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[edit] Synopsis
Stardate: 5928.5. Dr. Janice Lester, who was once involved with Captain Kirk, harbors a deep hatred of the captain, because she, herself, has never been able to captain a starship. On their way to Beta Aurigae, the USS Enterprise receives a call for help from Camus II. The landing party finds only Janice Lester and Dr. Coleman, who claim that the everyone else was killed by Celebium radiation. In fact, Janice is quite ill from it.
Unaware of Lester's feelings of hatred toward him, Kirk sits with her, recalling their days together. Kirk is suddenly trapped into a life-entity transfer with Janice. His personality is in her body, while she takes over his, finally becoming captain of a starship. Kirk, with Janice's essence, tries to kill her victim, but fails. McCoy transports Janice, with Kirk's essence, to Sickbay to try and treat her illness. While Kirk, trapped in Janice's body, tries to convince everyone that he's really the captain, Janice takes control of the ship and diverts it to the Benecia Colony. There she plans to leave her body, that houses Kirk's essence, thereby eliminating all her problems.
The crew becomes suspicious of her actions and, when Spock tries to question her, she charges him with mutiny. They realize something is wrong and Janice/Kirk is relieved of duty. When the transfer weakens and finally breaks, Kirk returns to his body, as Janice's essence returns to hers. Janice makes a last attempt to hurt Kirk, then collapses. Dr. Coleman, in love with Janice, requests that he be allowed to care for her. The USS Enterprise and her crew return to their mission, with their rightful captain at the helm.
 Kirk/Lester at Lester/Kirk's bedside [edit] Trivia
- This is the final episode of Star Trek: The Original Series.
- This was also the last episode of TOS to be remastered.
- Regular blonde Christine Chapel appears with auburn hair in this episode only.
- Uhura is the only regular character absent in this, the final episode. The actress, Nichelle Nichols, had a singing engagement at the time.
- Jeffrey Hunter, who had played Christopher Pike in the first pilot episode The Cage, had passed away a week before "Turnabout Intruder" aired.
- After two years on the series, Roger Holloway finally gets to speak dialogue – all of two words. His character's name (Lemli) was the same as William Shatner's license plate at the time, a mixture of his daughters' (Leslie, Melanie, Lisabeth) names.
- Although the briefing room is never shown to have more than one exit, Janice/Kirk finds some way to leave the room without using the main door after her temper-tantrum. The cast in fact got into an argument with director Herb Wallerstein over this error (he won), showing they greatly cared about their series, even as it was coming to an end.
- Dr. Coleman wears one of the ubiquitous orange jumpsuits seen in The Devil in the Dark, By Any Other Name, The Empath and The Lights of Zetar.
- Lieutenant Galloway reappears in this episode, despite being killed by Ronald Tracey in The Omega Glory. He was credited as Galloway (misspelled as "Galoway") even though actor David L. Ross had been recast as Lieutenant Johnson in Day of the Dove after the character of Galloway was killed off.
- The glass canister in McCoy's lab contains a very strange brown blob in this episode, probably a humanoid brain.
- The name of the planet Camus II may have been a reference to French writer Albert Camus and his novel The Stranger – an appropriate nod to this episode.
- The planet Benecia is pronounced differently in this episode than it was in The Conscience of the King, i.e. "beh-NEE-shee-a" as opposed to "beh-neh-SEE-a".
- There is a detailed account of the filming of this episode in the 1975 book Star Trek Lives! Co-author Joan Winston had the opportunity to spend six days on the set while "Turnabout Intruder" was being shot. Winston wrote that Shatner was very ill with the flu at the time, and had considerable difficulty in picking up and carrying Sandra Smith, the actress who played Dr. Lester, for take after take. Winston also recalled many amusing anecdotes that took place during the shooting. For example, William Shatner flubbed the line, "Spock, give it up. Come back to the Enterprise family. All charges will be dropped. And the madness that overcame all of us on Camus II will fade and be forgotten." Instead, he blurted out, "Spock, it's always been you, you know it's always been you. Say you love me too."
- This episode was inspired by Thorne Smith's 1931 comedic novel Turnabout, in which a husband and wife switch bodies. A film version directed by Hal Roach appeared in 1940. The novel also inspired a short-lived 1979 TV series that starred Sharon Gless and John Schuck.
- In this episode, Kirk mentions the events of two previous episodes (The Empath and The Tholian Web) to Spock.
- The set crew's nickname for this show was "Captain Kirk, Space Queen."
- The final four episodes of the series opened with the same music cue, taken from the opening titles of Spock's Brain and the final two episodes ended with the closing music cue from Elaan of Troyius.
- Leonard Nimoy (Spock) and Majel Barrett (Nurse Christine Chapel and Number One) are the only actors to appear in both this episode and first pilot The Cage.
- Leonard Nimoy is the only actor to appear in every episode of the series. William Shatner appeared in every episode with the exception of the first pilot, The Cage.
- According to writer Joan Winston (referenced above), who was on the set for the filming of this episode, NBC passed on an option for two additional episodes (a 25th and 26th) for the third season. William Shatner would have directed the twenty-sixth episode.
- The physical exam scene in sickbay with William Shatner and DeForest Kelley is very similar to the first appearance of those two actors in the first regular-season episode of the series to be filmed, The Corbomite Maneuver, right down to the detail of a shirtless Shatner undergoing a stress test on the leg-exercising machine.
- The final scene ever filmed for the original series was of William Shatner and Sandra Smith in front of the alien transference machine.
- The very last Enterprise crew member to be seen in the original series is Scotty. As he, Kirk, and Spock enter the turbo-elevator at the end of Act IV, we catch a glimpse of his forearm, grasping the control handle, before the doors close.
- Even as filming was wrapping up, crew members were dismantling the Enterprise sets. Filming was completed on 9 January 1969.
- A scheduled airdate of 28 March 1969 was preempted by news coverage of the death of former president Dwight D. Eisenhower. This episode was not aired until 3 June 1969 for that reason.
- In his The Star Trek Compendium, author Allan Asherman credits Sandra Smith as the only actor besides William Shatner to have "played" James T. Kirk.
- Starfleet's General Orders appear to have been changed by this time. Sulu and Chekov say that violating General Order 4 warrants the death penalty. In The Menagerie, Part I, though, it was stated that violation of General Order 7 was the "only death penalty left on the books."
- Lester orders the executions to take place on the hangar deck, with section representatives to be on hand to witness punishment.
- For story reasons, Janice Lester convalesces in a private, never-before-seen room down the corridor from sickbay.
- In James Blish's novelization of "Turnabout Intruder" in Star Trek 5, Dr. Arthur Coleman's first name is "Howard" – probably left over from an earlier draft of the script.
- Although this was the last episode of the Original Series to be filmed and aired, this episode has a lower stardate than the previous episode, All Our Yesterdays.
- Spock tells Kirk (in Lester's body) that he has never heard of a successful life-entity transfer being conducted, apparently forgetting the events in Return to Tomorrow. Then again, when the essences of Kirk, Spock, and Dr. Mulhall were confined to the vessels that had contained Sargon, Thalassa, and Henoch, they could not speak or make their presence known. So technically the transfer may not have been total.
- When Spock and McCoy are talking in the sickbay the doctor is wearing his medical tunic, but a close-up shot shows him in his regular uniform. (A similar error appears in Mudd's Women.)
- Janice Lester, in the body and voice of Captain Kirk, makes a captain's log entry, discussing the status of the conspiracy.
- Lester's line, "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women", was taken by some to mean that women could not become starship captains at this time. This was later disproved by the introduction of Captain Erika Hernandez in ENT Home.
[edit] Quotes
Scotty: Suppose you voted with me in favor of Spock. That's two to one and Spock is free. What do you think the Captain will do?
McCoy: I don't know.
Scotty: You know, all right. The vote will stick in his craw. He'll never accept it.
McCoy: We don't know that.
Scotty: I tell you, he won't. Then, Doctor, that's the time we move against him. We'll have to take over the ship.
McCoy: We're talking about a mutiny, Scotty.
Scotty: Aye. Are you ready for the vote?
McCoy: I'm ready for the vote.
Scotty: It may not be scientific, but if Mr. Spock thinks it happens, then it must be logical.
Lester: (as Kirk) It is mutiny! Deliberate, vindictive, insane at its base!
Kirk: Her life could have been as rich as any woman's. If only...if only...
Scotty: I've seen the captain feverish, sick, drunk, delirious, terrified, overjoyed, boiling mad. But up to now, I have never seen him red-faced with hysteria.
[edit] Links and References
[edit] Starring
[edit] Also Starring
- And:
[edit] Guest Stars
[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars
[edit] Episode References
archaeology; Benecia; Benecia colony; Beta Aurigae system; Camus II; Camus system; celebium; celebium shielding; court martial; death penalty; General Order 4; hangar deck; life-energy transfer; Minara; mutiny; Potemkin, USS; Robbiani dermal-optic test; Starbase 2; Starfleet Headquarters; Starfleet Regulations; Surgeon General; Tholian sector; Vians; Vulcan mind meld
[edit] Other References
StarTrek.com
Memory Alpha
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