Another powerful First Season episode, where we are given an insight into how close Kirk and Spock have become plus a lovely little piece of slash at the very end of the episode, to keep us wondering: "Just what is going on between these two?
To the story. Nurse Christine Chapel joined Starfleet in the hope of finding her long lost fiancee, the brilliant Doctor Roger Corby, who has been missing for five long years. Eventually the Enterprise comes across the planet of Corby's last known whereabouts. Corby contacts the ship and asks that Captain Kirk beam down alone, because the nature of the discoveries that Corby has made. Kirk tells Corby that Christine will beam down with him and it looks like we are in for a happy reunion. Well that changes very quickly when one of the two Redshirts who accompany them falls to his death within minutes of arriving.
Turns out that Corby has discovered the machinery left by a long dead race, that enables him to produce almost perfect replica human androids. Roger has knocked himself up a replacement assistant - Brown and a nice little 'Geisha' (as Christine calls her) Andrea, to help keep him company. Corby wants to bring his discoveries to the Galaxy but fears that others will misunderstand and/or misuse the technology and he will be thwarted. He holds Kirk and Chapel prisoner and makes an Android Kirk,; he says, to 'impress' Jim of the power of the technology. However when Kirk won't come at a deal to 'selectively introduce' the androids to to humanity, Corby sends the Android Kirk to the Enterprise to grease the wheels, so to speak.
Jim is just too smart for Corby though, and during the transfer of his memories to the android, he imprints it with the phrase: "Mind your own business Mr. Spock; I'm sick of your half-breed interference!" Now, you and I and Spock all know that Jim would never speak to his First officer like that...and it takes Spock about a half a millisecond to spot the impostor.
Meanwhile down on the planet Jim is busy messing with the Androids heads (a specialty of his). First he seduces Andrea to break her programming and then he convinces the gigantic Ruk that's it's okay to rise up against his human controllers (I'm not sure if this is such a good idea, but then Kirk never seems to mind going toe to toe with those bigger, stronger and more powerful than he).
Ultimately we discover that Roger Corby had been so mutilated when he arrived on the planet that Ruk had rebuilt him an android body and Roger's 'soul' had been transferred into the machine. Corby had lost the capacity to be truly human and this had twisted him so much that he was a danger to himself and humanity as a whole. It all ends very badly, as Andrea tries to reconcile her emotions with her programming and Roger realizes he has lost his humanity...they in effect destroy each other.
The final scene back on the Enterprise is a sweet little bit of slash with Spock chiding Kirk for using the term 'half-breed' but they kiss and make up very quickly after Jim gives him those puppy dog eyes and all is forgiven...awww. Oh and there's more 'Kirklight' in this episode than really should be allowed in any given 48 minute period...yummy.
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