Space Seed - episode #24

SPACE SEED (1st season, episode #24)
Directed by Marc Daniels / writers: Gene Coon, Carey Wilber Air Date: 02/16/67

ABOVE: Khan Noonien Singh has some unusual ideas about how to seduce a female; but, hey, it works!

In this one, we're introduced to perhaps Kirk's greatest nemesis, the product of selective breeding, eugenics - Khan. He sleeps, along with his followers, in a derelict spaceship. Cue ominous music. Capt. Kirk comes along and unknowingly commits a grevious error - he awakens this superman and the galaxy is no longer safe. Guest star Ricardo Montalban dominates every scene he's in as Khan, showing what is possible as far as projecting charisma and intensity. Shatner, as Kirk, usually the more macho figure in a scene, comes away a distant second best whenever Khan is in the same room (or, as Khan might state, "obviously inferior"). Literally born for lofty ambition, Khan is like a force of nature - unable to behave in any other way.
Because of Khan/Montalban, this episode is somewhat special; he imparts a unique flavor to this one and this is especially evident now, 40 years later - it's a definite classic. And not only fans recognized this; at least one producer noticed Khan and the grand villain was brought back in the 2nd Trek film, The Wrath of Khan (1982). Critics of this episode opine that, besides Khan, this episode is weak; one quibble is the easy manner in which Khan is allowed to take over the ship (Kirk lets him read some technical manuals, for example). Security problems plagued several Trek episodes and we can rationalize that in this future, such a crew was more naive, more open (isn't the entire concept from Roddenberry rather naive from our perspective?). But, I beg to differ, in any case. This episode offered a gripping storyline in which Khan gets this close to beginning a reign of conquest throughout the galaxy. That should catch anyone's attention.


The other gripe involves the character of Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue), the ship's historian who immediately becomes infatuated with the dangerous Khan. The story does suggest that Marla was kind of flaky even before Khan came along; this just goes to show that even with Star Trek's near-perfect future humanity, there were still a few flakes amid the professionals. This does seem kind of on the realistic side to me.
The fight scene between Kirk and Khan was my favorite one-on-one fight on TOS as a kid. Kirk, to me, made some nice hand-to-hand combat moves to counter Khan's superior strength (Khan says he has 5 times Kirk's strength; he probably wasn't just bragging or exaggerating - in Star Trek II (1982), he lifts Chekov with one arm; with the spacesuit, that was about 200 lbs.). As an adult, I viewed the scene on DVD, on a large TV screen, and the stuntmen became too apparent. Oh, well, another illusion shattered.  BoG's Score: 9 out of 10