Episode Title: Catspaw
Air Date: 10/27/1967
Written by Robert
Bloch
Directed by Joseph
Pevney
Cast: William
Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H.
McCoy AKA “Bones” James
Doohan as Lieutenant Commander
Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”
George Takei as Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Michael Barrier as Lieutenant DeSalle John Winston as Lieutenant Kyle Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent Jay D. Jones as Lieutenant
Jackson Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman Theodore Marcuse as Korob Antoinette Bower as Sylvia Rhodie
Cogan as First Witch Gail
Bonney as Second Witch Maryesther
Denver as Third Witch
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Pyris VII
My Spoiler filled
summary and review: Captain Kirk is sitting on the bridge waiting for his
landing party to respond. The Captain is not one to like to sit around waiting
for updates he prefers be leading his landing parties, but the ship is full of
explorers so the Captain has to let other people have fun some of the
time. However right now the away team doesn’t seem to be having fun they just
seem lost. Finally one of them makes contact with the ship the request to be
transported up. His request is only for
himself despite the fact that there were three members on his team. Anxious to find out what’s going on Captain
Kirk heads to the transporter room to see the officer as he boards the
ship. When the transporter beam
finishes Lt. Jackson, the officer returning to the ship, immediately dies. As Kirk and McCoy rushed to his body a voice
comes from the dead body, as if the corpse were some sort of receiver, telling
Captain Kirk to get his ship out of there or he and his ship will be cursed.
Among the missing crewman are the
chief engineer Mr. Scott and the chief helmsman Mr. Sulu. With two of his most important officers
missing Captain Kirk decides the lead a rescue party that consists of himself,
his first officer, and his chief medical officer. Kirk leaves Lt. DeSalle, the former navigator
and now assistant chief engineer in charge of the ship. The trio beam down and discover a great deal
of fog which shouldn’t be the case as there is no water on this planet. Mr. Spock’s tricorder is picking up lifeforms
a short distance from them, yet the sensors on the Enterprise itself pick up nothing.
 |
| Fog where there should not be |
They walk along and find themselves
running into three witches straight out of the play Macbeth. The witches call out to Captain Kirk by name and remind him of the curse demanding he turn back. According to Mr. Spock’s tricroder readings
however those witches they just saw were not even real. They continue on and find a big castle. As they enter the castle they encounter a black
cat just like the ones they have on Earth.
The cat has a strange diamond on its collar. They follow the cat for little bit only to
have the floor collapsed beneath them knocking all three of them unconscious.
The trio wakes up in a dungeon. They are on their feet as they are shackled to
the wall by their wrists placed over their heads. One would assume that their arms would hurt
like hell. It doesn’t seem to bother them
I guess they are just “mission focused.” Upon seeing a skeleton chained up next to them
Kirk decides to give McCoy’s traditional nickname a rest. Suddenly Scotty and Sulu show up and the
three are happy to see the missing crewmates only to quickly discover that the
two men have been seriously mind####ed and are now just zombies.
The mental puppet crew members take
their three comrades to go meet with a man named Korob. Korob is a strange man who is dressed like a
wizard complete with a cape and a wand.
The black cat from earlier is with him still with the diamond on her
collar. Korob explains that he is from
another galaxy and in this galaxy he has great power. For a man who is holding them prisoner he
seems quite nice and he tries to get his new ‘guests’ to like him. First he offers them food then when it became
apparent they had no appetite tried to bribe them with precious gems that
magically appeared to replace the food. Kirk
informs Korob that his information on Earth and humans is completely out of
date. These gems can easily be created
on their ship and therefore have no value to them.
 |
| Kirk gives McCoy's nickname a rest, good idea |
Suddenly the black cat leaps up and leaves the
room, as soon as the cat is gone a woman named Sylvia appears. Sylvia is wearing a necklace with the same
diamond that the black cat was wearing earlier.
Sylvia explains that she is the one who took control the minds of Mr.
Scott and Mr. Sulu. With that Kirk
jumped Scotty and takes his phaser and pointed at Sylvia. Then Sylvia reveals how she killed Jackson,
for she can create what we would call a voodoo doll. She makes an image of someone then does
something to the image and it ends up harming the person. She pulls out a tiny model of the Enterprise and she puts it under a
flame. Korob gives Kirk his communicator
and allows him to contact the Enterprise. Using his communicator Kirk learns from
DeSalle that the ship is heating up and it doesn’t seem to be anything they can
do for they don’t even know the cause.
With that Kirk surrenders and the two captors allow Kirk to remove the
model from the flame. DeSalle then
reports to the Captain that the ship’s temperature has gone back down to
normal.
We get a scene with Korob and
Sylvia alone where they have a disagreement about how their proceeding. Korob reminds her that they have a duty to
the “old ones,” but Sylvia declares that she doesn’t care she is taken in by
all these new sensations they get in human form and what she wants to
experience is more the sensations. From
their interactions it is clear that in their relationship Korob is clearly
whipped.
 |
| DaSalle in command |
Dr. McCoy now in zombie state goes
to the dungeon to retrieve Captain Kirk for Sylvia so that she can give him
some mind####ing. However when Captain
Kirk gets there he decides to give her a new sensation and introduce her to
this concept of regular ####ing. Kirk
begins his seduction and Sylvia’s totally going for it. She begins to show off
her powers taking the shapes of various different women to show Kirk what a
great lover she will be. Kirk gets her
to admit that her power comes from something called a transmuter. When Sylvia goes to read his mind she learns
the truth that Captain Kirk is only using her to get information. In rage she accuses Kirk of using her and
that someone amuses Kirk that she would find herself a victim of anything. He points out the hypocrisy to her and she
has him taken away back down to the dungeon.
At this point the bridge crew of
the Enterprise has figured out a way
to penetrate that force field. This
leads Korob to give up. He drops the force field and goes to free Kirk and
Spock in the dungeon. As they begin to
escape Sylvia turns into a giant cat and chases them around the castle. Korob his hurt and Kirk grabs Korob’s wand,
which he expects to be the transmuter.
After he gets a hold of it his brainwashed crew members are sent to fight him, Kirk uses his unparalleled supreme fighting skills that are famed throughout the galaxy to defeat using them, and Spock uses his nerve pinch. Sylvia then transports them all back the dining
room and she tries to negotiate with Kirk again. Spock warns the Captain not let her touch the
wand and Captain Kirk decides to break the device. With that the castle disappears, the Enterprise crew members are all cured
with their minds restored, and there are two silly little creatures on the
ground. It is the true forms of Korob
and Sylvia. They quickly die without
their technology which is disappointing to Spock because he wanted take them
and study them. McCoy mused that none of
it was real and Kirk points out that Jackson is still dead.
 |
| Big Cat on the chase |
Additional thoughts:
To my recollection this is the only episode of Star Trek that tries to make a theme out of a holiday. There are a
few episodes where we see a Christmas party or two but there are no episodes
about Christmas or Christmas themed. I
generally would prefer for Star Trek
not to try to base their episodes around the calendar. This was the first episode of the second
season yet given the serious habit of not airing their episodes in order it was
broadcast seventh so he could align with Hollow ween of 1967.
 |
| Kirk in seduction mode |
This is a fine episode with nothing
wrong with it per se but it tends to be a bit disappointing as it is mostly a
retread of earlier episodes. We have two
powerful beings who are fascinated by Earth culture but tend to make a good
deal of mistakes while observing it, a replay of what we saw in “The Squire of Gothos.” The only difference is in this
episode Korob and Sylvia make mistakes about Earth culture that are never
entirely explained. Why did Korob not
know that the Enterprise was capable
of making gems just as well as he could?
The gaps in Trelane’s knowledge were explained by his mistake of failing to account for the speed of light. We
have brainwashed Scotty, Sulu, and McCoy similar to the cult of Landru in “The Return of the Archons.” Although this
was Scotty’s first round of getting brainwashed for Mr. Sulu and Dr. McCoy this
must’ve been horrible déjà vu. It even
has Sulu with a fellow crew member get brainwashed right from the beginning
where McCoy gets later, just as in the episode prior. Look on McCoy’s face when Sylvia tells him
to remain let you know he knows exactly what’s going on. His thoughts are clearly, “Oh no! Not again, I hate getting my brain messed
with. How can blame this on Spock?”
 |
| Enterprise crew breaking the shield |
Lt. DeSalle is moving up in the
world. We saw this character twice
before as one of the Enterprise’s
navigators. Now he’s the assistant
chief engineer under Mr. Scott and left in command of the entire ship when the
big five leave. He was the star of the
entire subplot even overshadowing the first appearance of Ensign Chekov; a
character added to appease critics in the Soviet Union. I wish they had given Mr. Sulu this much
screen time when he was left in charge of the Enterprise in “Errand of Mercy.” I was pleased to see him with
Uhura and Chekov able to break through the force field set up by Korob and
Sylvia. It shows the crew of the Enterprise is impressive even when their
leaders might not be around.
 |
| Bad guys revealed |
So after the deaths of both Korob
and Sylvia why didn’t Spock collect their remains and study them? Don’t they have scientific value? Particularly, if we were to run into other
members of their kind we might want to have the data we might be able to get
from examining them. It was a bit of an
odd way to end the episode.
FINAL GRADE 3 of 5
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