STAR TREK
Wolf in the Fold

From Wikipedia:

"Wolf in the Fold" is a second-season episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #43, production #36, and was broadcast on December 22, 1967. It was written by Robert Bloch, and directed by Joseph Pevney.

Overview: A series of bizarre murders points to Mr. Scott as the prime suspect.

More here.

After the last two episodes, "Amok Time" and "The Doomsday Machine," one might be tempted to describe "Wolf in the Fold" as something of a letdown. In all fair criticism, this one just doesn't live up to the standard set by those two. But it is not a letdown. "Wolf in the Fold" is good solid Star Trek, teaming the same writer and director who made "Catspaw" worth watching. Indeed, teleplay writer Robert Bloch, who penned the book on which Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho is based, is totally at home with this one, a knife wielding slasher story. And it's a Scotty episode. Everybody loves Scotty, right?

"Wolf in the Fold" opens with a belly dancer gyrating to the music used during a similar scene in "The Menagerie." And the woman here is just as sexually alluring as Susan Oliver was in her green Orion slave girl makeup. The dance continues for what seems to be, for a Star Trek teaser, an extraordinarily long time, but that's okay because it's all about setting the mood. As the camera pulls away from the dancer, we see a mis en scene which strongly suggests a sort of Arabic culture, with a Middle Eastern band jamming away, while Kirk, McCoy, and Scotty watch transfixed. But this isn't a Muslim planet: Bones explains to Kirk that the people of Argellius live in "a completely hedonistic society." This was supposed the be the emotional remedy for Mr. Scott's recently developed "total resentment toward women" resulting from an accident on the Enterprise, caused by a woman, which gave him a concussion. Instead of curing the Chief Engineer's futuristic 1960s style sexism, the belly dancer is dead by the end of the scene, seemingly stabbed brutally by Scotty.

So right away, we know what this episode's going to be, exotic, sexual, and violent. And it doesn't disappoint. Indeed, the first three scenes all end with the image of a dead sexy woman, covered in stab wounds, with an amnesiac Mr. Scott nearby. As they did with "Catspaw," Bloch and Pevney establish a story with mood and imagery that necessarily make viewers ask that vital dramatic question, "what's going to happen next?"

On the other hand, "Wolf in the Fold," again and again, flirts with science fiction goofiness that threatens to quash viewer interest. I mean, handled a bit differently, this could be one of dozens of mediocre Star Trek: The Next Generation episodes, but probably with Acting Ensign Crusher in the lead instead of Mr. Scott. Fortunately, the episode never quite crosses the threshold of off-putting silliness, and all the overacting and improbable plot elements end up actually enhancing the exoticism established in the teaser.

Really, given the context, all that overacting is great fun. The belly dancer's grieving father, also one of the musicians from the opening scene, angrily accuses anybody he can. In his bizarre Bedouin clothing declaiming his lines like a 19th century Shakespearean, he's a throwback to the exotic Hollywood films of the 30s and 40s, like Casablanca or Morocco. And even Sulu deposits a weird moment. Right after McCoy shoots him up with the Federation equivalent of goof balls, he offers in a sing-song voice right out of Reefer Madness:

"Whoever he is, he sure talks gloomy...with an armful of this stuff I wouldn't be afraid of a supernova. Hee hee."

Even Kirk gets big, especially during the lie detector scene, but that's how he usually is, anyway, and it works well here. Spock, as usual during the second season, is great, which kind of creates another flaw in the episode: there's just not enough screen time for him. McCoy is solid. And Scotty, to whom the episode belongs, turns in a fine performance, addle-brained and confused, emotionally tortured by the knowledge that he might have murdered three women.

But like "The Doomsday Machine" last week, the best acting in the episode comes from a guest star, veteran character actor John Fiedler as the outsourced Argellian homicide investigator Hengist, who turns out to be the real murderer. Try imagining Winnie the Pooh character Piglet on meth and you'll get the idea. This is no joke; Fiedler was, in fact, the voice of Piglet in Disney's Pooh features for many years. Casting him was a stroke of brilliance, making the episode all the more weird and sinister. The expression on his face when what he is becomes clear to everyone is fan-fucking-tastic.

Something that I never noticed over the decades that I've known this episode is the sense of moral ambiguity inherent in the climax. Kirk and Spock beam the Redjac possessed Hengist out into space, permanently ending the threat he poses. So far so good. But what about Hengist? Isn't he as much of a victim here as anybody else? Okay, he wasn't stabbed to death, but he was possessed by an evil non-corporeal entity that caused him to commit numerous murders. That is, not only is he not guilty by reason of insanity, he also suffered what is essentially a kind of psychic rape. Yet Kirk and Spock coolly scatter his molecules across the galaxy. I mean, it's possible, I suppose, that Hengist is simply the solid matter state of the energy being Redjac, which makes his destruction morally acceptable. But the story never establishes such a notion; indeed, it is far more likely that Hengist is a normal person compelled to commit heinous acts by a force he cannot control.

Don't get me wrong. This isn't a problem to me. I like the moral ambiguity here. I like the possibility that Kirk and Spock off an innocent victim to serve the greater good. I'm just pointing out the situation.

And I would be doing a disservice if I didn't also point out how the episode ends: the crew of the Enterprise is high on drugs, and Kirk laughs about it. God, I love Star Trek!

Go check it out.


"I don't remember."

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