Episode Title: The Conscience of the King
Air Date: 12/8/1966
Written by Barry
Trivers
Directed by Gerd
Oswald
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” Nichelle
Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Bruce Hyde as Lieutenant Kevin Thomas Riley Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Frank Da Vinci as Crewman Grace Lee Whitney as
Yeoman First Class Janice Rand Robert
H. Justman as Security Guard Jeannie Malone as Yeoman Ron Veto as Security Guard Arnold Moss as Anton
Karidian Barbara
Anderson as Lenore Karidian
William Sargent as Dr. Thomas
Leighton Natalie
Norwick as Martha Leighton
David Somerville as Larry Matson Karl Bruckas as Kardian actor playing King Duncan Marc Grady Adams as Kardian
actor playing Hamlet John
Astin as Capt. John Daley of the Astro-Queen Majel Barrett as Enterprise Computer
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701, Astro-Queen
Planets: Planet Q
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: Some basic back story to this episode: when Captain Kirk was a teenager, due to his
father’s Starfleet career, his family occasionally relocated. Although he grew up mostly in Iowa there was
a year where he lived with his maternal grandparents on the Earth colony Tarsus
IV. When he was there a bacterial
infection hit the food supply nearly exhausting it. Help was a long way away. Governor Kodos ceased power via martial law
and he calculated that the colony of 8,000 would survive if he only had half
the amount of mouths to feed. He then
selected via his own personal standard of who was worthy to live and who was
going to die. He then executed the 4,000
that he had personally selected for doom. The executions were wide spread to the point
that there were survivors and victims in every family. It is never made clear who Captain Kirk lost
in this incident. However only nine
people had actually witnessed Kodos performing the slaughter and Kirk was one
of them. As tragic as it was it was made
even sadder when the colony then received good news: the relief ships had
arrived earlier than expected. Kodos’s
slaughter was not only cruel it was now pointless. There was immediate outrage and calls for
Kodos’s head both literally and figuratively.
However it appears that Kodos had been burnt to death. The body will however was beyond recognition.
The episode begins twenty years
after the events on Tarsus IV had occurred.
Kirk, now in command of the US S
Enterprise received a communication from his friend to Dr. Thomas Leighton,
who himself is one of the nine witnesses.
Leighton had summoned the Enterprise
with the promise that he made an amazing discovery and was able to synthesize
food. This would make all famines a
thing of the past. However before they
can get down to business Leighton had Kirk join him to watch a performance of Macbeth. Leighton accuses the actor of the character
of Macbeth a man named Anton Karidian of being the infamous Kodos the
Executioner. Kirk can’t believe it; he
tells Leighton that Kodos is long dead and he is chasing ghosts. Kirk is angry that he diverted a starship on
this wacky theory. He is afraid that when
he enters this into his report Leighton may be in serious trouble. He leaves telling his friend he doesn’t know
how he can fix this.
 |
| Leighton who lost his family and half his face. |
On the ship Kirk’s curiosity and
own personal pain gets the better of him.
He starts looking at old photographs of Kodos and compares them with Anton
Karidian. Kirk sees a similarity but
isn’t sure and he asked Mr. Spock’s opinion on Leighton if he is a person who
occasionally makes up stories. Spock says he’s not. Kirk decides to keep the Enterprise around little longer and heads to Dr. Leighton’s
party. When he gets there he meets the
beautiful and stunning Lenore Karidian, who had played Lady Macbeth
earlier. She is the daughter of the
company’s founder and she informs Captain Kirk that “the Great Karidian” does
not attend parties. Kirk flirts with her
a bit and learns of the company’s plans that they are leaving soon on a
freighter known as the Astro – Queen. Lenore
agrees to go on a stroll with Captain Kirk and on their little stroll they find
the body of Dr. Thomas Leighton.
Kirk suspicions are now heightened making him want to keep the acting company will under tight surveillance. He contacts the Captain of the Astro-Queen, who turns out to be a buddy
of his who owes him a dozen favors. Kirk
asks him to fail to pick up the acting company allowing him to be their rescuer. Lenore comes aboard the Enterprise to ask Kirk a favor of transport in exchange for a
performance aboard the ship. Kirk agrees
and he and Lenore do a little bit more strolling through the ship and
Kirk even takes her to see the observation lounge. In addition to accompanying the lovely Lenore more he also re-assigns Lt. Kevin Riley, the former navigator who now
works for Lt. Uhura in communications, away from his current assignment to a
previous role in engineering. He does
this because Lt. Riley is another one of the witnesses like himself and he is
trying to protect him.
Kirk so callously reassigning the
poor Lieutenant made Mr. Spock suspicious.
He decides to investigate to discover what is wrong with the Captain. Spock quickly uncovers the truth in fact he
gets more information than Captain Kirk did.
He discovered the connection between Leighton, Kirk, and Riley as all
were witnesses to the murders. He also
discovers that Anton Karidian didn’t exist before twenty years ago and that his
appearance coincides with the disappearance of Kodos. He also noted that only Kirk and Riley of all
the witnesses are still alive and that the others all died shortly after the
Karidian Company was nearby. He takes
his concerns McCoy who was resists at first but after Lt. Riley is almost
killed through poisoning McCoy comes around.
 |
| A request for transport. |
Spock and McCoy confront Kirk in
his quarters explaining what they know.
Kirk is at first irritated from his officers interfering what he views as a private
affair, but ultimately agrees to their help.
Shortly thereafter they hear phaser on overload, someone is now trying to
assassinate the Captain! Kirk searches
for the weapon instead of running because if it explodes it may take decks off
the ship. He finds it in the nick of
time and drops it down a disposal shoot, which I guess means disposal shoots of
the Enterprise are so strong that
they can withstand phaser explosions.
 |
| Face to face with the monster of his childhood. |
"The revolution is successful. But survival depends on drastic measures. Your continued existence represents a threat to the well-being of society. Your lives mean slow death to the more valued members of the colony. Therefore, I have no alternative but to sentence you to death. Your execution is so ordered, signed Kodos, Governor of Tarsus IV."
Kirk points out him that he hardly
had to look at the paper before reading the statement which Karidian simply
responds that he learns his lines well.
Before he leaves Lenore confronts Kirk for his apparent betrayal.
The voice prints match but not
exactly, Kirk still is unsure to Karidian’s actual identity. Spock however disagrees, he feels the
evidence both gathered and circumstantial is enough to arrest Karidian on
suspicion of being Kodos. Kirk still
says he has to be absolutely certain for making his move. At this point Spock should mention there’s no
real such thing as absolute certainty but he doesn’t choose to argue the point.
The play however is still on and
the company is going to perform Hamlet
for the crew. While getting ready to
leave McCoy’s logging in his journal that he wants to keep Riley as far away from
both of the Karidains as it is suspected that Anton is Kodos. Riley overhears him, grabs a phaser and
heads down to confront the nemesis from his childhood who murdered members of
his family. McCoy tells Kirk and Kirk instantly knows what Riley intends to do.
 |
| Kirk stops Riley |
While Karidian is performing Riley
is aiming to kill him with a phaser blast.
Kirk however shows up with a security team and talks the Lieutenant
down. Nevertheless as Riley allows
himself to be taken Kirk hears the two Karidians talking. Anton is horrified by his daughter’s confession
that she has been killing the potential witnesses against him. Breaking down Anton looks at her to tell her
that she was the only thing that was never affected by the horror that he had
committed. As she sees Kirk and his security
team arrive she runs and grabs a phaser from one of the officers and she aims
that phaser the Captain but she fails to kill him. At the last moment her father throws himself
in front of the phaser blast saving Kirk and is fatally wounded. As he lay dying she reads to him from Act II
of Shakespeare’s Hamlet “The play's
the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king.”
 |
| Murderess revealed |
In the aftermath with Kodos dead
everything seems to return to normal aboard the Enterprise. Dr. McCoy gives
an update on Lenore apparently she’s been found to be mentally unstable and
she’s being treated at a Federation penal colony hospital. Lenore still thinks her father is off
giving great performances. McCoy seems
to write this off as a happy ending considering what we last saw from a Federation prison hospital I’m not so sure that’s the case.
Additional thoughts:
This episode is one of the great ones, not a lot of magnificent science fiction
here, but it sure makes you think. The
character of Kodos the Executioner is a fascinating one. In the post title I compared him to Hitler but in
reality that’s not fair at all. Kodos
never wanted to kill anybody and might have never killed anyone had it not been for the
emergency famine. Kodos feels
tremendously guilty for what he did and spends his entire life running from it. Although he is still defensive and thinks he
made was the right decision and all would agree had the rescue ships not arrived
early or in his view not early enough.
He feels cheated and judge wrongly hence what he runs away, fakes his
death, and tries to live out a normal life in a different career capacity. Or maybe he always had a passion for acting
and he use the opportunity of having to start his life over to try something he
always wanted to anyway.
I wish we knew more details
of the crime Kodos committed. The
episode goes back and forth on what part of it was bad. They point out that it was unnecessary as the
relief ships arrived early so he killed all those people for nothing. However had those ships not shown up were his
actions still wrong? Elsewhere in the
episode it is pointed out that in the executions the choice of who lived and
who died was selected out solely by him on an individual level and that was
what made it particularly evil. Okay so
they say randomly killed 4,000 people that would’ve been fine? But because he was selective about it that is
what made it wrong? We’re not even told
what his criteria for survival even was only that had to do with eugenics,
however that is very broad answer and could mean almost anything. If 4,000 people have to die I failed to see
why it’s wrong to be selective about it and I don’t see killing people at
random to be any more of a virtuous idea.
There are bit of plot holes in this
episode. For one they keep referring to the nine witnesses that could identify
Kodos but we see Kirk doing a photo comparison between Karidian and
Kodos. So if we have photos of him why are
the witnesses even necessary? At points
they seem to refer that they actually witnessed the crime itself. But we also have audio recordings of Kodos
giving the final command. What are these
witnesses for? How does killing them
protect him? How good of witnesses are
these? Kirk is unsure the whole time despite the fact he was probably 14 when the whole thing went down and should’ve been a reliable witness. Riley would’ve been about four when this
happens so how reliable could he be?
Maybe Lenore just has her father’s luck and that she kills people but it
later turns out to be unnecessary.
 |
| The Final Fate of Kodos the Executioner |
Oh and the Shakespeare references
not only do we get in that of the title of the episode but they are littered
throughout. In the beginning we get
Anton and Lenore Karidian playing the roles of Macbeth and Lady Macbeth. Now as
awkward as it is for a father and daughter to be playing husband-and-wife it is
a great clue to the ultimate plot twist.
Anton/Kodos, like Macbeth, is a reluctant murder as I stated earlier he
doesn’t really want to kill anyone. He only did so when fate forced his
hand. Lenore is quite different killing
her father’s potential witnesses seem to quite excite her, she proclaimed to
Kirk that she gladly would wipe out an entire planet just to save her father.
This makes her more evil like Lady Macbeth who wanted her husband to commit
murder so to advance his career. And how ironic was it that it was she who accidentally
killed her father when he got in way of the phaser blast meant for Captain
Kirk. Lenore nicknamed “the Caesar of
the Stars” then continues to reference the play Julius Caesar to Captain Kirk.
When he arrived to their final confrontation she looks at him and says
“tell the Senate Caesar art come.”
Referencing the line where Caesar chooses to go to the Senate house
where he will be assassinated.
On a lighter note there are some
other things I noticed that were smaller but nonetheless enjoyable. One of them was Captain Kirk’s conversation
with the Captain of the Astro-Queen.
I love the Kirk has such a reputation throughout the Federation that he was
able to get a favor from the freighter captain because the captain owed him a
dozen. It was one of those untold tales
of Star Trek that add such richness
to their characters.
So what’s with all these former
navigators leaving that post to come work under Uhura? Is she this great boss to have and everyone
wants to work for her directly? In the previous episode we saw Lieutenant Farrell filling in for her directly and now
Riley is said to be in communications as well.
Also shouldn’t Riley be the last person who Kirk wants to put in engineering? Doesn’t he remember the damage that Riley
caused last time he was there? Now granted he was infected with the Naked Virus
but so what? Just strikes me is bad luck.
Also allowed to eat on the job? I
never noticed anyone mowing down on the bridge, but Riley has a full plate of food
with him as he sits in engineering. Why
doesn't he go to the mess hall after a shift like everybody else? Then there is the slow uniform change if
Riley and Farrell have moved over to communications shouldn’t they be switching
from gold to red? Maybe it takes a while
for the new uniforms come in so that the sport their old ones? That would explain why Sulu’s fill-in was
still in a red uniform whereby rights he should’ve been in the gold one.
In the end this
was a great episode. I wish later in the series they would address Captain Kirk's reaction to the fact that he owes his life to Kodos the Executioner.
FINAL GRADE 5 OF 5
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