“Turnabout Intruder”

I just watched this episode for the first time. It is most certainly sexist. Shatner acts so girly and dramatic I literally "LOL'd". It is very entertaining, but not very sci-fi. I think your review is spot-on.

One of the recurring shames of early sci-fi is the treatment of femininity as just another alien land populated by simple stereotypes. This episode's a prime example. Even while raising the subject of misogyny, the episode depicts its central female character as jealous, hysterical and incompetent, while the displaced Kirk remains level-headed and practical. Setting this aside, the episode is as entertaining as any other Trek cheesefest. This one in particular demands MST3K-style remarks from the viewer, especially when McCoy finishes giving Kirk a physical, then tells him not to put his shirt back on just yet. The Shatner-meltdown at the end of the episode is also not to be missed.

For interest, Jammer's ratings for each season break down as follows (where the first number is number of 4* episodes, second is number of 3.5* episodes, and so on):

S1: 2/6/9/7/3/2/0/0/0, av. 2.84 stars
S2: 3/3/8/6/4/0/2/0/0, av. 2.75 stars
S3: 1/2/6/5/4/2/1/2/1, av. 2.27 stars

Series: 6/11/23/18/11/4/3/2/1, av. 2.64 stars

According to Jammer's ratings then obviously the series is strictly decreasing in quality by season (S1 > S2 > S3) with a small drop-off between s1 and s2 and a large one between s2 and s3. This is about what most fans believe, I think.

"Her life could have been as fulfilled as any other woman". The sad, sad last line of a series I loved.

@Lorene: I've always been struck by that, too. Of course, as progressive as Trek was at the time, it certainly doesn't look that progressive nearly 50 years later. Also, TOS was always least progressive when it came to gender -- other than Gene's decision to make Majel first officer in "The Cage".

There are quite a few fratboy moments between Kirk and McCoy and from other members of the crew -- remember Sulu's reaction to seeing Ilia for the first time?

Yuck. This episode gets three stars? Please, Jammer. I'm no feminist, but this is simply the most sexist thing I have ever seen in my life. It's terribly disgusting and cringe-worthy. The idea that everyone knows right off that the Captain isn't really Kirk ruins a lot of dramatic tension. It would have been much funnier if she'd actually done a semi-good job as captain, and that some of her policies remain in action even when everything gets sorted out at the end. As it is, it's just sad.

Yeah, there are probably a few reviews I look back at and wonder what I was thinking -- or at least that I wouldn't make the same case I made. This is one of them. I won't even bother trying to defend it.

@Jammer: The closing line is really pretty terrible. But, aside from that, it's up to the individual viewer to determine whether Janice in Kirk's body acts so frantic because she's Janice or because she's a woman. Even the dialog where Janice in Kirk's body scoffs at the idea of Janice overpowering Kirk makes sense if you consider that Janice is a relatively small woman -- as opposed to JUST being a woman.

As for the whole matter of Starfleet having no female captains, it could be argued that no STARSHIPS had female captains up until that point. As we learn in "Bread and Circuses," being the captain of a starship is a bigger deal than being the captain of other Starfleet ships. It's possible that Janice was upset that the very, very top positions (we know there were only 12 Constitution-class ships) had gone to men and blamed gender bias when other factors were in play.

I guess what I'm saying is that this episode isn't necessarily more sexist than, "Spock's Brain," "Who Mourns for Adonis" -- where it's strongly implied that Palamas will leave Starfleet when she meets the right man -- or "Mudd's Women," which is the worst example of sexism in the entire Trek canon.

I probably wouldn't have given this three stars, but it's certainly more watchable than most of the third season. I'd rather watch this one three times than sit through "And the Children Shall Lead."

I agree this episode is horrible, not because of any perceived sexism, but because it's just an awful episode. There are some shows that, when I see them re-run on MeTV, I just don't bother to watch. This is one. Catspaw and Space Hippies are two others.

I noticed from the reviews that there is an almost 3 month gap between All Our Yesterdays (one of my very favorites), and this swill. I wonder why. Could it be, given Roddenberry knew the series was finished, he hesitated to make this piece of land fill the final curtain call for the show? Personally I think AOY would have been a much better note to go out on, even if it meant eating the production costs of Turnabout. It's one of those episodes that, were I Roddenberry, I'd rather burn the negatives than let anyone see this waste.

And for what it's worth, considering Janice Lester's behaviour here, it would seem StarFleet was correct in not giving her a command. She clearly has psychological issues and is thus unfit for the job.

@James: I guess I'm in the minority. I don't think this episode is that terrible (though it's not good). I'd rather watch it several times before "And the Children Shall Lead" or "The Alternative Factor", TOS's worst two episodes, IMO. "The Gamesters of Triskelion" was pretty bad, too.

For all crying sexism, what episode were they watching? It certainly wasn't this one. I wonder if people just comment without watching the episode. Outside of that last line (and even that really isn't sexist) there is not a single thing that make this episode sexist. I actually find it a fun episode. It is certainly no dumber than Captain Picard being a space-pirate! I felt genuine tension when they kept knocking out lest/kirk with sedatives.

At the end of the day, Lester was crazy, so Shatner had to act crazy! (and man does he chew scenes and spit them out in this one!)

I would love someone to explain to me how this episode is sexist?

About the "no female captains" issue, I think Lester's line about "your world of starship captains doesn't admit women!" was referring to Kirk leaving her for the Enterprise.

While it's true there were no female Starfleet captains seen in TOS, that doesn't mean they didn't exist, and what has been seen supports the possibility: The Romulans had female captains ("The Enterprise Incident") and it's hard to see them as being more progressive than the Federation. More importantly, "The Cage" and "The Menagerie" establish that the Enterprise's previous first officer was a woman, and that she took command of the ship after Captain Pike's abduction without any objection from the rest of the crew.

Number One was an XO, an executive officer--true; but she made it clear that whenever a landing party was needed, she would be stuck back on the ship. She only got out because Pike and the other men were n a tight squeeze. That glass ceiling made sure she would never be captain no matter how good she was. Lester knew this, too. Just because the Romulans were no sexists that didn't influence the Federation one wit until at least 15 years later with that one woman starship captain in ST IV and even by the time of TNG, there weren't many more women captains-- just two in Next Gen and Voyager. Not a very good track record for the Federation. Except for a few plotholes, I liked this episode though.

Watched this yesterday on the 'horror channel' of all things here in the UK. I quite enjoyed it. Not really sure of the sexist overtones but considering when it was made ill let that pass.

Greatest moment? Early on when they get back to the ship and Bones is talking to a seated Kirk. Note how Kirk is doing his nails! Subtle but brilliant.

Shatner i thought played the part really well, he stammers and 'ers..' his way through his rants, the crews faces as he/she gets more desperate towards the end are excellent.

Id give it 4 stars! Throughly enjoyed it.

A weak season that represent a dark side of Star Trek with Gene Roddenberry abandoning it due to network politic. It's a shame to because a lot of these episodes had some good concept and ideas.

Top Five

The Enterprise Incident.
Day of the Dove
Tholian Web
All our Yesterday
Light of Zeter - Would had been perfect if it an Uhura episode.

I read that the production crew's name for Shatner's character in this episode was "Captain Kirk, Space Queen."

I think the thing that distinguishes this episode from most of the 1960's-TV sexism of the original series is that it really does make broader implications about the world. Gene Roddenberry wanted to have a female first officer in "The Cage"; a few years later, he wrote the story to an episode which hinges on the *impossibility* of women becoming starship captains. It is true that we *can* believe that it's just a statement of the current state of starship captaincy that there are no women, and Janice Lester takes this as an unwritten policy but there are no rules on the books that actually prohibit female starship captains. Still, no one who isn't Lester ever makes a definitive statement, or replies to her angry tirades. Surely *someone* should say, "Women can be captains; it just has not happened yet," or some such, if that were the case. The thing is, the episode didn't *need* to be about misplaced feminist rage. A body swap, implausible or not, doesn't require a gender-flip as well. The idea of someone getting revenge on Kirk personally because Kirk succeeded in becoming a captain and the person having failed is actually the subject of "Court Martial," in which Finney's envy and anger over Starfleet's decision that he was unfit for command drives the plot. Someone like him, male or female, would be a great candidate to try to steal Kirk's life. But everything Lester says is specifically about her womanhood, and in particular a regular insistence that her womanhood is the cause of all her problems. She doesn't even hate *Starfleet* or *Kirk* the way she hates her own sex; but of course, she's undone because her Freudian starship envy still manifests in screaming fits and, as Scotty says, being "red-faced with hysteria," irrational, overly emotional, having poor impulse control, etc. even once she's got a man's body and all the perquisites that she thinks go with that. The episode's depiction of Lester relies so heavily on her femaleness, hatred of her own femaleness, and the impossibility of a woman ever doing a man's job, and has that last "if only" speech about how Lester could have had a much better life if she'd just gotten used to being a chick. It's funny that Shatner's acting as "crazy bitch pretending to be Kirk" is recognizably "Shatner playing Kirk," just ramped up to twelve (not even just to eleven), highlighting the overly emotional aspects of Kirk's usual comportment.

That's a shame, because the aspects of the episode which are *not* centrally about Lester and why women need to accept their inescapable womanhood to be happy have some merit and are even particularly appropriate for a series finale. The domino-effect of Kirk getting through to Spock, then consequently to McCoy and Scotty, and then to Sulu and Chekov and finally as a result to the whole of the ship is a pleasing demonstration of the bonds that have cropped up over the series. In his talk with Spock, Kirk-in-Lester's-body explicitly mentions "The Tholian Web" in one of the series' relatively rare direct nods to past episodes; that the two then share a mindmeld (for the first time? I forget) reinforces their closeness. I like that, during the recess, it's Scotty and not McCoy who suggests mutiny, because of course Scotty is the line officer there and the one who has to worry more directly about the ship. I love Sulu and Chekov's passive resistance. There's no Uhura (or Chapel), but maybe there's a good reason for the female cast members to miss out on this episode. That they have a greater loyalty to each other than the letter of the rules, and as such rally around their real captain rather than the impostor, is a good way to demonstrate how their time in space has brought this crew together.

Rating this episode is very hard. I guess I will say 1 star for the Lester material, 3 stars for the crew-mutiny material, for an average of 2 stars.

This leads to ratings for the season, overall. Ratings included where my rating disagrees with Jammer's (parenthetical is the difference between my rating and Jammer's):

The Paradise Syndrome: 1.5 (-1)
Is There in Truth No Beauty?: 3 (+1)
For the World is Hollow...: 2 (-.5)
Plato's Stepchildren: 2.5 (-.5)
Wink of an Eye: 1.5 (-1) (down from the 2 I suggested in the review, after more consideration)
Elaan of Troyius: 1 (-1)
Let That Be Your Last Battlefield: 2.5 (+1)
The Mark of Gideon: 1 (-1)
The Lights of Zetar: 1 (-1)
Requiem for Methuselah: 2.5 (-.5)
The Way to Eden: .5 (+.5)
The Cloud Minders: 2.5 (-.5)
The Savage Curtain: 1 (-.5)
Turnabout Intruder: 2 (-1)

The episodes I'd recommend this season are: The Enterprise Incident (****), The Empath and All You Yesterdays (***1/2), and Is There In Truth No Beauty?, Day of the Dove, and The Tholian Web (***), with a fair number of 2.5 star episodes (Spectre of the Gun, Plato's Stepchildren, Whom Gods Destroy, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, Requiem for Methuselah, The Cloud Minders) that sort of work for me. Overall, the season is one of the weakest in Trekdom, a rambling affair with few highlights and a great chunk of boring stories with maybe one or two decent ideas with wan execution, or sometimes terrible ideas with a few moments executed well. This sense that the show had run out of ideas and was running on fumes is sometimes present in TNG's last season, of course, but TNG's seventh season had many more memorable episodes and highlights, IMO. The thing that's frustrating about TOS season three isn't so much the worst-of-the-worst episodes, because "Spock's Brain" and "The Way to Eden" are fascinating, not just bad but endlessly *weird*. Episodes like "The Mark of Gideon" or "Wink of an Eye" or, at worst, "The Lights of Zetar" just sit there doing very little, having the appearance of a Trek episode with almost none of the passion that makes this series work.

While "The Lights of Zetar" is arguably Scotty-centric, Chekov gets big roles in "Spectre of the Gun" and "The Way to Eden," and there's a lot of Scotty and Sulu screentime in "That Which Survives," I mostly feel that the season boils down, even more than previous seasons, to the Big Three, to the point where in some episodes like "The Empath" or "All Our Yesterdays" the crew besides them are completely irrelevant to the story. Still, what the season does do well, in some of its better episodes, is depict the slow shift in Spock and McCoy's affection for each other, and the way Kirk fits into their new dynamic as a result. Spock and McCoy were "friends" before this season, but "The Tholian Web" and "All Our Yesterdays" place special emphasis on the relationship between those two with Kirk absent, and the strengthening of that bond makes episodes like "The Empath," about all three of them sacrificing for each other, with all three bonds (Kirk-Spock, Spock-McCoy, McCoy-Kirk) well developed, work. This puts the characters in good position for the movies, especially the way STII and STIII play with the Spock/McCoy bond.

Comments on TOS overall:

I was overall very pleased with TOS in this rewatch. Season one, in particular, is fantastic, even the weak episodes being quite fresh. Season two is a little bipolar, with some of the series' very best and very worst mixed together, and some mediocre periods as well. What really impressed me, and what I wasn't in a good position to note when I watched the series (scattershot, out of order) when younger, is how well the character development works, in particular Spock's subtle changes with respect to humanity (and his own humanity), and the Kirk/Spock/McCoy bond. There does seem to be a progression through the series, more so than is obvious at first glance. I was also a little surprised that the fairly routine Kirk-bangs-hot-alien-chick material didn't become a cliche until the second season. I was also impressed with Kirk's stoicism, particularly in season one; the exaggerated acting style Shatner is known for in the role is something that gathers steam as the series progresses (partly as the scripts get worse), but initially at least Kirk really does seem a balance between Spock's excessive dislike of emotionality and McCoy's excessive position against Spock's rational nature.

My personal top ten:

1. The City on the Edge of Forever
2. Mirror, Mirror
3. The Doomsday Machine
4. The Trouble with Tribbles
5. Balance of Terror
6. Amok Time
7. The Enterprise Incident
8. The Menagerie
9. Space Seed
10. Tomorrow is Yesterday

Some candidates for the top ten which just missed: The Enemy Within, The Galileo Seven, The Ultimate Computer, The Empath, All Our Yesterdays.

I liked this episode. For its time, its a liberal portrayal of women, to even suggest a women can be a captain is a big step forward. Its also Roddenberry's revenge, because he wanted a female second in command, so that if Kirk is out of commission, the women would take over. The network nixed the idea, hence this production.

You know, I didn't find this as sexist as I thought it was going to be. Kirk's tantrums could have come from a deranged man as much as from an irrational woman. However, when he sat down and started doing his nails, I HAD to laugh. What silliness.

"femininity as just another alien land". Pardon me, but femininity IS just another alien land. The longer I've been married the better I have been able to overcome my pc brainwashing to realize it.

I'm always at a crossroads with this episode. I try to watch as just another trek story and not as the last episode of Star Trek. Unfortunately, either way it isnt a very good story.

I'm sorry, but this is not a sexist episode. If anything it's meant to be feminist even though it's imperfect. Its message is clearly that women being denied captaincy is a gross injustice, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was meant to be a big middle finger to the studio. Its flaw, though, is that the message is injustice is spoken by a lunatic.

We can try to justify why Janice had to be crazy, but in the end I think it was a case of the individual story (crazy person steals Kirk's body) conflicting with the theme (denying people basic dignity can make them hate themselves as well as you). That she was resentful could be explained by her sense of justice, but the sheer lunacy hurts her message.

The audience would do to remember that it is Janice herself who claims the issue is about being a woman, and while we don't hear anyone else's perspective on the subject the message of one person on a show is not necessarily the viewpoint of the show. If she is insane with jealousy and hatred we don't have to take her word for it but can instead step back and notice that there were probably many discontented but reasonable women in the Federation who we DO NOT hear from about this, and the only reason we hear it from Janice is because she can't take it any more and loses it.

That being said the last line of the show was probably a mistake, but growing up I never made to much of that line to be honest. The takeaway I always had was just that a crazy person tries to take over the ship. That she was a woman mattered to her but it didn't seem to matter much to the story. The crew figures out it isn't Kirk not because he acts like a woman but because he acts like a madman. In short, the feminist thread never really came through, which is perhaps confusing to people who see that it should be there but all they see is a crazy woman.

I liked this episode a lot. I firmly believe there were other female captains, and commodores and admirals, but Janice wasn't one of them. I think she was too mentally unstable to be given a command, and blamed her gender and not herself.

The second captain ever of a starship was female. Watch "Enterprise."

I can see how female reviewers would cringe at this episode - and all reviewers for that matter from a 21st century perspective. Imagining though just for a second that the opponent was male (i.e. eliminating the gender issues) I think this one of the best episodes in that it posits relocating souls from one body to another - a concept which has some traction now in alt-media. Again ST light-years ahead of main stream. Then supposing you are stuck in someone else's body how do you free yourself? How do you convince others when we are all conditioned to accept identity from outward appearance? ps. LOL @ scene chewing!

So the 4-star episodes in Season 1 both took place in the 20th century, while all the ones in Season 2 occurred in the. "present".

I can't believe this got 3 stars. To me, this is one of the worst Star Trek episodes. While I normally think Shatner is a good actor (I know a lot of people disagree), I thought he did a poor job in this episode. Although to be fair, Shatner is having to play an insane woman in a man's body. Not an easy role for any actor to play. Also, the whole "woman can't be starship captains" goes against all Star Trek's high ideals. For 3 years, we've been told everybody in the Star Trek universe has equal opportunities - whether you're a man or a woman, a human or alien, or what race of human you are, none of that matters - until this episode. As it pointed above, the very first Star Trek episode had a female second in command. Whatever happened to her? It's hard to believe she didn't make Captain, as she definitely looked like command material.

Upon watching recently, I too took the line "Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women" to mean she was talking about Kirk specifically. He had said in The Corbomite Maneuver, "I've already got a female to worry about. Her name's the Enterprise."

In Court Martial, it's stated that "Not one man in a million could command a starship. A hundred decisions a day, hundreds of lives staked on you making every one of them right." When Kirk (in Janice Lester's body) says why she isn't qualified for the captain's chair we hear about her quest for "the power she craved, to attain a position she doesn’t merit by temperament or training." Nothing about being a woman just that she was nuts and lacked the proper training.

I just love how fucking feminazis and other losers hate this.

Watching them squeal is awesome, just like watching Kirk bag every woman like the pieces of joyous flesh they are.

Fuck feminists!!!!!!!!!!!!!

@Caedus Your that same guy who got triggered watching Profit and Lace. You certainly seem like a stable individual.

Are there enjoyable moments in this episode? Yep. Enjoyable for the right reasons? Probably not. Kirk’s face as Kirk’s consciousness tries to reclaim his body, definitely LOL. When Kirk (in Lester’s body) tries to convince Spock of his real identity by relaying incidents that we’ve seen in prior episodes, that worked. But it made me wonder why Spock and the crew never turned about and tried to get “Kirk” to relay past incidents. Cause obviously "Kirk" would have failed that test big time and the writers didn’t want the problem solved that way. The premise was an interesting idea, but its execution left something to be desired.

Definitely one of my favourite Third Season episodes. I don't get all the outrage that this is sexist. The fact is that Dr Lester was probably passed over for captaincy not because she was a woman, but (a) she is unhinged (b) she's a Doctor, not an officer aiming for the top position. I mean seriously how many Doctors have you seen in the captain's chair? None ! As to Kirk's assent that it's not fair she wasn't considered, you have to remember the context in which that line was spoken. Kirk is visiting his old flame who, as far as he has been led to believe, is dying. Of course he's going to agree with her-he's clearly humouring her to appease her in what he thinks are her final moments. As to the notorious final line which seems to upset a lot of fans, I'm afraid I can't empathise with that outrage. What Kirk is saying is that Dr Lester's life could have been as rich as any woman's because the most successful women would focus on the strengths that they have as women, maybe different is some cases to the strengths that men have, but no less important. I think it's a compassionate line, not a sexist or patronising one. The bottom line to this episode's message is that Dr Lester is not penalised for being a woman ( though SHE thinks she is ) but rather given a wide berth because of her mental instability. When Shatner portrays Lester in Kirk's body, he's acting hysterically not because he's emulating a woman, but a very disturbed and unhinged individual who just happens to be female. And the other reason is that this episode is not sexist is that for at least half of the episode Lester does a pretty good job of being captain. So the underlying message here is "Yes, a woman CAN captain a starship" It's only Lester's own panic that she will be found out that puts a stop on her leadership skills on the bridge. I personally find this a thrilling, suspense-ridden episode with both Shatner & Smith at the top of their game, especially in the wonderful courtroom scene. Certainly compared to frankly turgid episodes such as "The Savage Curtain" and "The Mark of Gideon" ( both episodes with hardly any pace or energy to them at all ) "Turnabout Intruder" was a healthy dose of wild melodrama, excellent special effects, thoughtful acting, and an overall interesting take on the eternal Battle of the Sexes in an innovative sci-fi context.

"(Some sexist overtones are the most uneasy.) "

Some? This episode wasn't surpassed until Profit and Lace. Awful!

This could have been a great episode to end the series on. If only if only.

Yeppers to the prior comments. What a sad last line to end the series when The Beatles left us with (not counting John's final ditty to Her Majesty):

"And, in the end, the love you make is equal to the love you take."

Here is a letter from Gene Roddenberry to reknowned SF writer I. Asimov. Gene is writing to Asimov with regards to an article Asimov wrote which criticised the way science is written on television. I thought this might be an appropriate place (the end of TOS) to paste the letter in full:

______________

29 November, 1966

Dear Isaac:

Sorry I had to address it in this round-about way since I did not have your address and Harlan Ellison, who might have supplied it, is working a final draft for us and is already a week late and I don't want to take his attention away from it for even a moment. On second thought, I believe he is a month or two late.

Wanted to comment on your TV Guide article, "What Are A Few Galaxies Among Friends?"

Enjoyed it as I enjoy all your writing. And it will serve as a handy reference to those of our Star Trek writers who do not have a SF background. Although, to be perfectly honest, those with SF background and experience tend to make the same mistakes. I've found that the best SF writing is no guarantee of science accuracy.

A person should get his facts straight when writing anything. So, as much as I enjoyed your article, I am haunted by this need to write you with the suggestion that some of your facts were not straight. And, just as a writer writing about science should know what a galaxy is, a writer writing about television has an obligation to acquaint himself with pertinent aspects of that field. In all friendliness, and with sincere thanks for the hundreds of wonderful hours of reading you have given me, it does seem to me that your article overlooked entirely the practical, factual and scientific problems involved in getting a television show on the air and keeping it there. Television deserved much criticism, not just SF alone but all of it, but that criticism should be aimed, not shot-gunned. For example, Star Trek almost did not get on the air because it refused to do a juvenile science fiction, because it refused to put a "Lassie" aboard the space ship, and because it insisted on hiring Dick Matheson, Harlan Ellison, A.E. Van Vogt, Phil Farmer, and so on. (Not all of these came through since TV scripting is a highly difficult specialty, but many of them did.)

In the specific comment you made about Star Trek, the mysterious cloud being "one-half light-year outside the Galaxy," I agree certainly that this was stated badly, but on the other hand, it got past a Rand Corporation physicist who is hired by us to review all of our stories and scripts, and further, got past Kellum deForest Research who is also hired to do the same job.

And, needless to say, it got past me.

We do spend several hundred dollars a week to guarantee scientific accuracy. And several hundred more dollars a week to guarantee other forms of accuracy, logical progressions, etc. Before going into production we made up a "Writer's Guide" covering many of these things and we send out new pages, amendments, lists of terminology, excerpts of science articles, etc., to our writers continually. And to our directors. And specific science information to our actors depending on the job they portray. For example, we are presently accumulating a file on space medicine for De Forest Kelly who plays the ship's surgeon aboard the USS Enterprise. William Shatner, playing Captain James Kirk, and Leonard Nimoy, playing Mr. Spock, spend much of their free time reading articles, clippings, SF stories, and other material we send them.

Despite all of this we do make mistakes and will probably continue to make them. The reason—Thursday has an annoying way of coming up once a week, and five working days an episode is a crushing burden, an impossible one. The wonder of it is not that we make mistakes, but that we are able to turn out once a week science fiction which is (if we are to believe SF writers and fans who are writing us in increasing numbers) the first true SF series ever made on television. We like to think this is what we are trying to do, and trying with considerable pride. And I suppose with considerable touchiness when we believe we are criticized unfairly or as in the case of your article, damned with faint praise. Quoting Ted Sturgeon who made his first script attempt with us (and now seems firmly established as a contributor to good television), getting Star Trek on the air was impossible, putting out a program like this on a TV budget is impossible, reaching the necessary mass audience without alienating the select SF audience is impossible, not succumbing to network pressure to "juvenilize" the show is impossible, keeping it on the air is impossible. We've done all of these things. Perhaps someone else could have done it better, but no one else did.

Again, if we are to believe our letters (now mounting into the thousands), we are reaching a vast number of people who never before understood SF or enjoyed it. We are, in fact, making fans—making future purchasers of SF magazines and novels, making future box office receipts for SF films. We are, I sincerely hope, making new purchasers of "The Foundation" novels, "I, Robot," "The Rest of the Robots," and other of your excellent work. We, and I personally, in our own way and beset with the strange problems of this mass communications media, work as proudly and as hard as any other SF writer in this land.

If mention was to be made of SF in television, we deserved much better. And, as much as I admire you in your work, I felt an obligation to reply.

And, I believe, the public deserves a more definitive article on all this. Perhaps TV Guide is not the marketplace for it, but if you ever care to throw the Asimov mind and wit toward a definitive TV piece, please count on us for facts, figures, sample budgets, practical production examples, and samples of scripts from rough story to the usual multitude of drafts, samples of mass media "pressure," and whatever else we can give you.

Sincerely yours,

Gene Roddenberry

@Jammer -- Why not defend your original review of this episode? You made a great argument: Shatner's acting is highly entertaining in this one, and that's enough. Despite some retroactive gender critiques, which I feel are unfair, "Turnabout Intruder" is a solid episode and I'm going to elaborate here on its strengths.

As I wrote in my review of "All Our Yesterdays," there's something very uncomfortable and weird about watching Shatner play a woman in his own body and the female guest star do likewise, but that is both the weakness and strength of TOS's final episode "Turnabout Intruder." This story by Roddenberry takes the classic Sci-Fi concept of people switching bodies -- later cheapened by Tom Hanks's "Big" and other sitcom-style imitators on TV and film -- as the vehicle for a fresh and tense examination of the great Kirkian fear of losing his ship. There are strong echoes of the Hitchcockian "wrongly accused man" trope in watching the helpless Kirk, trapped in the body of an ill woman, struggle to make people believe him as two enemies continually sedate him (her?) with claims he is delusional. Again, I think "All Our Yesterdays" is the superior episode, but I agree with Jammer's review and give "Turnabout Intruder" a solid three stars.

It may be politically incorrect, and a dramatized reflection of Shatner's own preening egoism projected into the body of Kirk, but "Shatner plays a hysterical woman out for revenge" (not that all women are hysterical, of course) is entertaintly executed in all its details from Shatner doing his nails to clucking his tongue. The early pre-credits line "your world of starship captains doesn't admit women" is clearly a reference to Kirk jilting Lester and driving her mad with the desire for revenge. Her ensuing revenge plot, carried out with the aid of her quack doctor minion, generates real tension in this episode as we watch Lester and Kirk squirm around in each other's bodies like two parasites. Say what you will, but "Intruder" is EDGY about pushing gender boundaries in a way that still feels fresh to our present debate about the impact of sex change operations on public restrooms, and this edginess generates a real discomfort that makes us wonder how the crew will resolve this situation.

Indeed, the fun of "Intruder" also includes Lester-as-Kirk testing the depth and strength of the crew's loyalty to him, especially the response of McCoy and Spock to the crisis. The threat here is really to the Big Three, as Lester threatens to destroy their three musketeers vibe by killing Kirk and replacing him. It's enjoyable to watch Spock -- him going rogue on the security guards with neck pinches is a nice touch -- and McCoy unravel the mystery and figure out how to fight Lester-as-Kirk. Incidentally, did anyone else notice that Nurse Chapel (Majel Barrett) has given up the platinum blonde hair of seasons one-two and gone brunette for this season three? There's still some blonde highlights there, but it's nice to see Barrett wearing her own hair color. As for the rest of the crew, Uhura doesn't appear in this one and only the Big Three appeared personally in "Yesterdays," so it's interesting to note that "Savage Curtain" is really the last TOS show with the full cast of regulars -- minus many of the semi-regulars like Chapel.

Finally, I don't see how the "jilted ex-lover out for revenge" plot is necessarily sexist or demeaning to women, as it's still a staple of modern-day relationship fiction. And frankly, let's admit it: Kirk can be a colossal jackass even at the same time he is impossibly heroic. Since it's clear that Captain America in Space loves only his ship, and we've seen countless women on this show end up thrown to the side of the road after entering his life briefly, I find it totally plausible that one of them might come back to haunt his paunchy butt. And what's really infuriating is that he's so freaking heroic: How the heck do you win against someone who keeps saving the universe? That seems more than enough to drive someone like Dr. Janice Lester, who really acts no less hysterical than Commander Ben Finney in Seasone One's "Court Martial," crazy. And let's remember that Lester is a DOCTOR -- a rarity for the 1960s, she's obviously a very smart and accomplished woman who (like Finney) can't stand a pompously self-assured ass like Kirk passing her by in life on his long climb to galactic fame. So yeah, I totally buy this story, and I welcome it as a sign of imperfection in the Trekverse that dissenters to the Legend of Kirk exist and are willing to go to the mattresses to wipe the smug grin off of his face. (That sounds more hostile than I mean it, as I personally love the Kirk character, but I think it makes the motives of a Finney or Lester quite relatable to us 21st century plebes.)

Other thoughts: As a series ending episode, I like how the show played its cards close to the vest here, generally running "Intruder" like an ordinary episode but including great callbacks to earlier shows as a sign of self-awareness of the ship's history. In addition to Kirk-as-Lester describing earlier Season Three stories to Spock, the Sulu/Chekov reference to the only death penalty offense being General Order 4 (visiting Talos, as we learned in "Menagerie Part I" back in Seasone One) is a nice touch. For an episode series, these overt continuity references are stronger her than in any earlier episode, giving a sense that the producers were at least aware the series cancellation might actually stick this time even as they were holding out for another writing campaign to get Season Four. As for the "Five-Year Mission," I have always considered the two seasons of "Star Trek: The Animated Series" to represent the final two years of that mission, despite Roddenberry later trying to exclude them from the franchise continuity. Since that continuity is completely muddled after 50 years of self-contradicting incarnations, and Roddenberry-produced TAS (with all its original cast, writers, and sequel episodes) explicitly cites the five-year mission in its opening narration and presents itself as "Star Trek," a continuation of the original show, I feel quite free to claim it as part of the franchise. Now I say to Jammer: Give us some TAS reviews!!! There are only a few 30-minute episodes and you've got plenty of time before "Discovery" (next month) and "Orville" (next fall) come back.

And I'll also say this for "Turnabout Intruder": There's a strong sense that the cast has matured as a unit as TOS ends here. I love how Spock and McCoy doubt almost from the start that Lester-as-Kirk is himself, how they quickly form ranks to investigate and help, and how they instantly risk their careers to fight the intruder. Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu planning mutiny is also a cool bit -- showing how the other series regulars (foreshadowing Star Trek III) have also grown close enough to the Big Three that they will likewise throw their careers under the bus for the group. It's too bad there's no Uhura in this final episode, but I think we can assume where her sentiments would have lain. That this series and TAS ends without trying to "resolve" anything doesn't bother me since the movies (especially Star Trek VI) do that quite well, and TNG has the opposite problem of a great final episode ("All Good Things") and a final movie ("Nemesis") that much like "Intruder" didn't fully admit its own end.

Anyway, at the end of my first-ever chronological marathon of remastered TOS on DVD, I feel I've rediscovered what makes this show great and grown in my appreciation of it. And watching all of those dull TNG and Voyager reruns on BBC USA, plus ho-hum Enterprise and DS9 (which is excellent but somewhat overrated, as there are long stretches of weak shows in seven seasons) on Netflix, I've felt energized by the reality that TOS remains the most original and striking of all Trek shows. There was something really special about this show back in the 1960s, before Paramount reduced everything to a cynical moneymaking formula and brought in soap opera actors to keep rehashing the same story concepts, and I say that as someone who came of age when TNG/DS9 was airing first-run. Part of it, for me, is simply that that TOS cast (even Shatner in his mellower older years) are genuinely lovely and humble people who feel vibrantly real every time they are interviewed or appear in public -- there's something about the light and unselfconscious way they wear their status as cultural icons that just makes me want to hang out with them (the few who are still alive) more than the cast of any other Star Trek series. For whatever reason, I've always felt that the other casts were just cashing their checks, including the current "Discovery" that I actually like very much so far.

Definitely one of Gene Roddenberry's better episodes, pretty compelling with the crew's mutinous reactions to Lester-as-Kirk and how the senior crew have to conspire against the imposter. A good episode for Shatner who gets to "let it all hang out" -- he does a good job playing a psychotically jealous power-hungry woman! Enjoyed his "scenery chewing" during the court room scene.

As for the life-entity transfer, some handwaving here as far as how the un-transfer occurs, but it makes for a good plot and the idea of a typical character being hijacked by another entity is a common theme for Trek.

The order to execute Spock, McCoy, Scotty was rather extreme on Lester-as-Kirk's part -- guess it shows how absolutely nuts Lester really was. GR wrote her character (along with Dr. Coleman) to get all the members of the research team on the planet killed to lure in the Enterprise. And given how nuts Lester is (including hating the fact that she was born a woman etc.) should show that this episode can't be taken seriously as sexist or some valid commentary on gender roles. One has to take the Lester character's motives with a seriously large grain of salt.

Find it hard to believe in the end that it seemed like Coleman/Lester would simply get let off the hook for murder etc. The episode just swept that stuff under the rug, which I wasn't a fan of.

3 stars for "Turnabout Intruder" -- the final TOS episode. Doesn't really serve as a series finale, but it's a good episode on its own for Shatner's acting and Spock's persistence (liked the part where his first neck pinch on the security guard was blocked, but then the Vulcan got him with the other hand!). Also included a couple of references to prior episodes ("The Tholian Web" and "The Empath") which is extremely rare for TOS.

No female captainsin Star Fleet? That's very hard to believe.

It has its good moments, but overall a very disappointing way to end a beloved series.

Objective (as best as I can be) ranking of all 78 TOS episodes (“The Menagerie” counted as 1 episode) — scored them all on Jammer’s 4-star scale and then fine-tuned on a scale of 0 to 100.

Some quick stats: Overall average score on 100 = 66.7, average 4-star score = 2.7; 28.2% are 3.5-star or 4-star, 5.1% below 1.5 stars. By season avg. score: S1 71.4 (2.86 stars), S2 68.9 (2.81 stars), S3 59.0 (2.38 stars). [There might be a tad of false precision in this exercise!]

Rank. Episode 100 Score, 4-Star Score

78. Spock's Brain 10, 0.5
77. And the Children Shall Lead 14, 0.5
76. The Way to Eden 21, 1
75. Shore Leave 29, 1
74. The Alternative Factor 33, 1.5
73. The Omega Glory 34, 1.5
72. I, Mudd 35, 1.5
71. The Lights of Zetar 36, 1.5
70. The Mark of Gideon 37, 1.5
69. Mudd's Women 42, 1.5
68. The Squire of Gothos 43, 1.5
67. The Savage Curtain 44, 2
66. The Apple 45, 2
65. The Gamesters of Triskelion 46, 2
64. Catspaw 48, 2
63. Assignment: Earth 50, 2
62. That Which Survives 51, 2
61. For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky 52, 2
60. The Changeling 52, 2
59. Who Mourns for Adonais? 53, 2
58. The Corbomite Maneuver 54, 2
57. Charlie X 56, 2
56. Friday's Child 57, 2.5
55. Court Martial 58, 2.5
54. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield 59, 2.5
53. Spectre of the Gun 59, 2.5
52. Miri 59, 2.5
51. Whom Gods Destroy 60, 2.5
50. This Side of Paradise 60, 2.5
49. Plato's Stepchildren 61, 2.5
48. The Return of the Archons 61, 2.5
47. Day of the Dove 62, 2.5
46. By Any Other Name 62, 2.5
45. Bread and Circuses 63, 2.5
44. What Are Little Girls Made Of? 63, 2.5
43. Patterns of Force 64, 2.5
42. Requiem for Methuselah 66, 2.5
41. The Paradise Syndrome 66, 2.5
40. The Ultimate Computer 67, 2.5
39. The Enemy Within 67, 2.5
38. Wink of an Eye 69, 3
37. The Deadly Years 70, 3
36. The Man Trap 71, 3
35. Turnabout Intruder 72, 3
34. Return to Tomorrow 72, 3
33. Wolf in the Fold 72, 3
32. Is There In Truth No Beauty? 73, 3
31. Elaan of Troyius 76, 3
30. A Piece of the Action 77, 3
29. Tomorrow Is Yesterday 77, 3
28. The Cloud Minders 78, 3
27. A Private Little War 78, 3
26. Operation -- Annihilate! 78, 3
25. The Menagerie 78, 3
24. Where No Man Has Gone Before 79, 3
23. The Tholian Web 80, 3
22. The Naked Time 82, 3.5
21. The Immunity Syndrome 84, 3.5
20. The Galileo Seven 85, 3.5
19. Errand of Mercy 86, 3.5
18. The Conscience of the King 87, 3.5
17. Obsession 88, 3.5
16. Arena 88, 3.5
15. The Enterprise Incident 89, 3.5
14. Dagger of the Mind 89, 3.5
13. The Empath 90, 3.5
12. All Our Yesterdays 91, 3.5
11. Space Seed 92, 3.5
10 .The Trouble With Tribbles 93, 3.5
9. A Taste of Armageddon 94, 4
8. Journey to Babel 94, 4
7. Mirror, Mirror 94, 4
6. The Devil in the Dark 95, 4
5. Metamorphosis 95, 4
4. The City on the Edge of Forever 96, 4
3. Amok Time 97, 4
2. Balance of Terror 98, 4
1. The Doomsday Machine 100, 4

This ep is awful. It proves how little men thought of women.
They believed women were only good for one thing. Hence, the revealing outfits, only the big busted girls were hired, and they had to show what they had.

As a rule, females did not run around with everything hanging out, the boys wanted to look up skirts and such filth, not like today. We had to be clean and protect ourselves or be branded. There was free sex as it was called, but it was not advertised.

You people don't understand the past. Women were treated as inferior dumb clucks. The male animal believed that a woman should be IN THE KITCHEN, BAREFOOT, AND PREGNANT their entire lives. I was there. However, I was not one of the gooses that laid around and obeyed sexist males!!!!!!! Screw them all!!

I still think that way and I am 76 years old. I don't need men.

Roddenberry was a womanizer with that old-fashioned kick a female around but when he got Majel in his hooks, she did not unhook and slip into the darkness of a liquor bottle. She stayed because in those days, you F..K me, you marry me. It was not like today. In those days the girl did not suck off the boys cause "it ain't sex, you slut".

Shatner's first wife divorced him due his not keeping it in his pants and he was zokcd;xx@((( a young dancer at the studio. In his first book he stated that he did not want the divorce. I can't remember the Scotty actor's name off hand, but on one of discs in the TOS eps he discusses Shatner, and he says......."he is not a nice man...". The entire main cast felt that way because I listened to many interviews with them while Shatner was discussed during the Star Trek cast interviews.

I watched that episode, and I have one comment about Janice Lester: "Homicidal maniac". And that seed was probably there from the beginning. Regardless of her motivations(?), she was ready to kill anyone and everyone who knew her deadly secret, and she would have destroyed the Enterprise to boot because she had no idea of how to pilot a starship. I would have preferred "All Our Yesterdays" as a final episode.

To see one comment after another from commenters with male-sounding names (all we have to go on in cyberspace) insisting that this episode isn't sexist, while comment after comment with female-sounding names says it is, reminds me a lot of a bunch of white people declaring with authority what is and is not racist.

It's a lot easier to declare that a character that fits an unfavorable stereotype just HAPPENS to be a member of the group that has traditionally been denigrated with that stereotype if you yourself were lucky enough not to be a member of that group and therefore have not had to spend your life living the stereotype down. It's not that such a character may not occasionally (very occasionally) really just "happen" to be a member of the denigrated group. It's just that if it's had no bad effect on your own life, it's a lot easier to give the writer the benefit of the doubt.

I'll bet you Roddenberry knew very well the origin of the word "hysteria," even if it's a dog whistle some of you can't hear.

I guess whether or not you view this show as sexist really depends on where you come down on the whole "death of the author" question. Star Trek was a show that was deeply progressive for the 1960s, and in many ways remains that way, but it's also a product of its time. It's funny to rewatch in that I think the show is far less sexist than people often think of in a lot of respects (the popular notion of Kirk as a complete slut is basically a collective fabrication of pop culture), and more sexist in other ways.

The meaning of a work can change over time; witness feminists burning their bras as symbols of oppression when modern bras were invented and popularized by a woman decades before. In that vein, I think the "Turnabout Intruder" is a show that was trying to be progressive, comes off sexist, but has looped around enough that a modern viewer can take a different but still progressive message from it.

Lester is a tragic character, and the episode hammers that point home. While fans still quibble over exactly how to take the "women can't be starship captains bit" (and it's the hardest part of the episode to explain away, and factors into the series' general issue of being progressive on women in a lot of ways but very quiet on them in leadership roles) I think it's kind of irrelevant insofar as it's just part of Lester's tragic story. Maybe she actually did get passed over unfairly. Maybe Kirk did behave like a jerk, as many young people in relationships did. But it's festered into an all-consuming passion for revenge, like many a classic Trek villain.

I guess the ultimate question is whether you think Lester is supposed to be emblematic of women as a whole, or should be judged as a character. And I think the intention was definitely the latter. Women aren't all crazy people, Lester just was, and it's understandable why.

Im going against the grain and say this is a far better episode than most believe it is.The idea that someone can transfer their mind into another person is very interesting and shatner does a good job of being lester.

“Nobody talk about nothing no how while I’m gone! Especially not about how hysterical I’m acting!” /stomps from room, does nails/

Hehehe.

Many heartfelt thanks to Trent for typing up the Asimov/Roddenberry letter.

Shatner is hard to watch in this stinker. Really hammed it up.

What a surprise and disappointment to learn that, on TOS, Starship captaincy was forbidden to women in the 23rd century. Roddenberry certainly had his limitations of vision.

The way it ends, how Kirk says Janice could have been happy "if only," was especially galling and awful.

Well, @William B, you weren't wrong that this was an awful way to go out. Yesterdays would have made a much better closer.

I think I need a dose of Captain Janeway.

@Springy, yyyyyyeah.

I do like the "mutiny" scenes, from Spock talking to the real Kirk onward to Sulu and Chekov stopping work. I thought it was nice to have some ensemble scenes to go out on. Of course, Uhura is absent, which is pretty glaring in this one.

Glad you liked Yesterdays though!

@ Springy,

"What a surprise and disappointment to learn that, on TOS, Starship captaincy was forbidden to women in the 23rd century. Roddenberry certainly had his limitations of vision."

Unlike TNG and the later series, you shouldn't always take TOS to be what we would call "science fiction", meaning it's showing you a prediction of what the future will be like. Very often TOS uses a sci-fi backdrop to show something contemporary in a different light. In this instance I strongly believe that Turnabout Intruder was *not* saying that in the future women won't be able to be captains. I think what it was saying was that *right now* (i.e. in 1969) networks won't allow female leads on shows. This hearkens back to the series pilot where Roddenberry was told to change Number One to a man because they didn't want the XO to be a woman. I think this 'series closer' is a middle finger to the networks about how backwards they were in treating women like second-class citizens. At least, that's my theory.

@Peter, I agree that often TOS is focused on the "current" as of 1969 situation, and the idea that the ep is referencing the banning of female leads at the time is intriguing. That said, the episode seems to be about how Lester deals with this rule in a crazy way rather than that the rule is unjust. I'm not sure how this episode would really work as a middle finger rather than a confirmation of their worst fears about female stars. The most sympathetic read of Lester is that she was driven mad by the injustice of the rule limiting her, I suppose.

Although, I do wonder sometimes if the depiction of "Lester" by Shatner as a megalomaniac the whole main cast has to rein in was a dig at Shatner's diva-esque behaviour on set (as alleged by the supporting cast).

I think it's worth noting from a behind the scenes perspective that Roddenberry basically had no involvement in the show for season 3, and so it's hard to draw conclusions (positive or negative) about Roddenberry himself from this episode. The writing team behind this episode is (for better or worse) disjoint from the writer that tried to get Majel Barrett in a command position in The Cage. Not that this means they necessarily would disagree with Roddenberry or his mission.

@ William B,

I agree that we can't directly attribute this show's message to Roddenberry himself, but I largely think that a lot of the messages in TOS were made by pro-active writers with more of an eye on the ball of reality than Roddenberry had.

Regarding how well Lester comes off in this episode according to my theory, I've mentioned earlier in the thread that I think the episode basically fails in its attempt to portray her as wronged, *if that was their intent*, precisely because she's a lunatic. But I could see how there's a Merchant of Venice kind of situation here, where she is now damaged goods but where this damage came as a result of oppression against her. She comes off looking bad, but since it's the system that pushed her to it we see a vicious cycle of victimhood where the victims look bad precisely because of being oppressed, which then creates the "confirmation of their worst fears" that you allude to. It's a self-fulfilling system. That said, if showing this system was their intent I still think they failed, because she's not just damaged goods but a straight-up maniac that has no redeemable message to give us.

My point isn't to argue that this episode is great, but rather to argue that it's message may have been progressive rather than sexist, even thought its execution was botched. I would personally recommend lambasting it for being bad, instead of for being regressive or anti-women. As it happens I don't even quite think it's bad, although it's pretty clearly not good.

@Peter, good points. I think though that this is a case where it's hard to tell whether the episode was attempting to make a progressive point and failed, or attempting to make a regressive point. I'd say that looking at TOS as a whole, the former is the read that matches the rest of the series better, but within the episode itself I'm not so sure. The behind-the-scenes chaos in season 3 is such that I'm not sure how much individual episodes were really filtered through a common vision.

That said, I just remembered to check the episode's credits and Roddenberry wrote the story! So, oops -- I had totally forgotten that. So I was wrong that this episode doesn't represent Roddenberry, unless it went through pretty huge revisions by the time it got from story to teleplay to air (possible).

William B, Peter G

The conclusion, in the ep, is not that Janice was driven mad by her inability to fulfill her dream, but by her unnatural desire for power and her inability to accept her womanhood.

Peter, your middle-finger theory is very generous, but doesn't jive, for me. I certainly agree that "the oppressive system became a self fulfilling prophecy" is the right read on this . . . but I think the ep's message is "Look what happens when a woman craves power instead of accepting her natural, womanly role."

When Kirk twice says "if only" at the end, he means "if only she hadn't been so unnaturally obsessed and power hungry!" not "if only the system had allowed her a chance to live her dreams!"

There's room for interpretation, but that's mine.

It was interesting, though, that McCoy didn't find any significant difference in "Kirk's" emotional and psychological makeup from when he first became a captain. In that, there is a hint of "huh, maybe Janice COULD have become a great captain."

But that hint is overwhelmed by the explicit talk of how sad it is she can't accept her womanhood, how awful her desire for power is, and how "Kirk's" behavior makes McCoy's findings nearly unbelievable.

Roddenberry . . . he was somewhat ahead of his time, but still, a man of his time.

I accept TOS for what it is - like most granddaddies, a very mixed bag.

I see Jammer doesn't have Season wrap up threads for TOS, so I'll put my final thoughts here:

I enjoyed watching TOS more than I thought I would. I wasn't at all surprised by the cheesiness, the occasional and laughably over-the-top Shatnerisms, the in-your-face sexism, or the wince-worthy preachiness of some eps. I knew to expect these things, so I took them in stride.

Things that did surprise me:
--Nimoy. Wow, he's really good.
--The chemistry of the Big Three - never since repeated.
--Shatner is mostly pretty good. It's just that when he's bad, he's awful. The awfulness was what stuck in my brain from long ago, but that was unfair. Brooks was definitely worse than Shatner. I had assumed the opposite.
== How interminable much of Season 3 felt. There was boring episode after boring episode. But enough occasional sparks to keep me going.
--Though McCoy's bewildering obstinacy about Spock's stoicism was often annoying, the likeable Kelly managed to be the real charmer of the trio.
--With the exception of Scotty, really, really poor development of any characters outside the Big Three.

I liked (not in order): Tribbles, Yesterdays, City, Wink of an Eye, Charlie, Menagerie, Space Seed, Mirror, Piece of the Action, Other Side of Paradise.

I may try going through TNG again, next. not sure.

@Springy,

I didn't say this on the DS9 thread when you got to the end of that series, but meant to: Thanks for bringing your rewatch of all these shows back here to share with us. It was fun and enlightening to hear your perspectives over the past several months!

@Springy, it was fun seeing you make your way through! I'm glad you stuck with it.

Nimoy really blows me away. He's magic in the role and did so much to create that iconic, weird character.

I also agree that Nimoy delivers a performance that in my view even exceeds what we get from Data in terms of nuance and struggle, but both are great characters.

Personally I think Shatner is the best actor in all of Trek, however this needs to be qualified with a strong proviso, which is that his task wasn't the same as any other actor in TOS nor in any of the others: he had to not only single-handedly created the dramatic tension in most scene using only his face and body, but also had to effectively create special effects using only his reactions. Imagine Marvel movies but where there's no CGI and the actors themselves would have to sell their reactions to blasts and lasers. True, TOS did have the odd on-screen special effects like a phasor, but for the most part all the various things that happen to Kirk are sold mostly on his famous 'hands out' routine that's imitated so often. This can come off as alternatively awesome or legendarily corny, but remember that it was in an era where there wasn't really any "serious" sci-fi on TV and where there was no established standard for how to show these things. What Shatner lacked in subtlety at times he made up for in spades with pure energy.

One thing I especially note about not just Shatner (although largely him) but also Spock, Bones and even Scotty and Sulu, is that bridge shots during tense moments are shot in two general ways to get the maximum tension, which are to use both wide shots as well as super-close-ups. Especially in the close-ups these actors had such a focus on the object of tension (such as an alien ship, space monster, etc) that you can see the immediate danger written all over them. The music is iconic at times and one hears the background klaxon sounding, but most of the reality of the danger is generated by their faces, and no one on any Trek show following this could match any of them. Not even close, although Stewart's focus might perhaps be put at the same general level when needed. But due to camera technique, lighting usage changes, and better effects, Stewart wasn't called on in quite the same way to personally sell the Enterprise being in danger. Very often in TNG the shots move from person to person, from interior to exterior shots, and rarely is the sole object of our attention the face of a single bridge officer as it so often was in TOS. That they could have multiple actors able to pull that off and create (IMO) high levels of tension is amazing, both directorally and in terms of their camera techniques. They also used *tons* of lighting to create light/shadow regions on the actors' faces in TOS just to accentuate how much their faces sold the moments. Kirk especially often got very special lighting for close-ups that didn't come close to having continuity with the wide shots, very deliberately. These guys were just something else.

I think maybe Rahul or someone else mentioned something similar at one point, but I think the actors on TOS were just leagues ahead of most who followed. I don't know what it is, but it seems maybe the standards back then were just higher, with much less reliance on editing technology and more on the humans. Or maybe their casting and directing was just superlatively good. It's hard to say.

@ Peter G.

Yes, we once had a discussion where I said something to the effect that the TOS cast and guest actors absolutely blew away their counterparts on subsequent Treks. Shatner is fantastic and I still shake my head at those who criticize his acting. Nimoy is outstanding as well and I'd say, that from the other Treks, only Stewart is in the same league.

But your comment about lighting/shots/direction got me thinking about something else that made the demands on the TOS cast far greater than other Treks. Obviously back in the 60s, Trek didn't have great special effects and I don't think the intention ever was to wow even the 60s audience with what special effects they had. Subsequent Treks, I believe, did try (especially DSC) to impress their viewers with VFX, CGI such that part of their audience came to depend on this aspect of entertainment and may not be able to recognize/appreciate classic, excellent acting to carry a show. Thus the demands on the cast/guest actors wasn't as high and, as a result, you got weaker actors. I'm generalizing a bit but I think this is essentially the development of a certain aspect of Trek and sci-fi overall.

@Peter G

Great points about what the TOS actors, particularly Shatner, were called upon to do, and how well they managed.

@William B and Jammer, thanks for your nice words. I love having this site to share my thoughts. I never dreamed there was such an active, interesting site for these older shows.

@Springy

Just reading through your comments now as I rewatch TOS (I had forgotten a lot of it).

I agree with you that there hasn't been a trio as iconic as Kirk-Spock-McCoy since their inception and I think that's due to many factors. Acting's definitely a part of it, but also much of it comes down to the three branching off into the three areas of debate: Logos (Spock), Pathos (McCoy), and Ethos (Kirk). Many arguments in western culture are based on these three methods, and Trek is cerebral enough that it can really get mileage out of characters discussing big topics on these levels.

Still, I think the other shows excel in other ways. Since you're thinking of watching TNG next, I want to mention that the strength of that show is having a cast that really gets along well (Data and Geordi seem like they're friends on and off screen). The guest characters are really superb too, many of them going on to leading big careers after Star Trek.

I watched "For the Love of Spock" on Netflix last night. I couldn't find a thread for it, so am posting here to say I recommend it to any ST fan. It's done by Leonard's son, Adam, so it's not some hard, thorough, objective look; it's not meant to be. But neither is it all sweetness and light. It's a loving, honest tribute by a son to a father.

My favorite part was the letter Leonard wrote Adam, and George T telling about how Leonard insisted he and Nichelle ne included in the animated series. Leonard was nowhere near perfect, but it was plain he did his best and worked very, very hard.

An interesting man, an interesting life, an interesting documentary.

@Chrome, thanks for your thoughts and info on TNG.

Lester works as an over-the-top madly jealous character, but the episode has literally nothing to say about the issues it raises about the lack of top job opportunities for women. Not one of the other female characters gets to say anything about it, and you'd think they'd have some opinions on the subject. I can only conclude that that isn't really what the episode about. It's just about a crazy, shrill and controlling woman, which is a sexist trope to begin with. The message seems to be that ambitious women are necessarily unhinged lunatics that couldn't handle the top tough jobs even if they got them.

Unfortunately the main issue raised but ignored by the story (where are the female starship captains?) is more compelling than the "crazy woman" story, and it remains a sad, sour last note for the series. A real wasted opportunity for Trek's inclusive legacy.

Random Thoughts:

Where's the concern for Lester's dead staff? Isn't anybody going to be arrested?

Lester seems to have a pretty good (and unrelated) career as it is, so her beef with Kirk seems to be entirely personal. Not just any captain would do. She wanted to be Jim Kirk. If they went deeper with that it might have been interesting.

Coleman, the washed-up doctor doormat, asks to "take care of her" at the end, but how? Aren't they both going to Federation prison/rehab or whatever happens to murderers in Star Trek?

Shatner as Lester is off the rails and gets all the attention, but Sandra Smith as Kirk is quite good.

This reminds me of the DS9 episode "Invasive Procedures" where the Dax symbiont is stolen by an unsuccessful guy that felt wronged for not being chosen as a Trill host, and he was aided by his even more insecure lover. That was a much better story.

I'm sympathetic with Peter on this one; I think the intent of the episode was to show there existed injustices in how women are treated in the workforce and how such injustice can drive someone to do very desperate things. There's also the lingering issue that women cannot hold certain positions in the military and are generally treated different (though for biological reasons, if my understanding is correct) which is hinted at by this episode. But I do agree also with Springy, that much of the writing was lacking for the Women's Rights concept (ex: why was it never mentioned how Janice Lester could've been something in Starfleet if she had done x, y, and z? What's the "if only" all about?)

Nevertheless, I largely agree with Jammer's review. Shatner was really on his game this episode, and it's fun to see "someone else" inside the Captain. The scenes that worked really well were the ones that showed how blindly the crew on the Enterprise were willing to follow a leader because of the chain of command - despite that leader's increasingly questionable actions. Insert relevant modern-day political commentary here.

Sandra Smith was also wonderful to watch with her depiction of Kirk and it was fun seeing her outmatch the intruder on a cerebral level at a hearing. So I'd say the episode is largely a fun watch but with a huge ASTERIX.

Having known plenty of women with the emotional instability and conniving nature of Janice Lester I find this epsidode to be very poignant. Progressiveness and sensetivity be damned.

Let all the triggly puffs be triggered by this episode. You can't change the nature of men and women.

I have to laugh at the SJW who call sexism because Starfleet doesn't have female captains. Hello, the Federation is a MILITARY organisation. In all societies in all ages, it's men who go to war, with a few capable and heroic women thrown in, but nevertheless, a man's business. Because women are smaller and weaker and many many many of them prefer a comfortable home and children, to going off to dangerous and possibly fatal expeditions. Besides, we want people promoted due to capabilities not due to gender, to fill out quotas. Everybody who thinks the military would benefit from more women (by the way, I am one) should watch Redonkulous Can't Cut the Mustard on Youtube.

@ MaraCass
"Besides, we want people promoted due to capabilities not due to gender, to fill out quotas."
Or race! Them blacks... I'm not saying that they shouldn't be fire fighters but if a white guy has better scores. Should a white guy be held back because of some leftist ideology. That is not racist. This is 1981.
And don't get me started on all them gays. Not that there is anything wrong with that!

That is a very good opinion coming from a very smart brain.

I agree with MaraCass. The HMS Beagle was a military vessel because it carried rifles. And it wasn't captained by a woman because sitting in a chair and giving orders requires the cushioned comfort of god-given testicles.

Booming also makes a good point; with their genetic predisposition toward high IQs, all high-ranking jobs should be performed by Ashkenazic Jews.

These are good opinions coming from very smart brains.

@ Trent
"be performed by Ashkenazic Jews."
Don't forget the other Asians. They are super smart. I think it is because of the chopsticks. They train all parts of the brains. We Germans come from central Asia, by the way. When we wandered into Europe we combined our brain power with the muscle of the neanderthals to create the ultimate ubermensch.

Thoughts on Star Trek Continues: "Embracing the Winds" about a woman wanting to be captain of the Hood that mysteriously lost its crew and competing with Spock for that honor. Very heavy handed episode on discrimination and the glass ceiling but one that takes the easy way out with the Hood getting destroyed and Kirk not having to opine to break the tie.

As always with STC, I'm impressed with the recreation of TOS -- this time it is the exterior visual of the starbase. There's a certain aesthetic to those images like the mining plant in "The Devil in the Dark" or the plant in "Where No Man Has Gone Before" and it is captured perfectly here. Well done STC.

One thing came up here that I'm not sure is true -- this episode says that the Federation composed of Earth, Vulcan, Andorians and Tellarites came about to counter the Romulan threat. I didn't think it was spurred into creation by a particular threat...

Anyhow, so there's this very driven woman Garrett who wants command of the Hood and comes across as so untrustworthy b/c she won't answer questions about a mission gone wrong and then calls for an immediate decision -- which brings about a court room scene just like in "Court Martial". This Garrett character could have been written better.

And then there's the Federation hesitant to have a female captain due to Tellarites being backward and potentially pulling out of the alliance. This strikes me as bizarre and unrealistic.

The B-plot is weak here. Chekov "MacGyvers" a way to take down the Hood's shields so Scotty and the others can beam back before the Hood blows up. That was a bit ridiculous but it wasn't as bad, to me, as how the writers made Scotty so apathetic about having nothing he can do to stop the Hood from blowing up -- he's gone way farther in coming up with miracles ("That Which Survives", "The Doomsday Machine", "The Naked Time" come to mind). Bottom line, the script demanded that the Hood be blown up so a decision does not have to be made between Garrett and Spock for its command.

2.5 stars for "Embracing the Winds" -- barely. Could have really taken some risks here. STC definitely focuses on its issues of the day but I don't know what was accomplished here. I think most would pick Spock over Garrett due to her evasiveness and obviously feeling Spock is uber-capable. So what was the purpose of having Garrett have some dubious actions to raise doubts? It didn't become an issue of just her gender, but then the whole decision is rendered moot anyway by the Hood blowing up.

I think what STC has accomplished is fantastic but what's missing is the writing/premises/ideas to really come up with some memorable episodes.

@ Maracass

There is nothing in modern warfare which requires the biological traits men possess. Women are smaller targets who consume less rations and can fit more readily into smaller spaces within vehicles, again making them advantageous. Anyone can pull a trigger, anyone can aim, anyone can understand the machinery of modern warfare and follow orders.

On the other hand, if more women were in positions of power, worldwide, we'd probably have a lot less need for armies in the first place. You know, that whole preferring to have children and homes and stuff. And the lack of.. wait for it ... testosterone combined with toxic masculinity.

I say all that as a man, and no, not some "LOL, wimp beta male". My personality is as a leader of a pack, but not because of the dangly bits. I respect women - they have a lot more strength than idiots like you.

I think you might have missed the bit where Maracass said she was a woman.

“I respect women....”

Except for, apparently, any one that dares to disagree with you. Is it possible to be any more cliched?

I've just watched this again (I am rewatching classic Trek (in no particular order)). I LOVE scenery chewing Shatner! I mean it-I really am entertained!

As far as sexism goes, I don't believe it. This particular woman is...disturbed. There is no hint that the show is saying all women are emotional basket cases! I think people just enjoy bashing old shows for whatever they think is wrong even when it isn't there.

Turnabout Intruder

Star Trek season 3 episode 24

“If only.”

- Kirk has the series' last words.


2 stars (out of 4)


Here we have a fairly simple story, told far better in TNG’s “We’ll Always have Paris.”

There, Picard breaks the heart of his girlfriend by choosing his career. He literally abandons their relationship. Picard stands her up at the cafe where they were supposed to meet. The life of a starship captain is a lonely one. Starship captains are already married - to their ships. Starship captains have no place in their lives for love (JANICE: Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.). Kirk is no different.

We see the similarity between Picard and Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. But more than that, as @R.J. points out, Kirk says it plainly in "The Corbomite Maneuver” (KIRK: I've already got a female to worry about. Her name's the Enterprise.). For whatever reason “Turnabout Intruder” takes this fairly simply premise and turns the volume up to 11, and in the process gives us a screeching and unfortunate conclusion to an otherwise very fine series.

This episode fails in two very unrelated ways.

First, Spock has had to decide which Kirk is the real Kirk several times before. In “The Enemy Within” when Kirk was split in two - evil Kirk and pansy Kirk. "Mirror, Mirror" when Spock threw Mirror Kirk into the brig fairly quickly. And most relevant for us here, in “Whom the Gods would Destroy,” when Garth of Izar takes the form of Kirk and starts recounting well known tactical moves in a failed attempt to convince Spock that he was Kirk. Here, as @Linda says, in the scene where Janice (with Kirk inside) is recounting for Spock their past shared experiences, Spock and McCoy should have just asked Kirk (with Janice inside) the same types of questions. There is no way she’d be able to pass that test. I mean, she kept calling Bones "Dr. McCoy," because she had no idea what Kirk normally called him.

Second, this episode fails because we’ve basically been down this road with professional women before. In “Metamorphosis,” the Assistant Federation Commissioner Hedford has those key lines,

NANCY: I don't want to die. I've been good at my job, but I've never been loved. Never. What kind of life is that? Not to be loved, never to have shown love?

We essentially have the same set up here with Janice,

JANICE: The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive.

And then later,

Janice (in Kirk’s body): Believe me, it's better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman. It's better to be dead.

The fact that this was done already, and done much better, should have been a clue that the jig was up. The show had burned itself out.

When you take into account the ridiculous number of episodes in this season that leaned on the same basic tropes - an illness was the ticking clock (plague, disease, etc.); someone on the crew goes mad (or, for a change, the whole crew goes mad); and the third trope, the ship gets taken over - Turnabout Intruder takes the cake, because we have all three: fake Kirk uses Janice’s illness as a ticking clock to force a diversion of the ship, Kirk acts mad because Janice is mad, and third, oh yeah, Janice and her Doctor boyfriend take over the ship. Turnabout Intruder may be the Platonic ideal of a Season 3 episode!

This is not an episode about a woman’s ability to command. This series literally started with a female first officer. This is not an episode about feminists hating men. It’s not even about bad breakups, even if it is basically a jilted lover switching bodies and then fucking over her ex boyfriend.

If this show is about anything (*if* being the key word), it’s about the basic common sense notion that you don’t stick your dick in crazy.

https://youtu.be/iuVmKam3m34

There are some nice touches to be sure. As @Trek fan points out, it is good to see that Spock and Bones no longer vacillate about removing Kirk from command, especially after the disastrous consequences of hesitating in "The Deadly Years.” Chekov and Sulu are fun here, and as @Rahul says, watching Shatner play a woman is super fun. Plus, for no apparent reason, thanks to @Trent, we get to read Gene’s letter to Asimov! But the fact that people (including @Trish, who has had wonderful comments throughout the series) have read all kinds of BS into this BS episode is a testament to its many, many failings.

How sad.

This is the way the show ends
This is the way the show ends
This is the way the show ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

O.M.G.

Between the subject matter and Kirk filing his nails, it’s no wonder McCoy suffered an eyebrow sprain.

Roddenberry said he wanted to go where no man had gone before, and Wallerstein took him there.

Talk about going down in a blaze of glory...

But still very entertaining to watch in a train wreck sort of way! You can tell the cast was committed to their characters right to the bitter end. Bravo.

Wow! Season 3 certainly went out with a bang. First, "All Our Yesterdays" stands up with the finest of sci-fi.
"Turn About Intruder" was gripping drama, with fine performances by all involved. It's a shame the show was cancelled after that. Like Muhammad Ali it was stripped of it's prime. Also like Ali it definitely had a great comeback.

Having read the charges of misogyny, maybe by today's standards but for the time it was written it's actually pretty bold. Sean Connery made the best Bond movies and, again by today's standards, they were more sexist than this.
Captain Kirk had to sell that he had been taken over by a woman. Subtle actions would not have portrayed it justly. He had to go all ham or he would have just been Captain Kirk. Like it or not, the story required a caricature of femininity.
As for women not being captains, it would have been odd and probably off putting at that time The tv show "Julia" was only just breaking boundaries for it's portrayal of a black, single, successful woman. Let's remember, Women's basketball, soccer, wrestling or boxing wouldn't be a thing until decades later.
So yeah, Tos couldn't be made today without the SJW's going all out to cancel it on twitter but it did a great job for it's time.

The last line of this is dumb, but so are most of the series' last lines.

TOS - "Her life could have been as rich as any woman's. If only, if only." - lousy
TNG - "Five-card stud, nothing wild - and the sky's the limit" - good
DS9 - "The more things change, the more they stay the stay" - dumb cliche plus wrong character
VOY - "Set a course - for home" - good call-back
ENT - "To boldly go where no man has gone before" - was nice before this, but already used too many times

@James

I’ve read that the delay showing this episode was nothing to do with Roddenberry or others connected with the show. It was apparently due to Eisenhower’s death? Though I can’t see why that should have been.

Wikipedia:
“ Originally scheduled to air at 10pm on Friday, March 28, 1969, NBC pre-empted it with a special report on former U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower, who had died earlier that day.[1] On June 3, 1969, after an absence of two months, Star Trek was brought back on a new night and time: Tuesdays at 7:30pm. "Turnabout Intruder" was the only first-run episode to be shown in this new time slot.”

An undeniably entertaining episode , using a sci-fi trope done in movies ever since, probably most successfully in 1988's Big. There is a disturbing undercurrent of sexism, but that doesn't destroy the better elements of the story.

Actually, the episode could be reworked (Star Trek Continues?) :

- the team beams down to Comus II, but instead of the insanely jealous Janice Lester, the "patient" is none other than Kirk's Academy classmate Finnegan, whom we first saw in 'Shore Leave'. Frustrated by his lack of progress in Starfleet compared to Kirk, it's Finnegan who effects the mind swap. The other doctor would have to be a woman to keep the love interest going.

The advantage of this rework is that Shatner could have had great fun acting the part of the pugilistic Finnegan; some scenery would have got chewed but less than Kirk-as-Janice. It would also have eliminated the sexist overtones and given us a second view of Finnegan - this time the real one rather than a figment of Kirk's memory.

However, I'd still give it a shade under 3 stars (at least 3 stars for the rework!)

Yeah, it's seriously sexist, but if everything was hunky dory 50+ years ago, we wouldn't need progress, right?

Trek WAS very progressive for its time. Some bits are misunderstood, like the miniskirts. That was considered empowering at the time.

Shatner does go hilariously over the top, but that's his style. Crossing his legs and doing his nails was hilarious. Keep in mind, he's not just playing a woman, he's playing a woman that is deranged with hatred toward him specifically.

Sandra Smith does a pretty good Kirk, and I believe she's the first performer to play Kirk besides Shatner.

This episode has good continuity with both previous events and the officers themselves.

Paul: "remember Sulu's reaction to seeing Ilia for the first time?"

The presentation of Ilia was a pretty big failure. The idea was that Deltans are dangerously sexy to humans and have pheromones etc etc. That's why she mentions her oath of celibacy. It makes little sense in The Motion Picture film but is explained far better in the novel.

This episode was enough to make the typical feminist’s head explode. That women could not be captains of a starship in the 23rd century should probably make them want this episode banned. Yet if you can get beyond that, it is entertaining to watch this lunatic try to pull it off that she is Captain Kirk. And then fall flat on her face trying to do it. Just the fact that she as the captain brought up the death penalty should have been enough for security to take her into custody. The episode was wildly going in so many directions, it was hard to keep up. I give it a B-. Not the greatest end of a run for such a legendary show, but not the worst.

Janice Lester was insane, right? Because nothing she was saying at all about being a woman in the 23rd century tracks. Even given it was the 1960s, attitudes toward women on the show weren't anything like she believes them to be. It just doesn't match what we've seen up to this point in any way. So, she's totally insane. Maybe from using the alien device too many times, or something else down on that planet. Selebium poisoning?

I insist that she must have been insane.

Know what would be awesome? If the upcoming Strange New Worlds series did The Joy Machine (the episode that was about to start filming next before the cancellation). Obviously the script would need to be re-written, but if they kept it as close to the original as possible . . . how cool would that be? What a tribute. I think CBS owns the script outright and wouldn't need to pay the people who originally wrote it and edited it again, which could otherwise make it too expensive and discourage them . . . and there are all kinds of Guild rules about credit that might make it too complicated to produce something that was written so long ago. But man. I can dream. My hopes are sky-high for that series and IT WOULD BE SO COOL.

The whole women cannot be captains is presented as common knowledge. They retconned it later in the TOS movies by having female captains (and admirals?).

I think this episode is widely misunderstood. The Actual last line is “If Only.“Her life could’ve been as rich as any woman’s”…..if only….. if only.”
If only what? If only she was a man. I see Kirk utter the words, “If only” in disbelief that that with all of human kind’s progressive accomplishments, he still can’t believe that society does not see women entirely as equals, disappointed in the fact that one of her obstacles for command was gender. Star Trek episodes as we all know are allegories. This episode reflects Gene’s hope that someday in the real world women will be able to achieve accomplishments that were only afforded to men in the 60’s.

Kirk says at one point that Lester couldn't be captain because she didn't have the temperament or the training.

So that implies Lester could've been a Captain of a starship if she was properly trained OR he means Temperament = Girl which could be the case.

Lester says:"Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair."
to which Kirk says: "No, it isn't."

I always thought that line might be accurate without being literal. Like maybe there’s no strict rule against women being starship captains, but that plenty of factors to do with Starfleet’s culture conspire to make it extremely unlikely.

In ENT, there was the NX-02 which had a female captain. Granted, this is technically before the formation of Starfleet and may be a retcon in regards to what is understood to be the circumstances in this episode. But as a series TOS had the female Romulan captain/commander in "The Enterprise Incident" so there should be nothing against female leaders writ large for this era in Trek.

I think Kirk's line "if only..." could be completed by him as "if only you [Lester] weren't a complete psycho, you could have been captain" or "if only you [Lester] weren't going to spend the rest of your life in an institution, you could have been captain." Given that Lester became a total psycho, I think one could assume she was passed over for captain opportunities earlier in her career for not meeting some behavioural/professional standards.

“Her life could’ve been as rich as any woman’s, if only….. if only.”

This is a uncharacteristically clever line by Roddenberry IF he knew that most of the audience in the 60s would take it as "This women should've known her place and tried not to do a man's job" but he actually meant it as "If only she wasn't a woman trying to emulate a psychopathic man, she could've had as rich of a life as any women (and man)"

But since it's the 60s it's easy to read it solely as the former.

I think several things collide here. Real world issues and long established narratives. In the 60s in the US a woman could not become captain in the Navy, so that's commentary, especially Kirk admitting that it isn't fair, even though it doesn't really make sense for the universe. That is why they retconned it later in ENT and Discovery.
On the other hand they couldn't help themselves using the age old narrative about the dangers of women who want power. The most famous one being Lady Macbeth who also goes crazy.
So there is a three layered disconnect.
- Women not being allowed becoming captains is not fair.
- The Federation accepted the discrimination of women?
- Women and power. Lester wants power but cannot control her emotions.

We all know that they almost made a women first officer but the studio wouldn't allow it. Who knows, maybe the studio wouldn't allow female captains. It is a feminist message combined with an anti-feminist narrative.

One fact that might be worth remembering is that the USSR already had a female astronaut by the time this episode was made; Sally Ride wouldn't become the first NASA astronaut until 1983. So the idea of the Romulans but not the Federation having woman captains/commanders by this point might not have seemed so implausible.

I don't really think Gene was thinking of the U.S. military or even Starfleet. It doesn't need to jive with Trek's in-universe rationale of competency for the Captain's chair, so that when Kirk says "if only" I don't know that there's anything really to dissect in terms of did he mean Starfleet is wrong and she's right, or that women are insane...I don't know that any of that is involved. I think it's more directly against the TV network execs, and "if only" just means that they are primitive screwheads for not allowing women to take their rightful place as leads in an adventure show. To the extent that Lester is crazy, it's certainly her undoing and why she isn't equipped to take over from Kirk, but if my idea of the meta message is correct, it's the vicious cycle of "women can't realistically be XO or CO on a TV show", to which the answer is "yeah, because you didn't let them. And if they're upset, it's because *you* made them feel like garbage."

Something like that.

@Peter G.

That's an interesting take on it, that it may have been network execs who had the rule against female captains. (Trek fans know the execs didn't react well to Majel Barrett's character as the first officer in the first pilot episode, and that reaction may have included a blanket rejection of female command staff.)

I think that it's certainly true that a committed feminist (a group in which I count myself) is often caught in a no-win scenario: Written or unwritten rules bar you from a role, and then the very fact that you push back against this restriction is used to brand you as "power-hungry" and "not wanting it for the right reason" (even though you only pushed back because wanting it for the right reason didn't get you anywhere). It's only natural for a personality to end up warped (sometimes a little, sometimes a lot) by a lifetime of being held back from what you feel to be your full potential and from an opportunity to make the best contribution you feel you could make to your community. It makes it easy for those who are quite comfortable with the rule (male or female) to say, "You obviously wouldn't have been good at it anyway," even "Maybe the rule is right, because maybe no woman would ever be good at it." Those who benefit the most from the rule will drop out the "maybes."

I had a younger co-worker once who said she saw me as a feminist, and herself as an "independent woman." I could tell she thought that her road was better, less strident. I told her that the reason she had the option of being an independent woman without personally focusing on being a feminist was because feminists of my age and older had fought VERY hard to open up that option for her.

In-universe, perhaps Starfleet's Janice Lesters were the ones who made its Captain Janeways and Admiral Brands possible, even if they seemed at the time to be "hurting their own cause."

To add to what I said about continuing Kirk's "if only ..." -- put yourself in his shoes. He is married to the Enterprise. He loves the Enterprise and will be very upset if something tries to come between him and her. As he's walking off with his senior officers, he's not going to end the series on a tirade about Lester -- that he'll keep to himself as a professional and as a captain. But I think, aside from it being cool to have some famous line as way of ending the series and maybe taking a shot at the glass ceiling issue, it's Kirk holding himself back from ripping Lester with some regret that she went bonkers.

I think the most important characteristic about Lester for the purposes of this episode is not that she's female but that she's a vengeful psychopath. So the sexism argument doesn't work for me because the woman in question is written in such a farfetched way -- this is a TV show which doesn't approximate real life very well. I would imagine that if a highly trained and competent female was passed over for a promotion to captain, she keep working hard at her job with the hope of eventually getting there. She wouldn't go psycho and orchestrate deaths and try the kind of shit Lester pulled on Kirk.

I think if we de-construct this episode, it could/would probably have started with a high-level pitch like "Hey, let's get Shatner to chew scenery -- make him act like a vengeful crazy woman". And then they'd tack on the life-entity transfer, mutiny etc. So I don't think it would have started with some kind of examination of sexism / glass ceiling -- otherwise the episode would be an utter failure (very poorly written and conceived). But as a plot-based drama with plenty of scenery chewing, it's pretty good.

@Peter G.

"If only …"

… the execs had accepted the first pilot, female characters could have had a lot more lines that would have been a lot more compelling than "Yes, Doctor" and "Hailing frequencies open."

@ Rahul,

"So the sexism argument doesn't work for me because the woman in question is written in such a farfetched way -- this is a TV show which doesn't approximate real life very well. I would imagine that if a highly trained and competent female was passed over for a promotion to captain, she keep working hard at her job with the hope of eventually getting there. She wouldn't go psycho and orchestrate deaths and try the kind of shit Lester pulled on Kirk."

I think this is a bit putting the cart before the horse as an argument. You ask why she had to be quite so crazy - but the answer is that the not-crazy ladies didn't concoct a crazy plan to body swap and take over a ship. Lester is the extreme version of what we are meant to understand is a more widespread discontent. Now I think the episode is about sociology in the Federation, but I also don't think Lester's idea that it's not fair for women is itself supposed to be dismissable as "she's nuts." One fault I do have with the episode is that since she is such an unreliable source, we don't actually know for sure whether she's just the tip of the iceberg of an entire discontented sex, or whether she's really the only woman who wanted the captaincy this bad.

But my argument, at least, is that if you push people hard enough, most will take it and trudge forward, while some will crack and react harshly. That's just to say it's a bell-shaped distribution of responses to injustice or pressure. That the odd person like Lester is pushed too far and goes crazy doesn't mean we should be sorry she's not a starship captain, but more importantly it may point toward a larger trend of women made to feel shut out. It's that larger trend I'm interested in, not whether Lester could have or should have been a captain.

@ Trish,

"… the execs had accepted the first pilot, female characters could have had a lot more lines that would have been a lot more compelling than "Yes, Doctor" and "Hailing frequencies open.""

Yes, my guess would be Gene wrote this as a middle finger to the execs, when the show was done and there was nothing else they could do to him, and that it was at least primarily based on their treatment of his wife when they barred her from appearing as Number One.

"… the execs had accepted the first pilot, female characters could have had a lot more lines that would have been a lot more compelling than "Yes, Doctor" and "Hailing frequencies open."

You forgot "what is--- love?"

@Peter G.,

I think you're actually making my point -- if this episode is meant to shine a light on the "larger trend of women being shut out" then it would be, as I said, "an utter failure (very poorly written and conceived)".

So I agree with what you're saying here:

"One fault I do have with the episode is that since she is such an unreliable source, we don't actually know for sure whether she's just the tip of the iceberg of an entire discontented sex, or whether she's really the only woman who wanted the captaincy this bad."

It comes down to what the primary thrust of the episode becomes but, of course, nothing is just there purely at face value. I can believe Gene wanted a prominent female (as in "The Cage") and was overruled, but then what we got here is a mess of an attempt at social commentary.

So I think that however this episode got reworked, it became more plot-driven primarily and less about making social commentary sledge-hammer-style which Trek is wont to do. That folks like you can think about the larger trend re. women/glass ceiling is more a credit to you than the writers/editors/producers of this episode.

@ Rahul,

We are certainly not disagreeing that the episode such as it is has trouble getting across any sort of clear point. It ends up being noteworthy first and foremost for the performances of the actors. The fact that we need to have a debate is already evidence enough that its purpose was muddled in the execution. But what I am debating, anyhow, is the author's intention, which IMO is about sending a message to real world people that they are prigs. I think there isn't much fruit to be plucked in trying to figure out how the "no female captain" rule affects canon, can be reconciled with ENT, or anything else in-universe. It barely matters (to me at least) what it implies in-universe.

I should mention anecdotally, that when I was a kid I tended to find TOS episode not only highly watchable, but also striking to me in their messaging. Aside from a few episodes that were hard for me to grok as a 9 year old (like Mudd's Women, whose purpose was opaque to me, as well as The Conscience of the King, which seemed hard to follow), almost all of them spoke their messages loud and clear. And even Turnabout Intruder was pretty clear to 9 year old me as being about how unfair things were for women. The fact that Lester was nuts didn't strike me as meaning she was talking nonsense; it was more like "she is talking sense, and also has to be stopped". It didn't occur to me then to question her statements of fact, and even now I suspect the intent is that she speaks truth even though it's pushed her over the edge. That much does seem to come across at least in a vague way.

@Peter
An interesting hypothesis. Still making her completely crazy would work against such a message. If she had been ruthless but capable and Kirk had won in the end not because she is a lunatic but because he outsmarts her would have worked better but yeah one could see it as a meta narrative.

Well let's also be clear about what we mean by "crazy". She is literally crazed, as in, her temperament is frayed and he verges toward mania at times. But she's not crazy in the sense of delusional, or megalomaniacal. She doesn't want to take over the universe, she just desperately wants to be a starship captain. Presumably in that role all she wants to do is to do the job well. To the extent that she's crazy it's in her psychological stability, not in her aims and desires. From that standpoint I'd say she's damaged, but not inherently malevolent. Dismissing a potential message she's putting forward *because* she's severely damaged is sort of adding insult to injury, since the issue she's crazed about is possibly why she's damaged in the first place.

It's like saying, "oh, you've been driven mad by this system that's hurting you, well how can be believe you since you're mad?" It's an easy way to gaslight a legitimate complaint made by someone who's beyond the point where they can make it civilly. We shouldn't accept her behavior, but we can accept that the cause of it is a real problem needing fixing.

@Peter G.,

You may be going down a slippery slope here. True, Lester is not like Lord Garth in terms of ambition and level of insanity but she is certifiably insane. That she is limiting her ambitions to being a starship captain, I think is basically irrelevant. If memory serves (haven't seen this episode in its entirety in years) I believe she orchestrated the deaths of a number of scientists on the planet -- radiation poisoning or some such. She tries to kill Kirk.

Lester, to me, is very much a lone wolf. She has, for all intents and purposes, gone postal. I would find it very hard to have a shred of sympathy for the cause of a person who guns down a bunch of his co-workers, for example. The cause is selfish. That's why, to me, this episode fails miserably as social commentary and gets reduced, albeit very entertainingly, to a fairly mechanical episode. But since this is television, it can hint at a societal issue.

@ Rahul,

I didn't remember at all about Lester murdering a bunch of scientists. I'll have to watch it again and get back to you...

@Peter G.,

I'll save you the trouble. From Memory Alpha: https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Turnabout_Intruder_(episode)

"Coleman knows Lester's plans, and in fact knows both that celebium was the lethal agent and that Lester had caused the deaths by sending the personnel to where the celebium shielding was weak."

@Peter
Rahul is correct, she is a mass murderer. She tricks the physician into helping her murder the entire staff.

Making Lester crazy lets the show tell this story of thinly veiled social commentary while preserving that in the universe of the show, this isn't actually the way things are in our future. I hadn't thought of it that way, but it does make a certain amount of sense.

It could have probably been handled better, but that's true of all the episodes at this point in the show's run. For well-documented reasons.

Giving three stars to this hot mess is almost as hilarious as the episode itself - but I enjoyed Jammer's later comment. Red-in-the-face-and-hysterical Kirk is hardly distinguishable from normal Kirk.

Intriguing episode, but I don't understand why it was so hard to prove it wasn't Kirk. All they had to do is quiz both of them and ask questions that only the real Kirk would know. There must be literally hundreds of private bits of information that only Kirk and the crew know. It would have been much more satisfying if on the verge of convicting Spock that they asked fake Kirk a question and he blew it.

Obviously not a fitting finale, although at least the whole cast were involved minus Uhura.

Rewatching the entire series and then checking this website for discussion has been absolutely delightful. Loved the insights and humor of so many of you here. Thank you Jammer for creating this community.

A good not great episode. The Shat pulls this off very well without going over the line. Not an easy thing to do. Spock is pretty awesome in this episode too. Showing his loyalty to Kirk.

Watching this episode now. And a couple days ago, I watched ST : Enterprise Home, spotlighting Archer's relationship with Captain Hernandez, a woman caption, and wondered why it seemed there were no women captains in TOS. By Next Gen, they started to appear.

My biggest complaint about Turnabout Intruder (maybe others felt the same) was how could Lester maintain the guise of Kirk. Yes, she knew details but not daily events, past and current. Would she know every member of the crew, or any interactions Kirk had with them, and especially those with Spock, McCoy and Scotty. How would she handle real crises? It just couldn't last. But the one saving grace is the loyalty factor the crew had for Kirk. Same with The Enterprise Incident.

@Lisa
"I watched ST : Enterprise Home, spotlighting Archer's relationship with Captain Hernandez, a woman caption, and wondered why it seemed there were no women captains in TOS. By Next Gen, they started to appear.
"
That is a retcon. In the 1960 a huge chunk of the audience would have been offended by the thought of a female captain, but that didn't really make sense for a modern state like the Federation, so they just ignored that aspect and several others of TOS in later iterations.

There's an interesting case of projection at the beginning of this discussion:

" "Her life could have been as fulfilled as any other woman". The sad, sad last line of a series I loved."

Which wasn't what Kirk actually said. As a couple of other posters have pointed out, the last lines were, "Her life could have been as rich as any woman's. If only, if only."

Most of the discussion above seems to miss the episode's essential subtext: Kirk and Janice Lester shared a profound romantic relationship in the past (they both express this multiple times, both to each other and to other characters, and even Lester's pathetic special doctor friend commented on it). Everything that goes on between them in the episode is deeply PERSONAL.

When Kirk says regretfully that Lester's life "could have been as rich as any woman's", that is a high compliment coming from a man who has literally traveled the galaxy and met some of its most luminary and remarkable figures. Surely when he then trails away wistfully, "If only... If only...", it is a personal expression about what has become of the woman he loved, and what their life and relationship might have been, not commentary on gender rights or Starfleet politics.

Only a two star episode for me, but some of the criticism here is off the mark.

@ King

Hm.. how do you interpret the following: "And most of all, she wanted to murder James Kirk, a man who once loved her. But her intense hatred of her own womanhood made life with her impossible."

Too bad the potential wasn’t realized
Overwrought Lester in the body of Kirk would have been much more effective and believable villain without the shrieking

Did Shatner think that was the best way to carry out the character of Lester in Kirk?

Would be interesting to know especially since this closed out the season and ended the show

Came across Rolling Stone's 100 greatest TV shows ranked -- not a lot of sci-fi on it. TOS ranked No. 22 but there were no other Trek series on it.

No B5, no "The Expanse", no Star Wars -- but BSG ranked No. 42. BSG has been on my list for some time...

One thing that puzzles me a bit about this episode is how long was Kirk at the Academy. Bearing in mind that Gary Mitchell apparently "steered" a "blonde"at him (from memory, to break Kirk's single-minded focus on his studies which meant he was outperforming Gary), he obviously had a serious relationship with Ruth who fond memories conjured up in 'Shore Leave ' and he fitted in a year with Lester.

I didn't think Lester was a doctor of medicine by the way. Wasn't she an archaeologist or something similar, like Professor Crater in 'The Man Trap'?

I also don't get how her accomplice talks about wanting to take care of her - Coleman can't plead diminished responsibility for his complicity in the deliberate killing of their co-workers, not to mention going along with her to the cells to inject Lester 's body with a doubly lethal dose of something. Basically they should both be locked up - him in prison, her on some enlightened asylum such as the one in 'Whom God's Destroy '.

It also begs a huge question - Lester really must be insane not to realise that a Captain who illegally orders the execution of his senior officers would remain in command once Star Fleet command heard about it. I also interpret the last line, given the "rich as any woman's" rather than anyone's to imply that Lester should have learned to embrace the feminine role as perceived in the 1960s and find fulfilment that way rather than in a role to which she was unsuited. The harping on about her hatred of being a woman does serve to emphasise how "unnatural" she is and so I've always had to make allowances for what I see as the attitudes of the time it was made.

I think what people find sexist in tis episode is no so much Janice Lester's characterization or our heroes views of women' s capability as they are at the subtextual anti-feminist moral of the episode: that women who are angry that merely being female and discriminated against is what caused their lack of professional success are really so angry because they are delusional, psychotic or mad over a breakup, ambitious beyond teir limitations (dont know their place or just red-faced with hysteria.

I've decided I've changed my opinion about this one, and I now think it's really quite excellent. I used to find it to be a bit of a hackneyed thriller, a strange sendoff for the show. But its merits do in fact give us something to remember: incredible performances from Shatner, Nimoy, Doohan, and Kelley, as well as a very credible turn by Sandra Smith. It's unfortunate that it doesn't appear Ms Smith had that much of a career afterwards, as her poise as Kirk is outstanding.

The charges brought against this episode are simple enough: the theme is murky or even indecipherable, and the plotting thin. The problems with plotting were essentially inevitable: how could you ever do a body-takeover story without it being immediately foiled by questioning about details only Kirk could know? This same problem happens in Whom Gods Destroy. But since we already know this sort of story is impossible to write without glaring holes in its logic, we can perhaps forgive that and just see what it has to offer us. I thought of a few things that could have shored up the plot, one of which is to just allow the body transfer device to also allow Kirk and Lester to see into each others' minds as well. That way Lester would not only be able to offer up details that only Kirk would know, but additionally it would give Kirk insight into what's happened to Lester. It would give us more about their relationship. Another device could have been to show Lester having used extreme methods to obtain various knowledge about Kirk, maybe even a spy aboard the Enterprise.

In any case I'm content to put this objection behind me, as a more carefully plotted out story that had more details and nuances would exceed the alotted air length of the episode. This kind of story could easily spin out into feature-length, and give us a character study that goes beyond "she's bonkers." But what the teleplay and directing do give us is an extremely tense and thrilling series of scenes. Even when Lester/Kirk is going over the top and everyone knows she/he is insane, the episode brilliantly reminds us of the abject horror of actually supplanting a captain without extreme cause. The threat of public executions becomes that cause, but prior to that "we don't like how you're acting" isn't enough. It is also plausible (and scary) that the security force on a ship could quickly become the Captain's personal army, leaving the officers powerless to oppose him. TOS reminds us again and again just how much power a starship captain has, and we're reminded here once again. This isn't a person you can remove just like that. The gravity of this situation is sold is an amazing scene between Scotty and Bones in the corridor.

And what the story ends up boiling down to is less about what happens if you let a woman run a ship, and more what happens when someone unstable, like a Captain Garth let's say, finds themselves in command of one. It's a very, very bad situation. This by itself would be a worthy story concept. What mires it in confusion is Lester's remark about starfleet not allowing women captains, and Kirk's "if only". If those two lines were cut the story's intent would be clear as crystal, but with them in we're left scratching our heads wondering whether this was supposed to be some kind of statement about women or the treatment of women. We've debated it above, about how it could just as easily be taken to say "look what happens when a woman really does take power" as "look what happens when you dehumanize women and make them desperate". Neither point is made clearly, nor is either given much support by any other part of the story. I must surmise that neither idea matters very much regardless of what the writers may have thought.

The most stunning part of the episode is Shatner's performance. Despite having become infamous for his final overblown theatrics, there are some many outstanding subtleties to what Shatner does that it's clear the theatrics are merely one device used to illustrate total madness. If you haven't watched this one in a while, give it a close look: watch Shatner/Lester's posture, look at the arch of the back and manner of walking. It is all changed, but not forced or exaggerated. This is not Shatner doing a 'woman impression', but just holding his body differently. Look at his reactions in the first scene back on the Enterprise in the transporter room, giving his/her first commands: look how nervous, how cautious, and how aware that any word could be wrong and get him into trouble. Other subtleties are written in, such as "Captain Kirk to the Enterprise" and the manner of addressing everyone in slightly incorrect ways, which show a deep uncertainty about how to do things correctly. And actually this isn't what you'd expect from a body-snatcher episode. In TNG when Picard is replaced by a double he seems to be able to do his ordinary activities quite easily, and it's his personality that's the giveaway. But here we get a more more realistic look at how literally every word spoken risks being wrong in some way, and most of them are. It's basically impossible to actually pull off this sort of caper, and Shatner portrays that beautifully.

While the plotting is shaky and the motives within the story half-baked at best, I nevertheless feel that this is one of the series better offerings, and one of the most exciting in its constant tension level.

@Peter G.

As it happens, I haven’t seen this episode for a while, so I re-watched it and mostly agree with the points you made. I tried to pay attention to the more delicate brushstrokes of Shatner’s portrayal of Lester-in-Kirk’s-body and agree that it’s an amazing performance. One thing I noticed is that Lester-in-Kirk’s-body actually smiles a lot, but always at the wrong time, like during an argument. Usually, Kirk rarely smiles, and when he does, it means he’s relaxed or in good mood. As a second thing, Lester-in-Kirk’s-body seems very inwardly focused while Kirk always keeps his eyes and ears open for everything going on around him; he often does several things at the same time and instantly jumps from one subject to another. I think you can watch the episode a dozen times and still find new small details hinting at the fact that Kirk is not himself.

However, I’ll probably never be comfortable with the gender topic here. What I find really annoying is the ambiguousness of the depiction – that it could be either "look what happens when a woman really does take power" or "look what happens when you dehumanize women and make them desperate", as you put it – to me it feels like bad writing, as if the writers themselves couldn’t make up their mind and draw a clear conclusion. But I admit that it feels very realistic that both sides of the issue are there and equally plausible and that we’ll never know for sure what was the cause of Lester being denied captaincy. Was it her mental instability or the glass ceiling at Starfleet? What if both are true, to an extent? I think it’s quite clear that even in the past, during her time at the Academy with Kirk, Lester was not really the sanest person, so that might be a very good reason why she never rose to command: „a position she doesn't merit by temperament or training”, regardless of her sex. It is also undisputed that there are some lines here which reveal that women are indeed discriminated against, like when Lester accuses Spock: “And with the truth revealed that I am not really the captain, and KNOWING that she would not be ALLOWED to serve as the captain, then you would be the captain!” – however, most of them are coming from Lester herself and therefore are not factual, objective statements.

Likewise, what makes her want to destroy Kirk – the worst break-up of all times or the fact that he was promoted and she wasn’t? I think other comments have already mentioned Ben Finney in “Court Martial” – I hadn’t thought of this, but I can now see the parallels. Both episodes show a person from Kirk’s past begrudging him and wanting to take revenge and destroy his career. Both Finney and Lester blame Kirk for having been denied a promotion which he got. The backstories are quite different, but it’s obvious that the role of Megaera is not exclusively female.

I’m glad you mentioned the subject of power and mutiny because that’s one thing I clearly remember from my earlier viewing, and honestly I think the episode doesn’t get anywhere near enough credit for what it shows us here. I loved the tense scene between Scott and McCoy in the corridor, and while it is the first time we see the senior officers openly discussing mutiny, we have already seen them challenging Kirk and questioning his actions in other episodes. What I found more striking was the others’ behavior: Chekov, Sulu, even Lysa are willing to submit to the captain’s authority, as their rank and place in the ship’s command structure demands, but they rebel against Lester when she pronounces the death sentence. Which means nothing less than that a crewmember’s individual conscience and abidance by the laws – they outright tell her that the death penalty is forbidden! – outweigh the obedience they owe Lester as their commanding officer. That’s quite a thing. And it’s a pity that this is always somehow eclipsed by the misbegotten approach to “women in leading positions” which has gained this episode its infamous reputation.

@Lannion; @Peter G. Thanks for a nice discussion of Turnabout Intruder. It's a good show.

As the episode progresses, I become rather used to Kirk in Lester's body and I wish she could stay on. To me, Kirk as Lester reads as a strong female. When the transference collapses at the end, it's a bit of a let down.

Usually in TOS we've had great ideas with poor execution; this one, interestingly, seems to be a case of fairly decent execution of a really poor concept. Entertaining acting, a court martial, mutiny... they went for everything, with good scenes. But there wasn't much to go on. Girl takes Kirk's body, but she basically just goes crazier and crazier: it's not the Enterprise crew who won; the writers just made her lose.

And no real ending at all... I don't mean a "proper end for the series", there was no ending even in a episode-level: we are running out of time for this episode, so lets just reverse the body exchange. Very lazy.

I haven't seen this episode in a long time, but after reading this interesting discussion, I believe I'll tune in. I remember seeing this episode many times, and I've never had any issue believing a transfer of consciousness took place. Shatner's and Smith's acting was just that outstanding.

I was reading through the script and I wondered about this so called paranoia/insanity that Dr. Lester experienced and wanted to pose a thought here. I have wondered if this could have been the result of the celebium itself. The script indicates that exposure to celebium is curable, but that, to me implies, that being cured is a physical one. Nothing is said about the mental issues that might arise, or be exacerbated by exposure.

I was curious about the mass murders of the other staff. Dr. Coleman accuses Dr. Lester of leading them to where the celebium shielding was weakest. Dr. Lester states Dr. Coleman could have treated them but did not. I have to wonder how either one would know the celebium shielding was weakest unless both of them ventured to the area and were exposed first.

The other question is why didn't the other scientists know of the celebium danger? According to Kirk's log, Dr. Lester and Dr. Coleman were not the only scientists on the planet. It makes me wonder if more than these two went slowly insane. Did they experiment with the ancient transfer equipment and that's how the two doctors found it out was still operational?

The other thing that bothers me about Kirk (as Lester), when he makes the snap judgment that Dr. Lester's "intense hatred of her own womanhood made life with her impossible". Prior to that statement, he indicates that he "once loved her".

I find that an amazing contradiction of terms in Kirk. He's way too lazy to get to know women enough to bother making such an assessment. He'd see Janice initially as being just as ambitious as he was and dump her before he could ever get to first base with her.

@F
" it's not the Enterprise crew who won; the writers just made her lose".

Indeed. So many unanswered questions.

@ Winnie,

That's an interesting point about the celebium, but I think the episode strongly suggests that there was something wrong with Lester even back when Kirk knew her. Maybe she wasn't a homocidal maniac - the poisoning could have pushed her to that - but I think we need to take Kirk's assessment of her self-hatred at face value. It's a simple bit of exposition that may as well be narrated by the writers.

@Peter,

I had thought about that, but when I read Kirk's initial log, he mentions the two doctors by name. While doing so, he fails to mention any potential danger to himself or the crew that Janice Lester might pose.

Just got through watching this episode, and I have to give nods to both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley for their strong acting chops in this episode. In my opinion, it wouldn't have been believable without their characters' buyins to the premise.

From what I gather of Kirk's and Lester's relationship, it was a tumultuous one. Both parties admit to loving one another. Yet, throughout the course of the episode, I don't get any vibes of what these two felt for one another, even in anger. Kirk admits to Lester that, had they stayed together, they would have killed one another. I wondered if he really was referring to the act of murder, but was afraid to do so as Lester pointed out.

Unfortunately, unless we ever get our hands on Roddenberry’s story treatment or the 1st draft of the script, we’ll never really know the true intent behind this episode. And additional factors, such as studio execs notes, etc. (Marc Cushman’s books on the making of all 3 seasons show how prevalent they were) could derail much of the original intent as well. A friend of mine used to write for network tv in the 80s and she often joked that by the time a show aired, she sometimes barely recognized it as her own.

Side note: I never noticed this before, but during Spock & McCoy’s initial conversation concerning Kirk’s mental health, McCoy’s costume changes from his Starfleet uniform to his medical tunic. Must’ve been a pick-up shot made on another day, and the continuity person had their notes mixed up on what Kelley was wearing in that scene.

@Gilligan's Starship
""Unfortunately, unless we ever get our hands on Roddenberry’s story treatment or the 1st draft of the script, we’ll never really know the true intent behind this episode. And additional factors, such as studio execs notes, etc. (Marc Cushman’s books on the making of all 3 seasons show how prevalent they were) could derail much of the original intent as well. A friend of mine used to write for network tv in the 80s and she often joked that by the time a show aired, she sometimes barely recognized it as her own.""

How very true. And so, we have a story where Janice Lester is diagnosed as insane because she wants to be a Starfleet Captain. Add to that Captain Kirk feeling that his love for her should have been enough, but she despised her womanhood, so her life was unfulfilling.

Sad. really.

Hilarious episode! A fitting end for season 3. Not sexist at all!

Because of its reputation, I expected to hate this, but by TOS standards, it was okay.

2/4

Because of its reputation, I expected to hate this, but by TOS standards, it was okay.

2/4

I have read the other comments remarking on the sexism in this episode and, quite frankly, have to say: Yes. There was. There was rampant sexism in 1969 as well. Shocked? There was also racism. And ageism. People with money were considered to be "smart " and people envied them. People without money were called "poor" and lived in "crap" houses, "bad" neighborhoods, and the police usually treated them like criminals even before they were arrested. I'm glad things are better now, but wishing the past was more enlightened appears quaint, and reeks of "virtue signalling". I'm a Democrat, proud of being a liberal, and I watched these shows on their initial air dates, long ago. Yes, there was quite a bit of bad. But there was good, too, and I remember that as well.

Here we reach the end of the TOS road, and unfortunately the road ends in a bit of a confused mess. After reading through the comments here, I’ve gained a slight increase in respect for this episode’s potential. However, that potential tends to rely on some generous interpreting to get us out of the bizarre quagmire created, in my opinion, by some clumsy writing.

Taken at face value, the episode is unequivocally problematic, the various lines uttered by Lester about her motives and desires come across as both sexist and wholly incongruous with everything we’ve seen in the previous episodes. However, it’s my opinion that the episode never intended to make any broad statements about women in general one way or the other. I don’t see any effort at larger social commentary or even a clear position of any kind. Rather I think the story was meant to be more personal and intimate, a story of a jilted, deeply unstable lover and her quest for revenge. Her effort to specifically take Kirk’s identity and gain control of the enterprise is a calculated design to inflict maximum harm on our James T. Where the episode flounders is that it constantly leaves itself open to sweeping interpretations that become crippling in their distraction factor. Dialog that should read as two former flames hashing out some old feelings instead come out as clunky declarations of some serious gender-based issues at Starfleet HQ. As a result this episode has gone down as the most notorious example of sexism in the whole of TOS. It’s really too bad, because with minor adjustments much of the distasteful implications could have been avoided. An additional female character in a position of authority, exuding competence, or a simple line of dialog making clear that Lester specifically has emotional problems, without the interpretive leeway to extend that to women as a whole, just a small quirk of pushback to essentially rebuff Lester’s perspective or to make the story specifics clear was all that was needed. Without these narrative counterbalances the episode leaves us with Lester’s perspective and motivations unchallenged and thus showcased as though they’re the episode’s message, left out on a narrative limb, isolated and without explanation, it becomes virtually impossible not to interpret an unpleasantly sexist tone to the story. The episode takes on the perception of being a condemnation of women in general as emotionally unstable, vengeful, and prone to hysteria. And as the above comment section attests, the result is that the episode is a narrative failure.
All of that sadly overshadows some really great moments in this episode: Spock’s convictions, the crew’s loyalty, Scotty and McCoy conspiring to face the unthinkable, Sandra Smith and Shatner delivering great performances, and a nice overall feel of tension. It all leaves me to wonder, if only. If only..

2/4 Kirks reinhabiting a surprisingly well manicured body.

Having finished this most recent rewatch of TOS I’m actually surprised at how much my respect for this show increased. Even the much maligned season three caught my attention as quite good, deserving of much more consideration than it typically gets. As a whole, TOS strikes me as one of those rare pop culture phenomena in which a bunch of nerds and intellectuals managed to sneak one past the goalie of network suits and myopic ad-men to create something unabashedly smart, fun, and enduring. What I find most impactful is just how much external engagement TOS tends to inspire, I’ll watch an episode just to pass some time, but before I know it I’m revisiting classical philosophy, or pouring over works of Shakespeare, or rereading 19th century literature. Personally, one of my greatest appreciations for TOS is how much it trusted it’s audience to just “get it”, as such it’ll forever be a bastion of kindred spirits, even when it’s limitations are on full display in the form of goofy rubber suited monsters or remote controlled, brain-free Spocks.
My top 5:
1- balance of terror
2- the doomsday machine
3- city on the edge of forever
4- amok time
5- journey to babel
Honorable mentions: taste of Armageddon, conscience of the king, errand of mercy, all our yesterdays, mirror mirror, enterprise incident. Probably a bunch more.

Bottom 5:
5- Mudd’s women
4- mark of Gideon
3- way to Eden
2- and the children shall lead
1- alternative factor

It’s been fun! Maybe I’ll tackle TNG next.

I love this episode. It's so surreal as seen from this era but both of them acting as opposite gender roles wasn't too far out back then. (and I grew up in that era). Too much fun!

@F
"Girl takes Kirk's body, but she basically just goes crazier and crazier: it's not the Enterprise crew who won; the writers just made her lose."

I don't quite agree with this. Lester had lost from the moment she failed to kill Kirk before returning to the ship. Past that point, the longer Kirk remained alive the more inevitable it became that her deception would be revealed. All he had to do was wake up, talk to Spock or McCoy, and give his testimony. He didn't have any substantial proof (except for the machine that caused the transfer) but there were a million ways to sow doubt and encourage further investigation - any number of things that he would know that Lester wouldn't, and she was already in danger of slipping up at any given time.

Kirk had truth and procedure on his side, and Lester was forced to go on the attack in increasingly suspicious ways. Which nearly worked, if in a pyrrhic sort of way; Kirk was seconds away from death when the transfer reversed. Admittedly that reversal was a very unsatisfying and perfunctory conclusion to their struggle, and could indeed be said to be the writers making her lose. But she didn't lose because of her meltdown, it only really hastened the inevitable.

If anything, I think the writers put a lot of arbitary roadblocks in the way of the heroes: the absence of the many definitive statements Kirk could have made to gain credibility; the oddly specific talk of mutiny in the hallway; Kirk's and Spock's escape attempts giving Lester a pretext to place them under guard and lay charges, and so forth.

"I don't quite agree with this. Lester had lost from the moment she failed to kill Kirk before returning to the ship. Past that point, the longer Kirk remained alive the more inevitable it became that her deception would be revealed. All he had to do was wake up, talk to Spock or McCoy, and give his testimony. He didn't have any substantial proof (except for the machine that caused the transfer) but there were a million ways to sow doubt and encourage further investigation - any number of things that he would know that Lester wouldn't, and she was already in danger of slipping up at any given time."

Here's the thing with this plan of becoming a captain. Dr. Lester didn't just wait years for the Enterprise to show up so she could avenge herself. Any ship with a captain on it was her goal. Kirk just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Dr. Lester lost years ago when Starfleet refused her bid for the captaincy. Even Kirk himself agreed with the unfairness of the regulation.

F has nailed it, an absolutely crap idea without merit that was executed as well as it could be relying on the actors to sell it. The opposite of a lot of the "bad" TOS episodes where the idea had merit/promise but the execution and direction chosen let it down.

The result is very pedestrian, ponderous, repetitive, clumsy with a million plot holes and fails of logic, which is a sad end to TOS. I think Roddenberry regrets not burning the original negatives of this one.

From Jammers later comments - it seems that he thought the negatives outweighed the positives as well. Sexism aside - this committed the mortal TV sins of being boring and predictable.

Thankfully, this episode put the original series out of it's misery. It is absolutely horrendous, and true Star Trek fans are virtually unanimous in proclaiming this the absolute worst episode in the entire franchise...worse than Spock's Brain, And The Children Shall Lead, Plato's Stepchildren, basically any episode in the first season of The Next Generation or anything you care to name. Just ghastly. Unbelievable that it was allowed to be televised.

Well I changed my mind, and find this episode intriguing. Even though the tired mechanism of two Kirks or opposite Kirks or Kirk replicas is being used again, at this point that was all they had left apparently. And Shatner gets to act out most of the dialogue, drowning out the sounds of the carpenters prying the sets apart in the next rooms now that the show was cancelled. Most comments here seem to question the nature of the earlier relationship between Kirk and Lester as Star Fleet recruits, but I think we know it's just that TV was not allowed to say they were phucque buddies before it went south and then the female plotted a murderous revenge for a decade or so. This is the tension in the episode, not necessarily sexist, but actually more like the greatest or most common story ever told throughout history. Another side note from this episode, is the Renfield like character of Dr. Coleman who did everything to "help" Lester and prevent her from being exposed....... even to the point of allowing himself to be blackmailed by Lester as mutually complicit in her crimes. As with many episodes, the last minute is rushed and tries to say something profound. Just prior to that, Lester's switcheroo wears off and she returns to her true self wimpering like the witch of the east just had water dashed on her.... and Dr. Coleman offers to take care of her (in her now permanent basket case state) and the Enterprise command crew says OK to that. EVEN THOUGH THESE SAME FOLKS JUST TRIED TO KILL THEM, TAKE OVER THEIR SHIP, ETC. they still allow the criminal acts to be dismissed (again, in episode after episode) as nothing for the sake of getting along. The best part is now we get to start season 1 again, after enduring some dreadful episodes the worst being plato's children, and empath. Won't you join me for another round?

I've been watching some Star Trek fan films. Star Trek Continues and Star Trek New Voyages. Yeah, the acting is nearly always amateurish, but their hearts are in the right place. I do have to say that the set designs and costumes are very impressive. It may not be great Trek, but at least it feels like classic Trek.

If you're a TOS fan looking willing to give these a shot, I'd recommend these two episodes:

Star Trek: New Voyages "World Enough and Time"

Star Trek Continues "Fairest of Them All"


Both are on Youtube.

I’m in the minority of ST fans that like this episode and do not think it belongs on the bottom of any “worst” list. True, Shatner’s acting is in overdrive in this episode, but in this case, it’s called for.
In the other hand, If played with a subtle non-exaggerated style, it would’ve been criticized as too confusing a mess.

And to many of the knee jerk charges of gross misogyny, that’s absurd. Another example of “cart before the horse.” A group of contemporary people too eager to apply “cure” words to situations that in no way merit their definition. If you didn’t enjoy the story or performances, fine; Nothing in that episode rises to level that would reflect the definition of the word misogynistic.

But that doesn’t stop people applying so many classic negative labels to things today they dislike; take for instance the word racism. I don’t think you’ll find anyone that disagrees with the fact it is one of the most overused and watered down terms in our contemporary society today.

No…, Turnabout Intruder may have some overacting within it, but misogynistic? Please. Folks, stop trying to shoehorn fancy words into situations just because you’ve have them in your vocabulary.

This episode is of course sexist in a distinctly 1960's kind of way, on one hand trying to be hip to the existence of ambitious, intelligent professional women, but on the other hand playing into old stereotypes about such women being jealous man-eater nutters. If only she had accepted the limitations of her womanhood, she could have been so ... so happy! Alas.

She's got mad queens from Greek drama all over her.

But: Come on, it's fun! This episode more than almost any other showcases the famous scene-chewing acting journey to the outer atmosphere by William Shatner. The man goes for it. I mean, this is it. What my family calls "the height of epitome."

I think it is a pity that somehow (to my knowledge) William Shatner and Marlon Brando never played a scene together. (Did Shatner ever do "Streetcar Named Desire?") I don't know why. I can see it.

This show ends the last season and the series on a sad note, so I am glad Star Trek and TOS crew came back on the big screen years later. Otherwise, I'd be depressed. I just let it stand alone as one of the quirkier, crazier, and campier (hence, endearing) episodes of them all.

The Director maintained a lot of the suspense by capturing visual clues that characters "knew" what the others were getting at. For example, Coleman and "fake" Kirk concocting excuses why Lester needed to be prevented from telling her story of being the real Kirk abducted into her body. And Spock and McCoy colluding to distract fake Kirk so Spock could wander off toward the brig, and trick security into letting him mind meld with Lester's body and get the truth. Also during the Doctor's medical exam of Lester-Kirk, the Doctor complemented the Captain's physique "even his glands" and the Captain said "I know" or something to that effect. I wonder what Janice Lester was doing with Kirk's body in unshown scenes in his private quarters?

I really liked this episode and was a bit sad to see so many think of it as one of the worst.
I just started watching Star Trek and finished TOS in a month and loved how ,after the switch, even the way "Captain Kirk" contacted the Enterprise was "wrong". The melody of "Kirk to Enterprise" was off, so to speak. I kinda felt like watching all the previous episodes was paying of since I'll be able to see the inaccuracies. I was hoping for more of those little hints that something was wrong rather than the later full hysteria.

Also, I did not think this episode was especially sexist or anything. Not more so than any other.
Janice Lester was a woman that went mad to the point of hysteria. It was hinted that she's been going crazy for some time now.
She made herself believe that the only reason she did not get to be a Captain was due to her gender instead of any fault of her own. Which is why she hated being a woman - she saw it as the only obstacle to her dream.

Love this episode. Great swan song as all characters had great roles in this one. Shatter at full throttle very entertaining. I like the communications officer in this
one - very cute with her hip hairspray look.

I assume this transfer between Kirk and Lester was one of the spirit. No physical attributes, such as mental or physical illness would have been transferred. So why then, does Lester (as Kirk), continue to act insane when only her essence was transferred?

I don't know that I'd go with three stars, but once again I watched an episode and found that it wasn't as bad as my memories made it out to be, or as bad as fan reputation suggests. Watching Shatner play Kirk's crazy ex-girlfriend inhabiting his body is tremendously entertaining. The guy just goes for it, and how else could he really have approached the part? I don't see this particular story as implying that all women are just like Janice Lester. She's the one with major problems.

I like the continuity references as Kirk tries to convince Spock that he is who he says he is.

There's some good material here for the rest of the crew. Spock of course is the first to investigate and accept that a body switch has happened, but I like how the rest of the crew come around as well when they see "Kirk" acting so out of character. Scotty and McCoy discuss how the captain is their problem, and they'll have to handle it. Sulu and Chekov protesting the execution order and refusing to obey any further orders as they silently resist.

First, I love how on this site and basically nowhere else can discussions play out, mostly civilly, over decades.

The notion of women being prohibited from being ship captains is a little out of step with what was going on even in the real world at the time.

In 1967, the policy prohibiting women from becoming admirals (or generals) was repealed. Alene Duerk, who was already a captain by rank at the time, became the first US Navy admiral in 1972. But she was a nurse, not a line officer.

No woman became the captain of a ship until 1990 (Darlene Iskra), but this was mostly because women weren't allowed to serve on ships at all until 1978, and at first only on non-combat ships.

But in Starfleet, women are obviously permitted to serve on ships, and not only in medical roles. It doesn't really make a lot of sense to have female line officers, but prohibit them from becoming captains, when in the real world women could already be admirals.

I watched this episode when I was a child, and my first interpretation was that it was indeed that "women have no place as captains, just look at this crazy loon trying to take over command". Looking now, I can see why this idea doesn't make sense and it's thought that Lester just thought women were barred from being captains as a result of her mental instability. Not helping matters that other series set prior to Kirk's time (Enterprise for instance) did include female captains and so the notion that there was either a bar on women or there had been no precedents as of Kirk's time became less and less plausible.
But that doesn't mean that wasn't the original intended idea when the episode was made in 1969. At that time, the idea of women having positions of power in the military and Navy, down to combat roles and making decisions in battles and everything was *completely* alien for most people, and the writers probably didn't think that'd be a thing anytime soon or even that, from their 1960's perspective of gender, that that'd be a positive thing.
Here's what Leonard Nimoy said about the intent behind this episode:
"What is easier for me to deal with on that particular script is the knowledge that the writer was making a script in which his goal was to prove, quote, 'That women, although they claim equality, cannot really do things as well as, under certain circumstances, as a man -- like the command function, for example. And it was a rather chauvinistic, clumsy handling of an interesting question. What he set out to prove was that this lady, given command of the ship, would blow it. That’s really what the script was about. Just that simple. You see."
What makes this episode so infamous is that it goes against everything the franchise defended from the begginning in terms of equality and justice (the original series had a lot of vanguardist portrayals regarding racial equality, but for gender, not so much). While a lot of episodes have dated takes on women, they weren't the premise behind them, just reproducing typical female archetypes and ideas of gender roles of the time, and most of them just have women in pink-collar positions at worst. Here, the episode explicitly invites the audience to see the glass ceiling for women and endorses it. I know a lot of fans interpret it that it was a well-meaning attempt at approaching the injustice women faced, with the protagonists feeling bad for her, but that doesn't really add up with what Nimoy said, and especially with what Roddenberry was like at that time... He was known to be quite the chauvinist and this episode was the peak of that, written while he was going through a devastating divorce. Years later, he came to regret that attitude, and subsequent shows abandoned the idea that women weren't or shouldn't be captain in the Starfleet, but for the 1969 writers, that made sense.

If you have a series that universally portrays women as miniskirted happily-submissive yeomen and nurses or sexed-up aliens to be conquered by Kirk’s peen, and then portray the sole command-level female as a nutjob, and on top of that have her complain “wah it’s all sexism” while being crazy,, the message is obvious. Women demanding equality have always gotten pushback and been labeled “crazy manhating freaks deserving of destruction/humiliation” by the many many men who want women to remain subordinate Yeoman Rands and Nurse Chapels. This episode portrays the “deranged feminazi” trope beloved by incels and Kowalskis the world over

Commenters tying themselves into knots to say, “When i was a kid I got the misogynist message - but now looking back in 2025, I am sure I misinterpreted it; surely that roomful of1960s male writers who invented Chapel, Rand, etc, didn't mean for me to get a misogynist message” is hilarious.

@Marvin, rereading your comment I realize I may have misunderstood it the first time. It is twisty.

But I think ypur childhood interpretation reflected the writers’ intentions.

@tara, yes, I admit that part of my comment is a bit unclear. I didn't say my intepretation of the episode changed since childhood (it didn't). What I meant to say is that I can see why other viewers don't see it that way. Having grown up or lived through times of better gender politics, most of us are used to the idea of women in positions of power, from military to elected leaders and so on. So for the otherwise quasi-utopic future of Star Trek to have a ban on female captains like it was suggested in Turnabout Intruder didn't add up. Plus, the episode is somewhat ambiguous about what it tries to say, with only Janice Lester, who's said to be mentally unwell, talking about the glass ceiling, and in ambiguous words to boot: she doesn't say 'women can never be captains' but 'your [Kirk's] world of starship doesn't allow women. It isn't fair', to which Kirk responds 'no it isn't'. That, combined with subsequent shows contradicting the notion gave viewers space to reintepret it in some other way: "she didn't mean to say women't couldn't become captains, just look at [insert female captain from a show made decades later here], she meant Kirk's life on the Enterprise kept him from having Lester in his life and that's why she's so pissed, also, she's crazy, you can't take her word at face value". That's the most common explanation viewers give to this scene and, given that the idea of a glass ceiling for women at the Starfleet became increasingly implausible as the times went on, I can see why that'd make sense for these viewers.
Most of us are dettached from the reality of mid-20th Century and used to seeing women, at least a few, in positions of power, and while not everyone supports that, even the more overtly sexist viewer would agree that a glass ceiling for women is implausible in the future of ST as it developed. But when the first show came out, for all of its vanguardists ideas for racial equality and peace, it was really stuck in the 1960's ideas of gender. Sure, there were female crewmembers, but none of them ever had positions of power aside from Number One in the unaired Pilot, implying their view of future didn't change much in terms of gender roles, and there were also female scientists treated with varying degrees of respect, but that was still relatively acceptable for the time, whereas women having commanding roles in the military was alien to them (also, a lot of the writers probably thought that if it did happen, it wouldn't be a good thing).
A lot of arguments in defense of this episode bring in the female captain from subsequent series, but they don't seem to remember that the 1960's writers never had that in mind. Tos had very genderized roles for women in the Starfleet, often doing pink-collar jobs like communication officers and glorified secretaries.

I don't see anything as clearly evident from this episode, whether in a vacuum or otherwise. Gene wanted a female #1, the network (owned by a woman) refused to allow it. Gene wasn't really involved in S3 on the other hand. By the writers likewise weren't governed by a central writing room lead like we later see in the Ira Behr days. So the writers quite possibly were each interpreting Trek in their own ways too. I don't personally buy the "series that universally portrays" argument. Some writers may have, others not. Naturally I think it's pretty obvious that people from the 1960's were going to include some 1960's values, like it or not. It would have been difficult to the extreme with random writing submissions to get truly alien and futuristic writing that's canonically consistent with itself. For that to happen you'd absolutely need strong central control of the writing and content. But the question is whether they were using values of their era to put questions to the values of their era, or to reinforce then. I think TOS for the most part put questions to things.

The Kirk-Spock-McCoy dynamic was always one of looking at any issue from varying viewpoints, some of them strongly opposed to each other. Take This Side of Paradise, for instance. We can perhaps see 1960's culture in the episode with the struggle against industrial values, the free-loving value, and the repudiation of established order. And yet despite being a product of its time, I hardly think that episode reinforces either the free-spirited movement (through Spock and the colonists), nor does it advocate for traditionalist values either. Through Kirk it seems to suggest something else, something new. But obviously even that something new had to be recognizable in some way to the people of its day, otherwise how could anyone engage with it. A truly 'futuristic' view of culture and work from 400 years from now might be so totally unrecognizable from anything we understand now that it would fall totally flat with us.

My understanding is that Turnabout Intruder was written by Arthur Singer, based off of a story by Gene Roddenberry. Singer was wholly unfamiliar with the general concept of Trek when he started working on the show, this being before the days when Trek would be a casually understood part of the overall zeitgeist, and thus was constantly striving in his role as story editor for season three to “get” what Star Trek was laying down. Roddenberry for his part was going through an acrimonious divorce at the time. So we have a guy with an evolving interpretation of Trek adapting a story from a guy with an already, shall we say, mercurial relationship to gender issues who’s going through some stuff, and out of that situation springs Turnabout Intruder. Not surprising it’s so easily seen as the premier example of sexism in Trek.

But, as Peter G pointed out, TOS didn’t have a writers room the way modern shows do, it was really antholological(is that a word?) in nature, with scripts submitted by individual writers, so each episode had wildly varying mileage when it came to the values and perspectives it might champion. And parsing writer’s intent is a very difficult thing to determine given the number of hands any given script might pass through. All of this is just a long winded way of saying that, yes, Turnabout Intruder has a certain inescapable chauvinistic tone to it, but when analyzed closely I think it’s pretty reasonable to question whether that was deliberate or simply clumsy storytelling.

I have been reading the comments here and wanted to add something to this discussion. As a kid I didn't really like this episode. After all, it was season three and I was just looking forward to the Kirk-Spock-McCoy swashbuckling dynamic. Kirk as a woman cut into that dynamic and wilted it.

Regarding the question of whether the episode is chauvinistic versus sloppy storytelling, I can see that viewpoint. But that isn't the only issue of gender equality. One glaringly obvious issue of inequality that starts right from the beginning of Star Trek TOS is the lack of female security personnel. I don't recall a landing party ever containing women in that capacity.

It wasn't as though we didn't have programs where women could hold their own in a fight. Emma Peel used to kick the crap out of villains on a weekly basis.

I just saw this again for the first time in decades. It wasn't quite as bad as I remembered. Not quite. But I'd remembered it as pretty terrible. When we heard Shatner voicing Lester's thoughts as (s)he enters the bridge, was that supposed to be a captain's log, in which (s)he divulges her evil plan? Howzatagain???

I had a bit of sympathy for Shatner throughout, trying to portray this absurdly impossible character. Still, it looked very much like not only the character was having a meltdown, but so was Shatner himself! Who could blame him? I agree that the scenes with the other officers were well done, but they couldn't salvage this messed up episode which should never have made it to the screen.

And if anyone doubts it was horribly sexist as well as just plain silly, well, of course it was. I can't tell exactly where the silliness ends and the sexism begins, but who cares?

@Winnie, I think that's a bit more complicated in those old shows. Back in the day, there were a lot of hindrances to keep certain behaviors and elements from appearing on TV, sometimes imposed by the Network executives themselves, based on either what the audiences wouldn't like or on what they assumed the audience wouldn't like. Regarding women and action, most network hesitated to put women in combat, based on the notion that the audience would react poorly to the sight of women betting beat up, especially by male opponents. Even as late as the 1970's, when "Charlie's Angels came out, the action sequences they girls were involved in were tame compared to later decades, and by the next Star Trek series, TNG, they tried to come up with a female security chief who was supposed to get into action as often as the men, but the network was still reluctant to let her fight against male enemies, limiting her role so badly that the actress decided to leave the show. So even by the next show, where female captains and Starfleet as an egalitarian organization were made official, women's part in the action was still limited (though it got better by the next seasons). So the idea of female security guards was simply unthinkable for writers at the time.
I'm thoroughly convinced that when they came up with the Starfleet in the original show, they had no intention of challenging contemporary gender roles in the slightest. Female crewmembers were always cast doing typical pink-collar jobs, such as communication officer, nurse, yeomans whose jobs were essentially secretaries, it was clear that in the context of TOS as it was conceived in the 1960's, the gender roles were the same as contemporary military organizations, where women weren't supposed to achieve commanding or combat roles, their duties were pink-collared and, at best, they could participate in the action during emergencies, but the men were always supposed to be in charge during regular situations.
Which is why I don't buy the notion that "Turnabout" was a story about an insane villain who just happens to be a woman. That she's a woman, hates being a woman and claims that it's holding her back then steals a man's identity, it's all essential for the story and what it's telling us. There are no accidents in the implications here.

@ Marvin,

I don't know who "they" are, since the pilot featured a female #1 and Roddenberry only backed down because Desilu made him. Although I agree that Yar was miswritten, I'm not sure it had anything to do with Gene, at any rate. He had foibles but I don't know that that was one of them. And DS9 went full on and made Jadzia a warrior woman, and honestly similarly for Kira.

@Peter G., I meant the showrunners, not just specifically Roddenberry, and I didn't mean that it was their "fault" that Tasha was miswritten. Like I said, at that time there were still restrictions about what a female character could and couldn't do. She wasn't allowed to get into action as often as she was supposed to, even though it's clear that the showrunners envisioned her as a tough, physically capable action heroine. There were other factors, of course, from the writers's strike which tainted the scripts made during Tasha's episodes, to how the show was struggling to find its tone by then.
By the next seasons, things got better, as Dr. Crusher and Counselor Troi got more involved in action and compelling storylines. But that's because network restrictions were changing and now the writers had more liberty to get the women in combat roles. I'm sure Tasha would be much better had she remained in the series or created by the next few seasons. The same goes for DS9, which came out when there was less restrictions and they could come up with characters like Jadzia and Kira, who could hardly be made when TNG started, and would *never* exist in TOS.

Marvin wrote: @Winnie, I think that's a bit more complicated in those old shows. Back in the day, there were a lot of hindrances to keep certain behaviors and elements from appearing on TV, sometimes imposed by the Network executives themselves, based on either what the audiences wouldn't like or on what they assumed the audience wouldn't like. Regarding women and action, most network hesitated to put women in combat, based on the notion that the audience would react poorly to the sight of women betting beat up, especially by male opponents.

The 1960s were a decade of change. There were a host of 1960s television shows and movies that empowered women, both mentally and physically.

Star Trek also participated in giving females empowerment. There's great praise that Uhura was the communications officer but it's forgotten that Uhura could be tough and ruthless, as shown in the Gamesters of Triskelion and Mirror, Mirror. If she can be portrayed as tough and ruthless, there's no reason women had to be treated with kit gloves.

I agree that not all women could assume a combat role. But then again, neither can all men. To me, that raises the question of why Dr. McCoy went on all away missions. He certainly didn't have much in the way of combat skills.

@Winnie, true, the 1960's were a decade of changes, some of which were embraced and pushed forward by Star Trek, including in the portrayal of women. That there could even be women in the crew, and that they could participate in the action in occasions was a sign of changing times, compared to other times when women in action sequences was unthinkable, so examples like female scientists, and of course Uhura, who got to be part of the main cast, take action more than once and show "a tough, ruthless side" as you said. But those aspects came under several limitations at the time, which is why the absence of women as security guards and other action roles is unsurpriging. It's unclear whether the portrayal of women as mostly pink-collared crewmembers was a creative decision from the showrunners or enforced by the network to make the "future" more familiar with what the 1960's was used to, but regardless, the point is that the show's portrayal of women is easily the least vanguardist aspect in TOS. The show went out of its way to include nonwhite characters as no different than white ones and hardly used any racial stereotypes aside from a "Paradise Syndrome" or two. But with female characters, the series really shows its age. Most crewmembers held pink-collared positions, most women who showed up were love interests and the show frequently displayed some painfully dated depictions and ideas of women, most of which were commonplace or at least more tolerated decades ago.
Again, one can't dismiss the importance of these pioneering characters. The women on the crew may have limited roles, but just the fact that they were and that Uhura was a prominent character, was enlightening to a lot of girls, and paved the way for more changes in following shows.

@Marvin It's unclear whether the portrayal of women as mostly pink-collared crewmembers was a creative decision from the showrunners or enforced by the network to make the "future" more familiar with what the 1960's was used to, but regardless, the point is that the show's portrayal of women is easily the least vanguardist aspect in TOS."

Yes, women were pink-colored crewmembers in Star Trek. I don't think this was a creative decision from showrunners or enforced by the network. I think it came from Roddenberry himself. We can praise Star Trek for taking the bold step of assigning an interracial crew to Enterprise, as well as providing a show that showed innovative bold designs that were forerunners of things we use today.

But when it came to women, I believe it was Roddenberry who pulled the strings tightly. Make them officers, queens, or even super powered. But they need to know their place. He made sure of that.

Sorry for the above typo. That should read women were pink collared crewmembers in Star Trek.

A woman who hates being a woman is not proof positive of insanity nor is it abnormal. Some of the things pointed out in this thread are very good reasons why a woman would hate being a woman. As a woman there have been other women I couldn't stand being around simply because they were women. I'm sure the reverse is true as well.

I praised Sandra Smith's performance (as Captain Kirk) n this episode, but I think I'm going to take that praise down a notch. She acts all calm and collected, which makes Shatner's performance even more outrageous. While all of that has been praised, I think the production team completely missed what Dr. Lester was trying to say. Whether you believe she was insane or not, she was trying to make a point which went over the heads of all of the males who came in contact with her.

Kirk should have gotten a huge wake up call when he inhabited Dr. Lester's body. He could have seen what it meant, firsthand, to be a woman. This was a procedure (for lack of a better word) that was forced upon him. Yet he's all calm and collected.....okay Spock just do a mind meld on me, you'll see, I'm still male and the real Captain Kirk. Ugh.

I don't know if Shatner planned it this way, but as the male Captain Kirk, he's a real a-hole in that episode. If he did, snaps for his performance because it shows just how ignorant Kirk can be at times. He didn't get it. Acting all glib about the fact that he loved Dr. Lester at one time just doesn't cut it. His more recent escapades just show how much he doesn't know about love.

I have wondered why Dr. Lester simply didn't become a man. Surely by the 23rd century, the procedure was be a much simpler process than it is today.

@MaraCass: "I have to laugh at the SJW who call sexism because Starfleet doesn't have female captains. Hello, the Federation is a MILITARY organisation. In all societies in all ages, it's men who go to war, with a few capable and heroic women thrown in, but nevertheless, a man's business. Because women are smaller and weaker and many many many of them prefer a comfortable home and children, to going off to dangerous and possibly fatal expeditions. Besides, we want people promoted due to capabilities not due to gender, to fill out quotas. Everybody who thinks the military would benefit from more women (by the way, I am one) should watch Redonkulous Can't Cut the Mustard on Youtube."

I think that's missing what bothers people so much about this episode. It's not the idea that Starfleet doesn't have female captains (that's kind of expected from a 1960's production), it's the perceived idea that this episode condones the absence of women and tells us that they should "know their place". After the presence of women in the military and positions of power became commonplace, an episode that says they are unfit for the captaincy comes across as regressive and against everythibg the franchise has advocates for. It's unclear whether or not that message was intended by the writers, but that's certainly what a lot of viewers intepreted, and that's the equivalent of an episode about a black man insisting that the Starfleet has a race problem and that that's why he never got to be captain, then being portrayed as unstable, spiteful and as "trying to live the wrong life". An episode with such a premise would be futurally condemned as racist and regressive, just as this episode is for, as far as a lot of viewers perceived, having a hysterical woman question that she couldn't be captain for her gender and then being portrayed as crazy and "trying to live the wrong life".

@Marvin- think that's missing what bothers people so much about this episode. It's not the idea that Starfleet doesn't have female captains (that's kind of expected from a 1960's production). it's the perceived idea that this episode condones the absence of women and tells us that they should "know their place".

I know this was directed at MaraCass, but I would like to add my thoughts regarding your post. I get that the 1960s were a pink collared era, as you have stated previously. Star Trek was supposed to be a progressive step toward the future and in some ways it was, but not where women were concerned. They were literally kept in their place. Consider Nurse Chapel. She's boring. She hides a secret love for Spock. She's in sickbay sometimes. What she does in the other times is anyone's guess. She may as well be anonymous.

That cannot be excused with the reason that things were different in the 60s. It's just terrible writing. We all know that if Roddenberry really wanted more than female eye candy, he would have fought long and hard for it.

Getting back to Dr. Lester, she was never labeled as insane or unstable by Dr. McCoy. She (as Kirk) passed the psychological tests. I tend to think she suffered from celebium poisoning and that may have triggered her behavior. But the test results showed no evidence of mental illness. According to McCoy, the results were the only thing Starfleet was going to be interested in. So, there was no indication of insanity before Kirk met up with her and Dr. Coleman.

Kirk is the one who makes the detrimental remarks about Dr. Lester, and acts as though he's the medical authority on her condition. When he admits he once loved her, it's not sincere or compassionate. If Shatner did that to show how cold and heartless he was toward her, I given him snaps for the performance. I suspect, however, that it was done in an effort to make him seem empathetic, despite what she did to him.

One thing I thought was very interesting was how comfortable Kirk (as Dr. Lester) was without his shirt during his physical. I would have expected him to affect modesty and try to cover up, or simply ask McCoy if he could leave his shirt on. That would have been a much more believable reaction than filing his nails. So I also have to take down Shatner's performance a notch too.

I would have loved a scene between Kirk and McCoy, with Kirk sharing what it was like to be a woman, including the betrayal he must have felt, along with the bullying and torment he would have experienced. His take would have been priceless.

One final clarification. Starfleet is not military, nor is the Federation military. They are peaceful organizations whose primary objectives were scientific discoveries and exploration of the final frontier. So there is no "military reason" why Dr. Lester could not have gone on to be a captain. It seems that the only thing that held her back was the issue of being a woman.

Winnie, I think there is a bias that the work of the military is only in relation to war or otherwise tasks involving violence and weapons. In peacetime the military is used in various ways. To coordinate and maintain the order of citizens during natural disasters and evacuations, and to help survivors set up temporary camps, to escort important people or guard particular places even when there is no threat, to train almost all the pilots of airplane, even those who will then work on civil aircraft, and in many other peaceful missions. Including scientific research and keeping laboratories safe where something is dangerous. In some cases even maintain a sports team able to compete internationally.

In Starfleet: 1- there is court martial, 2 - the captain can put you under arrest, without even a real justification, or confine you to your quarters, 3 - who is in command has access to numerous extremely destructive weapons that he can use at his discretion, 4 - you can resign, but not during particular missions even if they endanger or even consciously sacrifice your life. And during these situations you cannot refuse an order even if it puts you in danger, 5 - everyone is constantly reminded of their rank and to whom they must obey with words such as "sir", 6 - you may suddenly be transferred to work even far away from your home and family, without a major cause (see Date in Datalore or Dr Crusher in season 2 of TNG). Something that is usually not allowed to a civil company because it would create an infinity of problems forcing people to go to the other side of the country for work. There are laws that protect workers' rights (or there were), 7 - there are numerous murders of people and forms of life, which would put a civilian in an infinity of processes to determine the reasonableness of his actions, but here they are treated as a normal working day.

Starfleet is not a civilian organization. Even if some of its ships are for peaceful exploration. And in fact in case of war are those who are called to arms. In the TOS in particular there is a cold war with the Klingons ongoing.
If you want, they can be considered military personnel protecting a scientific project.

In other words if it looks like a duck and "quack" like a duck, it is a duck. Or any futuristic version of it.

Dandelion, I agree, Starfleet is not a civilian organization. I was referring to Gene Roddenberry's vision, in which Starfleet's primary purpose was exploration and scientific discovery, as well as diplomacy.

The episode with Dr. Lester occurs in the original series, at a time when he was at the helm, pushing his ideas. At the beginning of the episode, Captain Kirk's relates the Enterprise's mission statement, which references exploring new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, boldly going where no man has gone before. There is nothing in that statement that refers to the Enterprise as a ship that will defend Starfleet or its allies' interests.
There's also the Prime Directive, which differs Starfleet and the Federation from a military agency.

Now I know there are arguments to the contrary and I understand those arguments. I also understand Roddenberry was in constant battle to present Starfleet and the Federation as a non-military organization and he didn't always win those battles. But I don't know of any article out there where he ever changed his vision of Starfleet and the Federation to military organizations because of it.

I also know there were many times when Captain Kirk and his crew were captured, tortured, or encountered other alien mayhem. In at least one of the cases that I can think of, Captain Kirk himself turns to diplomacy and succeeds, rather than alerting Starfleet to man the troops and wage war.

Finally, if this were really and truly a military organization, would a tricked out ship like the Enterprise be called upon to rescue some civilian scientists because of a distress call? I get that the Enterprise is often "the only ship out there" trope is used, but in this case it makes no sense. I would think a medical ship with adequate personnel and experience would be sent to organize the rescue, not the Enterprise.

So is it really a "duck" in the context of this episode? I tend to think not, but I understand the opinions of those who do.

I find your remark very interesting because I found the enterprise of the TOS more "military" than that of TNG. In large part the impression is due to the absence/ presence of families, but I also believe because in the TOS the interactions between the characters are more realistic and you breathe an atmosphere closer to reality. The very "clean" interactions of TNG take away something from the military spirit as we understand it today.
On the other hand in the TOS there are also many episodes where it seems that the atmosphere and camaraderie of the crew, more than being that a group of soldiers is that of a group of people dispersed amidst a hostile universe/nature who rely on a very strong figure as leader.
A bit like trying to recreate the caravans of pioneers who first settled in America.
I am one of those "old school" who grew up with ST when it was already a lot if there were some episodes on tv, internet and interviews to actors and directors did not exist for me, but the internal struggle in conception can explain the two types of overlapping atmospheres.
In particular it came to my mind The Enemy Within and how the importance of maintaining the crew’s view of the captain’s strength and invulnerability takes precedence over what should be a normal (military) procedure in case of command incapacity. I find that the episode takes on a different hue if you think of a group of people who rely on a hierarchy, not for a military code, but for survival, and can’t lose faith in their leader no matter what happens, because the alternative and the resulting internal disputes would still lead to death.

Althought I do not find a conflict between a military organization and the First Directive. The primary purpose of the army in many nations nowadays is to protect one’s homeland, not to conquer territories and expand. Not interfering with other nations/planets seems compatible. Despite the colonizing atmosphere of 1500-1600, when exploration expeditions mainly served to plant the flag of one’s country on a new territory, here we are in the future. I hope (or was hoped at the time) that people have learned that they cannot claim every new place where they set foot as their own.
And I would make the same objection to declaring war for being captured or tortured instead of using diplomacy. Enterprise members venture into the territories and airspace of other planets and creatures. They are the "invaders". The federation can say as much as it wants that half of the galaxy it's its airspace, but as long as it is full of unexplored planets and beings they have never met - some in life since before earth existed - it is simply false. If there is anyone who can claim that the galaxy is his, it is surely one of the various god-like embodied beings. That human beings do not complain for not being welcomed with open arms and make use of diplomacy seems to me the minimum, military or not. And it does not seem to happen so often in TOS, a little better, but not always in TNG. The headline "we sent a group of soldiers to explore that newly discovered virgin island and because the natives were hostile we exterminated them" would not make a good impression in the newspapers.

"A bit like trying to recreate the caravans of pioneers who first settled in America."

Roddenberry's vision was based on the original Wagon Train series. He wanted a wagon train to the stars.

"In particular it came to my mind The Enemy Within and how the importance of maintaining the crew’s view of the captain’s strength and invulnerability takes precedence over what should be a normal (military) procedure in case of command incapacity. I find that the episode takes on a different hue if you think of a group of people who rely on a hierarchy, not for a military code, but for survival, and can’t lose faith in their leader no matter what happens, because the alternative and the resulting internal disputes would still lead to death."

This is a good analogy. One thing I find with that episode is Spock's statement (and I'm paraphrasing here), that Captain Kirk cannot afford to "tell the truth about himself" to the entire crew. Spock said in the eyes of the crew he is perfect. That to me makes him untouchable, and I don't see that in Kirk. Spock was just becoming a character on his own, so this may have been a script goof.

Telling the truth does open up a can of worms. For example, is Captain Kirk really himself now? No medical personnel ever evaluated him. Then the whole thing was covered up by a conspiracy between the officers and Kirk himself. I believe that if this was the military and it was found out, there would be a zero tolerance policy. As it's the Federation, does the Captain and crew have some leeway in this type of a situation? No one died, except the dog, and the crewmen on the planet were saved.

I also grew up with Star Trek. I watched the episodes in real time. I was a kid back then and didn't even know who Gene Roddenberry was. But I liked the show and continued to watch reruns over the years.

"And I would make the same objection to declaring war for being captured or tortured instead of using diplomacy. Enterprise members venture into the territories and airspace of other planets and creatures. They are the "invaders". The federation can say as much as it wants that half of the galaxy it's its airspace, but as long as it is full of unexplored planets and beings they have never met - some in life since before earth existed - it is simply false. If there is anyone who can claim that the galaxy is his, it is surely one of the various god-like embodied beings. That human beings do not complain for not being welcomed with open arms and make use of diplomacy seems to me the minimum, military or not."

I'm fully in agreement with you about the crew encountering hostility or injury when visiting the planets they select with new life and civilizations.

However, there are specific Star Trek episodes in which this was not the case. When I typed my response, I was thinking of "The Gamesters of Triskelion", in which Captain Kirk (naturally), Uhura, and Chekov were kidnapped and forced to participate in mortal combat. Kirk gambled right along with the Gamesters, betting all lives for eternal slavery, if they won, or freedom for all, if he won.

This was by no means the standard yardstick for diplomacy, but it is a start. Certainly Kirk could have possibly fought his way out, and secured escape for him and his crew. He could have hotfooted it back to Starfleet with tales of kidnapping, brutality, slavery, and out and out right murder, all based on gambling by superior beings. I have no idea what effect this would have had on the Federation, but I do think it would be a different outcome than sending an olive branch in their direction.

Kirk directed all of them toward the unknown territory of freedom, and perhaps years down the road, a place with the Federation.

One final thing. the tv series prides itself on developing the Klingon language. Yet, they can't come up with different ranks for Starfleet? It's easy to get this confused with the military, because they're using military positions that viewers understand. Roddenberry wanted something outside of the military, but with military capabilities. The Federation is composed of various aliens. It's more than a little unbelievable that they would be comfortable with earth developed names.

@ Winnie,

"One final thing. the tv series prides itself on developing the Klingon language. Yet, they can't come up with different ranks for Starfleet? It's easy to get this confused with the military, because they're using military positions that viewers understand. Roddenberry wanted something outside of the military, but with military capabilities. The Federation is composed of various aliens. It's more than a little unbelievable that they would be comfortable with earth developed names."

Don't forget that the show is more just "just" a sci-fi show reinventing humanity from whole cloth. There are many things TOS included which are absolutely supposed to be recognizable. The Klingon/Human cold war is meant to be overtly similar to the USSR/USA one. The UFP flag is overtly designed to look like the UN flag, and the idea of a Federation of planets is supposed to be a futuristic and improved version of the hopefulness of the UN's establishment. The missions to the unknown and uncharted terrain are supposed to be like Wagon Train, yes, but also like nautical adventures. And the nautical themes, sounds, and design are very much present in TOS, including in the type of submarine suspense we see in Balance of Terror and other episodes. The ranks themselves are naval, and are meant to be a clear indication that starships are the future of ships, generally: a space navy. As opposed to a space merchant marine or space settler train.

TNG would later play further on just how much, for example, British Empire era navies, acted as ambassador, warship, and vessel of exploration, all in one. TOS anticipated and certainly included this in its design, but TNG outright had it in the character bible of Picard. So one really can't escape naval rank as being the obvious choice so that we'd understand exactly what a starship is doing out there, and how much latitude it has.

I would add to what Peter G wrote and say that many of the trappings of TOS were intentionally evocative of a ship alone exploring the wilds of unknown frontiers, deliberately focused on the wonder of the unknown and the adventurist element that goes with that. For example, I’ve always assumed that James Kirk, captain of the USS Enterprise is meant to be reminiscent of James Cook, captain of the HMS Endeavor, giving the audience a subconscious thematic vibe of venturing over the horizon. As such, I think the adherence to rigid command structures and the capability of armed combat play into that aspect as well.

@Peter G
"Don't forget that the show is more just "just" a sci-fi show reinventing humanity from whole cloth. There are many things TOS included which are absolutely supposed to be recognizable. The UFP flag is overtly designed to look like the UN flag, and the idea of a Federation of planets is supposed to be a futuristic and improved version of the hopefulness of the UN's establishment."

This is a very good argument for viewing the Federation and Starfleet as peacekeeping organizations rather than military ones.

@Peter G
"The Klingon/Human cold war is meant to be overtly similar to the USSR/USA one."

I pulled this interesting sentence out because I wanted to address it separately. While I can see other viewers looking at Star Trek with this point of view, I never did. Granted, I was a child when Star Trek first aired, but even in multiple viewings of the original series into adulthood, I never thought the Klingons were smart enough to be considered a respected and feared ally to be of Cold War status. In the original series, they were never fleshed out. They were just a plot element used to drive the episode to its conclusion.

As for making Star Trek more recognizable to viewers, I would wonder why the creative team would have to. It was supposed to be a show about strange new worlds. Viewers are not stupid by any means, and I have seen some terrible episodes based on the recognizable. For instance, the dreadful, "The Omega Glory" is among the worst. The creative team often did not do recognizable well. Some of the episodes seemed more of a last ditch effort, because the team just couldn't come up with anything else.

I'm not against the Federation and Starfleet applying some earth ranking terms to its personnel. However, regardless of whether these organizations are viewed are military or peacekeeping, I feel the creative team should have developed their own ranks for their various human and alien crews that are part of the Federation. This is supposed to be a show that featured the combined effort of different worlds. I just don't see various planets in the Federation accepting a ranking system that was designed for earthers because it appeals to humans.

@ Winnie,

"As for making Star Trek more recognizable to viewers, I would wonder why the creative team would have to."

I think this was actually the bold move on their part, rather than laziness. If you look at the type of sci-fi in that era - Buck Rogers, Lost in Space, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon, and others - you'd find IMO that they tended to be exactly as you're suggesting, their own thing, not based on anything real, and also IMO not very serious. By attaching itself to real world issues (set in the future) it lends gravity to the situation without needing backstory. It allowed Trek to be sci-fi, but serious, and about problems both contemporary and imagined. So it's not to make it more recognizable per se, it's to make it more real. It feels like a real place with real people, almost a magic lens into the future. And I think it achieved that.

@ Peter G.
"I think this was actually the bold move on their part, rather than laziness. If you look at the type of sci-fi in that era - Buck Rogers, Lost in Space, Doctor Who, Flash Gordon, and others - you'd find IMO that they tended to be exactly as you're suggesting, their own thing, not based on anything real, and also IMO not very serious. By attaching itself to real world issues (set in the future) it lends gravity to the situation without needing backstory. It allowed Trek to be sci-fi, but serious, and about problems both contemporary and imagined. So it's not to make it more recognizable per se, it's to make it more real. It feels like a real place with real people, almost a magic lens into the future. And I think it achieved that."

Adding that there were some stinkers in Star Trek that left me with questions.

"Miri" was an episode featuring human children that took place on a planet with recognizable structures and vehicles, and a virus. It was "another earth". It doesn't get any more recognizable than that. Unfortunately, in my opinion, there was not a lot of gravity to the story because we all know, by the end of the story, Captain Kirk and his courageous crew are going to save the day and the planet. I actually like the episode, but if I compare it to the covid virus and what we all went through with that, there is no comparison.

Not all Star Trek episodes were of this nature, but there were some stinkers among them. Turnabout Intruder at least very lightly touched upon the treatment of women. Unfortunately, that all evaporated when Kirk got his maleness back and Dr. Lester was relegated to just another insane female. That never resonated with me. However, I still like the episode despite having to check my brains at the door.

@ Winnie,

At the end of the day I think we need to keep in mind that the writing for these episodes wasn't particularly unified. Some of the contemporary references (the UN, cold war, naval rank and associated politics, nautical terms, etc) were put in and emphasized, while other episodes feel much more like space adventure of the day. You've got your Journey to Babel and Trouble with Tribbles, and you've got your Miri and Squire of Gothos. It's a mix.

@Peter G.
It is indeed.

Mine is an honest question, because in the era in which I grew up, TV series were "for children" or at least for teenagers who wasted time. Especially the more fantasy (or science fiction) ones. I have certainly been influenced in the way I see it, but it still seems to me that many of the messages and teachings are aimed at children.

But I didn't grow up in America.
So my question is this: wasn't star trek created with an audience of mostly children and teenagers in mind? Did the authors already have in mind an audience of scientists or at least adults interested not only in light entertainment but in social issues and scientific problems?

Obviously an audience of children would make it clear why the Klingons are not represented as a real threat nor a realistic copy of the Soviet Union, but more as a cartoonish "villain".

(In order not to create misunderstandings is not a criticism, great masterpieces have been written or drawn and filmed for children. Which can teach or at least interest adults too. And in general what is aimed at children has a message - and a lot of imagination and often care - while it is full of useless adult films - no double entendres! Also I have this impression much more in TNG - expecially season 1, that I realized it's the only one whose episodes I remember without failing even if it's the one I have seen less. TOS seems much less for kids and much more for adults who are afraid of what kids can become)

I would say that the writers behind TOS were mostly writing fairly sophisticated stories that dealt with ideas that can best be described as “adult.” However, the process of transferring those stories into television often involved broadening their appeal to both adults and children/teens, leaving the show with an occasionally whimsical, even sometimes weirdly lighthearted tone paired with an extraordinary philosophical and critical depth. When you add into that the novelty of an optimistic vision of a brighter future for humanity at a time when most sci-fi was envisioning dystopian societies and nuclear annihilation, especially when that future is primed toward the encouragement of intellectual endeavors and scientific curiosity, I think you have fertile ground to attract the sort of people for whom a career in science or various avenues of research would be enticing. Though I doubt TOS’s various writers were particularly aiming at creating a generation of proud super nerds, they were probably more focused on getting their scripts written on time so they could pay their rent and other more practical concerns. I’d imagine the influence of Star Trek on intellectual pursuits was an unexpected, albeit pleasant, development tied to numerous converging factors.

Idh2023, thanks for the reply. Basically you are saying that the target of the authors was adults, while the target of the television agency was both adults and children. And the adaptation creates a strange mix that is difficult to understand.
My question is probably simply poorly asked since in the middle of this dicytomy each author probably interpreted the intent of the show differently and each episode should be taken on its own, with even some strange rewrites.
I got used to TV series with specific targets (for example Hercules/Xena - children, Buffy - teenagers, ER - adults), but these shows came decades later.
Perhaps a more coherent question would have been: was science fiction, even in books, aimed at a young or adult audience? But this question is also misleading, because it depends both on the specific author, on the specific book, and on how it was then interpreted and appreciated or not by the public (both the target and the non-target).
Many on the site complain that the messages in some episodes are too obvious and too pushed down by the throat or too simplistic, but the problem often seems to be a different target.
I also wondered if the cultural climate in America was different. Because even if it was written decades after, ER for example it is clearly a TV series that wants to speak to an adult audience and that - I imagine - those who conceived it thought had little to say to a child. But even in 1994 "the rest of the world" was still far from conceiving TV series with an adult target. Some might perhaps refute me by quoting Dr Who, I've never seen it, but those few episodes of the most recent series that I happened to see seemed like they were for an audience of children.

@Dandelion in my experience the essence of good storytelling doesn't change with the target audience. I have seen fantastic programming aimed at children that was more "adult" than alleged adult programming. Storytelling is storytelling. Now yes because kids may in some respects be less discerning you can *get away with* feeding them trash in the same way a seaside resort tourist trap can get away with selling crap food, but crap is crap in storytelling as well as food. Being for kids is never an excuse.

@Jason R., I still find what was said interesting. It reminds me how experimental was the format and that I have holes in my knowledge on how science fiction was recived - something that probably has changed multiple times with highs and lows.
I completely agree that you can find great programs aimed at children. But I don't think writing for a different public is just a matter of how much you can "get away with". Explanations that slow down the plot can be useless or necessary, a type of comedy can be better or worse received, stereotypes can be understood or pigeonholed into a certain message or ignored or misunderstood by a different audience, etc.

Revisiting now, I admit that it's a bit hard to see just what the writers meants to say with this story. The most plausible interpretation to me was that women aren't fit to be in positions of power and those who think otherwise are unstable (like Lester is), hate and don't accept their own womanhood (again, Lester) and would be much happier if they only accepted their feminine nature and settled in positions suitable for them ("her life could be as happy as any woman's, if only"). I get why a lot of viewers don't see it that way, and it's actually possible that the writers didn't mean to say that either. Maybe they meant to tackle the glass ceiling and used a female character who compains about not achieving power while still reminding the audience that she's an insane, unreliable expositor, and so her words shouldn't be taken for granted, so at the end, when she breaks down, we're meant to feel sorry for her and lament what women have to face.
However, if that's what they intended, I think this episode fails. Because while it invites us to feel for Lester, it also makes her embody every pro-glass ceiling argument in the book, as aforementioned (hates her own womanhood, is unnatural, unstable, etc). So if they to address the glass ceiling, their handling of the subject fails, especially because it's so vague and uncertain about what it's trying to say.
Also, there's the argument that it isn't necessarily about her as a woman, and only about how insane she is and so is unfit for captaincy, nothing whatsoever abput her sex. Except, if this episode isn't about Lester as a woman, then what the trek is it supposed to be about? The whole story revolved around her as a woman, around the fact that she hates being a woman, and that she literally tries to take a man's place. I seriously doubt the writers weren't meaning to say something about women and the glass ceiling when this whole story is about her womanhood. Which is why I think the whole "Lester was just imagining a glass ceiling, so there's nothing sexist about this story" defense only ever works if we reimagine the episode's entire thematic. Because if we go by what it was originally saying, then either they were trying to address the glass ceiling in sympathetic view of women, only to reinforce the glass ceiling, or they agreed with the glass ceiling and sought to reinforce it on purpose. whichever the case, it ain't pretty.

Isn't it almost poetic that the final TOS episode is the one where Kirk's pattern of walking out on lovers finally catches up with him? Less fitting is that "women can't captain [Starfleet] starships" and other sexist motifs overshadow everything else since you would think that even 60s era Trek would be more prescient. The problem here can't be easily sidestepped as "just a product of its time". It's not merely window dressing (mini-skirts, offhand remarks); the sexism is baked into the central premise and the way the message is conveyed.

But is "Turnabout Intruder" truly a total wash and an ignoble end for Star Trek until the franchise reached a more enlightened decade? Fandom seems divided. Many reach for generous reinterpretations -- revisionist readings that dismantle charges of sexism piecemeal, leaning heavily on the script's vague and non-committal stance. Understandable as this instinct is, the moment you look at the full pattern and connect the dots, these theories don't hold up. For example: uncoupling Dr. Lester's apparent madness from her gender loses credibility when that madness is specifically framed in terms of gender-coded "hysteria".

A better salvage strategy is to stop defending the indefensible and focus instead on what "Turnabout Intruder" does right. In some ways, it's not a bad choice of finale, since it showcases a crew that has grown and learned across its five-year mission. It features at least three callbacks to earlier episodes: a rarity in episodic Trek, and it poses a meaningful question: how well does the Enterprise crew really know and trust its captain, and how far would they follow him if he ever lost his moral and rational compass? As Kirk struggles to retain his command in a dubious body that commands no authority, Spock and McCoy truly come into their own as individuals rather than dependent halves of a perfect triad. Spock, normally bound by logic and facts, lets his intuition guide him to the right conclusion. McCoy, usually ruled by rash instinct, reins himself in with a by-the-book method that frustratingly demands the kind of hard evidence his medical tools cannot provide. And most striking of all: Spock and McCoy work together without Kirk's moderating presence. Gone are the barbs and name-calling; in their place is a cooperative respect forged by long experience.

This was also a prime opportunity for Shatner to dial the Shatnerisms up to eleven, with gleefully over-the-top results. Paradoxically, it's also a showcase for some of his more subtle choices. When not shouting or throwing tantrums, he smirks smugly at the wrong moments or delivers dialogue stiffly, as Lester can't mimic his casual rhythms or word choices. All the main cast, really, are a joy to watch in this heightened situation.

And best of all: it's suspenseful. With barely a dull moment (save for some overlong courtroom theatrics), Hitchcock himself might have approved. The focus stays squarely on the imposter as she juggles three impossible tasks: pass as a Starfleet captain, impersonate Kirk among his closest friends, and cover up her crime while silencing her witness. As the pressure mounts, her facade cracks, and the tension escalates. We may care more about the real Kirk than Lester, but she remains compelling as an antagonist, her desire so infectious that we can't look away. And for a final episode, there was even the opportunity for Roddenberry to end on a daring, Twilight Zone–style note of ambiguity: what if the real Kirk hadn't won? That would have been a chilling and subversive send-off, if nothing else.

As for the ending, it's striking that the Enterprise crew never seems to connect Lester and Coleman with the murders of the other scientists on the planet. That whole thread just vanishes, likely due to time constraints. As a result, both are treated with surprising leniency despite multiple crimes. Kirk assumes, perhaps too generously, that Lester has suffered a permanent breakdown and poses no danger to anyone but herself. His response is sympathy rather than justice: she needs care, not punishment. But this "care" may well mean the same convenient "insanity cure" once offered to Garth of Izar, erasing her crimes, her rage, and even her internalized misogyny as if they never existed. If so, that would be convenient but also fitting: by reducing a woman's ambition and grievance to pathology, tidying it away so that the male order of things can remain undisturbed. If only it were that simple. If only.

@Bryan,

your comment reminds me of an ancient dilemma about how to interpret old fiction, whether to condemn what's unacceptable in recent standards or focus on what good is in it, making the best out of what we consume, especially when the good outweighs the bad. It's not always a simple task, because people have different perceptions what is and is not tolerable, how big is the bad and the good, and sometimes even *what* is bad good. Regarding this episode, under the intepretation that it does indeed say that women aren't captains in TOS and that Lester's attempt at stealing Kirk's place is indicative of why they shouldn't, should we separate that from what's good in the episode? This episode is not devoid of objectively things; the portrayal of the Enterprise crew as principled and loyal to their ideals, and capable of standing up to their captain when "he" starts acting erratic, the fact that Spock is able to recognize his friend under his female body and accept a fairly outlandish situation. But does it really outweigh the bad? A woman who wants to be captain being portrayed as insane and (intentionally or not) making a point about women not being suitable for captaincy; this alleged glass ceiling contradicting every subsequent series in the franchise; then there's the plot holes in the resolution... the villainess, who as we know killed at least two people along with her accomplish, had a breakdown and is treated with kid gloves, and then her accomplish is allowed to remain free and look after her. Excuse me? Lock that man up! He's not insane, he can answer for his crimes. Even outside of the gender politics in the episode, I find this resolution to be ridiculous.

@Marvin

That dilemma of how to engage with older fiction is something I often wrestle with when it comes to TOS. For me, it comes down to balance. If an episode has a lot to recommend it, I'll separate out the good and the bad and respond to each in as fair and detached a way as I can, without excusing the bad just to make my overall appraisal more comfortable. If an episode is both problematic and dull, I'll usually come down much harder in my assessment, maybe even poke fun at it. On the flip side, if I think a "problematic" episode is better than its reputation suggests, I'll put more energy into defending that, like I did with "Space Seed".

But the key is this: weighing good vs. bad can be misleading. It's not that the good cancels out the bad, but that the good exists alongside the bad, and we need to be clear-eyed about both. Any critique, positive or negative, has to be defensible by what's in the text itself; leaning too much on authorial intent or modern sensibilities risks reshaping the episode into something it never was. That's not to say those perspectives aren't valuable; they can deepen our understanding. But they have to be grounded in what the story actually presents, or else we end up critiquing a phantom version of the work rather than the work itself. For instance, some will build up "Turnabout Intruder" on the basis of (supposedly) well-meaning authorial intent that never actually comes through in the text, while others tear down "Space Seed" because a surface-level reading clashes with modern sensibilities, ignoring the contextual clues that complicate that picture.

Back to this episode though. I concur that the ending here feels unresolved, especially with how Lester and Coleman are handled. The in-universe explanation -- that the Enterprise crew may not fully know the extent of their crimes -- only goes so far. It doesn't erase the wrongness, and the irony of the audience knowing more than the characters makes for a very unbefitting series finale. I guess, the difference is, that didn't sour the whole experience for me.

It appears to me the consensus of opinion of this final broadcast episode of TOS is that it’s one of the worst in the series.
I have to completely disagree. On the contrary, it’s a real tours’ de force of William Shatner’s ability to come roaring forth dominating all other performances in the episode, that’s a given. But thats also what we pay our ticket price for and nobody should apologize for it. Bring it on Bill!
As far as story plausibility, it no more or less believable than any other science fiction yarn put before ST fans. In fact, its originality can be commended when set this clever tale against the dozens of evil alien phaser battles, galactic plagues, etc.
I do agree with the numerous comments regarding the ending. It was a bit truncated to say the least, and deserved more post-crazy Miss Nutty being led away with just the o’ “she had so much potential” cliche remark.
As far as the numerous comments about how supposedly “sexist” the episode was, that’s just stupid. Stories containing themes of obsession, hate between former lovers, mad scientists, or whatever where there are no gender considerations is head scratching. Like mounting square tires on your car.
Unless in the realm of sci fi, the writer invents a half dozen brand new unknown genders just so nobody can cry foul that the story is biased one way or another. Jeez, how woke can a script get before all are happy!
Anyway, I really get so entertained and laugh during the mutiny hearing scene each time I see Captain Kirk (Janice Lester) assume that prissy body stance and give his best,”Tisk, Tisk, Tisk! at some verbal point one of others brings up. That never gets old….

Science fiction aside for a moment, here is another perspective:

Captain Kirk's presence is not required on the planet surface.

Captain Kirk knows Janice Lester is on the planet.

Captain Kirk had a turbulent affair with Lester and knows his presence alone could complicate efforts to handle the distress call.

Captain Kirk makes a decision to go planet side anyway, and catastrophe results from his actions.

I don't need to go into the time, effort, and resources that were wasted because of his poor judgment.

If Janice Lester is to be punished, then so must Captain Kirk be punished.

I think there are some gender issues here, but they are weak when pointing out that the real offender here is our dear Captain. Knowing what he knows, had he stayed out of it, things would have been completely different.

I know this is a 60s show, and changing bodies was not uncommon in Star Trek. However, we're supposed to believe, even when Kirk is a woman, that this man is good and wants the best for everyone and will sacrifice himself if that's what it takes. He's supposed to be a shining example of humanity. That doesn't mean he's perfect, but he keeps on doing his best.

Instead, we have an episode spotlighting just how cold and ruthless a human being can be. If this was the point of the episode, I give it snaps. There's some great acting between Shatner and Smith.

If they were trying to show humanity at its best, they failed.

@Gary,

I've seen time and again fans argue that there's nothing sexist about this episode, and that the central theme is just about an insane ex of Kirk's who tries to get revenge on him, gets caught and breaks down at the end. Except, that's not all this episode is about. It's also about a woman who resents being a woman, who claims her sex holds her back and in her pursuit for power tries to be a man. So obviously, there's something this storyline is telling about women and gender. There are two interpretations of what it's saying: either it's condoning that women are unfit for power and using Lester as a hyperbolic example of that, showing that women who want to be in positions of power are ignoring their jature and hate their own womanhood, or more generously, that it's about a woman whose resentment towards the glass ceiling leads her to go to extreme lengths and her breakdown at rhe end is meant to be sympathetic. If you ignore the gender aspect in the premise, then what is this episode about? Why have her constantly claim that she hates being a woman and hijack Kirk's body to be a man? Because the episode *is* about Lester and her resentment as a woman and her place. Whether the episode is a reactionary tale about why women should "know their place" or an attempt at addressing the glass ceiling (in whicj case, it backfired ajd only reinforced the thing it wanted to criticize), it's definitely not about a villain who just happens to be a woman. Her claims about the glass ceiling, her self-hatred, these aren't random aspects, they say something about the theme.

@Bryan,
I see what you mean. Everyone has their own interpretations of what a piece of fiction tells us, especially when it's as unclear as it is here. A lot of commenters insist that there's nothing sexist about this episode, as if it's not about gender and Lester just happens to be a woman who hates her gender and literally wants to live a man's life. I don't buy that for a second, there's just no way the writers didn't know that they were saying something about gender roles in the story. To claim they weren't is to ignore the elephant in the room.
Now, regarding what the story presents, I do admit that my perception has been coloured by both what I know of the time the episode was made in and what I know about the circumstances behind this episode. That Gene Roddemberry, already a mercurial men regarding the opposite sex, was going through a nasty dovorced which influenced his idea to create this story about Kirk's crazy ex stealing his body, led me to believe Gene's already sexist ideas reached a peak, obliteraring whatever goodwill he might have regarding women's roles and do the equivalent to what Heinrich Kraemer did when he felt wronged by a woman and wrote "The Witches' Hammer". So my knowledge about these circumstances really influenced my inability to give this episode the benefit of the doubt that so many viewers did, seeing it as a well-meaning take on the glass ceiling that's meant to invoke sympathy for the women who face it.
Now, regarding what is in the episode and disregarding the behind the scenes trivia, my view os that it's meant to be about a woman who resents a glass ceiling, real or not, and her hatred of her own womanhood is largely associated with that, along woth her goal of hijacking Kirk's body and identity, the logical extreme of "wanting to be like a man". It doesn't take a stretch to see Lester as an unflattering caricature against women who sought to break the glass ceiling and adventure on "men's roles".

@winnie

I’m not sure anyone(other than the people she’d already murdered) knew that Lester was criminally insane, or even unstable. Laying the blame on Kirk for not predicting that his long past ex would go absolutely nuts and steal his body is a pretty high bar to set for the guy. He probably assumed that the Janet Lester he knew and once cared for would have moved on by now, or at the very least she’d be a pro and stay inside her own brain.

@ldh "I’m not sure anyone (other than the people she’d already murdered) knew that Lester was criminally insane, or even unstable. Laying the blame on Kirk for not predicting that his long past ex would go absolutely nuts and steal his body is a pretty high bar to set for the guy. He probably assumed that the Janet Lester he knew and once cared for would have moved on by now, or at the very least she’d be a pro and stay inside her own brain."

Wouldn't be nice if the writers portrayed Kirk as being at least concerned for Dr. Lester's help? Unfortunately, even though he's told first thing that she's been exposed to radiation and is lying in bed apparently ill, he brings up the past by stating she punished and tortured him because she didn't get to become a starship captain. He then follows that up by saying they'd have killed each other if they had stayed together.

There's no compassion, no understanding, not even empathy. He just doesn't care.

With that in mind, I'm wondering if we know for sure that the scientists were murdered. Coleman blames Lester for sending them where the celebium shielding was weak, and Lester blames Coleman for not treating them.

Which is true? Are both of them insane? Is it even murder in the true sense of the word?

I think not. Dr. McCoy seems to believe it was celebium poisoning. There's apparently no indication that Dr. Lester or Dr. Coleman tied them up and left them where they would die. I would also imagine he knows scientists should know better than to venture into such a dangerous area deliberately.

""Wouldn't be nice if the writers portrayed Kirk as being at least concerned for Dr. Lester's help?""

This should read:

Wouldn't be nice if the writers portrayed Kirk as being at least concerned for Dr. Lester's health?

Silly phone. Sorry for the typo.

@ Winnie,

"Unfortunately, even though he's told first thing that she's been exposed to radiation and is lying in bed apparently ill, he brings up the past by stating she punished and tortured him because she didn't get to become a starship captain. He then follows that up by saying they'd have killed each other if they had stayed together."

I think you're mischaracterizing what happened. Here's the dialogue:

JANICE: I hoped I wouldn't see you again.
KIRK: I don't blame you.
JANICE: The year we were together at Starfleet is the only time in my life I was alive.
KIRK: I never stopped you from going on with your space work.
JANICE: Your world of starship captains doesn't admit women. It isn't fair.
KIRK: No, it isn't. And you punished and tortured me because of it.
JANICE: I loved you. We could've roamed among the stars.
KIRK: We'd have killed each other.
JANICE: It might have been better.

She speaks first and brings up their past in Starfleet. And although he does say she punished and tortured him, it's about a topic *he agrees with her about*. I'd also like to point out when someone says they've been punished and tortured by someone, modern sensibilities suggest that you might want to take that seriously. Although he isn't being warm toward her, I don't see why he should, if we're going to take his statement seriously. What does he owe someone who treated him horribly, and now the first thing she does even though she's barely survived (according to Coleman) is to immediately bring up the topic she had tortured him about? What he owes her is professionalism, not empathy, which is what he gives her.

I would like to suggest you imagine reversing the gender roles. What if it was a man waking up, beginning a fight with his ex who he hasn't seen for years, she says he used to punish and torture her, he says he loved her and they should have stayed together and it would have worked out if only he had gotten everything he wanted. Ring any bells? I think most people would instantaneously see the alarm bells ringing, of an ex-abuser romanticizing a time when he mistreated his partner, and gaslighted her about how he *really* loved her and why can't she see it, and is continuing it now. Classic narcissist behavior. But because it's Kirk standing and Lester in bed, he's guilty for not showing compassion and understanding? Imagine once again the genders reversed and I think you'd be horrified to hear someone suggest that is what's owed in this situation.

By the way, look at the scene again closely. Before any dialogue Kirk is looking down at Janice with what looks to me very much like compassion and empathy. He speaks to her softly, and with a smile to try to comfort her. He even adds this in, as a bit of humor:

KIRK: Janice, you must remain absolutely quiet. Those are doctor's orders, not mine.

It establishes very quickly that she has a history of arguing with him, and so he's making it clear that he's not the one telling her to stay quiet, and allows this to serve as a little peace offering that he's not trying to start up anything with her. After Spock's message about life readings and immediate help being needed, Kirk becomes the Captain right away, and this look of seriousness is what he's sporting when she begins their dialogue. And despite having a more serious tone at this point than when the scene began, he still tries to lighten the mood a little now and then, other than when he says she tortured him. He's dead serious about that, and yet despite what the look in his eye implies about this, allows himself to relax a bit again afterward. Overall I'd say he's doing his best to remain calm and peaceful, and to try to prevent escalation. So no, by the end of the scene he's not showing compassion, because she's been trying to pick an old fight, but at the start of the scene, he certainly did.

The scene also ends with a look of puzzlement and concern on his face about what was behind her remark, "it might have been better." The look on her face suggests that at this point she's already committed to herself to a regrettable course of action that she sees as being too late to prevent. I'd like to offer up this piece of evidence as exhibit A that she definitely murdered the scientists. Then she says this:

KIRK: You had your chance, Captain Kirk. You should've smothered the life in me. Then they would have said Doctor Janice Lester died of radiation poisoning in the line of duty. Why didn't you do it? You always wanted to. Didn't you? You had the strength to do it. But you were afraid. You were always afraid. Now Janice Lester takes the place of Captain Kirk. I already possess your physical strength. Only this Captain Kirk is not afraid to kill. Now you know the indignity of being a woman.

"Only this Captain Kirk is not afraid to kill," exhibit B that she's already murdered. And also exhibit A in of the 'gender equality' story being such a muddle that I think it's beyond finding anything meaningful in it. The indignity of being a woman is to be found in wanting to kill but being too physically weak to do so? Or in being strangled while unconscious? I don't see any connection between this and any kind of feminist (or anti-feminist) message. I think it's just a sign that she's a crazed maniac, and this is reinforced by this delusion she appears to have that Kirk always wanted to murder her but was afraid. The gender role situation is further muddled because she seems to hate him for this fear, a trait stereotypically associated with femininity, and prizes her own lack of fear and boldness, a masculine trait. So to the extent that she sees herself as superior to KIrk, it's because he was too much of a woman and her too much of a man, but was too weak to act out what she wanted. Again, this doesn't strike me as saying much about men and women, just something about Dr. Lester.

Exhibit C:

COLEMAN: You killed every one of the staff. You sent them where you knew the celebium shielding was weak. Now why didn't you kill him? You had the perfect opportunity.
KIRK: There wasn't enough time.
COLEMAN: I gave you every minute you asked for.
KIRK: He hung onto life too hard. I couldn't
COLEMAN: You couldn't because you love him. You want me to be his murderer.
KIRK: Love? Him? I love the life he led. The power of a starship commander. It's my life now.
COLEMAN: I won't become a murderer.
KIRK: You are a murderer! You knew it was celebium. You could've treated them for it. You're a murderer many times over.

He directly says she killed them, that it was deliberate and calculated. And in response her answer is that he's a murderer many times over, for not saving them. If she's calling him a murderer, she's definitely confessing to being one. He also clearly knows it was celebium poisoning, he was just lying to McCoy. I assume he lied because they were still hoping Janice's body would die from it, and didn't want McCoy finding the cure in time. I'm actually not sure why this is even a point of contention, it's pretty obvious the script is telling us very blatantly that Lester murdered the scientists and planned out how to kill Kirk too and take over his command.

The script absolutely makes it clear that Lester deliberately exposed her staff to the lethal and dreaded celebium radiation. In fact, killing her staff was an integral part of her scheme to Freaky Friday Kirk. Everything else in the episode is an odd mash of untrustworthy dialogue spoken by a murderous lunatic, but that she is murderous, THAT we can rely on.

@ldh2023
"The script absolutely makes it clear that Lester deliberately exposed her staff to the lethal and dreaded celebium radiation. In fact, killing her staff was an integral part of her scheme to Freaky Friday Kirk. Everything else in the episode is an odd mash of untrustworthy dialogue spoken by a murderous lunatic, but that she is murderous, THAT we can rely on."

I know that's how it reads. But here's the issue. There are many comments here that label Dr. Lester insane. You yourself call her a murderous lunatic. You're not alone here. There are many who'd agree with you.

How then can you say then that Dr. Lester deliberately exposed her staff to the deadly celebium? Her mind cannot be considered sane in order to make an argument for one point, and then suddenly insane to make an argument for another.

Dr. Coleman said she was exposed to radiation. He also says he had never encountered that type of radiation before. He's not exactly a beacon of truth or even a reliable source. He loves Dr. Lester and love also makes people do strange things.

I assume it's been years since Dr. Lester saw Captain Kirk. She apparently wasn't a lunatic during those years, which would include at least some of her time on the planet with the scientists.

This is very strange behavior for both Dr. Lester and Dr. Coleman. I am wondering if both of them had celebium poisoning which resulted in insanity,

As for the murder of the scientists, is it murder if committed by two people that could have been poisoned and perhaps rendered insane by the same radiation that killed the scientists? As Dr. McCoy had no suspicions, I'm not so sure murder was deliberately plotted any more than a ridiculous plan to lure Captain Kirk to the planet to get him to become a woman, and then kill the woman to cover her tracks. For Dr. Coleman, why ignore the suffering of scientists exposed to deadly radiation for a ridiculous plan? That sounds like insanity to me.

Your argument is that because Dr. Coleman directly contradicts your thesis that he must be insane, and therefore was probably suffering from radiation poisoning?

@Peter G.
"I would like to suggest you imagine reversing the gender roles. What if it was a man waking up, beginning a fight with his ex who he hasn't seen for years, she says he used to punish and torture her, he says he loved her and they should have stayed together and it would have worked out if only he had gotten everything he wanted. Ring any bells? I think most people would instantaneously see the alarm bells ringing, of an ex-abuser romanticizing a time when he mistreated his partner, and gaslighted her about how he *really* loved her and why can't she see it, and is continuing it now. Classic narcissist behavior. But because it's Kirk standing and Lester in bed, he's guilty for not showing compassion and understanding? Imagine once again the genders reversed and I think you'd be horrified to hear someone suggest that is what's owed in this situation."

When the episode begins, Dr. Lester is asleep/unconscious. Captain Kirk asks what's wrong with her.

Dr. Coleman tells him 'exposure to radiation'. In my opinion, exposure to radiation is a serious condition. Dr. Lester wakes up, at which time Captain Kirk tells her to remain quiet per doctor's orders not his.

I ask you to consider this. Janice begins to speak, telling Kirk she hoped she'd never see him again. I won't go into the rest of the conversation between them as it's already been hashed out.

Why is Kirk even pursuing the conversation with Dr. Lester? According to his own words, she was to remain quiet per doctor's orders. Yet he risks upsetting a woman who he believes is ill and should remain quiet?

You're saying he only owes professionalism? Why is Captain Kirk there to begin with? Dr. Lester didn't invite him. There's nothing indicating Dr. Coleman invited him. The only personnel required were medical personnel.

Professionalism would have had him staying aboard his ship. If he had any memory of the woman at all, he would have remembered their tumultuous relationship and did the right thing, letting sleeping dogs lie. This was a personal issue, one that would have been better avoided.

As it stands, he came down and catastrophe ensued. Captain Kirk is supposed to be a shining pillar of humanity, using compassion and empathy to make his point. He certainly doesn't hide those qualities when he really has been tortured and punished. Yet when it comes to a woman, one who he believes is ill, he comes off as cold and ruthless and he's just going to sink to her level and argue back.

Like I said, if this is what the writers intended, it's great acting between Kirk and Lester. If not, whatever humanity Kirk possessed went down the toilet with the series.

@Peter G
"Your argument is that because Dr. Coleman directly contradicts your thesis that he must be insane, and therefore was probably suffering from radiation poisoning?"

It's not a thesis. Like everyone else on the site, I'm using elements I saw to debate.

From your Exhibit C:
"COLEMAN: You killed every one of the staff. You sent them where you knew the celebium shielding was weak. Now why didn't you kill him? You had the perfect opportunity.
KIRK: There wasn't enough time.
COLEMAN: I gave you every minute you asked for.
KIRK: He hung onto life too hard. I couldn't
COLEMAN: You couldn't because you love him. You want me to be his murderer.
KIRK: Love? Him? I love the life he led. The power of a starship commander. It's my life now.
COLEMAN: I won't become a murderer.
KIRK: You are a murderer! You knew it was celebium. You could've treated them for it. You're a murderer many times over.

He directly says she killed them, that it was deliberate and calculated. And in response her answer is that he's a murderer many times over, for not saving them. If she's calling him a murderer, she's definitely confessing to being one. He also clearly knows it was celebium poisoning, he was just lying to McCoy. I assume he lied because they were still hoping Janice's body would die from it, and didn't want McCoy finding the cure in time. I'm actually not sure why this is even a point of contention, it's pretty obvious the script is telling us very blatantly that Lester murdered the scientists and planned out how to kill Kirk too and take over his command."

So you don't think Dr. Coleman was a murderer then?

@Winnie

I will fully agree that Coleman is a total mess of a person. He evidently conspired with Lester to kill off the other members of their group, then jumped on board with this crazy caper to swap Lester and Kirk’s bodies, all for the apparent motive of love. Which raises the question of just how Coleman planned on continuing their relationship after the swap? I guess Coleman was attracted to hunky Shatner types. But in any event, yes Coleman is also a murderer.

But I don’t get any indication that their murder based codependency was caused by radiation poisoning, but rather it was a preexisting condition. Lester plotted carefully to lure Kirk to her for the specific purpose of stealing his body. It’s a wild scam they were running, but it is what it is.

As far as the nature of Lester’s insanity, I think she falls into the same category of fictionalized lunacy as the Joker or “emperor” Garth from Whom Gods Destroy. I don’t think the script was aiming for a clinically diagnosable condition. She’s the sort of crazy resulting from prolonged anger and frustration that drives the plot, but probably doesn’t track in the real world.

To me the point is a bit moot. The episode isn't a documentary showing live footage of complex people who we'll never really know in an intimate way. It's a TV episode where the *writers* (through dialogue) are telling us point blank that Dr. Lester is a mass murderer. It's just a given in the story. Doubting Coleman's statements to her in private is essentially arguing that the writing staff were lying to the audience. After all, we never see the bodies of the dead scientists, maybe they're still alive. Or maybe there never were any scientists! But these types of questions exist outside of the parameters of the TV show.

What we do know is what we're told, and we also know what we see. We know Lester has killed, because she says so, and Coleman says so. If she's so confused that she's unaware of whether she's killed or not, the story never says so, the doctor never says so, and the writers never say so. So that's fanfic. Maybe cool fanfic, but not what we're given. And same with Kirk's supposed ruthlessless: not one moment of his interaction with Dr. Lester in their opening scene can be described as ruthless. Go watch it, that word is just totally inappropriate to what the actor does. He goes through concerned, kind, humorous, serious, pained, professional, and finally puzzled, but never uncaring or ruthless. That's not on the screen, and not in the script. I can certainly imagine a scene like this where the medical patient is being gaslit and treated harshly by a person in a position of power. It's an uncomfortable scenario. But it's not the one that made the air in 1969.

@Peter G "We know Lester has killed, because she says so, and Coleman says so."

We also know that Dr. Lester gave Dr. Coleman a chance to save the scientists and he declined. We know this because she told him so and called him a murderer for not saving them.

Also, Peter, no one is breaking your arm to force you to think as I do. I get from previous comments that you do not believe the episode is sexist. I disagree. I originally saw sexism within the episode but not to the effect of some of the comments here. Recent posts and a rewatch have forced me to rethink the episode and come to the conclusion that that is not the case. It's loaded with sexism. In my opinion, that's the only way this ridiculous plot can work.

Disagree all you want. That is the beauty of this forum. Bu please don't throw script and writing "dos and don'ts" at me. All that comes down to is your opinion anyway. I would rather read about your interpretations instead, if you choose to participate.

BTW, I once made the comment a while back about possible celebium poisoning playing a part in this to which you responded as "interesting".

@ldh2022
"I will fully agree that Coleman is a total mess of a person. He evidently conspired with Lester to kill off the other members of their group, then jumped on board with this crazy caper to swap Lester and Kirk’s bodies, all for the apparent motive of love. Which raises the question of just how Coleman planned on continuing their relationship after the swap? I guess Coleman was attracted to hunky Shatner types. But in any event, yes Coleman is also a murderer."

I think Dr. Coleman is just another element of sexism. He's incompetent and has medical blunders (per McCoy), he's indecisive, suspicious, and he tends to push blame away from himself. Typically, at the very last minute, he suddenly tells Dr. Lester he loves her.

How is this sexism? In my opinion, it once again points to just how hopeless Dr. Lester is. She has apparently never married and now viewers see that the best she can do for love is this man, who I agree, is a mess. He doesn't even make a good henchman.

@ Winnie,

"Also, Peter, no one is breaking your arm to force you to think as I do."

No, and I hope I didn't convey the idea that you want me to, or the reverse. I prefer to hear varying points of view. Disagreeing about whether the episode is sexist is totally open game, and my point of view on this topic is merely that I think the text and plot are too muddled to get anything clear from it. I'm (at least at present) not outright saying the message isn't sexist.

"Disagree all you want. That is the beauty of this forum. Bu please don't throw script and writing "dos and don'ts" at me. All that comes down to is your opinion anyway. I would rather read about your interpretations instead, if you choose to participate."

I just want to clarify that in my posts it may have looked like I was jumbling up different topics, but that I consider as completely separate the matter of how a person feels about an episode and likes it or not, versus analyzing the context vis a vis script and screen analysis. So for instance, if you were doing a film or TV review and noted certain things as facts, which left your viewers scratching their heads, that would be an issue since a review itself should distinguish between the facts of the story and the reviewer's take on it. This topic isn't about my opinion versus yours, but rather objective standards in, e.g. script analysis. I'd never want to change someone's liking of a piece of art or media just because I disagree. But I am concerned when someone makes claims of fact about the art which seem to me to contradict what it's presenting. That's not a matter of opinion, not in the way you mean it. It's more like a forensic examination.

"BTW, I once made the comment a while back about possible celebium poisoning playing a part in this to which you responded as "interesting"."

I *do* think it's interesting. However I also don't think an interesting notion is enough to make positive statements that outright contradict what our given circumstances in a story are. If you really thought the facts of the story as given in the script are false, the only conclusion I could see would be that the writers made a serious blunder and inadvertently wrote something illogical which contradicts itself. I don't see any evidence for that here, though.

As for the celebium, I've actually rolled that around in my head, back then but also again now, for which I'll give you the credit. For the time being I can't make anything stick about what it means, whether it matters, and also whether the word itself suggests something. Celibate, maybe? Something about sex? It's too vague and indistinct for me to make any conclusion about it, so for now I'm treating it as a made-up word which justifies why McCoy wouldn't be sure how to treat it. We assume he's quite familiar with more well-known forms of radiation and can identify the symptoms.

Just as an aside, regarding Dr. Lester being delerious and confused because of the poisoning, I'll also point out that it's Dr. Lester's body that should be suffering the effects, not her katra or whatever. Kirk's mind was put into the body suffering near-fatal radiation poisoning, but he/she seems quite lucid and not confused at all about what was happening. Interestingly, Coleman takes over treatment of Dr. Lester's body before the cause of the radiation is determined, and presumably he doesn't treat him/her at all, even though he knows the cause, and Dr. Lester's body seems to recover anyhow even without treatment, and Kirk/Lester is quite sane in the court proceeding.

@Peter G
"But I am concerned when someone makes claims of fact about the art which seem to me to contradict what it's presenting. That's not a matter of opinion, not in the way you mean it. It's more like a forensic examination."

It's exactly a matter of opinion or you wouldn't have added the words "which seem to me to contradict what it's presenting".

None of us is the one all font of knowledge when it comes to this episode. If I believe Kirk appears ruthless and uncaring, that is what it seems to me.

You see him as usual and that is what it seems to you.

@ Winnie,

Well ok. But I think the word "opinion" can be confused in various contexts. It can mean "my tastes" (my opinion of the best ice cream flavor), it can mean "my values" (in my opinion this does what art should do), it can mean "how something affects me" (in my opinion this is boring, or moving, etc), and so forth.

But where it's often used, and I think this can be vexxing, is when it begins to enter what we can call the empirical domain. For instance, "in my opinion Tylenol is bad for you." That claim would be a question of one's personal expertise, maybe, but even then it should be verifiable by others. Or merely as a statement that by definition each of us can speak from a single perspective, you can say that's an "opinion", like if I look out the window and say the sun is out, and you say "that's your opinion", it's technically true in the sense that I'm reporting what my eyes see, and not what your eyes see, but not true in the sense that what I'm trying to report something that would be true for others too, not just me. So if I say the sun is out, I'd prefer to either have this observation be confirmed or denied, but not filed under 'my opinion.' And the same is true of other kinds of descriptions. For instance in the workplace, it's a very serious matter if someone reports a colleague as acting in a hostile, aggressive, or ruthless manner. The answer to such a report shouldn't be 'well that's just your opinion.' The claim is meant to be an observation of fact, one that can be verified or contradicted by facts, maybe through an investigation. If a person acts in a hostile manner it a work environment, or unprofessionally, that should definitely be looked into, and the fact that it *can* be looked into is because we presume certain standards about what looking hostile, acting aggressive, or being ruthless and uncaring mean. If a person is smiling gently and one person describes it as warm and another as hostile, HR is going to have some kind of problem! I don't think, at least in certain contexts, 'agree to disagree' is in fact tolerable, such as in the example I just described. Here, talking about a TV show, the stakes are of course much lower and no one's well-bring or career are at stake. But I suppose I was drawn to respond because of the larger ramifications of disagreeing so widely about something involving strong words like ruthless.

If you thought he camera angles were lousy, the lighting weird, or Shatner's acting bad, I could see how that's not really an objective matter. One person could like it, another not. Whether a person looks friendly and professional vs cold and ruthless, that seems to me a very odd thing for people to be disagreeing about. And I'll note that you didn't just say you *didn't like* Kirk's behavior, you maintained that he should be *punished* for it. Very strong language, indeed. Are you really so surprised that this kind of statement generated pushback?

" And I'll note that you didn't just say you *didn't like* Kirk's behavior, you maintained that he should be *punished* for it. Very strong language, indeed. Are you really so surprised that this kind of statement generated pushback?"

I actually based this on a debate we had not very long ago on this very thread. The subject being, is Star Fleet a "military organization", or isn't it?

I believe you favored more of a military organization, and I indicated Roddenberry wanted a different portrayal. I think that, while we disagreed on the question, we both agreed that there had to be some type of organizational structure. There's no way for Starfleet to survive without it.

In thinking about this, maybe I should have explained where I was coming from when I stated Captain Kirk should be punished. But then, I thought you understood where I was coming from. From the responses I got, I guess not.

Back to the episode. As I'm thinking the Federation has organizational structure, I also believe there is a moral structure as well, first and foremost maintaining peace among the planets. Captain Kirk is good and compassionate, and mostly moral but he doesn't always reveal or utilize his moral qualities as he should.

At the beginning of the episode, he is told by Dr. Coleman that Dr. Lester is ill with exposure to radiation. As the viewer, we don't know about Dr. Lester or Dr. Coleman at this juncture.

Dr. Lester begins to awaken, and Captain Kirk tells her she must remain absolutely quiet, per doctor's orders.

It's true, Dr. Lester begins the long and boring story of their previous relationship. As the viewer, however, I am supposed to know only what Captain Kirk knows: She's sick and must remain quiet. Per doctor's orders.

So what does Captain Kirk do? He starts arguing with a sick woman. He interferes on her personal space, unapologetically when she's sick.

That, to me, is cold. When I say he is ruthless, I don't mean it in a criminal way. He just doesn't care that she's ill and he shouldn't be arguing with her in the first place. All he wants to do is get his useless argument points in. Maybe she's talking out of her head and ranting. He's no doctor, he doesn't know. The viewer isn't supposed to know either. But we do and are therefore ready to pass judgment. On her.

On the moral side, Captain Kirk knew Dr. Lester was planet side. He knew there was a crisis which would require Dr. McCoy. Kirk also knows that had he stayed with Dr. Lester, "they would have killed each other". To say there was bad blood between them might be putting it mildly.

From what I understand of the military, if a person goes into a current situation that was at one time very personal, and catastrophe ensues, the person can be brought up on charges. Star Fleet may not be military, but I have no doubt that no one would fault Captain Kirk if he contacted Star Fleet and asked to sit this one out. On the other side of the coin, if he goes in and a bad situation arises because of his actions, he could be charged and punished.

I don't think anyone can argue that catastrophe didn't occur because of a wrong decision in this case. His decision.

Comments on this thread are quite adamant that both Dr. Coleman and Dr. Lester should be punished. I'm not disagreeing with that. But who was really the catalyst in all of this? Our dear captain. His actions created a mess that very nearly was permanent. He was lucky the alien machine was faulty. He should be punished. This little stunt of his cost much.

I don't like having to include statements like, 'in my opinion' or 'it seems to me'. I've been on forums for many years and I'm sick to death of being told in so many words by a self-chosen few that my opinion is not fact, so I better be very clear about what I'm typing. Or I don't know what I'm talking about because the script or the writers did not intend whatever.

Posters are intelligent enough to know I'm merely presenting an opinion, a perspective, or a thought as my own and no one else's. They are intelligent enough to ask questions or completely disagree.

As for generating pushback, I welcome it, just like everyone else who posts on this forum. The issue I often see is that from the same self-chosen few, instead of asking questions to gain clarification, it's much easier to post veiled innuendos or straight out sarcasm.

Personally I wasn't pushing the idea of punishment, for anyone. Trek at any rate seems to view crime more through the lens of requiring correction and help than punishment.

No one said you were. Punishment was addressed in my post. Starfleet is not above punishment. They didn't hesitate to court martial Captain Kirk.

I was responding to this:

"Comments on this thread are quite adamant that both Dr. Coleman and Dr. Lester should be punished."

@Winnie

I’m not sure I can go so far as to include Coleman in this episode’s sexist overtones. He seems like just one of those run of the mill second banana henchmen, being manipulated by a stronger personality. His motives and end goals are baffling, and he’s super fickle about how involved he wants to get with Lester’s plan, refusing to get blood on his already thoroughly bloody hands. But I can’t make the stretch that his goofiness extends to sexism-by-implication to Lester/women in general.

And I have to hard disagree with the characterization of Coleman as primarily incompetent, if that’s what you were saying. I think the examples of his blundering in this story result from deliberate and calculated efforts. Lester’s staff didn’t die because he screwed up, they died because he let them die by purposefully failing to properly treat them. And this was evidently done at Lester’s behest as part of her trap being laid for Kirk. Coleman is a weak-willed, highly deluded, monster, fully responsible for the deaths he conspired to cause.

I don't know why that comment would be singled out since I was talking about Kirk. Seems like we've been at cross purposes then.

Ms Spock wrote
""It also begs a huge question - Lester really must be insane not to realise that a Captain who illegally orders the execution of his senior officers would remain in command once Star Fleet command heard about it.""

Not only that, but here's this gem that occurs right after the transfer:

""You had your chance, Captain Kirk. You should've smothered the life in me. Then they would have said Doctor Janice Lester died of radiation poisoning in the line of duty.""

Like no one's going to check this out. The two doctors apparently don't know Dr. McCoy very well.

The transcript indicates she's about to strangle Kirk. If she did, that would leave even more incriminating evidence.

In short, her whole plan was ludicrous.

Ms Spock wrote
""I also interpret the last line, given the "rich as any woman's" rather than anyone's to imply that Lester should have learned to embrace the feminine role as perceived in the 1960s and find fulfilment that way rather than in a role to which she was unsuited. The harping on about her hatred of being a woman does serve to emphasise how "unnatural" she is and so I've always had to make allowances for what I see as the attitudes of the time it was made.""

Yes, the episode does reflect on some of the attitudes of the 60s. However, the 60s were a decade of change. While it was unusual to see working women as they are today, there were working women back in the 60s. My own grandmother worked until she decided to retire. My mother went to work in the early 70s. They were not engineers or scientists, but they paved the way for women to work and not be seen as unnatural today because they didn't stay home.

But sexism plays a big role in Turnabout Intruder. The ludicrous makes the episode work.

I don't think Dr. Lester hated her womanhood as much as we are led to believe. She dresses as a woman would (although I hate that jumpsuit), she wears earrings, and makeup, and if we're to believe Shatner's portrayal, she wants nice looking hands. She also has a nice hairstyle. She's concerned about her appearance and mannerisms.

BTW, it's interesting to see Captain Kirk keeping up appearances as Dr. Lester. I wonder what's up with that.

As for being insane, I also think Dr. Lester's insanity is a current condition that could not have gone all the way back to the time she was with Kirk. Of all the things he is, Kirk is also compassionate. He never would have walked out on an insane woman.

Dr. Lester is not good at hiding her mental health in the episode, I doubt she could hide it for over a decade. Dr. Coleman says her symptoms appeared about six months ago, and I think that's probably when this delusion of a wanna-be Captain Kirk surfaced. I wouldn't even bring this up if Dr. McCoy hadn't concurred with Dr. Coleman on diagnosis.

The other thing that leads me to believe this was not a long term delusion is the death of the scientists. It appears they were not long dead, at least McCoy doesn't make that assessment.

Aside from that, Dr. Lester holds the position of expedition leader. That is a very prestigious honor and would take a great deal of research and fieldwork, in addition to appearances in front of an audience. No small feat.

I don't know if she took pride in her achievements, but it seems to me that this is the case of a recently acquired paranoia. I don't see it being of a longer duration.

@ Winnie says: "Comments on this thread are quite adamant that both Dr. Coleman and Dr. Lester should be punished. I'm not disagreeing with that. But who was really the catalyst in all of this? Our dear captain. His actions created a mess that very nearly was permanent. He was lucky the alien machine was faulty. He should be punished. This little stunt of his cost much."

I don't exactly disagree that there are questionable aspects about Kirk's decision to accompany the team party to a place where his ex is, (making it a conflict of interest) and who happens to be allegedly on deadly risk for a serious illness, then starting to argue when she wakes up, despite knowing that she needed rest (as far as he knew). There is indeed a degree of unprofessional behavior, which no doubt the writer overlooked in order to move the plot forward, as had Kirk stayed on the Enterprise and avoided contact with Lester, there'd probably be no plot.
However, I think the argument that Kirk is equally to blame for the events of the plot is unfair. Yes, he was unprofessional, but it wasn't his fault Lester and Coleman set a trap on him, much less that they killed the other members of the party. And who's to say Lester would have stopped there had Kirk not taken the bait? She might have decided to lure him in some other way (like claiming she wanted to see him before she died) or, seeing that she didn't get to lure him, she might have tried the trick on another captain who visited the planet, even if her ideal scenario were getting her mind on Kirk's body.

Regarding your theory that Lester's insanity is a recent condition, I admit that it's plausible, especially given that the poisoning at the mine did seem to take a toll on her, if not to a deadly extreme. However, I think that creates other problems in the episode, which is, the whole theme revolves around Lester's choices leading her down a dark path, culminating in her plan to kill the other scientists. Kirk's final words about how her life could have been better "if only" aren't what you usually say about someone whose actions were beyond their control. There are two things of "insane" antagonists: the ones who, for all of their instabillity, are still aware of their wrongness and malicious about it, and so can answer for their crimes, and the ones whose insanity renders them incapable of seeing that they're doing wrong, whether it be because they're under the illusion that they're doing no wrong or because they develop a different personality that's villainous. That's the difference between the Joker and King Tut (a villain from Adam West's Batman series, originally a harmless egyptologist who after being hit by in the head by a rock, developed split personality and started believing he was the reincarnation of King Tut). One is insane, but malicious and has agency about his crimes, the other is an innocent man whose split personality makes him dangerous and has no agency on his actions when his evil self takes over. My first impression of Lester was that she was supposed to be the former case, someone whose insanity makes her dangerous but still has agency in her actions, which are fueled by resentment, not unlike Benjamin Finney in "Court Martial", a condition they brought on themselves to an extent that their lives could be different had they made different choices. If their actions were caused by an incident beyond their control, it'd rob them of their agency and undermine their motivations.

Marvin wrote:
"There is indeed a degree of unprofessional behavior, which no doubt the writer overlooked in order to move the plot forward, as had Kirk stayed on the Enterprise and avoided contact with Lester, there'd probably be no plot."

Absolutely agree. One criticism of the Captain Kirk character is that he beams down when he isn't necessary and thus places himself in danger. It's reckless behavior for a character who is indispensable.

""However, I think the argument that Kirk is equally to blame for the events of the plot is unfair. Yes, he was unprofessional, but it wasn't his fault Lester and Coleman set a trap on him, much less that they killed the other members of the party. And who's to say Lester would have stopped there had Kirk not taken the bait? She might have decided to lure him in some other way (like claiming she wanted to see him before she died) or, seeing that she didn't get to lure him, she might have tried the trick on another captain who visited the planet, even if her ideal scenario were getting her mind on Kirk's body.""

I think Dr. Lester was trying to lure any starship captain to the planet. Kirk just happened to be there with the Enterprise. I like the thought of her saying she's dying and specifically requesting him, but I can't imagine Starfleet approving such a trip, nor can I believe Kirk himself would disobey orders to see her, even if she was dying. Kirk hadn't seen her in years. His actions make it clear that she was not a part of his life.

""Regarding your theory that Lester's insanity is a recent condition, I admit that it's plausible, especially given that the poisoning at the mine did seem to take a toll on her, if not to a deadly extreme. However, I think that creates other problems in the episode, which is, the whole theme revolves around Lester's choices leading her down a dark path, culminating in her plan to kill the other scientists. Kirk's final words about how her life could have been better "if only" aren't what you usually say about someone whose actions were beyond their control.""

The issue I see with Kirk's last words is that they make no sense because he doesn't finish the sentence he started. For all we know, he could be speaking about something he didn't do. He was the one who walked out on her. Maybe he's wondering what would have been had he stayed.

I don’t think Lester was ever actually exposed to any radiation, she was essentially faking it with perhaps, as McCoy speculates, a phaser stun as a means of simulating celebium poisoning. This accounts for why Lester’s body doesn’t die with Kirk inhabiting it. In fact, she begins to recover aboard the Enterprise without treatment requiring Coleman to order her to be sedated against McCoy’s stern objections.

I don't think McCoy's convinced Lester is faking it. If she was, I would think he would declare her symptom free and demand to know what's going on.

I'm not completely convinced she's symptom free either because
Dr. Coleman could have manipulated her symptoms. He has the medical knowledge.

I think that's one reason Dr. Coleman was left alive. She needs him to complete her objective.

Margaret Hamilton once made a guest appearance on Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, as she wanted to deconstruct her famous role of The Wicked Witch of The West in such a way that gave some humanity to her. The best actors who play villains are able to rationalize their character's actions and make them the heroes of their own stories so that their performances will be dynamic instead of one-note. Villains need not be reasonable, but the best villains have a clear goal and worldview that you can point to and say, “Oh, yeah that kind of explains it.” In her kindly but authoritative kindergarten-teacher voice, Hamilton explained that the witch, deep down, is “frustrated. She’s very unhappy because she never gets what she wants, Mister Rogers. You know, most of us get something along the line, but as far as we know, that witch just never got what she wanted.”

That just about describes Janice Lester. In a strange sort of way, Star Trek was forward thinking to have such an unhinged murderess as the focus of the episode in a science fiction show. Yeah, of course “Turnabout Intruder” was sexist! This was 1969 and look who conceived it! However, it’s a lot funnier and easier to digest if you simply see Lester as a completely theatrical, Hollywood-ready antagonist who obviously doesn’t give two shits about murdering a science team (because that’s simply what baddies do). Why should there be something “wrong with her?” Lex Luthor can be a sociopathic supervillain but Janice Lester can’t? To hell with that! An adversary simply consumed by hatred, jealousy and mania is good enough for me. One of my favorite shows, Criminal Minds, had a fair amount of femme fatale psychos, and I’d say that Star Trek was overdue for one at this point in its run.

Sometimes you just have to have fun with your darker side. Lester knows what she wants, damn it, and finds a way to snatch it. So, I’d tell my daughter or any curious woman that the message to be taken from “Turnabout Intruder,” ultimately just a science fiction spectacle with plastic set pieces, is, “Show off your inner cackling bog hag.” Embrace your inner Ursula Sea Witch and Cruella DeVil. Feed your inner Janice Lester (and do it all without getting arrested, of course). Most importantly, don’t take shit from any man. As for Star Trek, you have your Captain Janeway and your Captain Burnham. Don’t pay the late-1960’s too much mind.

(For the men, @Mal put the message very succinctly: "Don't stick your dick in crazy.")

Okay, the sad, almost comical irony here is that the cretinous colorfully crazy woman has to be mostly played by a man in this story. He gets all the scenery chewing at her expense. William Shatner, a crazy diva himself, is of course hilarious as Lester. That’s just like Star Trek to accidentally go out on such a campy, hammy note. It’s the little touches that crack me up the most, such as the girly flourishing Shatner does or having Lester display a mischievously gleeful expression as she’s carrying an unconscious Kirk to the bed. And of course, he gets all of his over-the-top expressions and five shots of crazy. It’s all just so damn funny to watch.

Sandra Smith is largely unremarkable as Lester (to be fair, we don’t get to see much of this portrayal and it’s mostly a full meltdown scene), but she is excellent as Kirk! She even has Shatner’s mannerisms and subtle gestures down pat.

“Turnabout Intruder” is one of those mean-spirited, contemptuous episodes that you can’t help but laugh at. I mean, most of it is *so* bad. Like the typical body-possession story, the imposter is only “found out” because they can’t help but be a complete nut job in the new body. If Lester had invaded Kirk’s body but then proved to be an even more capable captain than Kirk was, that would have been really something (but I kid). Most of the investigation and mutiny plotline is adequate, but it’s full of the usual Brainless Plot Inanities that the story has to have in order to function. The biggest offender here, as others have pointed out above, is that there’s a scene of Kirk in Lester’s body where she’s trying to convince Spock that she's actually Kirk by attempting to tell him things that only Kirk would know. Yeah, great, I thought. That was my idea of what should happen too! But then, SPOCK DOESN’T ASK “KIRK” ANY QUESTIONS HIMSELF! I mean, come on now, that’s stupid. The writers had to have thought of it, because they already showed this strategy from the other side. I mean, I get it. This isn’t Shakespeare. Still, half the plots of Star Trek’s third season could never have existed had the crew displayed even a basic functional level of reasoning. It’s especially jarring when it’s Spock who has to be the idiot.

As a typical Star Trek episode, this is so below average. As a series finale, it’s almost tragically sad. As social commentary, 220 comments in this thread (I’ve read about half of them so far) proves that it’s generated a lot of debates and controversy but is also being taken far more seriously than it deserves. As a vehicle for William Shatnering, oh my God, it’s golden.


Speak Freely:

Lester -- “I loved you. We could’ve roamed among the stars.”
Kirk -- “We’d have killed each other.”


My Grade: D+

Season 3’s Top Five:

5th Place -- Spectre of the Gun
4th Place -- All Our Yesterdays
3rd Place -- Spock’s Brain
2nd Place -- The Paradise Syndrome
1st Place -- The Empath


Season 3’s Bottom Five

20. The Mark of Gideon
21. The Savage Curtain
22. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
23. The Way To Eden
24. And the Children Shall Lead



STAR TREK’s Top Five:

5th Place -- The Empath
4th Place -- This Side of Paradise
3rd Place -- Assignment: Earth
2nd Place -- Mirror, Mirror
1st Place -- The Immunity Syndrome


STAR TREK’s Bottom Five:

75. Let That Be Your Last Battlefield
76. The Alternative Factor
77. The Omega Glory
78. The Way To Eden
79. And the Children Shall Lead

Kirk's relationships are the worst. I can't remember a single sane woman he had a relationship with, except maybe that scientist in the movie. Not the best episode to end the series. Such a gloomy, sour last note, like @Pete said back in 2019. The movies certainly fixed that and we have an awesome farewell to these characters. The series itself ends on a downer, though. For me, it's no big deal because all the movies already happened, but imagine having this episode as the last thing you saw of these guys for 10 years before Star Trek: The Motion Picture came out.

Well, that's it. I have watched every single episode of TOS and all the movies, which I really enjoyed, even the first one. I'm more and more inclined to skip Deep Space Nine after reading about it and go straight to Voyager. My general impression from reading about it is that it's a series focusing on politics and religion. On top of that, it's a lot less utopian than TOS and TNG. It's also apparently a lot more space opera-ish? I haven't watched any of DS9, so I don't know it firsthand. If that impression is accurate though, those things combined are a deal breaker for me. It reminds me of Babylon 5, a series I watched some of but never managed to really get into, despite liking those characters a lot.

@Newbie I implore you not to skip DS9. Despite its reputation for being dark, nihilistic and / or going down the path of serialization to abandon episodic content it's none of those things really.

It does take religion more seriously than previous or subsequent Treks but even if that handling isn't to your taste it's mostly a non issue until maybe Season 7. This is because DS9 really wasn't serialized the way that we understand it in 2026. It's not a show like Breaking Bad or Picard where it's this monolithic story being told. It tries to be at times but it is still very much a product of 90s television where that kind of plot driven season as giant narrative was very rare.

The political angle and specifically the reputation for nihilism is equally misplaced. DS9 does challenge the Rodenberrian utopia but not in a disrespectful or denigrating way a la Star Trek Picard. DS9 does not set out to "deconstruct" the utopia and I challenge anyone who claims it embraces nihilism. Absolute rubbish.

But again even if you disagree on the foregoing I will reiterate that because the show has a largely episodic format you will still find absolutely tons to enjoy even if you dislike certain currents bubbling up from time to time. The beauty of episodic television is that anything bad can often be walked off like a fire door so even if you hate an episode this week you can love next week's show.

DS9 has, in my opinion, one of the strongest casts of any Trek series. The leads are not necessarily as strong as TNG or TOS mind you but it is the first and only series to have absolutely fantastic recurring characters that carry and amplify the storytelling. Consistency is DS9s superpower. A solid lineup across the board. Barring one or two exceptions no weak players. Greater than the sum of its parts. A true team effort.

Yes Voyager is the safer show. It's safe, un challenging and from my perspective often boring. Voyager is the Berman era at its most complacent. I am not saying you should skip Voyager by any means but I do think your experience will be impoverished if you disregard DS9''s nuance and complexity to watch something that really didn't have any new ideas and was basically coasting off a formula pioneered by a better show (TNG)

I also would highly recommend giving DS9 a watch. In my opinion, while perhaps not necessarily the best Trek show, it’s the most well crafted Trek series end to end. As @Jason R says, it has consistent quality throughout, and the knocks against it(too political, religious, dower, etc..) are rather minor elements in the big picture.

@newbie. I implore you to skip Deep Space Nine. If you couldn't get through Babylon 5 (the greatest sci-fi series EVER, in my not so humble opinion), you won't get DS9. Too dark for you, me thinks

DS9 is a mix. But the Ferengi give it some much needed comic relief, and Miles, Julian and Garrack do a lot of heavy lifting, especially Miles. The Klingons are annoying, like a bad parody of Beowulf, but Martok comes along and gives them the gravitas they desperately needed. And the series is just too important to skip. So don't skip it.

You know what would have been cool? If they brought back Ben Finney from season one's "Court Martial" instead of introducing the Janice Lester character. He knows the Enterprise and has a grudge against Kirk.

If you stripped out the Female vs Male crap, this would be an ok episode. I have no idea what they were thinking with all that stuff. This season started out with the Romulan Commander and ends with Kirk suffering from hysteria.

Positives:
The acting by Doohan and Nimoy is quite good. It's hard to believe that the Scotty in this episode is the same character as the one in The Lights of Zetar.

I appreciated the little continuity references.

Where was Uhura? Her replacement was the actress from a couple of season one episodes, I think.

Boy, Chapel looks different in this episode. They should have dropped the blonde wig a lot sooner.