"Star Trek" Dagger of the Mind (1966)

Director:

Vincent McEveety

Writers:

Shimon Wincelberg (written by)
Gene Roddenberry (creator)

TV Series:

"Star Trek" (1966)

Original Air Date:

3 November 1966 (Season 1, Episode 9)

Genre:

Adventure | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Kirk and psychiatrist Helen Noel are trapped on a maximum security penal colony that experiments with mind control and Spock must use the Vulcan mind-meld to find a way to save them.

Plot Keywords:

Penal Colony | Mind Control | Escaped Prisoner | Federation | Space

Cast

William Shatner	...	Captain James T. Kirk
Leonard Nimoy	...	Mr. Spock
James Gregory	...	Dr. Tristan Adams
DeForest Kelley	...	Dr. McCoy
Morgan Woodward	...	Dr. Simon van Gelder
Marianna Hill	...	Helen Noel
Nichelle Nichols	...	Uhura
Susanne Wasson	...	Lethe
John Arndt	...	First Crewman
Larry Anthony	...	Mr. Berkley
Ed McCready	...	Inmate
Eliezer Behar	...	Therapist (as Eli Behar)

Runtime:

50 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.33 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono

Certification:

Argentina:Atp | Canada:PG (video rating)

Filming Locations:

Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA

Company:

Desilu Productions

Trivia:

Lethe (Susanne Wasson) was named after the river in Hades in Greek myth. Those condemned souls who drank from it, forgot their past lives. Explaining her blank, vegetative stare from neutralizer "treatment".

Goofs:

Errors made by characters (possibly deliberate errors by the filmmakers): When Van Gelder reaches the Enterprise's bridge, he attacks and disables a security guard. McCoy is on the bridge at the time, but even after Van Gelder is subdued, he never so much as glances in the unconscious guard's direction.

Quotes:

Mr. Spock: Interesting. You Earth people glorify organized violence for 40 centuries, but you imprison those who employ it privately.
Dr. McCoy: And, of course, your people found an answer?
Mr. Spock: We disposed of emotion, Doctor. Where there is no emotion, there is no motive for violence.

Movie Connections:

Spoofed in "South Park: Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods (#2.11)" (1998)

The Vulcan mind meld

Dagger of the Mind has everything one would expect from a good Star Trek episode: suspense, great dialogue and a subtle reflection on a contemporary issue, in this case the medical treatment of insane people.

The Enterprise is orbiting around a planet that serves as a prison colony, specifically designed for the criminally insane. When an inmate manages to get on the ship, Spock and McCoy do everything in their power to capture him, while Kirk and the crew's psychiatrist, a woman with whom - what a surprise - he appears to have a history, beam down to the planet to talk to Dr. Adams, whose revolutionary discoveries are well known throughout the galaxy. The truth, it turns out, is rather different from what they thought: the escaped convict is actually someone who used to work at the facility, and has been driven mad by Adams' latest creation, a device that allows him to control the human mind. And now, in order to protect his secret, the doctor intends to use it on Kirk.

The episode originally aired at a time when psychiatric hospitals and various forms of treatment for mentally ill patients were still a controversial subject (Frederick Wiseman's harrowing documentary Titicut Follies, which was banned for its explicit look at what goes on in a "mad house", was released in 1967), and so the writers used the excuse of Trek being nothing but an average sci-fi show - which Gene Roddenberry always stressed it wasn't, and still isn't - to get away with their own look at the issue, hidden under the usual mix of thrills and wit.

Fans also remember Dagger of the Mind fondly because it introduces the famous Vulcan "mind meld", which is essentially a form of telepathy used by Spock to get information when all other methods have failed. It adds a lot to the alien nature of the character, and went on to become a recurring element throughout the series. An iconic moment, and undoubtedly one of Leonard Nimoy's best on the show.