The Conscience of the King (Star Trek)

It has been suggested that Kodos the Executioner be merged into this article or section. ()

Star Trek: TOS episode
"The Conscience of the King"
Kirk questions Kodos
Episode no.	13
Prod. code	013
Remastered no.	42
Airdate	December 8 1966
Writer(s)	Barry Trivers
Director	Gerd Oswald
Guest star(s)	Grace Lee Whitney Majel Barrett Arnold Moss Barbara Anderson Bruce Hyde William Sargent Natalie Norwick Karl Bruck Marc Adams Eddie Paskey
Year	2266
Stardate	2817.6
Episode chronology
Previous	"The Menagerie (Parts 1 & 2)"
Next	"Balance of Terror"

"The Conscience of the King" is an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. It is episode #13, production #13, and aired on December 8, 1966. It was written by Barry Trivers and directed by Gerd Oswald. Overview: Captain Kirk crosses paths with an actor suspected of having been a murderous dictator many years before.

Plot

On stardate 2817.6, the starship USS Enterprise, under the command of Captain James T. Kirk, is transporting a Shakespearean acting troupe led by Anton Karidian to Benecia Colony from Planet Q. Before their arrival, Captain Kirk is contacted by his childhood friend, Dr. Thomas Leighton, who wishes to inform Kirk about the development of a new synthetic food. Leighton however, uses the opportunity to tell Kirk that Karidian is really Kodos the Executioner, the former tyrannical governor of Tarsus IV, who is responsible for many deaths - including members of both Kirk's and Leighton's families. Leighton takes Kirk to watch a performance of Macbeth with Karidian in the title role. Karidian is shown having just killed King Duncan and delivering the lines:

Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No; this my hand will rather

The multitudinous seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.

We learn that twenty years earlier, Governor Kodos had ordered that 4,000 colonists on his planet be put to death, thus acquiring the grim sobriquet of "the Executioner". His rationale for the slaughter was that there was a critical food shortage on the planet, to combat which some lives had to be sacrificed; but (as is later explained by Spock) Kodos apparently applied his own personal theory of eugenics when he chose who lived or died. Furthermore, the vital supply ships that could have saved the whole colony came much sooner than Kodos anticipated, rendering his measures unnecessary. The dilemma that this left Kirk to face arose from the fact that Kodos was commonly believed to have been killed sometime after the arrival of those ships, and his body was recorded as having been burned beyond recognition. Leighton claims, however, that Kodos not only escaped, he assumed a new identity. Until recently there were nine known people left who could identify Kodos, but the only three now surviving are Captain Kirk, Lt. Kevin Riley (also serving on the Enterprise), and Dr. Leighton. All the others have recently died. Unsure if Karidian really is Kodos, Kirk decides initially just to keep a close eye on him and his lovely but mysterious daughter Lenore. When Dr. Leighton is found dead, Karidian is the primary suspect, but Kirk takes no action for the moment. Mr. Spock becomes curious about the Captain's behavior and decides to do some investigating of his own. Of the original nine eyewitnesses, only two now remain and when each previous witness died, Karidian's acting troupe has always been somewhere nearby. Later, Lt. Riley's milk is poisoned, and he would have died if he hadn't been communicating with other crewmembers at the moment of the poison's effect, allowing them to immediately dispatch assistance. Spock is certain that Karidian and Kodos are the same person; however, Kirk, deeply haunted by what happened on Tarsus IV, remains reluctant to draw the same conclusion regarding the gentlemanly and noble-seeming actor. A further complicating factor is that Kirk has fallen for Lenore. Kirk's and Spock's discussion is interrupted by the ominous humming of an overloading phaser hidden in Kirk's quarters. While Spock is clearing the deck, Kirk finds the weapon and jettisons it before it explodes. Kirk now decides to confront Karidian and demands point-blank to know if he is Kodos. Karidian is evasive (though clearly pained), but enough of his dialogue is recorded to determine whether it matches a voiceprint of Kodos. Meanwhile Lt. Riley is recovering in sickbay and overhears Dr. McCoy's log entry, learning that this Karidian is suspected of being Kodos, the man responsible for killing Riley's family. Riley sneaks out of the sick bay, clearly bent on revenge. Meanwhile, Spock runs the voiceprint analysis; the results reveal a close but not exact match, and Kirk is still reluctant to pass this final, damning judgement on the man. The Karidian troupe begins their stage performance of Hamlet at the Enterprise's theatre. We see Karidian playing the Ghost, speaking to Hamlet:

I am thy father's spirit,

Doom'd for a certain term to walk the night,

And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away.

Lt. Riley sneaks backstage, phaser in hand, ready to exact his revenge on Karidian; however, Kirk finds him and persuades him to surrender the phaser. Their conversation is overheard by Karidian, who goes backstage to investigate, followed by Lenore. Karidian, who for 20 years has tried to forget his past and shield Lenore from it, learns to his horror that his adoring daughter has (by her own admission) been on a crazed crusade to protect him by assassinating the witnesses. She plans to complete her killing spree by eliminating the last two witnesses. Lenore then produces a phaser and takes aim at Kirk. Desperate to prevent any more bloodshed in his name, Karidian/Kodos jumps into the line of fire as Lenore tries to shoot Kirk. As her beloved father lies dead, Lenore, quoting some poignantly apposite lines from Shakespeare, slumps over his body in a paroxysm of grief, driven out of her mind by the realization of what she has done.

40th Anniversary remastering

This episode was remastered in 2006 and aired September 22, 2007 as part of the remastered Original Series. It was preceded a week earlier by the remastered version of "The Galileo Seven" and followed a week later by the remastered version of "The Man Trap". Aside from remastered video and audio, and the all-CGI animation of the USS Enterprise that is standard among the revisions, specific changes to this episode include:

• The planets the Enterprise orbit have been given more realistic appearances.
• During a scene where Kirk talks to Lenore, the stars outside the room's viewport have been given animation to show the Enterprise is at warp.

Trivia

Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines. The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.

Shakespeare parallels

The episode takes its title from the concluding lines of Act II of Hamlet: "The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."

• This is one of many episodes where the title is uttered onscreen. Other examples include "For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky", "A Piece of the Action", "By Any Other Name", "Wink of an Eye", and "Wolf in the Fold".
• It also marks Grace Lee Whitney's quiet departure from the series, as her character, Yeoman Rand, can be seen entering the bridge. She does not speak. Her absence in future episodes is never explained. The creators of the series decided it wasn’t a good idea for Kirk to have a love interest on the ship. The actress and character later returned in the Star Trek feature films as a minor character, and eventually even as a guest-star on an episode of Star Trek: Voyager, ("Flashback").
• Lt. Riley (in the script the character was Lieutenant Robert Daiken, but when Bruce Hyde was cast, "Kevin Riley" was handwritten in), also seen in "The Naked Time", was meant to show that the Enterprise had other regular crew members. However, he too was never seen or referenced again.
• The Enterprise's observation deck is shown here for the first of only two times in the entire series. The other instance is in the third season (MOS #71) episode "The Mark of Gideon", in which Kirk and Odona enter the observation deck, gaze at the viewport, and see masses of people instead of stars.
• According to the USS Defiant's computer records shown briefly onscreen in the Star Trek: Enterprise 2-part episode In a Mirror, Darkly, communications officer Hoshi Sato of the Enterprise (NX-01) and her husband Takashi Kimura are among the 4,000 colonists executed by Kodos.
• "Kodos" is one of the two Trek-named aliens who appear in the halloween episodes of The Simpsons, the other being named after the Klingon character "Kang."
• Guest star Barbara Anderson ties with France Nuyen (in the third season's "Elaan of Troyius") for the most number of costume changes in a single episode (4). Anderson's costumes are a fur dress, a blue and green mantle, a black dress and the Ophelia dress.
• The music playing in the background at Leighton's cocktail party is a slower, jazzier version of the Star Trek theme.

External links

• The Conscience of the King article at Memory Alpha, a Star Trek wiki
• Star Trek.com's Episode Summary
• Review of the remastered "The Conscience of the King" at TrekMovie.com