The Conscience of the King : TOS Episode 13 Production 13 Original Air Date 12/8/1966 Stardate 2817.6

The Conscience of the King - Star Trek TV Episode [ Synopsis | Editorial Reviews ]
Production # 13 Episode # 13
Air Date: 12/8/1966
Stardate: 2817.6

Twenty-two years before stardate 2817.6, the governor of Tarsus IV, Kodos, evoked emergency martial law and ordered half of the planet's population executed. His intent was to address a severe food shortage on Tarsus IV, and it earned him the name "Kodos the Executioner." It was believed that Kodos died on the planet, but there is some belief that he may have escaped and assumed another identity.

James Kirk, Lt. Kevin Riley, and Dr. Thomas Leighton are the only surviving witnesses to Kodos' previous evil deeds; others who might have known Kodos have been mysteriously killed in various accidents.

A traveling theatrical troupe arrives at Planet Q, and a Dr. Leighton contacts the U.S.S. Enterprise regarding a new synthetic food concentrate. When he is beamed aboard, he tells Kirk that his real reason for contacting him was to tell the captain that he suspects Anton Karidian, the head actor in the theater troupe, is really Kodos.

When Dr. Leighton is murdered, Kirk agrees to transport the Karidian Players to the Benecia Colony on board the U.S.S. Enterprise. His real motive is to study Karidian and his daughter in an attempt to learn if he is, indeed, Kodos and responsible for Leighton's death.

When Riley is poisoned, the young man learns of Kirk's suspicions and goes to the theater on board the U.S.S. Enterprise to kill Kodos. Kirk stops him and takes the actor as his prisoner. Then he learns that Karidian's daughter, Lenore, has been killing anyone who might know of her father's past life. Karidian, who has been trying to forget his past, is horrified to find what his daughter has been doing. Lenore aims a phaser at Kirk, but her father steps into the line of fire and is killed. Lenore goes completely insane at having killed her father.

The continuing adventures of the starship Enterprise, as recorded for posterity on DVD, move into their sixth volume with a very interesting pair of shows from the original series. "Miri," one of the most popular episodes, featured a couple of soon-to-be-semi-icons from two very different kinds of films from the late 1960s: Michael J. Pollard (who would appear in Bonnie and Clyde) and Kim Darby (John Wayne's costar in True Grit). The intriguing story concerns a race of children on an Earth-like planet who are in fact 300 years old, kept pristine in the summer of their lives by a disease that also causes madness and death with the onset of adulthood. The Enterprise's landing party, including Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), are instantly contaminated and forced to remain on the planet until McCoy can find an antidote. In the meantime, Darby's character, Miri, falls for Kirk and becomes jealous of his attentions toward anyone else. Easily one of Star Trek's strongest shows, "Miri" is a must-see for Trekkers and Trekkies.

Also on this disk is "The Conscience of the King," a memorable drama about a traveling Shakespearean troupe led by one Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), who may or may not be the same man as Kodos the Executioner, former governor of a Federation planet who oversaw the mass murder of thousands of people rather than watch them starve to death during a food shortage. (Shortly after the deaths, Federation supply ships arrived and Kodos disappeared, right around the time that Karidian arrived as a classical actor touring the planets.) A nice twist: among victims of Kodos's wrongheaded mercy killings were relatives of Captain Kirk (William Shatner), adding a personal note to the mystery of Karidian/Kodos. Well-written (by Barry Trivers) and sensitively directed by a not-well-known but very interesting Hollywood filmmaker, Gerd Oswald.--Tom Keogh