So I just finished reading Robert Louis Stevenson’s classic tome, “Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.” I couldn’t help but notice the many parallels to the Star Trek (TOS) episode, “The Enemy Within.” That was the one where a transporter accident split Capt. Kirk into two different individuals: one a total raging maniac, and the other a total ineffectual pussy.
My question: do you think the Trek episode was based on the RLS novel? There are many parallels, but also a few differences. As far as I can recall, there were no “cues” within the episode to wink at us and tell us that it was an homage to the earlier story.
It’s a pretty common theme, although the “twist” of Jekyll being physically unrecognizable as Hyde is probably original with Stevenson. If you realize that bipolar disorder has probably been around forever, it’s not surprising. Besides, everyone, even perfectly normal people struggle with wanting to be as good as they can vs. wanting to indulge themselves.
I think the key difference is the moral lesson that we need both our inner saint and our inner sinner – we need both the angel and the devil within us – in order to be fully functional.
In Stevenson’s novel, Hyde didn’t have anything really admirable to bring to the deal. It was as if he were all that is uselessly bad in Jekyll’s personality.
This doesn’t really answer the question though: the writer, Richard Matheson, passed away about a year ago, so we can’t ask him. My raw-ass guess is that, yes, Stevenson’s story was part of the inspiration for the TV script, but that Matheson then added another element, to make the moral lesson more humanist, and also to provide a kind of twist to the ending.
I remember that in the ST “special” that aired just before the debut of TNG in '87*, Nimoy specifically stated it was their take on Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde (he was explaining where the Vulcan nerve pinch came from). Just as “The Doomsday Machine” was their version of Moby Dick and “Balance of Terror” was a thinly disguised version of The Enemy Below.
There are probably other such examples, but I can’t recall them right offhand.
*My God, was it really *that *long ago?!? :eek:
Arguably, Where No Man Has Gone Before was a slightly closer take, in that Gary Mitchell becomes corrupted by his power with occasional moments of his original Jekyll-ish personality showing.
Voyager did one of these episodes, too, where Torres was split into her Klingon part and her human part. Though I’m pretty sure that there, the writers were just ripping off the TOS episode, oblivious to whatever its influences might have been.
They also did a kind of reverse version, where Neelix and Tuvok get rolled up into ONE individual! And the new composite person kinda liked being who he was, as well as being decidedly less annoying than either of his components. I seem to remember that when they figured out how to split him back into the “real” cast members, nobody was all that happy about it!
As a basis for the idea, sure. As far as it being a DrJ&MrH rewrite, no.
The moral of the TOS ep seems to me to be that we need to balance our “good” and “bad” sides in order to be a complete Hoo-mahn.
Tho we try to be good in our thoughts and actions, sometimes we are forced to make unpleasant decisions. But, if we don’t think of others too, we run the risk of being completely self serving, thus harming the collective human race in the long run.
I think this ep also falls into the “Humans are SO special!” sci-fi trope. Most other Trek races are one major quality only. Vulcans = logic over everything, Klingons = warriors obsessed with honor, Ferengi = profit is the only motive, etc… Even Q is a self serving brat. Only Humans have that marvelous ability to be varied, even within the same person.
DS9 Whispers was a blatant rip off of Philip K Dick’s Imposter.
That’s the one where O’Brien is a clone only except he doesn’t know he’s a clone til the very end.
Seriously, I don’t even think they tried to hide the fact that they ripped that one off.
Tch. Q gets no respect. He’s working for the greater good of both the Continuum and the Federation. He’s just subtle enough that he’s fooled both into thinking he’s a childish schmuck. It’s all part of his long-term plan.
At least, in my head-canon, that’s what he’s doing.
Well, actually, in the novel, Jekyll develops his Hyde potion on purpose in order to become unrecognizable while he goes out and indulges in minor vices (eg, gambling, excessive drinking), but the potion works too well, and he becomes a full-on sociopath, trampling people in the streets (which is probably a stand-in for abusing women sexually), and finally committing a murder. He resolves not to become Hyde anymore, but he starts transforming during his sleep, so he starts engaging in charitable work, and being the nicest guy in the world while he’s awake, which seems to work. Then, when he starts to develop an ego about being such a great guy-- in other words, he’s having too much fun being nice-- he becomes Hyde while awake. He can’t win, and he kills himself.So, there is a moral to the RLS story, just a very complex one. Also, Jekyll isn’t “good” to begin with Jekyll is complex, but Hyde is all bad. In all the movie versions I’ve seen, they switch this around (which I think goes back to the original stage version). Jekyll is saintly from the outset, and Hyde is the exact opposite. Unfortunately, you lose the motive for Jekyll to make the potion in the first place with this storyline, and Hollywood tried to restore it, first, with Jekyll trying to control his sexual desires by exorcising them with his potion, and then in the 1941 version, additionally trying to invent a medicine to help a guy who became “all bad” after a head injury in a mine explosion (probably a reference to Phineas Gage).
It sounds like the Star Trek episode might reference the movies more than the novel, but I have not seen the episode. I also have not read the book probably for 20 years. I have seen the first two talking movies numerous times, though, being a huge fan of both Fredric March in the first, and Ingrid Bergman in the second (and not just a little of Spencer Tracy). I’ve also seen the John Barrymore silent version a couple of times, and a couple of other nisht sur gut pastiches of the theme. (What was Julia Roberts thinking?)
I’ll go look up the TOS ep. I’m very curious to see it now. Is it on Netflix, or youtube or anything?
What makes me feel old, is the fact that *Star Wars *is older now than The Wizard of Oz was when I was born.
Jekyll & Hyde is also similar to The Picture of Dorian Gray, which came out a few years later; both obviously are familiar with the ideas of Cesare Lombroso*, who theorized that criminals could be identified by their outward physical appearance. Bram Stoker was also, as the physical description of Dracula is almost verbatim lifted from a translation of Lombroso’s work.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is clearly a “Faustian” type of work, and also clearly supernatural. Jekyll & Hyde, however improbable, is still science fiction, and not supernatural, especially in the context of its time, but I think it’s fair to call it Faustian. Jekyll tries to control something with science, but it ends up controlling him.
If I understand the TOS ep. (which I still have not seen), the division of good and evil happens entirely by accident-- although, I suppose, if it happens in the transporter, it could be a “science goes bad,” but considering how ubiquitous the transporters are in TOS, I can’t see that as being anything other than opportunistic. The transporters are hardly Chekhov’s gun (like, say, the transporter pods in The Fly).
I’ll try to refrain from commenting again until I’ve seen the ep., but I love RLS, and I love all the Victorian lit that uses the “criminal type” theory-- even the stuff that runs counter to it, by having an ugly character who (surprise!) turns out to be nice.
*Also, the guy who proposed that artistic genius was a form of hereditary insanity.
