1x09 Dagger of the Mind - Star Trek: The Original Series Episode Guide

Star Trek: The Original Series

- Episode 01x09

Episode: 01x09
Title: Dagger of the Mind
Type: Regular Episode
Production Code: 6149-11
First Aired: Nov. 03, 1966

Season 1 » Episode #09 - Dagger of the Mind

Star Trek: The Original Series - 01x09 Dagger of the Mind

Summary: The Enterprise crew drop off supplies at a penal colony and pick up a stowaway, a doctor who has gone insane. Kirk investigates and the facility director gives him a look at a neural neutralizer device. It is hoped the device can cure the criminally insane inmates held there. However, all is not as it seems.

Who appeared in this episode?

Mr. Spock

Guest Stars:

Captain James T. Kirk	played by William Shatner
Dr. Tristan Adams	played by James Gregory
Dr. McCoy	played by DeForest Kelley
Dr. Simon van Gelder	played by Morgan Woodward
Helen Noel	played by Marianna Hill
Uhura	played by Nichelle Nichols
Lethe	played by Susanne Wasson
First Crewman	played by John Arndt
Mr. Berkley	played by Larry Anthony

Season 1 / Episode 9: - Dagger of the Mind

Captain James T. Kirk: Can you imagine a mind emptied by that thing? Without even a tormentor for company.

Season 1 / Episode 9: - Dagger of the Mind

Helen Noel: Dr. Helen Noel, Captain. We've met...
Helen Noel: [Kirk and Spock glance at each other. Without replying, Kirk joins her on the transporter pad] Don't you remember? The science lab Christmas party.
Captain James T. Kirk: Yes, I remember.
Helen Noel: You dropped in...
Captain James T. Kirk: [cuttin her off] Yes, I remember.
Mr. Spock: Problem Captain?
Captain James T. Kirk: [Kirk steps off the transporter pad to talk to Spock] Mr. Spock, you tell McCoy that she had better check out as the best assistant I ever had.

[More Quotes]

MISTAKES/GOOFS

CHAR: When Van Gelder reaches the Enterprise's bridge, he attacks and disables a security guard. McCoy is on the bridge at the time, but even after Van Gelder is subdued, he never so much as glances in the unconscious guard's direction.
FAKE: The transporter operator (Berkley) is credited as an ensign, but the uniform is clearly that of a Lieutenant.

TRIVIA

The "Vulcan mind meld", introduced in this episode, was originally a way of working around a warning from NBC's "Standards and Practices" department. In an earlier draft of the script, the plan had been to have Spock hypnotize Van Gelder, but writers were told that they must have hypnotism performed "by DOCTOR McCoy rather than MISTER Spock" unless they could establish that Spock had been specially trained to do this.
This is mercilessly parodied in the second season "South Park" (1997) episode, "Roger Ebert Should Lay Off the Fatty Foods".
The title of this episode is a reference to lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth: "Is this a dagger I see before me, The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee: I have thee not, and yet I see thee still. Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible To feeling as to sight? or art thou but A dagger of the mind, a false creation, Proceeding from the heat-oppressed brain?" (II, i, 33-39)
Lethe (Susanne Wasson) was named after the river in Hades in Greek myth. Those condemned souls who drank from it, forgot their past lives. Explaining her blank, vegetative stare from neutralizer "treatment".