Star Trek (1966) 1.13

The Conscience of the King

Captain Kirk is invited by Dr. Thomas Leighton, an old friend, to Planet Q to see a play. Leighton is convinced that Anton Karidian, the lead actor in the play is actually Kodos the Executioner of Tarsus IV.

Twenty years prior, Kodos was the governor of the colony on Tarsus IV. A large portion of the food supply was destroyed by an exotic fungus. Kodos, understanding that there wasn't enough food to feed everyone until more food could be delivered, took extreme measures and had half the population of the colony, 4000 people, killed. The food shipment eventually arrived but by then Kodos had disappeared and was believed to be dead.

Kirk and Leighton were both there. They were two of a very small group who survived and knew what Kodos looked like. Kirk admits that Karidian resembles Kodos but he has doubts as to whether Karidian is Kodos until Leighton turns up dead.

Kirk gets involved with Lenore, Karidian's daughter before the Enterprise leaves Planet Q. Kirk pulls some strings and arranges it so that the troupe of actors will have to travel on the Enterprise to their next gig.

There is another survivor of Tarsus IV on board the Enterprise, Lt. Kevin Riley. He is poisoned while the acting troupe is aboard the Enterprise but he recovers.

Kirk's conviction that Karidian must be Kodos grows. Riley learns that Karidian might be Kodos might and makes plans to kill him. Kirk intercepts Riley before he can go through with his plan. Karidian and Kirk talk after Riley has left the room. They are both stunned to learn that Lenore is the one who killed Leighton and other survivors of Tarsus IV, in order to protect her father. She unintentionally shoots and kills her father with a phaser when he throws himself in front of Kirk rather than allow her to kill again.

Thoughts

There is a huge goof in this episode. Supposedly only nine people who survived Tarsus IV know what Kodos looks like and yet at one point early in the episode Kirk pulls up a picture of Kodos on a view screen and compares it to a picture of Anton Karidian. How has he been able to stay on the run for this long without getting caught?

How old was Kirk when Kodos executed 4000 people? My guess is that at most he was in his early to mid-teens. This subject doesn't come up and isn't terribly relevant to the story but I do wonder.

The episode opens with the performance of a scene from MacBeth. Towards of the episode there is the performance of one or more scenes from Hamlet. The title of the episode comes from the ending to Act 2 of Hamlet and is spoken near the end of the episode.

I remember watching this episode years ago but I didn't remember all the details or exactly how it ended.

I thought it was a little odd that Karidian / Kodos is absent from the episode for almost 30 minutes. He is in the first scene but then he doesn't show up again until Kirk confronts him more than 30 minutes later.

This is the second and final appearance of Lt. Riley according to Memory Alpha although he does appear in a few Star Trek novels. Riley previously appeared in The Naked Time where he was portrayed by the same actor. 

Yeoman Rand appears briefly in this episode but does not have any lines. She only appeared in one other episode after this one although this is final episode in terms of production order that she was in.

I watched this episode twice. I wasn't as moved by it the first time around as I was the second. I watched it a second time because I suspected that there was something I had missed because I was very tired the first time I watched it.

Kodos is clearly coded as a former Nazi. The events on Tarsus IV were 20 years in the past just as World War II was 20 years in the past at the time this episode was made. Karidian / Kodos makes it clear towards the end that he does not feel guilty for having 4000 people executed. There are mentions of eugenics. It all adds up in my mind to Kodos being a Nazi of sorts and a true believer.

The kicker is Kodos reaction to the reveal that Lenore is the one who has been murdering the surviving eyewitnesses. He is shocked to learn what she has been doing. He thought that she represented the good and gentle side of him only to learn that she also inherited the darker elements of his being.

This episode is excellent even though it is science fiction light. I put it in the upper tier of episodes that I have watched, in large part because of the way it ends.