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Before I get to what’s below, we’ve lost some great actors in the Star Trek franchise. First, Eric Bauza passed away at the young age of 46. While he’s mainly known for being the modern voice of the Looney Tunes characters, he provided a few voices on Star Trek: Prodigy. Next, Walter Koenig, Pavel Chekov, passed away at the old age of 90 on October 25th. While I’ll always remember him as Chekov from TOS, he had a few other roles that were pretty noteworthy like Bester from Babylon 5.
THEN… the iconic Shakespearean bard known as Patrick Stewart passed away on October 29th at the old age of 86. This is the one that hit me. Even though he’s done a lot on the stage and on screen, Stewart brought something special to the Star Trek universe as Captain Jean-Luc Picard. Even though the latest series featuring him wasn’t great, it was good to see him do the role one last time. Oh man… he’s going to be in the new Avengers movie as Xavier, isn’t he? That might be a tough sit. Okay, back to today’s post.
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Well, it’s Star Trek’s 60th birthday… and I’m feeling whelmed. We got a new series with Starfleet Academy, and it’s alright. Still need to finish it. We also got Strange New World’s 4th season, and I think someone has a Romulan Ale addiction because that season was all over the place. It wasn’t the best season, but I liked it. It’s okay, SNW writers. Just get the help you need at Daystrom Institute. They fix that type of stuff too. I am going to talk about an episode from this season soon, but I thought I’d return to the Original Series for the spooky season.
Star Trek and horror go hand in hand. Just about every series has done a horror themed episode even though some fans won’t admit it. I got into a spat with someone on Threads about it. The franchise has touched just about every genre and horror is just one of them. In fact, the franchise kind of started out of a horror story. Yes, the gore is nil and the scares are bare, but a salt vampire with psychic abilities showing up to suck the sodium out of your crew members definitely counts as horror.
“The Man Trap” was the first aired episode of The Original Series, but it was actually the sixth episode filmed. The episode starts out as the Enterprise comes to planet M-113 to conduct some medical exams on some scientists. This is a special time for Doctor McCoy as he’s going to meet Nancy, a former lover he hasn’t seen in years. When he, Kirk, and a blue shirt beam down the planet, they meet Nancy and her husband, Professor Robert Crater. When they actually meet Nancy, things already start to go out of whack. Bones is seeing Nancy as he last saw her, Kirk sees Nancy as an older but attractive lady, and Crewman Blue Shirt sees a lady he met at a pleasure planet.
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| If anyone is wondering how the Spock/Uhura pairing in the Kelvin movies came to be. You can thank the early episodes. |
Crewman Darnell (Blue Shirt Boy) goes off on his own while the other three men talk business. They suddenly hear Nancy scream and find her with a dead Darnell. They think he may have been exposed to a plant on the surface, but what they find onboard shocks them. It turns out that all the salt has been sucked out of him. Worried about Robert and Nancy, Kirk, MCoy, and two security officers beam back down to the planet. When they find Robert, he’s going out of his mind trying to find Nancy. The men do the usual dumb thing and split up. The two crewmen, Green and Sturgen, end up getting killed by Nancy, and she uses her psychic abilities to assume Green’s appearance. Kirk and McCoy find “Green” with the dead Sturgeon and they beam back up to the ship.
On the ship, “Green” is on the prowl. He tries to use some telepathic abilities to blend in and take the forms of other crewmen. “Green” tries to put Lt. Uhura and Yeoman Rand in their clutches but is unable to do so. Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock figure out a way to find Crater, but they also find out that he’s the only human on the planet. As they teleport back down, the creature (it ain’t “Green” no more) assumes another form and takes the life of another crewman. The creature finds McCoy, assumes the role of Nancy, and basically lulls him to sleep in his room. The creature then takes the form of McCoy and goes to the bridge.
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| This was and is still hilarious... kinda doesn't date too well, but still. |
Kirk and Spock find Crater, and it’s revealed that “Nancy” was an extinct creature that feeds on salt to survive. The real Nancy died a year ago. They all transport back to the Enterprise and realize that the salt creature is on the ship. Crater ends up getting killed by the creature in Sickbay, and that’s when the crew find out that it has the form of McCoy. Kirk and Spock go down to McCoy’s quarters and find both he and Nancy. They decide to kill the creature, but McCoy tries to stop them. When Kirk is almost killed by the creature, McCoy takes the kill shot. In the end, the ship is saved, but we end the episode with a depressed Bones. Kirk tries to pep him up at least.
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This was a fine episode. It’s not a part of TOS’s greats, but it’s still good. I can say that it worked as a pilot episode even though it wasn’t the actual pilot. At least this one shows more of the standard cast, sets and uniforms that we would be used to on the show. It’s your typical Trek episode with a taste of horror and mystery. It’s cool we get the episode revolving around McCoy a bit. We don’t get a lot of his backstory on-screen, so it was nice that we got to sort of see a former love of his.
The creature was an interesting sort. While its powers were kind of confusing at times, it was interesting with its shapeshifting, mind-reading, thought control, and salt-sucking. Man, did “Nancy” look ugly at the end. We don’t see its true form until the end, and it looks good for 1966 television. I do remember hearing and reading that some don’t like that the creature is callously killed off at the end since it was the last of its kind. You could also say that it was fighting for its survival. Then again, this thing did kill Nancy, took Crater as a mental hostage, killed 4 crew members, and almost killed the captain… yeah, “Nancy” had to go.
While I do like the episode, it’s not my favorite. It does have some slow moments here and there. It could be due to it being an early episode. They were still working some kinks out. I also thought the mystery with Nancy was a little predictable. It may be due to me thinking I’m Sherlock Holmes, though. Plus, her powers, while interesting, were a little inconsistent. Still, it’s a good one to watch. Well, I got to finish some more with Cronenberg, so I’m off. Until then, Peace, God Bless, and be careful out there.
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