This is a relatively straight forward plot.\u00a0 The Enterprise meets a ship, the Antares, that has rescued the survivor of a spaceship wreck.\u00a0 Seventeen-year-old Charlie Evans survived for fourteen years on the planet Thasus alone.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
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.\u00a0 Apparently, he was raised by the legendary Thasians who gave him these extraordinary powers.\u00a0 Unfortunately, teen aged Charlie isn\u2019t 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.\u00a0 When the crew of the Antares attempt to warn Kirk of Charlie\u2019s powers he destroys the distant ship using only his thoughts.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n
This episode is a gold mine of goofiness.\u00a0 We are regaled by Spock playing some kind of Vulcan lyre-like stringed instrument accompanied by Uhura singing extempore lyrics about Spock\u2019s appearance and alleged romantic proclivities.\u00a0 It must be seen and heard to be believed.<\/p>\n
Later on, Kirk takes Charlie to the gym to teach him to fight.\u00a0 Now we have our first viewing of Kirk without a shirt.\u00a0 It\u2019s not pretty.\u00a0 He really needed to lose about twenty pounds.\u00a0 And he demonstrates for Charlie his patented shoulder roll move.\u00a0 Very athletic.\u00a0 He also demonstrates his ability fall backward onto a mat.\u00a0 Apparently, this is a skill that needs to be learned.\u00a0 Well, it looked so awkward and unathletic that I judge it to be the highlight of the episode.<\/p>\n
Here are other scenes that deserve mention.<\/p>\n
Charlie sees one of the crewmen slapping his friend on the back after some work accomplishment.\u00a0 When Charlie is walking away from Yeoman Rand, he says goodbye by slapping her on the butt.\u00a0 She tries to control her outrage and tells Charlie to ask Captain Kirk why he shouldn\u2019t have slapped her like that.\u00a0 Kirk sputters and equivocates and dodges out.<\/p>\n
Later on, Charlie goes to see Rand in her cabin.\u00a0 She\u2019s wearing some kind of one shoulder strapped dress that accentuates her figure.\u00a0 Charlie pours out his adolescent hunger for her in incoherent monosyllables and when she rejects him, he dematerializes her.\u00a0 This definitely reduced the interest I had in the rest of the show.<\/p>\n
In this episode we see more of Mr. Spock\u2019s stoic Vulcan personality and see kirk interact with him on a personal level while they play a game of three-dimensional chess.<\/p>\n
The Charlie character was purposefully neurotic but I still found him very annoying.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 But in that episode the characterization is much more entertaining.<\/p>\n
But as mentioned the highlight of the episode is Bill Shatner rolling around on the floor of the gym.\u00a0 His embarrassing and awkward athletics are marvelous.\u00a0 Putting aside the uninspiring plot the other aspects mentioned rate this episode very high in the pantheon of bad Star Trek specialness.\u00a0 Highly recommended for connoisseurs of awful Shatner athletics.\u00a0 Special mention for Yeoman Rand getting smacked on the butt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This is a relatively straight forward plot.\u00a0 The Enterprise meets a ship, the Antares, that has rescued the survivor of a spaceship wreck.\u00a0 Seventeen-year-old Charlie<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[2155,2150,38,1355,44,309,265,1691,293,154,1692,837],"class_list":["post-8776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-charlie-x","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-william-shatner"],"yoast_head":"\n