KIRK RUNS INTO JACK THE RIPPER WHO IS STILL KILLING AND NOW FRAMING SCOTTY

 

Episode Title:  Wolf in the Fold

Air Date: 12/22/1967

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              Virginia Aldridge as Lieutenant Karen Tracy          John Winston as  Lieutenant Kyle            Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley     Judi Sherven as unnamed Nurse            Judith McConnell as Yeoman Second Class Tankris        John Fiedler as Hengist                       Charles Macaulay as Jaris         Pilar Seurat as Sybo              Charles Dierkop as Morla               Joseph Bernard as Tark                Tanya Lemani as Kara        Marlys Burdette as  Serving Girl               Suzanne Lodge as Argelian Waitress   Majel Barrett as Enterprise Computer

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Argelius II

I like Dr. McCoy's treatments

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The background to the episode is Mr. Scott was injured in an explosion caused by a female crew member.  He recovers but Dr. McCoy is concerned that this accident will cause could cause Scotty to develop a total resentment of women.  This doesn’t make any sense but 23^rd century brains must be wired a little bit differently.  Mr. Scott doesn’t seem to harbor any resentment towards women but in the 23^rd century we didn’t get rid of misogyny by standing around, if we think someone’s infected we perform an intervention.  In order to prevent Scotty’s potential emerging misogyny Kirk and McCoy intervene by beaming down with him to the planet Argelius.  While on the planet they take the Chief Engineer to a local strip club to remind him that women can be “good.” 

Pretty alien stripper

At the club there is a very pretty belly dancing stripper named Kara, who Scotty takes to.  Apparently already aware of his Chief Engineer’s type, Kirk had taken the initiative to invite her to sit with them after her act.  Upon hearing this Mr. Scott thanks his Captain for being one who “always looks out for his men.”  Scotty asks the stripper for some private time that she grants as strippers tend to do.  Kirk then turns to McCoy to remind him that there are some better clubs including his favorite and McCoy already knows where he means to go before Kirk finishes his sentence.  This means that the Captain who “always takes care of his men” does so at the cheaper strip clubs.

Scotty looking for some private time

All of a sudden they here a scream and run out to find the pretty stripper they saw earlier has been stabbed dead and Scotty is standing there holding the knife.  When confronted Scotty doesn’t remember what happened.  Two officials show up first an investigator named Hengist and the second is the Prefect of Argelius whose name is Jaris.  When he is questioned Scotty doesn’t remember anything that happened.  Hengist who is from Rigel explains that his office doesn’t have a lot of resources to deal with this because this type of thing rarely happens on Argelius.  Jaris mentions that they did have an ancient way of investigating that had to do with ESP and telepathy, and that his wife has these abilities. 

Kirk calls Spock to explain the situation and Spock wants to bring Mr. Scott to the ship but Kirk reminds the First Officer they are bound by the planets laws.  While Sybo, Jaris’s gifted wife is preparing, Kirk asks the Prefect if it would permissible for them to bring down a psycho-tricorder.  A psycho-tricorder is a device that was clearly invented last week and has the ability to scan Scotty’s mind and tell them everywhere he has been and everything that has happened to him.  This great little device would have been very useful in Kirk’s own court-martial, bad for Spock’s, and helpful with old Matt Decker last week. 

Scotty just can't remember!

  With permission from Javis obtained, the Enterprise beams down Lt. Tracy with the device to examine Scotty.  Tracy takes the Chief Engineer to another room and that is when Javis notices the murder weapon was missing.  A scream from the other room cause Kirk and Javis to head in there where they discover Lt. Tracy dead and Mr. Scott over her body claiming he can’t remember what has happened.

And another one bites the dust

Hengist returns with two “persons of interest” who were there the night of the first killing.  One was the musician who it turns out is the father of the first murder victim.  The second man is the ex-fiancé of the victim whose relationship ends because of jealousy; an emotion looked down upon on Argelius.  He strongly insists he wasn’t the murder and he wins over Hengist when Kirk tells all of them of the second murder.  To Hengist, Scott must be guilty he was found with both women at the time of the murders and had the weapon in hand for one.  Scotty is also warned by Javis that there hasn’t been a murder in so long that they haven’t changed the penalty.  That penalty is death by slow torture.  

Not the type of investigation I would want to save me from slow torture

Sybo is now ready to conduct the Séance and this investigation attempt proceeds over the objections of Hengist who feels the case was already solved.  Attending Sybo’s ritual are all parties involved including the two suspects, Scotty and the ex-fiancé.  While performing the ritual Sybo doesn’t name any of the suspects and instead she blames and ancient evil and called out some of its names "Kesla," "Beratis," "Redjac."  Then the room goes dark and Sybo screams!  The lights come back on and she is in the arms of Mr. Scott and the same dagger in her back. 

Third one today

Javis, who is clearly the most understanding person in the world, despite the fact that the love of his life has been killed with her killer seemly caught red-handed in his third murder of the day, nevertheless agrees to let Kirk continue the investigation.  Despite that Kirk is obviously biased in the matter and wants to relocate the investigation up to his ship, Javis continues to follow even with Hengist’s objections.  

The most understanding man in the universe

On the Enterprise they gather in a conference room to use the new psycho-tricorder on both Mr. Scott and the ex-fiancé.  Unlike the earlier promise about the psycho-tricorder's abilities the device is a simple lie-detector.  Both Mr. Scott and the ex-fiancé are cleared.  I hate to say it but it is at this point that the episode starts to get weird.  By feeding names that Sybo called out into the computer they come to the conclusion that the killer isn’t a man at all rather an energy creature that can assume human form and feeds on fear to make itself powerful.  It targets women because they generate more fear.  Their killer is none other than Jack the Ripper. 

Scotty cleared! It's Jack the Ripper instead!

Hengist continues to object to what he regards as simple “ghosts and goblins” not real investigative work.  However it is quickly pointed out that he his home planet of Rigel was the site of the last attack where he had claimed nothing like this had ever happened there.  It is then reveled that Hengist is Jack the Ripper.  Old Jack tries to escape but he is cornered and Kirk decks him.  To everyone’s surprise McCoy determines that he is dead.  Kirk maybe one of the greatest fighters in the galaxy but even he shouldn’t kill a person with a light punch.  Apparently the creature occupied a corpse thus restoring it to temporary life. 

Mr. Sulu as high as a kite!

However soon they hear the killer’s voice coming from the computer.  He is threatening to destroy them all, but he makes no move to do so yet.  Kirk reasons since he feeds on fear he would torment the crew first in order to generate it.  Now it should be pointed out at this phase the actor John Fiedler also played the character Piglet in The Adventures of Winnie the Poo and unlike a lot of voice actors he didn’t create a special voice for the character he just used his own voice.  So you need to imagine the voice of Piglet saying “I’m going to kill you all!”  I don’t understand how anyone would fine that intimidating it’s kind of like seeing a little dog park up a storm trying to scare you.  Nevertheless, Kirk doesn’t take this threat lying down.  He wants to insure that Jack the Ripper won’t be able to terrify, so he decides to drug his entire crew to the point they are so high that they can’t tell they’re in danger.  Then in order to get him out of their computer Spock enters the equation to the value of Pi and programs the computer to solve it.  This forces Jack the Ripper out.

Taking out the garbage

Jack tries to control Javis but he is quickly Vulcan nerve-pinched forcing Jack out.  Going back to his Hengist body he tries to take a hostage but fails.  With no fear to feed on he is weak and an injection traps him in the Hengist body.  Kirk and Spock take him to the transporter room and beam him into space.  Jack the Ripper is defeated, Scotty is innocent and the whole crew is stoned.  

Additional thoughts: It should be pointed out that this is not Robert Bloch’s only “Jack the Ripper is still alive and not even human” story.  He apparently had a number of them.  I am not going to talk about any of them here; I just thought it should be noted. 

                This is one of those episodes that even though it is not supposed to be funny it is in fact hilarious.  From Piglet Jack the Ripper and the stoned crew of the Enterprise there are no stop laughs in this episode.   It is just impossible to take any of it seriously.

One of things that annoys me not just here but in a lot of fiction is how skeptics are treated.  Here we have multiple murders with the same person seemingly caught red-handed each time.  The audience knows Scotty didn’t do it.  How the crew solves the case is the issue.  Do they use great detective work to clear him?  No, they use instead a séance, psycho-tricorders, and wild speculation with the computer.  Hengist is the only character pleading common sense rejecting the “ghost and goblins” approach.  It turns out this is a case of ‘smelt it dealt it’ and the skeptic wasn’t giving legitimate objections but rather trying to cover his own crimes.

The only voice of reason turns out to be Jack the Ripper!

I’m assuming the psycho-tricorder technology doesn’t last since I don’t recall ever seeing it again.  It didn’t seem like it was that great to begin with, it was supposed to record memories but it turned out to be just a fancy lie-detector.  If it did everything they said it could it have plot killed a lot of future episodes.   Of course we could always turn to the Vulcan mind-meld.  Hey why didn’t they use the Vulcan mind?

"I'm going to kill you all!"

It is nice to have an episode focus on Mr. Scott, but if we are going to that wouldn’t it be better to present him with a great engineering question to solve as opposed to falsely accusing him of murder?  He is a great character who’s always holding the ship together so Kirk and Spock can get the win.  He deserves more than an episode where he has a knife in his hand and a blank expression on his face saying “I don’t know.”

 FINAL GRADE 3 of 5