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=== Reception ===
 
=== Reception ===
* ''Variety'' published a very negative review of ''Star Trek'' in it's [[14 September]], {{y|1966}} issue based on this episode, stating the series "won't work". The reviewer called the show "dreary and confusing", and that it would be "better suited to the Saturday morning kidvid bloc", surprised on how ''Star Trek'' made it to television. Although, he conceded that the leading performers were trying very hard to appear credible. (''[[The Star Trek Compendium]]'')
+
* ''Variety'' published a very negative review of ''Star Trek'' in its [[14 September]], {{y|1966}} issue based on this episode, stating the series "won't work". The reviewer called the show "dreary and confusing", and that it would be "better suited to the Saturday morning kidvid bloc", surprised on how ''Star Trek'' made it to television. Although, he conceded that the leading performers were trying very hard to appear credible. (''[[The Star Trek Compendium]]'')
   
 
=== Other information ===
 
=== Other information ===

Revision as of 16:11, 17 August 2010

Template:Realworld

A mysterious creature stalks the Enterprise, murdering crew members. (Series Premiere)

Summary

Teaser

M-113

Orbiting the planet

The Enterprise arrives at planet M-113 to provide supplies and routine medical exams to Doctor Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy, whom Dr. Leonard McCoy was once romantically involved with. M-113 has been home to the Craters for five years, during which time they have conducted an archaeological survey of the planet's ruins. They are the only known inhabitants of the planet.

Kirk, McCoy, and crewman Darnell beam down to the planet and meet Dr. Crater and, apparently, Nancy Crater, but each of the landing party sees a different woman. McCoy, who says he is amazed at how little Nancy has changed since he last saw her, sees Nancy as he knew her 10 years ago. Darnell sees a completely different, younger blond woman who looks exactly like someone he met before. Kirk sees a woman similar to the woman McCoy sees, but more appropriately aged. At the end of the first scene, crewman Darnell is lured away by the seductive version of Nancy Crater that he sees.

Act One

Dr. Crater then arrives. Crater tells Kirk that the only thing they need are salt tablets. Otherwise, they want to be left alone. Kirk debates this, insisting they must need other supplies and must at least allow McCoy to give them physicals. During the physical, a woman's scream is heard from outside.

When Kirk goes to investigate, he finds Darnell dead, with Nancy standing over him. His face is scarred with circular marks. Nancy claims she saw him put a poisonous plant in his mouth.

Kirk and McCoy and the dead crewman beam back up. When the transporter room reports that one of the party is dead, Spock, who is in command, merely responds, "Bridge acknowledging," causing Uhura to express wonder that Spock did not even ask who among the party had died.

Aboard the Enterprise, McCoy and Spock determine that Darnell was not poisoned, and in fact nothing is wrong with him at all.

Act Two

Later, McCoy discovers that Darnell's body has been drained of salt.

Kirk, McCoy and two crewmen beam back down to the planet to investigate further, and Kirk insists that Dr. Crater and his wife beam up to the Enterprise until the investigation is complete. Abruptly Dr. Crater runs off to find Nancy. Sturgeon, one of the crewmen who beamed down with Kirk and McCoy, is found dead. The other, Green, is also killed by Nancy and then we see Nancy transform into Green.

Kirk and McCoy question Nancy/Green, and then the three beam up to the Enterprise.

The woman Kirk and McCoy saw as Nancy Crater, and later Green, is a shape-shifting creature, the last survivor of M-113, and can literally appear as a different being to each person "she" meets. By reaching into their minds and drawing on their memories, the creature can lull her potential victims into a false sense of security, and apparently hypnotize them, before killing them.

Loose aboard the Enterprise, the M-113 creature begins killing members of the crew, first by posing as someone they know and trust, and then draining their bodies of salt.

Act Three

Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet to capture Professor Crater. After a brief conflict, Crater is stunned and successfully captured. After Kirk inquires about Nancy, Crater says that she has been dead for years. He also described the M-113 creature. The problem facing the M-113 creature is the need for sodium chloride – salt. The creature will die without salt. The rest of its race died due to this shortage.

Act Four

In the briefing room, Kirk holds a conference with department heads and Professor Crater. The M-113 creatures appears at this meeting as McCoy. It is during this meeting that Crater informs everyone that he and the the last surviving creature have formed a symbiotic relationship. Crater provided the M-113 creature with the needed salt and, in turn, the creature gave the professor companionship... something Crater craved since the creature murdered his wife, the real Nancy Crater, for her salt.

Kirk McCoy & Nancy

Kirk, McCoy and the M-113 creature, posing as Nancy Crater

Finally, the creature kills Crater and changes into Nancy Crater, nearly killing McCoy. Kirk and Spock, who have figured out the creature's secret, rush to the doctor's quarters and convince him that this is not the real Nancy. In an emotionally painful move, McCoy kills the creature, saving himself and the Enterprise crew.

Log Entries

  • "Captain's log, stardate 1513.1. Our position, orbiting planet M-113. Onboard the Enterprise, Mr. Spock, temporarily in command. On the planet, the ruins of an ancient and long dead civilization. Ship's surgeon McCoy and myself are now beaming down to the planet's surface. Our mission, routine medical examination of archaeologist Robert Crater, and his wife, Nancy. Routine, but for the fact that Nancy Crater is that one woman in Dr. McCoy's past."
  • "Captain's log, additional entry. Since our mission was routine, we had beamed down to the planet without suspicion. We were totally unaware that each member of the landing party was seeing a different woman, a different Nancy Crater."
  • "Captain's log, stardate 1513.4. In orbit around planet M-113. One crewman, member of the landing party, dead by violence... cause unknown. We are certain the cause of death was not poison."
  • "Captain's log, stardate 1513.8. I am now certain that the violent death of my crewman was caused by some strange lifeform."
  • "Captain's log, additional. Armed and able-bodied crewmen are not attacked and slaughtered this easily. Apparently, the killer can immobilize them as it approaches, perhaps with some hypnotic or paralyzing power. The answer lies with Professor Crater."
  • "Captain's log, continuing. The Enterprise has been invaded by a creature capable of assuming any form and with the capacity to paralyze and draw the life from any one of us."

Memorable quotes

"Mister Spock, sometimes I think if I hear that word frequency once more, I'll cry."

- Uhura, starting a conversation with Spock


"Tell me how your planet Vulcan looks on a lazy evening when the moon is full."
"Vulcan has no moon, Miss Uhura."
"I'm not surprised, Mister Spock."

- Uhura and Spock


"But it's a mystery. And I don't like mysteries. They give me a bellyache. And I've got a beauty right now."

- Kirk, on Crater's need for salt tablets


"You could learn something from Mister Spock, Doctor. Stop thinking with your glands!"

- Kirk to McCoy, on the search for Nancy


"Why don't you go chase an asteroid?"

- Rand, to "Green"


"May the Great Bird of the Galaxy bless your planet."

- Sulu to Rand, as she brings him a food tray


"Why do people have to call inanimate objects she?"

- Sulu, to Rand


"You been nipping Saurian brandy or something?"

- Rand, to "Green" in the botany room


"Keep a tight fix on us. If we let out a yell, I want an armed party down there before the echo dies."

- Kirk, to Uhura


"This thing becomes wife, lover, best friend, wise man, fool, idol, slave. It isn't a bad life to have everyone in the universe at your beck and call! And you win all the arguments!"

- Kirk to Crater, on the M-113 creature


"Fortunately, my ancestors spawned in another ocean than yours did. My blood cells are quite different."

- Spock, on surviving the creature's attack


"Lord, forgive me."

- McCoy, before killing the creature


"Something wrong, Captain?"
"I was thinking about the buffalo, Mister Spock."

- Spock and Kirk, on the death of the creature


Background

  • "The Man Trap" was the first Star Trek episode to air, on 8 September 1966. As Robert H. Justman and Herbert F. Solow recount in Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, the decision to broadcast it before any of the other limited number of completed episodes was largely a process of elimination. Although it had good special effects and demonstrated the series' intelligent approach to alien life forms, "The Corbomite Maneuver" was not chosen because virtually all the action took place aboard the Enterprise. This drawback also weighed against "Charlie X", which was further deemed "too gentle" a tale because it dealt with the problems of an adolescent. "Mudd's Women" was out of the running because no one wanted to lead off the series with a risqué story about selling women in space. The second pilot, "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was considered too "expository" in terms of its background to be broadcast so early. Justman himself favored "The Naked Time" because he thought it would provide an ideal introduction to the different characters' personalities. In the end, "The Man Trap" won out because its straightforward action plot was not considered too exotic, it had the advantage of a monster to thrill the viewers, and it fulfilled the series' "strange new worlds" concept.

Script and story

  • The first draft of this episode's script was completed on 13 June 1966, with the final draft being completed three days later. In The Star Trek Interview Book, author George Clayton Johnson recalled that story editor John D.F. Black's only major objection to his first draft was that the M-113 creature did not arrive aboard the Enterprise until the third act. Black argued that the crew had to be put in jeopardy sooner, and so Johnson revised the script accordingly.
  • An early title for this episode was "Damsel With a Dulcimer". Professor Crater was supposed to drive a tractor around the archaeological site in the original story outline.
  • This episode bears a resemblance to an earlier George Clayton Johnson story called "All of Us Are Dying," later adapted by Rod Serling for The Twilight Zone episode "The Four of Us Are Dying", first aired on January 1, 1960. That show also involved a person who could make himself into whomever he chose. The episode featured actors Harry Townes, Phillip Pine, Peter Brocco and a score written by Jerry Goldsmith.
  • The episode was novelized by James Blish under the original scripted name, "The Unreal McCoy," in the first Star Trek adaptation collection, released in the US by Bantam Books in January 1967.

Credits

  • As the first episode actually telecast, the opening credits are slightly different from most other first season shows. Gene Roddenberry has "created by" credits and there is no "starring" before William Shatner's name. This version of the credits was used only once more, in "Charlie X".
  • In this episode, Garrison True and Larry Anthony both speak several on-screen lines, yet are not listed in the closing credits.
  • In the first season, directors and writers were not even credited until the very end of each episode, while they are credited right after the title of each episode beginning in season two.

Cast

  • James Doohan (Scotty) does not appear in this episode, but he is briefly heard on Kirk's communicator in dialog lifted from another episode.
  • Some actors in this episode were selected based on their resemblance to each other. (citation needededit) The transformation between Jeanne Bal and Bruce Watson is more effective because of this.
  • William Shatner has severe problems to this day with persistent ringing in his ears, a condition known as tinnitus. He says it was caused by explosions going off near him during his television work. In both this episode and "Arena", explosions occur very close to Shatner. Leonard Nimoy also has tinnitus due to this occurrence, but not as severe as Shatner's.
  • Guest stars Jeanne Bal and Vince Howard were both regular performers playing faculty members on the 1963-65 public high school drama Mr. Novak, a program on which many future Trek performers guested (including George Takei and Walter Koenig).

Costumes

  • The suit worn by Barnhart bears a strong resemblance to the radiation suits seen in The Outer Limits episode "The Production and Decay of Strange Particles" (guest-starring Leonard Nimoy), even down to the numbers seen on the suit. There were several other holdovers from The Outer Limits in Star Trek, notably creatures created by Janos Prohaska that were modified to create creatures seen in the Talos zoo in "The Cage" and, of course, the Horta in "The Devil in the Dark".
  • For the first time, Uhura wears a red uniform instead of a gold one.
  • Crewmen in the hallway can be seen wearing shirts from the second pilot, complete with the smaller insignia. A crewwoman wearing pants can be seen in the corridors; "Charlie X" is the last time this is seen.
  • In one of the red alert scenes on an Enterprise corridor the crewmen are wearing turtleneck uniforms. It is a recycled (originally unused) scene from "Where No Man Has Gone Before". (It can be seen at the beginning of Act One, in the original, pre-broadcast version of the second pilot.)

Visual and sound effects

Production

  • Although this episode was filmed before "The Naked Time", stock footage from that episode is used for the bridge scene at the very beginning. Kirk's run down the corridor to the sickbay is also pulled from "The Naked Time" as is a reaction shot of Kirk when Spock is telling him about the Borgia plant on the sickbay viewscreen.
  • Also, a recycled shot from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", showing Spock in the captain's chair is used for the same bridge scene at the beginning.
  • The shot of the computer monitor in sickbay, then in McCoy's quarters is the same shot, is recycled from "The Corbomite Maneuver" (with the close-ups of Kirk and Spock matted in during post-production).
  • This is the only segment of Star Trek in which we see McCoy's quarters. A pan and jump cut along a blank wall allowed two McCoys to appear in the same room. The three cylindrical containers on the shelf in McCoy's room were previously seen on Ben Childress's table in "Mudd's Women". They later appear in the large lighted panel in McCoy's lab.
  • At two points in this episode, the doors can be heard opening and closing without the dubbed sound effect: once when the-creature-as-Green leaves the botany lab and again during the final scene on the bridge.
  • Kirk's communicator flops open as he is crawling along the ground during the shoot-out with Crater. When Kirk opens his communicator to respond to Spock during the scene, there is no sound effect.
  • One aspect of the first season episodes is that the crew are not just walking in the corridors – they are often engaged in maintenance work, checking out equipment in the corridors and so on. This is evident in "The Man Trap" and "Charlie X", especially. Minor crew members also carried on casual conversations and a feeling of the ship as a real community was created, as when Uhura asks Bobby to fix her rattling door or when two crewmen admire Janice Rand. These details about everyday life on a starship largely faded away as the series progressed.
  • As one of the first episodes of Star Trek ever produced, the production effects had yet to be fully "ironed out", which is evident on the surface of the planet when Kirk and company are calling out "Crewman Green, report!" While the characters are supposed to be outside on an open plain, the way their voices sound makes it very obvious that the actors are calling out on an enclosed indoors stage.
  • Professor Crater's phaser is a reuse from "The Cage".

Reception

  • Variety published a very negative review of Star Trek in its 14 September, 1966 issue based on this episode, stating the series "won't work". The reviewer called the show "dreary and confusing", and that it would be "better suited to the Saturday morning kidvid bloc", surprised on how Star Trek made it to television. Although, he conceded that the leading performers were trying very hard to appear credible. (The Star Trek Compendium)

Other information

  • In the Leonard Nimoy-hosted 1983 documentary Star Trek Memories, Nimoy mentioned the fact that NBC chose to air this episode first, since (at least to the network) it was "proper" science fiction with a "proper" alien menace.
  • The preview trailer for this episode has the stardate as 1324.1.
  • The sickbay is called the dispensary in this episode.
  • Kirk tempts the creature with six salt tablets.

Production timeline

Video and DVD releases

Links and references

Starring

Co-Starring

Guest Star

Featuring

Uncredited co-stars

References

2254; 2256; 2261; 2264; Borgia plant; buffalo; Corinth IV; Dominguez, José; general quarters; Gertrude; Great Bird of the Galaxy; M-113; medical tricorder; passenger pigeon; "Plum"; salt; Saurian brandy; space happy; Vulcan; Weeper; Wrigley's Pleasure Planet

External link

  • Template:NCwiki
Previous episode produced:
"The Enemy Within"
Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 1
Next episode produced:
"The Naked Time"
Previous episode aired:
None
Next episode aired:
"Charlie X"
Previous remastered episode aired:
"The Conscience of the King"
TOS Remastered Next remastered episode aired:
"What Are Little Girls Made Of?"