Title: Whom Gods Destroy
Airdate: 1/3/1969
Plot Summary
Kirk and Spock beam down to a mental asylum colony to deliver supplies where they find they were tricked, and a dangerously insane former starship Captain has taken over. He tries to get Kirk to get him off the planet with his shapeshifting ability.
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk is pretty much just trying to bide his time until he can find an opportunity to take out Garth and regain control.
Logical
Spock tries to logically reason with Garth with about as much success as Batman reasoning with the Joker. Spock also has to figure out which Kirk to phaser at the end. He does a great move with the rare double nerve pinch.
He’s Dead Jim
McCoy stays on the ship and laments that with all their power that they can’t do anything. Yeah Bones, you can’t use a nuke bomb to open a door if you want to keep what’s beyond it intact.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu lets Scotty know when the shield is up or down. He also detects the explosion.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov takes the week off in Whom Gods Destroy.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura takes on communications between the planet and the ship.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty realizes when Garth/Kirk doesn’t give the call sign, something is up.
Canon Maker
According to Whom Gods Destroy, they cure insanity and criminality. Given how many penal colonies there are in the TNG times, I’m guessing it didn’t take.
The inmates at this federation hospital/prison are federation members. An Andorian, a Tellarite, and several humans. While Marta is Orion, the Orions were mostly operating out of Federation space as well as their own, as opposed to Klingon or Romulan territory. It was a nice bit of attention to detail, you wouldn’t see inmates from non-federation members.
The space suits introduced in The Tholian Web are used here on the inhospitable planet. So I guess they are standard issue now. Makes sense.
This is the third time we have a duplicate Kirk. It’s the first time someone has to figure out which is the fake Kirk and shoot him. It will not be the last.
Canon Breaker
Despite the fact that it has never been seen before or again, for some reason Kirk and Scotty set up a call sign for Whom Gods Destroy and thank god they did. What’s a coweenkeedeenk. Though I might give them a pass on this one given what happened the last time Kirk went down to a mental asylum. In fact, Kirk is 0 for 2 in visiting asylums now.
Apparently you can train to be a shapeshifter. Just a little practice. Even more impressive you can shape shift your clothing as well. What a bunch of bullshit.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No redshirt deaths but boy, poor Marta sure died a horrifying death.
Technobabble
The chair for the mental dowap thingamajig uses similar looking concentric circle lights that they used in Dagger Of The Mind, but it’s not a re-used prop. I kind of like the continuity of it. When doing mind stuff, use swirly circle lights.
I Know That Guy:
Steve Ihnat plays Garth. He played in a ton of stuff in the 60s in numerous guest roles but sadly died in 1972 from a heart attack at only 37. Which means he was only 34 when Whom Gods Destroy was aired. Man, unleaded gas and cigarettes really took a toll on people back then. He looks 50.
Yvonne Craig plays the voluptuous Marta. Of course she’s most known for playing Batgirl on the old Adam West show. Interestingly they couldn’t find the original make up they used for Vina on The Cage. They used some sort of liquid bandage and makeup and she was a mess for days, burned and damaged. She healed up just fine but it wasn’t a fun experience.
Finally the legendary Keye Luke plays Dr. Cory. Of course he has numerous credits to his name. Most of us GenXers remember him from either Kung Fu or the old man in Gremlins and Gremlins 2.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Ehhhhh this episode. I can’t really get enthused by Whom Gods Destroy, a tiresome trapped in an asylum with a madman story. The danger is just gone when Garth can’t get past the call sign. It’s just a matter of how long before Kirk and Spock can get out of this mess. So in order to make it interesting you have to have a really compelling villain. Inhat is just not the kind of actor that can pull this sort of thing off. Once he gets the medicine and starts to act rationally however, I can totally see him as a Captain or Admiral. He does have a certain gravity about him. But acting all binky bonkers is not his strong suit.
Yvonne Craig on the other hand does a great job. She spends the episode in a tight leotard and writhes all over the screen. Her expressions and twitching make her look like she’s a nervous cat always hearing a noise when she’s not hunting her prey. It’s a schizo performance and I love it. Feel bad when she blows up.
Then you got the “Queens to Queens level 3” bullcrap. Look it’s actually a good idea. It should be used a lot more frequently and a ton of other times I could see it having come in handy. But it’s here for this episode and this episode only and never seen again. It was a plot device and nothing more. You’re going to introduce something like that, you got to follow through with it more.
Finally you got the old “Shoot him, he’s the fake!” “Not me, him!” situation that was overused a ton later on in various media throughout the 70s and 80s. I suppose it was new then so it’s not this episode’s fault it’s completely played out. But it is now and yawn.
It’s just a completely uninteresting episode with an uncompelling antagonist and not a whole lot to say.
Funnily enough Europe, who thinks the US is a bunch of sexually repressed fuddy-duddys, censored Whom Gods Destroy in many countries because Marta’s dance was too suggestive. Huh.
