it is time! at long last, after a year+ of watching TOS (not counting my first attempt years back), I am at ST: TOS 3.24 'turnabout intruder'. let's put a bow on this initial watch!
+ so I absolutely know some of the backstory with kirk and janice, but it is helpful to know her abusive, controlling past behavior when she grabs his arm to stop him leaving with the others. from the very start, she grasps.
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.
+ first of all, ACK! this is official canon confirmation that starfleet, for all its progressive views etc still doesn't allow women to serve as starship captains. we also get confirmation that janice would rather have killed jim than let him go on without her. ack! double ack! notably, he doesn't return any of her sentiments when she says she loved him and her last comment disturbs him enough that he gets up and walks away to the other side of the room.
+ oh no, we get the body swap immediately! 😟
+ look, I know this episode is probably definitely going to have some language that doesn't age well but --
JANICE: 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. For you this agony will soon pass, as it has for me. Quiet. Quiet! Believe me, it's better to be dead than to live alone in the body of a woman. It's better to be dead.
IT'S THE STRUCTURAL MISOGYNY, HAROLD 😟😟😟 but I can't pass this moment without noting that while janice wonders why kirk didn't kill her when he had the chance (and assumes he must have wanted to), after 3 seasons with kirk we know why he wouldn't and that he wouldn't, even if he hated her. he might leave her for dead, à la deela in 'wink of an eye', but cold-blooded murder is not his repertoire. it's definitely hers, though.
+ it is under the worst circumstances but, uh, the show really is going to end on an episode where kirk is in the body of a woman after all his 'mother' and interesting gender choices, huh?
+ it's very frustrating that the transcript still lists shatner's lines in this episode as KIRK but I'm going to soldier on:
MCCOY: Oh? I didn't know you knew her that well. JANICE: Oh, yes. It's been a long time since I saw her. I walked out on her when it became serious.
what a framing! it's a story that mccoy is particularly probably likely to buy because he never has been able to align kirk's actual romantic preferences with expected heteronormative male behavior and while janice can't know that, she gets lucky here. it's also possibly not luck and just the study of male behavior in the federation - a calculated strategy that pays off.
+ sidenote, but shatner's hair looks much darker here. it almost creates a thematic hint by accident.
+ gosh, even the way shatner is holding himself as janice is so different.
+ say whaaaat?
KIRK: Mister Chekov, plot a course for the Benecia Colony.
benecia?! the same place the enterprise was headed in 'the conscience of the king' to drop off the ~players?
+ I know we miss uhura in this episode (and the last!), but if kirk had been yelling like this at uhura at comms everyone would have known something was wrong REAL quick
+ bones is already ordering a medical examination of "kirk". well, at least everybody is suspicious!
+ watching kirk use his seduction skills to get chapel out of medbay so she can smash the glass and escape...that's the cap'n
+ mind meld time, baby! I love that after kirk's attempts to convince spock with facts that only kirk and spock should know, he has to switch to an emotional check:
JANICE: You are closer to the captain than anyone in the universe. You know his thoughts. What does your telepathic mind tell you now? (Under the watchful gaze of the guard, Spock does a quick mind-link) SPOCK: I believe you.
+ I have been waiting for the kirk and spock hand-holding scene for a YEAR :D we've gone from sarek and amanda touching fingers to kirk and spock holding HANDS.
+ okay, but the moment "kirk" accuses spock of mutiny and places him under arrest, mccoy looks at spock with a real "wtf is this shit" look that says it all
+ why is scotty the investigator in this trial? bring back areel :P also, why are sulu and chekov here as junior officers? oddness all around.
+ kirk did his (?) make up for this trial :D
+ and now we come to the cross-examination, my fave:
KIRK: No. I am not Captain Kirk. That is very apparent. I claim that whatever it is that makes James Kirk a living being special to himself is being held here in this body. JANICE: Oh. Well. However, as I understand it, I am Doctor Janice Lester. KIRK: That's very clever, but I didn't say it. I said, the body of James Kirk is being used by Doctor Janice Lester.
ST: TOS is really deconstructing what makes a person a person here!
and look, even if we didn't know that janice forcibly bodyswapped with kirk, after 3 seasons, "kirk" is behaving so oddly that everybody has already noticed. now, he's mocking a person he claims is mentally unwell after physically attacking her without provocation.
JANICE: Violence by the lady, perpetrated on Captain Kirk? (wags finger)
janice can mock this idea all she wants - we've seen so much violence visited on kirk by women that it's hardly beyond belief for anybody actually paying attention.
+ okay, this conversation between scotty and mccoy before the vote is maybe the best scotty has ever been, but he's worth the screentime.
+ I like that sulu and chekov are both standing up for spock, scotty, and mccoy and pointing out execution is barred in all but one contingency that has not been met. honestly, even chekov is worth the screentime this episode. and sulu, please bring your rapier to the fight!
+ did spock discover a link between janice and kirk's body? huh. and then the bodyswap just resolves itself. perhaps you can't go too far from the planet where you did the bodyswap. [edit] I don't even really trust janice's henchman's assessment that the only way she can stay in kirk's body is by killing janice's body. this guy got bounced out of starfleet medical on two accounts - both ethical and medical. what does he know? janice could have been left without a body to return to and something something the destruction of the self lies in our destruction of others.
+ "Her life could have been as rich as any woman's, if only. If only."
those are the final words of ST: TOS?! WILD.
+ oh yeah, I'm sure I'll have more thoughts about that in the S3 write-up, but I did it! I finished the show, at long last :) what a ride.
