Original air date: March 30, 1967
Captain’s Log, Stardate
SYNOPSIS
Existence itself comes under threat from a man's power-struggle with his alternate self, with the Enterprise's strained dilithium crystals presenting his key to a final solution.
CANON CONTEXT
John Drew Barrymore was originally cast as Lazarus, but failed to show up for filming, without explanation. The part was quickly recast with Robert Brown. The producers filed a grievance with the Screen Actors Guild, which suspended Barrymore's membership for six months, preventing him from working as an actor during that time.
RECAP
And now we’ve veered back to the crazy side. It starts with a “wink” in space tat happens everywhere. It frightens the federation and they insist Kirk figure out what caused it. Not only that but they also pull back the fleet out of harms way. After all, the Enterprise isn’t indispensable.
They beam down to a planet and find…
A man?
I’m uninterested and unimpressed. I feel the show started to slip a bit with this one. The same old being with unimaginable power is doing whatever they feel like it and the Enterprise is the victim.” How many times have we seen this storyline already? It’s really getting played out in my opinion. But what you could argue makes this one unique is the alternate universe angle.
Don’t ask me to discus the weird beard going on here. I don’t quite understand it either. It’s just there. Ok, so Lazarus (intentional name I wonder?) seems to be going mad. He keeps blaming what’s happening on some being that no one seems able to verify exists and yet strange occurrences keep happening.
I want to mention the other crew member of color featured in this episode, Janet MacLachlan. Never seen her before till this episode but she appears to be a regular member of the crew.
Back to the story and the interesting camera trickery employed. Honestly, I could think of no other way the show could’ve possibly done what they set out to do as the technology just wasn’t all that advanced. But every time some strange phenomena happens with Lazarus, he appears to be fighting with someone in some other place.
This represents the same person battling each other. There is one from the real universe and one from the alternate. The problem is, when the alternate universe is discovered it causes the “;normal” Lazarus to go mad. He insists on finding his alternate self and figuring out a way to kill it. Only problem is, to do it would be catastrophic. And it would mean an end to both universes.
Somehow, Kirk manages to accidentally cross dimensions and come up with a plan with the alternate Lazarus to trap the one that’s gone crazy in a sort of in between place.
This will mean that both men will end up fighting each other for all eternity. But a small price to pay to protect the universe.
While both men are fighting in the in between, Kirk immediately destroys the ship used to cross dimensions, effectively trapping them both.
DID THEY REALLY SAY THAT?
Spock: What of Lazarus?
Capt. Kirk: And what of Lazarus?