Star Trek 008: What Are Little Girls Made Of?

8. What Are Little Girls Made Of?

WHY WE LIKE IT: The impressive androids and the great splitscreen work.

WHY WE DON'T: The pink and purple sets. Blehh.

REVIEW: Though I question the wisdom of having a Chapel-heavy episode when she's not as regular as most of the other secondary characters, an episode note-worthy for the absence of Dr. McCoy no less, there are a lot of things to like in this one.

One of these is the direction which has interesting camera angles and excellent splitscreen effects. The scenes with android Kirk at the dinner table are particularly good. Not only the conversation between Kirks, but also the creepy one between the android and Christine.

The androids are also impressive: Andrea is one of the prettiest "Kirk girls" (if James Bond can have them...) from the series, and Ruk has a most powerful presence both in size and strength. Ted "Lurch" Cassidy really is throwing William Shatner around like a rag doll.

Robert Bloch is a recognizable name in horror literature, and it's great that they used such people in writing the series (far too infrequently seen these days), though the final motivations of Korby and the other androids isn't always clear. All of a sudden, Andrea has emotions and Kirby starts talking like a computer. The double suicide is too quickly done to have the impact it should as well. I do like the whole backstory of the Old Ones and how we arrive at the old Star Trek message that machines shouldn't replace human beings.

The sets are large, but are really just (aside from the stock footage of the Arctic) foam creations, atrociously lit and colored in pink and purple tones. The kind of 60s design ethic that takes me right out of the story. The stalactite club wielded by Kirk also has an unfortunate shape.

One real letdown of the episode, however, is the use of Spock. I'm not sure Kirk's little half-breed phrase really should have influenced the android Kirk, and then I'm not sure Spock would have reacted exactly as he did, but that all hardly matters because Spock doesn't save the day at the end. Everything wraps up before he gets there, and the whole incident, while showing the friendship between the two men, comes off as padding.

LESSON: Christine Chapel really has a thing for logical men.

REWATCHABILITY - Medium: Some great scenes, but the plot isn't without its leaks. That can be said of many early episodes.