Season 1
Episode 10: Dagger of the Mind
Filmed: August 1966
First Air Date: November 3, 1966 (9th episode aired)
Karen: Mind games! A prestigious doctor abuses his power at a penal colony and tests his mind control device on prisoners -and Captain Kirk. Pushed to the limits, the instrument can cause madness, to the point of no return. There are aspects of this episode that make it worthwhile -actors like James Gregory and Morgan Woodward certainly help, and the horror of a mind wiped clean by a device is certainly a strong premise. But maybe its claim to fame is that it gave birth to the Vulcan mind meld.
Karen: I'll admit that 'Dagger of the Mind' has never been high on my list of favorites, but it's not an episode I dislike either. It's just sort of there. Tristan Adams, played by Gregory, is another mad scientist type, although a relatively calm one. His motivations never seemed especially clear to me and he wasn't a very interesting villain. The neural neutralizer though, is a terrifying device, capable of doing everything from implanting false memories to driving a man mad to completely wiping out one's mind. One of the most memorable sequences in the episode is when Dr. Helen Noel, who has accompanied Kirk to the Tantalus colony, plants a suggestion in Kirk's mind as they test the device. She draws on a brief flirtation the two shared at an Enterprise Christmas party, now suggesting it went further. (Helen Noel...at the Christmas party...see what they did there?) We see the Captain in the neutralizer chair imagining that he swept her off her feet and carried her to his quarters. This was pretty daring stuff for 1966.
Karen: Morgan Woodward plays Van Gelder, an assistant of Adams' who had been experimented upon and escaped. In the original script, Spock used hypnotism to interrogate the screaming-mad Van Gelder. NBC felt it was inappropriate for Spock to be the one using hypnotism to examine Van Gelder; they pointed out that if it was presented as a true medical technique, it should be Dr. McCoy administering it. Gene Roddenberry revised the scene by creating Spock's now famous Vulcan mind meld -his ability to link minds with other beings and read their thoughts. This came in quite handy in a number of circumstances. In this episode, Spock is able to discern that Van Gelder is not an inmate of the colony but a researcher, which is a big clue that things are not as they seem...
Karen: Woodward would reappear in the second season episode 'The Omega Glory' as Captain Ron Tracy. He was also prominently featured in a number of TV shows and films, including Cool Hand Luke.
Karen: Author Marc Cushman notes in his book These are the Voyages Vol.1 that the original script for this episode called for Yeoman Janice Rand to go to the penal colony with Kirk. But a decision was made to substitute the character of Dr. Helen Noel instead. A number of possible reasons were given for this, depending on who was asked. The most reasonable were that they wanted to avoid having Rand and Kirk get too close, and that it made more sense for a medical professional to accompany Kirk and test the device on him than it did his yeoman. Actress Marianna Hill portrayed the very capable Dr. Noel.
Karen: The writer of this script, Shimon Wincelberg, felt Gene Roddenberry's numerous revisions had gone too far from his work, and demanded a pseudonym be used, so 'S. Bar-David' appeared in the credits. This was not the first nor the last time a writer felt annoyance over what happened to his or her script once it got in the hands of Roddenberry. But the creator/producer of the show felt he knew the characters best, and needed to make the changes. The reality probably lies somewhere in the middle, as usual.
Karen: Mind games! A prestigious doctor abuses his power at a penal colony and tests his mind control device on prisoners -and Captain Kirk. Pushed to the limits, the instrument can cause madness, to the point of no return. There are aspects of this episode that make it worthwhile -actors like James Gregory and Morgan Woodward certainly help, and the horror of a mind wiped clean by a device is certainly a strong premise. But maybe its claim to fame is that it gave birth to the Vulcan mind meld.
Karen: Morgan Woodward plays Van Gelder, an assistant of Adams' who had been experimented upon and escaped. In the original script, Spock used hypnotism to interrogate the screaming-mad Van Gelder. NBC felt it was inappropriate for Spock to be the one using hypnotism to examine Van Gelder; they pointed out that if it was presented as a true medical technique, it should be Dr. McCoy administering it. Gene Roddenberry revised the scene by creating Spock's now famous Vulcan mind meld -his ability to link minds with other beings and read their thoughts. This came in quite handy in a number of circumstances. In this episode, Spock is able to discern that Van Gelder is not an inmate of the colony but a researcher, which is a big clue that things are not as they seem...
Karen: Author Marc Cushman notes in his book These are the Voyages Vol.1 that the original script for this episode called for Yeoman Janice Rand to go to the penal colony with Kirk. But a decision was made to substitute the character of Dr. Helen Noel instead. A number of possible reasons were given for this, depending on who was asked. The most reasonable were that they wanted to avoid having Rand and Kirk get too close, and that it made more sense for a medical professional to accompany Kirk and test the device on him than it did his yeoman. Actress Marianna Hill portrayed the very capable Dr. Noel.
9 comments:
Wow.., whaaat an episode. To echo Karen, this episode makes a few very profound statements on the effectiveness of psychotherapy and rehabilitation (penal colonies..) in the future. Another busy day here awaits, so I cannot do justice to the social commentary aspect of it, nor the medical aspects of when medicines and psychotropic drugs simply become useless when a threshold is met and succinct neural 'reprogramming' becomes necessary.
Where does one draw the line..? Is it the legal system for criminals..? Is it to remove 'free speech' from radicals..? It's a dandy topic that never was thoroughly explored again in Trek.
Must dash.., more on this episode and Helen Noel later.
Both Gregory (later to appear memorably in the 'Beneath the Planet of the Apes' among all his other screen credits.., then 'Barney Miller') and Woodward are excellent character actors and are typically relied upon to give stellar performances.
Gregory had the right amount of underlying professional creepiness to him, and Woodward very able to give a convincing performance as a scientist who's core has been essentially mixed in a neural 'blender' so to speak, with his loud outbursts..
Ahh.. Dr Helen Noel. As a healthy guy, I'd say she set the bar for professional, yet sexy yeomen assigned to the Enterprise. Her physical appearance is certainly alluring, yet Marianna Hill played her with capable, yet understated empathy and professionalism. The very idea of the 'Christmas party' was certainly in line with the network's desire to have Kirk 'play the field' so to speak, essentially eliminating the Rand concept altogether.
As for Shatner, this also made for broadening his swagger and introducing new dramatic tension and story-ideas. And with McCoy stepping up further as Kirk's 'conscience' by this point, this made the 'resident yeoman/secretary' a rather redundant idea.
And remember, odd as it may seem looking back, this is yet only the ninth episode of this 'strange, new frontier'. :)
I liked this episode. It's interesting how they brought back actors like Morgan Woodward to play different roles. I remember him more for the Omega Glory episode than this one.
Are there more female characters with Christmas themed names out there? Denise Richards as Dr. Christmas Jones from James Bond comes to mind.
As you know I am new to Trek watching and I really enjoyed this episode (but maybe not for standard reasons). Here in no particular order are my thoughts:
1) I am really liking the fact that sometimes Kirk is not right in his assumptions. He is the hero no doubt, but he is flawed with his preconceived notions and a bit of arrogance perhaps.
2) The first scene in the transporter room was classic. The way Kirk glared at and admonished the technicians for mishandling the shipment to the penal colony was great. Again, we caught a glimpse of what it is like to manage the starship as well as a little bit of the condescending and know-it-all nature of Kirk. He is not unlikable but he can border on jerkiness. Does that make sense?
3) I enjoyed the small references to mythology with "Tantalus" and "Lethe", and how those names fit the theme.
4) My favorite part of the whole episode was when McCoy knows something is wrong and shares concern wit Kirk, and Kirk dismisses it as an inconsequential hunch. I like how McCoy is annoyed with him and looks over his shoulder at the captain when he leaves. There is nice interaction here and in my opinion we don't get much of what I would call "work conflict" in modern television. I read it that McCoy sends Helen Noel on the investigative trip to get a dig in at Kirk along the way and make him uncomfortable. I really like that the core team are friends and coworkers but still have their disagreements.
5) The mind meld obviously serves a purpose, but I also like how it was filmed. I believe this would have been made shortly after Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece "Persona" and I want to believe that the closeness of the characters' faces and the melding of personalities subtly references that film. But I may be stretching.
6) I like how Kirk was damaged by the neural neutralizer. The last scene and his comment about being in that room was powerful. Did it ever come up again that he was programmed to have feelings for Helen?
7) The episode must have had some limitations on budget as the neutralizer looked like something my grandfather had to light his Christmas tree, but it was still effective. That tells me that it was a good tale.
8) I recognized some of these tropes in other media. For example, the arrival of Van Gelder and his crazed begging for assistance reminded me greatly of Selbe in the first Taskmaster arc in Avengers. Selbe escaped from an asylum and searched out the Avengers for help as he was being experimented on by the institution's director, this time for cloning purposes. The Wasp believes him but nobody else does. And the Neural neutralizer and its use for criminal rehabilitation is extremely similar in purpose to the device used in the Squadron Supreme mini series. All to similar results and philosophical issues about freedom.
9) I liked the smallness of this story. The villain didn't have some grand scheme. I believe he started out doing what he thought was right to rehabilitate criminals, but took it to a far extreme. What line cannot be crossed? His definition exceeded most rational perspective. He was particularly sinister in his ability to manipulate his messages to the starship to appear that he was compliant when we knew something was up.
Overall the episode had flaws (I thought the duct escape seemed contrived and convenient) but overall I really liked this episode..
>4) My favorite part of the whole episode was when McCoy knows something is wrong and shares concern wit Kirk, and Kirk dismisses it as an inconsequential hunch. I like how McCoy is annoyed with him and looks over his shoulder at the captain when he leaves. There is nice interaction here and in my opinion we don't get much of what I would call "work conflict" in modern television. I read it that McCoy sends Helen Noel on the investigative trip to get a dig in at Kirk along the way and make him uncomfortable. I really like that the core team are friends and coworkers but still have their disagreements.
This is my favorite part, too. Everyone is very professional in these early episodes. McCoy and Spock both concur that something is wrong, and their hunches come directly from their professional experiences. McCoy acts like a very competent medical man in this episode.
I gotta say it, Helen Noel has got to be the babe-babe-babe-iest of a big generous starry constellation of Star Trek Babes, wow. She radiates a confidence and playfulness while staying completely inside her role as a subordinate career officer.
Morgan Woodward's acting was also superb.
>5) The mind meld obviously serves a purpose, but I also like how it was filmed. I believe this would have been made shortly after Ingmar Bergman's masterpiece "Persona" and I want to believe that the closeness of the characters' faces and the melding of personalities subtly references that film. But I may be stretching.
I enjoyed the detail and cautious apprehension of Spock in employing the meld. It was not routine or offhand as it would later become. Held some danger.
To me the biggest flaw in this episode is Dr. Adams appears to have no motivation at all for being an evil cuss. You know, even the suggestion that this device would make him rich-n-famous and he had to protect it against criticism or sanction would have helped here.
Not one of my favourites, but not bad either. Morgan Woodward sure chews the scenery in this one...and in "The Omega Glory"; he's pretty good at playing crazy.
Mike Wilson
I'm loving Karen's (dare I say it) "trek" through TOS. This is a middling episode in my book, doesn't suck but not a favorite either. As some recall, my wife and I blog about holiday episodes, movies and specials. I thought about reviewing 'Dagger Of The Mind' since it's the closest any Star Trek series came to a Christmas episode, since it has a "Christmas Party" scene. But I ultimately decided it's not "Christmassy" enough.
Hardcore Trekkers will remember that the neural neutralizer chair prop was later re-used as a torture device in the episode 'Whom Gods Destroy'.
Yeah, I keep repeating it, but I agree with J.A. about Karen's trek through Trek. I really look forward to these posts every week.
"Dagger" was never a particular favorite of mine, either, but I still like. As Martinex notes in his very thorough rundown, it has a lot of good character moments, and the overall themes of mental health and its treatment (and psychiatric ethics) are actually interesting food for thought. So, basically, it has much of what I consider essential for a good Trek episode.
Howdy guys, thanks for sharing your thoughts on this one. I know it's a sort of 'middle of the road' episode, not one that people get excited about -although there certainly were a lot of highly photoshopped images of Helen Noel floating around out there when I went looking for one for this post! I do think many of you are right regarding the value of the episode in what it has to say about mental illness and its treatment. But it just never took off for me, and I feel the main problem is that Dr. Adams isn't depicting as having a real compelling motive for what he's doing. He's certainly not portrayed like a stereotypical mad scientist but maybe he was just a bit too subtle, too laid back, to make an impact.
All of your observations about the relationships between Kirk and the other officers are quite astute. This episode was made before Gene Coon came aboard as a producer. One of the things he brought to the show was more of the camaraderie and humor between the characters, which in some cases worked well, but in other cases was laid on too thick -for example, sometimes it seemed like every episode ended with all the characters on the bridge, laughing. Roddenberry reportedly wanted the characters to behave more professionally, for their interactions to be more serious and less chummy. And you can see this in the early first season (before Coon), done well, and in the third season (when Coon was gone), done poorly. As we move along in the reviews I will be curious to see how you feel about the character relationships -especially intriguing will be newbie Martinex' reactions!
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