What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Sugar and spice and everything nice? Nah. Apparently they’re made of robot parts. As are guys, Kirk duplicates and big, scary dudes.

Of all people, Nurse Chapel (future Roddenberry spouse Majel Barrett) gets back story here. Actually, this is more “front story,” explaining how she came to be a member of the Enterprise crew (though of course she’d already appeared in an episode earlier in the season that took place on an earlier stardate).

Chapel is the fiancée of Dr. Roger Korby (Michael Strong), “The Louis Pasteur of archaeological medicine.” The doctor’s research expedition hasn’t communicated with the outside universe for awhile, and the Enterprise has been sent to … wait, are you paying attention, or are you still trying to figure out what “The Louis Pasteur of archaeological medicine” is supposed to mean?

Turns out the place is crawling with androids. One is the good doctor himself, consciousness transferred to a new, artificial body. Another is the attractive Andrea, the Venus de Milo of women whose faces don’t get a lot of attention (played by Make Room for Daddy’s Sherry Jackson, who probably would have gotten a you-aren’t-going-out-dressed-like-that-young-lady-go-upstairs-at-once-and-change from Danny Thomas if she’d ever worn the get-up she’s got on here). But the real star of the show is Ruk, the Bob Dole of tall, scary robots, played by Ted Cassidy (more famous for playing Lurch on the original Addams Family series).

Ruk is left over from the days when “The Old Ones” created him (and for Lovecraft fans who noticed Robert Bloch’s name in the writer’s credit, prepare to have your hopes dashed). The rest of the machines were generated in sort of a rotating Easy Bake Oven that makes an android copy of whatever living person gets strapped into it. Ostensibly as a demonstration, they Xerox Kirk.

Of course they then try to use the copy to advance their agenda. Unfortunately for them, the captain was clever enough to think fake racist thoughts about Spock during the duplication process. As a result, back aboard the Enterprise the robot Kirk makes an inappropriate remark to his second-in-command. Of course Spock immediately figures out what’s going on, and once again the final score is Trekkers 1, Robots 0. Nurse Chapel stays on to become a crew member and series regular.

The author of The Star Trek Compendium got a real kick out of the make-up and costume sported by Cassidy. I had a somewhat lower opinion of them. The make-up looked cool, but then it ended abruptly at his jaw line leaving his neck bare. It was the George Washington’s portrait of unfinished paint jobs. And the costume? The thing was so over-stuffed that it looked like the poor guy was trying to steal Mylar balloons from Party Warehouse, and it was covered with a housecoat that made the “menacing” android look like a sofa disguised as your grandmother.

Episode rating:

Stardate: 2712.4

Episode type: Dangerous alien

Written by: Robert Bloch

Original air date: October 20, 1966

Mudd's Women / Miri

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