Trek On: TURNABOUT INTRUDER

Title: Turnabout Intruder

Airdate: 6/3/1969

Plot Summary

Kirk gets tricked by an old flame into a body swap. Can the crew figure out what’s going on before Janice Lester in Kirk’s body kills them all for mutiny?

Risk Is Our Business

Kirk spends most of the episode as a woman. Despite his reputation with women, he does not in fact spend the entire episode feeling himself up. “Kirk” on the other hand, with Lester at the controls of his body, is hysterical. Both literally and hilariously.

Logical

Spock is the one who figures out what’s going on thanks to the mind meld. This is fourth time he’s melded with Kirk. First to help him when he thought he was Kirok. Then to wipe his memory in Requiem for Methuselah, and to make him believe the bullets weren’t real in Spectre Of The Gun. Given that history, it makes sense he would be pretty certain that Kirk was actually Lester.

He’s Dead Jim

McCoy should’ve figured something was wrong quicker when Kirk kept calling him “Dr. McCoy” instead of Bones. He does the various tests on Kirk/Lester to figure out if his emotional state is different from the last time using colors and stuff. The test fails to show any difference. That test is shit as clearly “Kirk” is in a different emotional state.

Helm Sluggish Captain

Sulu has a big problem with the death penalty and discusses it with Chekov.

Nuclear Wessels

I was wrong about Chekov in a previous review, he does show up here for one last hurrah. Chekov pretty much gives up on Kirk when he orders death to the mutineers. He and Sulu both refuse “Kirk’s” orders.

Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar

No Uhura.

My Wee Bairns

Scotty says he’s seen the Captain in a various states, including drunk. One wonders about a lot of shore leaves they may have had together.

Canon Maker

In the movies, Chapel is a brunette. She is here in this episode for the first time.

Typically the Captain informs Starfleet directly, though through his communications officer. This is in line with what we’ve generally seen in the series, except when Kirk was unavailable. This would continue in TNG. At one point in Generations, Picard tells Riker to inform Starfleet command which Riker is surprised at being the one to do that. Minor detail but appreciated.

This episode referenced the past more than any other. The Tholian Web as well as the Talos death penalty.

Canon Breaker

The biggest breaker of canon is that there can’t be woman starship captains. This of course was disproven by Star Trek IV as Madge Sinclair became the first one. It’s clearly a Roddenberry written episode.

Star Trek Continues, the fan series, made a valiant attempt to explain this. In the treaty with the Tellarites, they had the problem with women captains, not the terrans. So as a good faith gesture, it was only the Constitution ships that couldn’t have women captains. Eh, what are you going to do? It was 1969. Still, Roddenberry’s checkered history with women and the various episodes he penned that were pretty crappy on women, I chalk it up more to him than a Trek failing in general.

Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt

No deaths! But I do got to give the redshirt credit for nearly evading the nerve pinch. He failed but he was on to Spock.

Technobabble

Oddly they do Captain’s log, both Kirk/Lester and Lester/Kirk. I find it odd that they would record one. Especially Lester as Kirk since it’s basically a confession.

I guess corridors are constantly bugged. That’s new.

I Know That Guy:

Harry Landers plays Dr. Coleman. What a simp.

Sandra Smith plays Janice Lester. She does a great job having to be the hysterical Lester and the measured Kirk.

What It Means To Be Human – Review

I expected to hate this episode and I don’t find myself returning to it most of the time. However it’s not nearly as bad I thought. To be honest I’m not sure why I don’t like it other than possibly that it’s a bit of a slog. You know exactly where it’s going and what happened so it’s just getting to the end.

Still there is some things to like. For one both Sandra Smith and William Shatner put on a pretty good acting display. Smith plays Kirk very well. She is measured and clever. She’s calm and steadfast. You could really believe Kirk is her. Smith makes a smart choice by not imitating Shatner but just simply being the character of Kirk.

Shatner on the other hand plays the emotionally unstable Lester pretty well. Not calling McCoy “Bones”, not knowing basic ship functions, and flying off the handle at a moments notice work well.

The story though does have some weird choices. Lester goes from trying to prove who (s)he is straight to insane executioner is hilarious. He throws tantrums, he loses his shit constantly, it’s pretty hilarious.

But why no one believes Spock when he mind melds is irritating. It’s well known at this point that he can do that and it’s also pretty well known that he generally tells the truth. I don’t know why they wouldn’t just believe him and do what needs to be done.

But instead they go through this trial and everyone doubts what’s happening. Then they begin planning a mutiny as if he still is Kirk, but just has lost his marbles.  I suppose in any other situation it makes sense, but with Spock in the mix? I don’t believe it.

Then they switch back because the runtime says so. Ok?

Cole’s motivations make zero sense. He’s in love with Lester but did he think this through? What if she won? Was he going to bang her in Kirk’s body? Weird.

I appreciate a few things about the performances but so much was so ham fisted I just was happy to see it end.

Overview

Was Season 3 that bad? Turns out, no. There are a lot of decent episodes like The Enterprise Incident, Spectre Of The Gun, Day Of The Dove, and All Our Yesterdays. There were also some pleasant surprises. Elaan of Troyius turned out to be a nice little gem and Let That Be Your Last Battlefield had a lot more to say than just “Racism bad.”

Part of the reason that season three is so derided is that some of the worst episodes in the entire series are here too. And The Children Shall Lead is garbage, The Mark Of Gideon is boring, and Spock’s Brain is campy funny but still terrible.

The less said about Space Hippies, the better.

Overall, the season is in general marginally poorer than the first two. The budget cuts are a big part of it and it was clear that the network was doing its best to destroy the show. But I still would watch this season any time over the best season of Star Trek Discovery.

How does it rate?

So we have a lot more 3 star episodes but only one 5 star episode. All in all, it’s clearly a major drop off from the first two seasons. Granted we had less episodes but I’m not going to give it a pass for that.

So we made it! All TOS episodes are reviewed. So what’s next? Should I do TAS or go straight to the movies?

I hope you’ve all enjoyed these, I know I have. We’ll continue through Trek as we have a lot of series to go!