Season 1
Episode 9: What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Filmed: July/August 1966
First Air Date: October 20, 1966 (7th episode aired)
Karen: The Enterprise's search for a missing scientist, Dr. Roger Korby, leads them to a frozen world, where they discover that Korby has used ancient alien technology to create near-perfect android replicas of human beings -but at what cost? This is our first real exposure to 'technology gone amok' on Trek, and there is a strong component of morality to it, as we are also left wondering what is it that really makes one human?
Karen: This episode came from a story from writer Robert Bloch, well-known in the horror genre. He had written Psycho, which brought him to the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote scripts for Hitchcock's television show and others, and soon came to Star Trek. As Mark Cushman points out in These are the Voyages vol.1, the story Bloch submitted to Trek was similar in some ways to an H.P. Lovecraft novella, At The Mountains of Madness. Bloch was a Lovecraft fan and undoubtedly it had an influence on him. Instead of discovering an ancient frozen city in the Antarctic, Federation scientist Roger Korby discovers an ancient alien city on an icy planet. In the place of Lovecraft's 'Great Old Ones,' Bloch had substituted long-dead aliens known only as 'The Old Ones.' And instead of mysterious creatures called 'Shoggoths' roaming the caves, we now had the huge android Ruk, played by the towering Ted Cassidy, perhaps better known as Lurch from The Addams Family.
Karen: De Forest Research, the firm which read over every story outline and script for Star Trek and checked them for scientific accuracy and any legal issues, discovered that not only was Bloch's story similar to a Lovecraft tale, but it also had similarities to three of Bloch's own previously published short stories!This caused a stir, and efforts were made to incorporate changes to distance the material from previous efforts, including the twist ending, which I'll avoid mentioning here, since somebody (cough* Martinex *cough) may not have seen it yet.
Karen: I have to admit, before watching it again, I held this episode in rather low regard, mainly because I don't care much for Nurse Chapel. I always felt she was such a sad sack, just pining away for Spock and having no real life of her own. Here, she is Korby's fiancee, pining away for him. Back in the review of "The Naked Time" I mentioned how Roddenberry essentially forced the character on the show so that his girlfriend (later, his wife), Majel Barrett, would have a role, and also to tick off NBC. Well, maybe that's why the character never felt truly developed. It wasn't created organically.
Karen: But I have changed my opinion on this episode. I find it very relevant in this age where people are talking about cyber enhancements to the brain, when some people want to download their consciousness into a computer to achieve immortality. What it is it that defines us as human beings? That core question is good science fiction.
Karen: Ted Cassidy is a joy as the menacing, alien android Ruk. Sure, he's in a weird puffy costume, but he's still scary as Heck. And he throws Shatner around like a toy. Really, watch the scenes with the two of them fighting -I don't see any wires! I'm sure that Sherry Jackson as Andrea, 'the mechanical geisha,' turned a lot of heads in her revealing outfit. I'm still amazed with the costumes they got away with!
Karen: Not that there aren't some rough patches here. We don't get much time on the ship, there's no McCoy at all, and little Spock - although the scene where Kirk's android doppelganger repeats the phrase the Captain memorized to try to cue Spock in to the problem -"I'm sick of your half-breed interference!" - is pretty awesome. Also, there's that infamous still photo of Kirk holding a rather questionably-shaped stalagmite...All in all though, a solid episode.
Karen: The Enterprise's search for a missing scientist, Dr. Roger Korby, leads them to a frozen world, where they discover that Korby has used ancient alien technology to create near-perfect android replicas of human beings -but at what cost? This is our first real exposure to 'technology gone amok' on Trek, and there is a strong component of morality to it, as we are also left wondering what is it that really makes one human?
Karen: This episode came from a story from writer Robert Bloch, well-known in the horror genre. He had written Psycho, which brought him to the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. He wrote scripts for Hitchcock's television show and others, and soon came to Star Trek. As Mark Cushman points out in These are the Voyages vol.1, the story Bloch submitted to Trek was similar in some ways to an H.P. Lovecraft novella, At The Mountains of Madness. Bloch was a Lovecraft fan and undoubtedly it had an influence on him. Instead of discovering an ancient frozen city in the Antarctic, Federation scientist Roger Korby discovers an ancient alien city on an icy planet. In the place of Lovecraft's 'Great Old Ones,' Bloch had substituted long-dead aliens known only as 'The Old Ones.' And instead of mysterious creatures called 'Shoggoths' roaming the caves, we now had the huge android Ruk, played by the towering Ted Cassidy, perhaps better known as Lurch from The Addams Family.
Karen: De Forest Research, the firm which read over every story outline and script for Star Trek and checked them for scientific accuracy and any legal issues, discovered that not only was Bloch's story similar to a Lovecraft tale, but it also had similarities to three of Bloch's own previously published short stories!This caused a stir, and efforts were made to incorporate changes to distance the material from previous efforts, including the twist ending, which I'll avoid mentioning here, since somebody (cough* Martinex *cough) may not have seen it yet.
Karen: I have to admit, before watching it again, I held this episode in rather low regard, mainly because I don't care much for Nurse Chapel. I always felt she was such a sad sack, just pining away for Spock and having no real life of her own. Here, she is Korby's fiancee, pining away for him. Back in the review of "The Naked Time" I mentioned how Roddenberry essentially forced the character on the show so that his girlfriend (later, his wife), Majel Barrett, would have a role, and also to tick off NBC. Well, maybe that's why the character never felt truly developed. It wasn't created organically.
Karen: But I have changed my opinion on this episode. I find it very relevant in this age where people are talking about cyber enhancements to the brain, when some people want to download their consciousness into a computer to achieve immortality. What it is it that defines us as human beings? That core question is good science fiction.
Karen: Ted Cassidy is a joy as the menacing, alien android Ruk. Sure, he's in a weird puffy costume, but he's still scary as Heck. And he throws Shatner around like a toy. Really, watch the scenes with the two of them fighting -I don't see any wires! I'm sure that Sherry Jackson as Andrea, 'the mechanical geisha,' turned a lot of heads in her revealing outfit. I'm still amazed with the costumes they got away with!
Karen: Not that there aren't some rough patches here. We don't get much time on the ship, there's no McCoy at all, and little Spock - although the scene where Kirk's android doppelganger repeats the phrase the Captain memorized to try to cue Spock in to the problem -"I'm sick of your half-breed interference!" - is pretty awesome. Also, there's that infamous still photo of Kirk holding a rather questionably-shaped stalagmite...All in all though, a solid episode.