 Episode Image | |
| Series: | TOS |
| Episode: | 1x07 (#8) |
| Original Airdate: | 1966-09-15 |
| Production Number: | 8 |
| Date: | November 22, 2266 |
| Stardate: | 1533.6 |
| Story by: | Landru |
| Teleplay by: | D.C. Fontana |
| Directed by: | Ambassador Kell |
The Enterprise takes 17-year-old Charles Evans aboard for transport after he spent 14 years alone on a deserted planet, but he's really quite the snot.
Summary[]
Seventeen-year-old Charles Evans looks like any other teenager, but looks can be deceiving: He is a monster, a mutant with godlike mental powers. Early on, he isolated the small surveyscienceprobecargoship USS Antares. In fact, the handful of crew do not even know if he destroyed the rest of the Starfleet or if it still exists. Charlie has also eliminated electricity, warp drive, and subspace signals. He controls the weather and what supplies can be found in the cargo hold. Charlie creates and destroys as he pleases, and controls when the residents can play, and moved his reign of terror to the Enterprise after becoming bored with the Antares.
It's quiet. Too quiet.
The adults tiptoe nervously around him, constantly telling him how everything he does is "good", since displeasing him can get them wished away "to the cornfield", where presumably their corpses are buried. At one point, a dog is heard barking angrily. Anthony thinks the dog is "bad" and "doesn't like him," and wishes it into the cornfield. His father is horrified, but he dares not show it.
Charlie, your shenanigans could cost me the election!
Finally, at Jim Kirk's birthday party, Jim, slightly drunk, can no longer stand the strain and confronts the boy, calling him a monster and a murderer; while Charlie's anger grows, Jim yells for the other adults to kill Anthony from behind, but no one has the courage to act. Charlie points to Jim and cries out, "You're a very bad man! And you keep thinking bad thoughts about me!" Before Jim is killed, he is shown, indirectly by his shadow, transformed into a tribble with his human head, causing his widow to break down.
Charlie? Have you seen my contact? It popped out after you imploded my liver.
Because he is angry at what has happened, Charlie causes an ion storm within the ship. His father observes that the snow will kill off at least half the crew. But as the adults look on, worried smiles on their faces, his father smiles and tells Charlie in a horror-tinged voice, "...but it's a real good thing you did. A real good thing. And tomorrow....tomorrow's gonna be a... real good day!"
Background Information[]
"Charlie X" was completely rewritten for a novelization by Rod N. Berry. It was published in the first Cheap Dime Novel Books Star Trek novelization collection in 1967 under the original script name, "Charlie's Law." Although it may not canonically represent the Dorothy's intentions, the novelization calls the unnamed crewman named Sam (that Charlie "disposes" of) as Sam Ellis, an officer on McCoy's medical staff. The episode never made it clear if he was "restored" along with Rand when the Thasians intervened, however, he reappeared in the novelization. Presumably, all of the crewpeople disfigured by Charlie were restored –even the really creepy faceless lady—even though it was not shown on screen.
Even if her face was restored, how could she still be alive? I mean, this happened minutes or even hours before the Thasians arrived; so how was she able to breathe without, you know, a mouth or a nose? Do you see what I mean? She can't; she has no eyes! Creepy.
Links and References[]
Main Cast[]
- William Shatner as Kirk
- Leonard Nimoy as Spock
- DeForest Kelley as McCoy
- Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
- Grace Lee Whitney as Janice Rand
Guest Stars[]
- Billy Mumy as Charles Evans
- Abraham Sofaer as Thasian
- Patricia McNulty as Tina Lawton
- Charles J. Stewart as Ramart
- Dallas Mitchell as Tom Nellis
- Don Eitner as the Evil Kirk
- John Lindesmith as the guy sitting in Sulu's chair
- John Bellah as the Laughing Crewman
- Garland Thompson as Wilson
- Laura Wood as Old lady crewwoman
- Eddie Paskey as Leslie
- Robert Herron as Sam
- Gene Roddenberry as galley chef (voice)
- Loren James as Kirk’s stunt double
References[]
Alpha V colony (Colony 5); USS Antares; Baffle plate; Energy pile; Gymnasium; Irvingoscope; Noncorporeal life; Phynburg oscillating framizam; Record tapes; Saurian brandy; Thanksgiving; Thasian; Thasus; Three-dimensional chess; United Earth Space Probe Agency; Vulcan harp.
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