10. Dagger of the Mind
WHY WE LIKE IT: First Vulcan mindmeld! And it's got a nice mood going throughout.
WHY WE DON'T: A botched conclusion, and some fairly incompetent Starfleet officers.
REVIEW: The show starts with an exciting intruder alert. The bridge is abuzz with activity and it all seems very professional. And then Van Gelder walks onto the bridge and bonks a security guard on the head. Talk about an incompetent security force. Just before this, we had a transporter guy who gets sent to the library to bone up on penal colony protocols. Not a great showing for the crew.
The regulars are in good form though. This episode is best known for showing the first Vulcan mindmeld in a scene that offers some vivid imagery of what the procedure is like. Its euphoric effects might be why those Vulcans were addicted to it in Enterprise. Spock gets to use the nerve pinch, tell us that illogic breeds war, and even uses a little of his super-human strength.
Morgan Woodward steals the show as Van Gelder however, contributing a great deal to the creepy atmosphere supported throughout the show. I'm a grown man and not at all squeamish, so I was surprised I found it hard to watch his throes of agony. This whole episode is creepy in the extreme, from the idea that you could be brainwashed to love someone, to Spock hovering over Van Gelder during the meld, not to mention Lethe (her name is a bit too on-the-nose though) and the other lovey-dovey inmates. Oh, and a penal colony engineer gets electrocuted! Creepy with a capital C.
That's where it succeeds mostly, though the plotline is fine. I like that Dr. Noel gets a bit of action at the end, though I dislike the character's annoying attitude before then. She's clearly been put into Janice Rand's role, and we'll only see Janice a couple more times before she's whisked off the show. It's true that revolving love interests work better for Kirk, and even the events here show that he can't go too far with one of his crew.
The one thing I found lacking is the ending. Dr. Adams befalls a somewhat predictable "ironic" fate, and the loneliness coda is ok, but feels tacked on. The episode wasn't really about that, was it? And they just don't say how Kirk and Van Gelder were cured of the neural neutralizer's conditioning. I imagine they went back into the machine, but it nags me nonetheless.
LESSON: Office romances are never a good idea.
REWATCHABILITY - High: Some of the best horror Star Trek has ever come up with, and a great performance from Woodward. It's also good for Vulcan fans!
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