It’s not something fans usually admit, but nearly everyone who loves “Star Trek: The Next Generation” has their own imitation of Captain Picard. Typically, these imitations are limited to fans mimicking Patrick Stewart’s commanding baritone voice. However, the show itself almost gave us the most perfect parody: “The Schizoid Man” was originally going to feature a scene where Data imitates Picard by shaving his head bald.
For this tale to make much sense, we need to quickly review what Data was up to in “The Schizoid Man.” The early seasons of TNG really emphasized Data’s quest to understand humanity, which led to some peculiar plotlines, such as him trying to master standup comedy. This episode begins with Data summoning Geordi La Forge and Deanna Troi to his quarters, where the chief engineer comments that, as impossible as it seems, Data had been acting relatively insecure lately.
In a fun twist that seemingly proves Geordi correct, we discover that Data has grown a beard, much like Commander Riker, and wants his friends’ opinions. This opening scene of “The Schizoid Man” was mostly played for laughs: after Geordi asks if Data had “damaged” his face, the android describes this cosmetic change by calling it “a fine, full, dignified beard…which commands respect and projects thoughtfulness and dignity.” When Troi doesn’t have much of an opinion on how it looks, Data asks her, “when I stroke the beard thusly, do I not appear more intellectual?”
This is enough to send Troi running from the room in laughter, and Data sadly doesn’t have a beard for the rest of “The Schizoid Man.” Interestingly, even though the android looks like he is copying Riker with the new facial hair, he never mentions the commander by name. To this day, some fans think the whole scene was a kind of meta-joke about Jonathan Frakes, who grew a beard between Season 1 and Season 2 that eventually became what the character was most famous for.
While the scene with Data’s beard was quite funny, “The Schizoid Man” almost had a more dramatic parody of the show’s most prominent character. In an unfilmed scene from the original script, Data would discover that the crew didn’t really like his Riker-style beard. In response, the android shaved his head bald, imitating Captain Picard.
Sadly, that never happened, but long after “The Schizoid Man,” fans were treated to Data imitating Picard in a different way altogether. Actor Brent Spiner is a regular on the convention circuit, and he sometimes shows fans his eerily-perfect imitation of Patrick Stewart. He unleashed that imitation at Comic-Con in 2016, and it was so precise that it even blew William Shatner’s mind.
Later episodes like “A Fistful of Datas” would give us Data as we’d never seen him before, and later shows would bring Brent Spiner back as several different characters. However, part of us will always have a nostalgic soft spot for the bearded Data in “The Schizoid Man,” which really did make the android look even more dignified and thoughtful than usual. If only we could have seen his bald Picard imitation, though, fans could rank whether this character tribute was “engaging” or enough to make us all cry, “make it no.”
To celebrate the release of “Star Trek: Into Darkness” this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic “Star Trek” all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.
I knew we were due a nice Shakespearean title soon. And “The Conscience of a King” is just around the corner, to boot. Seriously though, I have to admit a massive fondness for these wonderfully lofty and high-minded episode titles. It’s something that links the original “Star Trek” and “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” quite firmly, and was sadly never enthusiastically taken up by any of the other spin-offs. It’s a shame, because – regardless of the quality of the episodes in question – there’s something undeniably endearing about forty-five minutes of television given a pretentious name like “For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky,” “The City on the Edge of Forever,” or “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night.”
I promise I’ll start talking about the episode soon, but I think it’s great that the show could come up with these sorts of titles. You could make an argument that episode names should be efficient and descriptive. After all, there are over 700 episodes of “Star Trek” to choose from, and a boring-yet-efficient name like “The Price” is probably a bit easier to remember and to drop into conversation than something like “Dagger of the Mind” or “What Are Little Girls Made Of?”
Hardcore fans know the show by rote, of course, but I reckon it might be fun to ask casual fans to link some of the more creative and poetic names to the actual episodes. You could probably make a more case for a more efficient naming scheme, similar to the way “Friends” titled most episodes “The One With…” A naming convention like that makes it a lot easier to link the episode to the core concept and renders it a lot easier to know which episode you are talking about.
I can understand that appeal. Truth be told, talking to casual “Star Trek” fans, I’m more likely to use a looser identifier to distinguish the episode I’m talking about. Using that approach, “Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night” is “the one with Kira’s mum,” and “Let He Who Is Without Sin…” becomes “the crap one with Vanessa Williams.” Of course, generic names can occasionally be counter-productive. There are quite a few episodes that the title “Emissary” could apply to, beyond the two including the word. “The Host” is another “Star Trek” special that could probably be fitted to half a dozen different adventures.
Still, ignoring such practical concerns, I like my fancy-sounding “Star Trek” names. There’s something really nice about giving a crazy story about how McCoy was dying for about a week a very pompous-sounding title that could easily have been borrowed from classic literature. It’s that wonderful combination of highly campy and incredibly earnest that really defines the classic “Star Trek,” the sense that show is aware of the limitations of sixties television, and remains breathtakingly ambitious anyway. How can you not love that?
“Dagger of the Mind” is – of course – lifted directly from Macbeth. As the title implies, there’s a whole load of mind-screwing going on, even if it has relatively little to do with the actual context of Shakespeare’s famous soliloquy. Still, there are minds, and those are being harmed by a device, so “Dagger of the Mind” works in context. Plus, as noted above, it’s just a really great title for an episode of sixties science-fiction.
One of the great indications of how massively iconic and influential “Star Trek” has become can be seen in the way that even the “less important” aspects of the show have bled outwards from the series to mingle with pop culture as a whole. When I think of “Dagger of the Mind,” I don’t actually think about this “Star Trek” episode. I don’t think about the weird subplot involving Noel living out her weird sexual fantasies inside Kirk’s imagination. I don’t think about Van Gelder hiding inside a barrel beamed up from the surface.
I think about South Park.
And, of course, with that sentence, I lose any credibility that I had as a writer covering “Star Trek.” In my defense, I do think about the iconography of the episode. I think about the machine that empties people’s minds. I even think about the logo of the colony and the blue overalls worn by the staff. However, I also think about a planetarium (or plane’arium) brainwashing young kids in order to keep them coming back for more.
“Dagger of the Mind” isn’t an iconic “Star Trek” episode. It was produced following “Balance of Terror” and “What Are Little Girls Made Of?,” so it’s coming off the heels of two massively influential adventures. However, it doesn’t feature any especially memorable monsters or aliens. It doesn’t have an especially compelling hook (“mental healthcare… in the future!”). It does have the first ever Vulcan Mind Meld, but it feels almost incidental. So it’s weird that South Park zeroed in on this episode to parody in “Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods.”
And yet, in spite (or perhaps because) of the fact that this isn’t an episode that has ever been a focal point for “Star Trek” parody or discussion, South Park was able to craft a rather wonderful little adventure out of making fun of “Dagger of the Mind.” I think it’s a demonstration of the fact that even relatively average “Star Trek” is still brilliantly (and crazily) eccentric, and still very definitely “Star Trek.” There’s something about the iconography and the imagery that sort of sticks with you, even if it manifests itself thirty years later in an obscene cartoon.
And, despite the fact that “Dagger of the Mind” isn’t quite as iconic as most of the episodes before it, it is still a solid piece of “Star Trek.” The first season of “Star Trek” might not produce thirty masterpieces in a row, but the season only has one truly spectacular misfire. And “Dagger of the Mind” is not that misfire. Even when this first year of the show isn’t necessarily iconic or genre-defining, it’s still well-constructed and thoughtful… and fun.
Although we’re about to watch an adventure about illegal experimentation on one of the most vulnerable groups in society, “Dagger of the Mind” has a very weird energy to it. It’s something that probably should seem dissonant or out-of-place, but it winds up feeling like some crazy genre mash-up. “Dagger of the Mind” is part institutional thriller, part escape film and part non-relationship drama, as Kirk tries to deal with the aftermath of a social mistake at the Christmas Party. Yes, the Enterprise has a Christmas Party. See what I meant when I said “weird energy”?
Let’s talk about that last thing first, because it’s actually kinda fun. Sure, it gets kinda sexist very quickly, but we’ll deal with that in a moment. It’s interesting to think that we’re about a third of the way through the first season, and I really haven’t cracked too many jokes about Kirk’s libido. After all, the popular image of Captain Kirk is as a half-charming and half-sleazy intergalactic sexual monster, radiating enough raw sexual energy that you can’t use a mobile phone near him. If popular culture is to believe, he has a habit of loving and leaving beautiful women, and scratching notches on his bed post.
I’ll be the first to concede that “Star Trek” can be quite sexist and that the show’s attitudes towards women leave a lot to be desired. However, Kirk’s reputation is somewhat exaggerated. The last episode, “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” represents the first time that Kirk overpowered a foe using his romantic charms. Sure, there’d be a few more in the seasons ahead, and the revelation that Kirk had a child he never knew about in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” probably doesn’t help, but Kirk isn’t quite the interstellar Casanova that people tend to think that he is.
However, you can see his reputation being established at this point in the show’s history. “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” gave us Kirk using his sexuality as a potent weapon. Keep your androids away from his sexual magnetism. The next episode, “Miri,” will play with that idea. However, “Dagger of the Mind” gives us Kirk making a flirtation-related mistake that would probably have landed any of his successors in front of Starfleet’s Human (and alien) Resources.
To be fair, the details of what happened at that Christmas Party are vague. We see Noel (whose name means Christmas… geddit?) play out her fantasy version of the scene. It involves a great deal of casual no-strings sex. “I mean, just having met like this,” she protests as he carries her to the bedroom. “Of course, it would be different if you cared for me.” Her fantasy Kirk is a man of action, though, and protests that he’s just in it for the sex. “You want me to manufacture a lie, wrap it up as a Christmas present for you?”
It’s a weird little scene, in a great many ways. Let’s just mention the fact that her fantasy features a version of herself who clearly wants a romance, while her fantasy version of Kirk very clearly just wants no-strings sex. There’s nothing wrong with casual no-strings sex, but it seems weird that Noel’s fantasy is to have Kirk refuse to acknowledge that he cares for her, despite the fact she seems to want that sort of commitment before sleeping with him. It sort of implies that women clearly don’t know what they want, and just need a strong a man to tell them what is what before dictating how sex is going to happen. Which sort of brings in that “sexism” stuff I was talking about earlier.
Anyway, let’s gloss over the particulars of the psychology of Noel for the time being. It’s quite obvious that Kirk didn’t whisk Noel away to a bedroom and make sweet no-strings-attached-even-though-you-want-them love to her. He’s not that unprofessional and creepy. However, it’s clear that Kirk crossed some sort of line with the young officer, one unbecoming a starship captain. Noel’s girly crush on Kirk is inappropriate and awkward, but it’s clear the awkwardness isn’t just on her side. Kirk acts like he has something he’s ashamed of, beyond her obviously inappropriate fantasies about him.
“Don’t you remember the science lab Christmas party?” she asks. He brushes her off, “Yes, I remember.” She tries to elaborate, “You dropped in –“ Kirk cuts her off before he can elaborate further. He responds, “Yes, yes, I remember.” Perhaps it’s down to the way that Shatner delivers the lines. Kirk doesn’t sound like he’s being dismissive of Noel. Instead, he sounds like he doesn’t want to be reminded of some indiscretion. The only confirmed details of that night suggest a light drink and some nice conversation. Perhaps they kissed under the mistletoe? Or perhaps he just said something inappropriate to a member of his staff?
Even if Kirk’s conduct on the night was perfectly on the level, there’s still something a little creepy about the way that McCoy and Kirk treat Noel. It’s obvious she has some affection for Kirk, and it seems like everybody knows it. Her assignment to the team is treated as a private joke between the captain and his doctor. McCoy is smirking as he assigns her. For his part, Kirk treats Noel as a jab from McCoy rather than as a person in her own right.
“Mister Spock,” he advises his second-in-command, “you tell McCoy that she had better check out as the best assistant I ever had.” However embarrassing her unprofessional crush on her superior might be, it seems like none of the men on the Enterprise treat her with the respect becoming a co-worker. In a way, this is much less flattering to Kirk than anything that the episode implies might have occurred between the pair at that fateful Christmas Party. Although I do like to think that the only reason this is the only Christmas Party referenced in “Star Trek” is because Kirk banned them following this incident.
Of course, Noel herself is an unfortunate character. Her crush on Kirk is unprofessional, but it doesn’t warrant the way her male co-workers treat her like the butt of a joke played on the captain. However, there’s something very creepy about the way she tries to re-write Kirk’s memory of that particular evening. “I suggest now that it happened in a different way,” she offers, as she subjects a complete captive and helpless Captain Kirk to her sexual fantasy. While Kirk’s conduct is hardly the most professional, he actually comes across as the most sexually harassed character in the episode.
It isn’t a flattering portrayal of women. Apparently Noel is so fixated on the hunky commanding officer that she can’t resist the urge to place her own sexual fantasies into his head. If he did the opposite, we’d be screaming bloody murder – but the episode assumes that Kirk is more professional than that. Noel, on the other hand, can’t help but give into Kirk’s sexual charisma. This is despite the fact that she’s clearly a professional with a wealth of education and experience. Because, apparently, underneath it all, Noel is just a woman.
It’s another one of those awkward sexist moments from “Star Trek” that feels all the more alarming for how casual it is. Like Spock’s last-minute aside to Rand at the end of “The Enemy Within,” it seems like we’re supposed to laugh at this portrayal of women. It is very difficult to believe that – even in the sixties – attitudes towards women could be so casually sexist that these sorts of moments could make it through to the finished cut of the episodes in question.
Apparently, the original draft of “Dagger in the Mind” was to feature Janice Rand, who has already begun to drift towards the back of the cast and who will be departing the show quite shortly. (Although the next episode, “Miri,” would feature her quite heavily.) Actress Grace Lee Whitney has explained in her biography, “My Longest Trek,” why she feels Rand was written out of this episode:
So why was I written out of “Dagger of the Mind?” I believe it was because the episode, as originally written, brought the repressed attraction between Kirk and Rand too much out in the open. The Christmas party scene where Kirk and Rand flirt, dance, kiss and go to bed together is so overt that it really would have painted Captain Kirk into a corner. Certainly such a scene went far beyond the Matt Dillon-Miss Kitty chemistry that Gene Roddenberry had initially envisioned for the captain and the yeoman.
According to “The Making of Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” Rand would be written out of the show in order to allow Kirk to engage in these sorts of casual romances. So, in a very tangible way, Rand’s absence in “Dagger of the Mind” really sets the stage for her approaching absence from the series in general.
The character of Rand was removed at the behest of the network, with Roddenberry taking the opportunity of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” to bring Grace Lee Whitney back to “Star Trek:”
Grace Lee Whitney returns to “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” in the role of Transporter Chief Janice Rand, a promotion for her character from that of yeoman in the first season of the “Star Trek” television show, in which she played the captain’s yeoman, a job which included being everything from Captain Kirk’s secretary to his personal valet. There was little doubt that Yeoman Rand was also in love with her captain. However, by the second season the network insisted that the good captain should have many girlfriends and romances, all to be provided by a succession of female guest stars, so Yeoman Janice faded from sight. (Roddenberry stated many times in the intervening years that he had been mistaken in yielding to network pressure, and should have retained Grace Lee Whitney and Yeoman Rand on the series.)
