What Are Little Girls Made Of?
Nurse Chapel had a fiancé, Roger Korby, and the Enterprise is on a mission to find him in What Are Little Girls Made Of? (Wikipedia; HD Video).
Roger hasn’t been heard of in five years, but Nurse Chapel believes that he’s still alive. And sure enough, he hails the ship right when they arrive! (It would be a pretty boring episode otherwise; just a quick “no answer; next!”)
But Roger doesn’t meet Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel when they arrive; Dr. Brown does, instead, and despite being an old friend of Nurse Chapel’s he’s cold like a person who has been replaced by an identical duplicate who happens to be a robot.
Begin Spoilers (I know; a little late)
The “Old Ones” who lived on Exo III long ago built androids to do their work, and Roger has found the technology to build them himself. These androids are life-like with flesh tones and pulses, but lack real emotions (though they can fake them).
Roger makes a duplicate of Kirk (it’s been two whole episodes since that’s happened!) and explains that the duplicate is only half-complete; Roger can also transfer Kirk’s consciousness into the robot, if he wanted. Kirk fails his savings throw and does not ask the appropriate question at this time.
Roger plans to use RoboKirk™ and the Enterprise to get him to a colony, where he can sell his services turning people into immortal robot copies of themselves. But RealKirk™ will have none of that, and foils the plan (revealing the awful truth the audience guessed in scene 3).
End Spoilers
Despite being formulaic and predictable, this is actually a pretty good episode. There’s not enough inter-cast banter and there’s no funny, but the story itself is strong and smart, and is one of the first to really touch on that long-running “what makes you human” theme that Trek likes so much.
Grade
B
