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TOS season 1 episode 8 — Charlie X
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Bogmeister
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 11:06 am    Post subject: TOS season 1 episode 8 — Charlie X Reply with quote

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________________ Classic Star Trek: Charlie X


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CHARLIE X (1st season; episode #8) Air Date: 09/15/66
Directed by Lawrence Dobkin / writers: D.C. Fontana, Gene Roddenberry



The first episode to feature a human being acquiring extraordinary powers was the pilot, Where No Man Has Gone Before, though, through the vagaries of network scheduling, Charlie X aired first in the sixties, as the 2nd episode, followed by the pilot. So, technically, despite how early it aired, Charlie X is not the first such Trek story, being the 8th to be filmed. The angle with this episode is that the human being in question is a teenager, 17-year-old Charles Evans (well played by actor Robert Walker, Jr., in his mid-twenties at the time). It's bad enough when adults get delusions of godhood; when it's a teen, all bets are off.


________________________

__________ Star Trek - Charlie X's Anger Issues


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- (Above is click-able) -_



Kirk brings on a sector worth of trouble on board his ship when he accepts a transfer of a young guest from a smaller ship (the Antares, not seen in the classic original episode, but visualized in the remastered version). The Charlie character spent all his years up to this point on some planet without other human beings. His introduction to the fairer sex (Yeoman Rand - probably Grace Lee Whitney's best episode) is painful in itself; his growing pains are accentuated by his complete ignorance of common social customs. Charlie swiftly develops an intense crush on Janice Rand, who is a bit older and, of course, not interested in that kind of a relationship with him. Rand attempts to right things by introducing Charlie to a younger female crew member and this quick fix fails miserably; teens can be troublesome, don't we all know?



All this is uncomfortable to watch because Walker imparts an uneasy, twitchy psychosis to his character. Then, in the second half of the episode, he reveals his unlimited powers - he literally seems able to do anything, whether making people disappear or transforming them into lizards. The story now begins to take on a more horrific tone; in his frustration, Charlie is not beyond torturing crew members, terrorizing the entire ship. And, what else can we expect? Power such as this, as we've seen in other episodes & films, can corrupt most adults; how can we expect a teen to handle it any better? If anything, this scenario is even worse.



All this is alienation taken to the nth degree. In a way, Charlie is in a no-win situation - no matter how he behaved, there would always be someone who was uncomfortable around him, knowing what he was capable of, probably many such people. The episode makes a strong case for the issue of parental control - even more on the topic of maturing without parents (think of the famous story of Superman/Clark Kent, for example, and if he'd grown up without the influence of the Kents; the positive version of this has been on display for the past few years on the series "Smallville"). In this particular episode, the parental duties fall on Kirk, but it's too little too late - far too late. One drawback to this episode: an extended scene of Uhura singing about Spock and then Charlie - the one point that Charlie's surreptitious use of his powers seemed warranted.



As with most of the Trek episodes in the original series, the strongly structured scripts included excellent endings, as is the case here. There are no pat unrealistic conclusions, i.e. a happy ending, where-in Charlie is somehow able to remain with the human race (due to the miraculous removal of his powers, for example). No, even in this sector of space, you reap what you sow and things are not solved for you. There's a genuinely tragic tone to the ending - Charlie's main weakness, after all, was just a great need, an overwhelming need, for other people to like him. That need will never be fulfilled at the end. As with the previously aired The Man Trap, total incompatibility between two sets of entities shows that some things are beyond our ability to set right, even with future technology. Alas, poor Charlie, we knew him well.

BoG's Score: 7 out of 10



Extra Trek Trivia: the original title was "Charlie's Law" - the same as was used for the short story adaptation by James Blish; as with a few other memorable characters and / or villains on TOS, Charlie was brought back in other media, namely in one of the Star Trek comic book storylines published decades later, as an older, meaner version of himself. Further, his character also returned, older & vengeful, in the recent independent Trek film, Star Trek - Of Gods and Men (2007).

Great quote from a Thasian: "We gave him the power so he could live. He WILL use it - always - and he would destroy you and your kind, or you would be forced to destroy him."

remastered trailer:


_______Star Trek-Trailer TOS-season 1 episode 7


__________


_ Supply the Caption... here's mine: "Too much make-up..!"




BoG
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Last edited by Bogmeister on Mon May 20, 2019 3:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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Krel
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 1:50 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The poor faceless crew member really creeped me out as a kid. It may have been done for budget reasons, but it was much more effective only seeing one person, with the shadows behind her.

On of the things I loved in TOS were the way they showed force field detention cells. Although it was rather strange that the brig was just a room in the corridor (unless it was specially made so Charlie wouldn't be suspicious), ST series have a hard time showing brigs. But I love how they had force field projectors that extended and made a hum. Much better visually than the just having lights in the door frame with no sound, like later series.

But despite the horrible things Charlie did, they still were able to make you feel sorry for him.

David.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Mar 25, 2019 3:58 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

The blind, faceless girl girl has always creeped me, especially with those pitiful muffled sounds she was making! Shocked

I'd forgotten that she was among a group of happy, laughing crewmen just around the corner, and Charlie did that horrible thing to all of them. Sad

But if you look at the screen shot below, the other folks don't seem to be faceless and stumbling around. I see a nose on one guy. Maybe Charlie sort of "froze" all the others to stop them from laughing.



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Is there no man on Earth who has the wisdom and innocence of a child?
~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 12:43 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Fun Facts } The episode was also known by the title "Charlie is God'' in Gene Roddenberry's early outline.

Abraham Sofaer who played the alien Thasian would again play another alien on ST:TOS. He is the voice for the Melkotian in the episode "Spectre of the Gun.''
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 3:22 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Fun Facts } The episode was also known by the title "Charlie is God'' in Gene Roddenberry's early outline.'

Harlan Ellison probably took Gene aside and said, "Be carefully, big guy. You can't say God's name is Charlie. You'll piss off the folks in the Bible Belt. They recite the Lord's Pray in church every week, the one that starts off with Our Father who art in heaven, Howard be thy name . . . :" Shocked
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~ The Space Children (1958)
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Pow
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PostPosted: Wed Mar 27, 2019 12:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Although Gene and Harlan would become bitterly estranged they were both atheists.
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trekriffic
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PostPosted: Fri Mar 29, 2019 2:51 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I actually liked the scene in the mess hall with Uhura and Spock. She really had a nice voice I always thought.

And Rand in her nightie... sighhhh...

The Antares was never shown in the original episode. In the remastered she appeared as this:


USS Antares - Remastered Screenshot by trekriffic, on Flickr

I'm working on a model of it now. I'll post some pics of it soon.
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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 10:09 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I always wanted a set of them Yeoman Rand cards myself! Razz
JB
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Eadie
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PostPosted: Sat Apr 27, 2019 1:05 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Here are the best pics that I could find:





Now you can make your own cards!

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johnnybear
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PostPosted: Sat May 04, 2019 8:22 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Thanks, Eadie! Loved her in that red uniform though...
JB
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 1:48 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

IMDB has several interesting trivia items for this production. Very Happy
________________________________

~ True to his training as a Method actor, Robert Walker Jr. chose to remain in his dressing room and not interact with any members of the cast as this would help his characterization of a strange, aloof person.

Note from me: Apparently it worked, because Robert did indeed manage to be strange and aloof.

~ During the lounge scene, where Uhura sings a song about Charlie, Spock is seen smiling as he accompanies her on a harp-like instrument. This is one of the few times in the series that Spock smiles, while not under the influence of a substance or someone's mind control powers.

Note from me: My feeling is that if music doesn't invoke emotions, it has no logical purpose. I submit that a truly emotionless person would be just as incapable of playing music as someone who was tone deaf. In both cases, the person would lack a quality which was essential to creating music.

Just a thought, guys . . .

~ Some of the things now considered everyday items in Star Trek are missing during the early episodes. In this one, the Enterprise has a cook who prepares meals for the crew. The Yeoman also talks of searching through "ship's stores." The use of replicators to create food and other materials had not yet been conceived of but would become commonplace by Star Trek: The Original Series: Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967).

Note from me: That last statement is incorrect.

An hour before reading that item on IMDB I replied to Scotpens' post which he corrected my misstatement concerning replicators aboard the Enterprise.

scotpens wrote:
[size=20]They didn't have replicators in the TOS era. Food was stored in preserved and concentrated form (McCoy makes a snide reference to "reconstituted" meals in "Arena"). The ubiquitous wall slots aboard the Enterprise were basically the terminals of a sophisticated dumbwaiter system.


I checked several sources and verified that Scotpens is correct. Cool

~ During the first-season episodes, cinematographer Gerald Perry Finnerman was encouraged to maximize placement of coloured background lighting to add exotic warmth to the gray walls of the Enterprise set.

This was a major promotional point for NBC, as Star Trek was a selling point for colour televisions. As pressure to complete episodes grew, this touch gradually faded from the series. NBC was owned at the time by RCA, a major manufacturer of color television sets.


Note from me: I mentioned this is a post for Mudd's Women. Shows in the 1960s just couldn't have too much color!

~ Gene Roddenberry: voice of the galley chief who says to Kirk, "Sir, I put meat loaf in the ovens. There's turkeys in there now... real turkeys!" This was his only speaking role in "Star Trek". During the second season, his disembodied hand appears in a few scenes of Star Trek: The Original Series: Who Mourns for Adonais? (1967).

Note from me: So, Gene provided the voice of a chef and the hand of Greek god. Interesting. Very Happy

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scotpens
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PostPosted: Mon Jun 28, 2021 10:07 pm    Post subject: Re: TOS season 1 episode 8 — Charlie X Reply with quote

Bogmeister wrote:
It's bad enough when adults get delusions of godhood; when it's a teen, all bets are off.

Indeed, look at 1965's Village of the Giants. Normal-sized teens are enough of a handful. What happens when they're 30 feet tall?

Bogmeister wrote:
One drawback to this episode: an extended scene of Uhura singing about Spock and then Charlie - the one point that Charlie's surreptitious use of his powers seemed warranted.

Hey, I liked Uhura's musical interlude (and also her singing "Beyond Antares" in the episode "Conscience of the King"). Just like the occasional throwaway banter and byplay among the crew, it fleshed out the characters and made them more relatable. Unfortunately, there was little of that after the first season.

trekriffic wrote:
The Antares was never shown in the original episode. In the remastered she appeared as this:




Based on a design that first appeared in the animated series.

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Pow
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 12:08 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

"The Day Charlie Became God" was another potential early title for this episode.

It was decided that the this title gave away too much to the audience, so it was changed to "Charlie X."

Gene Roddenberry created the concept for this episode but ended up abandoning it after deciding it lacked the action/adventure elements that NBC was looking for in each episode.

Dorthy Fontana, Gene's 27-year old secretary and part-time writer with a half dozen screen credits, felt differently and asked for a chance to develop the story.

Dorthy said that at the time she had two teenage brothers and it was her unconscious tapping of the issues her brothers were going through. The things that were driving them and frustrating them as well.

I've always felt that D.C. Fontana was a wonderful writer and produced some marvelous scripts for Star Trek.

One of the producers wanted to shift the story away from the Enterprise and onto a star base they would transport Charlie to for the episode.

Fortunately D.C. & story editor John D.F. Black insisted that the story must take place entirely on board the Enterprise.

They believed that once Charlie arrived on a star base with other people it would weaken Kirk's involvement & dissipate the intrinsic drama.

Excellent call I would say; it'd also cut down on the budget by making this a 'bottle show' episode.

One suggestion had Charlie morphing a crew member into a bug and then stomping on it.

Man, that's brutal!

John Black commented that GR had the habit of putting sex into everything. It drove Fontana crazy because he did that with Charlie X.

Fontana wanted to play Charlie Evans with a naivete & innocence of a boy rather than the raging hormones.

She felt that made Charlie a more vulnerable and sympathetic character. Excellent point.

Actor Michael J. Pollard was in consideration for the key role of Charlie. Pollard was a wonderful & offbeat performer.

Had Robert Walker Jr (who was outstanding in the role) been unavailable or uninterested in the part, Pollard would have done a fine job.

Grace Lee Whitney felt that Walker was a stroke of casting luck for Star Trek. She could not imagine anyone else in the role and that he captured the perfect balance.

Right on.

The terrific actor Abraham Sofaer was 70 years old when he played the Thasian who came to retrieve the powerful Charles Evans from doing anymore harm.

Sofaer played the evil Kyben alien leader Arch in Harlan Ellison's fantastic episode "Demon with a Glass Hand" on the original classic sci~fi show The Outer Limits.

As Bud noted: Robert Walker Jr purposely remained removed and aloof with the cast while shooting this episode so as to realistically reflect the awkwardness of Charlie, and the fact that he grew up without fellow humans.

Walker did a stupendous job of managing to make Charlie a tragic figure in the finale in spite of the horrible acts he conjured up via his near omnipotent abilities.

You cannot help but feel sad for him as he vanishes from the bridge. He was an innocent little boy when the star ship he was on crashed landed on the Thasian world.

His parents are dead along with the crew. He's frightened to death and trying to survive. If any of us were granted the same powers that Charlie had, just how well would we have handled such astonishing abilities?

Walker made it a point on the final day of shooting how much he relished his time on Star Trek and how impressed he was with the caliber of work they all accomplished together.

Now that's a classy gentleman.

Always liked the jacket and shirt Charlie wore on this episode.

I love that with the remastered work for this Star Trek episode that they were able to feature the Antares star ship.

For budgetary reasons back in 1966 we are never shown the Antares at all even though they are the ones who pull up alongside the Enterprise to transfer Charles Evans onto the Enterprise . . . and then get the hell away as fast as they can!

The remastered Thasian ship is also nicely done. It remains ghostly & alien in its appearance just like the original effect.
Yet we see some nifty details & tweaks here & there on the new version.

All & all, this is one of the best stories ever done on Star Trek.
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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 1:18 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Mike, that is a masterfully written analysis of this fine episode, and I enjoyed it tremendously! Very Happy

Your comments concerning the fact that Miss Fontana (at the young age of 27 . . . wow) understood the merits of the concept and convinced Roddenberry to use it are especially good.

Ditto for pointing out the tragic nature of poor Charlie and his sad fate. The terrible things he did were just an unfortunate combination of his youthful nature and his awesome powers. When I was his age I made colossal blunders — but thankfully I didn't have superpowers that would have magnified the consequences of my poor judgement! Shocked

It occurs to me that this concept is just begging for a sequel!

An older and wiser Charlie would be a terrific character for a story in which he returns to the Star Trek universe, eager to make up his youthful misdeeds. Charlie would hide his true nature while he moved among human society, looking for ways to use his power to help people in need.

The climax would have Charlie confront a powerful evil threat and be willing to risk his life to combat it!

Oh boy, would I love to write "The Return of Charlie X"!
Very Happy
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scotpens
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PostPosted: Sat Jul 03, 2021 1:37 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
Actor Michael J. Pollard was in consideration for the key role of Charlie. Pollard was a wonderful & offbeat performer.

Had Robert Walker Jr (who was outstanding in the role) been unavailable or uninterested in the part, Pollard would have done a fine job.

As good an actor as he was, I can't see Pollard in the role. He was just too offbeat, quirky and unconventional-looking to play a character we're meant to identify and sympathize with.

Besides, Pollard was 27 at the time and looked his age. I could never buy him as a preadolescent in "Miri."
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