This week The Conscience of the King
**Synopsis: ** Kirk is diverted to Planet Q (Planet Q?!?!?!?!?) by a call from an old friend Dr Leighton regarding a new food concentrate. It turns out the call is false. Leighton suspects that the lead actor in a travelling Shakespeare company is the late infamous Kodos the executioner. Kodos was the leader of a colony who had half the population executed during a famine.
There are only three people that have seen Kodos and could identify him are still alive: Leighton, Kirk, and Lt Riley. Leighton is murdered furthering Kirk’s suspicions so he arranged to transport the players to their next destination. He wants to confirm if the Actor Anton Karidian is, in fact, Kodos. He uses Karidian’s daughter, Lenore, to gain more information.
When Riley is poisoned it seems Kirk may be right.
Thoughts:
An interesting episode. This time they are deliberately distracted from exploring and the ferrying is an actual attempt by Kirk to find out a deep dark secret.
Planet Q??!?!?!? I mean come on! It looks like people live there so why would they accept such a dumb name. Hi I’m a Qer or a Qan or Q. Sorry but it’s just a stupid name.
Goofy face mask for Dr Leighton… I know I was supposed to be shocked by his revelation but it didn’t really work for me.
Nice to see Lt Riley again! I like him and hope he is showcased in more episodes. (Just in time for St Patties day)
Yay… Rand is back! Missed her in the last two episodes.
Anybody freaked out by Lenore and her complete mental breakdown? I know I was. And to be honest it looked like Kirk was too in that … “Uh oh, that chick I was seeing is really a fruitcake” kind of way.
So did Karidian actually forget who he was or was he pretending?
Anybody believe that only three people in the entire Universe could ID this guy?
So…, in the future…, poison is adminstered by Windex bottles?
Kevin Riley is back! I liked him. Perhaps he’ll be a semi recurring character. Kind of like having two tiers of characters. The bridge crew (main characters) and the semi regulars, so we don’t always see just the 3 main guys doing everything. Didn’t Kirk say the ship has over 200 on board? (Or was it 400?)
Lenore was oddly played, I thought.
Kodos/Karidian was very nicely done, I thought. The end, tho… Did they actually firmly link the one to the other? Or are we just supposed to assume she gives a detailed 3rd person confession instead of just his Shakespearian soliloquy before dying? After all, she was born after all the Kodos stuff, right? And, she was quite clearly insane. What PROOF do we have that K = K?
More non damning evidence: The events on Tarsus IV took place 20 years ago, as mentioned in the beginning of this episode. Lenore is only 19.
There is no firm link betwixt Kodos the Executioner and Karidian the Actor. What if she conjured the whole thing up out of some sort of demented fantasy fueled by all the roles played by different people in her life, including her own acting roles?
Plus, Kirk is a Captain. He had several years of service under other commands before getting the Enterprise. How old does that make him? And if he’ll date (seems more than just “dating” was implied) a teenager… and he already used a 200 year old 12 yr old’s affections for his benefit… Well, it just makes the good Captain look a little smarmy.
I’d say he was Kodos. I know a few actors, and have never known one to memorize a part before they have read it as Karidian does while reading Kodos’s speech.
Lenore must have learned her father’s secret and went nutso. You know imagine if you found out one moroning your dad or grandfather was Hitler. Might be hard to reconcile the two images of your friendly family member and evil madman as the same person.
Oh by the way Doctor, nice log entry within earshot of Riley. Why not walk up to the bed and ask. “Say did that poison Kodos… I mean Karidian gave you taste like windex?”
I agree with Kingpengvin, he’s Kodos. The speech, the haunted look as he delivered it, the very fact that his daughter was such a nutjob… circumstantial, yes, but evidence all the same.
Nice episode. Good performance by the guy who played Karidian, and an excellent performance by Shatner, I thought. He seemed really conflicted about his feelings for the girl, his call to duty, and his obsession with Kodos the Executioner.
But, Kodos’ speech wasn’t top secret info. It was well known, big news. After twenty years, perhaps Karidian had auditioned for a made for hologram movie or two about the event. I’m still not convinced there was a link. Sure, it looks like there is, but without a firm ID…
HEY! Wouldn’t there have been a tonne of really good photos of Kodos? Detailed photos? Cloes up portraits? (Besides that one terrible shot they showed.) I don’t buy for a minute that Kodos’ ID could be so limited in availability. One doesn’t get to be a governor of an entire planet without being in the limelight. And an actor is automatically in the lime light. So, why not use that fancy dancy computer of theirs to compare late Kodos with early Karidian? That would’ve been a good method. Instead, they try to look at the current Karidian and compare him to Kodos. And what about fingerprints? A government official without having some sort of IDing material on hand? What happens when Mission Impossible of the 23rd century makes up a mask to impersonate someone? ID is soley based on photos and recollections?!?! Maroons.
Christmas in space? The Enterprise travels to a snow-covered planet, and meets up with a race of short aliens led by a man in red. They need help delivering a shipment of toys…
I kind of hope they don’t do a Christmas episode. Stick with Sci-Fi, leave the religion out of it.
Granted the idea that a cosmic evil guy could grow a beard and remain a public figure for 20 years with no one making a connection is a bit of a stretch. But we accept that Clark Kent works among a bunch of story-hungry reporters and no one has figured out that he looks a lot like Superman.
I don’t think that Kirk is some kind of pervert – I think that he simply will use any means to get what he’s looking for. If it means manipulating an adolescent or young woman with a crush on him, well, he’s in the big chair.
I believe I read somewhere that Kirk is the youngest Captain in the fleet, maybe the youngest ever. That would make him in the upper 30’s, young for the job, but plausible. Any younger wouldn’t work. It would be interesting to know his history better - we know he went to the Academy, so that must have been right after the events on Tarsus IV.
Actually, I quite liked the concept of a traveling Shakesperean troupe. I assume they ship movies or whatever the equivalent is around the galaxy, but there is nothing like live theater, and I certainly can buy that Shakespeare is still big then.
Lear doesn’t fit the situation very well, since Lear committed no crime (except stupidity). Macbeth is closer, but that is about lust for power, which doesn’t fit here. No, Hamlet is the closest match, so good choice by the writers.
I think the daughter makes a better lady MacBeth than an Ophelia. Or that Lear’s destruction of, whats her name the nice one, better fit Kodos.
Did anyone catch the preview for next week?
I think they already aired it. ** Dagger of the Mind ** they talk about a Christmas party and the Cutie with Kirk is called Helen Noel. I think we’ve figured they have been airing these out of order but this is ridiculous.
So Kirk was trying to use the girl for his ends, and she wound up using him. There ought be a saying – “The user got used.” Or maybe “User-hater,” or something.
What the hell was Riley eating? Play-Doh?
I dug the cocktail party, good to know that even in the future, there is a glamorous cocktail scene going down.