Mention bad Star Trek episodes and “Spock’s Brain” is the title on most people’s lips. It set a standard for The Orginal Series’ fatal third season, combining silliness and misogyny in a uniquely Star Trek way that embodied the worst elements of the franchise. However, as bad as “Spock’s Brain” is, it’s not the worst, at least according to one prominent group of Trek fans. The 50th Anniversary Star Trek convention hosted by Las Vegas in 2016, held a fan poll on the worst Trek episodes of all time. Season 3, Episode 24, “Turnabout Intruder” claimed the prize for The Orginal Series, and as it turns out, there are good reasons for the vote. “Turnabout Intruder” has all the problems of “Spock’s Brain” made worse.
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The episode’s timing speaks to the state of Star Trek at the time. It was the last Orginal Series episode to air and the end of a third season that saw everything go wrong for the franchise. Gene Roddenberry had lost creative control of the show, and stalwart writers like DC Fontana and Gene L. Coon left for greener pastures. The scripts were sillier, lazier and more outlandish. While good episodes still came out of it, the bad ones were far more common. Worst of all, The Orginal Series moved from Tuesday nights to Fridays, an infamous ratings dead zone when viewers were likely out for the evening. The night “Turnabout Intruder” was scheduled to air — Friday, March 28th, 1969 — it was preempted for news of President Dwight Eisenhower’s death. It didn’t run until the following June, marking what at the time seemed an ignominious end to a once reliable television show.
The plot is worse and exacerbates many of the same problems from “Spock’s Brain.” Both episodes center around conceptually ridiculous technology. “Spock’s Brain” saw the removal of the Vulcan’s cerebellum to be plugged into a giant underground computer, while “Turnabout Intruder” used a body-swapping device to put Kirk in the body of a mentally unstable woman in command of the Enterprise. They were dlichéd mad scientist devices — the kind used as jokes in Saturday morning cartoons — and their presence on an ostensibly serious sci-fi show spoke to how far the scripts had gone astray.
William Shatner does “Turnabout” no favors either, and here, the first real steps down from “Spock’s Brain” take place. In the latter episode, Leonard Nimoy undertook the indignity of acting like a living robot in stride, and the requirements of the script allowed him to remain understated. Shatner, playing an insane woman trapped in Kirk’s body, gives in to his worst thespian instincts: screaming, ranting and, at times, appearing utterly unhinged.
In and of itself, that is bad enough. Shatner certainly has his share of hammy performances, and the unintentional camp value of watching him chew the scenery is well in keeping with Trek’s sillier moments. Devoid of any other context, it might even become endearing: the kind of ridiculousness that Star Trek: Lower Decks loves to send up. But context is everything, and the misogyny underlying Kirk’s body-swapping is particularly hard to watch.
It wasn’t the first time systemic sexism made itself known in The Original Series. As progressive as the show was at the time, its outdated attitudes toward women weren’t limited to the third season. Its sexism was on full display in “Spock’s Brain,” which features a group of alien women in revealing outfits stealing the Vulcan’s mind from the Enterprise. When not under the influence of their “Controller” computer, they behave like children, only to be “set right” by Kirk at the end of the episode. The storyline has aged as poorly as it deserves and turns the episode from unintentional camp to something much more problematic.
However, it pales before “Turnabout Intruder,” which starts with the apparently canonical assertion that women can’t serve as captains in Starfleet. Subsequent shows have thankfully ignored the line, but it’s key to the episode drama since it explains the antagonist’s intense jealousy toward Kirk. Dr. Janice Lester, afflicted with radiation-based madness, plots to swap places with Kirk to become captain. Once she has it, she’s unable to execute it properly, arousing the suspicion of the crew immediately with her “irrational” and manic commands. Not even “Spock’s Brain” ascribed insanity to a woman aspiring to leadership, nor did it infer that a woman could not do the job once she had it. To that, “Turnabout Intruder” adds a healthy amount of sexual jealousy, portraying Janice as mad with hatred for Kirk over his rejection of her years ago.
Systemic sexism was inescapable at the time. Even The Orginal Series‘ first pilot, “The Cage,” was rejected in part because it portrayed a woman in a position of authority on the Enterprise. “Turnabout Intruder” completes a sad descent from that original moment, depicting women as crazed, hysterical lunatics blinded by uncontrolled emotion. It’s perhaps a small blessing that circumstances limited its initial viewership, but Star Trek’s subsequent ascent to the heights of pop culture allowed its unpleasantness to come along. It’s earned a place at the bottom of the heap. At best, “Turnabout Intruder” is a cautionary example, and at worst, it’s the embodiment of everything the show was supposed to be against.
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