Star Trek Rewatch: S1E5: The Enemy Within

Star Trek is split between civilized utopia and violent pulp grunting.

See the Star Trek TOS Rewatch Index page for links to all the episodes covered so far.

“THE ENEMY WITHIN” RATING: 7.5/10

Esteemed horror/science-fiction writer Richard Matheson penned this lumpy farrago of technobabble and psychobabble saved by William Shatner’s impersonation of not one but two enormous prime hams. Along the way the episode half-inadvertently explicates the dual nature of Star Trek’s genre commitments, with two feet in utopia and two dug in to pulp.