AKA Do Androids Dream Of Making Out
Our episode begins with Kirk talking to Nurse Chapel on the bridge while the Enterprise prepares to enter orbit around Planet Exo-3. We haven’t seen hardly any of Chapel so far, but we’re gonna get to know her better in this episode. She apparently gave up a promising career to enlist on a starship so she could look for a man named Roger Korby, who hasn’t been heard from in five years. Korby was a pretty big deal when it came to archaeological medicine, with his works being required reading at the Academy, but he seems to have noped off to somewhere and attempts to find him have come up empty. And this one isn’t looking good: Spock says that the atmosphere of the planet is technically suitable for human life, but its fading sun means the ambient temperature is -100º. Well, that’s alright, evidently humans can hold out at -120º in the Star Trek universe. But Uhura’s attempts at contact aren’t getting any results.
Just as she’s saying that, though, a signal comes in from Korby himself. HE’S ALIIIIIIIIIIVE.
After the titles, we find out that Korby and the remaining part of his expedition have been living in underground ruins on the planet, left behind by some long-gone natives. So I guess he’s just been down here the entire time, and no one else bothered to check the planet he was last known to be at because…? He also wants Kirk to beam down alone. Hmm, that’s not suspicious at all. Spock asks if Chapel is sure that’s really Korby’s voice, and Chapel asks Spock if he’s ever been engaged. Spock actually is engaged, but he doesn’t bring that up.
Anyway, point is Chapel and Korby were engaged, and so Chapel could never mistake his voice because true love perfectly preserves audio memory, that’s science. Once Korby finds out she’s on the ship he’s more than happy for her to beam down along with Kirk. On their way to the turbolift, Uhura stops and gives Chapel a congratulatory hug. It’s a tiny background moment, but it’s very sweet.
Kirk and Chapel beam down to the entrance of a cave, and since it’s -100º on the surface they naturally didn’t bring any warm clothes. Korby’s not waiting for them as promised, though. This rouses Kirk’s suspicions, and he has Spock beam down a couple of security guys just in case something’s up. One of them, Rayburn, stays on guard at the cave entrance, while the other one, Matthews, comes with Kirk and Chapel to look for Korby.
The three of them creep through the remarkably well-lit cave, and Chapel almost falls down a chasm because whatever aliens lived here didn’t install any safety rails. Suddenly, a light clicks on and we see a silhouetted figure who stands there without saying anything for way longer than any normal human would before finally revealing himself to be Dr. Brown, Korby’s assistant. Introductions are cut short, though, by an echoing scream from up the path. Kirk, Chapel and Brown run back up to the chasm to find Matthews gone. Brown says there’s no hope—the chasm is bottomless. A bottomless pit, eh? Well that’s alright then, he’ll probably respawn at the top with a bit of health taken off.
Brown says the guy must have slipped, but even as he says that we see a tall and very suspicious looking character creeping away around the corner. Everyone is too distracted by the horrible death of Matthews to notice this though. Well, everyone but Brown, who’s quite blasé about the whole thing and just calls it unfortunate. He’s acting weird in general, not seeming to recognize Chapel at first and then introducing himself even though they already know his name. He assures Kirk once again that Matthews is really most sincerely dead and starts to lead them back down the tunnel.
This is the first actual redshirt death we’ve seen in the series so far (and it took seven episodes! Who’da thunk it) and it’s worth pointing out that despite the reputation of redshirts for dying in nameless droves, Kirk is clearly quite shaken up over this one. He looks down into the chasm for a long time and is obviously not satisfied with Brown writing the whole situation off as hopeless. Then he calls up Rayburn and Rayburn is also clearly upset about it.
Kirk dials up the security, telling Rayburn to tell the Enterprise to have a full team standing by to be sent in if either of them fail to check in on time. Before he can do that, though, the ominous guy from before sneaks up on him and…well, he just kind of puts his hand over Rayburn’s mouth and Rayburn immediately drops to the floor.
And yes, that’s Ted Cassidy (best known as Lurch from The Addams Family). Because you have to be 6 ft 9 to make that costume work.
There’s a story that the producers wanted to test the effectiveness of Ruk’s costume and makeup, so they had Ted Cassidy meet a salesman who thought he was just there to talk to Gene Roddenberry. Sure enough, the poor guy was so freaked out he could barely get through his pitch. I wonder if anyone considered that maybe it wasn’t the costume that was scary so much as just having Ted Cassidy looming over you when you least expect it.
Anyway, Brown is walking and expositing, talking about the discoveries Korby made about this alien civilization. He says that Korby’s long-standing theory was that freedom of movement was necessary to the human spirit, and that this society proved that because as they were forced to move underground they became a more rigid, mechanistic culture. Um…okay. Even assuming that’s true of humans—which is a big assumption—what does that have to do with an alien culture? By definition the human spirit is not applicable to a nonhuman culture, and vice versa. I’m starting to suspect anthropology is not actually Korby’s strong suit.
Anyway, they finally make it down to the main base, which is pretty well furnished for being a cave. As Kirk and Chapel are looking around, a nearby door slides open and a woman steps out. She’s dressed similarly to Brown, who’s wearing a blue jumpsuit with a green diagonal stripe that goes down one leg, except, um, she doesn’t have a shirt. Or a bra. She’s just got blue and green straps in an x-mark across her chest, a precarious-looking position that seems like it would be one shoulder twitch away from serious controversy. Chapel doesn’t look real happy about this, although whether she’s upset that her fiancee is living with a mostly topless woman or just had the same instinctive reaction to that outfit that I did, I couldn’t say.
The woman introduces herself as Andrea, and recognizes Chapel and Kirk. Chapel is all “uhhhhh where did YOU come from” but before we can get into that Korby himself finally appears. He and Chapel share a heartfelt embrace and a big ol’ smooch before Korby introduces himself to Kirk. Then Brown mentions the death of Matthews. You’d think Korby at this point would be like “wait didn’t I tell you to come alone?” but he doesn’t mention anything about it, instead expressing deepest regrets about the whole thing. Kirk tries to check in with Rayburn and tells Korby that the Enterprise can help them out with anything they need, but Korby tells him to hang on a sec.
Since Rayburn’s not reporting in, though, Kirk needs to call the ship…but he’s cut off by Brown saying, “No communications!” And he’s pointing a phaser at Kirk. That, uh, that escalated quickly.
Korby says he can’t have more people beaming down because there are things down here that Kirk doesn’t understand yet. Then he tells Andrea to do…something. We don’t find out exactly what, because while she’s doing it Kirk grabs her and takes her own phaser from her. Then he does a combat roll across the floor and shoots Brown, who goes down in a shower of sparks. Immediately afterward, the big dude we saw lurking around before bursts in, lifts Kirk up into the air, and slams him against the wall. I dunno if that was on wires or if Ted Cassidy could just do that.
While this is happening, Chapel gets a look at Brown and screams, because he’s laying on the ground with a big hole in his torso…only instead of blood and entrails coming out, there’s an exposed tangle of smoking wires and machinery. Although presumably she would also be screaming if it was the other way around.
After the break, the Enterprise picks up a call from Kirk, who tells them that everything’s cool and they’ll be returning to the ship after they’ve packed up all of Korby’s stuff. But then we get a look inside the cavern, where it turns out that Kirk isn’t speaking at all: it’s the big dude, perfectly imitating his voice. Spock thinks there might be something up with this, but the big dude assures him it’s all perfectly fine. While this is happening, Korby tells Kirk not to move or yell because Ruk could injure him. Thank God, I can finally stop calling him the big dude.
Korby then demonstrates to Kirk that Ruk can perfectly imitate a whole bunch of voices, including Andrea (and a light female voice coming out of Ted Cassidy’s mouth is just as disconcerting as it sounds), Korby himself, and Chapel. Korby doesn’t react well to that last one and firmly tells Ruk he’s never to mock, hurt or disobey Chapel.
Kirk is pretty put out by all this, but Korby is still going on about how he just needs to listen and he’ll understand and Korby can’t let him contact his ship yet because the science will be ruined by people who don’t understand. And yeah, science is often met with skepticism and superstition that can be very damaging, but I feel like if you have to hold people at gunpoint (or giant-hulking-android-point, whatever) to get them to listen to you, you are doing things wrong. I mean, there’s a reason it’s called a thesis defense, not a thesis offense.
Well, never mind the science for a minute, Kirk wants to know what happened to Rayburn. Korby kind of hems and haws that, uh, well, Ruk kinda killed both the redshirts, because he was programmed to protect Korby’s work and saw the security guards as threats. But Korby totally didn’t want him to do that! Ruk responds to this by giving the camera a glorious side-eye.
“Uh…yeah. Sure.”
When Kirk asks if Ruk is also an android then, Ruk finally breaks his silence to say that excuse you, he’s a way better android than that dweeb Brown. He says he was left here by the Old Ones. This calls for a Lovecraft joke, but I’d only get it wrong because I don’t know anything about Lovecraft. Sorry.
Anyway, Ruk’s been kicking around here for untold ages, maintaining the technology left behind, and with his help Korby was able to build Brown. Kirk’s had enough of this silliness and tries to make a break for it, but Ruk just grabs him again and tosses him across the room. Ouch.
In another room, Andrea comes to see Chapel and says she doesn’t understand why Chapel is unhappy since she’s with Korby again. Maybe because she’s being held in a deep underground cave while her fiancee is ranting about how the fools won’t understand him and also said fiancee has a mostly-topless mystery woman running around. Just a guess.
Chapel wants to know where Kirk is, and Andrea says she doesn’t understand how Chapel can love Korby without trusting him, and also, why does it bug Chapel so much when Andrea calls Korby Roger? Before Chapel can get into the complicated relationship dynamics here, Korby himself comes in and says that since it bothers Chapel, Andrea is to call him Dr. Korby from now on. Also, Kirk’s totally fine and he won’t be harmed! He’s just being restrained by a giant android with no concern for human life. And he can’t be allowed to contact his ship until he understands the great things at stake here. Korby, if your ideas are so volatile that they have to be explained to people one at a time while they can’t run away, it’s gonna take you a really long time to get anywhere.
But now Korby finally starts actually explaining something, beginning with Andrea, who it turns out is also an android. In retrospect the name ‘Andrea’ was kind of a tip-off there. He gushes about how lifelike she is, even having a pulse (why?) and warm skin. Christine is less than impressed with this and Korby rushes to explain that Andrea is still only a computer and can only do what he programs her to do. NOT HELPING, KORBY.
Korby insists that he doesn’t love Andrea, because she’s only a machine and not capable of that, and he could have no emotional connection to her. This might have been a case of broadcast standards working against themselves. Korby can’t say that he’s not having sex with Andrea, because you can’t mention sex on TV! So he can only say that he doesn’t love her, which of course leaves all kinds of implications open.
Anyway, Korby attempts to prove his point by having Andrea kiss Kirk and then smack him across the face. I’m really not sure what you proved there, Korby, but okay. He goes on to emphasize that Andrea is only a computer, totally logical, no emotion whatsoever, no feeling, just a thing. Kirk asks why, if the androids only do what they’re told to do, have they been all shooty and murdery and generally unpleasant? Korby says he’ll explain that too.
But the next shot we get is not of Korby explaining anything, but of Ruk loading a big green vaguely human-shaped pinata thing into a machine. Korby brings Chapel in and tells her that this is how you make an android, and the camera pulls back to reveal that the machine is a big disk with the pinata on one side and Kirk strapped to the other side. Also Kirk is naked. I’m curious how Korby convinced Kirk to strip for this thing. Then again, it’s probably not that hard.
So some dials get turned and the machine starts spinning like a merry-go-round (hopefully Kirk isn’t susceptible to motion sickness). Chapel is shocked by all this and says that when she knew Korby he wouldn’t dream of harming anyone or anything, so what the hell’s all this about? Korby says he couldn’t just beam up to the Enterprise with the androids, because no one would take them seriously. And McCoy would probably yell at them.
As the machine gets cranked up to a higher level, we see the pinata turn from a green blob to a perfect copy of a human (or at least, we see it go from being a blob to being a human between one rotation and another). When the machine finally stops, there’s two identical Kirks, so alike that Chapel can’t tell the difference between them. Man, Kirk seems to get duplicated a lot in this show. I know William Shatner wanted to have more presence than anyone else in it, but this is taking things a bit far.
While Korby is duplicating Kirk’s mental patterns onto the android, Kirk takes the opportunity to repeat a suspicious phrase: “Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I’m sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?” That’s an awfully specific turn of phrase. Hopefully this is part of some plan he has and he didn’t just happen to feel like being racist today.
So they’ve successfully made a Kirkbot that looks and acts like him, but Korby still hasn’t actually explained anything. C’mon, dude, you gotta get around to this eventually. I understand the appeal of procrastination, believe me, but you can’t just keep putting things off by making android copies of people.
In the meantime Andrea serves Chapel and Kirk a lunch of the typical Fruity Space Cubes, only now they’re on top of a brownish beany substance so it looks even less appealing than usual. The two of them talk about Korby. Chapel’s concerned and confused and doesn’t know what to think about what Korby’s doing, but for now she still thinks he must have some good reason for everything he’s doing because he’s such a great man. She can’t eat (no surprise, that stuff looks gross) but tells Kirk to go ahead, only for him to smile and say that androids don’t eat. That’s right, she was talking to Kirkbot all along.
Korby comes in with the real Kirk, now wearing another one of the green and blue jumpsuits since Kirkbot stole his uniform. (Although while the scientists wear black undershirts under their jumpsuits, Kirk doesn’t—because of course he doesn’t. I’m starting to suspect Kirk has some kind of vendetta against black undershirts.) The two of them banter a bit—the usual robot vs human stuff, is the pleasure of eating better than never going hungry, etc, etc—and Kirk tests Kirkbot’s memory by asking about his brother, who he was talking to right before this mission.
Korby watches smugly as Kirk is unable to trip up Kirkbot, before he sends Kirkbot out of the room. Then he finally starts to explain some things: he says that if he had continued the entire process he could have transferred all of Kirk into the android, uploading his brain, his self, his very soul into the machine. Which is either hyperbole or Korby has scientifically proven the existence of a human soul, in which case I think he really should have led with that one.
Anyway, Korby’s whole point is that with this technology humans can become functionally immortal by uploading themselves into android bodies. Kirk isn’t impressed; he says that’s the same old promise made by people like Genghis Khan, Julius Caesar, Hitler, Ferris and Maltuvis. Uh…okay, back up here. I don’t know what those last two guys got up to but while my history is a bit shaky I’m pretty sure none of the first three guys offered to turn people into robots. I guess you could kind of maybe make a case for some of the standard ‘improve the human race’ Nazi bullshit being adjacent to this, but I think Caesar and Khan just wanted to rule a lot of people, which is not particularly nice but really isn’t all that relevant to what Korby is doing. And I think the kind of promises they made were more along the lines of “if you surrender to me my army might not burn down your entire village.”
Korby, however, is not deterred by Kirk randomly comparing him to various historical villains, and says that they could use this technology to improve humans, programming away things like jealousy and hate and fear. Kirk has the sensible reaction to this, which is of course “uh, yeah, no.”
So what Korby wants now is for Kirk to take him to a colony with a lot of raw material around so he can start making androids and having them infiltrate society. That way people won’t ruin his work by freaking out about the androids, because people definitely won’t freak out when they find out that their society was infiltrated by androids. Listen, Korby, if you’re into transhumanism that’s cool and all, but have you considered just asking first?
Well, Kirk’s had enough of listening to Korby’s plans for robot domination. He unwinds a bit of cord from the chair he’s sitting on and uses it as a makeshift garrote to attack Korby, threatening to kill him if Ruk doesn’t stay back. He’s able to back out of the room this way, before shoving Korby away and taking off into the caves. A gasping Korby sends Ruk running after Kirk, and then Chapel goes running after Ruk, yelling at him to stop and not to hurt Kirk. Ruk doesn’t listen, even though he was told to obey Chapel; apparently Korby’s orders supersede hers. Or maybe Ruk just doesn’t feel like listening anymore.
Kirk runs into a room—a cave room—hides around a corner and pulls a stalactite off the ceiling. Yes, he just broke off a giant chunk of stone with his bare hands. That’s, uh, not really something you can do, generally, but Kirk has never been one to be bound by mere human limitations. And yes, the stalactite is, infamously, very suggestively shaped. No, I’m not going to take a picture of it for you. Look it up.
Ruk pauses in the doorway of the cave and, not seeing Kirk, uses Chapel’s voice to call out for him. He’s almost about to leave when Kirk calls back, so Ruk starts sneaking around towards Kirk. There’s a tense pause. Then Ruk comes around the corner and Kirk whacks him with the stalactite. It’s not very effective. Seriously Kirk, the dude is like a foot taller than you, built like a truck, literally has inhuman strength, and your stalactite is made of plaster. Not sure what you thought you were gonna accomplish there.
Kirk flees, but falls into another chasm (there’s a lot of them around here) and only barely manages to catch the edge of it. He hangs there helplessly while Ruk looms over him. What to do? Kirk seems to be out of options. Ruk pauses. Then, unexpectedly, he reaches down and pulls Kirk up.
On the Enterprise, Kirkbot has beamed aboard, much to the surprise of Spock. Spock follows him back to Kirk’s quarters, confused about the captain just appearing back on the ship without warning, but in response to an innocent question Kirkbot snaps, “Mind your own business, Mr. Spock. I’m sick of your half-breed interference, do you hear?” Then, without missing a beat, he asks why Spock looks upset.
So this was Kirk’s plan all along, to plant a phrase in Kirkbot’s mind that would make it clear that he wasn’t really Kirk. A good idea, but I feel like he could have picked one that was a bit more obvious. Like maybe “I’m not really Captain Kirk.” That would have been a good one. Still, it did the trick; Spock is clearly suspicious and tells the landing party to meet him in the transporter room after Kirkbot has beamed down.
Down in the caves, Kirkbot hands some files he retrieved from Kirk’s safe to Korby, suggesting a colony for them to start with. It’s called Midas 5, which makes me wonder if everything there is made of gold. At any rate, Korby approves.
This is something I don’t quite get. Kirkbot is supposed to be an exact duplicate of Kirk, one that has the same personality, the same memories, the same reactions. So why would he help Korby? Kirk himself clearly doesn’t agree with Korby’s plans. Maybe because he’s an android Korby could order Kirkbot to help him, but you’d expect some degree of reaction or resistance to all this. It’s like when they were making Kirkbot they copied everything but also had a dial marked ‘Evil’ that they turned up a bunch.
Anyway, Kirk himself has been deposited on an uncomfortable looking bed in a sealed-off room. When Andrea comes in to collect a tray, he orders her to kiss him. Kirk, forcing yourself on women isn’t cool, I don’t care if they’re robot women or not. The two of them make out, but Andrea pulls away, saying that she’s not programmed for him, though she appears conflicted and confused about this. Kirk tries to follow her out of the room, but Ruk appears and throws him back onto the bed.
Well, time for one of the oldest Kirk tricks in the book: talking a computer to death. Kirk asks if Ruk disapproves of Chapel ordering him to save Kirk’s life. Ruk says that allowing Kirk to continue living is illogical. Kirk asks what happened to the Old Ones and wonders if they maybe built their androids too well and got overthrown by them when the androids got tired of their illogical behavior. Ruk admits that yes, the Old Ones became frightened of their androids and began to decommission them. Sounds like the Old Ones remembered the last two laws of robotics but forgot about the first one.
Kirk says that Korby is just beginning the cycle all over again: Ruk is being made to serve humans, but humans are, as McCoy will happily tell you any day of the week, super duper illogical and emotional and serving them isn’t going to be any better for a logical android like Ruk. At first Ruk disagrees, saying it was Kirk who came in from outside and brought disorder in, and that he can’t harm Korby because Korby programmed him. Kirk points out that the Old Ones also programmed Ruk, and he was ultimately able to harm them.
This provokes Ruk into a freakout, grabbing Kirk and yelling about how survival must cancel out programming. Unfortunately for Korby, he chooses that moment to come in, and Ruk turns on him, accusing him of introducing the inferior humans. Unfortunately for Ruk, Korby has a phaser, and when Ruk won’t back down Korby zaps him out of existence. So much for the last remnant of an ancient civilization.
Korby leads Kirk—and Chapel, who came in with him—out of the room at phaserpoint, but as they enter another room Kirk seizes the opportunity to turn and grapple him for the phaser. Korby manages to push him off, but not before some skin gets scraped off his hand, revealing electronics underneath. Korby has been an android the entire time.
A desperate Korby tries to convince Chapel that it’s still really him—he was wounded and dying and uploaded himself into the android body to survive. But he’s still the same Korby, maybe even better now. Chapel’s not convinced, shaking her head in utter shock and horror.
The whole thing is derailed anyway by an alarm going off, signaling an intruder alert—presumably Spock and the landing party. Korby calls Andrea and tells her to deal with it, but on her way she runs into Kirkbot in the corridor. Andrea says she’ll kiss him, but Kirkbot says no, that’s illogical. So Andrea shoots him. Dang, someone doesn’t take rejection well.
Andrea comes into the room where the rest of the party is and says that Kirk escaped so she shot him—only to be stunned when she sees Kirk there and realizes that she killed the android instead. She tells Korby she’s not programmed to deal with alarms and didn’t know what to do. Kirk points out to Korby that his perfect androids, bereft of all human flaws, are killing one another off just like regular old humans. Korby doesn’t want to hear this and insists he’s not a computer. He says he’ll prove it by solving any equation they put to him, only to come to a horrified halt when he realizes what he’s saying. Korby’s ill-fated attempt to pass the Turing Test causes him to have a breakdown, begging Chapel to accept that he is Roger Korby, but she’s not buying it.
Kirk says that if Korby has any humanity left in him he’ll hand over the phaser. Korby resists, but eventually does it. Kirk tries to get the phaser from Andrea, too, but she won’t give it to him. She says she’s meant to protect Korby, and that she loves him, despite his insistence that she can’t love because she’s not human. This is the final straw for Korby, and as Andrea embraces him he pulls the trigger on the phaser, killing them both.
Just after the nick of time, Spock and the landing party burst in, asking what’s going on and where’s Korby. Kirk says Korby was never there, a dramatic and poignant statement that does nothing to explain anything.
Back on the ship, Chapel tells Kirk she’s staying on the Enterprise. And why not? Where else is she going to go? At least all the boldly going tends to keep you distracted from any problems less immediate than trying not to die. But I really hope she gets some help, or at least someone to talk to about this. I mean, imagine what all that would do to you. The love of your life disappears, and you’re so desperate to find him that you give up everything and join the space navy just to have a chance to look for him. Then, against all odds, you do find him!–only he’s acting super weird and not like himself and he’s talking about plans for taking over society with androids. Then it turns out your real fiancee has been dead all this time and what you thought was him, the man you kissed and embraced and talked to and feared for, was actually an android. And then, before you can even process that, he kills himself. Your loved one is dead, you don’t know how much of him was in the android all along and you never will know because even that remnant of him is gone, and the driving goal of your life for the past five years has been completely demolished in the cruelest way possible in the space of a day. Sweet Jesus, that’d mess anybody up.
Kirk and Spock have a brief chat, with Spock expressing dismay over Kirk’s use of the term ‘half-breed’ calling it “a most unsophisticated expression.” Kirk dryly says he’ll remember that the next time he finds himself in a similar situation. It’s not really clear how much he’s explained to Spock at this point, whether Spock knows that was actually a plan to expose Kirkbot and not just a random racist insult. I mean…I hope Kirk explained that to him. Spock has one of those Vulcan not-quite-smiles, though, so it seems like he knows what was going on, or at least isn’t real bothered about it.
That’s the end of that episode. Crew death count is two redshirts (Rayburn and Matthews). We have a new thing to keep track of, too: Kirk logic-bombing computers, which happens three whole times in this episode, with Andrea, Ruk and Korby. Next time, we’re going on down to creepy child town, with Miri.
Undeath of the Author 