Episode Title: The Man Trap
Air Date: 9/8/1966
Written by George
Clayton Johnson
Directed by Marc
Daniels
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA "Bones" James Doohan as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA
“Scotty” George Takei as Lieutenant
Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols as
Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Eddie Paskey as
Lieutenant Ryan Bill Blackburn as
Lieutenant Hadley Grace Lee Whitney
as Yeoman First Class Janice Rand Michael
Zaslow as Crewman Darnell Bruce
Watson as Crewman Green Vince Howard as Crewman John Arndt as Crewman Sturgen Anthony Larry Paul as Transporter
Operator Garrison True as Security
Guard Alfred Ryder as
Professor Robert Crater Jeanne
Bal as Nancy Crater Francine Pyne
as Nancy III Sandra Lee Gimpel as
the Salt Vampire
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: M-113
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: The episode
begins with the Enterprise orbiting the planet M-113, Captain Kirk leads a landing
party consisting of himself, Dr. McCoy, and one other crewman named
Darnell. Kirk is especially concerned
for this routine assignment comes with a little bit of baggage: the two
archaeologists are married couple and one of those two, Nancy Crater is an
ex-girlfriend of Dr. McCoy.
 |
| Seeing your married ex is always a blast! |
When they get down to the planet
they find Nancy Crater ready to greet them.
It becomes apparent to the viewer that each of the three men sees a
different Nancy. Dr. McCoy sees a young
Nancy who looks like she did right around the time they broke up, while Captain
Kirk sees a Nancy who is about their age, and Darnell sees Nancy
as a stripper he met on a pleasure planet.
Darnell even go so far to tell Nancy that she looks like the stripper
that he knew on the pleasure planet. With
that Kirk has Darnell go and wait outside.
 |
| Getting a physical from your wife's ex. Not awkward at all. |
Prof. Crater then shows up and displays a sour
mood not wanting have anything to do with Kirk and McCoy, but he would like
more supplies particularly he would like to have a lot more salt. Captain Kirk tells the professor that there
are regulations involving researchers on far-off planets in the Dr. McCoy will
examine both of them as the regulations require. While this is going on Nancy heads outside and
convinces Darnell to come see some of the sites with her.
 |
| Darnell and stripper Nancy |
While McCoy is examining Prof.
Crater, the professor’s mood seems to lighten, the fact that McCoy is his
wife’s ex-boyfriend doesn’t appear to awaken
any jealousy. Quite the country Crater seemed to enjoy talking about her with him.
At this point it’s clear that McCoy and Kirk were seeing different
Nancys as McCoy says she didn’t age a day and has not a shade of gray and Kirk
points out that that’s not true and that she looks her age that the although
beautiful woman she is not appearing to be a 25-year-old. Crater suggests that McCoy was blinded by his
old feelings for her, again an odd thing for a husband to say about his guest’s
view of his wife.
They then hear a scream from Nancy,
and all three men come running and they see Nancy standing next to a dead
Darnell who has a plant thing coming out of his mouth. When asked what happened she said he ate a
poison plant, not knowing it was poison, before she could stop him. With that Kirk and McCoy transport back to
the ship with Darnell’s body.
 |
| Star Trek's "first" dead man |
Darnell’s body has mysterious red
rings on it that is not part of the symptom of the poison from the plan he
allegedly ate. What’s worse is according
to McCoy’s examination there was no poison in his system at all. McCoy doesn’t even know what killed him. Kirk angers when having a conversation with
about dead crew member McCoy tries to change the subject to Nancy. Kirk accuses him of being too personally
involved in encourages him to take another look at the body. McCoy agrees and upon a second examination of the body determined that Darnell’s natural salts was completely drained from him.
Kirk and McCoy came back down to
the planet with two crewmen, named Green and Sturgeon, to tell the married
couple that there is danger and they must go.
However the Craters weren’t in at the lab so the four men go off on a
search. During the search Nancy kills
both Crewman Green and Crewman Sturgeon, Nancy takes the form of Green allows
Kirk and McCoy to find Sturgeon’s body.
When the fake Green arrives Kirk decides a going to go back up to the Enterprise.
McCoy doesn’t want to leave however leaving Nancy in danger, not
realizing of course that Nancy herself is
the danger or that she has taken the form of Crewman Green. Kirk points out that on the Enterprise they can use the ship’s resources
to find the two remaining people far easier.
The three beam back up to the ship this
giving “Green” access to the Enterprise and
all of her crew. He starts looking for
salt and fines Yeoman Rand with a lunch that she is delivering and seemingly sampling
at the same time. The Yeoman notes the
Crewman staring at her and asks what is up.
“Green” doesn’t give a good answer he follows her to where she is going
and it appears she is delivering lunch to Lt. Sulu. Sulu is in the middle of taking care of his
plants when Rand comes in to feed him.
The two talk for a little bit then “Green” enters. This could have been a deadly confrontation
for the two Enterprise crew members
but the creature was scared off by Mr. Sulu’s weird planets.
 |
| Sulu didn't lose his interest in science when he transferred to the bridge. |
 |
| "Mr. Spock do you think Rand and Sulu are dating? Maybe we should date?" |
On the bridge Captain Kirk and Mr.
Spock find that there is only one person on the surface, Professor Crater, who
seems to be desperately looking for something.
The two men go down to confront him, and Crater tries to fight them
off. Kirk puts his phaser on stun and
shoots Crater. When Crater’s comes to
they finally get the truth out of him.
His wife Nancy has been dead for years she was killed by creature that was
impersonating her when they first arrived.
He explains the creature is the last of its kind where once their
millions. He compares it to the
extinction of the bison of North America.
The creature can assume any form and with the discovery of the real
Crewman Green’s body Kirk knows the horrible truth that a desperate predator is
loose on his ship.
On the ship the creature having
been rebuffed by the sheer ferocity of the plants of Lt. Sulu, decides to try
for some different prey. It spots Lt.
Uhura and transforms itself into a tall dark Swahili speaking man. It tries to seduce the communications officer
in the same way that it did with Crewman Darnell. But Uhura isn’t Darnell, and she does a fall
for this trap as easily as the men on her ship have. Maybe this creature had a
weakness when it came to women but that is disproven by the very fact that his
first victim was Nancy Crater. By the
sheer awesomeness that is Uhura she overcomes his mental whammies and retreats
with her friends to the turbo lift.
 |
| "Yeah, your tricks aren't going to work on me so go suck salt somewhere else!" |
Frustrated the creature returns to
the form of Nancy Crater and surprises Dr. McCoy in his quarters. It renders him unconscious and then the
creature takes his form and heads the bridge to try undermine the investigation
that is being launched against it. From the bridge the creature is then summoned,
in the form of McCoy, to a meeting with Kirk, Spock, and Crater. Here the creature learns that they’re setting
up traps for it using salt. As McCoy, it
tries to reason with Kirk it says that they should offer the salt with no
tricks. Crater tries to help pointing
out that when the creature is well fed it is fine. Kirk isn’t having it however at this point
three of his crew members are dead he is taking no more chances with this
killer. When Crater refuses to cooperate
in finding the creature, who he says he can identify in any form, Kirk orders
Spock and McCoy to take the professor the sick bay where they can force the
professor to take truth serum so he can be made to revel to them how to find
the creature. Apparently if you’re
desperate enough you could force people to take truth serum in the 23rd
century so much for your civil rights.
Kirk goes to the sick bay to check
on their progress and when he gets there he finds Crater dead, Spock injured,
and McCoy gone. Mr. Spock explains to
Kirk that it wasn’t the real McCoy and the creature couldn’t feed off him
because his Vulcan blood contains no salt. Armed with this new information and a phaser Captain Kirk heads to McCoy’s
quarters.
Having re-assumed the form of Nancy
the creature now tries to get the currently conscious Dr. McCoy to help
it. Kirk enters McCoy’s quarters pointing his phaser and tells McCoy that who he is seeing is not Nancy. McCoy, whose head the creature has already
somewhat played with and not at his best, gets between Kirk and who he believes
is his old girlfriend. Having lost the
phaser Captain Kirk tries to attack the creature using his fierce fighting
skills that are unequaled by anyone on his ship, unfortunately for Captain Kirk
the creature has telepathic powers that paralyze him leaving his fierce
fighting skills unavailable. Spock shows up and tries to simontanously fight the creature and snap McCoy out of his trance. Spock goes down, and as
the creature goes to prey upon Kirk it’s allusion power drops allowing McCoy to
momentarily see it’s true form, and boy is it an ugly thing, he then shoots it
with the phaser killing the creature.
 |
| Final battle: McCoy not at his best but still can be the hero. |
As the Enterprise prepares to leave orbit Captain Kirk shares a thought it
with his bridge crew about the bison and the terror of extinction.
Additional thoughts:
With the show approved and a number of episodes made it came time to decide
which episode to show first. And instead
of airing the pilot that won over the executives to make the series, they
instead decided to review all the episodes that they made with the intention of
showing the one that they felt was the strongest and the most likely to win an
audience. With that they selected “The
Man Trap” for its horror angle and the threat of what we as fans would dub the
“Salt Vampire.” After the episode aired
Mr. and Mrs. Roddenberry were so pleased with what their son produced that left
their house and went to all their neighbors and apologized. They saw everyone they could promising their
friends that Gene would once again be making good shows like “Dragnet.”
I have
never agreed with the order in which they chose to air the episodes.
Nevertheless, it is an interesting choice to see where they chose to start and
how they chose to introduce the world to this new series, exactly fifty-three years ago,
which would go on to become a cultural phenomenon. Since they chose to air what was actually
their sixth episode first it allowed the series to be presented as if it were
born almost fully grown and fully clothed.
By this episode the interior of the Enterprise
was set, the uniforms were now in order as they would be throughout series with
their black collars for all and miniskirts for the women. The rank insignia on their sleeves was now
going to be correct, with small exception to Mr. Spock’s frocking. The crew was
now completely assembled with no characters missing-but not all on camera-and every character in the
role that they would be known for.
Everyone was in their right colored uniform with Mr. Spock wearing his
traditional blue, Uhura wearing her traditional red, and Mr. Sulu his gold.
The
episode also came with many common themes that we associate with Star
Trek. Kirk and crew beam down to a
strange new world, they encounter a peculiar and dangerous life form that is
the focus of the episode reinforcing the idea that space exploration into the
unknown is very dangerous. Nameless
extras are cannon fodder to show how dangerous this threat is. Most importantly, the episode is also
morality tale using the analogy of science fiction to explore the dangers and
horror of the concept of extinction.
Star Trek will be famous for using science fiction to talk about things
that were not often comfortable talking about in the real world.
Now
there were also some key differences in this episode and what would become
popular throughout the series showing that there was still some development to
go. For one thing with the exception of
a small voiceover there is no Scotty in this episode. To be fair it wasn’t like his character was
going to have a lot to do, the Enterprise
did nothing strenuous that would require his attention in fact throughout the
entire episode the Enterprise just
hangs out in orbit around the planet.
Kirk says “general quarters” as opposed to “red alert.” Also the crewmen
who died were all wearing the wrong colored shirts; they didn’t yet realize
that is those in red who are supposed to be sacrificed.
Anyone
else find it odd to see Yeoman Rand munching on a meal that she was delivering?
I mean I realize we want the salt creature to see that there was salt on
the plate but wasn’t there a better way to do it? Then we get the big surprise
when the Captain’s personal Yeoman is delivering a meal not to Captain Kirk but
to Lt. Sulu. Does Captain Kirk often
assign his Yeoman to get the meals of all the bridge officers? Are Lt. Sulu and Yeoman Rand in some sort of
secret romantic relationship? Like
allegedly Mr. Spock and the flirtatious Lt. Uhura. That would explain her feeling free to sample
part of his lunch. It could be platonic though.
Yeoman Rand might be is trying to establish a professional connection
with an up-and-coming officer the fleet.
After all they do end up serving together on the Excelsior.
Now
about the salt vampire: is it good; is it evil, or indifferent? The episode does at times try to portray it
sympathetically, the last of its species that one point numbered into the
millions. However the creature murdered
five people and two of those people it counted as friends. The pathetic thing
about it was the whole misadventure was completely unnecessary. Crater never really needed to lie to the Enterprise. All he had to do was simply communicate that
they found an indigenous life form, last of its kind so no Prime Directive
problem, and it needs salt for its survival.
There end of story, but that would make for a boring TV show. Maybe the creature demonstrated to Crater
that was so afraid of outsiders the Crater felt he had to resort to such
methods. But if you going to get so
desperate for salt that you will start killing your friends maybe you could
just be little desperate and be forced socialize that shouldn't be hard when can look however you want.
I also
wonder how the salt creature’s species ended up in this situation. On the planet the Craters were studying the
remains of a civilization. Was that
civilization the civilization of the salt creatures? Did they turn on each other and destroy each
other in war when there salt supply started to run low? What if the salt creatures were always
parasites? Was there another dominant
life form on the planet that built that civilization? The salt creatures infiltrated it using their
telepathic powers to appear as friends and relatives while always sucking on
their salt. The salt ran low that in
desperation the salt creatures hunted that other species into extinction
leaving nothing on the planet and all the salt creatures died out one by one
until there is only one left? If my last
theory is true then I’m glad all the salt creatures are all dead. Sometimes extinction is a good thing and in
the cases salt creatures it probably was.
That kind of undermines the moral message of the episode but it was only
their first sixth time so we can excuse them for their early folly and just expect
better later.
This was how studio executives decided to present the world of Star Trek, considering we are still talking about it exactly fifty-three years to the date it debuted in the United States for the first time it may have been the right
decision.
FINAL GRADE 3 of 5
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