity is used as a tool to conceal deeper issues in later installments, but here it's exactly what it looks like: a very basic script that allows any viewer to access the classic Star Trek universe without worrying about any complicated, underlying "mythology" (an element that has been mandatory in successful genre shows made after 1990). In that sense, the first Trek series is the science-fiction equivalent of Seinfeld: watch a random episode, and you'll enjoy it just as much as if you were viewing them in the correct order (the feature films changed that a little, but it's another story).

But if the stories are that simple, why bother? The answer is equally basic, but not less relevant for that: the leading trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy (even though they weren't acknowledged in that way until the start of Season 2: up to that point, only Shatner and Nimoy are credited in the title sequence; everyone else is listed in the closing credits). The elementary combination of a curious, optimistic leader, a less cheerful doctor and a purely rational, (mostly) emotionless half-alien is the kind of narrative decision that, if played well, can make the fortune of any good story. Granted, this episode doesn't contain many of the typical elements (especially the more alien traits of Spock's personality), but the seeds of all the great things to come (the chess games, the arguments, the incessant exchanges of dry wit between Bones and Spock) are clearly visible here.

In short, this may not be the proper first episode of the series, but given the standalone nature of the original Trek scripts, it works pretty well as an introduction to Gene Roddenberry's seminal TV universe, a place "where no man had gone before". It's the beginning of a small-screen legend, therefore a must-see.