TOS 3: Charlie X

Original air date: 09/15/1966
Star Date: 1533.6

Summary: This episode provides an interesting sociological study of child-rearing attitudes of the 1960's.  The plot of the show is simple enough: the Enterprise has delivered into its a charge a 17-year old human, Charlie Evans, who was the sole survivor of a starship crash on the planet Thasius 14 years earlier.  Having lived essentially his entire life without human contact, he has no idea how to behave in human society.  In many ways, although his chronological age is 17, his emotional development is only that of perhaps a 6- or 7-year old.

And that's a problem, because Charlie also has godlike powers to create and destroy, and to control people, powers granted to him by the Thasians, a fabled race whose existence is only guessed at by the Federation.

Charlie gradually asserts himself more and more, until he has effectively taken control of the Enterprise. Kirk is scheming up ways to try to overwhelm his powers when the Thasians appear, restore the Enterprise and its crew to the way things were before Charlie's arrival, and take Charlie back to Thasius with them despite his pleas to be allowed to remain with his own race.

The script does a good job of making Charlie a believable character.  He wants desperately to be liked, and he tries to pick up human habits, but does so clumsily --- for example, he sees one male crew member give another a friendly swat on the backside, so he does the same thing to Yeoman Janice Rand, with whom he is smitten.  Obviously, this doesn't have the effect he hopes for.  And in addition to all of the usual middle-school style difficulties Charlie has, his first face-to-face interaction with women drives him crazy.

Yes, the Charlie character was well-written and believable.  The attitude of the Enterprise crew toward Charlie, however, is most certainly stereotypical of the 1960's.  No one reaches out to him, no one makes an effort to help Charlie integrate into human culture --- until Charlie's advances toward Yeoman Janice start to scare her, at which point Kirk takes Charlie aside to try to set him straight.

Kirk is most definitely not a touchy-feely father figure.  When trying to explain why it was inappropriate to smack Yeoman Janice on the hiney, Kirk is left spluttering:

Well, um.  Uhhh --- there are things you can do with a lady, uh, Charlie, that you --- uh, there's no right way to hit a woman.  I mean, man to man, is one thing, but --- uh ---  man and woman, uh, it's uh --- it's uh --- well, it's uh, another thing.  Do you understand?

When Charlie persists with Yeoman Janice, Kirk goes for the tough love angle:

Kirk: Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you can't have.  It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are.

Charlie: Then what am I going to do?

Kirk: Hang on tight, and survive.  Everybody does.

 Geez.  I thought Spock was supposed to be the only crew member with no emotion.

Predictably, Charlie grows increasingly frustrated with his inability to fit in, and starts taking it out on those around him.  What's really stunning to me is, even as Charlie gets further and further out of control, Kirk and the rest of the crew are completely at a loss as to what to do about him.  When it's clear that the only person who can control Charlie is Charlie himself, you'd think Kirk would make an effort to teach him self-control.  But when Charlie makes a crew member vanish right before Kirk's eyes, all Kirk can think to do is to (try to) confine him to quarters --- literally sending him to his room like a spoiled child.

Yeah, and 40 years from now, people will think that our parenting methods were primitive.

There's really no way for this to end other than with Charlie destroying the Enterprise (he ultimately did destroy the Antares, the ship which first delivered him to the Enterprise), or with the Enterprise crew destroying him.  Fortunately, Roddenberry opened a trap door to let everyone off the hook by having the Thasians return to reclaim Charlie --- and restore everything on the Enterprise to the way it was before.  So Charlie ends up being a tragic figure; a petulant child who only wanted to be loved and fit in, but the Thasians take him away from human society because the powers they gave him make it impossible for him to live with his own kind.

A bit ironic, that.  The powers the Thasians gave Charlie are godlike, and their own powers must be even greater, since they can control Charlie.  But one thing they can't do (apparently) is to strip Charlie of his powers, so he can have the one thing he truly wants: to live among his own kind.

Other things of note in this episode:

There are 482 people aboard the Enterprise, at least at this particular point in time.

It may be the 23rd century, and perhaps everyone on the crew but Spock is in touch with their emotional side, but apparently there isn't much creativity on board.  At one point, Janice tells Charlie to meet her in "Recreation Room 6".  It sounds like as much fun as hanging out at the local library.  And speaking of Spock and creativity, what do we find in Recreation Room 6?  Spock, playing a harp while Uhura sings!  I think there may be something going on between those two.

The Moral of the Story: If you can't play well with others, you'll be grounded.  Also, there's no right way to hit a woman.