Review of
Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy, The Return of Charlie X
Five out of five stars
The episode of the Star Trek original series called “Charlie X” was one of the best episodes. It featured bizarre aliens and a human male adolescent with the personality defects common to such people. A ship filled with humans crashed on a remote planet and Charlie was the only human that survived. The local creatures, Thasians, gave him great powers to affect the area around him so that he could survive. However, they could not or did not give him the discipline to properly manage such powers.
Charlie was rescued by humans when he was a teen and eventually landed on the Enterprise. Captain Kirk was able to control him for a time, but it finally reached the point where Charlie was going to take control. At that point, the Thasians intervened and took him away.
It is much later in the Star Trek universe when a crew of young Star Fleet cadets encounter a crashed ship with only one survivor, Charlie Evans (X). The Ferengi Nog is one of the cadets and it turns out that Charlie is the honeypot bait for a nefarious plot against the Federation. Charlie retains his powers as well as his lack of self-control. Fortunately, one member of the human crew possesses strong telepathic powers, enough to influence Charlie’s mind and help the Star Fleet people learn the truth about what is happening.
This is a good story, Charlie X was a great character, a mortal danger to the Enterprise and her crew, yet not inherently evil. Just a boy in what could be called a monster’s body, able to do incredible things with a mere thought. It was a story with a powerful lesson, when very different species encounter each other, even the best of intentions can have dire unforeseen consequences.
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