A half-century later, ‘The Man Trap’ has only gotten weirder… and better.
The originalStar TrekTV show is half a century old, and Ive never loved it more.
It is talky, stagebound, narcotically slow.
Credit: Paramount Television
The alien planets look like sets, or they look like hiking trails in greater Los Angeles.
Science-fiction storytelling is now synonymous with serialized storytelling.
We expect that events that happen in one episode will matter in the next episode.
Paramount Television
Watching the originalStar Treknow, the characters completelackof interest in their own history reads dispassionate, almost inhuman.
Star Trekis old thats not what Im saying at all.
The colors, first and foremost!
The episodes on Netflix are remastered versions, and thats a bit of a double-edged sword.
There is added CGI mostly for scenes where theEnterprisefloats around the latest mission-planet.
Really, this just means the primitive and unconvincing original effects are now primitive and unconvincing digital effects.
But the remastering adds wild new dimensions to the show.
The worldscapes look more garish, painted-red skies almost Sirkian in their intensity.
Its a cruel name, clinical, bureaucratic.
Watching the originalTrekin high-definition adds another level, too.
At one point, Kirk and Spock beam down to planet M-113.
(Strange things keep happening; people keep dying.)
William Shatners face positively glistens with sweat; you canfeelthe spotlight just off screen.
But Leonard Nimoy doesnt seem to sweat at all.
Kirk runs hot; Spocks ice-cold even when theyre taking fire.
Paramount Television
Nothing could be further.
There arent many flourishes, but half a century later, the professionalism ofTrekis its own flourish.
I love how some episodes become face-parades, a close-up cacophony.
Was that a mistake?
That mistake has become a haunting effect all its own, dreamlike, wall-bursting.
A lot ofStar Trekfeels like that, 50 years on.
The Man Trap wasnt thefirstfirstStar Trekepisode, nor the second.
Another pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, cracked the code.
go mad with god-power.
Ultimately, Kirk has to kill Mitchell.
Like everything that happens onTrek, this is never mentioned again.
But The Man Trap aired first.
It throws you right in.
TheEnterpriseis on an assignment, and the task couldnt be more banal.
Kirk literally describes their mission as a routine medical examination.
(Robert Crater sounds like a porn star; Nancy Crater sounds like a Bond girl.)
Is this what theEnterprisecrews life would be, if aliens didnt keep attacking them?
Checking boxes on a file form?
A twist: Nancy Crater is an old flame of Dr. McCoys.
(That one woman in Dr. McCoys past, per Kirks narration are all Captains Logs so saucy?)
In an old temple, McCoy finds Nancy, remarkably unchanged in 10 years.
Or at least, McCoy thinks she looks unchanged, like a girl of 25.
In Kirks eyes, though, Nancy looks very different.
Shes a handsome woman, yes, Kirk admits, but hardly 25.
The actress who plays Nancy, Jeanne Bal, was 38 at the time.
Theres a third member of theEnterprisecrew, a Michael Phelps-looking doofball with expendable tattooed across his forehead.
Theres a scream, and then viewers see their first deadEnterprisecrewman, a man trapped.
She becomes a man, and flirts with Yeoman Rand.
She becomes another man, and flirts with Uhura in Swahili!
So Nancy is a woman who is also a man; can be white, can be black.
That fluidity actually feels more convincingly human, 50 years later, than Kirks brash assurance.
Actually, Kirk mainly seems annoyed with McCoy throughout the whole episode.
Entertainment Weeklys Ultimate Guide to Star Trekis available now.
Eventually, it becomes clear that the thing bedeviling theEnterpriseisnt Nancy at all.
Kirk and Spock battle Professor Crater, played by Alfred Ryder with mad-scientist poignance.
Subdued, Crater spins quite a story.
The Craters found this creature, and its implied that they took care of it.
But it needed salt to live, and their salt stores ran out.
Its never entirely clear what happened.
Either way, Nancys long-dead, buried up on the hill.
(The budget was too small for a hill; much sadder to imagine it, I think.)
What happened to Nancy is a mystery; what has happenedsinceNancy is deeply weird.
I loved Nancy very much, Crater says.
Few women like my Nancy.
She lives in my dreams.
She walks and sings in them.
The shapeshifter becomes Nancy for him: It needs love as much as it needs salt.
Oh yeah: Craters beencratering.
But he casts his xenophilia in noble, philosophical terms.
It isnt just a beast.
It is intelligent, and the last of its kind.
Kirk has no time for this.
Youre too pure and noble.
This thing becomes wife, lover, best friend, wise man, fool, idol, slave.
Youre too pure and noble.
Ironically, that line would become an all-encompassing critique ofStar Trekin the years to come.
(Though of course, everyones entitled totheir own goofy opinion.)
Craters response to Kirk is beautifully simple: You dont understand.
Things progress quickly now.
The creature flees to McCoys cabin, once again takes on the form of Nancy.
Kirk walks in, phaser out, demanding McCoy step aside.
Needs salt to live?
What is his Captain ranting about?
Spock runs in, tries to convince McCoy to fire his phaser.
I wont shoot Nancy!
If she were Nancy, yells Spock, Could she takethis?
And then Mr. Spock swing-punches Nancy seven or eight times.
Jeanne Bal really gives a great performance in this episode.
She knocks Spock over, returns to Kirk for her feeding.
She looks back at McCoy and she changes into her true form.
I think this true Nancy is one of the great horrific cosmic visions.
Worth pointing out, by the way, that there arent really any bad guys in this firstStar Trekepisode.
Crater just wants to save the thing, even if it kills him.
Everyone winds up depressed, or dead.
McCoy shoots the creature.
It turns back into Nancy: Leonard!
McCoy asks the Lords forgiveness, and shoots again.
(He never loved but one woman, and today he lost her twice.)
The creature lies dead; Kirk says hes sorry.
And then were back to the bridge.
Sulu asks, nonchalantly: Ready to leave orbit, Captain?
Kirks got Spock on his right, McCoy on his left.
McCoy looks magnificently sad; Spock looks like Spock.
Kirks mind is elsewhere:
Kirk looks at McCoy.
And then McCoy does this.
Whats your read on that expression?
awaiting out in the cosmos.
When theEnterprisearrived at Planet M-113, there were two lifeforms on the surface.
Now the planet is empty, an unmarked grave for a species lost to history.
Warp one, Mister Sulu, Kirk concludes.
There are more planets to seek out, more graves to dig.
