Star Trek Remastered - 1x09 - Dagger of the Mind

S O U N D T R E K K E R ' S B L U R B



Hi, fellow trekkers!



I'm back again with the next remastered episode, this time "The Dagger of the Mind", which was shown on CBS a few weeks ago.





The Story - the Performance



In this story about a penal colony leader (James Gregory as Dr. Tristan Adams) doing some terrible things to control and manipulate the inmates and his staff, using a device called a "neural neutralizer", our crew must cope with a mad prisoner (Morgan Woodward as Dr. Simon van Gelder) who succeeds to escape the colony and take refuge on the Enterprise. When Kirk learns that Dr. van Gelder indidently was part of the colony?s staff who treated himself with the device and became mad, he and one of his crew, psychiatrist Dr. Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), beam down to investigate. To prevent Kirk and his crew from making public what they found out, Dr. Adams puts Kirk under the device to brainwash him and to manipulate him into believing he is in love with Dr. Noel. In the end, and with the help of Dr. Noel, Kirk is able to overcome the effect and stops the madman, who himself accidently gets under the device and dies from an overdose of the rays. Dr. van Gelder, who gets another treatment and becomes sane again, returns to the colony as the new leader.

This episode marks the first time Spock uses a mind-meld, introducing a technique to be used by many Vulcans in the various incarnations of trek. In an earlier draft, the script just demanded for some form of hypnosis to be applied by McCoy on Dr. van Gelder, but the choice to invent the Vulcan mind-meld was a wise one, adding, again, an interesting layer on the ever growing Vulcan mysticism.

The guest actors are well chosen: Morgan Woodward, who clearly steals the show, is perfect for portraying mad men, something he is able to do again later in the second season of Star Trek ("The Omega Glory"), where he will play a starship captain (Captain Ronald Tracey) who also shows signs of madness. His demonic stare can be really intimidating, and he plays such roles with power and verve!

James Gregory as Dr. Adams plays the manipulative colony leader convincingly and with charisma. Marianna Hill is excellently cast as well, playing Dr. Noel with female power, adding some subtle sex appeal to the role, as demanded by the script, which has Kirk falling in love with her due to the manipulative effects of the neural neutralizer, which was possible due to a little affair between the Captain and Dr. Noel on a Christmas party before the events of this episode, alluded to in the transporter room scene, when Kirk meets with her to beam down to Tantalus V.





Script and Direction



Shimon Wincelberg (which is a pseudonym chosen by S. Bar-David), who also co-wrote "The Galileo Seven" (as S. Bar-David), is responsible for the script, based on his own story. It's a story you can find in other tv shows and movies playing in a jail, asylum or hospital, where some ill-meaning doctor or prison leader is trying to control and manipulate the inmates or patients. Later, in the third season, we will see a rather similar story about an asylum, where inmates try to escape ("Whom Gods Destroy"). From those two, "Dagger of the Mind" is the better one, because excellent guest actors make the most of it.

The direction by Vincent McEveety, a trek director with six outings in the three-year run of classic trek (the others being "Miri", "Balance of Terror", "Patterns of Force", "The Omega Glory", and "Spectre of the Gun"), is routinely done - he manages to bring out real horror and pain on the faces of the actors involved with the neural neutralizer - with Shatner somewhat overplaying, as he often does! His direction for the scenes between the main trio (Kirk, Spock and McCoy), especially the dispute between Kirk and McCoy about the right course of action and other scenes on board, make great use of the excellent interplay between those three actors, helped by well written dialogue!



The Music

The score contains many cues tracked from previous episodes, including some music from "The Enemy Within" by Sol Kaplan and Fred Steiner's "Andrea" theme from "What Are Little Girls Made Of?", effectively used for the lovely Dr. Helen Noel, when she meets with Kirk in the transporter room before the beam down.



The Enhancements

The first look on the planet Tantalus is stunning: in the new enhanced version, it looks awsome with its added rings! Besides some well done Enterprise flybys and orbital shots, we get a special bonus: A new digital matte painting of the landing point at the elevator entrance to the Tantalus Penal Colony. In the original, they chose to re-use the matte painting of the dilithium cracking station from "Where No Man Has Gone Before", just slightly altered, so this totally new version is much appreciated!





Okay, that's it for today, except to remind you, as usual, to seed after downloading, or I'll add some hidden neural neutralizer data rays inside the next torrent which will be set free by viewing the episode on your screen, so you will forget to be a trek remastered fan! >:(



Later this week

"The Gamesters of Triskelion" - Two new planets: one stunning looking one with craters and added rings (Gamma II), and a second one with THREE suns (Triskelion)!



All right, people, that's it for today! Take care, and

LIVE LONG AND PROSPER!!!



Best regards,

Captain Soundtrekker