Dagger of the Mind (Star Trek TOS - S1E10)

[Hailing Frequencies Open]

Strap in for a mind-bending trip to Tantalus V as Treks and Tangents tackles Dagger of the Mind. Kirk and Dr. Helen Noel visit a “therapeutic” penal colony that promises peace, love, and zero violence… which is Star Trek shorthand for "something is very wrong". We’re talking brainwashing machines, shady doctors, glowing visuals, and the age-old Trek question: what if the real danger is therapy? Join us as we dissect psychology, Vulcan Mind Melds, and why Starfleet really needs better background checks. 

[End Transmission]

Chapters

• 4:34 Initial Impressions
• 5:52 Treking Through the Episode
• 58:20 Final Thoughts
• 59:25 Tribble Tidbits
• 1:04:39 Episode Ranking
• 1:09:49 Turbolift Tease

Transcript

0:00

[Music] Haley and Freaklnce is open and welcome aboard tracks and tangents. I'm your co-host Brian. And I'm your co-host Jackie. I'm your Star Trek movie because tracks stop on tangents. And I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the tangents back on track. Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode. And this week we watched Star Trek, the original series. Season one, episode nine, "Dagger of the Mind." And welcome back to our little podcast project. Thank you all so much for listening in and tuning in. However you choose to consume the podcast, whether that's on our Patreon, our website, or one of the other major podcast distribution platforms like YouTube or Spotify, we appreciate you tuning back in for another episode. It's greatly appreciated. Thank you. So if you have the opportunity, if you could take out the Patreon, I mean, we're missing out there. Besides listening, greatly supporting our podcast besides liking and subscribing, wherever you choose to do so. Sharing the podcast with a friend is, I think, the most beneficial and helpful thing to the podcast that we can have. If you know someone who likes Star Trek, if you know someone who likes sci-fi, if you know someone who doesn't like Star Trek or like sci-fi, and thinks it's entertaining to listen to someone else who doesn't know Star Trek or sci-fi, feel free to share. Share the latest episode. Send them our link. We always are happy to welcome new people into the audience. As we mentioned in the last episode, expanding on our offerings to our Patreon subscribers, which you can find us at patreon.com/treksintangents. We are going to start launching monthly, a little bonus episode where we listen to and talk about the Star Trek original series animated series that came out after the original series stopped airing on television. They produced an animated version that lasted a decent number of episodes. So that is going to launch the first episode. We'll launch on our Patreon on Friday, December 26. A little post Christmas. Listen, get away from the family. If you're visiting relatives, duck away for a period of time and listen to us if you want. We plan on releasing these bonus episodes on the fourth Friday of every month until we run out of animated series and we'll find something else to do. But they're only going to be available to our Patreon subscribers. They will not be found on the other podcast streaming platforms to listen. You just have to visit patreon.com/treksintangents and sign up to be a crew member of the podcast. Greatly appreciate your support. Thank you so much for considering joining our crew. But with that being said, let's just jump into this week's episode. We ended last week's episode as we always do by giving a turbo lift tease or elevator pitch. This was where we had Jackie give her best estimate to what the plot of this week's episode would be with just the title of the episode. And I happen to have that right here. Jackie's prediction was more narrow focused this week than it has been. I'm doing much better. And so Jackie's turbo lift tease was and I quote. That means we are going to have a character that has like a brain tumor and that you know is a metaphor for that dagger or vice versa. And we have to cure them and make them happy. I get like a bronze star, a bronze star. You're still making very vague predictions. A metaphor for the dagger or the other way around it's a metaphor for not the dagger. I mean, I'm just like take spare. I got all the words. You're just hedging your bets. But I'll give you a bronze star for this week. Boom. What did you think of this week's episode Jackie? I liked it actually. I didn't even realize it was 50 minutes long. 50. It felt like one five. It just was flying on by. But I do need them to work on the ladies uniforms because Miss Helen definitely needed to be learning longer pants. I was probably going to point that out too when we got to it. But I agree as well. The pacing for this episode was fantastic. I thought this definitely is an episode that doesn't drag out. It doesn't really have any spots during the plot where you feel like things are dragging or things are being drawn out to fill time. They definitely make great use of the 50 minutes for the episode. And back to Helen though, if you have a problem and things are not, you know, equal. Beware. She has one curl that is not pinned. It's just hanging there. It's kind of weird. Yeah. An interesting fashion choice or style choice by the hair stylist. So enough about our initial impressions. We're trying to shorten this period of the podcast up so that we can get to the meat of the podcast. Jackie, why don't you walk us through the episode? This time instead of starting at the bridge, we start in the transport room with two crew members who are trying to send five giant pieces of medical and aid to this penal colony. I'm assuming it's like a jail of some sort. Right. The opening shot of the show of the episode is of this giant container of infra sensory drugs. It said from the tantalist penal colony, but they're beaming it down. I didn't. Who knows. It's a giant container full of drugs. But yes, this is in a sense a prison or jail for individuals. They don't go into super detail, but this is a type of jail where people with mental disabilities who have violent tendencies. So these would be medical conditions like schizophrenia or other types of conditions that would lead someone to violence. It's a jail for criminals who have committed crimes, but rather than locking them in a jail cell or a holding cell, this penal colony is staffed by doctors, psychiatrist, therapists, psychoanalysis equipment. And in one sense, they're doing treatment in another sense, they're doing experiments and research. This is less of a penal colony and more of a hospital, but you don't get to check out when you want to. Really, so they cannot send for some reason our two crew member cannot get these items to ship. And then of course, Kirk Waltz and he's like having a problem, gentlemen. And all he has to do is ask for permission to have those little force filled children open so we can send down all this medicine and aid that you need. And then you could put it back up just, but we can't come through some invisible wall. Yeah, it's a force field that the penal colony has enacted over its facilities to prevent transporters. It doesn't seem to affect communication. Well, I take that back. It later affects communication. They have to have some kind of monitoring system for outside people to ping in, so like maybe it's like a doorbell. Yeah, they've got someone monitoring some doorbell frequency, but we later find out or we later see that when Kirk tries to reach the enterprise with his own communicator, the same force field blocks that communication. It's a security measure because again, this isn't a hospital. This is a colony that is incarcerating individuals who have committed various amounts of crime and not petty crimes, violent crime. So Kirk gets everything open, the five boxes and medicine are shipped down and then, oh, the planet has to come back up from Dr. Adams. Sure. Okay, send it on up. So we receive this giant box and it's just sitting there. Yeah, it's a re it's a it's supposed to be research data and it has to be tapes because the computer runs on the enterprise on tapes every time they access files and information. So we're referring to tapes. This would have to be in reference to what technology is in the 60s where all data is stored on tapes. These have to be just reels and reels of data tapes. Yes, like for last episode, I imagined that all these tapes for like those micro fee things that we looked at at the library in high school or even in college. Yeah, you know, everything much, but with tons of data. Yep, pretty much, pretty much the same thing. So of course, so the box is supposed to be just the tapes hanging out there and Kirk reminds we only know one of these crew members name, which is Berkeley because Kirk calls them out and says, you know, you have to follow protocol and secure it. He's relearn your thing, but of course, secure this box first. Yeah, Kirk's calling out the crew member for not remembering on his own that a penal colony would have a force field that they would need to request to be lowered. So something that he should know Kirk is acting in his role of captain to tell him you need to go re-review your information and do some remedial training, but he's not harping on it. He's definitely just kind of ribbing on him and giving him a little bit of a hard time. But of course, they all have their backs turned. I'm all their backs are turned out of the box, capes this creepy dude in a blue jumpsuit and black boots and he's like a little acrobat person just super, super quiet and gets out and then he just waits for captain to leave and knocks out our dear friend Berkeley. And so Kirk's gone and we have a knocked out Berkeley. So this wild looking person tries to leave, but he can't go out of the transfer room because the hallway is filled with people. We never see the hallway ever filled, but of course at this one time they're almost be walking to lunch. So he then hides again after the opening credits were on the bridge and Kirk and McCoy are just chatting about how it would have been nice to meet Dr. Adams. Well Kirk is more interested in meeting Dr. Adams. Dr. McCoy really doesn't have any desire to meet Dr. Adams. He doesn't have the same opinion. Right, like Kirk is like, Oh, this man is a God. Kirk definitely idolizes Dr. Adams and the work that Dr. Adams does. McCoy definitely has a more negative opinion of Dr. Adams, his work, the penal colony in general and what it stands for. I mean, Dr. McCoy even brought up that it was like a cage, but then Kirk bounces back that it's just like a resort. They're all okay. Getting their therapy that they need. Right. Harmless, even though all the violent people are there and while as they're chatting, we are interrupted though because a woman's voice pops up and you hear a transfer, you know, pushes out the transmission for lack of better terms. That they're missing an inmate and he is violent and to be aware, of course, they don't say who this inmate is. I think they're almost ashamed. At that point, I thought they were ashamed of who it was because like we lost someone whoops right. Well, this is all happening on the bridge. We do see in a transporter room that the stove away has changed into the red engineering transporter outfit that the gentleman that he knocked out was wearing. Yeah, he's going to try to blend into the crew. See how long he can evade detection. Not very long. No, well, he has no idea that the penal colony is aware that he's missing and that the penal colony is reached out to the enterprise. And then we jump to the bridge. Everything that we have to keep on where everything is happening because jumping again. They are on the bridge back on the bridge or her a relays that the person missing must have beamed up in the box with the tapes. So he should may be on the enterprise. And so this is when the enterprise goes to alert conditions three. They're keeping their eye on open looking for this intruder. Yeah, for laymen's terms because they haven't fully established starfleet protocol or ship protocol at this point in the Star Trek series. This is just called red alert. All these alert numbers are so crazy. Well, that's up. Then we're back in the hallways and said in enterprise and the intruder is spotted in that red jumpsuit from Berthley's friend by another person in a red shirt. And he's in a gold shirt. That's right. And he's like, hey, you you in the engineering outfit stop, but our intruder does not stop as he's running away the in the gentleman and the gold shirt uses that little income intercom and reports to the bridge to spark that he got away and he's at large. And in turn, Fox walks off deck 14 to help try to hopefully contain him in at least one spot. Right, because they've discovered the transporter crew members unconscious same deck 14. They have this other crew member reporting that he spotted this suspicious person again, deck 14. So they're trying to contain him to deck 14 so Spock sends the security crew down to try to apprehend him on deck 14. And as the security crew is looking for him, he won't he comes up behind one of them and knocks him out and takes his face out from him. Yeah, because apparently this guy is an ninja and is a good chop a fantastic ability to sneak up behind anyone and just knock him out with one one swift karate chop to the neck wild wild eyes. Yes, in the way also here from a hurrah that he they have more of a description. He's roughly early 40s six four approach was caution. We didn't seem six four by watching the TV, but we'll go with it. Yeah, for early 40s at that. I don't know. He seemed like he might be in the early his early 40s. Well, as he's running around with his spacer and trying to get away, we're back on the bridge and since he they haven't found him on deck 14. Spock has already expanded to another block. Let's keep trying to look for him. Yes. And the tantalist still has like hasn't returned the enterprises call up for more information and finally Kirk contacts them. Yeah, Kirk wants to speak directly to doctor Adams because I think Kirk's suspicions are starting to raise a little bit. Certainly we know McCoy's suspicions are off the charts, but I think Kirk from a procedural standpoint is more concerned with just how does this happen. So he wants to talk to directly to doctor Adams who is in charge of this penal colony, the warden of McCoy's jail. And they're talking you heard does get confirmation that the inmate is aboard the box that he came in is open. They found the cream of the crew member who got knocked out, but was while Kirk is talking to doctor Adams, it wasn't really like the oops. I'm sorry that happened. It's like your problem now. He was very not so long about the whole thing. Yeah. And then he does ask later he does show a little bit of concern toward the enterprise crew and asking if there's any fatalities or if anyone's hurt. He's very agreeable. I will say throughout the episode until he's called to the carpet at the end. We also have a security crew person come and just stand at the bridge door just standing there. Yeah, let's filler. Let's let's talk about this idiot security man. This version of the enterprise there is only one turbo lift on two and off of the bridge the one at the very back of the bridge. There's no other turbo lift and he walks in and he immediately plants his back facing that door. And he's watching all of the all of the bridge members. He's not watching the turbo lift. He's not guarding against anyone because all of a sudden the strange man pops into the turbo lift exits the bridge. And the security guy doesn't turn around to see who it is and instantly gets knocked out and subdued by this crazy intruder after he knocks him out. He's like, where's the captain? Who's the captain over and over again. And then finally Kirk site. Hey, it's me and the intruder insists on. He's just on these crazy things at gunpoint, right? He's a razor point and Kirk site, you're not going to get anything while you're pointing that at me. So why don't you put it down. He's actually asking for a asylum so he doesn't have to go back to that planet. Yeah, very, very hauntingly throwing back to Charlie X at the end where Charlie is begging not to be sent back to the planet with the rest of them. And a little bit different tone, but same feeling. I don't want to go back to that hellish place and Kirk site. No promises, but please have me that face there. And the intruders like, I'm going to destroy this ship again. If you don't listen to my demands. And at some point in all of this back and forth, Kirk is asking him who he is and trying to get him to identify. And that's when he says his name is van Gelder, but as he says his name is van Gelder, he seems like he's in it's almost like it's hurting him to say his own name. We'll find out later why. But he is able to blurt out and get out that his name is van Gelder. Well, Kirk gets a distracting van Gelder. We see spot come around and do his very funky, Vulcan grip and then he down he goes and they take him to sit by or hopefully they get more information from him. He's unable to go directly back to the planet because they're already on their way away from it. They need to change course to go back right and get him back to Dr. Adams. Right. Cause sometime in all of this after he's been being up, they depart the colony. The guy gets knocked out. There has to be a period of time. The missing time has to be when van Gelder is in the transport room after he's knocked out the crewman as he's changing into the other clothing. There has to be some period of time where they were alone for the enterprise to get some distance away from the colony. And Kirk are in the sick bay with van Gelder. They have to fight to put him on the bed and they are measuring his levels and to see what's up with any weird diagnosis that Dr. Adams kept talking about how this person is so violent and whatnot. And in this early part of the scene, McCoy is reporting back to Kirk that all of his vitals, all of van Gelder's vitals are off that he's sedated but he's heavily sedated. He had to be sedated over sedated to keep him calm three times. He's much right. He's he has to be overly medicated in order to have him even be as calm as he is, but he's still clearly agitated as he's strapped down on the sick bay table. And McCoy does roll out schizophrenia, but he he seemed almost giddy at times. He's like, I really want to study this one and Kirk does not agree. Obviously. But van Gilder is still trying to communicate trying to tell them what happened, but he can't because we will learn later exactly what has happened until they just the data and again when he gets too agitated. Yeah, he's Kirk's trying to question him and he's asking him what his name is and he's able to say that he's van Gelder. And he does also reveal in and amongst obviously he's in pain as he's trying to talk and recall this information, but he's able to reveal to Kirk that he was the director of the colony. Yes, like he was important and this this is not right. He's just watching him go back and forth and then laughing and then fighting and being able to spread it out. It just kind of tells that yet also. Yeah, and I think the writers are trying to continue to portray and prolong the mystery. And it's definitely starting to become obvious that he's no ordinary inmate that there is something afoot there is something different about him, but they still want to not reveal the entire plot at this point. So they are keeping the cards close to their chest and still giving him characteristics that would make someone question is he an inmate of the colony? Is he not an inmate exactly and won't still all of us is still happening, but we're back at the bridge and we see back on the bridge, Kirk asks, you know, where are we and spark reply replies are roughly 57 minutes away from the planet. And he's so intrigued looking at what I called micro fish, these little videotapes and he's like, there's a real dude named Simon van Gelder, he like, this is legit. A doctor, Simon van Gelder. Yes. And it's like a doctor. Yes, a doctor. And Kirk wants to know why was he committed when was he committed, what did he do? This is a quote, unquote, bad place, but spot correct someone says no, no, he was assigned there six months ago as an assistant and associate for. Yeah, Dr. Adams, yeah, important distinction, it was associate of doctor, Adams, not an assistant. So it's interesting because a scene ago in the sick Bay van Gelder says that he was the director of the colony, but then I think Dr. Adams is the director. I think van Gelder was an associate there doing co research and maybe was equal as far as scientific researcher to doctor, Adams, but doctor, Adams definitely has administrative authority over the colony. I would write off that line that van Gelder says he's the director as more of just his general confusion. He's trying to warn them about the director of the colony less so much try to claim that he is the director. That makes really good sense, except especially since he's barely getting words out that means something right. So finally, Kirk is able to reach out to Dr. Adams on the colony and again, like how is he able to get a hold of them if their force is always on. Yeah, it has to be some sort of technology where they well, because we see the communicator that doesn't work is the communicator that Kirk is holding. So the force field, if I had to hazard a guess, they have their they have their calm system and they have an antenna that is stationed outside of the force field. The this is probably also the doorbell that we referred to. Where they send the message down it's picked up by the antenna and then the antenna sends it down through a wire through the force field to a communications set of equipment where they can hear them. Kirk's communicator is not set up to that calm system and antenna. It has its own antenna that's being blocked because it's inside the force field and this has been ham radio star track with Brian. He also got a little bit more information on why we're supposed to be aware of Dr. Van Guilder or why is he so violent and whatnot. Dr. Adams discuss that he was trying wanted to try new experiment or treatment actually treatment. And but he want to do it on any of the patients before we try to on himself right it's important to note that in and amongst this conversation is Kirk is getting this information from Dr. Adams over the communication system. Dr. McCoy enters the bridge so Dr. McCoy is there listening in and observing all of this information in this conversation. Dr. Adams doesn't know that McCoy is there because it's over radio and there's no visual. And Dr. McCoy greatly disagrees something fishy is up this isn't just a tiny treatment going awry right but he doesn't object directly to Dr. Adams he whispers in Kirk's ear that something doesn't seem right. And so Kirk puts Dr. Adams on hold to converse with McCoy privately but again that conversation is very similar to before Dr. McCoy is very skeptical Dr. Adams and doesn't believe what he's saying Kirk relies more on Dr. Adams is reputation and sticks up for Dr. Adams and tries to alleviate or dismiss McCoy's concerns. Spock interrupts the two and wants them to ask Dr. Adams what do you want us to do I mean what do you want us to do with Van Gelder yes yes not like. What do you want us to do with this in made of yours you say and Dr. Adams is like well take him to the best hospital around and then Kirk site wouldn't that be yours well no McCoy upon hearing that Dr. Adams wants Van Gelder dropped off at the best hospital in whatever direction and whatever the normal route of the enterprise is. It's McCoy who raises his suspicions again to Kirk by saying this penal colony is the best place for Van Gelder there's no other penal colony or hospital that is better to treat him and Dr. Adams knows this so again this is evidence and proof that Dr. Adams is trying to get Van Gelder away from the colony basically I think the motivation of Van Gelder is. He's off the colony he's out of sight out of mind get him to a hospital where they're just going to overly sedate him and dismiss his ramblings as that of a crazy person and then Dr. Adams experiments and all of his little shady dealings with the inmates at the colony will continue to go unnoticed it might even be that Dr. Adams is. Dr. Adams indirectly could have helped Van Gelder escape Kirk and McCoy continue to argue back and forth about what to do with Van Gelder well and McCoy is still suspicious of Dr. Adams and everything that's going on and the argument stems from Kirk continues to defend Dr. Adams and dismiss McCoy's suspicions exactly and then let me use is that suspicion and throws it in McCoy's face it's like all right then put it in your report to that's making Kirk have to make another report right McCoy is basically employing some procedural loophole or procedure where he's using his medical log that he's required to keep as part of the mission to spell out his system. So that's what he's doing is to investigate his suspicions and objections this procedurally triggers a necessary response from Kirk in his log and Kirk has to alleviate the suspicion and document why McCoy suspicions are not valid and the only real way to do that is to investigate his suspicions and to Kirk besides with permission of course from Dr. Adams that he will come down with his crew. And do that investigation but Dr. Adams says why don't you just you know keep that crew to a minimum right because Dr. Adams well as we know Dr. Adams doesn't want a lot of witnesses but the official reason is we're still a penal colony we still have our patients are convicted criminals and we want to limit contact with the outside world. So only bring down the absolute minimum crew that you need to complete this investigation but while Kirk is apologetic to having to conduct this investigation. Adams takes it and stride and in fact says he welcomes the investigation because it'll help put the whole matter to rest again. Adams is extremely agreeable and is doing everything he can to cooperate I think less to convince people that he's right and more to say there's nothing here to investigate now leave exactly my thoughts to my just nothing to see here. So Kirk besides that he will go down beam down and he puts it on McCoy to find a proper assistant to go with him who knows about psychology and the medical field my good luck with that I was kind of like a challenge yeah specifically someone who has psychiatric experience medical experience and knowledge about penal colonies. To very specific things yeah any is definitely challenging McCoy to say this is your objection you better figure it out so that I can investigate it you're the one who put me on notice and then the little evil smile McCoy has I'm all about that the enterprise has returned to the colony and McCoy tells Kirk that he has found the perfect assistant and McCoy already has the right to go. He has the assistant meeting them meeting Kirk in the transporter room they're ready to go. Spock and Kirk go to the transporter room where that assistant is already waiting for them and the assistant is Dr Helen Noel I think McCoy tells Kirk that before they go to the transporter room. Yes, but they only use doctor Noel so I think it's kind of funny when they walk in and it's this beautiful woman and when Kirk pops on to the transport platform to beam with them with her they have like this little chat about Christmas party in the past is like alright let's be professional now yes they clearly know each other and there was clearly some kind of interaction at a science lab Christmas party. Kirk even tells Spock to tell McCoy that this is better be the best assistant and best choice to go with him to the colony Kirk and Dr Helen beam to the tantalist five where they are on this elevator that is not fancy like theirs and is so so rickety Kirk actually like Graham's Helen well it's going it's not necessarily way it's not necessarily rickety it's just that as soon as it starts to move it moves incredibly fast and catches them off guard they arrive at the bottom of the elevator and Dr Adams is there to greet him both of them Kirk tried to surrender his spasor you know safety first and Dr Adams does not just keep it we're okay. Again super agreeable yeah like are we sure that this is a prison. Are we sure that the people in the prison pose any danger or is Dr Adam so convinced that everyone on the colony is either incredibly loyal to him or incredibly brainwashed and unable to rebel against him. And they all introduced themselves and then Helen makes a joke about her being called doctor because I mean Kirk's just been calling her Helen all the time and but so as they keep going Dr Adams wants to do a toast with them but before they can do that toast Kirk wants to check him at the enterprise to make sure they know that they've arrived safely he tries and he can't get through. So Dr Adams is like oh let me let me you know turn down our force field and let you get through the enterprise you guys can check in after the check in they go back to focusing on talking about the planet and Dr Van Guilder when in comes leafy she we learn that she was a former inmate and now she's a therapist yeah her treatment is a bit. Treatment is apparently gone so well that after she's received whatever treatment she had to receive she's willingly stayed on as a therapist and they've asked you know what did you do beforehand you know what was wrong. Where are you bad and she's like why is that so important and everything everything she says blank effect no smile, glamour anything there's also a little bit of foreshadowing Dr Adams breaks in to the conversation to explain to Kirk that as part of their treatment and therapy sessions and everything else they suppress or erase the memories of their past. Dr Adams is trained to portray that this is helpful for the therapy I think this is just a side effect of this machine that we're going to be introduced to in a little bit and then finally he gets his toast and he has a great toast with all smiles and lecy is still flat as a board. Yeah he's very poetic with his toast and leathy will use that pronunciation doesn't participate in the toast doesn't have any of the of the alcohol I assume it's alcohol they're toasting with they don't actually say what they're drinking they're able to take a tour now with leathy of course and Kirk notices a space and he wants he's asking about it and. Dr Adams goes on about how it was a failed experiment you know no need to check that and the Kirk is still interested in Helen supports doctor Adams saying no no we don't need to look at any of the failed things let's be positive right because Adam says it's not only a failure but it serves no scientific purpose and that's kind of what doctor Helen focuses on is well there's no scientific value to this. We don't need to look any further she's focused very much on the science of everything as I think her role is as the assistant but Kirk needs to dig deeper and Kirk knows that exactly and even though he's saying one thing his body is almost like too giddy you know like super delight like haha me all back on the enterprise in the sick Bay. And his doctor van Gilder is still his fidgety he's still agitated he's still fighting he is trying to communicate but it's not really communication he is telling him he's not a criminal he is able to you know spit out the words neural and neutralizer light all these broken all these words and like a broken sentence and they still have no. No I'm doctor McCoy and spot still are unable to put the pieces together but they know that something is wrong well they know something's wrong but they still decide to sedate van Gilder at this point again and I was surprised spot was all about yeah yeah Pokemon Pokemon yeah in the drugs and then like I said we're going back and forth the log and this kind of format frustrated me because I miss things to bear with me they come across a room. Cross a room with a chair and it may is in a chair looking up well this would be the room that they were standing outside of just two scenes prior exactly the failed experiment that had no scientific value and then he even uses the words neural neutralizer that's how he introduces the machine and the light is at the very top of in the ceiling and the subject lays down in the chair staring at it. And it's just you know super simple these dial easy to use there's another employee very still flat effect I didn't grab his name I don't think we get a name for that no we do we do get a name for that guy I just went back and looked it up the assistant who's operating the neural neutralizer on the unnamed patient is simply named Eli thank you very much so we have Lisa and Eli right. Interesting and again no affect flat base no emotion just doing monotone and so they just use the unknown subject as an example these little knobs on this weird mechanical board just increases intensity turns it off turns it on done but we don't know if it works it just we have hope and on the next. Well it's interesting that here we see that they're using it on a patient but just prior it was described by doctor Adams is a failed experiment and having no scientific value doctor Adams has to quickly back pedal and try to say that yes we can say that it doesn't do anything but we have hope in more extreme more violent cases and more violent patients that it does not have any effect on the patient. That it does something so they're literally just experimenting on a patient using a machine in a procedure that has no scientific value this I think should have been a warning to doctor Helen Noel that something was a foot but she continues to side with doctor Adams but of course we also know that this machine does do something significant they know exactly what it does and this is also when we learn that. This is the machine that injured doctor van Gilder he was all by himself he was playing with the dials and he didn't have a backup person to help him and for some reason this is what happened to him and now he's not the same old Simon van Gilder yep and so Kirk Adams and Helen and Lucy they all leave but Eli stays with the unknown man in the room and he dials everything up telling him you don't remember things that just happened and if you do try to remember agony it's going to be very painful. Yep our first real indication that this machine is just brainwashing people there reminds me of the lady at the state fair that you know there's all the hypnosis so now Spock is able to do contact Kirk right we don't have a here about the force field going down no I think we've established as the viewer or the show is established for the viewer that the force field has to be brought down and we just have to have the assumption that off camera Kirk had the same conversation with doctor Adams I need to check in with my ship again please lower the force field and of course doctor Adams being so agreeable has already lowered the force field when this conversation started yet and verifies that they're safe and sound they're in the in his study and you know Spock is quiet have like hence are you alone well before this Spock and McCoy try to report to Kirk that they've learned about the neural neutralizer from Dr Van Gilder and Kirk gets to have the moment where he gets to be smug and know it all back in Dr. McCoy's face and says I already know all about it I've already seen it it's nothing but you're right then Spock kind of wants to make sure that Kirk is free to speak his mind without any influence and Adams picks up on Spock's hint and says clearly he wants to make sure that you're alone and no one's eavesdropping I'll go busy myself with something else out of the room feel free to talk with him. And so this is when Spock says been gilder says that they're in danger and here like we're just going to state everything will be fine and you can see Dr Van Gilder screw like his body screams no that again reanerates it they're in danger but Helen is not convinced she's like there's nothing wrong he just has general synapse the damage like everything is in clicking right in this brain but we all know that that is not true. Dr Van Gilder is certain that Dr Adams will indeed destroy Kirk and Helen while they're down there this overnight. A second command Spock makes his captain the enterprise log entry about having to do a special. Vulcan mind trick on literally the introductions of this will get it right this is the Vulcan mind meld I would melt this is not a Jedi mind trick this is a Vulcan mind meld. Now I'm hungry that runs me of the milk but anyways okay so he talks about that but now Spock is torn about doing the mind meld with other like without privacy because it's only for the Vulcan people he's never done it to human so he has no idea what it's going to be like it's never been performed by a Vulcan on a he on a non Vulcan according to Spock up until this point and so he makes sure the entire time he's. He's getting Dr Van Gilder's consent telling him that your body is going to have so many different a lot of things going on with your body while we do this he's also explaining partially to McCoy that this is not a form of hypnosis so McCoy is not going to be affected by it. He is using his fingers and pressure points to physically change Dr Van Gilder's vitals as a way to get into his brain this is correct it's not hypnosis and as Star Trek continues on later the Vulcan mind meld is used so many times this is something that comes back again and again it becomes a very important part of Star Trek lore. It is a form of telepathy even though the doesn't come across entirely in this instance of using it this seems more of a physical meditation to calm Van Gilder to get him to verbalize his thoughts and share this information with Spock and McCoy this is a form of telepathy Spock is experiencing in part. This is a form of telepathy Spock is experiencing in part. They are able to get the answers of what Van Gilder went through via this meld and he even talks about it being a Van Gilder should be in a euphoric state so it should be more relaxed which allows for the information to pass through. We do a hard cut back to the planet and we are in Kurt's quarters because he is just trying to go to bed but he is someone telling also to ask what do you think about Kurt really wants to see the Neuro Neutralizer again he asked Helen can you control the device and she is confident that she can. And he wants to see it without doctor Adams or any of doctor Adams is staff present because he wants no well to see the machine work and as a medical professional as the assistant as the medical expert on this away mission he wants doctor no well unbiased opinion and he wants so they both can observe this device working and he trust her because I mean he literally says I don't want my brain damaged. Right so they he sits in the chair looked up at the light and he's like all right let's try one to let's try a light one and no well has it go one to two seconds and he's like all right you can start whenever you want we already did it but your face went blank so all right let's try it again maybe suggest something you know benign right because. Right because previously doctor Adams we glossed over it but doctor Adams was saying the point of this machine was tried to replace violent thoughts and violent impulses with more benign more innocent thoughts so in their brain at this moment that's all that this machine does and so naturally Kirk is saying well go ahead and implant some benign thought in me and she's like you're hungry and it turns it off and. He's like I'm so hungry I can rate a kitchen and then they all laugh so but then he wants to know further try something you know out of the ordinary different and so they started again Helen goes on about the Christmas party because they both know about that but then she says you remember it differently you sweep me off my feet we go to your quarters you know and we have a flashback to Kirk. So I flash back to Kirk's brain Helen into his quarters where they make out this I think reveals to the viewers that even though we had the comedic moment of them having some connection at the Christmas party I think this is to imply that nothing really happened they just flirted and danced at the Christmas party and had a connection but they didn't actually go back to the quarters this also might be Helen's way of revealing the way of revealing that she wished it went further but it didn't I don't know it's interesting that she chose this instance to uses a way to test the machine I thought it was kind of clever since that something that they both experienced themselves individually together like together not with not others but he's smiling crazily well this is happening and then Dr. Adam's and his goons take Helen away from the controls and he's like oh now I have you to myself Adams to Dr. Kirk and he just started to go doctor Adams to Captain Kirk I wanted him to be a doctor. Oh well Dr. Adams cranks the intensity up super high and starts to implant into Captain Kirk's brain how madly I love Helen with Helen he is and he'll do anything for her and if he's not with Helen it's unbearable pain and the only way to make the pain stop is if he stays in his clothes and is with Helen. After that suggestion the doctor Adams asked Kirk to drop this bazar and Kirk if he must drop the bazar he fights it but he eventually does now the communicator harder fighting he actually gets to open the communicator where it does is a little trip trip but because of the pain he actually falls out of the chair under the floor he's dropping the communicator here. He's fighting the treatment but he's I would also imagine based on the rest of the episode and everything that we know that this call out to the enterprise doesn't go through because of the force field around the colony we cut into Kirk's quarters and we see that Helen is trying to you nurse him awake to get him to wake up and he's you know still thinks he's madly in love with him with her and tries to kiss and she's like no no no. Remember you this is this is not right and then remember try to remember as he rolls away from her she kind of like jumps back because who knows what's going to happen and as he's walking towards her he sees of events events are for where the ducks are like the air conditioning ducks and he's like you could fit through here. Yeah because it's huge it's human size. So he just like pops her up in there and sets the vent and so she's on her way to the electricity power room so she could turn everything off which would shut down the force field around the colony and be able to contact the enterprise and vice versa. So while she's on her mission doctor Adams returns with Eli yes because obviously doctor captain Kirk needs more treatment so off they go Helen is finally in the power room and it's like she's dancing from station to station but she's looking for basically an off switch because she doesn't know anything about electricity she told Kirk that and as she's. In the middle of pulling the master bar down one of Adams security henchmen find her and pull her away she does get the power off though in this moment like a tiny moment but in that tiny moment as she is being subdued by this henchman and the power is still off Kirk manages to break free from the neural neutralizer because it's now power down. He fights with Adams and Eli and manages to knock both of them out before he runs away himself leaving doctor Adams in the room while noelle is lying on the floor the henchmen turns the power back on he turns around and be like ghost her but she tricked them and kicks him into the electricity panel where everything turns off. And that allows spot to beam down to where that interruption happened and but meanwhile Helen has already hot back into the duct at this point so spot does not see anybody and spot turns everything back on which of course turns the neural neutralizer back on which captures doctor Adams in its beam and we see a awkward painful shot of doctor Adam starting to be brainwashed by the neural. And then he's washed by the neural neutralizer how one is able to get back through the ducts into Kirk's quarters so she is safe then they go find doctor Adams all alone in the new neuro neutralizer room but sadly he's dead he died alone with no spots staring at the light right because they realize that they put to an end. They put to and to together that he's had all of his thoughts drained out of his brain and there's no one there to put those new thoughts back in to brainwash him so it basically just drained him of everything and he can't someone can't survive like that kind of like what. Doctor van Gelder said earlier how it was so lonely right as his memories were being taken away and part of why I think this treatment works so well is how unbearable that feeling of being empty in your brain is and so you're willing to accept any of those new thoughts that someone's trying to implant in them. And then we pop back on to the enterprise bridge we are happy to know that doctor van Gelder has destroyed that room there's no longer the neural neutralizer he's back in control and Kirk and McCoy do have a little back and forth about I mean how can I man die from loneliness and then they explain it that you have to kind of be there to understand it. Yeah it's one of the more haunting lines of Kirk saying in response to doctor McCoy not when you've sat in that room it's a pretty it's a very perfect delivery that really captures the emotion that Kirk is feeling having gone through that treatment himself. Yeah and role credits so Jackie what did you think about season one episode nine dagger of the mind I actually like it it wasn't too weird and it wasn't too like in your face exactly what we're doing I like having to think about it I did not like how short short dress I mean it was shorter than Janice and young man. And I really liked this episode too as I said in the beginning the pacing is spot on for the episode there's not really any kind of moments where it drags out some of the way that the scenes are divided Jackie mentioned she doesn't like episodes that jump back and forth between scenes too much I think this episode is on the very verge of becoming that but it's an intriguing story it's like conic that it introduces the vault. It introduces the Vulcan mind meld which becomes even more of a staple in Star Trek than the Vulcan nerve pinch but yeah overall it's a great episode I really enjoy it so I have some triple tidbits or fun facts about the episode November three 1966 is its first air date. The title of the episode is actually a quote from Macbeth Morgan Woodward who plays the character Simon Van Gelder credits this and his other role in Star Trek he's in another episode that's coming up later these two roles allowed him to kind of break through this stereotype casting that he was always stuck in a rut in he was always type cast it in western films and this kind of allowed him to break away from that. He really enjoyed this episode in particular he really enjoyed playing Dr Van Gelder he said it was a challenging role to play and it did require him to do some decompressing after filming just to get out of that character's head so he really he really enjoyed it. He's like the first Miss Rachel yes why don't you expand on that for the audience who doesn't know what you're talking about or your co-host. He had the most while crazy facial expressions and grotesque looking you know pain and Miss Rachel that woman has confidence out the wazoo because she has no makeup for anything on the camera is writing her face doing the same thing just teaching the little kids. Now I get it. Dr Helen Noelle's part was originally written for Yom and Janice Rand so we missed out an opportunity to see Janice again but they will get to other reasons why she was not included in this episode in a few episodes down the road but it also made more sense to create a character that was a doctor that had medical training and experience to go down with Kirk to invest in the world. So I think it's a very important thing to do to investigate the quality rather than just have Kirk's personal administrative assistant go down with him the bigger reason I like to imagine why we didn't see Janice in this episode. That makes complete sense. It's poor Janice. You probably wouldn't understand. Yeah again Jackie doesn't know the character arc or the backstory to Janice Rand or the actress who plays her will get to that in a couple episodes. She just has pretty basket leaf hair that's it. As I mentioned in the moment this episode is the first to introduce the Vulcan mind meld there's a huge history behind its creation and how it came about. There's many different versions of the script before they settled on a Vulcan mind meld there is that commentary that spark made to McCoy that this is not hypnosis and that was added specifically because the writers and the developers of the show did not want to perpetuate that hypnosis was a valid medical treatment they didn't want to portray that opinion. They also had that because while they didn't want to say that hypnosis was a valid medical treatment they did believe that hypnosis was real. And so they mentioned that it is not hypnosis and people at home would then know subconsciously that they were not going to be hypnotized with what they were about to see on the television again. And so they were portrayed as a valid medical treatment the character named lethi in Greek mythology is actually a river in Haiti the mythology stated that doom souls who drank from the river would forget their past lives. So that's a creepy name. Kind of on the nose for what's happening to that character in the other patients of the colony this is the last episode that was filmed and completed before the show started airing on television so at this point moving forward all episodes of star track the original series season one are going to be made on a rush production schedule where they have to film. And edit and get the episode ready to produce all in a week it was extremely tight and it's reported that many many many times and it was frequent and just part of the routine that the network would get the finish cut of the episode literally the night before or the day of it airing. The panel that distracted the transporter crew member at the very beginning of the episode was actually just an engineering panel they specifically added it to the transporter rooms to that character would have something to examine something to distract them so dr van gelder could knock him out and it never appears in the transporter room again. This has a body count of two the henchman that is electrified and doctor atoms himself but those are our triple tidbits for the episode and this is where we share our episode ranking where we pretend that the episode is a member of our crew. And we assign it a star fleet rank on our fictitious starship we have a starship for each season and a higher rank for the episode means not only we were more entertained by the episode but we find it to be an important member of our crew. We are more of a pillar episode for the season a lower rank means we weren't that entertained by it and we think this is a more of a disposable episode for the season and a more disposable member of our crew. We rank everything again based on star fleet ranks starting at the bottom with Ensign lieutenant junior grade lieutenant lieutenant commander commander captain and admiral last week Jackie rated. And then we are going to be giving this a summary as an Ensign rough translation of a zero or one out of 10. No thank you Jackie for your starship the USS galactic glitter be what do you rank this episode. I'm giving us the solid commander. The first time Jackie is rated an episode as commander and eight or a nine out of 10. We can also only rank five episodes this season as a commander Jackie. Why do you give it that ranking? I like I'm giving it this ranking because it's the first one that I was able to fully watch and kind of understand the whole thing top to bottom. I loved the acting like I said the doctor van Gilder Casey faces all the way through McCoy questioning Kirk gave it had more substance than others. All right and just as a reference to tie back to last week's episode I also gave me a re an Ensign rating. But for my ranking of this episode on my starship the USS cosmic shark we're also going to rank it a commander ranking and eight or nine out of 10. This is not the first time I've rated a ranked in episode at this. I've also ranked the naked time and what our little girls made of as a commander. This is going to be my third commander for my starship out of five again. We can promote or demote episodes or crew members at will to make room or if we change our mind later and at the end of the season. Of course if we don't have a captain or an admiral we will fill those spots. Give it this ranking because of very similar reasons fantastic pacing fantastic story iconic that it introduces the Vulcan mind meld I know we can't continue to give high rankings to episodes every time they introduce something new because this is the original series where literally everything is new but the Vulcan mind meld is probably one of the highest reused theme or characteristic of Spock used in the game. It's so important to the development of star trek and again it's that fantastic acting and it's just a really good all around episodes so yeah commander is going to be my ranking. So Spock gets over his problem with being a secretive the Vulcan mind meld becomes less part of star trek lore as a secretive thing that only Vulcans do. Kind of loses that aspect of it and it becomes used more and more out in the open one could try to argue that it's because the Vulcan species is becoming more open to sharing this ability they don't teach other people but it's used more and more frequently in a more variety of settings so it does kind of never pick up is a secretive thing this is kind of one of the few times it's ever mentioned as being secret in the Vulcan society. And it does evolve over time the way that it's used you don't see Spock or Vulcan dancing around the table readjusting the pressure points as they go it becomes more of a meditative process it becomes a cleaner process I would say definitely is involved in some of the more memorable moments in star trek and certainly in Spock's character in comparison on I am deep. On I am D.B. as of this recording dagger of the mind is currently sitting at a 7.4 out of 10 so pretty much a well received episode as a reminder we will post an updated graphic showing our rankings to our patreon a day after we published the episode so this will come out on a Tuesday on Wednesdays are when we post our rankings on our patreon we'll be back next week to check through another episode. But this is where we give our turbo lift ease or elevator pitch to the next episodes plot I give Jackie the title of the next episode and Jackie with no other information will give a brief pitch to the plot Jackie next week's episode is entitled the Corbormite maneuver. Oh I've heard that word before and it was fake that was the last episode he was tricking people so is this going to be a trick maneuver or does it actually happen maybe he names a new maneuver like you like the pit maneuver for the cops I think I know what Jackie's referring to yeah because he was told a line most episode to those the quote quote bad people that they'd have to check their carbonite or something would be in trouble or something like that already forgot okay well we'll see next week if Jackie is even close to what the plot of next week's episode is never now but if you want more show information you can find and directly support our podcast at patreon patreon dot com slash trex and tangents as I mentioned December 26 we will air for our patreon crew members the first of us breaking down and analyzing and doing a little mini episode on the original series animated series lighter material shorter episodes will definitely be playing around with the format and the script of the episode to fit but it should be a lot of fun hopefully you guys check it out you can also follow us on x dot com at trex underscore tangents we're also on instagram and blue sky at trex and tangents Jackie working people find you and what you are up to I've been up to a lot of things lately I have my normal jibbume instagram where you can see music dog fashion makeup and I now have a what not store called glitter bunny boutique so look me up there and see what I have and perhaps you might like some of my old treasure and you can watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch dot tv slash pirate pound town on youtube I post video games and other random content on my main channel at pirate pound town and also on youtube point collecting and hobby content at pirate treasure hunting I post socially on blue sky at pirate pound town more frequently I'm trying to post on instagram under pineapple cannibal because instagram likes to ban pirate usernames for no reason well there was a reason I was proud of it links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description thank you everyone for tuning into this episode we hope you had fun like we did and we will see you all next week see you later and then we'll go over the melding and transmission[Music]