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| Series: | TOS |
| Episode: | 1x07 (#8) |
| Original Airdate: | 1966-09-15 |
| Production Number: | 8 |
| Date: | November 22, 2266 |
| Stardate: | 1533.6 |
| Story by: | Gene Roddenberry |
| Teleplay by: | D.C. Fontana |
| Directed by: | Lawrence Dobkin |
The Enterprise takes 17-year-old Charles Evans aboard for transport after he spent 14 years alone on a deserted planet, but he's unable to interact with his fellow humans.
Summary
The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701) rendezvous with the USS Antares, a small survey ship. Investigating the planet Thasus, the Antares discovered there young boy, Charles Evans. Evans transfers to the Enterprise, which is going to Colony 5, where Evans' only relatives live.
Captain Ramart and his navigator, Tom Nellis, are eager to be on their way, even refusing Kirk's offer of Saurian brandy. But they are also effusive in their praise of Charlie. This is the first of many mysteries surrounding Charlie.
Charlie attempts to learn and integrate, demonstrating the effect of his years away from all human contact. At the same time, strange incidents occur in his vicinity. Charlie is also struggling mightily with adolescence and with his first crush, on Yeoman Janice Rand.
At extreme range, Captain Ramart attempts to contact the Enterprise, but before he can say more than "I've got to warn...", his ship is destroyed. Charlie advises Kirk that "it wasn't made very well" -- a strange comment, since it comes before Spock actually confirms the Antares' destruction.
During routine physical training, Charlie's awkward fall prompts laughter from Sam, one of Kirk's sparring partners. Humiliated and angry, Charlie makes Sam "go away", revealing his powers. Confronted, Charlie admits to destroying the Antares by making a warped baffle plate in its energy pile "go away". He defends his action by claiming that the ship would have blown up anyway, and that the crew weren't nice to him.
Kirk speculates that Charlie might be a Thasian, but McCoy's medical analysis results make this an unlikely possibility.
Charlie, his powers now common knowledge, takes overt control of the Enterprise. Attempts to thwart him fail, and he wreaks havoc. He wants to go to Colony 5; Kirk knows that the mayhem he'd create in that unstructured setting would be far worse than what he's done so far.
Determined to stop Charlie before he can reach Colony 5, Kirk attempts to overload his abilities, ordering more and more ship's systems activated. In the midst of this struggle, a ship from Thasus appears. The Thasians granted Charlie immense powers so he could live. Powers that they cannot, or will not, remove. Certain it would be impossible for Charlie to live a normal life with his own people, the Thasians remove him to their vessel and depart.
Background Information
- "Charlie X" was adapted for a novelization by James Blish. It was published in the first Bantam Books Star Trek novelization collection in 1967 under the original script name, "Charlie's Law." Although it may not canonically represent the creative staff's intentions, the novelization calls the unnamed crewman named Sam (that Charlie "disposes" of) as Sam Ellis, an officer on McCoy's medical staff. The episode never made it clear if he was "restored" along with Rand when the Thasians intervened. However, he reappeared in the novelization. Presumably, all of the officers who were disfigured by Charlie were restored, even though it was not shown on screen.
- Wah Chang designed the Vulcan harp.
- Stuntman Beau Vanden Ecker played Sam. He went on to work extensively on "Hawaii Five-O."
- Notice Kirk's mysterious uniform change as he and Charlie head to the bridge to listen to Ramart's message. He's wearing his gold uniform when they get on the turbo lift, but has on the green wraparound when they get off! Perhaps Charlie used his powers during the elevator ride.
- In another error, a reflection of Charlie in profile can be seen in the medicomp screen, even though he's flat on his back on the table at the time.
- In the scene in Rand's quarters, when Charlie flings Kirk and Spock against the wall, the wall has a hole punched in it! On an earlier take, Leonard Nimoy had struck the wall too forcefully. This alternate take can be seen at the end of the episode's preview.
- Charlie wears one of the old turtleneck shirts from Where No Man Has Gone Before.
- Spock's scanners in this episode make the same sound the Metron transmission does in Arena.
- The ship's gymnasium, seen only in this episode, is a redress of the Engineering set. The room where the gymnasts are tumbling is the redecorated briefing room.
- Probably to his relief, William Shatner only had to wear tights in one more episode, Errand of Mercy.
- After Charlie transforms Tina Lawton into an iguana, the noise the reptile makes is identical to the sounds made by Sylivia and Korobs' true forms at the end of Catspaw.
- Robert Walker, Jr. was actually in his twenties when he played seventeen-year-old Charles Evans.
- The grates in the floors of the corridors disappeared in later episodes. In a fun little scene, Charlie takes great delight in watching a technician lower some tubing into one of these floor grates.
- Publicity stills of Grace Lee Whitney were used on the playing cards Charlie modifies.
- During the early first-season episodes, great care was taken with the placement of colored lighting to add warmth to the gray walls of the Enterprise set. As pressure to complete episodes grew, this touch gradually faded from the series.
- Like Trelane, Apollo and the Gorgan, Charlie makes his exit with fading repetition of his final words.
- The music accompanying Charlie's disappearance at the end of this episode would be re-used effectively in Space Seed, as the landing party beams onto the Botany Bay and in The Tholian Web as Chekov witnesses the dead engineering crew on the Defiant.
- Although George Takei is not in this episode, two words of his dialogue from The Man Trap are dubbed in when Kirk calls the bridge from the gymnasium.
- Still not firmly set in his characterization in this early episode, Spock both shows irritation and smiles as Uhura makes fun of him.
Links and References
Main Cast
- William Shatner as Kirk
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock
- DeForest Kelley as McCoy
- Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
- Grace Lee Whitney as Rand
Guest Stars
- Robert Walker, Jr. as Charles Evans
- Abraham Sofaer as Thasian
- Patricia McNulty as Tina Lawton
- Charles J. Stewart as Ramart
- Dallas Mitchell as Tom Nellis
- Don Eitner as the navigator
- John Lindesmith as the helmsman
- John Bellah as Harrison
- Garland Thompson as Wilson
- Laura Wood as old lady crewwoman
- Eddie Paskey as Leslie (uncredited)
- Beau Vanden Ecker as Sam (uncredited)
- Gene Roddenberry as galley chef (voice, uncredited)
- Frank da Vinci as Vinci (uncredited)
- Ron Veto as Harrison (uncredited)
- William Blackburn as Hadley (uncredited)
- Unknown actor as Bobby
- Loren Janes as Kirk’s stunt double
References
Alpha V colony (Colony 5); USS Antares; Baffle plate; Energy pile; Gymnasium; Irvingoscope; Noncorporeal life; Phynburg oscillating framizam; Record tapes; Saurian brandy; Thanksgiving; Thasian; Thasus; Three-dimensional chess; United Earth Space Probe Agency; Vulcan harp.
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