Catspaw

This one's somewhat of an oddity among the Trek episodes of the original series, an episode cobbled together for no other reason than to fit a Halloween theme. There are no other reasons for its existence, no profound ideas explored, no stretching of the imagination. Bloch, the premiere horror writer of the time, penned the script (he also wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" in the previous season). The paradox to this effort, though, is that there doesn't seem to be a sincere attempt to offer scares: the creators and actors approach this with a tongue-in-cheek attitude after the first and only death in the pre-credits sequence. This lightweight approach is most evident in the early encounter with the 3 witches: Kirk asks Spock for a comment; Spock's response, along with Kirk's and McCoy's reactive expressions, sends me into guffaws every time I see it - maybe the single most hilarious moment during the season (and that's saying something, as "I,Mudd" and "The Trouble With Tribbles" are coming up soon). Later, of course, we have the scene in the dungeon, when Kirk refers to 'Bones' and then notices the skeleton hanging nearby. BOO!

There is, admittedly, a half-hearted attempt at exploring the conflict between physical senses and pure mentality. There is a tendency in the Trek series to depict aliens who hunger for the potential of physical sensation we human beings represent. Usually, such aliens may take human form temporarily, as Sylvia & Korob do here, and the new sensations corrupt them - apparently, only we humans can handle the, ah, sensuous nature of the ability to touch something or someone physically (see also the later "By Any Other Name"). But, the episode never really makes it clear what these aliens want - all we get is the Halloween mumbo-jumbo: a foggy mist, the witches, a black cat, crew members turned into zombies, a dark castle with cobwebs and, finally, the warlock and sorceress with a wand. These aliens do prove to have impressive abilities, even by the standards of 23rd century technology, and it is explained that they tapped into our subconscious to produce this bizarre scenario, but otherwise, it's just those silly spooky elements interspersed amid a plodding storyline. There's a brief reference to 'the old ones' by Korob, the beings he and Sylvia serve, which conjures up images of Lovecraft, rather than aliens from another galaxy. The episode is capped by some of the worst FX, involving puppetry, of the series. This was, by the way, the first episode of the 2nd season to be filmed, and so is the first appearance of Chekov.

If you understand the premise of this episode, that the black cat, witches, zombies skeletons, magic, etc. were derived from the aliens' mistaken interpretation of human nightmares, rather than human reality, then, this episode does make sense.

In trying to understand humans the aliens tapped into human nightmares which evidently do not occur in the alien species. So, they present the Star Trek cast with these black magic nightmares, assuming they are part of the human paradigm.

Still, it is done in a little campy, silly style which was common in the sixties. Nevertheless, I first watched this as a child and still love it. One of my big pet peeves about TV series is the lack of story diversity and I never felt that about Star Trek, this episode is a perfect example. Even as a child I understood that special effects in TV series was laughable (movies not much better), but I still dream of traveling the stars. The wonder of Star Trek and traveling is always meeting someone new and learning new things, it goes a long way to reducing bigotry and increasing compassion.

One dead crewman and two missing others prompt Kirk, Spock and Bones to visit planet Pyris VII.

This is a 'so bad it's good' episode, but unfortunately it does not entertain that much outside of some decent lines from certain characters.

The plot is a mish-mash of ideas from other episodes, with a 'spooky' Halloween-like theme, used to explore aspects of humanity such as consciousness, fear, and other sensations. It does not work for me as sci-fi, drama, philosophy or anything other than a way to enjoy watching the characters interact in silly situations.

Sylvia, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekhov and LaSalle have moments where they are moderately amusing, but nothing particularly memorable. Some of Spock's dry delivery is as good as ever, LaSalle's command moments are solid and Sylvia's general persona is quite watchable. Antoinette Bower is easily the standout performer and displays some decent charisma. Most other cast members are solid, but James Doohan and George Takei might as well not be there.

It feels harsh to criticise the visuals because they are so fun and provide a lot of the enjoyment I took from the episode, but there is no denying how bad the giant cat and string puppets are. The fight scenes are pretty badly edited and choreographed, particularly Kirk's disarming of Scotty and Sulu's martial arts. The less said about Chekhov's wig the better!

The previous reviews pan this episode, and for good reason; it's somewhat campy, cliché and mildly unfocused. But, there is an underlined re-visitation of Hephaestus' and his wife theme operating here.

We're treated to some tongue in cheek spookiness in the opening. Was it done intentionally? I'm not sure. There may have been a sincere attempt to create an atmosphere of horror, but it doesn't come off very well. Which may call into question the sincerity of the effort, but then one realizes that the lack of horror and fright is intentional because of the episode's primary focus.

The astute classic Trek aficionado will recall the real chills delivered in the "Wolf in the Fold" episode, nor the scary tension of "Dagger of the Mind". The production team at Desilu was more than capable of presenting frights in the context of a Star Trek episode, so why wasn't it done here? One must keep in mind that the thrust of this episode is the unavailability of a physical reality to the antagonists. This is part of the puzzle. It is essentially both plot and theme.

And here in lies another layer, and, perhaps, one that pokes fun at the material woman who marries a man for the riches he can garnish via whatever ability he has, and not for love. We're shown the material-girl in all her essence. Captain James T. Kirk takes a page out of the Sean Connery's James Bond, and gives as good as he takes from a woman who seeks more of what she already has, but who has sacrificed true emotional satiation for material gain. Kirk shows Sylvia her own folly, and the true value of her own worth and what he thinks of her.

Sylvia invokes her wrath, but Kirk counters with Star Fleet training and his own patented Promethian approach to counter her attacks. Even at the moment of truth Sylvia cannot help but see an opening for gain. Even when Kirk tries to give her another chance, she is relentless in her pursuit of gain. A high tech grifter with supernatural appetites and abilities.

It is fitting that both Sylvia and Korob are exposed for the weak transparencies that they really are. Perhaps a comment on true fear, and what really frightens us; not any manifestation of danger, but what we imagine might be the danger. It is in this vein that the scare factor is kept to a minimum to drive home a larger theme.

The episode is not one of the more sterling in terms of production values, but it is worth a look. The closing SFX shot is somewhat fitting.

Give it a shot.

I think what a lot of these nay-sayer reviewers overlook is that a lot of 10 years and up comprised the viewers of "Star Trek". I was 12. When re-watching the complete series now, I remembered before she did it that Sylvia would hold the small copy of the Enterprise over the candle's flame. Everything we see stays dormant in our subconscious mind. As a child, Halloween was my favorite holiday and I know I was thrilled with this episode. But aside from nostalgia, there really were some really interesting concepts introduced in this episode, about telekinesis. I think it's too easy to dismiss some episodes as stupid- when you aren't aware of the the hidden values of such episodes.