I just watched the Star Trek episode The Enemy Within. In the episode Captain Kirk is split into a good and an evil self. At one point the evil Kirk attempts to and nearly does rape Yeoman Rand. At the end the end of the episode Spock says to Rand, “The uh…impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn’t you say Yoeman?” He then stares her down with a little half smirk.
Does anyone else find this really disturbing?
Read the original ending before rewrites. Which is worse?
http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/enemywithin.htm
Sir Rhosis
Wow. Bad bad ending, and then I read Sir Rhosis’ link, and that’s worse.
I thought the thread title referred to the retcon in *Enterprise *where it’s revealed that those Vulcan’s who can mind meld are a small minority, considered as mutant psycho-sexual predators by the ruling majority.
Which now seems strangely fitting…
Yes.
I actually think the filmed version is worse, when you put it in context. Remember, it’s been a running theme in the series to this point that Rand has a crush on Kirk – and that he has reciprocal feelings but restrains them for the sake of discipline. Rand is not saying, “It’s all right if you rape me, you know I want it.” She’s simply saying, “I know you have a basic primal desire for me and that’s all right.” It’s, like, taking control of her own sexuality. What Spock does in the fimed version is merely gloating, from the lofty, detached perspective of a creature utterly in control of his emotions.
A retcon so utterly contradictory to decades of canon and fanon that I am happy to dismiss the entire Enterprise series as a holodeck simulation.
What is this “Enterprise series” to which you refer? 
So Spock was a psycho-sexual deviate, huh? Must’ve got it from his dad.
You make a very good point. Rand may be pleased that her attraction is returned, but it would have been very dodgy, even in the 60’s, to have any woman seeming to approve of what was *portrayed * as attempted rape.
Spock’s approval can at least be put down to cultural differences. Vulcan sexual conventions are not based on polite conversatio, but a fight to the death between males to win access to the female.
I can only speak from 30 years beyond the writers and show, because that’s where I am. I can understand cultural mores better than voluntary victimhood.
Spock a sadistic pervert? raises eyebrow That would be illogical.
I surprised no-one has yet mentioned the forced mindmeld scene on Valeris in Star Trek VI, which to me was the only covincingly dramatic bit in the whole movie. The novelization wusses out, though, coming up with some tortured (heh) way to describe it as somehting else, but actress Kim Cattrall has said in interviews that she had no doubt it was a “rape”.
Spock can be a sadist, and an exhibitionist, when Kirk nods his approval.
I don’t read it that way. Rand’s comment to the Captain immediately before her exchange with Spock indicated that despite everything she still has her crush on Kirk. I think Spock’s comment poked fun at her for that ongoing situation, and was not in any way intended as a comment on the attempted rape.
Now, having said that, I don’t think it was a particularly GOOD joke on Spock’s part. I just don’t think it was an EVIL comment. We all know that if Spock had been having an EVIL moment, he would have had a goatee.
thwartme
No, I disagree with that. Movies from the 50s and 60s are filled with “romances” like that, except not so explicit. Many pulls woman against him, and plants a long kiss on her. Woman protests, squeals, slaps at him and beats her fists against his chest, and after some time melts against him and gets into it.
Maybe you would argue that as something different, but the conept was that women were saying no with their words and yes, er, some other way. In today’s terms, it’s rape.
Would that be “Manny Peoples” who pulls a woman against him? Sorry, old board humor.
Sir Rhosis
So I’m the only one who thought Spock was implying he, too, was familiar with Kirk’s interesting attributes?
I am?
Carry on, then.
Hey, get your slashy fun where you can.
That’s exactly what I meant with the comment:
Except that it’s closer to 40 years, and since the ending *was *changed, the writers thought her reaction was inappropriate as well.
Maybe not. But I certainly am. (A sadist that is…pervert no.)