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Published Dec 6, 2019

Robert Walker Jr., 1940-2019

The "Charlie X" actor was 79 years old.

Robert Walker Jr.

StarTrek.com

StarTrek.com is saddened to report the passing of Robert Walker Jr., the actor who played the titular role in Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Charlie X.” Walker Jr. passed at age 79, according to his family.

Star Trek: The Original Series -

In “Charlie X,” penned by D.C. Fontana , Walker Jr.’s Charlie is the sole survivor of a shuttle crash that left him marooned for years with only a computer for company. Kirk and the crew rescue him, but it soon is revealed that he possesses powers that make him very dangerous. It was the second episode of the series.

Of working with Walker Jr., Fontana told StarTrek.com in 2013 , “I loved the work Robert Walker Jr. did... the ending I had written was retained - with Charlie being taken away where he could do no harm, but where he would never be with anyone he could ever really touch.”

Star Trek: The Original Series -

Apart from Star Trek , his television credits included Bonanza , Route 66 , Charlie’s Angels , Colombo , and Murder, She Wrote . His film credits include Ensign Pulver , Young Billy Young , and Easy Rider .

The son of Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones and step-father, Hollywood producing legend David O. Selznick, Walker Jr. is survived by three children. StarTrek.com extends their condolences to his family and fans around the world.

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Robert walker jr., ‘star trek’ actor and son of hollywood superstars, dies at 79.

Robert Walker Jr., the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, who starred on a memorable 'Star Trek' episode and in such films as 'Ensign Pulver' and 'Young Billy Young,' died Thursday in Malibu, his wife, Dawn, reported. He was 79.

By Mike Barnes

Mike Barnes

Senior Editor

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Robert Walker Jr.

Robert Walker Jr., the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones who starred on a memorable Star Trek episode and in such films as Ensign Pulver and Young Billy Young , died Thursday in Malibu, his wife, Dawn, reported. He was 79.

Walker also appeared with his first wife, Ellie Wood, in the hippie commune scene in Easy Rider (1969), and he and Dick Clark played robbers and murderers in Killers Three (1968).

He starred in Jack Lemmon’s role as the title character in Ensign Pulver (1964), a sequel to the 1955 classic comedy Mister Roberts , and portrayed a kid sharpshooter opposite Robert Mitchum in Young Billy Young (1969).

Walker’s parents were married from 1939 until their 1945 divorce. Jones won the best actress Oscar for The Song of Bernadette (1943), and Walker Sr. is best known for his creepy turn in the Alfred Hitchcock thriller Strangers on a Train (1951).

His folks separated when he was 3, and Hollywood mogul David O. Selznick became his stepfather when Jones remarried in 1949.

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D.c. fontana, pioneering 'star trek' writer, dies at 80.

He played Laurence Harvey’s brother in the crime drama The Ceremony (1963), receiving a Golden Globe for most promising male newcomer, and starred off-Broadway in 1964 in I Knock at the Door and Pictures in the Hallway .

He later appeared with John Wayne in The War Wagon (1967), with Celeste Yarnall in Eve (1968) and with Rita Hayworth in Road to Salina (1970).

Walker played Harding Devers on a handful of Dallas episodes and also appeared on Ben Casey , Combat! , The Time Tunnel (as Billy the Kid), Charlie’s Angels , Columbo , CHiPs , Murder, She Wrote and L.A. Law and in other films including The Happening (1967), Richard Rush’s The Savage Seven (1968), The Man From O.R.G.Y. (1970), Beware! The Blob (1972),  The Passover Plot (1976) and Evil Town (1987), co-directed by Peter S. Traynor .

In addition to his wife, survivors include his seven children, Michelle, David, Charlie, Jordan, Colette, Henry and Emily, and five grandchildren.

“Bob always beat to his own drum and stayed true to himself in all of his endeavors,” his wife said in a statement. “Although an accomplished actor, his true art was living fully. He was a photographer, drummer, raconteur and gallery owner. His love of the ocean kept him in Malibu, and he had great tales of his adventures paddling to Catalina from there. Bob [also] had a constant interest in developing his internal martial arts practice.”

Robert Walker Sr. died in 1951 at age 32, his death believed to have been caused by a combination of alcohol and a sedative. Jones died in 2009 at age 90.

His half-sister, Mary Jennifer Selznick, 21, jumped to her death from a building in Los Angeles in 1976. His younger brother, Michael, also an actor, died in 2007.

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'Star Trek' Actor Robert Walker Jr. Dies at 79: 'His True Art Was Living Fully'

Walker also appeared on a number of Hollywood favorites, including the series Charlie's Angels , Dallas and Murder, She Wrote

Star Trek actor Robert Walker Jr. has died. He was 79.

The beloved drama series confirmed the news on Twitter, writing, “We are saddened to report the passing of Robert Walker Jr., the actor who played the titular role in Star Trek: The Original Series episode ‘Charlie X.'”

According to the show’s website, Walker’s family shared the devastating news. His cause of death is not immediately clear.

In a statement to The Hollywood Reporter , his wife Dawn said, “Bob always beat to his own drum and stayed true to himself in all of his endeavors. Although an accomplished actor, his true art was living fully. He was a photographer, drummer, raconteur and gallery owner.”

“His love of the ocean kept him in Malibu, and he had great tales of his adventures paddling to Catalina from there,” she added. “Bob [also] had a constant interest in developing his internal martial arts practice.”

Walker is most known for his role as Charlie Evans on Star Trek: The Original Series season 1 episode 2.

In the episode titled “Charlie X,” which aired on Sept. 15, 1966, the Enterprise meets 17-year-old Evans (Walker), the sole survivor of a transport ship that crashed on the planet Thasus. Evans lived on the planet for 14 years alone. It is later revealed that Evans possesses dangerous superpowers.

D.C. Fontana , the Star Trek writer who wrote the episode and who passed away on Monday, told StarTrek.com in 2013 , “I loved the work Robert Walker Jr. did… the ending I had written was retained — with Charlie being taken away where he could do no harm, but where he could never be with anyone he could ever really touch.”

RELATED: Star Trek’s Anton Yelchin’s Parents Open Up About Losing Their Son at 27: ‘He Sends Us Signs’

Born in in 1940 in Queens, New York, Walker is the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones. His parents split in 1945 and his mother went on to marry legendary producer David O. Selznick.

In addition to his work on Star Trek , he appeared on several other iconic TV shows and movies, including the series Charlie’s Angels in 1979, Dallas from 1984 to 1986, Murder, She Wrote from 1987 to 1990 and the 1969 film Easy Rider .

Walker won a Golden Globe in 1964 for Most Promising Newcomer for his role in The Ceremony. He was also nominated for two Laurel awards: Top New Male Personality in 1963 and Top Male New Face in 1964.

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Robert Walker Jr., one of Star Trek's most memorable guest stars, dies at 79

Robert Walker Jr. Star Trek Charlie X

Robert Walker Jr., best known for his memorable guest performance in an early episode of  Star Trek: The Original Series , died Thursday in Malibu, California. He was 79. 

Walker's wife Dawn announced the actor's death in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter . 

"Bob always beat to his own drum and stayed true to himself in all of his endeavors," Dawn Walker said. "Although an accomplished actor, his true art was living fully. He was a photographer, drummer, raconteur and gallery owner. His love of the ocean kept him in Malibu, and he had great tales of his adventures paddling to Catalina from there. Bob [also] had a constant interest in developing his internal martial arts practice."

Born in Queens, New York on Apr. 15, 1940, Walker was the son of Hollywood royalty — his father was actor Robert Walker ( Strangers on a Train ) and his mother was actress Jennifer Jones ( The Song of Bernadette ). After his parents divorced in 1945, Jones went on to marry legendary studio mogul David O. Selznick, who became Walker Jr.'s stepfather and further cemented his familial connection to Hollywood. 

Walker's acting career began with training at the legendary Actors Studio, and by the early 1960s he was making television appearances on shows like Naked City  and  Route 66 . In 1966, he played the title character in "Charlie X," the second episode of  Star Trek  to air on NBC. Though he was 26 at the time, Walker was immediately believable as an angst-ridden 17-year-old with strange powers and no way to control them. The episode remains one of the most memorable in  Trek  history, and in 2016 SYFY WIRE ranked Walker the 6th best Original Series  guest star of all time.

Walker continued to make frequent appearances in film and television throughout the 1960s, '70s, and '80s, and his other memorable credits include films like  Easy Rider  and  Killers Three, and TV guest spots on shows ranging from Columbo  to  The Six Million Dollar Man  to  Dallas . By the early 1990s his screen acting career had slowed, but he did recently re-emerge for a small role in the 2018 fantasy film  Beyond The Darkness . 

Walker is survived by his wife Dawn, his seven children — Michelle, David, Charlie, Jordan, Colette, Henry and Emily — and five grandchildren. 

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‘quiet on set’: drake bell says he hasn’t gotten apologies from people who wrote letters of support for abuser brian peck, robert walker jr. dies: ‘star trek’ actor and son of hollywood stars was 79.

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Robert Walker Jr Star Trek 1966

Robert Walker Jr ., best known for a classic early Star Trek episode and as the son of Hollywood stars Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, died Thursday in Malibu, according to family members. He was 79.

The New York native portrayed the twitchy, callow title character in “Charlie X,” the second episode of Star Trek’s pioneering first season in 1966, and also handled the title role of the notable 1960s feature films Ensign Pulver  and Young Billy Young .

For Ensign Pulver , the comedic 1964 naval drama, Walker inherited a role that had earned Jack Lemmon an Oscar for best supporting actor for  Mister Roberts (1955).  In the 1969 gunfighter tale Young Billy Young , Walker was the volatile outlaw who finds a mentor in Robert Mitchum in film that also featured Angie Dickinson and David Carradine. That same year Walker and his wife, Ellie Wood, appeared together in the milestone counter-culture epic  Easy Rider.

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Walker’s other big-screen credits include The Hook (1963), with Kirk Douglas;   The Ceremony (1963), with Laurence Harvey;   The War Wagon (1967), with John Wayne;  Killers Three (1968), with Dick Clark; and Road to Salina (1970), with Rita Hayworth.

On television his career spanned 20 years and his many credits included roles on  Route 66,  Ben Casey , Combat! , Bonanza ,  The Time Tunnel , The Six Million Dollar Man , Quincy, M.E., Charlie’s Angels , Columbo , CHiPs , L.A. Law, and  Murder, She Wrote.

It was his role in Federation space, however, that earned Walker his most lasting screen legacy. Walker was 26 when he played the callow 17-year-old Charlie Evans, aka Charlie X, on the second episode of Gene Roddenberry’s sci-fi series for NBC. The petulant Charlie came aboard the USS Enterprise  as a rescued castaway who survived 14 solitary years amid the wreckage of a downed transport ship.  The memorable episode, penned by D.C. Fontana , takes a dark turn when the orphaned teen’s dangerous secret and formidable mental powers are revealed.

Walker was born in Queens in April of 1940, the year after his father (best remembered as Alfred Hitchcock’s off-kilter killer in the 1951 classic  Strangers on a Train ) and his mother (the Academy Award-winner from The Song of Bernadette in 1943) were married. The marriage ended in 1945. Four years later, the youngster got a powerful stepfather when Jones married David O. Selznick, the Hollywood titan who produced  Gone with the Wind and Rebecca.

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‘Star Trek’ Actor Robert Walker Jr. Dies at 79

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Robert Walker Jr.

Robert Walker Jr., son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, died Thursday, his family confirmed to the official website for the television show “ Star Trek .” He was 79.

Walker Jr. is best remembered for playing the titular Charlie Evans in the “Star Trek” episode “Charlie X” from the show’s first season in 1966. His character was a teenage social misfit with psychic powers. The episode was written by D.C. Fontana who also died earlier this week.

Walker Jr. also starred in a handful of 1960s pictures including “Ensign Pulver” with Burl Ives and Walter Matthau, and “Young Billy Young.”

He was born in Queens, New York in 1940, by which time his father was just launching his career as an actor. Walker Sr. was of course best known for playing the role of murderous psychopath Bruno Antony in Alfred Hitchcok’s “Strangers on a Train.” The film was released shortly before his death of a suspected overdose in 1951. Jones was also a highly successful actress who was nominated for five Academy Awards, winning one for playing Bernadette Soubirous in 1943’s “The Song of Bernadette.” Walker Sr. and Jones divorced in 1945, with the latter re-marrying “Gone With the Wind” and “Rebecca” producer David O. Selznick.

In 1967, Walker Jr. starred in “The War Dragon” with John Wayne and Kirk Douglas. His career throughout the ’80s and ’90s mostly consisted of guest appearances in TV shows, including two cameos in “Murder, She Wrote” opposite Angela Lansbury. Later on in his TV career, Walker Jr. appeared in “L.A. Law” and “In the Heat of the Night,” both in 1991.

His final screen credit was a small role in the 2018 thriller “Beyond the Darkness.”

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Star Trek  actor Robert Walker Jr. dies at 79

star trek charlie x actor

Robert Walker Jr., the actor known for the memorable Star Trek episode “Charlie X,” has died. He was 79.

The official Star Trek website reported the news Friday, citing Walker’s family. “We are saddened to report the passing of Robert Walker Jr., the actor who played the titular role in Star Trek: The Original Series episode ‘Charlie X,’” the Star Trek Twitter page said.

According to The Hollywood Reporter , Walker died Thursday in Malibu, Calif. The cause of death is not known at this time.

In “Charlie X,” the second episode of the original series, which ran from 1966 to 1969, Walker played the lone survivor of a shuttle crash with dangerous powers. The episode was written by D.C. Fontana , who died Monday.

In addition to the popular sci-fi show, Walker had roles on series including Dallas (as Harding Devers), Bonanza , Charlie’s Angels , Columbo , CHiPs , Murder, She Wrote , and L.A. Law.

He also appeared in numerous films, including 1964’s Ensign Pulver and 1969’s Easy Rider and Young Billy Young .

Born on April 15, 1940, in Queens, New York, Walker was the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones. His mother later remarried Hollywood producing legend David O. Selznick.

According to THR , Walker’s survivors include his wife, Dawn, and his seven children — Michelle, David, Charlie, Jordan, Colette, Henry and Emily — in addition to five grandchildren.

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Robert Walker Jr, ‘Star Trek’ Actor, Dies at 79

Actor was the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones

star trek charlie x actor

Robert Walker Jr., the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, has died at the age of 79, according to The Hollywood Reporter .

Walker was an actor in his own right, most famously appearing in the second episode of the original “Star Trek” series as Charlie X, the survivor of a transport ship crash who, it is later discovered, has secret mental abilities.

Walker was born in 1940 to Robert Walker Sr., the star of Alfred Hitchcock’s “Strangers on a Train,” and Best Actress Oscar-winner Jennifer Jones. The couple divorced in 1945.

Active throughout the 1960s and ’70s, Walker went on to appear in a number of films and TV series himself, including “Dallas,” “Murder, She Wrote,” “Ensign Pulver,” “Young Billy Young” and “Easy Rider.”

“Bob always beat to his own drum and stayed true to himself in all of his endeavors,” Walker’s wife said in a statement to THR. “Although an accomplished actor, his true art was living fully. He was a photographer, drummer, raconteur and gallery owner. His love of the ocean kept him in Malibu, and he had great tales of his adventures paddling to Catalina from there. Bob [also] had a constant interest in developing his internal martial arts practice.”

Robert Walker Jr., 'Star Trek' and 'Dallas' Actor, Dead at 79

Robert Walker Jr., an actor who starred in dozens of movies and television shows in a career that [...]

By Daniel S. Levine - December 7, 2019 06:02 pm EST

Robert Walker Jr., an actor who starred in dozens of movies and television shows in a career that stretched more than six decades, died Thursday at age 79. Walker, the son of classic Hollywood legends Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, was best known for starring in a beloved original Star Trek episode, and his appearances on Dallas . His final role came in the 2018 movie Beyond the Darkness .

"Bob always beat to his own drum and stayed true to himself in all of his endeavors," Walker's wife Dawn, said in a statement to The Hollywood Reporter . "Although an accomplished actor, his true art was living fully. He was a photographer, drummer, raconteur and gallery owner. His love of the ocean kept him in Malibu, and he had great tales of his adventures paddling to Catalina from there. Bob [also] had a constant interest in developing his internal martial arts practice."

Walker started his career on television in the late 1950s. In 1964, he starred as the title character in Ensign Pulver , the sequel to Mister Roberts . Two years later, he played Charlie Evans in "Charlie X," the second episode of Star Trek: The Original Series .

In " Charlie X ," Walker played Charlie, the last survivor of a transport ship that crashed. The Enterprise crew later learns that Charlie has dangerous powers. Although Charlie was only 17 in the episode, Walker was 26 at the time the episode was filmed, in 1966.

We are saddened to report the passing of Robert Walker Jr., the actor who played the titular role in Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Charlie X.” #StarTrek #StarTrekFamily https://t.co/0Z06ATnpuA — Star Trek (@StarTrek) December 6, 2019

Walker also appeared in episodes of The Six Million Dollar Man , CHiPS , Charlie's Angels , The FBI , The Fall Guy , Murder, She Wrote and L.A. Law . In 1985 and 1986, he appeared in three episodes of Dallas as Harding Devers.

His other movie credits include The War Wagon with John Wayne, The Ceremony with Lawrence Harvey, The Hook with Kirk Douglas and Road to Salina with Rita Hayworth. He had a brief role in Easy Rider , appearing in the hippie commune scene with his first wife, Ellie Wood.

Walker's parents were movie stars Robert Walker Sr. and Jones, who were married from 1939 to 1945. Jones later married producer David O. Selznnck in 1945. Jones died in 2009 at age 90. Walker Sr. died in 1951 at age 32.

Walker is survived by his wife, seven children and five grandchildren. His younger brother Michael died in 2007, and half-sister Mary Jennifer Selznick died in 1976.

Photo credit: Ron Galella/Ron Galella Collection via Getty Images

Memory Alpha

Charlie X (episode)

  • View history

A powerful teenage boy wreaks havoc aboard the Enterprise .

  • 1.2 Act One
  • 1.3 Act Two
  • 1.4 Act Three
  • 1.5 Act Four
  • 2 Log entries
  • 3 Memorable quotes
  • 4.1 Production timeline
  • 4.2 Story and production
  • 4.3 Performers
  • 4.5 Props and special effects
  • 4.6 Costumes
  • 4.7 Continuity
  • 4.8 Script vs. screen
  • 4.9 Preview
  • 4.10 Reception
  • 4.11 Syndication cuts
  • 4.12 Apocrypha
  • 4.13 Remastered information
  • 4.14 Video and DVD releases
  • 5.1 Starring
  • 5.2 Also starring
  • 5.3 Guest star
  • 5.4 Featuring
  • 5.5 Uncredited co-stars
  • 5.6 Stunt double
  • 5.7 Stand-ins
  • 5.8 References
  • 5.9 Unreferenced material
  • 6 External links

Summary [ ]

The USS Enterprise makes a rendezvous with the Antares , a small cargo ship . While investigating the planet Thasus , the Antares discovered an adolescent boy named Charles Evans , the sole survivor of a ship crash who has lived on his own since age three. Evans transfers to the Enterprise , which is on its way to Colony Alpha 5 , where Evans' only relatives live.

Captain Ramart and his navigator and first officer , Tom Nellis , are eager to be on their way after beaming aboard the Enterprise , even refusing Captain Kirk 's offer of Saurian brandy , as well as entertainment tapes . But they are also effusive in their praise of Charlie. Charlie interrupts Ramart and Nellis a couple of times, which prompts Kirk to say to him, " You keep interrupting, Mr. Evans. That's considered wrong. " Yeoman Janice Rand enters the transporter room and Kirk asks her to show Charlie to his quarters and to drop off his medical records at sickbay . Innocently, Charlie asks Captain Kirk if Yeoman Rand is a girl. " That's a girl, " the captain replies. Rand escorts Charlie out, much to Kirk's amusement.

Act One [ ]

Janice Rand, 2266 closeup

Charlie's first crush – Yeoman Janice Rand

After a routine check-up by Dr. McCoy , Charlie attempts to learn and integrate, demonstrating the effect of his years away from all Human contact. At the same time, strange incidents occur in his vicinity. Charlie is also struggling mightily with adolescence and with his first crush – the Captain's beautiful yeoman – Janice Rand. After observing Crewman Wilson and a sciences division crewman slapping each other casually, Charlie does the same to Yeoman Rand's behind in a corridor , shocking her. Afterward, Rand advises Charlie to tell Captain Kirk or Dr. McCoy what he had just done and ask them for advice. Afterwards, in the Enterprise 's recreation room on deck three, Uhura is singing " Oh, On the Starship Enterprise " to a rapt Rand and other crew members. When Rand ignores Charlie's card tricks; he secretly uses his power to silence Uhura's voice, as well as the sounds coming from Spock 's Vulcan lute , so that he can have Rand's undivided attention. Charlie then proceeds with a few card tricks – such as turning cards face down, and then turning them over again to reveal color photographs of Rand on the playing side. This amuses Rand and others in the crew lounge, who applaud Charlie appreciatively.

Later, in a corridor, Kirk is advising a galley chef that on Earth today it is Thanksgiving , and if the crew of the Enterprise has to eat synthetic meat loaf , he wants it to look like turkey . Just then, Charlie arrives and tells Kirk of the trouble he had interacting with Rand earlier. Kirk awkwardly attempts to explain that men and women do things differently, but before he can elaborate further to Charlie, Kirk is asked to come up to the bridge by Uhura.

At extreme range, Captain Ramart attempts to contact the Enterprise and speak to Captain Kirk, but before he can say more than " I've got to warn… ", his ship is destroyed. Charlie advises Kirk that " It wasn't very well constructed, " a strange comment, since it comes before Spock actually confirms the Antares 's destruction.

Kirk is then hailed by the Enterprise 's chef , who tells the captain that he had put meatloaf in the ovens , but there are turkeys in them now – real turkeys. Charlie laughs at hearing this, then leaves the bridge abruptly, leaving Kirk feeling that Charlie is hiding something.

Act Two [ ]

Kirk and Evans

" She's not the girl, Charlie "

Kirk and Spock are pondering the destruction of the Antares during a game of three-dimensional chess when Charlie walks in and asks to play. After defeating Spock in an "illogical approach" to the game, Kirk turns it over to Charlie, during which Spock easily beats him in two moves. When Charlie gets angry, Spock leaves and then Charlie uses his powers to melt the white chess pieces. Afterwards, Rand introduces Charlie to Yeoman Tina Lawton , who is near Charlie's age. Charlie ignores Lawton, hurting her feelings, after which Rand tells Charlie that he was rude to her. Charlie then makes his feelings known to Rand that he wants her and only her, which makes the yeoman feel very uneasy. Rand goes to the bridge and wants Kirk to have a talk with Charlie before she asks the young man to leave her alone, which will hurt his feelings. Calling Charlie to his quarters , Kirk takes pity on the young man and attempts to befriend him, taking him to the physical training room for some light sparring. Initially refusing to participate, Charlie falls awkwardly and prompts laughter from Sam , Kirk's sparring partner. Humiliated and angry, Charlie makes Sam disappear, revealing his powers.

Act Three [ ]

Kirk immediately calls for security to escort Charlie back to his quarters. But Charlie resists, knocking down the two security officers with his powers. One of them draws his phaser , but Charlie makes it disappear. However, he finally agrees to go to his quarters after Kirk tells the young man that he will personally pick him up and take him there himself if he does not. After Charlie and security leaves Kirk is informed by Uhura that all phasers on board the Enterprise have disappeared. Later, in the briefing room discussing Charlie to McCoy and Spock following the incident in the gymnasium, Kirk speculates that Charlie might be a Thasian , but McCoy doubts this based on his medical analysis results.

Uhura's communication console explodes

Uhura's communication console explodes

Charlie then enters and Kirk asks him outright if he was responsible for the Antares ' destruction. Confronted, Charlie admits to destroying the Antares by making a warped baffle plate in its energy pile "go away". He defends his action by claiming that the ship would have blown up anyway, and that the crew weren't nice to him and tried to get rid of him. He leaves and Spock tells Kirk and McCoy, " We're in the hands of an adolescent. "

Tina as iguana

Yeoman Lawton turned into an iguana

Charlie, his powers now common knowledge, takes over control of the Enterprise , starting with Charlie causing Uhura's communications console to explode, preventing Kirk from sending a distress signal and causing Uhura second-degree burns on her hands. He wants to go to Colony 5; Kirk knows that the mayhem he would create in that unstructured setting would be far worse than what he's done so far on the Enterprise . Charlie then begins his reign of terror. Passing Yeoman Lawton in the corridor, he turns her into an iguana . When he enters Rand's quarters with a pink rose (because he found out that pink was the yeoman's favorite color), Rand is in her nightdress and is shocked and angry that Charlie came in her room without knocking. When Rand asks Charlie what he wants, he says he only wants her. Rand is able to activate a communication device in her room. On the bridge, Kirk and Spock hear the conversation and leave the bridge to rescue Yeoman Rand.

Act Four [ ]

USS Enterprise sciences crew woman 8

Crew woman loses her face

Kirk and Spock rush to Rand's quarters and try to stop Charlie, but the teenager throws them against the wall, and breaks Spock's legs in the process. A shocked Rand slaps Charlie across the face, to which he responds by making her disappear. Charlie refuses to tell Kirk what he did to her. He then releases both Kirk and Spock after he realizes that he needs Kirk's help to run the Enterprise . Rigging a force field , the crew attempt to trap and hold Charlie in his own quarters, but once he realizes an attempt has been made to confine him, Charlie makes the force field/wall disappear. He then goes on a rampage: turning a young crewmember into an old lady; ordering a group of crew members to stop laughing by removing their faces – one, a woman, comes out into the corridor, groping the wall and still able to make vocal sounds; and a third crewwoman he freezes as he walks past her.

Thasian

A Thasian appearing on the bridge

Determined to stop Charlie before he can reach Colony 5, Kirk speculates that in taking over the ship, Charlie may have reached his limit. He therefore attempts, with the help of Spock and McCoy, to overload the boy's abilities, ordering all of the ship's systems to be activated. In the midst of the struggle, a ship from Thasus appears. It is at this point that Charlie begs to stay with the Enterprise crew. The Thasians restore the Enterprise back to normal and return Yeoman Rand, who reappears on the bridge – still wearing her nightdress and looking startled and confused. The Thasian explains to the bridge crew that they granted Charlie immense powers so he could live; powers that they cannot – or will not – remove, never explaining why. The Thasian expresses regret at the loss of the Antares , but at least can assure Kirk that his own crew and ship have been fully restored to him. The Thasian also tells Kirk it would be impossible for Charlie to live a normal life with his own people, and despite Charlie's pleas to stay with the crew, the Thasians return him to their vessel and depart. Rand – with tears in her eyes – moves instinctively close to Kirk, seated in his captain's chair . As she leans on the chair, Kirk laments, " It's all right, Yeoman. It's all over now. " McCoy leads Rand from the bridge as the Enterprise moves on in space .

Log entries [ ]

  • Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2266

Memorable quotes [ ]

" You keep interrupting, Mr. Evans. That's considered wrong. "

" Is that a girl? " " That's a girl. "

" There's no right way to hit a woman. "

" If I had the whole universe, I'd give it to you. When I see you, I feel like I'm hungry all over. Hungry. Do you know how that feels? "

" Charlie, there are a million things in this universe you can have and there are a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are. "

" Sir, I put meatloaf in the ovens. There's turkeys in there now. Real turkeys. "

" He's a boy in a man's body, trying to be an adult with the adolescence in him getting in the way. "

" There's a – Tyger, tyger, burning bright, in the forest of the night. "

" I'm trying to – Saturn rings around my head, don a robe that's Martian red. "

" Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary. " " Very nice, Mister Ears. "

" Growing up isn't so much. I'm not a man, and I can do anything! You can't. "

" Yeoman Rand? Is she dead, gone, destroyed?" " I won't tell you."

" I've waited long enough. I'm going to take him on! "

" I can make you all go away… anytime I want to! "

" Don't let them take me… I – I can't even TOUCH them! "

" I want to stay…stay…stay…stay… "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

  • Original story premise in Star Trek is... : 11 March 1964
  • Story outline "Charlie Is God" by Gene Roddenberry : 23 April 1964
  • Revised story outline: 28 August 1964
  • Story outline "Charlie X" by Gene Roddenberry: 14 April 1966
  • Story outline by Gene Roddenberry: 23 April 1966
  • Story outline by D.C. Fontana : 27 April 1966
  • Revised outline: 9 May 1966
  • First draft teleplay by Fontana: 6 June 1966
  • Second draft teleplay: 27 June 1966
  • Staff rewrite: 30 June 1966
  • Final draft teleplay by Gene Roddenberry : 5 July 1966
  • Additional revisions: 11 July 1966 , 13 July 1966
  • Day 1 – 11 July 1966 , Monday (Half Day) – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Sickbay , Kirk's quarters
  • Day 2 – 12 July 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Corridors , Bridge
  • Day 3 – 13 July 1966 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge
  • Day 4 – 14 July 1966 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Recreation room (redress of Briefing room )
  • Day 5 – 15 July 1966 , Friday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Transporter room , Janice Rand's quarters
  • Day 6 – 18 July 1966 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Briefing room , Gymnasium (redress of Engineering )
  • Day 7 – 19 July 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Corridors (including Brig ), Tie-down vfx shot of Abraham Sofaer
  • Score recording: 29 August 1966
  • Original airdate: 15 September 1966
  • Repeated: 1 June 1967
  • First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 13 September 1969
  • First UK airdate (on ITV ): 13 September 1981

Story and production [ ]

  • Gene Roddenberry had written a one-sentence synopsis of this episode on the first page of his original series outline for Star Trek under the title "The Day Charlie Became God." The page is reproduced in the Herbert F. Solow / Robert H. Justman volume Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 125. Writer Dorothy Fontana also confirmed that the episode was based on that story idea. Fontana developed the story and wrote the teleplay, but Roddenberry received story credit. [1]
  • This episode was originally scheduled to air further into the season, as all action took place aboard the Enterprise , and it was basically a teenage melodrama set in the space age, both of which elements NBC disliked. However, as it required no new outer space visual effects shots (actually all Enterprise shots are recycled from the two pilots), its post-production took less time than other episodes. It was chosen to be the second episode to air, out of necessity, as no other episodes were ready for the deadline. The Antares was originally to be shown on screen, but when the early airdate was commissioned, this was eliminated. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , p. 201)
  • "Charlie X" was adapted for a novelization by James Blish . It was published in the first Bantam Books Star Trek novelization collection in 1967 under the name "Charlie's Law". (This name is a pun on Charles' Law , a law of physics dealing with how changes in temperature affect the volume of a gas. ( citation needed • edit ) )
  • The opening credits of this episode are the same as those used in " The Man Trap ", which included a "Created by Gene Roddenberry" credit. The credits at the close of the episode only list Roddenberry as Producer. Also, the credits for William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy are missing the "starring" and "also starring" designations. This episode followed "The Man Trap" in airdate order. The main titles were standardized for syndication, however the DVD prints restore the titles to their original configuration.
  • During the first-season episodes, cinematographer Jerry Finnerman was encouraged to maximize placement of colored background lighting to add exotic warmth to the gray walls of the Enterprise set. This was a major promotional point for NBC, as Star Trek was a selling point for color televisions. But as pressure to complete episodes grew, this touch gradually faded from the series. NBC was owned at the time by RCA, a major manufacturer of color television sets. ( Inside Star Trek , p. 113)
  • This episode was directed by Lawrence Dobkin , who later guest-starred as Ambassador Kell in TNG : " The Mind's Eye ".
  • DS9 writer/producer Ira Steven Behr says that this is the episode that "won him over." ( AOL chat , 1997 )

Performers [ ]

  • James Doohan ( Scott ) and George Takei ( Sulu ) do not appear in this episode, although two words of Takei's dialogue from " The Man Trap " are dubbed in when Kirk calls the bridge from the gymnasium.
  • The galley chef was voiced by Gene Roddenberry , in his first and only acting role in Star Trek . Despite having dialogue, Roddenberry remained uncredited on-screen.
  • In her autobiography, Grace Lee Whitney mentions that Robert Walker , (a method actor), completely avoided the cast on the set, trying to stay alone and "in character". " He explained to us when he arrived to the set that he wanted to remain alien and apart from us – and it worked. You can see it in his performance, a subtle yet persistent air of estrangement from the Enterprise crew, and indeed from the rest of humanity. His careful effort to stay in character added a convincing dimension to his performance. " Furthermore, she added, " It's impossible to imagine anyone else in the role – he captured the perfect balance, projecting vulnerability, innocence and horrifying menace all the same time. A lesser actor could not have handled the range and depth of the character. " ( The Longest Trek: My Tour of the Galaxy , pp. 98-99)
  • Fontana also praised Walker's performance, " [He] was excellent as Charlie. And he was quite a young man, he was in his twenties, but playing a teenager, he looked young enough to pull it off." [2]
  • Allan Asherman , in The Star Trek Compendium , also mentions that Walker " turns in a powerful and fascinating performance ". (p. 39)
  • The role of Sam was to be initially played by Beau Vandenecker , but it was eventually recast to Robert Herron . ( Per casting sheet ) Herron was a stuntman, so it was cheaper to hire him as an actor/stuntman.
  • Although it may not canonically represent the creative staff's intentions, the novelization by James Blish in Star Trek 1 identifies the unnamed crewman named Sam (whom Charlie "disposes" of) as Sam Ellis, an officer on McCoy's medical staff. The episode novelization made it clear that he, along with all of the officers who were disfigured of by Charlie, were "restored" along with Rand when the Thasians intervened. However, the USS Antares could not be saved because, as the Thasian explained, it was destroyed "in this frame" whereas the zapped Enterprise personnel were "kept intact in the next frame."
  • This was one of only three episodes of the first season that didn't show Vina in the last closing still. The other two episodes were " What Are Little Girls Made Of? " and " Dagger of the Mind ".
  • This is the first of six original series episodes that takes place entirely aboard the Enterprise . The others are " The Changeling ", " Journey to Babel " (Babel itself is never seen), " Elaan of Troyius ", " Is There in Truth No Beauty? ", and " Let That Be Your Last Battlefield ". " The Doomsday Machine ", " The Ultimate Computer ", " The Immunity Syndrome ", and " The Tholian Web " were also filmed using only the Enterprise sets, including that of the shuttlecraft interior, but some of the action in these episodes took place on other Constitution -class starships. By any reasonable definition, each of these entries qualifies as a bottle show .
  • The grates in the floors of the corridors disappeared in later episodes. In one scene, Charlie takes great delight in watching a technician lower some tubing into one of these floor grates.
  • During the scene in Rand's quarters, when Charlie flings Kirk and Spock against the wall, the wall clearly has a hole punched in it. On an earlier take, Leonard Nimoy had struck the wall too forcefully.
  • When Kirk and Charlie have their final confrontation, the camera moves to a rare floor-level view of the bridge. This close-up shows that the set is carpeted. This was probably done as a noise-absorber, given the propensity of the set to pick up noises like plumbing and squeaking floors. The material itself is Ozite, a portion of which was sold at the Profiles in History Star Trek auction in June 2002.
  • The ship's gymnasium makes its first and only appearance in the series. It was originally intended to be seen in more episodes, as some of the shots showing acrobatics and gymnastics there were filmed as intended stock footage for reuse later. The gymnasium was a redress of the engineering set. The room where the gymnasts are tumbling is the redecorated briefing room .
  • The bench on which Sam was sitting when he was zapped turned up later in other episodes. In " Court Martial ", it held the wrench that Benjamin Finney snatched in his attempt to club Kirk. In " This Side of Paradise ", it was topped off by the metal tray that Spock grabs during his fight with Kirk in the transporter room.

Props and special effects [ ]

  • This is the only episode shot after the pilots to have no exterior views of the Enterprise using the updated "series" model. All of the shots are footage from " The Cage " and " Where No Man Has Gone Before " (see: above).
  • Publicity stills of Grace Lee Whitney were used on the playing cards Charlie modifies. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 39)
  • After Charlie transforms Tina Lawton into an iguana, the noise the reptile makes was that of the sound made by Sylvia and Korob when they returned to their true forms at the end of " Catspaw ".
  • Spock's scanners in this episode make the same sound the Metron transmission does in " Arena ".
  • Like Trelane , Apollo , and the Gorgan , (other advanced beings whose powers threatened the crew) Charlie makes his exit with fading repetition of his final words.
  • The music accompanying Charlie's disappearance at the end of this episode, highlighted by a mournful bassoon dirge, was re-used effectively in " Space Seed " as the landing party beams onto the Botany Bay ; in " Patterns of Force " for the death of John Gill; in " The Tholian Web " as Chekov witnesses the dead engineering crew on the Defiant ; as Kirk wanders the empty corridors of the faux- Enterprise early in " The Mark of Gideon "; and in " The Ultimate Computer " during Daystrom's final conversation with his M-5 computer.

Costumes [ ]

  • Charlie comes on board the Enterprise wearing a patched cloak; he later leaves it on the floor beside a Jefferies tube.
  • Charlie and the crew of the Antares are wearing old turtleneck uniforms left over from the two pilots. Also, when Charlie is causing panic on the corridors, crewmen can be seen wearing the new series shirts with old, pilot version trousers and boots. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 39)
  • For most of the episode, Charlie wears a gold wraparound jacket, which appears to be an unused, early version of Kirk's green tunic made for " The Enemy Within ". It is apparently too big for him. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 39)
  • After this episode William Shatner only wore tights once more, in " Errand of Mercy ". He later poked fun at his costume in this episode when clips of it were shown as part of the History Channel show, How William Shatner Changed the World .

Continuity [ ]

  • According to Kirk's line " On Earth today it's Thanksgiving ", the beginning of this episode takes place on 22 November 2266 (assuming American Thanksgiving is meant). The reference to Thanksgiving was included in the script because originally the episode was supposed to air in late-November. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One [ page number? • edit ] )
  • Still not firmly set in his characterization in this early episode, Spock shows both irritation and amusement as Uhura makes fun of him. It seems that he has learned how to express irritation (" Ah yes, one of your Earth emotions ") fairly quickly since the events of " Where No Man Has Gone Before ".
  • The United Earth Space Probe Agency is referenced for the first time in this episode, with the acronym "UESPA". It was mentioned again in episode " Tomorrow is Yesterday ". Years later, Star Trek: Enterprise referenced UESPA in several episodes, including " Demons ".
  • The line " Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary " spoken by Spock while under Charlie's influence is the first line of the poem " The Raven ", by Edgar Allan Poe . Spock is also forced to quote some lines from " The Tyger " by William Blake when he shouts that there is a " Tyger, Tyger burning bright, in the forests of the night ". [3] . In a later episode " Plato's Stepchildren " Spock is again forced to show emotion and sing " Maiden Wine " by powerful mind power aliens.
  • The song that Uhura sings to Spock and then Charlie may have been taken from an old Scottish folk song penned by Robert Burns called "Charlie, He's My Darling". The chorus in that song is almost identical to what Uhura sings. [4]
  • The crew compliment of the Enterprise is stated as 428.

Script vs. screen [ ]

  • The first-draft script featured Uhura as a trained mimic, who amused crewmembers by parodying her fellow officers in the recreation room. It was later turned into her performing a song, to fit Nichelle Nichols ' musical talents. ( The Star Trek Compendium , p. 38)
  • The second draft of this episode's script was completed on 27 June 1966 , with the final draft coming in on 5 July . The episode itself was filmed in mid- July .
  • The final draft script called for the Antares to be seen, dwarfed by the Enterprise . [5]
  • A strange bit of dialogue present in the teleplay was cut from the episode: when discussing the possible existence of Thasians , and Kirk's possible father-figure behavior to Charlie, Spock satirically asked McCoy, " Shall I schedule you to give him voodoo and superstition lessons, doctor? " McCoy replied, " You can if he provides his own chicken 's teeth and penguin feathers , " to which Spock told him, " I'll see to it, doctor. " [6]
  • In the final draft script, a remnant of Uhura's mimicking of other crewmembers still remained; just before she sang, Rand suggested to her, " Do someone. Do the Captain, " but Uhura replied, " No, I've done him. Someone else… let's see… " It was then that Uhura started singing about Spock.
  • In the final draft script, the card trick Charlie plays with Janice, which reveals her photograph on the cards, was not specified. The script simply stated that Charlie performed a variety of card tricks which amazed Janice and the onlookers. [7]
  • Writer Dorothy Fontana recalled that the filmed episode was basically the same as her screenplay, " There were a few line changes, not much. The images of how Charlie affected people, you know, no face so a woman couldn't talk, things like that, those were all there […] I noticed there really wasn't that much that was changed, it was pretty much the way I wrote it. " [8]

Preview [ ]

  • The preview contains an edited Captain's Log from the finished episode: " Captain's log, stardate 1533.7. We have taken aboard an unusual passenger… the sole survivor of a transport crash fourteen years ago. "
  • An alternate take of Charlie throwing Spock and Kirk against the wall in Yeoman Rand's quarters is included. The hole in the wall is still visible (Nimoy apparently hitting it too hard on a prior take or rehearsal), but while the final episode shows the start of the throw from the side, the preview shows it from the front.

Reception [ ]

  • Actress Grace Lee Whitney listed this episode as one of her three favorites. " 'Charlie X' brought out another side of me, the woman looking at a younger man. That was also wonderful because I felt an allegiance to Captain Kirk. " ( Starlog #105, April 1986 , p. 49)

Syndication cuts [ ]

During the syndication run of Star Trek , the following scenes were typically cut from broadcast. The remastered version of the episode contained all scenes from the original unsyndicated version.

  • Extended scenes from Charlie's beam-in to the Enterprise .
  • Scenes of crewmen working in the corridor, including a scene where Charlie observes two men saying "You've got a deal, friend". In the syndicated version, this was never explained where Charlie learned the expression or why he smacked Janice Rand on her rear when repeating.
  • Spock smiling while Uhura talks to him just before the musical session in the crewmen's lounge.
  • Kirk talking to Charlie in his cabin.
  • Women exercising in leotards when Charlie and Kirk enter the ship's gym. At the end of the gym scene, several additional tense moments were cut of Kirk demanding Charlie go to his quarters.
  • Extended briefing room discussion about Charlie and his abilities.
  • Additional scenes of Charlie angrily moving through the ship's corridor where he freezes a female crewman and shoves past three men; he also turns a young female crewman into an old woman.
  • Extended scenes on the bridge with Charlie pleading not to be returned to Thasia.
  • Extended scenes in Kirk's cabin where Kirk askes Charlie about the melted Chess pieces.

Apocrypha [ ]

  • A cat version of "Charlie X" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats .

Remastered information [ ]

The remastered version of "Charlie X" aired in many North American markets during the weekend of 14 July 2007 . The episode included new effects shots of the Thasian ship, replacing the blob-like object seen on-screen with a torpedo-shaped vessel. Most notably, the remastered episode opens with a shot featuring the Antares , a new design based upon the robot grain ships seen in the Star Trek: The Animated Series episode " More Tribbles, More Troubles ".

The Enterprise and the Antares rendezvous

Video and DVD releases [ ]

  • Original US Betamax/VHS release: 28 February 1985
  • Original UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 5 , catalog number VHR 2250, release date unknown
  • US VHS release: 15 April 1994
  • UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.3, 8 July 1996
  • Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 4, 19 October 1999
  • As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
  • As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
  • As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

  • William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

  • Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Guest star [ ]

  • Robert Walker as Charles Evans

Featuring [ ]

  • DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy
  • Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand
  • Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
  • Charles J. Stewart as Captain Ramart
  • Dallas Mitchell as Nellis
  • Don Eitner as the Navigator
  • Patricia McNulty as Tina Lawton
  • John Bellah as Crewman I
  • Garland Thompson as Crewman II
  • Abraham Sofaer as " The Thasian "

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

  • William Blackburn as Hadley
  • Vinci (aka "Guard II")
  • Bobby Herron as Sam
  • John Lindesmith as the Helmsman
  • Robert Metz as Sciences crewman 2
  • Eddie Paskey as Leslie
  • Gene Roddenberry as the voice  file info of the galley chef
  • George Takei as Sulu (voice only; recycled audio)
  • Ron Veto as Harrison (aka "Engineer")
  • Laura Wood as a Command crew woman 1 (old)
  • Command crewman 1
  • Command crewman 2
  • Command crewman 3
  • Command lieutenant 1
  • galley chef
  • Sciences crewman 1
  • Two crewmen in gymnasium
  • Command crew woman 1
  • Command crew woman 2 (young)
  • Command crew woman 3
  • Command crew woman 4
  • Command crew woman 5
  • Command lieutenant 2
  • Command lieutenant 3
  • Command officer (gymnast)
  • Sciences crew woman 1
  • Sciences crew woman 2
  • Sciences crew woman 3
  • Two gymnasts

Stunt double [ ]

  • Loren Janes as the stunt double for William Shatner

Stand-ins [ ]

  • William Blackburn as the stand-in for DeForest Kelley
  • Frank da Vinci as the stand-in for Leonard Nimoy
  • Jeannie Malone as the stand-in for Grace Lee Whitney
  • Eddie Paskey as the stand-in for William Shatner

References [ ]

2249 ; 2252 ; 4-0 ; ability ; ace ; adolescence ; adult ; anger ; answer ; Antares ; Antares -type ; area ; astrogator ; astronaut ; atmospheric system ; authority ; baffle plate ; biology ; black ; body ; " Bones "; bow ; captain's chair ; card trick ; cargo vessel ; castaway ; Charlie's parents ; Charlie's relatives ; Charlie's transport ; century ; check ; checkmate ; chef ; chess master ; chess piece ; chief ; choice ; city ; Colony Alpha 5 ( Colony 5 , Earth Colony 5 ); Colony 5 governor ; computer statistics ; confined to quarters ; Constitution -class decks ; contact ; coordinates ; course ; D channel ; debris ; deflectors ; devil ; door ; dossier ; duty ; ear ; earring ; Earth ; Earth history ; Earthling ; eating ; effect ; electronic clipboard ; energy pile ; entertainment tapes ; evidence ; exercise mat ; exercise table ; eye ; falling ; father image ; female ; first officer ; fingers ; flattery ; floor ; food concentrate ; force field ; forest ; fracture ; fruit ; galley ; guide ; gymnasium ; gymnastics ; heart ; home ; Human ; hunger ; idea ; iguana ; immunity ; Jefferies tube ; judo ; knocking ; laser beacon ; laughter ; leg ; legend ; lesson ; limb ; logic ; love ; Martian ; mathematic ; meat loaf ; memory banks ; microtapes ; million ; mind ; minute ; mistake ; mister ; name ; navigator ; navigation console ; neck ; non-corporeal species ; object ; " Oh, On the Starship Enterprise "; one-way street ; oven ; passenger ; perfume ; phaser weapon ; pink ; playing card ; Poe, Edgar Allan ; poetry ; power ; present ; probability ; probe scanner ; puberty ; pugil stick ; quadrant ; quarters ; range ; " Raven, The "; record tapes ; recreation room ; risk ; road ; room ; rose ; rule ; Satan ; Saturn ; " Saturn Rings "; Saurian brandy ; schedule ; science-probe vessel ; section ; sensors ; ship's stores ; shoulder roll ; slap ; society ; solitaire ; " sound of wind and limb "; space ; starboard ; status report ; subspace frequency ; subspace frequency three ; subspace transmitter ; survey ship ; survivor ; synthetic food ; Thanksgiving ; Thasian ; Thasian ship ; Thasus ; thing ; three-dimensional checkers ; three-dimensional chess ; toes ; towel ; training program ; transmission ; transmutation ; transport ship ; transporter chief ; throw ; turkey ; " Tyger, The "; UESPA headquarters ( United Earth Space Probe Agency ); universe ; vegetable ; Vulcan lute ; wardroom ; white ; wind ; word ; year ; yeoman third class

Unreferenced material [ ]

Antarian metal chess pieces ; bluejay ; book ; detention cell ; chariot ; Charlie's law ; deck five ; feathers ; Ferndok ; ( gods ); hell ; helmet ; hybrid ; Jupiter ; lab ; librarian ; library ; meteoroids ; microscope ; pay ; penguin ; Phynburg Oscillating Framizam ; rattle ; Romulus and Remus ; subspace radio ; superstition ; teeth ; Tweedledum and Tweedledee ; voodoo ; Vulcan ; wolf ; " Wonderful One-Hoss Shay, The "; " Wynken, Blynken, and Nod "

External links [ ]

  • "Charlie X" at StarTrek.com
  • " Charlie X " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
  • " Charlie X " at Wikipedia
  • " "Charlie X" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
  • 2 Star Trek: The Next Generation
  • 3 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“Charlie X”

3.5 stars.

Air date: 9/15/1966 Teleplay by D.C. Fontana Story by Gene Roddenberry Directed by Lawrence Dobkin

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The Enterprise provides transport for 17-year-old Charlie Evans (Robert Walker Jr.), an adolescent who grew up alone on an uninhabited planet after being the sole survivor of a crash 14 years before. Initially unbeknownst to Kirk & Co., Charlie holds powerful abilities that were given to him by an alien race so he could survive his isolation. Charlie now finds himself unable to cope with life among humans, as he careens into social situations where, when he doesn't understand, he feels forced to throw people upon the mercy of his own abilities—including making people "go away," vanishing into apparent oblivion.

The true success in "Charlie X" is in its central character's sympathetic dilemma. Charlie is a boy who wants to be liked and understood, but he doesn't grasp the social norms, and as a result feels threatened whenever he is faced with anything approaching the unpleasant or adversarial. When he experiences a crush on Yeoman Rand, his determination to win her over is poisoned by his ability to harness his anger when his feelings aren't returned.

The episode depends less on plot manipulations than it does on intelligently analyzing one person and the understandable problems surrounding him. Walker Jr. turns in a vivid performance, making Charlie pitiable even when he's at his most sadistic and malevolent. His face-off scenes with Kirk are right on the money. The story's conclusion is a necessary yet unfortunate turn of events.

Previous episode: The Man Trap Next episode: Where No Man Has Gone Before

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Comment Section

67 comments on this post, aj koravkrian.

I just watched Charlie X, and well, it may be a good episode on coffee, but it's unbearably slow. I literally fell asleep during the last couple of acts.

Oh, and also in Charlie X, what's with that ridiculous singing by Uhura...not to mention Spock smiling ? That got my attention in the beginning...it was almost creepy.

I loved the Kirk-as-father-figure aspects of this episode. You do feel sorry for Charlie, which is a nice switch.

I began watching the first season of Voyager and then decided to return to TOS and start at the beginning of the franchise. What immediately strikes me in this episode is the horrifying conclusion and how easily outmatched the crew of the Enterprise were. There was no implausibly brilliant and impossibly convenient solution available to ensure a 'happy' ending. Voyager, in contrast, has felt far too cosy and safe so far. The danger of space exploration and the possibilities that the 'unknown' present, are much more tangible and direct here - the universe is a place were outcomes are not guaranteed and many answers will be beyond us. It's good to see the Original Series taking such risks so early in production. I imagine that the programme following in the footsteps of programmes such as the Twilight Zone in which the outcomes lacked redemption for the protagonists.

“Charlie X” is pretty similar in its basic plot setup to “Where No Man Has Gone Before,” in that not only does the crew have to deal with a superbeing, it’s a human who has these powers, and who increasingly insists that people be nice to them. Still, in spite of the episodes’ similarities they are really about different emotional states. Gary Mitchell’s rebellion is an adult one, and is connected with the frontier and ends with a big Western brawl. Charlie Evans is a teenager, and the adolescent-with-superpowers thing has a similar overall meaning to that in something like Carrie, though this time told primarily from the adults’ POV. All or almost all teenagers, we’re reminded, go through a phase of great change, in which they struggle to fit in and understand themselves and find themselves on the outside of society as a whole. That Charlie was completely cut off from human civilization and raised by powerful beings who don’t really understand him is meant to be an exaggeration of what all teenagers feel like. They want to join adult society and get away from the parents, and ultimately need to, but it’s a very painful process. And in some cases, they never quite do fit into society, and Charlie has to return “home,” to his misery. The eventual realization that Charlie was not a true orphan but did have an upbringing helps bring him closer to an exaggeration of a typical teenager’s experience, rather than the experience of a feral child or a Tarzan figure. What’s interesting about this episode is that the process fails. The gradual escalation here, from Charlie’s social awkwardness to lack of boundaries with Rand to eventually taking over the ship, is pretty well done, I think, where both the crew and Charlie seem to be trying, somehow, to make it work, but they are unprepared to deal with a social misfit teenager and he’s, well, a traumatized orphan with superpowers, so, that’s obviously not going to end well. The crew do seem to me to be on the insensitive side about the incredible trauma Charlie has been through, but I get that they, even McCoy who has some psychological training, are really underqualified for the task of reaching this kid. The gender politics are pretty bad, with Rand trying and not really succeeding to explain why people don’t slap each other’s behinds and that he should talk to Kirk or McCoy about that, at which point they are unable to answer him. But the basic idea that of course he’s going to crush, heavily and overwhelmingly, on an older woman and that this is going to go badly mostly stands. I think that the episode ends up losing much of its momentum about 2/3 of the way through, at which point it’s clear that Charlie’s left much chance of a healthy interaction with the Enterprise crew behind, and the Charlie Problem seems increasingly clearly outside the Enterprise’s grasp. Like “Where No Man Has Gone Before” and to an extent “The Man Trap,” this ending is notably downbeat, solidifying the early-series idea that the Enterprise crew is just on the edge, and the victories it can manage will often be provisional. Even the Enterprise crew can’t deal with a lonely, angry teenager in pain. This is one of the episodes which seems to be positioning Yeoman Rand as a major figure in the show; she seems to be somewhat on par with Uhura overall in this and “The Man Trap” but gets greater focus here. I like that she tries to balance sympathy with Charlie with the importance of setting the proper boundaries. Still, while the story tries to show Janice’s POV, the fact htat the story is primarily about Charlie and about Kirk means that Janice does remain mostly objectified, ending up on the bridge in her nightie because she’s just so hot. The episode furthers Uhura’s hitting-on-Spock habit, this time through song!, and while it’s weird to see Spock smiling the way he does, I don’t think it breaks the character so much as bends him—it’s implausible, but I could see Spock allowing himself a little bit of pleasant amusement while he’s playing music and sharing some quality time with a crew member he ultimately does respect and like (though not in that way). Kirk continues to be a mostly balanced guy, and his awkwardness and inability to talk to Charlie positions him as an adult uncomfortable with teenagers in a way that makes him almost Picardian. I think the episode is repetitive enough that I’d probably go with 3 stars rather than 3.5, but it’s a pretty good show.

Is it me or was kirk being half-hearted in his attempt to keep the blob from taking charlie back? Kind of like hes saying the boy belongs with his own kind but hes really thinking get that little sob off my bridge. Good ep 3.5 yup.

I thought Charlie was somewhat sympathetic at first but quickly became and for a long time remained very evil so for Kirk to try to help in the end at all was very impressive.

It's nothing deep or too analytical but my favorite part of the episode is when Charlie denies that Spock beat him at chess and Spock casually blows him off and refuses to deal with his temper tantrum. It's actually pretty funny the way he plays it. It's a little self-satisfied and a little selfish. He's not going to bother himself trying to correct the little pipsqueak or teach him anything. He doesn't give a crap. He's just going to Vulcanly enjoy that he made him look stupid and let him sit with it. Pshhhhh. Spock is outta here.

Good: Robert Walker Jr. is pretty great The sense of dread in the episode is strong. The threat feels real, and when I was a kid the woman who'd lost her face scared the hell out of me. Unlike in the "first" episode (Man Trap), there's much more of an attempt to sympathize with the threat, which is much more like Star Trek. I've always like Spock's sudden poetry outburst "I can't even touch them!" Bad: I don't mind Uhura singing, but it goes on too long Trying to keep an all-powerful being behind a forcefield is pretty stupid Ugly Nothing to speak of. Overall: Strong, moody piece with an ending that should feel like a cop-out, but doesn't. Three and a half out of four.

grumpy_otter

I like this one very much, and I think Walker does a great job, but he looks so odd that it kind of puts me off him. The way they do his hair makes his head into a triangle, and his orange makeup is a bit much. But this episode, as well-stated above by others, really is a good episode that explores great trek territory.

dreamlife613

Watching this episode (and this series) for the first time in 2016, I was struck by just how scary and creepy it was compared to the other series. Despite Deep Space Nine being the "dark" Star Trek, I don't recall ever feeling scared while watching it. Sure there were some disturbing, thought-provoking incidents and episodes, but nothing scary. In my current watch of Voyager, I've seen some revolting aliens, like the ones who steal organs, but don't recall feeling afraid while watching the episodes. Charlie was a very disturbing character, with that strange look on his face whenever he felt threatened and angered and his rapey behavior towards the female crew was very unsettling. Would have been a better episode if the treatment of the women wasn't so dated (the character with the funny hair (Janice?) and her inability to explain what was happening to her was frustrating. The lack of follow-up to what Charlie did to Uhura (looked like he hurt her throat to stop her from singing) was unfortunate, because so far in the show, she hasn't been treated as much more than a pretty secretary in a short skirt.

Pretty cool episode, I agree with the rest of the crew :P this is a bit creepy. The guest actor was a good one this time around. I think the ending is not a cop-out but thematically consistent with the story. Charlie was basically a (superpowered) teen playing around while his parents weren't looking. And I can't think of many other choices of an ending, either self-destruction or some way to stop him (his parents). He was beyond reasoning or redemption since he banished Rand. The basic idea of the episode reminds me of the classic short story "It's a good life". Charlie would have ended up like the kid from that story if he wasn't stopped. And yeah, Charlie was a sympathetic character, unlike some other ones I've seen so far (the thing of "The Man Trap"). Overall, I am satisfied. And btw, I think I am watching the episodes in production order, because this was my eight episode of TOS instead of the second.

Is it just me or is the face Charlie makes not the most hilarious thing you've ever seen? It seems over the top. It's so bad it's good!

Not a huge fan of the story although the portrayal of Charlie is well done and Shatner's acting is one of his better performances as he has to explain awkward things to Charlie as well as being tough on him. My issue with the episode is that I think it could have been compressed into 1/2 hour. Enough slow parts that show Charlie's nature as a teenager that also don't do much for the development of crew members. Spock must be a bad 3D chess player. The episode establishes a solution that Trek members will employ in subsequent episodes when dealing with a superior being - that of trying to overtax it. Bit of a fortuitous solution in the end when Charlie's "parent" show up to take him away. One can feel for Charlie who will have to live without human contact -- it does show a compassionate side of the crew in the bridge. For me, this one rates 2/4. In some ways similar to "The Man Trap" with a dangerous being roaming the ship, but "Charlie X" didn't have the interest/tension for me that the 1st episode of Season 1 did.

Towards the end I was really willing Kirk to go through with that punch, or just chuck the little sod out of an airlock. I'm a bad person :p This is an interesting episode for me in that it coincidentally follows me having read quite a good social skills series over on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/socialskills/comments/47v23l/how_to_be_socially_skilled_pt1_getting_started Everything that is mentioned in that series came up in this episode. It felt like I'd just got to the end of a class and been shown a demonstration video :) As noted by someone in the previous episode's comments, you do see more UhuraXSpock than I remember, along with more emotions in Spock early on, kind of invalidating those criticisms when they're directed at the 2009 reboot. (I'm still not a big fan of the reboot though)

Charlie X is "puberty in space" as only Star Trek can do it. As we encounter the 17-year old Charlie learning to cope with powers he's not ready to exercise responsibly, there's a lot of fun to be had in watching Kirk try to parent the boy. But there's a difference in the Star Trek universe as always: This boy really IS all-powerful, rather than simply *thinking* he is such, and he can take revenge on all the people he perceives as slighting him. And when he takes his vengeance on the unwitting crew in Lord of the Flies fashion, evoking our audience fears of being in the hands of an unstable teenager as Spock puts it, there's a real sense of Twilight Zone-esque tension and dread as the crew gradually realizes they are powerless to control him. Robert Walker is stellar as Charlie, capturing all the ambiguities of adolescense. Shatner shines in his portrayal of Kirk, morphing from bemused half-engagement with Charlie to concern as he realizes the threat to his ship -- the wrestling scene and Kirk's bravado in basically telling Charlie "get out of my chair" at the end hearken to the heart of the Kirk character still being established in these early episodes. The message seems to be that Kirk will roll with a lot of things, but taking the captain's chair isn't one of them -- and Charlie's wavering in the face of a father figure who actually pushes back at him for taking "daddy's chair" is well-played by Walker. Also, as a commenter mentioned earlier, Spock's delicious response to Charlie in the chess scene is quintessentially Spock. While Shatner seems to have Kirk's character down pat from the pilot onward, Nimoy is obviously still working things out, and it's almost more fun to watch him develop the greater complexity of Spock's alien character than to watch Kirk do Kirk. While TOS sometimes veers into sexism, I actually didn't perceive that with Yeoman Rand's character in this one, as Charlie is clearly mimicking the behavior of one man to another man when he slaps her -- it's not like he saw a male crew member slap a female crew member on the rear. Also Grace Lee Whitney plays Rand very well here, trying simultaneously to protect the intense Charlie's feelings while sending off the "I'm not interested" vibe with increasing force, a very relatable experience for many people (even today) who have tried to let down unwanted crushes gently. Kirk's awkward effort to explain to Charlie that slapping a woman on the rear is wrong, far from coming across as sexist, feels more like the Abrams reboot Kirk -- the expression on Shatner's face, hinting at his own tendency to push boundaries with women rather than set them, comes across as pretty hysterical. Other highlights include the Uhura-Spock song in the rec room, elaborating our view of shipboard life as well as Uhura's musical character, and the freaky little moments like the faceless woman as Charlie takes his revenge. Very rarely does Trek in any incarnation feel dangerous and shocking, but it does here: We really don't know what vicious things this kid will do next. And Kirk's effort to show compassion for the kid at the end, even knowing how Charlie killed an entire freighter crew, feels very Trekkian in its effort to find *some* good in apparent evil. There's some good nuance here that sometimes doesn't appear in other Trek shows of various series in dealing with all-powerful beings. The omnipotent being as a teenager here is a nice twist on the formula. All in all, I particularly enjoy this one for the realistic way it reminds me of all the teenagers I've known, and for the salutary lesson that great power requires maturity to be exercised responsibility for the benefit of all. This is a classic Trekkian morality tale that remains somewhat unique in the canon. I'd give it 3 1/2 or even 4 stars.

Just another fan

Wow. Nice review, Trek fan. I'm re-watching TOS on Netflix from the beginning for the first time in many years. And so far I'm finding that despite the hokey sets that look like they're made of paper mache, they're still gripping. I forgot that TOS is much more like the Twilight Zone than it is like later Trek series -- happy endings are not guaranteed, and it's not only the red shirts who meet untimely ends. This episode had a real atmosphere of dread that continued to build throughout. Here, I felt sympathy for Charlie as he tried to navigate the rough seas of adolescence. Without human guidance during his prepubescent years, he had poorer social skills than most young people and no sense of how to control himself. Yet I never felt that he was "bad," only that he had never been taught. So I understood the dilemna the crew faced. I remember being a teenager with all those feelings of insecurity and angst. Even if it meant I could be younger, I wouldn't go through that stage of life again. So I could only imagine the pressure on a young person facing all of those painful rites of passage without an adequate support system. At the end, when Charlie begged not to be sent back with the aliens, the camera panned the faces of the crew and you could see that no one but Janice and Kirk felt they could even advocate for the boy to stay. A true, Trekkian dilemna, where there was no comfortable choice to make. I've also been taking note of how the women are treated in these episodes, and so far, it's not too bad for the time period. As usual on Star Trek, there's the odd mixture of an interest in looking at women and commenting on their appearance -- in skirts so short, women couldn't comfortably wear them today, in their nightgowns, sometimes with carefully torn clothing strategically placed, with green skin, with elaborate hair styles, and blue and silver nail polish -- but no real understanding of how to speak to women or relate to them, as if women also were aliens. Witness how Kirk cannot articulate to Charlie why he shouldn't slap a woman on the rear end. In the unaired pilot, the Cage, Captain Pike says he can't get used to having women on the bridge. So given that time period, where women were just beginning to join certain professions, some of the discomfort makes sense. But oddly enough, I see the same treatment of women in Enterprise, as though the people who write Star Trek haven't learned anything about how to relate to women in 40 years. It's a little funny, but while it was somewhat amusing in the sixties, by the 21st century it's more than a little sad. One thing they got right pretty fast with this series was the distinctive characters. It's early on in the show, and already most of the series regulars are establishing clearly differentiated personalities. It's fun to watch that come together.

Why couldn’t the Thasians just take away Charlie’s powers?

Great episode. Story, characters, development of plot. Even without the later joking/teasing remark at the closing moment of the show, you feel the chemistry between them is working as early as here. I don't see the smiling of Spock while playing his instrument and being mocked by Uhura's singing as contradictionary to his character. He could just pretend not to bother about her but being concentrated on his own music thereby. We see them off duty in a recreational setting so the formalities don't apply here as they would on the bridge. Playing chess, doing exercises in the gym, playing cards and nipping at drinks while socializing - the show does a good job at showing casual life on board of a ship en voyage. Also scenes with crewmembers working on engineer tasks, all this while developing the story around Charlie, or even the traffic in the corridors - it's enjoyable how the Enterprise is fleshed out as a ship with a living crew doing their job and having fun besides shifts on duty. They manage to do that without looking awkward or wooden, it has a 'natural' look. Something you don't see too such extent for example on ST Enterprise from 2003 so far I have accompanied its episodes (3rd season). TOS does the show and atmosphere very well and contributes to the authenticy it wants to convey. And all this besides a strong story. Chapeau!

consumption of classic sci-fi at this point is in a fundamental way an historicist exercise in tracking our social progression as much as it is entertainment. while there is no point maligning it for where it fails to meet modern sensibilities--especially since one is presumably there in the first place to celebrate where it still manages to succeed in doing the same--i do believe discussion of how our sensibilities have shifted out-of-universe is a useful and important continuation of the REAL WORK i like to see trek attempt in all its iterations. After all, trek doesn’t just inspire us to model our flip phones and ipads on ‘communicators’ and ‘padds’ and theorize about warp drives--it also attempts to give us a model for human behaviour in our BEST POSSIBLE FUTURE. Checking in with older versions of our best possible future is one way we find the consensus to course-correct our biggest and most necessary cultural shifts and recalibrate our (projected) trajectory (see TOS ref. interracial kissing or DISC ref. homosexuality. whatever you think of them, most of us apparently agree now that they will probably still exist in ALL of our possible future(s) and that our posterity will very likely not give whatever shits we might). So although i found myself mostly tracking themes of gender-interaction & adolescence in charlie x during THIS watchthrough and plan to spew some impressions about those subjects here, I’m not really trying to squabble/troll/strut my neo-americo-politico. For contrast, the last time i watched it the gender politics were totally eclipsed by my simultaneous reading of a ton of ray bradbury and harlan ellison so scifi-horror genre blending and twilight zone comparisons were my primary analytical lenses. anyway, people get real sensitive about gender discourse without pretty thorough disclaimers these days, but gender discourse is nevertheless part of that REAL WORK i was talking about before so feel free to engage, but only if you can sustain a picard-level of civility in the undertaking, thx. so as an artifact of its time, i find charlie x pretty daring in its effort to imagine its own time's 'less sexist' future. even stuck in our ‘past-future’, blind to its own blind spots, and missing some of its marks, this episode still feels like it’s doing some of that realwork in parsing sexual politics and departing from realworld madmen-era norms. I get that by modern standards the males here come off as (still in the 23rd century) somehow unable to explain simple ideas of autonomy and a sentient being’s innate right to bodily agency to an adolescent boy (even though they manage just fine to speechify the same concepts to/about blobs and gasbags)--but the take away to me is that they try at all in a less-than-totally-alien context. it’s a pretty bold depiction for the time of a woman flatly denying male attention without any consequence/scorn/joke (perhaps only possible then because of the young male/older woman angle)--especially of a woman who actually DOES appear to care about the person whose attention toward her feels increasingly rooted in the obsessive/possessive feelings that are so often real-world precursors to sexual violence. It devotes quite a lot of time to showcasing the yeoman’s gradual steps toward taking the actions that (may) become necessary to her bodily safety and which match the escalation of charlie’s advances in a pretty true-to-life way. She sends him to an older male for counsel, she tries to explain it herself, eventually she goes to her superior with her grievance. etc. I bet at the time it felt very familiar to women but maybe not so much to men who probably couldn’t bring themselves to break decorum and address harassment directly if at all then. In retrospect, rand’s comfort with sending charlie to a man in authority to ask about his misstep is kind of great since it supposes a future in which she is not ashamed and presumes that man will have a reasonably accurate understanding of her perspective sans any assumption that she herself somehow invited the affront. again, possibly only the age difference makes this work here, but in the mid-60s i call it a win. it does seem that her genuine affection-but-not-passion for charlie is presented as something that this adolescent (male?) just cannot decode without (male?) guidance though. without this guidance, it seems that every time rand responds warmly to him or appears friendly (as during the mess scenes with the card tricks), it appears not just to reinforce his crush (totally natural) but also feelings of entitlement to reciprocation (also natural? only correctable through social instruction? idk). his previous lack of human contact is the in-universe explanation for this inability, but he is not also a small child like anthony from twilight zone’s ‘it’s a good life’--he plays chess and runs a starship with his superpowers. he knows that HE feels emotion and that others do as well. he knows that he doesn’t like his feelings hurt. he says kirk is “not nice” when he tries to confine him, hates being laughed at or feeling humiliation but nevertheless laughs at spock and attempts to humiliate him on the bridge by having him spout poetry, turns that girl into an iguana and grins maliciously, etc so it’s difficult to buy from a contemporary standpoint that he doesn’t have enough on humans at his disposal to deduce that if the yeoman does not want him, his taking her or disappearing her is, in fact, ‘not nice.’ if charlie knows what he is doing is wrong, his acts against rand are much more frightening, but also much more analogous to realworld situations. when does a young man learn that it is wrong to force your will onto others? is the answer different now than it was then? The assumption of young men’s lack of emotional intelligence here is totally expected in this period, but I also think it’s worth noting that the apriori assumption that charlie (and by allegorical extension adolescents in general) CANT learn to identify, decode, and apply emotional information based on experience and observation alone (listening to rand and accepting her choice) helps absolve him/them of the responsibility of cultivating the skill (emotions are a skill some people have to work on), and then simultaneously punishes him/them for not having it down already--which is a very arrogant and adult failure. charlie is first snickered at for benign faux pas and then eventually banished for, in some sense, quitting the growing-up game and the intricacies of navigating adult space at a disadvantage while he is faced with perceived ridicule--a very adolescent failure, to be sure. but where does the episode place the blame for this failure? on him rather than the adults around him who fail him spectacularly even though they clearly want to help and feel that what they offer him should be enough for him to extrapolate the rest. so the episode positions kirk as the dispenser of knowledge, arbiter of justice, and guiding paternal hand here--all in keeping with period--but consider kirk's initial fail regarding the 'bum-tap.' it’s a less successful joke in today's atmosphere because its humor comes from our adult knowledge that there are, in fact, 2 answers to charlie's question, well why can’t you slapass anyway? answer 1) in public and in theory (and in fictional projections of our best future-selves which celebrate us at the height of our civility) we don't harass unfamiliar women/people like that because we agree as a society that certain areas of the body are restricted-access. they require familiarity and prior authorization to engage them. it is a violation of the other person's body-sovereignty/sentience/personhood to treat them as something you are free to manipulate without obvious encouragement if not outright verbalized permission. answer 2) well, son, when you're naturally 'gifted' at this (as i am, kirksmirk) you just KNOW when it's okay to initiate rump-thumping protocols and when it isn't, how can i possibly TELL you if you don’t already KNOW? It’s just INTUITION my boy... I wonder where charlie’s feelings of inadequacy start, eh? WE get kirk’s joke, of course, but charlie doesn’t. he needs the first answer but he only gets the second. worse, kirk’s delivery makes it pretty obvious that there IS some second meaning he should already know. coupled with the pain of rejection you’ve got a perfect kickoff for the development of feelings of inferiority in an adolescent superbeing. the episode’s “right” answer is of course what kirk says later in his failure--there are a million things you can have and a million you can’t--an oversimplification that only comes AFTER charlie has failed to miraculously devine human taboos through the very helpful mix of snickering, teasing, ignoring, and patronizing he endures at the hands of cap’n’crew. as an adult, you know uhura’s teasing song and the crew’s laughter is based in affection but if you know any teens you also know how obtuse they can be when they feel stupid academically, socially, or otherwise. so here, where charlie’s initiation into the club of adulthood becomes VITAL for him to be accepted/acceptable in society because of his power, again, the only instruction he receives is in the form of a frustrated, nervous adult laying down the law. if emotional intelligence IS innate, the implication becomes that charlie just ain’t got it, and his failure to meet ‘normal’ social standards is grounds for expulsion from the club of humanity. the inability of his untutored adolescent brain to decode rand’s or the rest of the crew’s behavior positions charlie, for all of that power, as inherently defective, unfixable, and dangerous. even if on the other hand, emotional management is a learned skill, the implication here is still that charlie couldn’t learn it because he was supplied by kirk with the KNOWLEDGE OF GOOD AND EVIL so to speak, and was still unable to process the information into a usable moral code within a few days. either way, it amounts to a very adult dismissal of a very real adolescent quandary--especially in a reality where humans are interplanetary superstars at diplomacy with various alien species of various emotional configurations all mostly figured out (snort from over here in reality snort). The real horror of this episode isn’t charlie himself really. It’s the terrifying, ever-fading ability of adults to communicate with, relate to, and/or control younger people who seem too volatile/reckless/fearless to wield the powers and knowledge they already have with wisdom they certainly do not have, yet cannot realize they lack. In other words, not all teens are a charlie, but every adult is a kirk--we all see ourselves as someone who could take a kid underwing, do a little boxing, fishing, and viola! But then we end up talking way too much instead of listening. We’re too busy reminiscing, too cringingly knowing, we think we’re funny (because we are) but we forget so easily that they don’t get us yet because we vaguely remember being like them. But when we abandon kids in trouble or railroad their lived experiences or titter at their juvenile antics its easy to forget the humiliation that is sometimes involved in learning the rules that govern adult conduct. Something small can feel big enough to a kid to justify copping out of learning these rules and avoiding people altogether. Then, a few years later that kid is a charlie, limited experience with people and a whole lot of new power, wondering why someone won’t just explain the rules and stop laughing at them.

Ein starkes Kapitel, das mich unbehaglich gemacht hat, die Gymnastik-Szene ist wirklich witzig

I think that Jammer is right in saying that the point of the episode lies not so much in its plot, but rather in the theme of adolescence which is actually treated well. I wrote about it here! https://vengonofuoridallefottutepareti.wordpress.com/2018/12/18/star-trek-tos-s01e02-charlie-x-english/

A good one. Robert Walker Jr does a great job. He freaks me out already as I've never seen any kid who was so much of a clone of his father. If you've never seen RW Sr, go goggle it. I actually remember this ep when it first aired. I was just a kid, but I'd seen Sr in something or other - probably an old movie or something - and I remember being confused about how he could be in this episode, so young . . . I think that's why I remember this ep. Definitely a "coming of age" story, but a weird and twisted one, that ends badly and sadly, without any real growth or change. Charlie's stuck forever, and I suppose the message of the ep is how much we need each other to learn our lessons in life, and for love and support while we do that. Shirtless Kirk. Uhura singing. Rand in a night gown. I think the early shows here are highlighting the cast's talents and sexy features to grab an audience.

I know these were written ages ago, but ... “When he experiences a crush on Yeoman Rand, his determination to win her over is poisoned by his ability to harness his anger when his feelings aren't returned.” Should that be “inability?”

When Kirk and Charlie were on the turbolift on the way to the bridge, did they stop off at Kirk's quarters so he could change his shirt?

"Witness how Kirk cannot articulate to Charlie why he shouldn't slap a woman on the rear end." I can get why people would find that problematic. Personally I felt like it was a combination of * Kirk is good at being the particular type of authority figure that his job requires of him. He's completely out of his element at being the authority figure for a lonely 14 year old kid who wants to look up to him and wants to feel that Kirk admires/respects him. Thus why the talk starts out really awkward. * Charlie feels out of place and wants to fit in, and has no idea of what normal social interaction is like. So he sees two people having fun and sees one of them give the other a "good game" pat on the rear end, and he thinks "ok, doing that is part of how I fit in". So Kirk is having trouble about the butt-slap because he doesn't know how to explain why it was ok for that other guy but not for Charlie (especially since Charlie is going to instantly default to whining about how it's unfair that other people can do things he can't, without waiting for the full explanation). * And I liked how Kirk finally quits talking about the social interactions of physical contact and just tells him basically "This is how life is: if you like someone, then you put what they want ahead of what you want. Sometimes that means you don't get what you hope for, and it hurts, but you keep on living and you'll be ok." which he delivers a bit stilted, but it's a good message.

Let's talk Charlie X. So this is basically a high concept similar to the much-maligned VOY episode "Q2" with the premise being "What if an adolescent had super powers?". The similarities with Q2 stop here. What works thematically about this one is we have a crew that's in its freshman years deep in space, just getting its bearings. We have Uhura singing, Spock smiling while playing music, card games and other games that can be considered youthful vices. The smart part of this is how Charlie can dig into all these activities like your typical teenager, but we see he is totally incapable of sharing these experiences with others. He wants to be the cool one, the mature one, the one everyone laughs with - not at. When he enters a room he hopes for cheers at his importance. So while he can relate to the Enterprise crew on a surface level, he fails to see the "why" behind all their playful activities. Failing to acclimate, he quickly finds a role model in the most charismatic person on the ship, Kirk. As Jammer notes, we see how despite everyone's earnest efforts to accept Charlie, it inevitably doesn't work. It's great how the differences start slow like Charlie just showing off a few abilities that can be dismissed as tricks or coincidence. But these parlor tricks add up and Charlie, in typical adolescent fashion, can't control his feelings well enough and has to keep compensating for more and more with flash over substance. As many have noted, Robert Walker Jr.'s performance really seals the deal as we see his innocence, passion, anger, and fear projected loudly in every scene. Apparently Walker practiced his part by keeping his distance from the cast, never socializing and sticking to character, and it really shines on the screen. Shatner is also good as an overwhelmed father. He does his best to provide guidance and a stern hand which make for some marvelous confrontations between the metaphorical Father-and-Son. A few things detract from the episode, however. The episode runs out of gas at some point, and it feels like the Enterprise crew is trying countermeasures like a containment field which they should know by that point is futile. He destroyed a whole ship, for Pete's sake! Also, it's diffcult to tell if something that happens on screen is Charlie's doing. For example, Uhura was singing about Charlie while Charlie hoped to put the moves on Yeoman Janice Rand. Suddenly, Uhura appeared to be violently silenced by Charlie using his powers to remove her voice. But this incident was never reported and could have tipped off Kirk to Charlie's powers before the Antares met its doom. Was that really Charlie at work or just a production error? But all in all, these are minor things in what's surprisingly the (second?) officially aired episode of Star Trek. We have get a great story of a lost child all can relate to who cannot truly return to humanity. Was it kindness of the aliens to keep him alive artificially or cruelty because of the life he'll have to lead? That's the kind of thought-provoking question that makes for great Star Trek. "Shirtless Kirk. Uhura singing. Rand in a night gown. I think the early shows here are highlighting the cast's talents and sexy features to grab an audience." Tango! A little known fact about this one is that RCA owned NBC at the time. So, in order to sell color TVs, they were pushing for the show to have vivid colors against the dull gray of the Enterprise. It stands to reason they'd want vivid images of actors too. Thus, this one was meant to be enjoyable on a technical level even if you didn't like the Sci-Fi.

I will have to watch this one again to verify some details, but I wonder whether we might take Charlie as a message about what happens when power is mixed with a lack of social checks, and specifically in the world of TV. Obviously in real life powerful people have their way with others, and we don't need any sci-fi show to tell us that. But what if the message is more about media, where we're used to seeing charismatic leads getting the ladies, with the presumption that an attraction woman is on-screen *to be won* by the male lead (or vice versa now). Likewise, we're inundated with material where people with powers - whether supernatural or just political - can get away with all kinds of stuff that we'll root for, whether it's Marvel characters doing zany stuff, or Kevin Spacey in House of Cards charming as the anti-hero. If we take all of this in context and give Charlie X a lot of credit, maybe we're seeing the underbelly of all of that: that it's naked power showing its unsophisticated self, wanting whatever it sees without consideration for what it means or whether it's good. Someone like Kirk, who by all rights *could be seen* as a standard womanizing lead who does whatever he wants (which I don't really think he ever was) is faced here with explaining to a juvenile why it's wrong and to try to put a stop to it. What starts off as innocent turns dark quickly when "no" is not an acceptable answer. Could this be some kind of examination of what might happen in standard media if leads in TV shows and film experienced rejection instead of victory?

@Peter G. That's a good observation. It might be the case that modern media is more and more aiming at adolescents, or adults who are adolescent at heart. In that sense, this episode works as an indictment against people who feed on their ids. They can influence events, people and hold enormous power, but when things don't go their way or there's too much to handle (note that the solution to this episode was turning all the functions of the ship on at once giving Charlie much more than he could control at once) the whole thing falls down like a well... house of cards. :-) But I do think that you're right, that Kirk and the others are rejecting this type of power and attention. They try to understand the boy and teach him, but they do not give into his demands when he fails to listen and grows ever more desperate. Pretty fascinating material here!

Peter I'll admit I thought your hypothesis was a bit out there. But then I watched the episode last night again for the first time in a while. I still doubt that was what they were going for with it, but I enjoyed applying your filter to the action. Kirk's utter inability to explain to Charlie why you can't slap a woman's behind (in essence, why consent is necessary to sex or simply no-means-no) may be just "ha ha sex is awkward" but one could wonder if Kirk simply can't address the question because it has never come up for him. In his universe, no woman ever says no to him. Kirk, like Charlie, exists in a universe where his will becomes reality. In a meta sort of way Kirk and Charlie are mirror images. Kirk is the hero, and for that sort of hero, "no" is alien, unfathomable. Charlie is what happens when heroes fall into a 'real' real world and ot ain't pretty.

Great early episode. Sad to read of Robert Walker jr 's passing on. Played an excellent role in this show.

Disliked this episode as a kid; dislike it now. Very dated and silly. The kid with super powers. Not that interesting. Weak second episode for a brand new sci fi series. The next few are much better. Charlie was just annoying. Sorry

I hadn’t seen this in like 30 years, but the lead in Bandersnatch reminded me very strongly of Charlie. So I’d say this ep left an impression on me. The reason is trivial though. A late teenage male with a bouffant who is more than a tad unsocial.

Proud Capitalist Pig

"Charlie X" -- It should be called "Charlie Z," because the titular brat is clearly a member of Generation Z: spoiled, whiny, "wanting a million things that he can't have," and throwing a temper tantrum when he is rejected or stymied. I should know; I parent three of them. What struck me as especially true of most contemporary teenagers was that he craves nothing but instant gratification without doing any work. He refuses to listen to Spock while he tries to explain three-dimensional chess, just wanting to play without learning the rules and caveats. And then later, he doesn't care to learn the initial wrestling and falling techniques Kirk is patiently and amicably trying to teach him because he wants to get right to the sparring. Seems to me that the Giant Heads who raised him should have spanked him on the backside a lot more. Maybe then he would know not to play grab-ass with the older officers (Kirk trying to explain to Charlie why he shouldn't be slapping Janice's ass was priceless). Poor Janice. The look on her face, after Charlie's incident with her, had my son and I bursting out laughing. So then they realize Charlie has incredible superpowers. He made a crewman disappear right in front of Captain Kirk's eyes. He transformed a junior yeoman into an iguana (what torture that must be). It was inevitably established that force fields and bulkheads will NOT hold him. And yet no one thought to SHOOT him? Or beam him into oblivion? They could have at least tried! Something tells me that despite having superpowers, he was still a human being (as Dr. McCoy basically reported), and probably could have been neutralized. One other thing confused me--at the end, with Charlie clearly not able to live among human beings, why didn't the Blob Head aliens simply take his powers away? Then Kirk could have thrown him back in jail with no fuss or muss. I did enjoy the little spots wherein we get to know the characters more. Uhura is still wanting some serious Vulcan Dick, and the scene of her singing while Spock accompanies her on the harp (trying not to grin) was delightful. William Shatner was admirable again as Kirk, this time the reluctant father-figure to the worst possible teenager who's ever lived. He brilliantly exerted Kirk's bemusement, patience, and calm authority throughout the episode. Best line: "There are a million things you can have, and a million things you can't have!" -- Kirk, a truism that ought be plastered on every billboard from Portland, Maine, to San Diego, California.

You're post contains some... interesting rhetoric, first compairing Charlie to Gen Z, as you see similarities to you're own kids, then you blame the parenting for Charlue's behaviour... which seems to indicate you blame parenting for the current generations behavour, which includes your own kids... so you... blame yourself for how your kids turned out? I don't think you meant to imply that. I also think you've avoided the fact that pretty much ALL teenagers are enititled brats who want things done NOW without putting hard work in from time-to-time, as well as the fact that Social Media and an increasing online life gives these teenage hormonal developing voices more airtime and more like-minded people to share and spread their views. I'd also like to point out that this is probably the only site where users can say "Okay boomer" without it being a generational backtalk thanks to a certain prolific poster. Haha.

@Nolan "I also think you've avoided the fact that pretty much ALL teenagers are enititled brats who want things done NOW without putting hard work in from time-to-time, as well as the fact that Social Media and an increasing online life gives these teenage hormonal developing voices more airtime and more like-minded people to share and spread their views. " You might also say that pretty much all parents are believers in the idea that hard work or sacrifice is a requirement to acquire or obtain something. Because without that belief, passed on down the generations, there is no basis for calling these teenagers "entitled brats".

@Nolan I live to serve. :) It was an interesting post. My children are horrible monster, but I love them. They are made that way by a society we created. Very meta.

OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

Funny how it's always "society" that's at fault, eh? Don't parents have a responsibility for their kids' upbringing and education? And the responsibility of setting a personal example, as well? Nah... what a silly idea. It must be society's fault. Meanwhile, lets get drunk on a regular basis, develop a super-negative cynical view of the world, troll random communities on the internet, and attack every person who sees the world a bit differently than we do. What could possibly go wrong? ;-)

As for Charlie being "Generation Z": Only people with a very short memory would say this. Teenagers have always been that way. It's part of the natural growth process of human beings, and always was. The important question is whether the youngsters grow out of this phase or not.

Omicron, when a single child is a brat you can comfortably say it's bad parenting. When it's say 500,000 children, then you can comfortably blame society. That goes for almost any social problem. I always kind of laugh when an older generation condemns a younger one - ummm who made us gramps? As for Generation Z I agree that they are not radically different from others save one important factor - social media. It doesn't just mold them the way TV or video games molded my generation - it also gives them the power to mold society in their own image, something no previous generation could do. When I was in high school lots of kids had stupid ideas but their tantrums couldn't bend the wills of multinational corporations and governments. A 16 year old on Twitter in 2020 can be more influential now than a national news anchor was in 1980.

Agreed on the effects of social media. As for whether we blame society or the individual parent: It's not an either-or proposition. Just because there are certain problems in society as a whole, doesn't mean that individual parents are off the hook. Sure, society will screw the kid's mind either way, but we can at least make sure that we aren't making the situation even worse with our own behavior.

"Sure, society will screw the kid's mind either way, but we can at least make sure that we aren't making the situation even worse with our own behavior." Sure, and I am not denying that people make bad choices. But if you're talking about a problem in generational broadly sweeping terms like "kids today!" or "how about that opioid epidemic!" it's asinine to turn it around and say it's just individuals behaving badly while dismissing "society" at large. A priori, anything that effects a generation must be societal. When you roll the dice a couple of times and you get sixes that's just luck. If you roll the dice 100,000 times and get nothing but sixes then you know something more is going on.

"This programme from the '60s reminds me of kids today, and how they are uniquely and unprecedentedly terrible."

You know Top Hat that just proves that Star Trek was always ahead of it's time.

This discussion reminds me of this exchange from Plan 9 From Outer Space (substitute gender for generation gap): Lieutenant John Harper: Modern women. Colonel Tom Edwards: They've been like that all down through the ages. Especially in a spot like this.

@Jason I'm not talking about general trends. I'm talking about the fact that a person who doesn't bother to get their own lives in order, has a cynical attitude towards life, and is blaming everybody but themselves for all their problems, is in no position to blame "society" for how their kids turn out. That's all I'm saying.

Charlie X Star Trek season 1 episode 2 3 stars (out of 4) "KIRK: We have a large supply of entertainment tapes, gentlemen. RAMART: No, we've a tight schedule to make, Captain. Just twenty of us, we're making out fine. KIRK: Not even Sarian brandy?” - Kirk’s offer of porn and booze is rebuffed by a ship of gay mormons When The Graduate premiered in 1967, the actress playing Mrs. Robinson was 36 years old, exactly the same age as Janice Rand in “Charlie X” which aired the year prior. There is something about a woman at that age. Would you believe that Stacey’s Mom was 34 when that video came out? That’s exactly the same age as Uhura was in this episode, when she sang and she shimmied as Mr. Spock played his harp. Teenagers think they know what sexy is. Charlie thought it was ass-slapping. Star Trek these days thinks it is twenty-somethings acting all deep and mysterious. But the sultry mid-thirties are incredible. Gate McFadden (Doctor Beverly) was 38 when TNG premiered. That’s the same age as Stifler’s Mom in American Pie, yes the movie that popularised a crude modern word for Mrs. Robinson. Jeri Ryan was 33 when Seven first kissed Chakotay. Kira was 36 when DS9 started. https://youtu.be/yiXu3PGscDs We see the first sparks between Troi and Worf when Troi is, that’s right, 36. Soji is 21. Which by the way is the same age as that Yeoman Third Class Tina, who Charlie didn’t give two fucks about. Who can blame him?

There’s no Charlie wxyz here, this is a very simple story of a (very well tanned) young boy in puberty in a completely alien world. This is unfortunately the hellish nature of what the TNG The Bonding was really offering the boy there. Although, damn, should Kirk allow this? Does he have a choice? Whatever these aliens have done, is it right for them to take the boy away? And in a more meta sense, it’s fascinating the much smaller 1701 in a very large and mysterious galaxy vs the mighty 1701-D seeming to virtually lord over the Alpha quadrant.

The little sadistic bastard was held accountable for his actions in the end and paid for them accordingly. What a concept!!! Great ending for that was a cruel and monstrous boy that was Charlie X. A very good episode and a frightening reminder about how power can be abused. I give it a sold A.

I liked this a lot more than the aired Pilot, Charlie's character is intriguing, an alien teenager who doesn't fit in and doesn't understand social norms, sounds like many a teenager on Earth! It's relatable. You feel for Charlie despite the despicable things he's doing to stay in control. [The actor is excellent.] Unfortunately the ending lets it down, Kirk and crew's plan is to put some ship lights on and for Kirk to punch him. Ha ha! Really? Take him on Kirk! As Jammer said, the resolution is necessary but still disappointing. A good ep though.

I always connected this episode strongly with "It's a GOOD Life" by Jerome Bixby, a rather famous short story from the Golden Age of science fiction. In that story the superbeing was an 8-year-old who could "send you to the cornfield" if he didn't like you. (You didn't want to know more . . . ) He could read minds, change the weather, pretty much anything. Everybody had to pretend to be happy all the time. It was turned into a Twilight Zone episode. That story also had an unhappy ending, worse than the Trek one. I'm surprised so few people are aware of it. Jerome Bixby wrote one or two TOS episodes, though I can't remember which ones now.

@The Queen I, too, see the similarity of this episode to Bixby's story. It is also very similar to another Trek episode, The Squire of Gothos. Trelane is not human, and apparently grows up with parents of his own species, but like Charlie, he is a naughty boy with unspeakable power.

Robert Walker is almost too good at playing this part. Very annoying, but still sympathetic. Still, I really really wanted Kirk to deck him at the end of the episode. Trek's long tradition of bad wigs begins with Grace Lee Whitney's beehive. It's especially ridiculous in this episode. I was looking at some old promo pics and they gave her much nicer looking hair initially: https://www.trekcore.com/specials/rare/rand_althair.jpg A funky but kinda cool looking space retro thing: https://www.trekcore.com/specials/rare/kirk_rand2.jpg I wonder why they made the switch.

Interesting parallel, but although the “Generation Z” reference made me smile, I don’t think that the episode’s central message is that all teenagers are spoiled brats who deserve to be spanked. What makes Charlie dangerous is not his age, but his superior powers, and concerning this subject, I agree that there are some parallels to Where No Man Has Gone Before. But unlike Gary Mitchell, Charlie has grown up with these abilities, with the consequence that they are an intrinsic trait of his personality, a part of his reactions to his environment, as natural and incidental as other body functions like breathing or batting eyelids. When he arrives on board the Antares, his mind powers immediately establish a border between him and the ship’s crew, which means that the total isolation in which he’s lived until then and which he’s desperate to overcome, still continues. On the Enterprise, the first thing he does to break out of this isolation is to reach out to those around him (like McCoy), to model himself on others, to imitate their behavior, which is basically what most children and adolescents do. So why doesn’t this work? I admit that I’ve been mulling over this for some time after watching the episode. After all, McCoys plan to appoint Kirk to act as a sort of father image for Charlie does make some sense, considering that Kirk has many characteristics that make him a father figure: authority, empathy, understanding, even sensitivity… and when he interacts with Charlie, like in the scene in his quarters, he brings all that to bear, devotes his time to him, even charging Spock with an important task he wanted to perform himself so he can take Charlie to the gym. But what he can’t tolerate is Charlie’s egotism, his self-centered way of thinking, circling exclusively around his own wishes and desires… in the microcosm of the ship’s crew, there is no place for this kind of behavior; everyone must respect the others and if necessary, place their needs above his or her own. I agree, maybe that’s the egotism of youth, albeit certainly not of a particular generation but in general. And while this contrast immediately opens a gap between Charlie and Kirk, the episode doesn’t stop here: the real conflict hasn’t even broken out by the time this scene happens, and when it does, in the end, it’s again more about Charlie’s powers than about his young age. Maybe the problems of adolescence are best described as a sort of “fire accelerant” for the destructive potential of his mind powers.

Michael Miller

3rd episode, and literally 2 out of the 3 based on humans turning into gods essentially. And his obsessive attraction to Jannice is overdone and ridiculous. He's got all these powers and that's all he can think about? Why is a 17 year old so interested in a 30-40 year old? And that whole Kirk being a daddy figure couldn't be any more ironic, considering how he takes advantage of every woman of every species he can get his hands on, his genes are spread throughout half the quadrant by the end of that season, oh the irony. If I started watching it in order and these were the first 3 episodes I saw, I would think this was a stupid show, am glad I didn't.

EventualZen

@Michael Miller >Why is a 17 year old so interested in a 30-40 year old? Did you never like any of your teachers when you were at school?

Ughhh. A spoiled brat with superpowers given to him by the Wizard of Oz. Not my cup of tea. The scene in the gymnasium with kirk wearing spandex has to be one of the cheesiest of all time.

Robert Walker Jr. Was only 9 years younger than William Shatner. It's amazing to me to think these two actors pulled off the son/father figure roles. I have always liked this tragic episode, moreso as I've gotten older. It forever leaves me with the question of why more couldn't have been done for Charlie, not from the human who tried to help them but the aliens who gave him his powers.

I really liked Yeoman Rand in the Man Trap and in this episode. She was a spunky, self-confident character and Grace Whitney acted the role well. I was very sorry they discontinued her character.

When I Came Aboard

It would have saved the day if Lt Uhura's looks (as in glances and scowls) at CHarlie in the last few scenes could kill, with the same efficiency as his looks could kill.

How did they come up with that facial...er...gesture Charlie made when invoking his powers?

Enjoyable episode. Interesting story and strong acting,especially Robert Walker Jr. Hell, I'd like to have given Rand a tap on the fanny too.

It’s interesting how often the idea of super powered young people is used in post war pop culture. The Twilight Zone did it, and TOS did it at least three times(Charlie X, Trelane, those bonk-bonk-on-the-head kids). The fear of out of control youth was a pretty big anxiety in the late 20th century I guess. As for the episode, it exceeds expectations by quite a bit. Normally stories centered around kids or teens don’t really grab me. But here it works on almost every level, and really lands heavy with Charlie as a tragic figure. The only weak area is TOS’s usual Achilles heal of dated gender stuff. The fact that Rand can’t calmly explain boundaries and personal space to Charlie comes across as very contemporary rather than futuristic. Although I’d say that in kirk’s case it serves his character development( the guy’s uncomfortable around kids, I sympathize). Overall a very strong, very human, episode.

"Teenagers have always been that way. It's part of the natural growth process of human beings, and always was. The important question is whether the youngsters grow out of this phase or not." Actually, all teenagers are not that way. There are teenagers who get through it just fine. That brings me to a question on Charlie. Why was adolescence so troubling for him? According to the background of this story, At some point during age 3, he was orphaned and the Thasians took over his care, giving him powers to help him survive. I used to think that these aliens simply flew by, saw this baby, and gave him these powers. After that, they flew away, and then left him to his own devices. However, this is a three year old, who would have no concept of what he could do with these powers. Maybe he could connect two and two and dream up a giant baby food jar full of food, but he couldn't craft himself clothing, or shelter. The only way Charlie would learn about his powers is through teaching. The only ones who could teach him to use them were the Thasians and, they would have to be in close contact with this baby in order to do that very thing. Charlie states these beings don't "love", which is supposed to lead us, the viewer, to the conclusion that his existence is a terrible, lonely one. But, if these Thasians were raising him like any other Thasian, he would never know love because they don't love. In reality, Charlie would be a teenager, but well ingrained into the Thasian way of living, so in the reality of the episode, I very much doubt he'd leave with the Antares. To me, he'd almost be reminiscent of a young Flint, without the human background to create a robot companion. Loneliness would be non existent.

A very effective horror story and I was quite impressed Kirk tried to keep such a dangerous entity aboard in the end. The comments of some people here linking Charlie with whatever they don't like about 'current' youth shows this is a powerful episode for the ages I suppose. One thing that I noticed coming from the TNG is how the music on TOS is way more present. Seems I don't even remember they used music in that series to carry anything. In here they don't shy away from using that orchestra at all.

wanderer2575

< Charlie now finds himself unable to cope with life among humans, as he careens into social situations where, when he doesn't understand, he feels forced to throw people upon the mercy of his own abilities—including making people "go away," vanishing into apparent oblivion. > Did anyone else immediately think of Billy Mumy pointing and saying "You're a very bad man!" on The Twilight Zone?

The first of two consecutive episodes about how absolute power corrupts absolutely. Did not the crew of the Antares experience Charlie's "powers"? Or, perhaps they did, and thus are happy to hand him off to the Enterprise -- without warning -- and get the heck out of there. It would explain their lack of interest in the entertainment tapes Kirk offers. Toward the end, the Thasians saw enough of what was going on to save Rand, but they didn't step in right then, instead permitting Charlie to escape the brig, erase a woman's face, and break Spock's legs. The 26-year-old Robert Walker always looked too old for the part, but I assume he was intentionally chosen to play a 17-year-old in order to emphasize the disparity between Charlie's physical and emotional development. There are too many plot holes and cringeworthy moments for me to enjoy this episode. The Corbomite Maneuver, which was produced before Charlie X, would have made a much better episode to introduce early viewers to TOS, but special effects delayed its readiness for airing. 2 of 4 warped baffle-plates

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Recap / Star Trek S1 E2 "Charlie X"

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Original air date: September 15, 1966

The Enterprise takes on a passenger, being that they are commonly in the habit of ferrying civilians . The boy is Charlie, an orphan with a Mysterious Past and really bad social skills. The people dropping him off seem in quite a hurry to leave.

Charlie becomes infatuated with Yeoman Rand, stalking her and delivering presents she doesn't want. In the rec room we get to see Spock and Uhura make music together, which annoys Charlie because it distracts everyone (and especially Yeoman Rand) from him.

The ship Charlie arrived on blows up mid-transmission, with Charlie making a snide remark. Everyone is somewhat concerned, especially as odd things continue to happen upon the ship. For instance, Charlie loses chess and causes the chess pieces to melt. Nobody connects this to him (yet). Kirk is given the responsibility of talking to the boy and attempting to explain how to be normal.

Which he does by teaching him to wrestle . (Obviously.) When Kirk's training partner laughs at Charlie, Charlie makes him disappear. Kirk is upset and orders him to his quarters, where he goes after making several threats. Charlie goes on a rampage when Kirk refuses to bring him to the human colony he was planning on going to. The aliens that taught Charlie his powers appear to take him back, apologizing for the damage he's caused. He is brought back to live with them and the people that were attacked are brought back to normal .

  • Adaptation Title Change : When James Blish adapted it as a short story, the title was "Charlie's Law", as he adapted it from an earlier version of the script, with that name.
  • Alas, Poor Villain : Charlie doesn't want to go back with the Thasians, as they aren't physically present like Kirk or Rand. Kirk even argues for a chance for Charlie to stay if he can be rehabilitated. However, the Thasians point out they can't undo the talents they'd given Charlie to survive on their world, and he's returned to them despite his desperate begging to stay.
  • Artificial Meat : Kirk orders the food workers to at least make the synthetic meatloaf the crew is having for Thanksgiving look like turkey. Charlie obliges by putting real turkeys in the oven.
  • Berserk Button : Never laugh at Charlie if you value your life.
  • Big "NO!" : Charlie screams it when a Thasian ship arrives to take him home to his kind.

star trek charlie x actor

  • Can't Kill You, Still Need You : Charlies says he needs Kirk alive to help him run the Enterprise , as it's a lot bigger and more complicated than the Antares .

star trek charlie x actor

  • Chiaroscuro : In the gym when Kirk and Charlie are facing off, the lighting somehow changes mid-scene to make both Charlie and Kirk appear as though they are in a typical Film Noir scene with Venetian blinds. Also, their eye areas are highlighted to emphasize the drama and tension.
  • Continuity Nod : This happens after "The Enemy Within", so Kirk's "romance has to be two-sided" also serves as guilt for what his evil half did to Janice.
  • Creator Cameo : Gene Roddenberry provides the voice of the Galley Chief amazed at the appearance of real turkeys.
  • Cut Phone Lines : Charlie cross-circuits Uhura's instrument panel when she tries to send a warning to Colony Five.
  • Death Glare : Charlie has one using his powers. Kirk gives him one of his own after he breaks Spock's legs.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu? : Kirk grabs the sociopathic man-child with superhuman powers and throws him out of his chair. Moral: Do not take the captain's chair!
  • Dirty Coward : Charlie, after smugly tormenting the crew with his psychic abilities, freaks out when the Thasians appear to collect him, with his fear mostly based around how his abilities do nothing to them and they can easily undo the harm he's done.
  • Disconnected by Death : The Antares ceases transmitting to the Enterprise when Charlie destroys it.
  • Disproportionate Retribution : Due to his uncontrollable temper, Charlie uses his powers on people who did harmless things to him. He makes a crewmember in the gym disappear because he laughed at him getting thrown on his ass by Kirk. A gaggle of anonymous crewmembers are rendered faceless because they just happened to be laughing when Charlie stormed past. One female crewmember is turned into a lizard after expressing genuine concern for him. And Charlie wonders why nobody likes him.
  • Don't Make Me Destroy You : Charlie seems genuinely reluctant to vanish Kirk, even though by that stage Kirk is deliberately provoking and even assaulting Charlie. Fortunately, the Thasians intervene before he overcomes this reluctance.
  • Downer Ending : Charlie only wanted to be liked and accepted by the crew. His temper and "talent" make it impossible, but it's not his fault (entirely) since he'd been alone since age three.
  • Dub Name Change : Charlie's name in the Japanese dub is Peter as Scotty's name was changed to Charlie. One-Steve Limit is to blame.
  • The Antares crew's tan, ribbed-collar tunics, which were reused from the two pilot episodes.
  • Kirk & Co. work for the United Earth Space Probe Agency.
  • The rank insignia on Kirk's green tunic are on his shoulders instead of around his wrists, where they would appear later in the series.
  • The destination is alternatively referred to as Colony Alpha 5 and Earth Colony 5. As the show progressed, Federation colonies would receive proper names.
  • Having to convert meatloaf to turkey for Thanksgiving. This suggests that they didn't have food synthesizers and their onboard food wasn't far ahead of astronaut food of The '60s . Accordingly, this is also the only episode that features or makes mention of a galley chef.
  • Spock smiles while he's with Lt. Uhura in the crew lounge. This contradicts his characterization throughout the rest of the series, during which he almost always acts in a completely emotionless manner.
  • Eldritch Starship : The Thasians' ship resembles a nebulous mobile cloud of glowing green gas (in the original version); in the Remastered episode, it is similar looking, but with some kind of lighted tubes inside the gas cloud. The Thasians themselves are noncorporeal aliens who appeared to the Enterprise crew as floating, ghostly green humanoid heads .
  • Explosive Instrumentation : The communication console emits a shower of sparks and burns Uhura's hand. Justified in this case because it's Charlie using his powers to prevent communications with anyone outside the ship; Uhura states that there wouldn't normally be any reason for it to do that.
  • Many have compared Charlie to Anthony Fremont from The Twilight Zone (1959) episode " It's a Good Life ", which is based on the short story of the same name .
  • Some may have noticed the title "Charlie X" and a connection to a certain Charles Xavier . The debut of the comic book X-Men does predate this episode by three years, but Professor X (who rarely if ever goes by "Charlie") is of course a mature man with telepathic (not telekinetic) powers that he only uses for the good of mankind. Also, at the time of this episode, the X-Men were one of the more obscure Marvel titles. It's most probable that any similarities were coincidental.
  • Also might be an expy of Charlie Gordon, in Flowers for Algernon , as a young man unable to cope with the powers he has been given.
  • Famous, Famous, Fictional : When Charlie forces Spock to recite poetry, he quotes from William Blake 's The Tyger , Poe's The Raven , and what appears to be a future poem. Spock: I'm trying to— Saturn rings around my head, down a road that's Martian red.
  • Flirtatious Smack on the Ass : Charlie slaps Janice on the rear after seeing one crewman playfully do it to another (not realizing it has different connotations when one of the people is female), but he is so horrified at her offended reaction that she just mildly reprimands him.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With : The Thasian who speaks to the Enterprise takes on a copy of the physical form he had centuries ago in order to better communicate with the crew.
  • Fully-Clothed Nudity : Rand appears embarrassed that the Thasians' Reset Button put her on the bridge in her nightgown, even though it fully covers her.
  • Yeoman Rand gets the fuzzy treatment in all her close-ups (and not just the ones that are representing the infatuated Charlie's point of view).
  • So, for some reason, does William Shatner.
  • His Name Is... : The Antares tries to contact the Enterprise to warn them about Charlie (presumably after they felt they were a safe distance away), but Charlie destroys their ship, trying to pass it off as being a result of the ship being poorly built. Nobody buys it at this point.
  • Impractically Fancy Outfit : Rand's ridiculous one-shouldered hot pink nightdress, which is definitely more seduction wear than practical sleepwear.
  • Instant Costume Change : While Kirk fumbles his way through The Talk with Charlie, he is wearing his command gold tunic. When he responds to an urgent call from the bridge in the next scene, he's back in the green tunic. The most likely explanation is that Kirk had so many shirtless scenes they couldn't fit them all into the show.
  • I Just Want to Be Loved : Charlie wants to make friends and to be loved. Unfortunately, his lack of social skills and his violent temper make him quite dangerous. Based on how he reacts when the Thasians take him back, it seems like he didn’t receive the love that he’s so desperate to have.
  • It's the Only Way : Charlie is steering the Enterprise to an inhabited planet, and Kirk's hold over him is growing increasingly tenuous, so he forces a final confrontation despite both McCoy and Spock advising him against it.
  • Killed Mid-Sentence : The captain of the Antares (along with his entire crew).
  • Kubrick Stare : Charlie does one when he's angry, and an exaggerated version with his eyes rolled up into his head when he uses his powers.
  • Logic Bomb : Realizing that Charlie may be at the limit of his power, the bridge crew turn on every system in an attempt to drain him.
  • Mind Rape : There's a bit where Charlie is making Spock recite poetry instead of say what he wants to say on the intercom. Charlie comments that he could make Spock spin around, dance, or laugh . A couple of seasons later, the Platonians do just that .
  • Mood Whiplash : In-Universe during the wrestling scene; the moment Charlie makes someone vanish in front of Kirk he realizes he's not just dealing with a Hormone-Addled Teenager but an Outside-Context Problem .
  • Mr. Fanservice : Kirk has an extended scene where he wears nothing but a pair of tights.
  • Never My Fault : Charlie's reasoning is exactly like a child's, with the reality warping powers of a Thasian behind it. "No, it wasn't Charlie who made Sam disappear, Sam laughed at Charlie - Sam MADE Charlie make Sam disappear!"
  • Nightmare Face : How do you know Charlie's about to ruin somebody's day? He tilts his head down and his eyes roll up to fixate on his target, making him look like he has Blank White Eyes , with that "that wasn't very nice..." frown on his face. There's a Scare Chord and a dramatic zoom-in as well, to heighten the effect.
  • Not So Above It All : When Uhura interrupts Spock's lute-playing with her singing, he plays the lute for her instead, and has a wry smile as she teases him with the lyrics.
  • No Social Skills : Charlie, having lived with no human contact since he was three years old (and is now 17), has insufferably poor social skills.
  • Oh, Crap! : When Kirk first sees evidence of Charlie's supernatural ability, making Crewman Sam disappear for laughing at him - he suddenly recognizes that he, and the Enterprise, could be dealing with an exceptionally powerful being with the body and temperament of a child. He recovers after a few seconds.
  • Out-of-Character Alert : The crew of the Antares leave as quickly as possible, refusing an offer to take on supplies from Kirk's Starship Luxurious , which he muses is unprecedented.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business : When the Thasians show up to take Charlie away, Charlie begs the crew not to let them. Seeing the Spoiled Brat who'd been nothing but arrogant and cocky throughout the whole episode completely break down at the sight of his foster parents is jarring, to say the least. Charlie: Oh, please, don't let them take me. I can't even touch them! Janice, they can't feel. Not like you! They don't love!
  • Parental Substitute : McCoy suggests that Kirk would make a good father figure for Charlie. Kirk tries to shove the task back onto McCoy, but when Rand approaches him about Charlie's behavior Kirk realizes he can't just let things lie. After Charlie reveals his powers, this is the only hold that Kirk has over him, though they all know Charlie will reach a point where he'll refuse to submit to Kirk's authority.
  • Percussive Therapy : Realizing Charlie is suffering from an excess of teenage hormones , Kirk helps him burn some off by teaching him wrestling. It's working well enough until Charlie makes a nearby crewman who laughed at him vanish .
  • Charlie can do lots of things, including transmogrification and making people involuntarily recite poetry.
  • He can also reach into Yeoman Rand's head and discover her favorite perfume. Ew.
  • Psychopathic Man Child : Charlie, an impulsive and unhealthily needy teenager with an ability to make people vanish.
  • Rapid Aging : Charlie does this to a pretty crewmember in retribution for Kirk trying to trap him behind a forcefield .
  • Reality Warper : From affecting people and objects close to him, to those far away in space, Charlie definitely has some dangerous powers - fortunately, their effects (when directly caused by his powers) can be reversed, and are at the end .
  • Red Shirt : The one guy in the gym that laughs at Charlie. Charlie starts his rampage by making him disappear. Interestingly, he's wearing a red dogi. Other crewmembers of all uniform colors suffer in some way or another for offenses both great and small.
  • Reset Button : The Thasians undo everything Charlie did on the Enterprise , but are unable to do anything for the crew of the Antares , who were killed by a warp core breach (caused by Charlie) rather than merely being transformed or disappeared.
  • Replacement Goldfish : Rand attempts to invoke this by setting Charlie up with a cute blonde crewmember closer to his age, but Charlie is utterly disinterested.
  • Screw the Rules, I Have Supernatural Powers! : Charlie Evans was given superpowers by the Thasians after his ship crashed and everyone else was killed. When the Enterprise picks him up, he has an obsession with being liked and "removes" people from reality if they piss him off. Eventually, the Thasians show up to take him back and repair the damage, but they're too late for a ship he destroyed that was trying to warn the Enterprise . While Charlie repents in the end and promises never to use the powers again, Kirk and the Thasians agree that it's too much of a temptation.
  • Shipper on Deck : The latter part of Uhura's song comes a bit across as if she is this for Charlie and Rand. But maybe she, like everyone else at first, merely considers this amusing without taking it all too seriously.
  • Significant Reference Date : The episode was initially intended to air around Thanksgiving, hence the turkeys reference. However it ended up airing earlier due to it being the only completed episode at the time.
  • Sore Loser : Spock crushes Charlie at chess, so Charlie uses his creepy mental powers to melt the pieces.
  • Spiritual Antithesis : The episode can be seen as an antithesis of Robert A. Heinlein 's novel Stranger in a Strange Land , which was published just five years before that episode aired. The plots of both works are essentially the same: an orphaned young man with nigh-omnipotent psychic powers is forced to adjust to human society after living his entire life among aliens, and finds himself entranced by the mysteries of human women. But while Heinlein's Valentine Michael Smith is a blissfully innocent figure who tries to use his powers to rid the human race of everything holding it back, Star Trek 's Charlie Evans is a chillingly amoral figure whose alien upbringing leaves him incapable of using his powers responsibly. While Mike ends up successfully founding his own religion and social movement, Charlie is forcibly banished from human society for life.
  • Stalker with a Crush : Charlie is one to Janice. He follows her around on the ship and drops by her room to confess his love for her only to be rejected by her. He also reads her mind so he knows what she likes.
  • Stalking is Love : That's what Charlie thinks, anyway. Kirk admirably attempts to explain why this is not the case.
  • Stepford Smiler : The captain of the Antares and his navigator, though eager to leave as soon as possible, are otherwise acting as if everything is fine. This may be partly so that Kirk doesn't get suspicious, but maybe also out of fear that Charlie will make them vanish too if they don't keep up a good mood.
  • The Stoic : Spock doesn't think having his legs broken is worthy of mention until Kirk asks him to stand up.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Aliens : The Thasians, who put everything right — except for the fate of the Antares — in about two minutes.
  • Sympathy for the Devil : Charlie begs not to go, and while none of the crew likes him, they're all pretty tearful at his fate.
  • The Talk : Charlie's social awkwardness around girls is bad enough that Bones decides the boy needs to learn the rules. So he convinces Kirk to give it. And Kirk , despite his experience with women, gets too embarrassed to give it straight at all. Kirk: There's no right way to hit a woman.
  • Teens Are Monsters : Charlie is a teenager, with all the insistence that he's old and mature enough and the frustration at not getting what he wants that entails. With his power to mutilate other objects and people, he becomes a threat to entire ships.
  • Thanksgiving Episode : According to Kirk's line "On Earth today it's Thanksgiving", the beginning of this episode takes place on 22 November 2266 (assuming American Thanksgiving is meant). The reference to Thanksgiving was included in the script because originally the episode was supposed to air in late-November.
  • There Was a Door : Spock tries to trap Charlie behind a Forcefield Door , but he simply vanishes the entire surrounding wall.
  • To the Tune of... : Uhura's song is the public domain tune "Charlie Is My Darling" with new lyrics.
  • Unnecessary Combat Roll : Kirk demonstrates it for Charlie, and insists it's important when Charlie just wants to learn how to fight. Justified because Kirk is actually showing him how to fall safely when hit, which is just as important as being able to return the blow.
  • Victoria's Secret Compartment : Charlie shows Yeoman Rand a "card trick" in which he tosses a card aside and makes it reappear down the front of her low-cut uniform. She's understandably startled and perhaps annoyed, given that the crew doesn't yet know about Charlie's powers and she can only assume that he pulled a rather naughty bit of sleight-of-hand.
  • Why Did You Make Me Hit You? : Whenever Charlie makes someone vanish it's Never My Fault , but theirs for provoking him. When called out on what happened to the Antares , Charlie says that a baffle plate on the warp drive was buckled and would have destroyed the ship anyway. "I just made it vanish."
  • Wild Child : Everyone assumed Charlie took care of himself from a very early age, explaining his horrible social conduct. Well, he did indeed have no human contact, so that does basically explain it.
  • Wolf in Sheep's Clothing : Shown in the scene where Uhura jokes about Spock's devilish appearance and pretends he's someone female astronauts have to be afraid of , while being ignorant of the actual danger in the room. On singing about Charlie and getting to the verse, " We know not what he'll do-- " , Charlie abruptly mutes her voice.
  • Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : Charlie has No Social Skills , desperately wants to be liked and have friends, and has no sense of proportion when people don't treat him the way he wishes them to. Oh, and he is omnipotent. Picture a corporeal version of Q with No Sense of Humor and you have Charlie in a nutshell. The result is a maladjusted teenager who everyone is afraid of, who tries to make people like him by punishing them whenever they make him unhappy.
  • Your Favourite : Charlie gives Rand a bottle of her favorite perfume, despite there not being any in the ship's stores. And how did he know what perfume Rand liked most anyway?

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11,241--> Report

star trek charlie x actor

Star Trek (TV Series)

Charlie x (1966), robert walker jr.: charlie evans.

  • Photos (18)
  • Quotes (21)

Photos 

Robert Walker Jr. in Star Trek (1966)

Quotes 

Capt. Kirk : There are a million things in this universe you can have and a million things you can't have. It's no fun facing that, but that's the way things are.

Charlie Evans : Then what am I going to do?

Capt. Kirk : Hang on tight and survive. Everybody does.

Charlie Evans : If I had the whole universe, I'd give it to you. When I see you, I... feel like I'm hungry. All over. Hungry. Do you know how that feels?

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : What's going on here? Spock calls me to the bridge and then goes into some kind of poetry!

Captain James T. Kirk : [referring to the wounded Uhura]  See to her, Doctor.

Mr. Spock : Once upon a midnight dreary while I pondered, weak and weary.

Charlie Evans : Very nice, Mr. Ears.

Charlie Evans : Is that a girl?

Captain James T. Kirk : That's a girl.

[gradually fading] 

Charlie Evans : I wanna stay... stay... stay... stay... sta...

Charlie Evans : [to Janice Rand]  Are you a girl?

Charlie Evans : He had a mean look. I had to freeze him. I like happy looks.

Capt. Kirk : [after losing contact with the Antares]  Sweep the area of the Antares transmission with our probe scanners, Mr. Spock.

Mr. Spock : Affirmative, Captain.

Capt. Kirk : You think something happened to the Antares, Charlie?

Charlie Evans : I don't know.

Mr. Spock : Picking up some debris on our scanners, Captain.

Capt. Kirk : What about the Antares?

Mr. Spock : The debris is what's left of the Antares.

Charlie Evans : [using his powers on Spock]  Oh, I can make him do anything; whirl around, laugh, anything.

Capt. Kirk : That's enough, Charlie.

Charlie Evans : Well, don't you think he's funny? I think he's funny.

Capt. Kirk : [firmly]  Leave my crew alone.

Mr. Spock : [Charlie leaves]  Jim, he'll soon reach a point where he won't back down.

Capt. Kirk : I know.

Charlie Evans : [vanishing Janice after she slaps him]  Why did she do that? I loved her, but she wasn't nice at all. What you did wasn't nice, either, but I still need you, Captain. The Enterprise isn't quite like the Antares. Running the Antares was easy. You have to be nice. All right?

Capt. Kirk : [temporarily in pain from Charlie's powers]  Mr. Spock?

Mr. Spock : My legs... they're broken.

Capt. Kirk : Let him go, too, Charlie.

Charlie Evans : Why?

Capt. Kirk : Because I'm telling you to. Because you need me to run the ship, and I need him.

Charlie Evans : I'm supposed to ask you something. Why shouldn't I... I don't know how to explain it.

Capt. Kirk : Well, say it right out, Charlie. That usually works.

Charlie Evans : Well, in the corridor, I saw... when Janice... when Yeoman Rand was...

[swatting Kirk on the butt like he did to Janice] 

Charlie Evans : Well, I did that to her. She didn't like it. She said you'd explain it to me.

Capt. Kirk : Me? I see. Well, um... uh, there are things you can do with a lady, uh, Charlie, that you... uh, well, there's n-no right way to hit a woman. I mean, man to man is... is one thing, but, um, man and woman, uh, it's, uh... is, uh... well, it's, uh, another thing. Do you understand?

Capt. Kirk : Are you responsible for what happened to the Antares, Charlie?

Capt. Kirk : Answer me.

Charlie Evans : Yes. There was a warped baffle plate on the shied of their energy pile. I... I made it go away. It would've blown up anyway. Well, they weren't nice to me! They wanted to get rid of me. They don't now.

Capt. Kirk : What about us, Charlie?

Mr. Spock : [Charlie is escorted out]  We're in the hands of an adolescent.

Lt. Nyota Uhura : Captain Kirk, my instruments show we're receiving a message on subspace frequency 3, ship-to-ship. I can't hear it, sir.

Capt. Kirk : You're creating that message, Charlie, or you're blocking one that's coming in.

Charlie Evans : It's my game, Captain. You have to find out. Like you said, that's how the game's played.

Charlie Evans : How many humans like me on this ship?

Captain Ramart : Like a whole city in space, Charlie. Over 400 in the crew of a starship, aren't there, Captain?

Capt. Kirk : 428, to be exact. Is there anything we can do for you, Captain? Medical supplies, provisions?

Charlie Evans : Hundreds! All human, like me. That's exciting. Is that the right word?

Tom Nellis : That's perfect. It's the exact word.

Captain Ramart : You see, we'd like to keep Charlie with us. But with his closest living relatives on colony 5 and your vessel going that way...

Charlie Evans : I'd like to see your ship now. All of it, the people and everything.

Capt. Kirk : You keep interrupting, Mr. Evans. That's considered wrong.

Capt. Kirk : Get out of my chair, Charlie, and get out of it now.

Charlie Evans : I've got your ship, Captain.

Capt. Kirk : Maybe, Charlie. But I don't think you can handle any more.

[at his cue, Spock and Bones begin turning on instruments and lights] 

Capt. Kirk : I think you've reached your limit and can't take on one more thing. But you're gonna have to.

Charlie Evans : I could've sent you away before, but I didn't.

Capt. Kirk : You're gonna have to take me on.

Charlie Evans : Don't make me do it now!

Capt. Kirk : You've got my ship, and I want it back. I want my crew back whole, if I have to break your neck to do it!

Charlie Evans : I can make you all go away! Any time I want to!

Charlie Evans : That captain... Kirk?

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : Yeah.

Charlie Evans : Why does he call me Mr. Evans?

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : 'Cause that's your name.

Charlie Evans : He's not... well, he isn't like Captain Ramart.

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : Well, no. Captain Kirk is one of a kind, Charlie.

Charlie Evans : I only want to be nice to you. I can give you anything. Just... just tell me.

Yeoman Janice Rand : [surreptitiously turning on the intercom to the bridge]  I want you to get out.

Charlie Evans : I only want to be nice to you.

Yeoman Janice Rand : Get out, Charlie.

Capt. Kirk : [heading to the turbolift]  Spock.

Yeoman Janice Rand : I can't make it any plainer than that.

Charlie Evans : I love you.

Yeoman Janice Rand : You don't know what the word means.

Charlie Evans : Do you like me?

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : Why not?

Charlie Evans : Some... the other ship, they didn't like me. I tried. I'm trying to make people like me. I want them to like me.

Lt. Cmdr. Leonard 'Bones' McCoy, M.D. : Most 17-year-olds do.

Charlie Evans : I have something for you.

[offering a pink rose] 

Charlie Evans : Pink is your favorite, isn't it?

Yeoman Janice Rand : You don't walk into a room without knocking.

Charlie Evans : Don't ever lock your door on me again, Janice. I love you.

Yeoman Janice Rand : I'll lock it when I please. What is it you want, anyway?

Charlie Evans : You.

Navigator : Captain, I can't feed any course coordinates into the panel, sir. It rejects the course change.

Helmsman : Helm doesn't respond, either, sir.

Capt. Kirk : [unaware that Charlie gets off the turbolift]  Mr. Spock, you getting any readings on your instruments?

Mr. Spock : Yes, sir. There's a...

[affected by Charlie's powers] 

Mr. Spock : Tiger, tiger, burning bright in the forest of the night.

Capt. Kirk : Mr. Spock.

Mr. Spock : I'm trying to...

[affected by Charlie's powers again] 

Mr. Spock : Saturn rings around my head, down a road that's Martian red.

Charlie Evans : You're trying to change course, Captain. You can't do that. I want to get to colony 5 as soon as we can.

Capt. Kirk : Release the transmitter.

Charlie Evans : You don't need all that subspace chatter.

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Review “Charlie X” Remastered

| July 18, 2007 | By: Dennis Russell Bailey 58 comments so far

star trek charlie x actor

He develops what’s politely called a “crush” on Janice Rand, snubbing all the other hotties on the ship.  It must be her unpredictability that he finds so arresting; she’s offended when he slaps her butt yet when he somehow impossibly jams a playing card down her cleavage she’s charmed and impressed.

Yeah, Charlie can do things like that – although the crew remains oblivious for about half the episode, the audience quickly learns that Charlie has god-like powers.  He performs several harmless and amusing magical tricks like turning meat loaf into turkey, conjuring up a bottle of perfume out of thin air, causing Uhura to choke while singing and killing everyone aboard a cargo ship by blowing it to smithereens.

When he finally wishes a guy in red tights into the cornfield right in front of Kirk, our Captain catches on.  Attempts to humor, trap or challenge Charlie all go badly until the aliens who gave him his powers (but for some reason cannot take them away) show up in a phosphorescent spaceship to take him back to their home world.

Maybe he’d be less lonely if they set him up in daycare with L’il Trelane and L’il Q.

An Awkward Age

Judging by the fan commentary one finds at various "Star Trek" bulletin boards on the Internet,  "Charlie X" seems to be as hotly contested an episode in terms of popularity as is "Miri"…and probably for similar reasons.  Both focus on wild, unsocialized children, on the brinks of sexual maturity, who fixate each in their own ways on James Kirk and Janice Rand.  For a lot of folks puberty is a terribly unlovely thing to live through or to recall, much less to watch dwelt upon and dramatized as starkly as "Star Trek" does here.

Robert Walker’s edgy, nervously kinetic performance as Charlie Evans is as brilliant as it is uncomfortable to watch.  Given a long, awkwardly euphemistic speech in which Charlie confesses directly to Rand his anxieties and his sexual desire for her, the actor is fearless.  It’s one of the most memorable and riveting performances by a guest star on the series. 

An actor can play a genetic super-tyrant or obsessed starship captain with whatever scenery-chewing artifice works for them – these are figures of fantasy.  On the other hand, most all of us have at some point either known or been Charlie Evans. 

star trek charlie x actor

The previously-unseen freighter "Antares" looks like it fits into the TOS design sensibility as neatly as the "Botany Bay."  The design is derived from the " Huron ," a ship that appears in the animated episode "The Pirates of Orion." [and also derived from the robot grain ship in "More Tribbles, More Troubles," pictured below] This is the second time that I’m aware of the CBS Digital artists taking their inspiration from the animated "Star Trek", the first being the distant Vulcan city seen in the remastered "Amok Time".  I’ve never been a big fan of TAS, but I’ve developed a new appreciation of the thought that went into the art and design of that series as a result its incorporation into the remastered "Star Trek."

star trek charlie x actor

Finally, the new Thasian ship design is a welcome elaboration upon both the green blur used originally to represent it and the shifting image Abraham Sofaer as the Thasian himself.  It remains mysterious, undefined and…well, alien.

star trek charlie x actor

Now, if they just could have done something about that hole Leonard Nimoy punches into the flimsy set wall when Charlie knocks Spock to the floor and breaks his legs…

before anyone asks…yes there was no review last week (Return to Tomorrow). Hopefully it will be added later.

comments in this thread should focus on Charlie X

Spock punching the hole looks good to me cuz he’s got the strength of ten men…just like David Letterman.

“The previously-unseen freighter “Antares” looks like it fits into the TOS design sensibility as neatly as the ‘Botany Bay.’ The design is derived from the ‘Huron,’ a ship that appears in the animated episode ‘The Pirates of Orion.'”

Actually, that’s the robot grain freighter from ‘More Tribbles, More Troubles’.

Good review. It is important to note the careful, subdued yet eloquent writing in some of these ‘personal’ episodes. No intergalactic wars a-ragin’ here. And while Charlie and the crew are at various times in peril, the real focus throughout is on the very relatable fact of Charlie’s pain. I know I’m in the minority on another ep that’s about ‘personal’ issues, but this is the same reason I like “Paradise Syndrome.” Beyond focusing on which color the temple flame is… it’s about Kirk finally getting a few weeks off and fallin’ in love with a hot chick in buckskin. It’s about an “overburdended command type” and the toll it takes on him. Charlie X is about the burdens of growing up. Got it. Didn’t have to be a starship captain to understand this.

Antares looks great. The alien ship is so-so. What really bothered me about it is the way it moved. Had it just “phased in and out” on screen it would have looked so much better.

This may come as a suprise but I had always thought that charlie’s parents were energy beings and that charlie was just assuming human form, Like trelane. And (Melllvarr ..from futurama if you must) and because Cbs-d is using vessels from TAS..Does that mean that the grain ship from said episode will be on M-5’s hit list on the upcoming episode ultimate computer?

agree with demode. it was the clumsy movement that got me…the design was fine and remained ‘alien’ enough. It would have been a huge mistake for them to have created a well defined ship (like they did with the tholians)

Remember those super-huge desktop images of the remastered Enterprise CBS-D released just before the episodes started airing?

I wish they would do that again, but with this vastly improved version of the model.

Truly, there are more and more beautiful shots of the Enterprise as TOS-R rolls on.

Great review!!! Agree on all points EXCEPT I STILL think the Thasian ship sucks!

I just rewatched the FX reel and I just don’t get this fear and loathing over the remastered Tholians. Considering the originals look like wood blocks with shiny paper on them, I don’t see what the objection was to rethinking them with more detail. They MAY look too modern for TOS, but they look good. The Thasian ship also looks good. It’s only the jerky computer-generated slide that doesn’t work well at all. I hope CBS-D redoes this for the DVDs and makes it a fade in / fade out. Can’t wait to see what they’ll do with Trelayne’s rambunctious planet.

Really enjoyed this ep. I got a sense of how sad the crew was for him at the end. They must have felt they (humans) let him down. Robert Walker was outstanding.

#10 The reason so many complained about the new Tholians was that they were made to look like the Tholian ships in Enterprise and as we all know, most TOS fans loath Enterprise and anything else with Rick Berman’s name on it. Personally I liked the way they looked.

And in another example of Trek’s forward thinking of technology that came to be (cel phones, PDA’s, medical scanners, Hyposprays, ect). Kirk sports the first ever pair of Under Armour workout tights. NFL players association take note and thank Shatner for creating modern athletic style.

And Michael …. gotta disagree slighly with your point above. I think most fans loved In a Mirror Darkly. It might be the only episode of Enterprise me or most anyone liked but the effects were terrific.

Odd, I liked the remastered Tholians (and like season 3 and especially season 4 of Enterprise) but I don’t like the Thasian ship. BUT, I agree, had it been a fade in and fade out, I think I would have accepted it better.

Oh, and…I don’t like Berman Trek overall. I consider Berman Trek to be at it’s worst in Voyager (all seasons) and Enterprise (first two seasons and a handful of later episodes like Space Nazis and “These Are The Voyages.”

If you look at the two freighters, the TOS-R version is exactly like the TAS version, except with an idditional pod attached to the front. Perhaps this was a crew module attached to the otherwise automated crago ship.

Kirk really shows how bad-ass he is in this episode. In the gymnasium, he sees Charlie make a man disappear, knock two guards down without touching them, and make a phaser disappear. But even after all that, he still has the balls to say to Charlie, “Go to your quarters, or I’ll pick you up and carry you there.”

My spell chacker is obviouslyt out of order…

I’m thinkin’ that we’ll all be having these same conversations 100 years from now on the CBS-Holographic TOS episodes. (We’ll be heads in jars, of course.)

I agree this is a very underrated episode. Even though the all-powerful alien thing was done to death on TOS, this is probably one of the best ones.

Charlie comes across as a GENUINE threat to the ship, but at the same time you kinda feel sorry for him. You can really feel the frustration Kirk feels about the situation.

I still wonder why no one could just sneak up behind him with a phaser though. He could only act on what he saw, and it took a few seconds for him to do his creepy eye thing.

I have generally not been a fan of Dennis Bailey’s reviews on this site but I thought this one was very good and I enjoyed reading it. Nicely done, Mr. Bailey.

Duly noted, Lord Garth. Spot on. I remember thinking as a kid how dorky Kirk looked in the tights. This was the sixties and seventies, so to me, he was wearing ballet tights. Not cool, cap’n. Now of course, Under Armour is all the rage at sports practices. I have a bunch of shirts that I work out in. Not quite brave enough to wear the tight pants, though, as I don’t like the “smuggling mushrooms” look.

Dennis, I thoroughly enjoyed your review, but I also didn’t mind it at all when you were more snarky in previous outings. Thank you for highlighting some of the character moments in this story and I also appreciate the comparison photo of the Antares and TAS freighter. I’ll just add that I am very glad the remaster left alone the haunting fade-out of Charlie X saying “..stay…stay…stay” which I found very scary as a child.

Gotta say, this is a good story, much underrated by a lot of people. At its heart a solid story about people, emotions and the like.

On to the light stuff.

I always wondered that as Charlie had all these powers at his disposal how he never thought of just controlling Rand to make her behave as he wanted…. or at least read her mind so he could get it right all the time…. ;) Isn’t that just about every teenage boys fantasy at one time or another?

I always wanted to shout at Kirk when he was in the gym, “Watch out! The mats are sliding apart, you might hurt yourself!”

#23 Some girls like the smuggling mushrooms look, especially if it appears as if they have been growing wild :)

Actually look at the scene when Spock falls to the floor with broken legs. This is obviously a diffrent take as the hole in the wall is already there and Spock doesn’t land anywhere near it in the shot they used.

They should have known there would be trouble from the start.

1) The Antares crew turning down films 2) A boy surviving alone on a planet

I find it hard to believe that they would find the “card tricks” plausable. Unless there is some 23rd Centruy card tricks that make those feats plausable.

There must be some limit to his power…at to that of the Thasians. I don’t think Charlie could read minds…nor was he “all knowing.” I think, however, these types could focus their powers based on what they do know. He knew of the Anteres and its workings…so, when he willed it…it was destroyed. This consistant with a power given to him to give him “what he wants and needs.”

I, for one, look forward to Dennis Bailey’s reviews because he has actually written for television and can bring a craftsman’s perspective. We can wish that things were done differently in any given ep, but an informed opinion as to the choices made is refreshing.

“Charlie X” (along with “Where No Man…”), is a signature piece of the franchise and it so very good as an early entry. So good, in fact, that more than a few of the later entries are variations on this theme of untrammled power. The remaster allowed me to enjoy the show for the first time all over again, and I hope the cynics out there recognize that this was groundbreaking stuff for adult science fiction and not warmed-over material.

The horrific imagery –rapid aging, facelessness, crippling– captures the frustration of a boy-man perfectly. Men he cannot control are belittled or broken; women are reduced to reptiles, crones, or deprived of the most visible expression of beauty: the face. When all else fails, he tosses them into “oblivion.”

Fontana’s writing is most powerful at what it suggests rather than shows. One can only wonder what life with the mysterious Thasians was like, or the hell that the crew of the Antares experienced. But wonder one does….

Yet the more times I see this episode, the more I am struck at the padding. The scenes where Charlie “discovers” the ship and crew, the repeated instances of his power that go unnoticed (I guess meat loaf transmuting into turkey right after a cargo ship inexplicably explodes happens all the time in the 23rd century), and the truly gratuitous shots of Charlie stalking the corridors all speak to more minutes than script. If anything, “Charlie X” would have made a perfect “Twilight Zone” half-hour (and some would argue that it had already).

This was Fontana’s first screen credit, and that might explain the padding. I am grateful, though, as Lawrence Dobkin worked himself out of future employment because of the elaborate set-ups and lighting. If the script had more actual action as opposed to dialog punctuated by a brief exhibition of Charlie’s power, I don’t know that Star Trek would have become the franchise we know today. The light across the eyes is a hallmark technique of Gerry Finnerman’s, but one that is virtually abanodonned by the end of the first season. These early mini-motion pictures set a standard for the franchise that it is held to even to this day.

I liked remastered tholian ship, fesarius, ion ship, botany bay and antares. That was a great job from CBS-D. That thasian ”ship” is actualy thasian ( energy being ).

Mark, I will have to take your word for it. I am the sort of guy that likes to keep his mushrooms groomed. I don’t want people to guess my religious background based on the tightness of my skivvies.

How’s that for a derail?

Sorry, I had better comments in the other Charlie X thread.

There are certainly a LOT of episodes that could be accused of being overly padded and drawn out, but I don’t think Charlie X was one. Certainly not this edited down syndicated version. The story seemed very well paced to me.

It’s funny Charlie X is now considered “underrated”–this was always thought to be one of the best episodes of the series at least in the Seventies and Eighties when I was reading about it all the time. In fact I remember reading a very stuffy British book on science fiction that utterly dismissed Trek but pointed out “Charlie X” as the one good episode. As for the padding, I like the early scenes–this is one of the earlier episodes filmed and they’re establishing the environment of the ship and the fact that it’s full of people doing different, interesting jobs–something not focused on much in later seasons. Steiner’s beautiful music and the lighting and set-ups keep these entertainng for me. The syndication edits on this were brutal, though. I’m really looking forward to seeing these uncut on the DVDs.

I’d like to agree with Jeff about the alleged “padding”. This episode is a bit of a horror piece, and a key element of horror is establishing mood and setting up your characters and genuine, likeable people so that when bad thnigs start to happen, you actually give a damn. And I love the early scenes (cut, naturally, from the syndication broadcast) of Charlie wandering around the Enterprise and exploring the ship. Its just fun to get to see the ship and the sets that way, and the music is terrific.

Growing up this episode had and still does have an impact on what it means to be human. The powerlessness and suffering that goes with the human experience. Kirk’s comment about what u can have and can’t have smacks of Buddism, and telling Charlie to “hold on”, well, helped me and still does get through life, amazing.

This episode shows what others have said is Kirk’s “balliness” or what has been called his intensity of “will’. When it comes to “the ship”, Kirk will kick your ass. I hope this is ( the emergence of) played out in the upcoming movie since this is the essence of “the Kirk”.

#28: “women are reduced to reptiles, crones, or deprived of the most visible expression of beauty: the face.”

You know, I’ve seen this episode many dozen times and I’ve never made that simple connection between his treatment of all the women – disfigurement. That’s chilling.

Thanks for pointing it out, GNDN. I just learned something new.

On the general subject of Charlie reading minds or not – there is the suggestion that he can, of course, in his conjuring up Rand’s favorite perfume (“How did you know?”). Perhaps it’s something he can do occasionally with a lot of focus, but not something he can have “scanning in background” all the time.

#36: Thanks, Dennis. I honestly didn’t make that connection until I starting writing that post. It is a testament, though, to the enduring quality of Star Trek that something new can strike us so many years after the fact. Fontana needs to be given her due and I doubt very much that Charlie’s attacks –on men:strength; women: feminity– were mere happenstance. For mere space opera, this show can be suprisingly literate.

As for the so-called padding, I agree that we learned a great deal about the starship Enterprise and her workings in those scenes. I also see that that horror-story needs such quiet moments in order to heighten the suspense. That said, it is unusal to see such a luxurious use of time in a one-hour drama that requires successively greater climaxes every eleven minutes. Had the narrative been compressed into twenty-two minutes, certainly it would have been a much different episode and the payoff not nearly so poignant. I just want to throw out this nagging question to a forum that thinks about such things.

Oh, and Thasian ship was really cool, but the abruptness was jarring.

Good review of an excellent all-around episode. Agreed completely on Robert Walker’s great performance. Whatever happened to him? (Too lazy to go check out IMDB…)

I thought the Tholian ships got an unfair rap too, they were shaped exactly like the originals, only textured and colored slightly differently, instead of saying they look like Enterprise Tholian ships, shouldn’t we retroactively be saying Enterprise producers made them look like THESE Tholian ships ;)

> Agreed completely on Robert Walker’s great performance. Whatever > happened to him?

Well, I saw him speak at a Creation Star Trek Convention last year. He looks very distinguished now. I remember him joking about being in his mid-20’s but had to to play a teenager in Charlie X.

I have not watched this episode in years. I did not watch it this time either. It’s not that its a bad episode. It just creeps me out for some reason.

When I saw this as a kid in the 60’s the thing that creeped me the most was when he blanked the lady’s face out. Man that about made me have nightmares.

My earliest memory of Star Trek — seared into my child-brain — is the slow pan down to the iguana in the corridor — I remember having to get confirmation from my mom that the girl had just been turned into that hideous thing. I was about 7 years old, and Star Trek was in its first run in England (where my Air Force officer dad had been stationed in the early 70s). I’ll go along with those who have said the scenes where Charlie stalks the corridors, wreaking havoc on the crew are some genuinely creepy and effective moments that still hold up today.

Echoing GNDN’s mini-review above (#28), the lighting and cinematography in this episode are beautiful, and, along with the music, are like vital supporting players in this episode. Imagine if this show had been done in the third season. It would be a much weaker episode, and roundly hated, I’d wager. There was something rich and deep and beautiful about the very earliest episodes of Star Trek that make almost all of them among my favorites. The visuals, the pacing, Shatner’s more subdued acting, the human stories, and the Enterprise as a “city in space” were touches I wish had continued throughout the series.

Scott B. out.

As someone who will be working with and has either seen or read of some of the behavioral issues that can come from being put into the system, I can understand why Charlie “acts out” or is “socially inept” – and also given that he’s been raised without other kids (or any humans), it makes sense. To me, this episode is Star Trek looking at not just problems we all experience in puberty but especially those who are raised outside of a stable family. I can’t tell you how troubled these kids can be at that age, not just because of hormones, but because they don’t know what their future holds.

Weird, don’t know where my last message went.

#27: > I find it hard to believe that they would find the “card tricks” plausible.

I’d think even before that, when the turkeys appeared in the ovens, when they knew there were no turkeys on board, it’d cause them to bring the ship to a full stop in space until they figured out what’s what. I mean, this is a tangible evidence of the supernatural. And Charlie would be the prime suspect, being the only thing different aboard the ship.

Seems like it’d be a standard Starfleet protocol, like So Your Crewmate Is Strange And Grouchy: Ten Ways To Tell If He’s Possessed By A Being Of Pure Energy.

#43: “There was something rich and deep and beautiful about the very earliest episodes of Star Trek that make almost all of them among my favorites. The visuals, the pacing, Shatner’s more subdued acting, the human stories, and the Enterprise as a “city in space” were touches I wish had continued throughout the series.”

Absolutely agreed. The first year of “Star Trek” was the best it’s ever been.

Bond, Jeff Bond. I read that same stuffy British sci-fi book. Unfortunately, I sold it years ago. I do recall the rather dismissive tone of the author. He did like Charlie X as you said, especially the scene with The Woman With No Face (and apparently no way to breathe). He did hit the nail on the head with his description of the second season; however, as the show fell into a “profitable groove” with the Roman, Nazi and gangster planets. I remember his remark about “Balance of Terror” being a mere remake of a World War II destroyer versus submarine movie. I also recall the final remark he made in the Star Trek chapter, “interesting as esoterica”.

Hey, everything can’t be 2001…

Re:#47 – Dennis, I agree that the first season of Trek was the best of all of it. It was seat-of-your-pants, edge-of-your-seat stuff, and (almost) none of it had been done before anywhere else. As they groped their way along, finding out what the show was about, establishing the characters, learning how to tell stories set in space, there was both careful production on one hand, and the novelty of discovery and experimentation on the other.

There’s really only one truly bad episode in the First Season (Alternative Factor), a tiny handful of less-than-good ones (Dagger of the Mind, Your Choice Here), and whole bunch of really great hours of television.

Great review and great episode. Funny this one really must of did it for me as I wrote in most of the message boards focused on this episode. Of course I notice many others feel the same way about it. The writing really was strong in this series of TREK and especially the first season. There really was a creepy understated feeling that these first episodes had. Music and lighting a big part to me.

With the strange things that were happening with Charlie aboard like the card tricks, etc. there was a reason know one got too excited. Remember this is the STAR TREK universe with many strange exotic alien creatures with wild powers and technology around every corner. It was a wild place to be.;) Remember the first two pilots of TREK dealt with some wild mind altering happenings. So just another day in the Trekverse.

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  1. Charlie X

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  2. Charlie X (episode)

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  3. Robert Walker Jr. obituary, best known for Star Trek's "Charlie X

    star trek charlie x actor

  4. Charlie X (1966)

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  5. Robert Walker Jr as Charlie Evans in the STAR TREK episode 'Charlie X

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  6. "Charlie X" (S1:E2) Star Trek: The Original Series Screencaps

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VIDEO

  1. STAR TREK

  2. Charlie Chase

  3. STAR TREK CHARLIE X

  4. Star Trek First Contact Parody in Lower Decks Comparison Compilation

  5. The Test Of Time A Star Trek Fan Production

COMMENTS

  1. Robert Walker (actor, born 1940)

    In 1966, at the age of 26, he was cast in the Star Trek episode "Charlie X" (1966) as Charles 'Charlie' Evans, a 17-year-old social misfit with psychic powers. Also in 1966, he appeared in the fifth season of the series Combat! in the episode "Ollie Joe" . He had the title role in an episode of The Time Tunnel titled "Billy the Kid" (1967).

  2. Charlie X

    "Charlie X" is the second episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Dorothy C. Fontana from a story by Gene Roddenberry, and directed by Lawrence Dobkin, it first aired on September 15, 1966.. In the episode, the Enterprise picks up an unstable 17-year-old boy who spent 14 years alone on a deserted planet and lacks the training and ...

  3. "Star Trek" Charlie X (TV Episode 1966)

    "Star Trek" Charlie X (TV Episode 1966) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. Menu. Movies. Release Calendar Top 250 Movies Most Popular Movies Browse Movies by Genre Top Box Office Showtimes & Tickets Movie News India Movie Spotlight. TV Shows.

  4. "Star Trek" Charlie X (TV Episode 1966)

    Charlie X: Directed by Lawrence Dobkin. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Walker Jr., DeForest Kelley. Captain Kirk must learn the limits to the power of a 17-year-old boy with the psionic ability to create anything and destroy anyone.

  5. Robert Walker Jr.

    Robert Walker Jr.. Actor: Easy Rider. Born in Jamaica Hospital Medical Center (Queens, New York City) on April 15, 1940, the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones, Robert Walker Jr. certainly had the right pedigree to make the grade in Hollywood. His parents separated when Robert was only three. Six years later, his mother married powerful film mogul David O. Selznick who by this time ...

  6. Robert Walker Jr., 1940-2019

    The "Charlie X" actor was 79 years old. StarTrek.com is saddened to report the passing of Robert Walker Jr., the actor who played the titular role in Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Charlie X." Walker Jr. passed at age 79, according to his family. In "Charlie X," penned by D.C. Fontana, Walker Jr.'s Charlie is the sole ...

  7. Robert Walker

    Robert Walker, Jr. (15 April 1940 - 5 December 2019; age 79) was the actor who played Charles Evans in the Star Trek: The Original Series first season episode "Charlie X". Despite playing the seventeen-year-old Charles Evans, Walker was actually twenty-six at the time. Walker was required on the set all seven shooting days during the production of the episode, filming his scenes between ...

  8. Robert Walker Jr. Dead: 'Star Trek' Actor and Son of Hollywood

    On the second aired episode of Star Trek, "Charlie X," the slender, blue-eyed Walker portrayed Charles "Charlie" Evans, the sole survivor of a transport-ship crash who possesses strange ...

  9. Star Trek Actor Robert Walker Jr. Dies at 79

    In the episode titled "Charlie X," which aired on Sept. 15, 1966, the Enterprise meets 17-year-old Evans (Walker), the sole survivor of a transport ship that crashed on the planet Thasus.

  10. Robert Walker Jr. obituary, best known for Star Trek's "Charlie X

    Walker's acting career began with training at the legendary Actors Studio, and by the early 1960s he was making television appearances on shows like Naked City and Route 66. In 1966, he played the title character in "Charlie X," the second episode of Star Trek to air on NBC. Though he was 26 at the time, Walker was immediately believable as an ...

  11. Robert Walker Jr. Dies: Star Trek Actor And Hollywood ...

    The New York native portrayed the twitchy, callow title character in "Charlie X," the second episode of Star Trek's pioneering first season in 1966, and also handled the title role of the ...

  12. 'Star Trek' Actor Robert Walker Jr. Dies at 79

    Walker Jr. is best remembered for playing the titular Charlie Evans in the "Star Trek" episode "Charlie X" from the show's first season in 1966. His character was a teenage social misfit ...

  13. Star Trek actor Robert Walker Jr. dies at 79

    actor Robert Walker Jr. dies at 79. Robert Walker Jr., the actor known for the memorable Star Trek episode "Charlie X," has died. He was 79. The official Star Trek website reported the news ...

  14. Robert Walker (actor)

    Jennifer Jones. Robert Hudson Walker Jr. (April 15, 1940 - December 5, 2019) was an American actor. Walker was cast role in the Star Trek episode "Charlie X" (1966) as Charles 'Charlie' Evans. Walker had a role in an episode of Columbo ("Mind Over Mayhem", 1974), and as an innocent longshoreman who takes the blame for a murder on Quincy, M.E.

  15. Star Trek Actor Robert Walker Jr. dies 2019 at 79

    4.1K. Played Charlie Evans in the iconic "Star Trek" episode "Charlie X." Robert Walker Jr. was an actor best known for his titular role in "Charlie X," the second episode of the ...

  16. Robert Walker Jr, 'Star Trek' Actor, Dies at 79

    Actor was the son of actors Robert Walker and Jennifer Jones. Robert Walker Jr. in "Star Trek" season 1 episode "Charlie X" Reid Nakamura. December 6, 2019 @ 11:29 AM. Share on Social Media.

  17. Robert Walker Jr., 'Star Trek' and 'Dallas' Actor, Dead at 79

    Two years later, he played Charlie Evans in "Charlie X," the second episode of Star Trek: The Original Series. In "Charlie X," Walker played Charlie, the last survivor of a transport ship that crashed. The Enterprise crew later learns that Charlie has dangerous powers. Although Charlie was only 17 in the episode, Walker was 26 at the time the ...

  18. Charlie X (episode)

    A cat version of "Charlie X" was featured in Jenny Parks' 2017 book Star Trek Cats. Remastered information [] The remastered version of "Charlie X" aired in many North American markets during the weekend of 14 July 2007. The episode included new effects shots of the Thasian ship, replacing the blob-like object seen on-screen with a torpedo ...

  19. "Charlie X"

    Review Text. The Enterprise provides transport for 17-year-old Charlie Evans (Robert Walker Jr.), an adolescent who grew up alone on an uninhabited planet after being the sole survivor of a crash 14 years before. Initially unbeknownst to Kirk & Co., Charlie holds powerful abilities that were given to him by an alien race so he could survive his ...

  20. Star Trek S1 E2 "Charlie X" / Recap

    Original air date: September 15, 1966. The Enterprise takes on a passenger, being that they are commonly in the habit of ferrying civilians. The boy is Charlie, an orphan with a Mysterious Past and really bad social skills. The people dropping him off seem in quite a hurry to leave. Charlie becomes infatuated with Yeoman Rand, stalking her and ...

  21. "Star Trek" Charlie X (TV Episode 1966)

    Charlie Evans : I've got your ship, Captain. Capt. Kirk : Maybe, Charlie. But I don't think you can handle any more. [at his cue, Spock and Bones begin turning on instruments and lights] Capt. Kirk : I think you've reached your limit and can't take on one more thing. But you're gonna have to.

  22. Review "Charlie X" Remastered

    There's not a bad shot of the ship in the remastered "Charlie X." Another great shot of the big E from CBS-D. The previously-unseen freighter "Antares" looks like it fits into the TOS design ...