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.
