After a doctor from a mental institution goes mad and invades the Enterprise, a suspicious Kirk beams down to the institution to investigate what's going on there. The man in charge of the place, however, has been conducting unethical and tortuous experiments on patients, and decides now it's Kirk's turn.
This one is not particularly cheesy or goofy. In fact, the premise of a doctor using an isolated institution as his own personal laboratory holds plenty of promise. But in this episode character and plot are handled in an indifferent manner.
For starters, Dr. Van Gelder's rampage on the Enterprise takes too long and fills up time with meaningless running around that could have been spent developing the main plot. Then, the character of Dr. Adams in completely undeveloped: what is he up to and why? What are his motives? His world view? Why bother subjecting Kirk to his machine when he can simply entertain him and let him go without Kirk ever finding out what Adams is up to? We don't know, the episode does not tell us, and consequently we don't care about what he does next.
Nothing about the plot of developed adequately. Apparently the institution consists of vegged-out followers of Dr. Adams, but we only get that when Kirk mentions it in one line of dialogue, then it's never mentioned again. It's certainly never shown to us for any dramatic effect.
A episode of TOS can be cheesy and still be fun to watch. But it should never, never be as indifferently constructed as this.
There are two good things, though: Morgan Woodward certainly gives an energetic performance as Dr. Van Gelder, even though the character gets senselessly dropped by episode's end. He sure earned his pay on this acting gig. And the character of Dr. Noel is a positive portrait of a strong, brave woman who can take care of herself, exactly the kind of female character sixties TV needed more of.
This one is not particularly cheesy or goofy. In fact, the premise of a doctor using an isolated institution as his own personal laboratory holds plenty of promise. But in this episode character and plot are handled in an indifferent manner.
For starters, Dr. Van Gelder's rampage on the Enterprise takes too long and fills up time with meaningless running around that could have been spent developing the main plot. Then, the character of Dr. Adams in completely undeveloped: what is he up to and why? What are his motives? His world view? Why bother subjecting Kirk to his machine when he can simply entertain him and let him go without Kirk ever finding out what Adams is up to? We don't know, the episode does not tell us, and consequently we don't care about what he does next.
Nothing about the plot of developed adequately. Apparently the institution consists of vegged-out followers of Dr. Adams, but we only get that when Kirk mentions it in one line of dialogue, then it's never mentioned again. It's certainly never shown to us for any dramatic effect.
A episode of TOS can be cheesy and still be fun to watch. But it should never, never be as indifferently constructed as this.
There are two good things, though: Morgan Woodward certainly gives an energetic performance as Dr. Van Gelder, even though the character gets senselessly dropped by episode's end. He sure earned his pay on this acting gig. And the character of Dr. Noel is a positive portrait of a strong, brave woman who can take care of herself, exactly the kind of female character sixties TV needed more of.