Title: Dagger Of The Mind
Airdate: 11/3/1966
Plot Summary
The Enterprise while taking supplies to the Tantalus penal colony take aboard an escaped prisoner who stows away in a crate. Except he isn’t a prisoner, he’s one of the doctors that has been working there and turned crazed and desperate.
Kirk is unwilling to believe that Dr. Adams, a renowned and respected scientist, could’ve have done terrible things to prisoners but the evidence continues to mount until Kirk himself is subjected to his lunatic experiments.
Risk is our Business
Kirk once again has a past relationship brought up, this time by the girl herself. Kirk is uncomfortable about it to no end and it’s a bit of a twist that Kirk is the one being chased.
Logical
Spock discusses in more detail about disposing emotion to which McCoy really doesn’t have an answer for, though it might be because he was interrupted by VanGelder trying to get asylum.
He’s Dead Jim
McCoy starts to argue with Spock on how humans deal with violence but it doesn’t go very far. He also is the one that believes VanGelder the most, warning Kirk that things don’t ring true. He also gets a “He’s dead, Captain” when they discover Adams after gets good and neuralized.
Canon Maker
This is the first time we see the jump suits in blue and red. I’m not sure there was ever a gold variant but if there was, I’ll note it when I see it.
But the big canon maker is the introduction of the Vulcan Mind meld, first time seen ever. This will really cement the Vulcans as telepaths and opened the door to other Vulcan mysticism such as transfer of their Katras, or souls, to others before death.
Canon Breaker
By the time we get to the Next Gen-era, penal colonies aren’t as much of a thing though there are prisons mentioned.
Man It Feels Bad To Be a Red Shirt
No red shirts die, but a prison guard gets kicked into high voltage. And of course, Dr. Adams dies of loneliness.
Technobabble
The neural neutralizer is an appropriate alliterative title for a brain gadget.
I know that guy:
Dr. Adams is played with suitable warmth and believability to keep his secrets, lying with the truth effectively. He switches over nicely to Snidely Whiplash mode when it’s required. He played Ursus in Beneath The Planet Of The Apes, and was working steadily as guest stars or supporting roles in TV and movies.
Mariana Hill plays the playful Dr. Helen Noel. She had a decent career ranging from tv shots in Bonanza, and movies ranging in quality from High Plains Drifter to Blood Beach.
Morgan Woodward makes his first of two appearances in Star Trek. No one plays crazy eyes like Woodward. He was most known for roles in Cool Hand Luke, Battle Beyond the Stars, and a ton of westerns and B-movies throughout the 70s. He also kept busy in a ton of TV guest roles all throughout the 70s, 80s, and 90s.
What it means to be human – Review
The episode is one of those that I always enjoy well enough when I’m watching it but have no desire to back to or even really comes to mind when thinking of various episodes when talking about Trek. It has its moments though.
The idea that a crazed doctor is doing experiments on people’s minds is well worn territory in 2024 but not necessarily back in 1966. But the problem in either time period is there’s no real purpose to what Adams is doing. He doesn’t monologue, talking about how he can do so much for mankind, to fix minds, or even just straight up using it to take over the galaxy, as nutty as that might be.
No he’s just a sociopath as far as I can tell, seems to enjoy it for no other reason than to screw with people. I find it difficult to believe that he is as renowned as the story tells us he is if he’s this binky bonkers.
On the other hand, VanGelder’s mania is pretty compelling to watch and the excuse to finally introduce the mind meld is good.
And the real star here is Helen Noel. She may be a bit gooey eyed for Kirk, and why not. But when needed to step up to the plate, she doesn’t hesitate, commenting “anything’s better than being in that treatment room.” She does what she has to crawling through air ducts, switching off machinery she’s not at all trained on, and even plays possum to kick a guard to his death.
Don’t tell me there’s weren’t strong female characters in the old show.
She doesn’t ever become a girl boss or anything like that, she’s just an extremely competent Starfleet officer as you would expect in a situation like this. I wish there was more of that as time went on but sadly it would take until Next Generation before that became more of the norm.
Overall there’s nothing terrible about this episode but it’s definitely a case where the sum is less than its parts.
