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Whom Gods Destroy (episode)

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This article is written
from the Real World
point of view
This article is written
from the Real World
point of view
"Whom Gods Destroy"
TOS, Episode 3x16
Production number: 60043-71
First aired: 3 January 1969
Remastered version aired: 24 May 2008
← 72nd of 80 produced in TOS →
← 69th of 80 released in TOS →
← 70th of 80 released in TOS Remastered →
← 69th of 726 released in all →
Teleplay By
Lee Erwin

Story By
Lee Erwin and Jerry Sohl

Directed By
Herb Wallerstein
5718.3 (2269)
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Kirk and Spock are held captive in an insane asylum by a former Starfleet hero.

Contents

[edit] Summary

Marta, an Orion slave girl
Marta, an Orion slave girl

Kirk and Spock beam down to the Elba II asylum and are met by Dr. Cory, the governor of the penal colony. He explains that they have just increased the number of inmates by one, and the new inmate is Garth of Izar. Kirk mentions that Garth was a legendary Fleet Captain before going insane, and that his exploits were required reading at the academy.

Dr. Cory leads Kirk and Spock to Garth's holding cell, only to discover the actual Dr. Cory restrained and looking roughed-up. At this point, Garth reveals himself and opens the remaining holding cells, releasing the inmates of Elba II. After knocking out Spock and dragging him off, Kirk is placed into the holding cell with the real Dr. Cory and it is explained that Garth learned how to morph his cellular structure to look like other people.

Garth morphs into Kirk and visits the transporter room, intent on taking control of the Enterprise and seeking vengeance against his former crewmembers. Scotty, who is in command of the Enterprise, asks "Kirk" for the transport code word: "Queen to Queen's level three," but Garth is unable to respond with the correct counter sign. He tells Scotty that was just a test and then gets very angry, causing him to turn back into his true form.

Realizing that he can't board the Enterprise without the counter sign, Garth returns and invites Kirk and Spock to dinner, but states that governor Cory is not on the guest list. They all proceed to an elaborate feast with the inmates serving as entertainment.

After the feast is over, Garth brings in a rehabilitation chair which he has modified to cause pain. Governor Cory is placed in the chair and tortured for a short while. Kirk refuses to give in, and Garth places him in the chair instead. After another episode of torture, Kirk is placed in a separate room where Marta comes to him and begins to seduce him. She suddenly loses it and tries to stab Kirk, who manages to fight her off. Marta explains that Kirk is "her lover and she must kill him." She is prevented from doing so by Spock, who uses the Vulcan nerve pinch to subdue her.

Spock and Kirk proceed to the transporter room, and Spock attempts to get Kirk to give the countersign. Kirk refuses, and demands that Spock give the countersign. He steps back and draws his phaser instead. At this point, Spock morphs into Garth and reveals it was a trick all along. Kirk's phaser, naturally, is uncharged.

Eventually, the real Spock shows up and Garth morphs into a likeness of Kirk. The two begin fighting while Spock tries to decide which one is the real Captain Kirk and which one is Garth. The fight ends in a tie, and Kirk tells Spock to shoot both of them. Spock then shoots the fake Kirk and allows the security team from the Enterprise to beam down and restore order in the asylum.

Once the inmates have been returned to their holding cells, Garth is placed in the rehabilitation chair (the non-painful version) and returns to a sedated state. As he is being moved from the chair to his cell, he notices Kirk and very calmly asks if they know each other. Kirk tells him that they do not, and Garth is led away.

[edit] Log Entries

  • Captain’s log, stardate 5718.3. The Enterprise is orbiting Elba II, a planet with a poisonous atmosphere, where the Federation maintains an asylum for the few remaining incorrigible, criminally insane of the galaxy. We are bringing a revolutionary new medicine to them. A medicine with which the Federation hopes to eliminate mental illness... for all time. I am transporting down with Mr. Spock, and we're delivering the medicine to Dr. Donald Cory, the governor of the colony.

[edit] Memorable Quotes

"Queen to queen's level three."

- repeated by various characters


"Queen to king's level one."

- the countersign


"Gentlemen! You have eyes, but you cannot see! Galaxies…surround us! Limitless vistas! And yet, the Federation would have US grovel away like some ANTS... on some... somewhat larger than usual anthill!!!! But I am not an insect! I am... Master of the Universe! And I must claim my domain!"

- Garth to Kirk and Spock


"I'm the most beautiful woman on this planet."
"You're the only woman on this planet, you stupid cow!"

- Marta and Garth


"Why can't I blow off just one of his ears?"
"Stop it, Marta. Mr. Spock will think we are lacking in hospitality."

- Marta and Garth


"He's my lover and I have to kill him!"

- Marta to Spock about her "lover", Kirk


"Lies! All lies! You are the greatest liar I have ever met!"

- Garth


"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and temperate. Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, and summer's lease hath all too."
"You wrote that?"
"Yesterday, as a matter of fact."
"It was written by an Earthman named Shakespeare a long time ago."
"Which doesn't alter the fact that I wrote it again yesterday! I think it's one of my best poems, don't you?"
"I MAY KILL YOU WITH MY BARE HANDS!"

- Marta and Garth


"She's yours if you wish, Captain."
"Oh, uh... Thank you. That's, uh... very magnanimous of you."

- Garth and Kirk, about Marta


"REMOVE THIS ANIMAL!!!!"

- Garth


"In the midnight of November
 When the dead man's fair is nigh
And a danger in the valley
And the anger in the sky"

- Marta (misquoting A. E. Housman)


"Captain Kirk, I presume."

- Spock, after stunning "Lord" Garth

[edit] Background Information

[edit] Story and Script

  • The title is taken from Euripedes (later quoted by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow): "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad." (In Latin: "Quem deus vult perdere, dementat prius.")
  • The story outline was produced 26 July 1968. In the first draft script (5 September 1968) Garth of Titan threw the asylum guards out into the poisonous atmosphere. The conditions inside the asylum were also more graphic, with inmates displaying symptoms of various mental illnesses. Produced mid-October 1968.
  • The plot of inmates taking over the asylum and impersonating the warden closely resembles TOS: "Dagger of the Mind", right down to the "agony chair" prop which is literally reused from that episode. In his memoir I Am Not Spock, Leonard Nimoy shares a memo that he wrote to the producers to complain about the similarities.
  • According to an interview published in Star Trek Lives by Sondra Marshak and Joan Winston, Nimoy also complained at some length about discrepancies in the script, including but not limited to inconsistencies in his own character. He blamed the director for making changes in the script to focus on "action" rather than on intelligent problem-solving, and felt the changes were a form of lying to the audience.
  • Kirk tells Spock that he doubts King Solomon would have approved of the Vulcan's manner of determining who was Kirk and who was Garth. The two of them, and Dr. McCoy, would meet Solomon (an immortal Human who was born Akharin and was then living as Flint) not long afterwards in TOS: "Requiem for Methuselah".
  • Kirk refers to Spock as his "brother" and Spock agrees with this figurative interpretation of their relationship. Kirk would refer to Spock as his "brother" again in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
  • Spock's sentence "Captain Kirk, I presume?" is an allusion to the famous question asked by explorer Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904) to David Livingstone (1813-1873) on the shores of Lake Tanganyika on November 10, 1871: "Doctor Livingstone, I presume?". The question was later alluded to in the title of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Doctor Bashir, I Presume".
  • Despite the apparent success of the drug in this episode being able to cure the mental illness of Garth and the other inmates, it seems never to have been employed again. In future episodes of TOS, the Enterprise crew encounters characters who are pronounced insane (such as Dr. Sevrin from "The Way to Eden" and Janice Lester from "Turnabout Intruder"), but no mention is made of using the drug introduced in this episode to cure them.Additionally, although the Elba II asylum is mentioned in this episode as being the last of its kind, mental asylums are mentioned as being maintained in future incarnations of Star Trek, such as the "Federation Funny Farm" from Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Frame of Mind". Though the former may simply be an unofficial nickname for the Elba II asylum.
  • Elba II likely derives its name from the Earth island of Elba where Napoleon I was exiled to following his forced abdication. This notion is reinforced by the further dictatorial similarities between Garth and Napoleon, as well as the scriptwriters including the French emperor among the names of those failed leaders whom Garth references.

[edit] Cast

  • This is the third consecutive episode to guest star an actor from the Batman TV series – namely, Yvonne Craig.

[edit] Costumes

[edit] Production

  • Footage of the Enterprise firing phasers down to the surface of a planet is reused from "Who Mourns for Adonais?".
  • Garth's torture chair is a reuse of the chair in the neural neutralizer room from "Dagger of the Mind".
  • This was the first episode produced without co-producer Bob Justman, who had been with the series, in different capacities, since the production of "The Cage" in 1964. He left the series to work on other projects, specifically the series Then Came Bronson. According to the book Inside Star Trek: The Real Story, Justman broke a contract with Paramount Television, and didn't set foot on the lot for almost twenty years.

[edit] Other Information

  • This is the only episode where Spock performs a simultaneous double Vulcan nerve pinch on two distinct alien species.
  • In this episode a human (Garth) performs a Vulcan nerve pinch while impersonating Spock, although it is possible that Marta is playing along with the deception.
  • In the United Kingdom, the BBC skipped this episode in all runs of the series through to the early 1990s, due to its content. It was finally shown for the first time on 19 January 1994.
  • Contrary to popular belief, the Tellarites in TOS always had three fingers, even in this episode. The fingers are sleeker in appearance than they were in Season Two. "The Lights of Zetar" would be the only time we see a Tellarite with five fingers in TOS.

[edit] Production Timeline

[edit] Video and DVD releases

Released with "Plato's Stepchildren", the volume was originally unrated, as it was released prior to the Video Recordings Act 1984. After 1985, it received a rating of PG.
Because of the BBC's decision to omit this episode from its initial runs, this release was the first time that UK viewers could see it.

[edit] Links and References

[edit] Starring

[edit] Also Starring

And:

[edit] Guest Stars

And:

[edit] Uncredited Co-Stars

[edit] References

Alexander the Great; Antos IV; asylum; Axanar; Bonaparte, Napoleon; Caesar, Julius; Cochrane deceleration maneuver; Elba II; Elba II asylum; Hitler, Adolf; Kuan, Lee; Krotus; Orions; Romulans; Shakespeare's sonnets; Shakespeare, William; Tau Ceti; three-dimensional chess

[edit] External link


Previous episode produced:
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" 		Star Trek: The Original Series
Season 3 		Next episode produced:
"The Mark of Gideon"
Previous episode aired:
"Elaan of Troyius" 		Next episode aired:
"Let That Be Your Last Battlefield"
Previous remastered episode aired:
"A Private Little War" 		TOS Remastered Next remastered episode aired:
"The Mark of Gideon"
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