Could Charlie X be the worst episode in the history of Star trek?
Forget Spock's Brain, which maintains a certain ludicrous charm, or The
Thaw, the shame of Voyager's second season, and even the deathly Next
Generation montage episode Shades of Grey. Have you ever considered
Charlie X - a supposed classic of the original series from the pen of
revered Trek scribe DC Fontana - to be one of the worst Trek episodes
ever made?
To refresh your memory, unless you've had the misfortune of seeing this
clunker countless times: a strange, adolescent boy with very shiny eyes
- the Charlie of the title - is dropped off on the Enterprise, only to
cause telikenetic mayhem and turn most of the crew into mutes and
salamanders.
The objection here has little to do with historical prejudice - there
are plenty of gems in the original series, which continue to be
(rightly) celebrated. But in this instance a combination of hideously
poor production values, a tortuous script, leaden acting and a crude
concept make the whole experience utterly depressing. The episode has no
wit, no memorable lines and no limit to its poor execution - in one
scene a furious Charlie removes the face of a crew-member, who staggers
around a corner and screams in pain, despite no longer possessing a
mouth.
That said, perhaps the true nadir of the episode is Kirk's bungling
attempt at sex education - watching William Shatner talk about 'the
birds and the bees' should be enough to induce apoplexy in any sentient
viewer. Charlie's hormone-fuelled advances on Yeoman nice Rand - a
short-lived character given a rare high profile for this purpose - are
also discomfiting.
The episode makes no attempt at any substantive message or theme, other
than a trite "immaturity is difficult to handle, and..er, so is
adolecence."
At best, watching Sixties Trek can be a reassuring experience, one in
which you still see how much the spin-off series have drawn positively
from the imagination of the original. But Gene Roddenberry should have
put DC Fontana on detention for writing Charlie X, instead of
sanctioning an episode that risks triggering more existential ennui in a
new generation of innocent Trek fans.
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