Epidode Quick Summary
The episode opens with the crew scanning planet XO-3 in search of Dr. Roger Corby. He's been missing 5 years. When Kirk contacts him Corby requests Kirk to beam down alone due to the nature of Corby's discoveries in the underground caverns of the planet. Corby, however, has been engaged all these years to Nurse Christine, crewman of the Enterprise. When Corby realizes she's there as well they agree for both Christine and Kirk to beam down together. Kirk and Christine arrive at the entry of the caverns expecting Corby to be present. But Corby is not there. Kirk decides two security men should be on the planet as well. Corby himself does not appear, his assistant Brown shows himself instead. Shortly, both of the security men are killed by a strange looking creature-man unseen by either Kirk or Christine. The two descend deeper and deeper into the planet caverns led by Brown told they will there meet Corby. Brown leads them into a living area where they are greeted by a woman named Andrea. Finally Corby appears to passionately embraces Christine, only to then engage with Kirk in a fight apparently under the guise of security for unknown discoveries on the planet. In the midst of the fight we see that Brown is actually an android, and the creature-man has lured them into the planet with the ability to immitate others voices. Corby continues to claim, however, to be himself acting under the demands to protect an important scientific finding. The creature-man, we discover, is a programmed android left behind by the people that had previously inhabited the planet. Corby's scientific discovery, then, is to create androids that closely resemble people and obey their orders. Andrea, it turns out, is also an android. Andrea, we are told, is simply a logical computer completely without feeling. Unable to dissuade or control Corby's behavior, Kirk is confined into a machine and an android copy of him is made. Realizing that the android will share the same memories as himself, he creates a fake memory of calling Spock "half-breed" as a way of hopefully implanting a clue for the Enterprise crew, in case the android Kirk is used against Star Fleet. When the machine turns off we are unable to tell which is the copy and which is the original.
Episode Tidbits
These early episodes, it turns out, highlight Kirk often undressed. He appears completely nude covered only in his midsection by a section of the android producing machine.
We discover Corby's goals are to take over humanity with android duplicates that will allow human consciousness to live forever without deformity or aging. Kirk points out, however, that doing so would mean removing feeling that makes humans unique. This episode highlights, then, the importance of what could be seen as human weakness, and the way it actually strengthens us.
Though this episode anticipates the advanced capacities of Data in The Next Generation, there is no direct link in terms of story line. The androids in "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" also do not show the kind of independent sophistication that Data exhibits. The episode does, however, anticipate the kind of worldview presented in the matrix--not the false reality that humans apparently live within, but instead the destructive power that develops from artificial intelligence designed too well.
The real conflict of this episode depends on the question--what counts as human life? When a machine seems to hold the same consciousness as a person, does it count as a human life? Does it count as alive? Does relying too much on technology undo the very things that make us human?
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