Trek08: "Charlie X"

Trek08: "Charlie X"

Jan 25

“Charlie X” is an hour of Star Trek that is at turns disconcerting, self-indulgent, creepy, unsettling, uneven, and affecting.

And yet…SHATNER.

I have always had a weakness for the persecuted teenager story. It’s because I inevitably feel for the guy getting picked on, since I start to reflect back on my own days as an acne-ridden outcast. So part of me does really want Charlie to hit it off with Yeoman Rand and beat the odds.

But man. The way this kid acts, the whole eyes-go-rolly-into-back-of-head, chunky-crewman-vanishes-from-Enterprise-workout-room thing–BLEARGH. I can’t explain it. It just wigs me out.

So you pair that with scenes like Uhura’s infamous “Charlie, He’s My Darling” performance, which seems like writer D.C. Fontana being forced to work Nichelle Nichols’ nightclub act into an episode…or Shatner’s first topless scene…it all adds up to a weird mix.

It’s no wonder, then, that what really endures here–what pops off the screen and into my lap in the most manly, hetero way imaginable–is The Shirtless One himself, flaunting his oily hairless chest, a nude sock visible beneath his skin-tight trousers–William Shatner as James Tiberius Kirk.

Shatner’s pre-Trek resume reads like that of plenty of other actors finding work in the infant days of television–guest spots on both episodic and anthology television series (his Twilight Zone turn in “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” being perhaps his best-known pre-Trek role), occasional supporting work in film.

Which is to say that there really is NOT a William Shatner before Trek. His early work exhibited talent, sure, and maybe a hint of ego. But there was nothing to suggest that Shatner as Kirk would become an iconic performance, that he’d have the brass balls and magnetic versatility to so completely dominate a series, then six films, and through it all, an entire FRANCHISE, a pop culture phenomenon and grassroots cult. Shatner and Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had a famously tumultuous relationship, and you have to wonder if it isn’t driven by sheer jealousy at times; Roddenberry created the show, had the vision and the ideas, but Shatner WAS Star Trek, in body and soul, just by virtue of showing up. Still is.

Based solely on the series, at least, he’s Kirk immediately. By just the second episode of the series to air–the seventh filmed–the illusion is complete. He didn’t need to find his footing; there was no hesitation. Kirk just EXISTED, perfect and raw and ludicrous and thrilling all at the same time, sometimes within a single line.

The story on this episode is credited to Gene Roddenberry, with the script by Fontana. After reading all the varying tracts of information on Roddenberry, I find myself usually disinclined to offer him the credit for much of anything good, so I kinda want to believe that all the lousy, weird bits were dreamed up by Roddenberry, and anything else that works was just Fontana trying to turn this turkey into a workable script.

(I have no proof of that, mind you, but that’s what I do: I use incomplete information to come to baseless and usually unfair conclusions about powerful creative people. It’s how I’ve written tens of thousands of words about George Lucas, for example.)

As Charlie, Robert Walker, Jr. does what he’s supposed to do–he creates a very weird kid with unnatural powers–but that doesn’t mean I have to LIKE it. He’s perhaps least creepy when he’s finally outed as an omnipotent being, and he struts around the Enterprise like the cock of the walk. Otherwise, he’s just the kind of person you don’t want to have to look at for very long–his eyes set so wide apart, that endless drive-in movie screen forehead, the coarse and greasy hair–and yet he gets tossed in your face every few minutes by your television. Yikes.

On the other hand, we have Grace Lee Whitney, who I’ve decided has been completely robbed and underappreciated by the Trek phenomenon since its inception. She’s got a tough part to play here; she’s got to be kind, but firm, but not too bitchy, a little vulnerable; a strong woman, yet still sorta misguided in the ways of romance and how she should handle things. And she absolutely fucking NAILS it. She acts the crap out of this part in this episode, and it makes me wonder just how she of all people got cast aside from the “big seven.” Did Roddenberry try to fuck her or something?

(See? There I go again.)

Oh, and did I mention Shatner KICKS UNHOLY ASS in this episode? Whether he’s stumbling through a birds-and-bees talk with Charlie (all the while with a glint in his eye that says, “I’ve learned more about babeage in twenty minutes on Orion than you will EVER know), or giving eagle-eyed viewers a glimpse of his flesh-colored body stocking as he rolls around on a gymnastics mat (no, I wasn’t looking for it), he’s all over it.

Again, let’s remember–this is the second episode of Star Trek ever. He is already masterful. Control your awe.

I’ve seen William Shatner in person three times. Once, I sent him flowers; he was staying in Chicago while hosting a beauty pageant taking place in Northwest Indiana, and I started calling hotels randomly, and apparently got lucky, because the front desk confirmed his presence. I immediately sent a bouquet to his room, with some forgotten message on a card. He never replied, but seriously; did I really think he would? Mine was probably one of a hundred floral arrangements presented by giggly fans, some of them including soiled undergarments.

So, the three in-person times:

1) Just a random con. He was far away. I was still mesmerised.

2) A concert at the El Rey in LA featuring William Shatner along with Ben Folds. In a moment of silence, I screamed toward the stage. “We love you, Shatner!”

He turned his face away from the crowd. A sardonic smirk played upon his lips. He sipped from a water, drew close to the microphone. He purred into it.

“And…I love you too.”

3) Another con, but this time, we scored fantastic seats, out of sheer luck. For him, it must have been a classic smash-and-grab cash cow weekend, where he flies into a random city, gets a limo to a nondescript hotel, riffs for an hour in a shabby ballroom, signs a bunch of autographs, maybe takes some pictures, and is home before dinnertime.

For me, it was significant. I was so moved by his proximity and charisma that as he left the stage, I yelled at the top of my lungs, “You’re a man among men, Bill!”

“Yeah!” was his only reply.

He didn’t say more, and he didn’t need to; he knows exactly who and what he is, in every moment. Or he has no self-awareness whatsoever, and his great fortune has been an uncanny gift for stumbling into the right situations in just the right way so as not to appear like an ass, even when he does in fact appear like an ass.

I don’t think we’ll ever know the truth; I’ve wondered that before, and now I realize I don’t think I care. He’s Shatner. That is all.

I guess the irony, if there even is one, and I suppose there is because I’m creating it now, is this: All the while Charlie X is fumbling around the Enterprise with omnipotent powers, and the true omnipotence is sitting nonchalantly in the captain’s chair just a few decks away.

For Charlie X can make starships explode with a thought, but he can’t match Kirk, and he is no Shatner. Amen.

Trek08 is my attempt to review all of the original Star Trek in 2008. Read the intro.

Photos shamelessly ripped off from Siskoid’s Blog of Geekery, where an even more ambitious Trek viewing project is well underway, and The Shatner Show.