TOS: Charlie X

Captain's log, stardate 1533.6. The Enterprise has rendezvoused with the Antares to pick up Charlie Evans, the lone surviver of a crashed transport ship. Charlie's ship crashed on the mysterious planet, Thasus, rumored to be the home of a powerful species psychokinetic abilities. As strange occurrences begin to follow the 17 year old, Captain Kirk and his crew must act quickly to save themselves from disaster. For a full episode synopsis, set course for Memory Alpha's episode page. I also enjoy using IMDb to help fill in some knowledge gaps about the various guest stars that show up on the Enterprise. This has become great fun for me, especially with the second generation of Star Trek series, because there are a goodly number of big name actors and actresses that make Trek appearances. It's especially gratifying when I recognize a Star Trek alum on other shows and movies, but less so for my wife.

Before we really get cooking here, I also want to mention I've been watching these episodes on Blu-Ray, which includes the option of watching the episodes as they originally aired or with enhanced visual effects and audio. Normally, I'd be a bit of a purest and watch them without the enhanced effects, but I did a slight experiment to see how much it altered one episode. So far, there has been no change to the story line whatsoever. That means we don't have to curse the ghost of Gene Roddenberry for changing the story to make the Romulans shoot first, when it was clearly Kirk (yes, Star Trek fans can and should love Star Wars, but only in unaltered autographs--now I'm drifting into theology...). For example, in this episode, we get a gorgeous shot of the Enterprise approaching the Antares in the opening sequence, something you don't see in the unaltered version.

This is borrowed from Memory Alpha; although this is a good still of the episode's opening sequence,
the visual on the Blu-Ray disc is just absolutely stunning.

A Holiday on the Enterprise
This particular mission of the Enterprise takes place in 2266, and apparently, they still celebrate Thanksgiving on Earth. This is intriguing for a few reasons. First, many religious conservatives celebrate Thanksgiving as a church holiday; this probably means having some sort of service either on Thanksgiving or on the day before. On the other hand, we can easily observe that Thanksgiving is not necessarily a religious Christian, because it is often celebrated large sections of American society that are perhaps not Christian or even religious at all. One feature of nearly every great civilization in history has been the existence of civic religion, which binds all the people together into one, unified group. It has its marks, too, just as the Church has her mark, among which are holidays. In Gene Roddenberry's vision of the 23rd century, this must have been difficult to maintain, especially since all of Earth is one, homogenized culture (more or less), that has spread to other planets and star systems. Off hand, I can't recall other holy days being celebrated in the Trek universe, but Thanksgiving has the distinction of being mentioned first. My initial thought was that the episode aired or was filmed around Thanksgiving, but instead, it aired in September of 1966.

Interestingly enough, Kirk's desire to have the crew eat something similar to turkey leads to a conversation with the ship's cook, where he reveals that the food is synthetic. There must have been some sort of replicator technology available to the Enterprise crew, but perhaps not to the same level of sophistication seen in later Trek series. In one of the early (and benevolent) uses of his power, Charlie turns the synthetic meal foods in the oven into real turkeys.

Peculiar, Captain
One last thing of note, we get a look at the leisure life of the crew in this episode, which involves card playing, Spock playing music, and Uhura singing patronizing songs about anyone she sees. Thank goodness for the advent of holodeck technology in The Next Generation.

That's not the only entertainment we witness, however. In one scene, Charlie forces Spock to recite some poetry from William Blake, Edgar Allen Poe, and some other poetic verse from the Star Trek universe. Admittedly, I had to look up the William Blake reference; however, Roddenberry was a student (or perhaps his writers were) of literature and mythology. We should expect to see more references like this to appear as we continue to make our way through the show.

With Great Power...
Charlie's great psychokinetic abilities caused me to consider what might be the limit of his abilities. Throughout the episode, he is able to melt chess pieces, alter the faces of crew members, alter the form of others, and even cause crew to completely disappear (although he seems unsure of where they have gone). In the end, Kirk notices that Charlie's power has limits related to how much of it he is using. However, distance seems to be less of a factor. At one point, the crew of the Antares tries to warn Kirk of the danger on his ship in Charlie Evans. Even though the ship is at the edge of her communications range, Charlie is still able to "reach" across space and destroy the Antares. Compare this to the Talosians we encountered in the original pilot. They were able to manipulate the Enterprise from orbit, and even able to create the illusion of messages being sent from another star system. What about the actual Thasians who gave Charlie his power? How much more powerful were they?

Scan Complete
There are two primary issues in this episode that require some reflection. First, the Thasians were clearly a more superior species to humans in every way. Though non-corporeal, they have the ability to assume some semblance of physical form to communicate with the crew of the Enterprise. In the end, when they discover Charlie has gone, the Thasians come to retrieve him and bring him back to Thasus, noting that Charlie will eventually destroy humanity, or humanity will need to destroy him in self defense. No quarantine of the planet is enacted as we see in the case of Talos (and eventually, the Guardian's planet in "City on the Edge of Forever"). The Thasians' power is so great, that the crew of the Enterprise simply watches Charlie be taken away in the end with very little to say about the situation. What would the Federation do to prevent more Charlies from being created? In the end, we're never really told.

This does bring me to a criticism I have of the episode. In the final scene, when Charlie is taken, Kirk's only dialogue with the Thasian is to assert Charlie's right to be with his own people. However, he doesn't really press the matter very far. As I said, the crew is literally silent as Charlie, in great distress, is taken away. Now, either this was just poor scripting and acting (which I'll allow), or this shows the the crew's lack of compassion for another human being, regardless of what crimes he had committed. For those of you who have seen this episode, what do you think? Let me know in the comments.

The final issue on which I'd like to comment is the running theme of Charlie's need for a strong father figure (which is an interesting coincidence that this is brought up on a day that is generally considered a family holiday). Charlie's biggest problem is not that he is powerful, but its that he was never taught how to be a functional member of human society. Both Bones and Spock make mention of Kirk's "fatherly" connection to Charlie, and even go out of their way to get a reluctant Kirk to take on that role. Kirk tries to do so, which results in a few uncomfortable conversations about men and women, where Kirk sort of mumbles some incoherent phrases and finishes by saying, "Do you understand?" Maybe Captain Kirk isn't as smooth as we were led to believe! We also get a glimpse into the athletic life of the crew as Kirk attempts to teach Charlie how to fight in the ship's gym, which is an area with wrestling mats, women doing gymnastics in a hallway, and levers on a wall that can serve as a place to hang your clothing or as workout equipment (I'd ask for my money back--although, there are some crew members training for American Gladiator, using those giant cotton swab-looking dealies).

(Borrowed from Trekcore.com)

However, I watched this show on Father's Day, another civic holiday (will they still have this one in the 23rd century?), where we are to celebrate fathers (your mileage may vary). Kirk's inability to carry out his role for Charlie (though not entirely his fault) is a good reminder to us how important fathers really are. Roddenberry's world had not quite rejected gender roles (although he must have been on the very edge of so doing), but we are living in a time when the concepts of fatherhood and motherhood are being cast aside as inconsequential. You see, Charlie was raised without the benefit of having both a mother and a father, which caused him to be erratic emotionally and child-like in his interactions with others. By not having a mom or dad, Charlie lacked the social skills naturally fostered in a two parent home. As we continue to reap the harvest of the sexual revolution that began, in large part, during the time Star Trek was being filmed, we may begin to see more Charlie Evanses than James Kirks. Children need the diversity of a mom and a dad in order to balance out the extremes of both sexes, and Charlie Evans is a good example of why this is the case.

Next time, we will take a look at "Where No Man Has Gone Before," an episode which actually occurs earlier in the Star Trek timeline than both "The Man Trap" and "Charlie X." Again, please, like, comment on, and share this post!