A violent escaped inmate from the Tantalus penal colony hides inside a cargo crate that is beamed aboard the Enterprise; when the criminal is apprehended, he claims that he is Dr. Simon van Gelder (Morgan Woodward), assistant to Dr. Tristan Adams (James Gregory), a renowned pioneer of prison reform. Doc McCoy suspects that something is up and convinces Kirk to investigate.
The captain beams down to Tantalus with sexy psychotherapist Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), and is given a tour of the prison by Adams. When Kirk shows interest in a machine called a neural neutraliser, used to calm violent prisoners, Adams claims that it is still in the experimental phase and isn't effective. Kirk isn't convinced by Adams' story and, sneaking into the room with Helen, uses himself as a guinea pig to test the apparatus. When the machine is activated, Helen is able to plant thoughts into Kirk's mind -- something that the doctor has clearly been doing to his inmates, turning them into obedient slaves (to what end, we never find out).
Dagger Of The Mind is a rather run-of-the-mill episode that is made marginally more memorable for the fact that it features the first instance of Spock's mind-meld technique, which he uses to open the tortured mind of van Gelder, and for the eye-candy in the form of shapely Ms. Hill, who crawls around air ducts in her regulation figure-hugging Starfleet mini-dress, gets in a couple of clinches with the lucky captain (the pair having previously flirted at a Starfleet Xmas party), and is tasked with shutting down the penal colony force field like a sexy Obi-wan Kenobi, a job that requires her to kick some butt (she even sends one of Adams' guards into a high voltage circuit!).
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.
The captain beams down to Tantalus with sexy psychotherapist Helen Noel (Marianna Hill), and is given a tour of the prison by Adams. When Kirk shows interest in a machine called a neural neutraliser, used to calm violent prisoners, Adams claims that it is still in the experimental phase and isn't effective. Kirk isn't convinced by Adams' story and, sneaking into the room with Helen, uses himself as a guinea pig to test the apparatus. When the machine is activated, Helen is able to plant thoughts into Kirk's mind -- something that the doctor has clearly been doing to his inmates, turning them into obedient slaves (to what end, we never find out).
Dagger Of The Mind is a rather run-of-the-mill episode that is made marginally more memorable for the fact that it features the first instance of Spock's mind-meld technique, which he uses to open the tortured mind of van Gelder, and for the eye-candy in the form of shapely Ms. Hill, who crawls around air ducts in her regulation figure-hugging Starfleet mini-dress, gets in a couple of clinches with the lucky captain (the pair having previously flirted at a Starfleet Xmas party), and is tasked with shutting down the penal colony force field like a sexy Obi-wan Kenobi, a job that requires her to kick some butt (she even sends one of Adams' guards into a high voltage circuit!).
5.5/10, rounded up to 6 for IMDb.