Star Trek (TV Series) Catspaw (1967) User Reviews

Silly but Nevertheless Interesting Halloween Episode

[mstomaso · 5/10 · 21 July 2007]

Holy space-cows what a mess! One of James Pevney's relatively weak early efforts was this Halloween episode of TOS - complete with black cats, witches, zombies, skeletons, dungeons, and magic wands. In retrospect, Catspaw (especially the not-so-special effects) is laughable, but not entirely without merit. Shatner and guest stars Theo Marcuse and Antoinette Bower have some great scenes. Sadly, the very talented Marcuse passed away a month after this episode was aired. Had he lived into his 50s and 60s, he could have become the 1970s and 1980s Vincent Price.

An away team suffers a casualty and a few missing crew members, including Sulu and Scotty. The holy trinity (Kirk, Spock and McCoy) beam down to investigate. On the planet's surface, they quickly encounter a trio of ghosts, a medieval-looking castle, and a black cat. Kitty leads them to a trap and they wake up chained up in a dungeon.

Some would say this is all pure schlock, but there are a few aspects of Catspaw that make it worth seeing. As I have mentioned, some of the acting is quite good. It's also worth thinking about the ambiguity of what goes on in the episode. On one hand it comes off as just another omnipotent alien episode, but these aliens are pretty different, and its not clear how much power they really have outside of their own minds and the minds of the Enterprise crew. Unfortunately, though these ideas are raised in the episode, they are also inadequately explored in this straightforward goth adventure story.

A weird and mystical offering from Star Trek !!!

[elo-equipamentos · 7/10 · 16 September 2019]

Developed as an outright and ultimate Science Fiction, this episode sails on mystic subject when Enterprise's crew has making a searching to unknown rocky planet, actually two aliens from an upper civilization desire becomes like humans with strange behavior to taste all lower feelings of the earthlings, the male one helps ours friends to escape from this nightmare, the final sequence with aliens is easy noticed the wires that holds the tiny puppets, enjoyable and a little oddity that makes Spock lift their eyebrows !!!

Resume:

First watch: 2019 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7

Aliens in a Gothic castle

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 27 June 2015]

While investigating a planet the Enterprise has difficulty contacting the away team; one of them replies and beams back, leaving Sulu and Scotty behind… only to die moments after rematerialising! A disembodied voice then warns the Enterprise to leave the area. Kirk is having none of it and beams down with McCoy and Spock. They find a strange misty world and are once again warned to leave; this time by what appears to be the three witches from 'Macbeth'. Again the warning is ignored and they proceed to what appears to be a medieval castle. Here there are captured and chained in the dungeon. They soon learn that Scotty and Sulu are under some sort of mind control. Their 'hosts' are a man called Korob and his cat; with which he apparently talks. Strangely just as the latter leaves the room a woman, Sylvia enters. It becomes apparent that everything they see is due to the aliens tapping into their subconscious minds and creating the world around them. These are more than illusions though and the threat extends to the Enterprise. The aliens have never experienced anything like it and Sylvia enjoys the sensations in a way that makes her dangerous.

This is a fun episode which is helped by the improvements to the special effects in the remastered version. The world we see deliberately uses horror movie clichés like the swirling fog, the Gothic castle and even a dungeon to create and entertaining story. Antoinette Bower and Theodore Marcuse do a decent job as Sylvia and Korob; I particularly enjoyed the formers attempts to seduce Kirk to her cause. The finale with the cat was entertaining but not particularly frightening; even though it was meant to be large and scary it still looked like a typical pet cat. Overall a decent enough episode; not a classic but not bad either.

Why All the Mumbo-Jumbo?

[Bogmeister · 6/10 · 30 August 2006]

This one's somewhat of an oddity among the Trek episodes of the original series, an episode cobbled together for no other reason than to fit a Halloween theme. There are no other reasons for its existence, no profound ideas explored, no stretching of the imagination. Bloch, the premiere horror writer of the time, penned the script (he also wrote "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" in the previous season). The paradox to this effort, though, is that there doesn't seem to be a sincere attempt to offer scares: the creators and actors approach this with a tongue-in-cheek attitude after the first and only death in the pre-credits sequence. This lightweight approach is most evident in the early encounter with the 3 witches: Kirk asks Spock for a comment; Spock's response, along with Kirk's and McCoy's reactive expressions, sends me into guffaws every time I see it - maybe the single most hilarious moment during the season (and that's saying something, as "I,Mudd" and "The Trouble With Tribbles" are coming up soon). Later, of course, we have the scene in the dungeon, when Kirk refers to 'Bones' and then notices the skeleton hanging nearby. BOO!

There is, admittedly, a half-hearted attempt at exploring the conflict between physical senses and pure mentality. There is a tendency in the Trek series to depict aliens who hunger for the potential of physical sensation we human beings represent. Usually, such aliens may take human form temporarily, as Sylvia & Korob do here, and the new sensations corrupt them - apparently, only we humans can handle the, ah, sensuous nature of the ability to touch something or someone physically (see also the later "By Any Other Name"). But, the episode never really makes it clear what these aliens want - all we get is the Halloween mumbo-jumbo: a foggy mist, the witches, a black cat, crew members turned into zombies, a dark castle with cobwebs and, finally, the warlock and sorceress with a wand. These aliens do prove to have impressive abilities, even by the standards of 23rd century technology, and it is explained that they tapped into our subconscious to produce this bizarre scenario, but otherwise, it's just those silly spooky elements interspersed amid a plodding storyline. There's a brief reference to 'the old ones' by Korob, the beings he and Sylvia serve, which conjures up images of Lovecraft, rather than aliens from another galaxy. The episode is capped by some of the worst FX, involving puppetry, of the series. This was, by the way, the first episode of the 2nd season to be filmed, and so is the first appearance of Chekov.

"Is it not enough to accept what is?"

[classicsoncall · 7/10 · 21 November 2010]

In addition to the obvious Halloween theme, this episode borrows a page from 1942's "Cat People", both in form and content. The character of Sylvia (Antoinette Bower) hungers for the sensations that come with residing in a human body, and it was some of those same sensations, kept repressed, that made for the conflicted character Simone Simon portrayed in the Forties film.

Considering that this Trek episode took place around the Thirtieth Century, I was surprised to hear Kirk use the term mumbo-jumbo to describe his reaction to the sympathetic magic tricks of Korob (Theodore Marcus) and Sylvia. I doubt that phrase would have survived a thousand years, much less Halloween, but that's probably being too nit-picky. Just in time to make the witching hour back in 1967, this would certainly have been a well received episode complementing the occasion.

But Man Oh Man!, get a load of Chekov and his mop top! The camera brings his face and hair into full view close up and and even though I can't say this with any certainty, Walter Koening must have been a huge Beatles fan. In fact, he's almost indistinguishable from Davey Jones of The Monkees back in the day, their timing on the scene would have coincided precisely with Star Trek's original series run.

For what it's worth, my opinion of the ending here was quite the let-down. For all their seeming powers of illusion, Korb and Sylvia turn out to be mere tiny blue fuzzies, dancing at the end of puppet strings! I have to keep reminding myself that this was 'Trick or Treat', with the viewer left to decide which one.

Interesting episode, somewhat sexist.

[Blueghost · 25 June 2009]

The previous reviews pan this episode, and for good reason; it's somewhat campy, cliché and mildly unfocused. But, there is an underlined re-visitation of Hephaestus' and his wife theme operating here.

We're treated to some tongue in cheek spookiness in the opening. Was it done intentionally? I'm not sure. There may have been a sincere attempt to create an atmosphere of horror, but it doesn't come off very well. Which may call into question the sincerity of the effort, but then one realizes that the lack of horror and fright is intentional because of the episode's primary focus.

The astute classic Trek aficionado will recall the real chills delivered in the "Wolf in the Fold" episode, nor the scary tension of "Dagger of the Mind". The production team at Desilu was more than capable of presenting frights in the context of a Star Trek episode, so why wasn't it done here? One must keep in mind that the thrust of this episode is the unavailability of a physical reality to the antagonists. This is part of the puzzle. It is essentially both plot and theme.

And here in lies another layer, and, perhaps, one that pokes fun at the material woman who marries a man for the riches he can garnish via whatever ability he has, and not for love. We're shown the material-girl in all her essence. Captain James T. Kirk takes a page out of the Sean Connery's James Bond, and gives as good as he takes from a woman who seeks more of what she already has, but who has sacrificed true emotional satiation for material gain. Kirk shows Sylvia her own folly, and the true value of her own worth and what he thinks of her.

Sylvia invokes her wrath, but Kirk counters with Star Fleet training and his own patented Promethian approach to counter her attacks. Even at the moment of truth Sylvia cannot help but see an opening for gain. Even when Kirk tries to give her another chance, she is relentless in her pursuit of gain. A high tech grifter with supernatural appetites and abilities.

It is fitting that both Sylvia and Korob are exposed for the weak transparencies that they really are. Perhaps a comment on true fear, and what really frightens us; not any manifestation of danger, but what we imagine might be the danger. It is in this vein that the scare factor is kept to a minimum to drive home a larger theme.

The episode is not one of the more sterling in terms of production values, but it is worth a look. The closing SFX shot is somewhat fitting.

Give it a shot.

Interesting change of pace

[intp · 6/10 · 3 August 2014]

While this episode did have some silly elements, I thought it worked reasonably well overall as an interesting change of pace for the series.

The Enterprise crew encounter a mysterious and very alien race with the ability to read into the 'racial unconscious' of the human brain. The aliens tap into very basic, primal fears, relating to the supernatural.

Kirk, Spock and McCoy quickly realize that the aliens have potent powers of illusion and telepathy but limited firsthand knowledge of human culture or technology, which gives them the edge they need to prevail. I thought the portrayal of the true forms of the aliens, at the end, was among the most interesting in "Star Trek"-- very different from the typical human-like and humanoid form.

This was one of the rare episodes in which the initial landing party did not consist of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, but rather Scotty, Sulu, and several others. As a result, when Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down, the officer left in charge is the Assistant Chief Engineer DeSalle, in what I believe was his only appearance. In other episodes, Scotty and Sulu had been shown as next in the chain of command after Kirk and Spock. I thought maybe Uhura would be placed in command, but alas it was not to be.

Ye Gods! Another clunker

[mhubbard-54657 · 5/10 · 9 February 2017]

Perhaps not quite as hard to watch as some of the other clunkers, but nevertheless not that good. Might there be a take home message here? When seen from up close, the stuff you are afraid of ain't real.

This was the "Halloween episode". One cannot help but be reminded of Dorothy, Toto, the Wicked Witch, and the Castle with the awful flying monkeys.The episode features a very similar castle.

Our heroes beam down to a planet where a red shirt has died, and a couple of other crew members are apparently in trouble. A black cat appears, who does nothing special and who seems to take the place of a human actor requiring payment.Soon the cat morphs into an evil alien woman, power and "sensation seeking". To gain the upper hand, we soon have Captain Kirk "kissing" her. The scenes are shot to conceal the non-passionate nature of the kiss (ahem).

Oh boy, this is straight out of popular 1960's culture, very dated and not at all scientific. Telepathy.The aliens are able to tap into subconscious fears. A ridiculous, fake looking wig on poor Walter Koenig to make him look like a Monkey, the band of the moment. Mr Spock doesn't know what "trick or treat" means. Engineer DeSalle on the bridge delivers his lines in such a perfunctory manner, that he should have his pulse checked. Sigh. Here is a weak story line that could have been better with a few tweaks.

Fun Horrorshow

[vbmoneymaker · 8/10 · 17 August 2020]

Catspaw contains one of the great lines in the series. At the beginning of the episode, the aliens try to scare the landing party with a vision of the 3 witches from Macbeth.

When the witches are done reciting their lines, Kirk says to Spock, "Spock . . . comment."

"Very bad poetry, Captain," Spock replies to Kirk's obvious annoyance.

The poor little things

[sparrowtrece · 6/10 · 28 September 2022]

This episode held my interest up until the end--the technology that can pose and pass for ancient Earth sorcery, the rivalrous game of malice the aliens "Korob" and "Sylvia" play with each other, the old-school horror movie ambience, the sight of the Enterprise being overheated by something very like a Voodoo doll... ....then it ended. Korob and Sylvia were revealed in their true forms as two strange-looking little invertebrates, too weak to survive on the harsh planet they're marooned on without whatever protection and life support their power crystals provided. And so they died, twitching and panicking, screeching with terror and pain in their shrill little alien voices, and shrivelling away to nothing as the Enterprise watched detachedly (with Spock even making a rather cold blooded observation about how it's too bad they can't preserve them for specimens) .It just struck me as sad, cruel, and pitiful. I really felt sorry for them. They were tiny weak things trying to survive in a vast and hostile universe (as are we all) who failed and died miserably. It says something good about Mr. Bloch's skills as a screenwriter that these villainous characters, too strange and feeble to even exist, moved my emotions so strongly.

Blofeld's Pussy...

[Xstal · 5/10 · 16 February 2022]

When travelling in space interstellar, you may find a cat Barbarella, mix of Jane Fonda, a spy film James Bond(a), find them under a castle in the cellar.

Telepathic and telekinetic torture, as a couple of mindless moggies make mayhem for the Captain and his men.

Pay attention to the premise!

[talonjensen · 8/10 · 28 February 2018]

If you understand the premise of this episode, that the black cat, witches, zombies skeletons, magic, etc. were derived from the aliens' mistaken interpretation of human nightmares, rather than human reality, then, this episode does make sense.

In trying to understand humans the aliens tapped into human nightmares which evidently do not occur in the alien species. So, they present the Star Trek cast with these black magic nightmares, assuming they are part of the human paradigm.

Still, it is done in a little campy, silly style which was common in the sixties. Nevertheless, I first watched this as a child and still love it. One of my big pet peeves about TV series is the lack of story diversity and I never felt that about Star Trek, this episode is a perfect example. Even as a child I understood that special effects in TV series was laughable (movies not much better), but I still dream of traveling the stars. The wonder of Star Trek and traveling is always meeting someone new and learning new things, it goes a long way to reducing bigotry and increasing compassion.

Better "remastered" by CBS

[mike48128 · 7/10 · 15 July 2014]

One of the most unique Star Trek Episodes in Season 2, as it was written for a 1967 Halloween release! A great idea, weakly executed. Remastered, it shows a better exterior of the castle, and the tacky black puppet wires are "digitally" removed, vastly improving the demise of the puny, tiny aliens. Today it would have wondrous SFX instead of just a few photographic effects of witches, people and things popping in-and-out and a giant cat. Disappointing to view because you are expecting so much more to happen, and it doesn't. The unknown "red shirt" crewman dying in the transporter in the first few minutes was completely unnecessary and almost ruins the "fun" factor of the cute (not great) episode. Killing off "extras" in the first five minutes was very common in many Star Trek episodes, all the way through TNG when they "knocked-off" Tasha, and thus the inside joke about being an "extra" on "Space Quest". Here, there is too much talk and not enough action. Even the scenes where The Enterprise is "trapped in space" on a neck chain has been done before. It needed a few more spooky touches and monsters! This would be a great episode to completely "redo" for the SciFy Channel or Viacom, as a Halloween special! J.J.Abrams, are you out there?

Credits to Navy Beans

[zvaigsne · 4/10 · 1 September 2016]

Overall, I agree with most reviewers, this is a silly episode, and you shouldn't take it seriously.

Still, no one mentioned the earnest but dull performance of Michael Barrier as Chief Assistant Engineer DeSalle, put in charge of the Enterprise while all other ranking officers are on the planet below. Our viewing audience of female coeds cracked up over his wooden delivery of lines, especially the "I'll bet you credits to navy beans we can put a dent in (the force field)." You don't realize how much William Shatner brings to his role until you have someone else step in his shoes. Can you even imagine him saying such a line??

Will the lack of political moralizing get this episode ignored?

[fedor8 · 17 May 2022]

Fun episodes. Silly, colourful, entertaining episodes. No political subtext here whatsoever, no moralizing about the need for pacifism and mercy (toward psychopaths), no laughably cheap analogies to 20th-century events, no melodramatic romance-novel plots, no dull court-room scenes... all the things the average Trekkie demands out of his "sci-fi".

"Catspaw" is almost a parody of various ST cliches: god-like powers (a staple), weird aliens toying with the crew (just because they can), the Enterprise being treated as a plaything (because let's laugh at Kirk and co), mind control, zombie slaves, aliens that assume human form then can't get enough of it, Kirk trying to trick a woman by schmoozing her... Yet all of this is treated in a relaxed, non-bombastic, non-pathetic, non-overly-dramatic manner.

The setting is great, the premise is mindless fun, the guest cast is very good (especially the black cat), and the story is refreshingly devoid of corny attempts at some dreary and needless "profound message". People need to simply relax and enjoy space operas for what they should be and are.

Spock: "The cat has always been the most ruthless, the most terrifying of animals."

The writer must have been a sufferer of felinophobia. Yup, that's an actual thing, not making this up. There are people who are actually terrified of cats, hence why Spock's line is fairly amusing. Cats the most terrifying animals? Maybe budgetary constraints prevented the usage of a crocodile, or a Tasmanian devil, or a bear. Or a shark, even tiny ones strike fear in some people. So the writer decided to tell us how extremely lethal and scary cats are. To mice, maybe, but ST wasn't filmed for mice, to be played on tiny mousey TV sets...

It's very ironic that many fans had at some point been fanatical in their playing of Dungeons'n'Dragons, yet you finally give them some dungeons in their fave TV show and they instead demand "social commentary" about the spotted owl, freedom, or whatever other issue shake their world. Because there are dungeons but no dragons? Is that it?

Sylvia: "You are using me! You are trying to deceive me!" That's a very fun scene, when finally one of the many alien chicks figures out that Kirk is playing the Romantic Card merely for personal gain. Kirk's reaction to her saying this is rather amusing too.

In the end, it turns out that the two aliens were merely some feeble little tiny monster-chickens, or whatever we could call them.

Weak. Very lackluster ending.

[wwcanoer-tech · 6/10 · 21 March 2022]

This story had a good setup but became slow and muddled, with a dud ending.

There's much potential in the idea of powerful aliens exploring human experiences and reactions. Having one alien go a bit crazy and dominate the other is good, but the execution was very poor.

The man can completely change the setting as easily as the woman and the man holds the device that is the key to their power, so how can he be controlled by the woman? I was expecting her necklace to be the key, that Kirk would need to be cunning in order to take it from her and destroy it.

There could have been a much more interesting battle between the aliens. It would have been much better if the woman showed better skill at manipulating the situation. The man would try to create an escape route, such as creating a door or set of stairs but as Kirk reaches the door, the the woman creates a wall of flames on the other side, the man creates a downpour to extinguish the flames but the woman creates an umbrella to stop the rain. Every time that the man tries something, the woman defeats him, even pre-empting his moves and then exclaiming that she can read his mind so well or that he is so predictable that she can easily outmaneuver him.

We could see the man create a cage around the woman and she enlarges to a beast that breaks through it and laughs at him, that she can defeat anything he throws at her. He then creates a stronger cage with small holes and she becomes as a mouse or a snake to slither through the small hole, but her necklace never changes size and falls off her mouse/snake body, so Kirk lunges at her and grabs the necklace, or stomps on it, destroying it, and winning the day.

She could have defeated him by changing him into a bird in a cage, which we only discover at the end is his natural form.

Almost anything would be better than the large cat growling at them from behind an open door for what felts like an eternity.

Revealing the aliens to be feeble bird-like creatures on a barren planet who quickly wither and die made no sense. They came to and live on this planet. They must have some life there, not just waiting for a random ship to visit to entertain them. Simply making the planet forested would allow it to make sense. And then the aliens could keep on living there.

How could the man be killed in the fantasy but yet still be alive as the bird? Why did removing their power to create fantasy kill them?

Living a life of illusion.

[Hey_Sweden · 7/10 · 8 July 2023]

Kirk, Spock, & Bones beam down to a rocky, foggy planet in search of Scotty & Sulu, who've gone missing. What they encounter are powerful beings named Korob (Theodore Marcuse, "The Cincinnati Kid") and Sylvia (Antoinette Bower, "The Evil That Men Do") that are able to provide for the bemused Enterprise crew a display of food, jewels, and various trappings of the Halloween season. Kirk tires of this and demands that Korob & Sylvia stop toying with them. She, in particular, is out of control, absolutely hungry for new sensations & experiences.

Written by famed genre author Robert Bloch, 'Catspaw' (the word meaning a character used by another as a tool), is generally good fun, if not overflowing with substance. The most interesting thing is knowing that the various tropes - witches, dungeons, a black cat - are contrived by the aliens who think that these things are the cornerstones of the human subconscious & the worst nightmares of people. These aliens had warned the Enterprise to stay off the planet and are now trying to pay the crew back for their folly. It does make the viewer wonder how Kirk will think his way out of this one. (Even Spock is at a loss as to how to proceed.) He *does* show his amorous side with Sylvia, although we can all sense that it will be a ruse.

Most amusing is the moment during the conclusion when we get a look at what Korob & Sylvia REALLY look like; you can blatantly see the wires manipulating the puppets. But, despite some cheesy effects, 'Catspaw' is an entertaining episode that boasts some decent atmosphere and good guest star turns by Marcuse & Bower.

Seven out of 10.

Kitty has claws.

[thevacinstaller-03350 · 6/10 · 22 December 2022]

It has a solid premise but the logic of it all unravels as you watch the episode.

I was left wondering why the galactic aliens had to be hostile to the enterprise crew in the first place? If the ultimately goal was to experience emotion/sensation should they not have experienced fear, loss, hate, joy ect ect ect. I can see that being an interesting viewing experience.

I have no comments to make about the cat looking good or bad. It's very rare for a star trek episode to be greatly impacted by the visual effects for me ----- maybe subconsciously great effects allow me to become fully immersed? I'll make comment of it if I actually notice them in the future.

In the episodes favor ----- it is weird ---- and weird is good. Being confused with what in the world is going on is potentially a great thing for a star trek episode.

Why did the aliens kill that guy? If one of the goals of the episode was to establish a communication/idea breakdown why not tell that story and have Kirk and crew use some of that star fleet intuitiveness to find out the truth and potentially save the aliens from dying due to exposure?

It had potential.

What's with this awful episode?!

[planktonrules · 3/10 · 7 December 2006]

Despite my sometimes acerbic reviews of the Star Trek series, I actually do love the show and have seen the episodes again and again and again. However, unlike most reviewers, my reviews tend to run the gamut in score--from 1 to 10. And, while I score most of the episodes in the 7 to 8 range, there are just a few that are so dreadful I must admit it and score them much lower. Yes, I have seen every episode of every Trek series and all the movies, so I do have at least an informed opinion. But, because I hated STAR TREK THE MOTION PICTURE and STAR TREK V and loved STAR TREK II, III and others, you know my opinions can be trusted to be somewhat balanced. I think this makes me a big fan, but not a zombie-like person who loves and accepts everything provided it's Star Trek. I really think there are many out there that give an automatic 10 to anything Trek.

Now this episode is the closest thing I can think of to a Star Trek Halloween special!! The crew land on a weird foggy world and it's inhabited by a couple of freaky witches--complete with black cats and monsters, etc.. This concept is so fundamentally silly that I think this is all I really need to say about the episode. It might be interesting only if you turn off your brain and enjoy it on a completely non-intellectual level.

Robert Bloch uses his Gothic Style to explain Alien Life

[XweAponX · 10/10 · 29 April 2013]

And anything with Robert's name on it, including the movie "Psycho" always has tendrils deep into the Dark.

This 1967 Halloween episode is not just about Trick or Treat - It's about the clash of two cultures that meet in passing shadows - It's about how badly things can go wrong when communication is the most important thing but is set aside for to make room for personal wants and desires that can become greed.

The two extra-galactic visitors which Kirk meets on Pyrus 7 (Which means category of Pears in the plant Kingdom) were sent from their home as explorers and emissaries, the same way Kirk and crew are exploring the outer edges of their Known Space.

The problem with both sets of explorers is that there is no physical connection to any plane of reality which could be used as a stable platform for communication - The two visitors can only read the primeval fears buried deep in the reptilian Brainstem of these Humans- They cannot see anything beyond this, and from their points of "view" it appears that things that go BUMP in the night are what Humans are concerned with. Kirk on the other hand is looking after the safety of his crew, so from the start, the two groups of explorers are at cross purposes.

But these two visitors are not united in their own purpose - Korob (Theodore Marcuse) appears to be a Wizard with a cat who is his Familiar- But he himself seems to want to bridge the gap of darkness, he seems to want to DO the thing he was sent to do. But his "familiar" Sylvia (Antoinette Bower) who appears as both Cat and Woman - Has had a jolt of power - An Inoculation, and is only interested in the expressions of using POWER, gaining even more power, and abusing sensations.

In fact it has totally taken her over. Their ability to manipulate their surroundings, to create a castle with a dungeon, to make illusions of Ghosts - Stems from two artifacts: the Transmuter that Korob wields and the Crystal which Sylvia wears - Both together are creating this Haunted House, and taking over the minds of the Enterprise Landing Party.

Sylvia explains this to Kirk as being "Sympathetic Magic" - And she gives the textbook definition in this episode: She made an image of the Token Redshirt Victim (Crewman Jackson, Jay D Jones), and wished the image dead: And when she believed the image was dead, Jackson died. This is in fact the very way this type of magic works according to all of the literature about it.

Using Sympathetic Magic, they first heat up the Enterprise, then they encase it and trap it- And it so happens.

So what could have been a chance for Kirk to meet some very unusual Aliens- Of a type that in Trek had never before been shown - All communication breaks down instead. Sylvia wants what she can't have and what she should not even be wanting, and this sets Kirk into Defensive Mode. Sylvia goes on a rampage, and kills Korob. But not before he shows Kirk that the wand he carries around is the amplifier for the magic Silvia wields in her crystal. With that fact, Kirk is able to dope out that if he were to destroy it, Sylvia would lose all of her ability to make her illusions real.

And she basically backs Kirk into a corner, with no other way to reason with her, he has to take drastic action.

If only more about these aliens could have been revealed - These weren't just more Humanoids in a galaxy full of humanoids, they were totally strange. But Kirk met them, and they, unfortunately, met Kirk. And so in the corner of our minds, where things we don't want to remember reside, where shadows creep and unmentionable things happen, in nightmares so dark that Midnight is like noon, Sylvia and Korob met Kirk and Spock, and then in their natural forms, met death - Their lifeforms were so unusual that nothing could have prevented them from turning into smoking goo.

And as Sylvia and Korob were wriggling in the poisonous Oxygen, they returned to their very Pear-Like appearance, and then melted, like all witches eventually do.

Trick or Treat

[Samuel-Shovel · 4/10 · 9 May 2018]

In "Catspaw", Kirk, Bones, & Spock head to the surface of an uninhabited planet in search of Sulu and Scottie after they fail to report back on their reconnaissance mission. Once there, the rescue party encounters all sorts of creepy crawly ghouls and goblins. They encounter two humanoids with telepathic powers that have created a medieval aesthetic on the planet with their own castle. They have placed Scottie and Sulu under hypnosis and grill the crew on what it is to be human, to have science, and to have sensations. Kirk is able to pit the two creatures against each other and escape with his crew intact, destroying the illusion that the two creatures had created for themselves and causing them to perish in the process.

If you can't tell from my lackluster episode summary, I wasn't too big a fan of this episode. I enjoy the concept of an alien lifeform being infatuated with the sensations that humans possess but this script does a poor job of doing anything with it. Neither character seems very developed and the lack of substance to them does not work in their favor. The only thing of interest from this episode is that it's Chekov's first appearance if you watch the show in chronological order. Besides this, there's not too many tidbits of interest.

I did enjoy a few shots from the show, specifically these odd close-ups of Korob that appear a few times as reaction shots. They almost act as 4th wall breaking shots as Theodore Marcuse is practically staring down the lens of the camera. It's a bit of an oddity that I've never noticed/seen in previous episodes. While this is the first episode of Season 2 based on Stardate, I understand why it wasn't the premier. It's boring and half-baked.

Beautiful Black Cat

[gjenevieve · 10/10 · 1 December 2015]

I am a fan of black cats. I have had 3 of them. I believe them to be most beautiful. I really enjoyed this episode partly because of it having a black cat. I also liked how Korob would listen to the cat meow and then translate for everyone what it had said. I could usually tell what any of my cats wanted but to be able to know for certain and be able to actually understand what they said would be awesome.

As they were all coming out of the dungeon, Kirk, Spock and Dr. McCoy start to fight Scotty and Sulu and suddenly they are in the throne room with Korob. I felt that that transition was seamless and I really liked how they were able to make it look like they were immediately transferred from one part of the castle to the other.

I thought the episode was well done. It was very interesting how Sylvia (Korob's companion) used the miniature Enterprise, holding it over a candle and made it very hot inside the real Enterprise. Also, when Korob encased the miniature in lucite and that created a force field around the real one.

I liked the castle interior. I thought it was done well. The costuming for Korob and Sylvia was also quite pleasing. (I can say that this was not the case with a lot of episodes. Even as a child I thought that some of the costuming was just plain ugly or way too off the wall.) There was a good dialogue between Korob and Sylvia as they were waiting for Kirk to be brought up from the dungeon. I liked how it showed that even though they were supposed to be working together, they were not in agreement as to how to achieve their goals. I really liked that whole scene. Where they come from there are no sensations and she is thoroughly enjoying experiencing all the new sensations available to her now. Of course, she is attracted to Kirk and he wisely exploits that to get the information he has been wanting from the beginning. That part was also done quite well and I felt the actors made it very convincing. She suddenly realizes that he is just using her and is not truly reciprocating the attraction she feels towards him. He gets sent back to the dungeon after that.

Korob watched the whole thing and he goes and releases Spock and Kirk because he is really not liking what Sylvia has been doing. He also releases the Enterprise from its force field although they had been making strides on their own.

They, of course, escape and manage to break the illusions that have been around them.

And finally the end showing what Korob and Sylvia really look like. Fantastic! Very creative and unusual. However, the final part is a bit sad.

A giant Halloween party

[bkoganbing · 4/10 · 16 November 2013]

One of the weirdest and strangest Star Trek episodes occurs here where the Enterprise lands on some planet that looks like somebody's idea of a giant Halloween party. Of course it's anything but that.

What's causing all the problems are a pair of very powerful creatures played by Theo Marcuse and Antoinette Bower. Marcuse is first seen alone with a black cat, but the cat soon changes form and becomes Bower who looks and acts like a poor man's Joan Collins.

This particular episode I thought was inferior. All the more pity because the characters of Koreb and Sylvia that Marcuse and Bower play are quite engaging. But for the life of me at the end of the show when we see these two in their real form one cannot believe that they were quite able to accomplish all they did.

Captain, a bit more alacrity, if you please

[snoozejonc · 5/10 · 20 August 2021]

One dead crewman and two missing others prompt Kirk, Spock and Bones to visit planet Pyris VII.

This is a 'so bad it's good' episode, but unfortunately it does not entertain that much outside of some decent lines from certain characters.

The plot is a mish-mash of ideas from other episodes, with a 'spooky' Halloween-like theme, used to explore aspects of humanity such as consciousness, fear, and other sensations. It does not work for me as sci-fi, drama, philosophy or anything other than a way to enjoy watching the characters interact in silly situations.

Sylvia, Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekhov and LaSalle have moments where they are moderately amusing, but nothing particularly memorable. Some of Spock's dry delivery is as good as ever, LaSalle's command moments are solid and Sylvia's general persona is quite watchable. Antoinette Bower is easily the standout performer and displays some decent charisma. Most other cast members are solid, but James Doohan and George Takei might as well not be there.

It feels harsh to criticise the visuals because they are so fun and provide a lot of the enjoyment I took from the episode, but there is no denying how bad the giant cat and string puppets are. The fight scenes are pretty badly edited and choreographed, particularly Kirk's disarming of Scotty and Sulu's martial arts. The less said about Chekhov's wig the better!

Witches, Castles, Dungeons, Wizards & A Black Cat

[Rainey-Dawn · 9/10 · 8 January 2017]

Season 2, episode 7. The Enterprise is at Pyrus VII. Sulu, Scotty & Crewman Jackson has beamed down to investigate. The Enterprise has lost contact with them for awhile but Jackson communicates he is ready to beam aboard and when he does, he is dead. A strange voice is heard coming from Jackson so Kirk, Spock and Bones beam down to find out what is going on and what has happened to Sulu & Scotty. When the 3 beam down, they see thick fog, 3 witches, an eerie castle and a black cat upon entering the castle. They meet Korob & Sylvia, end up in a dungeon and find that Scotty and Sulu are in a trance of sorts and obeying the will of the two sorcerers. The sorcerers use their magic against the Enterprise, Bones ends up in a trance-like state while Kirk & Spock try to figure out a way to beat the sorcerers and save their ship & crew. Sylvia becomes very cruel and disputes with Korob. Korob decides to help Kirk and his crew because he feels that Sylvia is going way to far.

One of those "fun" episodes. It first aired just before Halloween in 1967... it really does make a great Halloween show. I still love this episode even though it is not as popular nor rated as high as some of the others.

9/10