This is a relatively straight forward plot. The Enterprise meets a ship, the Antares, that has rescued the survivor of a spaceship wreck. Seventeen-year-old Charlie Evans survived for fourteen years on the planet Thasus alone. The Antares crew is anxious to leave and Captain Kirk takes the boy under his wing and tries to introduce him to how people live.
Soon we find out that the boy has extreme psychic powers that allow him to dematerialize members of the crew and destroy items across stellar distances. Apparently, he was raised by the legendary Thasians who gave him these extraordinary powers. Unfortunately, teen aged Charlie isn’t able to control his emotional insecurity and so his powers become a threat to the Enterprise and all aboard, especially Yeoman Janice Rand whom he immediately falls in love with. When the crew of the Antares attempt to warn Kirk of Charlie’s powers he destroys the distant ship using only his thoughts. When things start spinning out of control Kirk uses his dominant personality to try and rein the boy in but in the climactic battle for control of the ship Charlie rebels against his father figure, Kirk, and comes close to killing him. Luckily at the appropriate moment the Thasians show up and take Charlie back to Thasus where they will take care of him and he will be prevented from destroying humanity.
This episode is a gold mine of goofiness. We are regaled by Spock playing some kind of Vulcan lyre-like stringed instrument accompanied by Uhura singing extempore lyrics about Spock’s appearance and alleged romantic proclivities. It must be seen and heard to be believed.
Later on, Kirk takes Charlie to the gym to teach him to fight. Now we have our first viewing of Kirk without a shirt. It’s not pretty. He really needed to lose about twenty pounds. And he demonstrates for Charlie his patented shoulder roll move. Very athletic. He also demonstrates his ability fall backward onto a mat. Apparently, this is a skill that needs to be learned. Well, it looked so awkward and unathletic that I judge it to be the highlight of the episode.
Here are other scenes that deserve mention.
Charlie sees one of the crewmen slapping his friend on the back after some work accomplishment. When Charlie is walking away from Yeoman Rand, he says goodbye by slapping her on the butt. She tries to control her outrage and tells Charlie to ask Captain Kirk why he shouldn’t have slapped her like that. Kirk sputters and equivocates and dodges out.
Later on, Charlie goes to see Rand in her cabin. She’s wearing some kind of one shoulder strapped dress that accentuates her figure. Charlie pours out his adolescent hunger for her in incoherent monosyllables and when she rejects him, he dematerializes her. This definitely reduced the interest I had in the rest of the show.
In this episode we see more of Mr. Spock’s stoic Vulcan personality and see kirk interact with him on a personal level while they play a game of three-dimensional chess.
The Charlie character was purposefully neurotic but I still found him very annoying. This episode may have been the inspiration for a later episode called the Squire of Gothos which has a similar character who has superhuman powers but a very immature nature. But in that episode the characterization is much more entertaining.
But as mentioned the highlight of the episode is Bill Shatner rolling around on the floor of the gym. His embarrassing and awkward athletics are marvelous. Putting aside the uninspiring plot the other aspects mentioned rate this episode very high in the pantheon of bad Star Trek specialness. Highly recommended for connoisseurs of awful Shatner athletics. Special mention for Yeoman Rand getting smacked on the butt.
