THE PLOT
The Enterprise is in the midst of a routine cargo drop to a penal colony, when the ship unwittingly takes on a stowaway: a crazed, violent man, surely one of the inmates. But no - it turns out that the insane man is actually a respected doctor, who was assigned to the colony! With the doctor urgently crying out that there is danger and begging not to be returned, Kirk decides to initiate an investigation.
He and Dr. Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), a psychiatrist assigned to the ship, beam down to the colony. The head of the institution, Dr. Adams (James Gregory) is all smiles and cooperation. But even though he beamed down expecting no trouble, something almost instantly starts pulling at Kirk's instincts. When Adams shows them the experimental machine which he blames for the "accident" which destroyed the doctor, Kirk decides to take a closer, less supervised look at that machine... and ends up as Dr. Adams' newest patient, literally battling for his own mind!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Kirk: His instincts are razor-sharp, and he has learned to trust them. Even though he beams down to the planet predisposed to respect Dr. Adams, and fully expecting his investigation to be just a routine check, he detects almost instantly that something isn't right. Perhaps it's all the zoned out, glazed smiles that greet him. Whatever the case, Kirk follows his instincts, and they lead him pretty directly to the truth. Unfortunately for him, Dr. Adams anticipates his closer investigation of the machine, and plants some firm suggestions into Kirk's mind, including a false "love" for Helen that is meant to keep him in check.
Despite the false emotions Adams has planted in him, however, Kirk manages to take hold of himself - in a manner not dissimilar to in The Naked Time - and direct Helen on a dangerous excursion to thwart Adams and contact the ship. The point is made once again: even with a dose of mind control directed against him, Kirk has a very strong will. It takes a lot to overcome that. I can't recall if there is an episode in which Kirk is mentally overcome... but I'm starting to hope so, just to see it happen.
That Vulcan Voodoo You Do: This episode is the beginning of a trend in TOS, that Spock's mysterious Vulcan background can be used to resolve anything too sticky for a 50-minute script to do. This is the episode that introduces the Vulcan mind-meld, which conveniently allows Spock to overcome Adams' programming of the crazed doctor. It works, because Nimoy brings conviction to the scene, and (in contrast to later episodes) the mind-meld is clearly shown to be something Spock does not undertake lightly. It also works, in that we start to really see in this episode how well Spock and McCoy work as a team, despite their constant sparring.
Hot Space Babe of the Week: Gorgeous Marianna Hill is Helen Noel, the object of Kirk's affections for this week. Other than good looks, Hill doesn't manage to bring much to the part in the episode's first half. Questionable writing doesn't help, as Noel is downright unprofessional in taking umbrage at even the most reasonable of Kirk's questions. What, did she used to be Adams' personal intern or something? Both character and actress improve substantially in the second half of the episode, when Helen first brings Kirk around to realizing that his "feelings" for her are not real, and then when she must make a dangerous escape on her own. However, I can't feel any real remorse for this being her only Trek appearance; the actress would prove to be much stronger as a gloriously spiteful townswoman in Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter, a few years later. Here, she's mostly eye candy.
Villain of the Week: Veteran actor James Gregory is the latest of several very fine actors to guest in Trek. He mostly plays against Adams' villainy, doing his utmost to play the character as kindly. He doesn't thunder lines or make declarations; he speaks softly, and even regretfully, of the possibility of damaging Kirk's mind. The result of this is a far more textured characterization than might have existed from a more "on-the-nose" portrayal of the part as written, and makes Adams the second villain in a row who ends up being more memorable than he might have been.
THOUGHTS
A very good and quite interesting episode, Dagger of the Mind succeeds both as a character piece and as a thriller. Production design on the penal colony is quite good for the time, and manages to tie in with mid/late 1960's culture by using cult iconography. The robes worn by people in the colony, the serene but empty smiles, even Adams' kindly uncle persona... It all evokes the kind of pseudo-religious cults that sprang up often in the '60's and '70's.
Of course, the setting - a facility for the criminally insane - also evokes the idea of lobotomies, which had been mainstream psychiatric treatment in the none-too-distant past when this episode was aired. By the mid-1960's, the public was only really beginning to become aware of how damaging these procedures had been for people, sapping them of their creativity, passion, and personality in exchange for a tranquil but expressionless facade (and that in the most successful cases). Adams' machine is effectively a science fiction lobotomy, and taken in that context is quite chilling.
This episode sees one of the more notable remastered effects. Instead of recycling the matte from Where No Man Has Gone Before, the new version creates a more remote setting for the penal colony, one which fits far better with the vast elevator in which Kirk and Helen descend. Though I'm sure some purists cried foul at the wholesale replacement of a setting (albeit a reused and recycled setting), I found this one of the more imaginative digital replacements to date.
Rating: 8/10.
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