The Conscience of the King (Star Trek TOS - S1E14)

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This week: our Star Trek newbie and resident Trek expert dive head-first into Shakespearean drama, a murder mystery in space, and one very suspicious guy with a metal mask. Is he a brilliant thespian… or a genocidal space war criminal? Is Kirk developing feelings for his daughter and ready to run away and join the circus, or is he again using his charm to use a lady? All of this and more, this episode!
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Transcript

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[Music] Aileen Freakens is open and welcome aboard Trekson Tangents. I'm your co-host, Brian. And I'm your co-host, Jackie. I'm your Star Trek movie. He tracks off on Tangents. And I'm your Star Trek expert who is here to get the Tangents back on track. Each episode we watch and talk about a different Star Trek episode. And this week we watched... Star Trek. The original series, season one, Episode 13, The Conscience of the King. Welcome back everyone to another episode. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you. This was a wild week. It is a wild week or a wild episode. It's a lot of... a lot of talking. But again, thank you so much everyone for tuning in. It's always fun to have you on board. And with that we'll just jump right into the episode. See how much we have to talk about. We'll start it off as we always do with our TurboLifties. And that's where we'll revisit last week's episode ending where we gave Jackie the title of this week's episode. And Jackie, without any other information, tried to guess the plot of the episode. I tried really hard. You certainly do every week. So computer, what was Jackie's prediction? Jackie stated last week, so we are going to leave the zoo and we are going to go on to a royal planet. And of course Captain Kirk is going to have to help the royals make the right decisions for their people. You know, don't be all about me, me, me and think about the people that are serving you. So Jackie, how accurate do you think you were for this week's episode? Like I said, I tried hard, but I failed miserably. Yeah, not really hitting on any of the points of the episode. Again, it's a hard game without any other context, but that's why we play it. So what did you think of this week's episode? I really enjoyed getting to see the different, it was interesting to see Spock be so concerned about what was happening on the ship and then Kirk being like staying in the lane, if I'll allow my orders, do what I tell you to do. When up until this point, there are more like a partnership, what it seems to be. Yeah, we definitely have kind of the tables turned from the menagerie our last two episodes. Where in the menagerie, it's Spock who very much deviates from standard operating procedure and asks for a ton of leeway and a ton of forgiveness for his actions for very personal motivation and personal reasons. And now we have the exact opposite. We have Captain Kirk going off script, doing a lot of things kind of off the books behind people's backs for very personal, very self-motivated reasons and asking for a lot of forgiveness and a lot of people to go along with it without any kind of explanation. Yeah, all because he's the boss. Right. So very much a juxtaposition, probably pretty coincidental that these two episodes fall back to back. All I didn't think about that. Yeah, because again, these episodes get filmed in a certain order and then they end up being played on television in a complete, in a different order in which they're filmed for post-production reasons, networks will come in and make their own decision as to what episode should be aired in what order. So pretty coincidental, probably, they have the menagerie, Spock going, quote unquote, off script. And then the king who has Spock now playing the reverse role of questioning Captain Kirk. Exactly. I even think they changed up the bridge like the creation of it or was I just seeing a different sign, excited at it. I don't think at this point in the Star Trek series, there would have been any major changes to the layout of the bridge set, maybe very minor, probably what we would have seen is different camera angles. That makes sense because I never see Spock sitting down and this was like the first time I ever saw him sitting down. I think we see him sitting down. Certainly we see other characters at I know what you're thinking of, you're thinking of the computer station on the bridge. Yes. We see there are other times where other characters sit at that station and pull up information. I don't think this was the first episode to do that. This is the first one I noticed. Yeah. I also like this episode. It was pretty heavily criticized when it first came out. There's not really any science fiction aspect to it. There's no aliens. There's no just chatter. There's no phenomena that's trying to attack the Enterprise or endanger the crew. It's very much just agatha christian space. It's a murder mystery. And so a lot of the television audiences back in the 60s didn't really care for that. I think it's a strong episode. It's certainly not the best. It's certainly not top tier. This is the best episode of the series. Right. But it's I think a nice little break to show something a little different. I appreciated it. No, I completely agree with you. And I also think that's why they had linoar always bring up the fact that he's such a powerful human in this man with all this stuff. But yet there's still machines. I don't know. It's kind of weird. But she kept on bringing it up. Well, she's definitely as a character, I'd imagine. Well, let's just assume that they've this theater company is 20 years old. She would have grown up in her entire life in it. 20 years of shadowing her father, living on the road. She definitely speaks the language of the theater. She's insane. She's oh my gosh. Yes. She's crazy. So she does a good job hiding that. Yeah. Until she cracks. Until she cracks. Yeah. But ultimately, I think an enjoyable episode for both of us. But why don't we just jump right into the episode itself? And Jackie, why don't you walk us through it? Alrighty. So they open up with Kirk and two other people. One, we learn is named Dr. Layton and they are watching a play being produced. I'm sorry, they're watching Mcbeth. I should have just remembered that. And while they're watching Kirk's friend, Dr. Layton, he makes the comment that he knows that voice. Speaking of the character playing in Mcbeth, that he is this horrible man of the past named Kodis, also named Kodis the executioner. And then we have the opening credits with our favorite lines and my favorite soundtrack. Yeah. It's a very short, cold opening. It originally was going to be a longer, more traditional, cold opening. It was going to start with a shot of the Enterprise, possibly an orbit around a planet. It was going to show a poster, promotional poster for the acting company. And then it was going to fade out from the poster to what we ultimately see the dagger during the scene from Mcbeth. The director decided to scrap all that in the front and just have it hard open on that dagger for dramatic effect. I think it is pretty effective. Yes. When, when? Definitely captures everyone's attention. Yes. I had to rewind it because I was like, wait, what I miss? But then after the opening credits, we get Act One. And we are in the Enterprise on the bridge. But before that, we're also listening to Captain Kirk's log. And he's telling us that Enterprise was redirected out of their normal course three white years, which I'm presuming is a large amount of time. One light year is a measurement of distance that equals the distance light can travel in one year. That sounds like a lot. Specifically, according to our friends at Wikipedia, one light year is 5.879 trillion, that's trillion with a T miles. Yes. So yes, way off course. But they're off course because they're going to see a new invention that Dr. Layton created to help with. He created a food that would be able to help hopefully stop famine in the future. Yes. A synthetic food substitute, which is important. And immediately in the episode, the very next scene called out as being a lie or revealed to be a lie that they made up to get Kirk and the Enterprise to divert. Ironic that he would choose that as a lie when you dive deeper into the plot of the episode. And the episode revolves around an incident in the past where a colony was starving, leading to indirectly or directly the deaths of half of the colonists. So a little interesting that he would choose this lie to say, I've created a new synthetic food that would end starvation, which would have been more helpful 20 years ago. But no, you're right. Because also we learned that the doctor and Kirk know all about the original incident that we're going to chat about. They were there. Yeah. So why couldn't they just said, hey, come on over. I found something out. I think Dr. Layton, he doesn't have concrete evidence that backup just a second. The real reason that Dr. Layton had Kirk and the Enterprise summoned to meet him is because he thinks that Anton Keridian, the main actor in this little Shakespeare acting troupe is in fact Kodos, who was the governor of a colony 20 years ago that ran out of food and his solution was to execute put to death half of the colonists so that the remaining half could survive. So I think the reason why he came up with the lie, Dr. Layton was because he doesn't have concrete evidence that Anton is in fact Kodos. It's just a gut feeling. This troupe showed up at his planet to perform, make a living. And as he was watching one of their plays, he heard Anton's voice and recognized the voice. So that's when he got Kirk to come. And interestingly, got to layton, his side of his face is completely enclosed in black as if he was harmed maybe 20 years ago. Yeah. In our conversation in Dr. Layton's house with Kirk, Dr. Layton's wife Martha's present as well, we get a very abbreviated disjointed history of what draws them all together. Again, Kodos, the planet, starving colonists, execution. Very bad. Kirk and Dr. Layton were both present at the colony during this whole massacre. We don't ever find out why Dr. Layton's face is covered with basically a permanent bandage. It's, it looks like an eye patch because it incorporates part of his eye as well. Yeah. Either he was marked out to be executed and fought back and survived. He let a resistance to try to stop the 4,000 people from being executed, possible explanations. But the important part is we learn that out of all of the 4,000 people that survived out of all of the eventual rescue aid missions to the colony to bring food and to save everyone. And then somehow Kodos escaped. We don't ever find out how. But Dr. Layton reveals to the viewers that there's only, he says 8 or 9, we find out later there was only 9 people who were present at that massacre, survived and physically saw Kodos. And so Dr. Layton summoned Kirk because Kirk and Layton are two of the 9 and he wants Kirk to help identify whether or not this is Kodos. Because on record they have that Kodos is presumably dead because they have, they found a burnt body that was unidentified. Correct. And so Dr. Layton feels this and so he just needs like backup to confirm and then take them to prison like 20 years later. Yes. So very much a similar situation to other historical events where evil people who led giant massacres of a type of people were presumed dead because their burnt body were later found. Go go do your history, go do your homework. We won't get into it. But there's a lot of, there's a lot of parallels between historical events, real historical events and I think this episode that they were trained to draw off of without calling it out directly. That makes sense. But Dr. Layton decides to have a party at his house and invite the actors to his home so that he can actually meet the famous actor, Caridian himself. Right. And Dr. Layton obviously hopes that Kirk will attend see Anton Caridian and be another witness to the fact that this is in fact Kodos the executioner. Kirk in this moment refuses to participate in this plan and says he's going back to the enterprise. And Kirk believes that the official narrative on the books is correct. Kodos was killed on the colony and his body was burned. Kirk then is back on the enterprise and he seems to be in the conference room with his own computer station, which he tries to look up. He's not only refreshing his memory of what happened at that planet and massacre, but he also wants to find information on the theater actor, Caridian. Who is he? So the computer tells us all about the massacre and how the governor had to make that decision on who dies and who doesn't. He's also nicknamed as Kodos the executioner and then we learn about Caridian and when asked how old he is, where is he from? Any information before 20 years ago the computer finds none. They only find that he's been a part of this theater group for the last 20 years and he does have a child. He is a 19 year old daughter named Lenore. Kirk then asks the computer to show pictures. So he sees a picture of Kodos. Kodos. Thank you. I knew I was going to miss it out. Kodos and then Anton Caridian. They look kind of alike, but not 100%. No, one is certainly I think done up to they do a pretty good job of obviously their pictures of the same actor. They do a pretty good job of having a picture of Kodos and have the actor appear 20 years younger versus how he appears today. But let's talk about this major plot hole here. Why is there a picture of Kodos in the computer? The whole purpose of Dr. Layton summoning Kirk to confirm the identity of Anton Caridian of being Kodos is because there's only nine eyewitnesses that ever saw his face and lived through the massacre. Oh my gosh. But there's a damn picture of the guy. So anyone could see who he is. And later there's Kirk compares does that little voice analysis. Yes. So there's a recording of Kodos speaking. So they literally could have taken any of the plays that were recorded over the last 20 years. I guarantee you at some point that theater troupe had recorded it. And they could have just used that voice analysis, I guess. Huge plot hole. Well then we wouldn't have an episode to describe. No, we wouldn't. They definitely should have just left the picture out of the records. Like just like a silhouette. Something. That would even be a better thing. That would even have been a better plot point. If instead of the only picture of Kodos that seems to exist is a very clear mug shot or picture ID photo. It's a passport photo is what it is. Instead of that being the only surviving picture, why not some kind of extremely blurry covered in shadow deteriorated photo. Like the big foot. That's the only picture of Kodos that makes it. And Kirk is trying to make some kind of identification between that blurry photo from 20 years ago and a passport photo of Anton Keridian now. And make it so that there's just enough similarity that peaks is interest because this is what peaks Kirk's interest and starts to change his mind. But again, major major major plot hole. Definitely the writers and the developers blew it by having this clear cut photo of Kodos. It blows the whole plot point, the whole story out of the water. I did not even think of that. That makes complete sense. Yeah. So then but while he's looking, Spock comes into the conference room. Yeah. What you're doing. And Kirk asked Spock, what was your opinion on Dr. Layton? Yeah. Kirk wants to get some kind of baseline character analysis from a neutral third party because Kirk's interests are now peaked. But he also still has this lingering doubt that Dr. Layton might just be blinded by seeking vengeance. Yeah. So there's been 20 years. So what's the third party's opinion? Yeah. What do you think Spock? Is he fucking nuts or what? And Spock gives thumbs up all kinds of positive opinions. So Kirk goes cool. Thank you. And please. And Mike. Yeah. Yeah. He pretty much without further explanation tells Spock that no, we're not going to depart for our next stop. I'm going to go back down to the planet. I'm going to continue my time down on the planet and doesn't give any other explanation to Spock in this moment. Kirk has returned to the planet so he can go to Dr. Layton's party. So also he can meet the actor Caridian in person because he does believe at this time that Couto's is no longer alive. He's done. But instead of the actor arriving, his daughter shows up in his place because Caridian needs to have his rest. It's also important to note that when Kirk first arrives at the party, Dr. Layton isn't there. That's right. It's his wife that tries to make sure he's happy and enjoying his time. Yeah. Dr. Layton's wife Martha tells Kirk when Kirk gets there and Kirk asks where Layton is, Martha says he's gone to town, but he's called ahead and said he'd be right back. I'm assuming Kirk called ahead to let them know or pass on a message that he was in fact coming to the party. See, you know all the little details that I keep forgetting. I appreciate that. But you're right. Kirk at the party grabs a cocktail, takes a sip from it. I'll point that out. And then in walks who we will learn to be is Lenore. And Kirk inquires, you know, is her father coming and Lenore tells Kirk, oh no, he does not socialize with anybody. He's on his own. Okay. Yeah, a little strange kind of suspicious even. I think it's also something that causes Kirk to start to wonder if there's some merit to Dr. Layton's suspicions. You're right. Because you know, he invited the whole party and only one actress is coming. So yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, but on the other side of the coin, you can also explain this away as Anton is just kind of a weird actor. Yes, a quirky, quirky, eccentric. So also just point out for the fun fans. There's this fun little flirty interaction when Kirk is first talking to Lenore. Firstly, it isn't explained how Kirk recognizes or knows it is Lenore. He has to just at best recognize her from the play because she does participate in the play. Right. And put two and two together that here is a 19 year old or someone that should be 19 years old attending this party. And so he draws that conclusion that it must be Lenore Anton's daughter. There's a lot of assumptions. Yeah, but she never there's never kind of a moment where he goes, oh, you must be Lenore. And she goes, why? Yes, I am. He just goes into the conversation and leads it around to the fact that she's Lenore. And she doesn't confirm she just never denies it. But she makes the fun flirty comment that he has a drink and that she wants a drink and she asks, oh, is that for me? And he goes, sure, why not? It's the same drink that he's already taken a sip out of. They don't believe in terms. They also apparently don't believe in 21 is the legal drinking age. Unless it's not alcohol, I don't know. Oh, could just be punch. You could just be punch. Maybe. Well, that's why they, you know, they decided to go on stroll while they wait for Dr. Layton to their outside. Yeah, they definitely continue their flirting. Kirk makes the suggestion that they go for a walk and get away from the party. Lenore quickly agrees. It's a flirt city. It is. But let's assume, let's give Captain James T. Kirk the benefit of the doubt. Captain Kirk, who's in his early 30s, Lenore is 19. But let's, let's give the benefit of the doubt and say that Kirk is entirely motivated and all of his actions are driven by this desire solely to get to the bottom of the suspicion as to whether Anton is in fact, Kodos or not, and he wants to investigate this by talking to his daughter, Lenore, and there's no ulterior motive whatsoever. Okay, this is another example of Kirk using his persuasion, charisma, charm on a woman to lead her to believe that he is attracted to her and interested in her in order for him to get what he wants. So manipulating. Go back to the episode, Meary. Oh goodness. He does that with Meary, where it's very obvious at that point because Meary is a child, but he definitely leads Meary on to thinking that he's interested in her. He's attracted to her. He wants to spend time with her. So is that what Kirk is doing in this moment? Or is he just someone in his early 30s who's hitting on a 19 year old? Either one is really creepy. Yes. I don't know which it is in this moment. You're right. I think it veers closer toward he just wants to get to the bottom of things as the episode continues, but we'll get to that. But at this point, I agree with you. We don't know. And it is really creepy when you think of it 19 versus 30 mid 30s. Yes. With lots of history, I'll put into place. This is being recorded in 2026. We are applying today's society standards and our own personal opinions into this. We were not alive in 1966 when this first aired. We're not making any commentary to society in that time. No, no, no, no, no, we are making our own opinions based on society's viewpoints as our own opinions at this time. Not to upset anyone out there. No, I mean, that's why I also bring up the John Wayne all the time because that's how I grew up. It's very John Wayne, manly man and lady need to rescue. Thank you so much. You're so handsome. Well, that's also prevalent in Hollywood in general. Go dig deeper into the Indiana Jones mythos and his relationship with Marion from the movies dig deeper. Look at that age gap. Never called out in the movies, but an interesting, interesting dive. And I still love the Indiana Jones movies. Yes. Even the crappy crystal skull. Anyway, let's get back on track. We're now we're taking our stroll though. He's charming. They're chatting and Lenore is just taken over and she leans in to give him a kiss and what what's over there? He sees a body and he runs to the man. The body is a male and it happens to be his friend, Dr. Layton. Yes. And he's dead. Yes, very dead. And they how did that happen? But then we jump back to his home after Layton and his wife like covers his body and says, you know, at least he that piece now. Like as if he was tortured soul trying to figure out what was up. Right. Slightly interesting that everyone seems to draw the conclusion that he's been murdered. Also interesting that at no point is it mentioned if he is taken somewhere for some kind of forensic examination to determine a cause of death. Everyone just kind of throws their hands up and says, he was killed. We'll figure out why and avenge his death. This also curked us. I think he's going to change those plans and they're talking. Lenore had explained to Kirk that they were on this ship called the Astral Queen. They had two more performances on another planet called Bonisha and you know she was just chatting. So Kirk decides that he's going to call the captain of the Astral Queen and ask her a favor. So he connects to the enterprise to Yehara and asks her to connect his call with the captain John Daley on Astral Queen and like scramble it. So probably to be like in my incognito mode and okay. So then he's now talking to the captain of the Astral Queen and he says, hi John, it's me Kirk. You all me a favor. You all I owe you a dozen Kirk. You know, you're there for me. Great. So you don't have to worry about taking these players with you just go on your way. I got them. Okay. No question asked. So Kirk is not going to take the play actors with him and take them wherever they need to go to Bonisha and John Daley can continue on. Right. And all of this is being done behind the backs of the crew of the enterprise. This is really where Kirk is going off script and going behind people's backs to investigate this further or force a series of events that will allow him to continue to investigate without revealing that he's investigating. So then we are back on the enterprise and they're on the bridge. Kirk is ready to go and spark because like we're good to go just like what I said where should we go but then Kirk's like, well, we're gonna we have a pick up. What what are we picking up and as he's telling spark what's happening you heard interrupts and says that Miss LaNor is requesting to talk with him and she is already beamed into the transport room. Yeah. So surprise. Well Kirk says beamer up and have her brought to the bridge. I think a very small note but I appreciated it in watching the episode. We've mentioned in the past sometimes it seems like to the viewer it's hard to keep up with the passage of time because there's no transitions. It's just hard cut from one scene to another without any captains log audio cue, visual cue that's amount of time has passed. So I did appreciate the fact even though it was probably 10 seconds of showing LaNor. It's a fun little thing to show a transition to show that there is this little passage of time that she's being beamed up and being walked to the bridge. It makes it more believable than Kirk saying beamer aboard and have her come to the bridge and then two seconds later without going anywhere she walks onto the bridge. LaNor definitely has the best outfits we've seen so far. Yes. F.O.I. Yes. Burn a fun fact. She changes wardrobes six times in the episode. She wears six different outfits in the episode which is a tie for the most wardrobes worn in an original series episode. That's amazing and it's all like faux fur but they're probably like portraying real fur. Yes. But I found it really awesome that of like her attire. So she rises onto the bridge and tells Kirk that they're stranded. Their ship has continued away and perhaps Kirk could take them where they need to go. Heems and haws, you know, maybe, maybe not. And LaNor suggests what about a private production performance in trade for that for a ride to where they need to go. And Kirk does agree to that. Spock's on the sideline this whole time. He's kind of picking up on the fact that maybe things aren't exactly what they seem. Maybe there's some suspicion that Kirk has orchestrated this whole chain of events especially because it seemed like Kirk knew about and anticipated the need of the transportation before the facts were revealed because just before LaNor hails the enterprise asking to speak to Kirk, Kirk makes mention that they're due for a quote pickup. Exactly. And so they are directed to Benisha Colony, which is another eight light years off the original course. So then LaNor leaves the bridge of the enterprise saying that she's going to prepare make arrangements for the rest of the troop to beam up to the enterprise and prepare for the performance of the crew. As we leave, we get this kind of comical shot of Yom and Rand entering the bridge and giving LaNor this kind of weird, dirty look, perhaps picking up on the flirtatious energy between her and Captain Kirk. But Yom and Rand doesn't say anything. She just gives the dirty look, walks off camera to continue her duties and we get a commercial break. Kirk is at the computer station researching who are the nine people who have seen Kodos in person and the computer listing everybody and he learns that Lieutenant Riley has seen Kodos in person. So Lieutenant Riley had recently been promoted to communications from the engineering, but Kirk has decided that he will need to be back into the engineering room just for the time being. There's no reason given just because he said so. I don't really know why Kirk does this. I think it has to be Kirk trying to play chess and he's trying to set up the pieces to out Anton. He's maneuvered the enterprise into a position and Anton into a position where he's on the enterprise. I guess he's using Riley as bait and he's setting Riley up to be down in the engineering room by himself as a likely target to be murdered, kind of weird, but because I mean, even at this point, I didn't assume that anyone else was going to be murdered. I just had the same questions. Why are we demoting poor Riley? Yeah, it's because it's not really explained at this point that these witnesses are being murdered. I don't think this is the part of the episode where we learn that Kirk until recently Dr. Layton and Lieutenant Riley are the only three recent surviving people out of the nine that can identify him. Exactly. It's not pointed out at this part of the episode yet. So it's a little weird. So, you know, Kirk don't ask questions, but then we are moved into the sick bay and Spock is talking with McCoy like why is Kirk doing this? Why is he changing everything? Don't you think he's being weird? Like, and McCoy is like, well, I don't I mean, I don't see anything wrong. It's the same old Kirk that we know just follow what you have been doing and what he wants you to do. And again, we talked about it in the beginning of the episode. It's weird. It's a weird juxtaposition where Spock is not the rebellious one and Kirk has to defend the actions of Spock, Spock and Kirk of reverse roles, but McCoy has flipped 180 degrees as well. How many episodes did we see prior to this where McCoy is calling out Kirk's actions as being suspicious? You're right. Irrational, not logical. And now McCoy is coming to Kirk's defense. He basically tells Spock, hey, it's stressful being the captain of the ship. Let him do his job. And enjoy this drink with me. Yes. And enjoy this drink. So Spock just kind of, you know, what leaves it? Any decides to do his own research on what is happening on his own? Yes. And Spock pulls all the parallels together between Kirk, Layton, Riley and Anton comes to his own conclusions. He runs off to share all of his findings with McCoy, where we finally get the full version of what happened on Tarsus IV, the colony. They lost all of their food to a fungus infection. Kodos was the governor of the colony and declared martial law. He divided the colonists into half and executed 4,000 of them, half of the colony, so that the remaining half wouldn't starve to death. But he did so in a way that was largely based on eugenics. And he decided who was inferior and who should die and who had superior genetics, qualities, and they were allowed to live. Spock also shares with McCoy in this conversation that Anton's history and records begin almost to the day of Kodos's supposed death. Kirk, Riley could all ID him. And this is where we learn that all of the other nine people are now dead. So it is just Kirk and Riley as the last remaining people who can identify him. Except for the fact that we have a photograph of them in the computer. Riley is all by himself in the engineering room, bored out of his mind. So he decides I'm just going to call up to the rec room and see what they're doing. Binds out that Yura is in their plane, but looks like a harp and asks her to sing a song. So she does. And he's happily listening, doing whatever he's doing all by himself. And he's distracted when somebody sprays a liquid into his milk. And he doesn't see it because of course he's listening to Yura. And then we see him start to drink the milk and he is poisoned. Luckily though he was taken up to sick bay where McCoy is making sure that he doesn't die. And in the sick bay, Spock asks how he's doing McCoy is up front says it's, you know, he doesn't really know. Hopefully he'll pull through. And that's when Spock tells McCoy he needs to or else Captain Kirk will be the next one on the list to be killed or targeted. Which also makes no sense that there's nothing to say that whoever's targeting these witnesses isn't going to go after Kirk while Riley is still in a coma. So we come back from the commercial break. We get a quick captain's log that McCoy is trying to figure out what poison was used on Riley. Cut to the sick bay with McCoy and Spock where McCoy shares with Spock that the poison is in fact just a common compound. It's a ship lubricant for parts on the ship. So McCoy isn't convinced that Riley was poisoned at all. It could have been an accident because the ship lubricant has the same color and consistency of milk. Spock himself is still convinced that it was poisoning and he pulls rank on McCoy and says no we need to go report this to the captain. They arrive at Kirk's quarters. Spock and McCoy tell Kirk what their findings are about the lubricant and being the poison. Spock is very certain that Caribbean and Kodos are one and the same but McCoy is still not a green but he also asks Kirk what will you do if you do figure out that they are the same. You can't just bring them back. They are already dead and Kirk replies that they'll at least be able to rest easier. You know they have their own justice and we have a hard cut where it's just Spock and Kirk together when they're here a hum. It's getting louder and louder and louder and Kirk says that's that's a phaser if it overblows it will blow up and harm the ship. So he and Spock race around the room to try and find it while also making an announcement that the two Dex and D need to evacuate in case that's where it is and they don't find it in time. Right and it's a lot of chaos. Spock is sent out into the corridor outside of Kirk's room to start evacuating. Kirk stays behind to continue to try to find the phaser. He's called for double red alert which thankfully he does because that's the only way that I think Kirk finds the phaser. It's in a light panel and the flashing red light from the double red alert shows the silhouette. He manages to grab the phaser and dump it into some kind of laundry shoot vent that I guess vents out into outer space. The phaser overloads blows up, causes the ship to shake in a dramatic fashion to show hey if you guys didn't find it it really would have blown a hole on the side of this thing. Kirk finally decides that he needs to go to Anton Keridian's room and speak to him himself. He wants to confront him about if he is in fact Kodos. Keridian doesn't answer him ever. It just gives him a base of answers, describes like in half-truths and just basically says he's tired. He's an actor. He can be anyone he wants. Anyone Kirk wants him to be. This is definitely the part of the episode where one could argue this is where audiences would start to tune out as being too talkative to wordy but if you really pay attention it is some of the best dialogue that we've seen so far in Star Trek. Kirk is asking Anton direct questions about there's no record of you from more than 20 years ago what were you more than 20 years ago and as an elusive of an answer he Anton replies back I was younger much younger. And Kirk then asks I need you to perform this speech. I have it written here. He wants to get this recording to compare it to a known recording of what the real Kodos sounds like. Again as we said before how do they have a record of it? Why couldn't they use recordings of any of the previous plays and his other works to compare it to? I guess one could make the argument no one was really suspicious of Anton Keridian being Kodos until very recently so no one would have a reason to but again I don't think it'd be that hard for Kirk to pull up a recording of one of their previous plays fire it into the computer to compare it to this speech and come to the same results but whatever Anton reads the speech. Well he barely reads it it's like he takes a one peak at it and performs it beautifully. Yeah and it's the speech that supposedly the real Kodos gave back on the colony when he was announcing to the 4000 colonists that to prevent everyone from starving those 4000 people would be put to death. And of course Keridian's like well I'm an actor I can easily learn my my parts. The two are interrupted as Lenore comes in from a cider room and is angry at Kirk like she basically calls him out for using her as a tool to get to her father. You didn't really have feelings for me. Yes certainly at some point Kirk is transitioned if there was a transition from being attracted to her to using her to get closer to her father. Kirk quickly tries to excuse himself by saying look I'll go run the comparison of the recording I just took if in fact your dad is Kodos will deal with it but if he's not we'll let you go at Benesha and no harm. And another great line where Lenore tells Kirk who are you to say what harm has been done and Kirk replies who do I have to be. But we get a hard cut to sick bay Riley has apparently recovered as McCoy reports into his log. McCoy also spills the beans to his log that Riley is a surviving witness to Kodos that he was on the colony that his parents were killed as part of this massacre meanwhile Riley is sulking or sneaking or eavesdropping from the doorway to the other room and over here's McCoy and now Riley is out for revenge. Kirk and Spock are comparing the voice prints of the real Kodos and Caridian and it's close but not completely the same so they can't 100% agree that it the two are the same person. No Spock is convinced and Kirk still has doubts. And as they're discussing the voice print Lenore and the players the theater company are in the rec room putting on a show of Hamlet for the Enterprise crew. Kirk is sneaking backstage as the play is going on looking for Riley. And he's looking for any clues to further incriminate Anton to possibly being Kodos. Finally he does find Riley and and pulls him away from interrupting the play because he wants to do harm to Caridian who he believes is Kodos. Yes he talks Riley down off the ledge. I personally found the whole subplot of Riley and how he discovers that Anton is Kodos and goes and seeks revenge. I didn't like it. I thought it was a thing that could have been left out of the entire script. Certainly the connection of him being a possible eyewitness to being poison, played a certain part in it. But it's just kind of a weird resolution to this subplot. I think if they started it before like earlier in the episode it would have made it better made better sense. Yes. So the intermission of the play Anton goes backstage and he is overcome with guilt. He trying to explain to Lenore that he's guilty about things that she hasn't know about that was before she was born. And as he's explaining or trying to explain she interrupts him and says basically don't don't worry about that. After tonight's show the last two people who know who you are are not going to be alive anymore. She basically admits to being the one who's killed off seven of the nine people that know what his original identity is. And Anton is horrified. He had no idea that she was murdering all these people. Yet she's so proud of herself and she doesn't understand why her father is not proud of her. While he was trying to prevent her from having his past force on her she was trying to save his future basically. Yeah. And he's further upset because he feels personally responsible for these nine people being killed. Sorry. These seven people being killed. He feels that their deaths are also directly on him for his actions. If he hadn't been the executioner at this massacre, at this colony, he never would be in a position where his daughter would have to perform these murders to conceal his identity. And he's upset of course because he viewed his daughter as pure and completely 100% removed from his past. And now she very much is connected to his past. Kirk of course here's all this from the sidelines and decides it's time to put an end to the play and this charade and he has security come over to take Kodos into custody. But Lenore snatches the phaser from security and as Kirk tries to set forward and take the phaser from the nor Anton steps in front of Kirk as the nor fires the phaser and kills him. With the death of her father, Lenore has gone over the edge. She has gone crazy. She she first cries over his death and then just gives way to laughter. She's hysterically laughing about she's being led away off the stage. With a lot of Hamlet direct quotes from Hamlet in her in her in her weave into her hysterics. The rest of the performers are dropped off at panisha as planned. Makoi reports to Kirk that Lenore will be in the best of care and she does still believe that her father is still alive and everything is happy. He kind of pushes Kirk and you know you did care for her right you know get me the inside scoop perhaps and Kirk just ignores it and asks for lieutenant Leslie to break the orbit and go to warp. He and Makoi do exchange a look but that's the only answer. Yeah Makoi says that's an answer that's an answer enough and roll credits. So Jackie what did you think about season one episode 13 the conscience of the king? I actually loved it. I know that we mentioned earlier at the time that it was not accepted greatly by the audiences but I enjoyed the costuming the the blending of Shakespeare into the normal the normal you know words. I just really liked it. Yeah I agree while not well received by viewers in 1966 again there's very little science fiction there's very little action outside of the phaser explosion and there's certainly no sci-fi elements to it. This is definitely as I mentioned a murder mystery in space but ultimately I like the break from all of that. We obviously can't do justice to the dialogue the quoting of hamlet the quoting of Shakespeare so absolutely if you haven't watched the episode go back and watch it the actors do a fantastic job it's definitely worth a watch. Just for the nor herself that actress did wonderful. Yes but I have some triple tidbits or fun facts about the episode. First airing December 8th 1966 again obvious obvious connection and parallels to Shakespeare's hamlet the guilty conscience of a leader the exposure of real life crimes during a play murder death the madness of a daughter again just a fun theme a fun idea to take an episode of Star Trek and have it mere so closely to a Shakespeare play for another great example stretched out over a much longer period of time if you haven't seen it go watch Suns of Anarchy the television show absolutely also is hamlet to a tee. The party music or the background music that we hear at the cocktail party at Dr. Layton's house is just the opening theme it's just a redone revision jazz version of the Star Trek theme song this is also the only instance where a double red alert is called that's when the phaser was overloading we later get this replaced we have a yellow alert and then a red alert which would be what a double red alert is so we kind of streamline it a little bit more and give it a little bit of a difference there were some scripted lines and scenes that were dropped from the script and never filmed that would have established more backstory as to why and how Kirk found himself on this colony 20 years ago it would have been established that Kirk was a fresh graduate from Starfleet Academy probably serving his first couple humanitarian missions on the colony but that would have conflicted with later accounts as to Kirk's age you can imagine people would enter into the academy when they're 18 they would graduate three or four years later so that would have put Kirk in his early 20s which then means that at the time of this episode he would have been in his early 40s when in fact it is established that Kirk is in his early 30s so it would have been a 10-year discrepancy and he'd be 40 talking to a 19 year old exactly this episode is also the direct inspiration for the alien from the Simpsons and where he gets his name Kodos the other alien Kang also gets his name from a leader Star Trek episode so both aliens and the Simpsons get their names directly from Star Trek and finally the actors who played Dr. Layton and his wife Martha were actually married at the time of this filming so that's cute those are your triple tidbits and this is the part of our episode where we rank the episode this is where we pretend the episode is a member of our fictitious crew and we assign a starfleet rank to the episode putting them on our fictitious starship a higher rank means we found the episode not just entertaining when we watched it but more important to our crew for the structure of the show and a more important episode of course a lower rank also means that we found the episode to be a disposable member of our crew and we weren't that entertained by it our rank started Ensign they go to lieutenant junior grade lieutenant lieutenant commander commander captain which we can only have one of an admiral a perfect episode Jackie what are you going to give this episode a rank for your ship the USS Galactic Glitter B I'm gonna have to learn how to demote people soon yes because the higher ranks definitely have a limited number of spots and for those who don't know what we're talking about you can go to our patreon at patreon.com/treksandtangents and see a visual representation of all of our rankings so at this time I am going to make them the fourth commander and then I need to figure out who to demote on my lieutenant commanders in the future so Jackie's going to rank this a commander a fourth commander for her ship out of five joining other such episodes as I think that's the dagger of the mind and both the menagerie part one and part two still have one more open rank for commander for leader if you wanted to fill it still no captain or admiral but it's nice to see Jackie's crew rounding out a little bit toward the top for quite a while Jackie was putting everyone down in the basement well they deserve to be there so for my ranking for the USS cosmic shark I'm gonna go more middle of the road and I'm gonna give this a rank of lieutenant commander ironically enough this will also be joining the same rank as my rankings for the menagerie part one and part two this will be the fifth lieutenant commander out of ten or the bottom rank of the limited rankings I like the episode I'm giving it this rank and it's not gonna rank higher for me solely because there were some significant plot points that I just find to be unforgivable especially when a plot point or a fact is so heavily relied on in the episode specifically this idea that there's only nine people that ever saw Kodos alive on the colony these nine people are the only people who can threaten his existence and identify him correctly the motivation behind Lenore killing them all off but again there's a freaking picture of the guy a mugshot in the ship's computer that anyone could pull up at any time and compare it to this guy and again that just screams to me such a huge error in functioning also we didn't cover its star Trek it's the future understandably the show is limited by the technology and the imagination of the writers at the time DNA testing was not a thing in 1966 but if we're just looking at star Trek mythology in facts they couldn't identify the burned body based off of his DNA or better yet dental records or molecule makeup or molecule makeup or anything it's a fantastic episode it is absolutely worth a watch solely for the ties to Shakespeare in the dialogue that is delivered but when it comes to the actual plot points there's just too many glaring holes for me to ignore to rank this higher so lieutenant commander it is again as a reminder you can see all of the visual representations because this is an audio podcast and what fun is that you can go to our patreon at patreon.com/treksintangents and you can see a visual representation of all of our rankings in the structure of our rankings we post an updated version every Wednesday the day after the episode goes live we'll be back next week to trek through another episode but before we go we'll give our turbo lift ease or elevator pitch to next week's episodes plot this is where I give Jackie the title of the next episode and Jackie with no other information we'll give a brief pitch to the plot Jackie next week's episode is entitled balance of terror you want to you want to hint that would be great that's a great name so I will say that this is if you wanted to say top three or top four episodes of the season this is going to be one of them I will also say this will probably give it away but I will say that we get to introduce a new alien species to the Star Trek universe and they are going to be a very recurring alien species in Star Trek take it away well that doesn't help me at all but if we're balancing things good versus evil so maybe they're recurring bad alien because they're the good guys I don't know I will say that yes the aliens that we are introduced are free-footed villains in Star Trek oh my gosh I'm dumb well then we're gonna get better fighting power so we're gonna have a new person on board the enterprise alien type all right join us next week to find out if the enterprise gets a bad new crew member or a good one or a good one if you want more show information you can find and directly support our podcast on patreon at patreon.com/treks and tangents on the fourth Fridays of the month we are currently posting our dive into the animated series called animated detours that's what we call it that's not what it's called on paramount plus so hopefully you can join us for that it's an episode where there's a lot more tangents less trekking through the plot of the episode because it's a cartoon from the 70s there's not a lot of substance there we find ways to fill the time hopefully gonna have some more projects coming down the pipeline for our patreon crew members hopefully you'll consider joining us over there again free for everyone to see every week and the entire backlog of our rankings as we go through with the regular episodes you can also follow us on x.com at treks_tangents we're also on instagram and blue sky at treks and tangents and jackie where can people find you and what are you up to i'm all over the place mentally and physically you can find me most though at jibboum on instagram and then i have a what not shop that's called guitabobu teak and that's what i'm doing what i'm showing my music my fashion weight loss you name it it's on there thank you all right you can watch me stream a variety of video games over at twitch.tv/pireptpoundtown on youtube i post video games and other random content on my main channel at pirate poundtown and someday i'll get back to my secondary coin collecting and hobby content on youtube at pirate treasure hunting i post socially on blue sky at pirate poundtown and i can still be found on instagram under pineapple cannibal because well we don't have time for that story this week links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description thank you everyone for tuning into this episode we hope you had fun like we did and we will see you all next week see you all later thank you and transmission