Catspaw by: Robert Bloch and directed by: Joseph Pevney

 

“Catspaw” is written by Robert Bloch and is directed by Joseph Pevney.  It was filmed under production code 30, was the 7^th episode of Star Trek Season 2, the 36^th episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on October 27, 1967.

 

There’s something odd about this episode of Star Trek being purposefully held back to be aired as a Halloween Special.  Produced as the first episode of the second season of the original series, Robert Bloch’s “Catspaw” is an episode that is steeped in myth and fairy tales and slight bits of Shakespeare where there is an impossible castle inhabited by two space wizards who wish to test the Enterprise crew through a series of tricks and trials.  It’s essentially a big game of trick or treat, though on the budget of a single episode of Star Trek so many of the trials are mind games and conversational so the back half of the episode feels a bit close to “The Squire of Gothos” in concept but not execution.  Joseph Pevney’s direction really must be praised for making the episode work, evoking quite a few spooks and frights akin to a haunted house story.  There are clear influences from the work of director William Castle, budget saving techniques used to effect genuinely good frights plus a classic plastic skeleton or two to make things fun.  There is one sequence where three witches are encountered on the planet and genuinely the makeup work and performances are the closest to outright horror the episode gets.  Despite Bloch being most well known for writing Psycho, he’s not trying to really write Star Trek doing a horror story, just Star Trek having quite a bit of fun at the expense of it being the Halloween season and that’s genuinely okay for an episode, especially as the second season of Star Trek thus far has had some amazing episodes but those often followed by lackluster episodes or just okay episodes.

 

Theo Marcuse and Antoinette Bower play Korob and Sylvia respectively, the two space wizards who are in control of this castle, both providing temptations for Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, while controlling Sulu and Scotty and killing our pre-credits redshirt which launches the episode with a great pratfall.  Sylvia is a classic femme fatale, using her sex appeal to tempt Kirk into feeding her his emotion and there is this absolutely brilliant scene where Shatner as Kirk doesn’t give it to her.  The idea of the episode is that these two are creations of humanity’s subconscious, given power by their transmuter and the minds of the crew.  The way Shatner plays it is to subtly communicate that he is not actually taken in by Sylvia and the implication being not to connect sex with romance as a good thing, an oddly progressive message to be found in a Star Trek episode that also has its primary female character turn into a cat at multiple points during the episode.  The dynamic between Korob and Sylvia is perhaps the episode’s weakest point, Korob getting much of the second act of the episode to just argue with Kirk, Spock, and McCoy before being won over to their side of things for no particular reason.  The danger the pair pose to the Enterprise is a brilliant way to keep the tension of the episode up, Joseph Pevney’s direction in the scenes that cut back to the ship keep the shots close and tight so the danger can be implied by some great performances by Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig (in his first recorded scenes), and returning day player Michael Barrier.  There is a point where Sylvia uses a pendant of the Enterprise to rapidly increase the temperature by hovering it over a candle, further hints of the episode being about humanity’s subconscious, and the scenes set on the Enterprise while not quite harrowing are immediately tense and there is the fear that these people will just destroy the ship.  The further scenes where the Enterprise is placed behind a forcefield don’t quite work because the overheating sequence is so effective, but it does keep the rest of the characters in the episode while Scotty and Sulu are relegated to being hypnotized which is a shame, though George Takei does do some excellent silent acting.

 

Overall, “Catspaw” is kind of the perfect example of a ridiculous Star Trek episode working with a weird premise, mostly because the cast and director are all taking this seriously as a threat.  It’s not a brilliant horror story or a thriller by any means but it fits perfectly into the bill of a Halloween special.  It’s not going to be an all-time classic episode, but it does pass the benchmark of an enjoyable episode in the first third or so of a season that had been oscillating from brilliant to outright bad.  7/10.