red factor star trek

The Alternative Factor (episode)

• 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
• 4.3 Cast and characters
• 4.4 Sets and props
• 4.5 Costumes and make-up
• 4.6 Effects
• 4.7 Continuity
• 4.8 Reception
• 4.9 Remastered information
• 4.10 Video and DVD releases
• 4.11 Apocrypha
• 5.1 Starring
• 5.2 Also starring
• 5.3 Guest star
• 5.4 Featuring
• 5.6 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.7 Stunt doubles
• 5.8.1 Unreferenced materials
• 5.9 External links

Summary [ ]

In standard orbit around an iron - silica -type uncharted planet , the USS Enterprise prepares to complete its survey, when the starship is violently rocked twice and everything within sensor range suddenly "blinks", almost as if the universe is on the verge of ceasing to exist. And, in the wake of this, a man appears on the surface of the planet, where moments earlier there was no life.

Act One [ ]

Beaming down, Captain Kirk , Spock , and the landing party encounter a man. " You came! Thank the heavens , it's not too late! ", he exclaims. Dirty and disheveled, he falls from a rock. The landing party returns to the Enterprise with him, where Kirk learns more news – the strange phenomenon drained the dilithium crystals almost completely. Still worse, Starfleet Command issues a Code Factor 1 message – invasion status. The effect experienced by the Enterprise was also experienced everywhere in the galaxy , and far beyond. Starfleet withdraws all nearby ships – Commodore Barstow informs Kirk that the Enterprise is the bait.

In his quarters , Kirk talks to his "guest" – a man named Lazarus , who is pursuing a "thing," a monster who destroyed his entire civilization. He informs Kirk that he will stop at nothing to destroy it. Beaming back down to the planet, Kirk learns from Spock that there is no other creature here. Spock, accusing Lazarus of lying, states " I fail to comprehend your indignation, sir. I have simply made the logical deduction that you are a liar. " Kirk demands the truth – and the universe turns inside out once again. The same "winking" phenomenon occurs again. And Lazarus – first he has a bandaged forehead, and then he doesn't, and then he does again.

Act Two [ ]

Strange energy visible on the planet on the viewscreen

Meanwhile, Spock has discovered a source of radiation that is not there – a "rip" in the universe, where regular physical laws do not apply. The key to locating this source seems to be the dilithium crystals – a revelation which excites Lazarus, who demands the impossible: that Kirk give him the crystals.

The captain refuses, but Lazarus overpowers Lieutenant Charlene Masters as well as an engineering officer and steals two dilithium crystals, nevertheless.

Act Three [ ]

In the briefing room , Kirk confronts Lazarus, but he denies it, blaming his monster. And the evidence suggests he isn't the thief, for the crystals are not aboard his ship. In Sick Bay, Kirk confronts Lazarus with his lies, which Lazarus explains away by claiming that he is a time traveler ; his spaceship is actually a "dimensional corridor gateway"and The dead world the Enterprise orbits is the distant future of his destroyed homeworld; the place and time he has traveled to in pursuit of the monster. At Dr. McCoy 's urging, the crew departs Sick Bay to allow Lazarus to rest and recover from his fall. [[ Having relocated to the briefing room to consider all of the known evidence, Kirk and Spock conclude that the strange energy must come from a source outside the universe. A source in another, parallel universe. There are two copies of Lazarus, and they are periodically exchanging places through a kind of door – and if they ever exist in the same universe at the same time, everything, everywhere, will be annihilated in a cataclysmic matter / antimatter explosion.

Meanwhile, the alternative Lazarus creates a diversion by starting a fire in main engineering, steals the ship's energy crystals, then beams down. Kirk pursues. As he attempts to enter Lazarus' spaceship, he vanishes, hurled through the corridor into the other universe.

Act Four [ ]

Lazarus-A timeship; Lazarus-B timeship was identical except that the dome on top had been taken off

Once there, Kirk meets the other but sane Lazarus-B, and learns the truth. Lazarus-B's people discovered how to pass through the negative magnetic corridor that both connects and protects the two universes. When this happened, Lazarus-A couldn't bear the knowledge that he had a duplicate, and resolved to destroy his opposite. He is mad and doesn't care if this causes the destruction of two universes. Lazarus-B and Kirk realize he must be stopped: if Kirk can force Lazarus-A into the corridor, Lazarus-B can hold him there, and Kirk can destroy his spaceship – which will also destroy Lazarus-B's spaceship. Access to the corridor will be sealed forever and both universes will be safe, but the men named Lazarus will be at each others' throats for the remainder of eternity. Kirk goes back through the corridor and fights in hand-to-hand combat forcibly throwing Lazarus-A into the "dimensional door." Kirk then has the crystals removed from the timeship and heads back to the Enterprise , ordering Lieutenant Leslie to bring the ship's phasers to target the inter-dimensional ship. The two Lazaruses meet once more and fight as phaser beams vaporize the ship, sealing the two for all of eternity, caught together, between universes. Kirk ruminates on the fact that the two Lazarus are going to be at each other's throats for all time and wonders how it would be. Spock reminds Kirk that the universe[s] are now safe. " For you and me. But, what of Lazarus? What of Lazarus? "

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2267

Memorable quotes [ ]

" I want facts, not poetry. "

" He's death! Anti-life! He lives to destroy! "

" I told you, it was the thing! All white, black and empty. A terrible emptiness. " " Let's get back to the ship. " " He'll kill us all if we don't kill him first! Kill! Kill! Kill!! Kill!! Kill!!! "

" Are you deaf as well as blind?! "

" I fail to comprehend your indignation, sir. I've simply made the logical deduction that you are a liar. "

" Sometimes pain can drive a man harder than pleasure. "

" Jim, madness has no purpose or reason. But it may have a goal. "

" If they meet. " " Annihilation, Jim. Total, complete, absolute annihilation. "

" So you're the terrible thing? The murdering monster? The creature? " " Yes, captain. Or he is. It depends on your point of view, doesn't it? "

" You'll be trapped inside that corridor with him forever. At each other's throats throughout time. " " Is it such a large price to pay for the safety of two universes? "

" Captain, the universe is safe. " " For you and me. But what of Lazarus? What of Lazarus? "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

• Story outline by Don Ingalls : 29 August 1966
• Revised story outline: 12 September 1966
• Second revised story outline: 14 September 1966
• First draft teleplay by Ingalls: 14 October 1966
• Second draft teleplay: 7 November 1966
• Final draft teleplay by Gene L. Coon or Steven W. Carabatsos : 11 November 1966
• Revised final draft teleplay by Coon: 14 November 1966
• Additional revisions: 15 November 1966 , 16 November 1966 , 18 November 1966
• Day 1 – 16 November 1966 , Wednesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge
• Day 2 – 17 November 1966 , Thursday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Sickbay , Transporter room
• Day 3 – 18 November 1966 , Friday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Corridors
• Day 4 – 21 November 1966 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Dilithium recharging section , Recreation room (redress of Briefing room ), Sickbay
• Day 5 – 22 November 1966 , Tuesday – Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park : Ext. Planet surface
• Day 6 – 23 November 1966 , Wednesday – Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park : Ext. Planet surface
• Day 7 – 25 November 1966 , Friday – Desilu Stage 10 : Ext. Planet surface , "Transdimensional limbo"
• Original broadcast date: 30 March 1967 , postponed from 2 February 1967
• First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 8 December 1971
• First UK airdate (on ITV ): 7 March 1982
• Remastered airdate: 1 December 2007
• The original script called for a romantic entanglement between Charlene Masters and Lazarus that was eventually cut due to Roddenberry considering it too similar to the romance between Khan and McGivers in " Space Seed ". As stated by Roddenberry in a Season One memo: " In both 'Space Seed' and this story, we have a crew woman madly in love with a brawny guest star and flipping our whole gang into a real mess because she is in love… do they have to do [this] in two of our scripts? " [1]
• There is no officer played by Larry Riddle as noted among the cast for this episode in the Star Trek Concordance (1st Titan edition, p. 28). Lieutenant Larry Riddle was Charlene Masters' jealous boyfriend in the first draft of the script. [2]

Cast and characters [ ]

The navigator and Leslie

• James Doohan ( Scott ) and George Takei ( Sulu ) do not appear in this episode. The absence of Scotty has been remarked in several commentaries as being highly unusual, given the extensive exposure in the episode of engineering matters, such as the theft of Dilithium crystals, as well as Lazarus sneaking about engineering and attacking various engineering crew members. (Cushman, Marc, "These are the Voyages", Jacob Brown Press, 2013)
• Curiously, in spite of a higher ranking officer serving as the navigator, this was the second episode that Leslie was seen in the command chair, and the first episode in which Eddie Paskey is credited in the ending credits, albeit misspelled as "Lesley".
• Richard Derr , who plays Commodore Barstow in this episode, later played Admiral Fitzgerald in the episode " The Mark of Gideon ".
• Actor John Drew Barrymore (father of actress Drew Barrymore ) was originally contracted to play Lazarus. Barrymore was scheduled to begin filming on the second day of production, 17 November 1966 , however, the previous afternoon he sent word to the studio that he will refuse to show up to work. Barrymore's replacement, Robert Brown , on the recommendation of his friend, William Shatner , was contacted the same night, literally dragged to the studio and offered the job on the spot, starting the next morning. He recounted the filming to be very tight and tense. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One 1st ed., pp. 415-416)
• The Star Trek production team filed a grievance against Barrymore at the Screen Actors' Guild, which led to him being unable to obtain acting work for six months in 1967. ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , pp. 201-202; These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One 1st ed., pp. 415-416, 420)

Sets and props [ ]

• Along with " Friday's Child ", this is one of the only two episodes where outdoor planet scenes were filmed both on Desilu Stage 10 and on location (both times at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park ). Originally, all planet-side scenes were scheduled to be filmed on location, but due to the turmoil during production, director Gerd Oswald couldn't finish shooting at Vasquez. Matt Jefferies and the art department prepared a spot on Stage 10 which could accommodate the missing "alternate universe" sequence. ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One , 1st ed., p. 418)

New "recharging section" of Engineering

• This episode introduces a new set, a small subsection of engineering, described in the final draft of the script, dated 11 November 1966 , as the "Lithium [sic] Crystal Recharging Section", which was described as " A portion of Engineering where there are bins into which dilithium crystals are placed for recharging. " Part of the dilithium energizer panel in the set used the same controls as the neural neutralizer from " Dagger of the Mind ".
• Although Lazarus's spacecraft resembles a flying saucer, James Blish describes it as "cone-shaped" in his novelization of the episode in Star Trek 10 .
• The dome of Lazarus' time ship was later reused to encase the Providers in " The Gamesters of Triskelion ".

Costumes and make-up [ ]

• Periodically throughout the episode, the two versions of Lazarus exchange places. One of them has a wound or bandage on his head which McCoy treated: this is the "insane" Lazarus from our universe; the other is his rational counterpart from the antimatter universe.
• Although Masters is referred to as a lieutenant and works in engineering, she wears a blue uniform of the sciences section, and it has no rank stripes, which normally denotes the rank of Ensign.
• Lazarus' costume was later worn by an extra playing a Babel Conference delegate in " Journey to Babel ".

Effects [ ]

The word "SCRIPT" is misspelled

• The visual of the iron-silica planet from orbit is reused footage previously representing Alfa 177 in " The Enemy Within " and M-113 in " The Man Trap ". This planet effect was reused again as Argus X in " Obsession " and Ardana in " The Cloud Minders ".
• The footage of the two Lazaruses fighting was created by filming two stuntmen fighting in a smoke-filled room with orange and purple walls, then double-exposing its color negative footage over an astronomical photograph of the Trifid Nebula . ( citation needed • edit ) By actual count Lazarus changes between the universes about eight times.
• In the closing credits of the show, the title billing for Script Supervisor is misspelled "SCPIPT SUPERVISOR".
• Unique to the original series are the angle of the Enterprise as it fires its phasers to destroy Lazarus's ship, as well as the use of a single phaser beam and the lack of a sound effect when the beam is viewed from space.

Continuity [ ]

• In the opening scene Spock describes the planet as having an " oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere ". Such an atmosphere is practically impossible since a single spark would ignite it, perhaps even explosively.
• This is the first time that live two-way communication with Starfleet Command is depicted. In previous episodes, communication with Starfleet Command was through delayed radio messages.
• Depending on which version of this episode you watch, the closing stills change. The original syndicated version and the VHS version show the still as the Enterprise leaving the Earth-like planet from " Miri ", however, the Sci-fi Channel and DVD version show the still as just a blue planet, possibly Rigel 12 from " Mudd's Women " or Starbase 11 from " Court Martial ".

Reception [ ]

• The Agony Booth website included this episode among "The Worst of Trek ". In their recap, they write that in the episode, " very little actually happens, and what little that does comes about only because Kirk and Company are written to act in such a way that can only be described as severely brain damaged. " The reviewer continues, " I never thought I'd say this, but this episode is making " Spock's Brain " look pretty goddamn good right about now! " He concludes, " this is one of the most poorly constructed fifty minutes I've ever seen. An almost impossibly incoherent script, a damp squib of a finale, and some horrible editing make this one of the true stinkers in the Trek universe. " Also, he mentions that " [John Drew] Barrymore didn't show up for filming. Given the script, I can't say I blame the fellow. The rest of the cast should have done the same thing, to be perfectly frank. " [3]

Remastered information [ ]

"The Alternative Factor" was the forty-ninth episode of the remastered version of The Original Series to air. It premiered in syndication on the weekend of 1 December 2007 and aside from the standard CGI replacement footage of the Enterprise and the planet-of-the-week, this episode also featured several new, modest effects shots of the alternative warp effect, as well as phaser and transporter effects.

Video and DVD releases [ ]

• Original US Betamax release: 1985
• UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 11 , catalog number VHR 2295, release date unknown
• US VHS release: 15 April 1994
• UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.7, 4 November 1996
• Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 10, 21 March 2000
• As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
• As part of the Star Trek: Fan Collective - Alternate Realities collection
• As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Apocrypha [ ]

• A cat version of "The Alternative Factor" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats .

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

• William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

• Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Guest star [ ]

• Robert Brown as Lazarus / anti-Lazarus

Featuring [ ]

• DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy
• Janet MacLachlan as Charlene Masters
• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
• Richard Derr as Barstow
• Arch Whiting as Assistant Engineer
• Christian Patrick as Transporter Chief
• Eddie Paskey as Lesley [sic]

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• William Blackburn as Hadley
• Vince Cadiente as security lieutenant/technician
• Frank da Vinci as Brent
• Carey Foster as sciences crew woman
• Tom Lupo as security guard
• Ron Veto as Harrison
• Command crewman
• Command crew woman
• Crew woman 1
• Crew woman 2
• Helmsman lieutenant
• Lieutenant 1
• Lieutenant 2
• Navigator lieutenant commander
• Sciences lieutenant

Stunt doubles [ ]

• Bill Catching as stunt double #2 for Robert Brown
• Gary Combs as stunt double for William Shatner
• Al Wyatt as stunt double #1 for Robert Brown

References [ ]

abrasion ; accusation ; all hands ; " all right "; alternative ; alternative warp ; analysis ; annihilation ; answer ; antimatter ; antimatter universe (aka minus universe ; negative universe ) assistant ; " at a loss for words "; " a thing "; atmosphere ; bait ; bandage ; battle stations ; being ; black ; blindness ; body temperature ; " Bones "; bruise ; bull ; captivity ; cartographic section ; censure ; civilization ; Code Factor 1 ; coffee ; commodore ; computer bank ; computer report ; constitution ; container ; contact ; country doctor ; course ; creature ; danger ; deaf ; death ; devil ; dilithium (aka dilithium crystal ); dimension ; dinosaur ; dizziness ; door ; double-talk ; drill ; Earth ; effect ; electrical impulses ; emptiness ; enemy ; energizer / energizing circuits ; energy ; eternity ; evidence ; existence ; experimentation chamber ; explosives ; face ; fact ; Fahrenheit ; fire ; footprint ; forehead ; formula ; freedom ; general alert ; " get to the point "; gravimetric field ; gravity ; guest ; head ; heart ; heaven ; Hell ; hole ; hour ; Human ( Human being ); humor ; hydrogen ; idea ; inch ; indignation ; information ; invasion ; iron ; joke ; justice ; key ; Lazarus' planet ; Lazarus' planet system ; Lazarus' spaceship ; liar ; lie ; life object ; life survey ; living being ; living creature ; location ; logic ; " lost his mind "; madman ; madness ; magnetic communication satellite ; magnetic effect ; magnetic field ; main screen ; mass ; matter ; matter universe (aka positive universe ) medic ; mental state ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mind ; minute ; miracle worker ; mission ; monster (aka beast ); movement ; muscleman ; negative magnetic corridor ; " not hold water "; object ; " of course "; orbit ; ounce ; " out of the question "; oxygen ; pain ; parallel universe ; paranoia ; parsec ; patient ; phaser bank ; phenomenon ; photographic section ; physical law ; physical makeup ; physical warp ; pleasure ; poetry ; powder keg ; power ; priority one ; prison ; pulsation phenomenon ; quadrant ; question ; radiation ; range ; rationality ; recuperative powers ; red 2 message ; report ; riddle ; rip in the universe ; rock ; safety valve ; screening ; search ; search party ; second ; section ; security red ; security team (aka security detail ); self-preservation ; sense of humor ; sensor ; ship's physician ; silica ; space ; spaceship ; speculation ; " stand by "; Starbase 200 ; Starfleet Command ; " strong as a bull "; surface ; terrain ; thing ; threat ; throat ; time chamber ; time ship ; time traveler ; trick ; truth ; understatement ; unit ; universe ; vengeance ; visual section 988-TG ; water ; weapon ; white ; word ; wound ; year ; zero gravity

Unreferenced materials [ ]

biological lab ; chemoscientist ; Riddle, Larry ; rose

External links [ ]

• " The Alternative Factor " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• " The Alternative Factor " at Wikipedia
• [4] "The Alternative Factor" at IMDB.com
• " The Alternative Factor " at MissionLogPodcast.com
• " The Alternative Factor " at the Internet Movie Database
• 2 Daniels (Crewman)
• 3 Klingon augment virus

• Cast & crew
• User reviews

The Alternative Factor

• Existence itself comes under threat from a man's power-struggle with his alternate self, with the Enterprise's strained dilithium crystals presenting his key to a final solution.
• While investigating and scanning an uncharted planet, the Enterprise and its quadrant of space are subjected to a violent force that seems to cause a 'blinking out' of everything near them. When the scanners resume, where once there was no life on the planet, now there is one life sign. Kirk, Spock and a security force beam down to investigate and find a man named Lazarus who collapses and is brought aboard the Enterprise for treatment. To complicate things further, the initial phenomenon almost totally drained their dilithium crystals. Starfleet and Kirk suspect this phenomenon could be a prelude to invasion. While interrogating Lazarus he tells Kirk that he's locked in a struggle with another being who is 'anti life' and is behind the phenomenon. The disruptions continue to occur and the ship's situation grows worse. — tomtrekp
• While mapping the uninhabited planet below, the Enterprise - indeed the entire galaxy - is affected by a powerful force after which a single human, Lazarus, is found on the planet. He claims to be after an evil creature who destroyed his entire civilization, but Spock can identify no other creature on the planet. Lazarus is in fact a time traveler who has been battling an alternate version of himself from an alternate universe. When Lazarus' opponent steals the ship's dilithium crystals, solving the mystery becomes a matter of life and death for Kirk and the crew. — garykmcd
• Enterprise is in a distant sector at the edge of the galaxy and there is a tremendous surge that throws all of the crew and yeomen to the floor. The Enterprise was studying a barren planet, which suddenly now shows a sign of a single life form. The life form appeared with the energy surge. The Federation thinks that this blinking means that there will be an invasion. furthermore they withdraw all ships within a 100 parsecs of the Enterprise as the blinking originated from the area Enterprise is patrolling, but impacted every quadrant of the galaxy and much more beyond. Kirk beams down and finds there is a small ship, and up on the mountain is a tall man named Lazarus (Robert Brown), taller than any of them. He tells them to run away, he runs down the mountain and falls off. His head is bleeding badly. They beam back up. The assistant engineer, Lt Masters (Janet MacLachlan), an African woman with very short black hair, very serious but beautiful, is concerned about the engines. The surge drained the Dilithium crystals and this could mean trouble for the engines. Lazarus meanwhile is hurt and has a bandage. He tells Kirk to kill the beast below. This beast, as Lazarus calls him, will destroy the universe (as it has killed every man, woman and child in his own civilization). Lazarus says he escaped his home planet in his ship and has been chased by the beast to the current planet. Now each time the landing party beams down and beams back up (with Lazarus), Lazarus seems different. Sometimes he is wearing the bandage, sometimes not, sometimes calm, sometimes insane. Every time Lazarus seems to change, the change is accompanies by the celestial event and the energy surge.. The calm version has the bandage and the insane version doesn't. Spock detects a radiation on the planet's surface, but no source. He thinks its a rip in our physical universe. Lazarus wants control of the ship's Dilithium crystals to destroy the beast. The insane version steals the crystals and the calm version of Lazarus asks Kirk to find his enemy to find the crystals. Kirk confronts the calm version and says that there is no planet at the location where he says he comes from. Calm Lazarus admits that he is a time traveler. Spock theorizes that the ship's instruments are designed to measure all energy and matter in this universe. The fact that the source and energy of the radiation cant be detected means it is not from the current Universe, but a parallel one. And the beast is nothing but the negative self of Lazarus from the parallel anti-universe. If these two matter and anti-matter meet, then there will be total destruction of everything. Lazarus steals the Dilithium crystals and beams to the surface. Lt Masters has got the engines under control. Kirk beams down and goes into the ship after the calm Lazarus. He is transported to an alternate universe because the little ship is a door to the other universe. In the other universe, Kirk meets the calm Lazarus who says that he is from the parallel universe. Some yrs ago his people figured out how to travel from one universe to the other, which involves crossing a threshold. But the Lazarus from Kirk's Universe couldn't handle this truth, and referred to his mirror Image as the beast. The insane Lazarus wants to use the Dilithium crystals to travel to the parallel universe to kill his mirror image, not realizing that he will destroy the universe in the process. The sane Lazarus asks Kirk to push the insane Lazarus into the threshold, where the sane one will be waiting. He will hold the insane Lazarus while Kirk destroys the ship in his own Universe. This will destroy the ship in both universes and both Lazarus's will be stuck in the Threshold for eternity. This is the only way to solve the issue. Kirk agrees. He goes through the portal and tricks and pushes the other Lazarus onto the little ship, then the first Lazarus enters from his side and blows up the ship. The two are trapped forever in limbo, fighting each other.

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Star Trek Re-Watch: “The Alternative Factor”

Season 1, Episode 27 Production episode: 1×20 Original air date: March 30, 1967 Star date: 3087.6

Mission summary The Enterprise is orbiting an “iron-silica” planet: uncharted, lifeless, arid. Just as they are about to complete their survey they get a case of the wooglies—cue shaky-cam and a film overlay of a nebula. Once things return to normal Spock explains that the universe just “blinked” briefly out of existence. But before he can explain (or maybe just because he can’t), he finds that a human is on the surface of the planet, where moments ago there was no one.

Kirk, Spock, and four redshirts beam down to the surface. They come across a tiny little spaceship pod, complete with bulbous dome-shaped cockpit.* But no one’s inside. Suddenly, a crazy man with an even crazier beard appears on top of a cliff face and shouts at them: “You came! Thank the heavens. There’s still time. It’s not too late. We can still stop him. But I, but I, need, need your help.” He then stumbles and falls down the rocky cliff face.

Back aboard the Enterprise everyone is mildly freaked out. Lieutenant Masters, a woman engineer (oh the crazy things they came up with on this show), explains to Kirk that the dilithium crystals were nearly entirely drained by the last blinking-out-of-existence episode. Uhura then reports that Starfleet Command would like to have a word with Kirk—and they issue “Code Factor One,”or invasion status. All report to battle stations as Kirk gets put in touch with Commodore Barstow from Starfleet Command. Barstow tells Kirk that the blinky-woogly bit wasn’t just unique to the Enterprise:

It occurred in every quadrant of the galaxy and far beyond. Complete disruption of normal magnetic and gravimetric fields, timewarp distortion, possible radiation variations. And all of them centering on the general area which you are now patrolling.

Barstow instructs Kirk to stay put, because he’s pulling all other ships out of the area: The Enterprise will be the bait for whatever this threat is. His strategy? Uh, still trying to figure that one out…

Kirk goes to talk to Mr. Crazybeard, who’s recovering from his fall in sickbay. Crazybeard—aka Lazarus—explains that he’s been chasing “the devil’s own spawn.” He’s human on the outside, but inside is a “hideous, murdering monster.” He claims this man-creature-thing destroyed his entire world and wants to destroy everything in the universe: “He’s death, anti-life, he lives to destroy.” Kirk agrees to go back to the surface to check out the man’s story. (How he could confirm or deny on that surface is a mystery to me.)

They beam back down but find no traces of this other man. Lazarus, however, is overcome by a psychedelic fugue—cue more wooglies, bad overlays, and shaky-cam. Things just get weirder from there. McCoy tells Kirk that Lazarus’ head wound has mysteriously disappeared, but when they confront the man it’s there again! Spock then discovers a “rip” in space, where the laws of physics do not apply. It’s emitting some kind of radiation that Spock was only able to detect with the dilithium crystals.

The mention of the crystals drives Crazybeard into a frenzy—he demands that Kirk turn over the ship’s crystals to him. Kirk nearly laughs in his face, but Lazarus will have them. He overhears Lt. Masters discussing them in the mess hall and follows her to engineering. Incapacitating the other engineer, he attacks her. By the time Kirk and his men arrives two dilithium crystals are already gone. Lazarus swears that the he-monster took it, not him, and wants to beam back down the planet to prove that he doesn’t have them. For the nth time this episode, they beam down and discover that Lazarus indeed does not have the crystals—nor will he answer any questions about why possession of them is so important, or what the danger is to the Enterprise from this allegedly evil man-beast out there. Suddenly, the wooglies, and in what feels like stock footage at this point, Lazarus falls from the cliff’s face during the nebula overlay vision.

Back in sickbay, Crazybeard tries a different story. He tells Kirk and Bones that he’s actually a time traveller, and that the evil man monster out there is a time traveller, too. But Kirk isn’t convinced and he meets with Spock, trying to figure out what’s causing this blinking phenomenon and what on earth is wrong with this hobo they picked up.

KIRK: What have we got, Mister Spock? A magnetic effect which produces a winking-out phenomenon. A mysterious, unidentified source of radiation on the planet. Lazarus, a walking powder keg. Your rip in the universe. A so-called murdering humanoid. SPOCK: True, Captain, but more significant to me is the fact that our ship’s instruments are specifically designed to locate and identify any object in our universe, be it energy or matter. KIRK: But by using those instruments you were unable to identify the source of the radiation on the planet. SPOCK: Correct. Which would seem to be impossible. KIRK: Are the instruments in order? SPOCK: Perfect working condition. KIRK: Then what you say leads obviously to one alternative. The source of radiation is not from our universe. SPOCK: Nor in our universe, Captain. It came from outside.

Wait, what?! That’s the wackiest conclusion we’ve seen yet. Kirk goes on to suggest that while Kirk and Spock and the Enterprise exist in the “positive” universe, there may be an equal-but-opposite “minus” universe. This would explain the radiation, and the threat of invasion (huh?), and even Lazarus—no one man could be both mad and rational, but two men could be. Now they worry that Lazarus or this creature could force matter and anti-matter to come into contact with each other and “cancel out” one another, unmaking the entire world.

Their fears are right, of course, because meanwhile Lazarus is nonchalantly opening a high voltage control panel (which looks suspiciously like a set of Legos) to sabotage it. The electrical short nearly explodes the console that Lt. Masters and the other engineer are working on, and they flee Engineering before the whole place explodes. While it’s full of smoke, Lazarus grabs the last two dilithium crystals, overpowers a transporter room drone, and transports himself down to the surface.

Kirk beams down in pursuit, and finds Lazarus happily inserting the crystals into his machine. But when Kirk leans in to confront him, Kirk disappears!

He reappears in what seems to be the same planet—but a much calmer, friendlier, and cleaner Lazarus stands before him. This is the “minus” universe, with the “minus” Lazarus.

KIRK: Exactly what did I pass through? LAZARUS: That’s hard to explain, Captain. I call it an alternative warp. It’s sort of a negative magnetic corridor where the two parallel universes meet. It’s sort of a safety valve. It keeps eternity from blowing up. KIRK: This corridor, is it what caused the magnetic effect, the winking out phenomenon? LAZARUS: Precisely, Captain, but not because of its existence. Because, because my foe entered. The corridor is like a prison, with explosives at the door. Open the door, and the explosives might go off. Stay inside KIRK: And the universe is safe. LAZARUS: Both universes, Captain. Yours and mine.

Let’s just pretend this makes sense.

KIRK: Surely Lazarus must realise what would happen if you should meet face to face outside the corridor. LAZARUS: Of course he knows, Captain, but he’s mad. You heard him. He’s lost his mind.

When our people found a way to slip through the warp and prove another universe, an identical one, existed, it was too much for him. He could not live knowing that I lived. He became obsessed with the idea of destroying me. The fact that it meant his own destruction, and everything else, meant nothing to him.

Lazarus instructs Kirk to return to his world and force Positive Lazarus back into the corridor—with both Lazari there, they will become trapped, doomed to struggle each other for all eternity, and incapable of doing harm to either universe. Kirk does what he’s told, and once Lazarus disappears into the corridor he aims the ship’s phasers at the ship, destroying it in both worlds, leaving them trapped forever.

KIRK: There is, of course, no escape. How would it be? Trapped forever with a raging madman at your throat until time itself came to a stop? For eternity. How would it be? SPOCK: Captain, the universe is safe. KIRK: For you and me. But what of Lazarus? What of Lazarus?

Analysis: There’s really nothing to recommend this episode. The story is nonsensical and difficult to follow, even forgiving the handwavium; the plotting is painfully slow, and the repetitious Lazarus-falls-down-on-planet-surface/Lazarus-recovers-onboard-the- Enterprise cycle is a weak excuse for story; no one, not even the minor characters or the guest star, have any interesting character development; and there aren’t even any interesting aliens.

I didn’t find Lazarus to be a remotely compelling character. His motives were unexplained until the end, and all the build-up led to a resolution of “he’s mad,” a fact which was abundantly clear the whole time. That’s it? I never saw a difference between the “sane” Lazarus and the “mad” Lazarus. They both seem nuts, and the guy we meet at the end, the “sane” one, seems more like he’s been drugged than anything else. If he’s been swapping in and out the whole time, why did he never tell Kirk anything? Why steal the dilithium crystals when he could have just explained the whole situation?

So much didn’t make sense. How did they make this portal? Where’s the mirror version of Kirk? Why do the Commodore and Kirk get the initial sense that there’s going to be an invasion? Lazarus runs away and sabotages things constantly, yet no one puts him under surveillance? What the hell is attached to his face?

As for the regular crew, they don’t do anything here. Even Spock is on desk duty this go-around. Kirk beams back and forth from the planet to the ship, pointlessly exploring the surface. Lt. Masters gets the most exciting story here, and we of course never see her again. Every scene felt like filler.

The episode skirted some interesting ideas—what if there were parallel universes? Would you sacrifice yourself to save the world? But it lost interest in its own conceptual framework about halfway through the episode (and it lost my interest even sooner). The fake science is too vague and nonsensical to engage with any cool ideas. And what of the religious imagery? Lazarus is an odd name for someone caught between worlds, but I guess we do see him take falls that would kill any other man and then swiftly recover. He constantly refers to his chase as a “holy cause,” a pursuit for “justice.” But these allusions and images don’t add up to anything—they seem purely coincidental, and never go anywhere, just like everything else.

The bad pacing and weak plotting didn’t hold my attention, and I found myself counting the minutes until it was over. A pointless episode.

Torie’s Rating: Warp Factor 1 (on a scale of 1-6)

Eugene Myers: This is pretty much an idea episode, exploring the concept of parallel universes for the first time in Star Trek . Spock says, “The possible existence of a parallel universe has been scientifically conceded,” which is true enough of 1967, when the existence of a “multiverse” was finally being considered seriously by a wary scientific community. But to make this episode work, Don Ingalls really should have established the existence of parallel universes as fact in the future (the way they did with ESP in “Where No Man Has Gone Before”), since Kirk and Spock take the mere possibility and run with it, positing that there is a “minus universe” composed of anti-matter, which won’t play nice with our own universe. This, coincidentally enough, is exactly what is happening, but I doubt many viewers could have figured that out without having it explained directly.

One of the big weaknesses of the episode is the vagueness of it all. We’re given some wacky special effects to show the “negative magnetic corridor” as negative images, weird zooms on a starscape overlaid on the screen, and thunder and lightning. Lazarus’s waffling behavior and appearing and disappearing wounds is really not enough to go on. If I hadn’t seen this episode before, I wouldn’t have had any idea of what was going on, and the resolution drops pretty quickly once the meaning of the visual effects is made clear. It’s further crippled by the fact that Robert Brown (apparently a last-minute replacement for John Drew Barrymore) is not the best actor, at least not as the crazed Lazarus on his “holy cause,” and Ingalls needed to stop dropping him off of cliffs and landing him in Sickbay to move the plot along. Mad Lazarus was more of a threat to himself than his negative counterpart. Conceptually, it makes sense for mad Lazarus to hide the truth, but when the rational version of him switches in, why doesn’t he just explain the situation to Kirk (as he ultimately does on the planet) rather than steal the dilithium crystals? Kirk also comes across as rather churlish with Spock and McCoy through this episode, which doesn’t help to make this an entertaining episode.

Unfortunately this episode had a terrific start with a truly epic catastrophe threatening the entire universe, but it failed to deliver on any meaningful drama or character conflicts. Memory Alpha mentions a subplot about a romance between Lazarus and Lt. Masters was cut; had it been included, this could have been a better story. It’s interesting that the “negative” Lazarus was the good one, while the one from the “positive” universe was nuts. And I like the idea of the two Lazari struggling between dimensions for all eternity, protecting the fabric of their universes like Atlas holding the world on his shoulders, but aside from Kirk’s depressing “What of Lazarus?” at the end, it doesn’t deal with the implications of this sacrifice. Nor do we really care about the guy anyway, more the shame.

Eugene’s Rating: Warp Factor 2 (on a scale of 1-6)

Best Line: KIRK: “Sometimes pain can drive a man harder than pleasure. I’m sure you know that, Doctor.” (Only for the unintentional giggle it inspired.)

Syndication Edits: After returning from the planet, Kirk calling battle stations, McCoy’s first medical report, and Uhura telling Kirk that the message from the Commodore is ready; The second half of the first captain’s log; the first part of Kirk’s discussion with Spock after returning to the bridge; some pointless exploration scenes on the planet’s surface; Lazarus’ explanation in sick bay before he finally tells the truth; a big chunk of the psychedlic Kirk sequence near the end.

Trivia: The woogly scenes were filmed in a small, bare room with orange and purple walls. They flooded the floor with smoke to hide a safety mattress.

Other Notes: Eugene mentioned two bits already: John Drew Barrymore, father of Drew Barrymore, was originally contracted to play Lazarus in this episode. He never showed up to work, and the ST production team filed a grievance against him, making him unable to find work for several years afterwards.

The other is that Lt. Masters was supposed to be a love interest for Lazarus, but since a black actress was given the part, southern broadcast channels were apparently reluctant to show an interracial romance on television. This meant cutting all the romantic scenes and replacing them with redundant surface exploration scenes. The original draft of the script sounds much more interesting: the “sane” Lazarus falls in love with Lt. Masters, and then the crazy version manipulates her and exploits their relationship to obtain the crystals.

* I will not make a joke about this. I will not make a joke about this. I will not…

Previous Episode: Season 1, Episode 26: “ Errand of Mercy .”

Next Episode: Season 1, Episode 28 – “ City on the Edge of Forever .” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.

This post originally appeared on Tor.com .

About Torie Atkinson & Eugene Myers

12 comments.

“The other is that Lt. Masters was supposed to be a love interest for Lazarus, but since a black actress was given the part, southern broadcast channels were apparently reluctant to show an interracial romance on television. This meant cutting all the romantic scenes and replacing them with redundant surface exploration scenes. The original draft of the script sounds much more interesting: the “sane” Lazarus falls in love with Lt. Masters, and then the crazy version manipulates her and exploits their relationship to obtain the crystals.”

Yeah, but that kind of a weak-willed, “oh, your biceps are wonderful. I’ll help you sabatoge the ship” bit had already been done with Marla McGivers in ‘Space Seed’. If it was a distasteful portrayal of a female officer there, then doing it twice in one season would have been even more unforgiveable. It really would have made it seem as though Starfleet should have thought twice about having women on the ship.

BTW; Am I the only one who thought that azarus’ time ship- looked like a prop for a live action version of “The Jetsons”?

I may have said this on the TOR site, but I’ll add it here. Later that year, Lost In Space did the episode “The Anti-Matter Man” which featured positive and negative (good and bad) versions of John Robinson and Don West.

I don’t know if Tori either watches too much t.v. or not enough! I am an extreme trek fan, granted I don’t go to seminars and dress-up like my supposed star trek character. But as far as analyzing the series and this particular episode, I thought it was both ingenious and well written especially for the time period. I mean you have to understand, back then as well as even today, when it comes to outer space, space exploration, and the general idea of it all, there’s just not that many people in this world of utter morons walking around in public that both doesn’t care or understand space in general. So I think the episodes were written with discretion with theses facts in mind. If they would have gotten too techno savvy back then in the scripts, the show would have ended before it began. All in all I think they did an outstanding job in general with just not this episode’s creation, but most all of them on the series. Once again, especially for back then and the general public’s definitions of the genre of the time.The series started the year I was born and I grew up watching each and every episode literally 100 plus times, including this one. In a nut shell all I’m saying is they did the best they could at the time for a general audience that was more interested in, or rather more informed about the reds, or the commies (Russians). People knew more on the subject and were taught in school more about these matters than outer space. It was then just as it is now, the script writers embellish a lot in order to keep the people interested in both the characters and the plot. Hell I’ve seen so many discrepancies in movies and shows through the years that the foley artists should have caught and the research departments should have caught. Prime example a guy getting caught in high power lines being too close to a transformer on a pole in the air and what was supposed to be power lines was black rope and the transformer not even connected. LOL! So please give both the show an it’s wonder episodes a chance. A lot of the concepts and ideas presented on the show back in the mid 60’s were only the dreams of an ex-cop and his writers, and today have come true. P.S. favorite episode of all time is “Amok Time” where Kirk and his entourage brings down the real “Apollo of Greek mythology.

Of course we appreciate Star Trek’s place in history, as well as its vision, storytelling, and unique aesthetic. It made many contributions to our culture and SF; however, as all programs are, it was a product of its time, and this limited it in many ways. As much as I still love the show, here we try to examine it critically and weigh the merits of each episode against the other episodes, the medium of television in general, and our modern sensibilities — and by any standard, “The Alternative Factor” falls far short of the mark. Also, I agree that “Amok Time” is a fantastic episode. It’s one of my favorites, but they actually encounter Apollo in “Who Mourns for Adonais?”

For me, “The Alternative Factor” is the epitome of an interesting failure. It’s an episode where they really stretched to try to do something interesting and revolutionary (stylistically, thematically), and fell hard smack on their faces in the process (not least because their intended lead guest star, John Barrymore, failed to report for work). While “Alternative Factor” is undeniably a failure, I like it much better than lazy TOS episodes (like “The Apple”), or most of the episodes I’ve seen so far in TNG’s first season, where the velocity of the fall is necessarily limited by the meanness of their artistic ambition.

I agree with Kevin. I always appreciated the weirdness of this episode. Given that every original series episode has some kind of “message,” it’s fun to think about what the intended message of this episode was supposed to be. As Torie mentioned, the name Lazarus is Biblical: a beggar taken up to heaven in the Gospel of Luke, and a man raised from the dead in the Gospel of John. Besides the mention of a “holy cause,” there’s also Lazarus’s Christ-like sacrifice of himself in order to save the universe(s) — except, unlike Christ (and the Gospel of John’s Lazarus), this episode’s Lazarus descends into Sheol and has to stay there for eternity. Clearly, there’s some kind of metaphorical content here — but a metaphor for what , exactly? I’ve always wondered if Lazarus isn’t supposed to represent a person whose relationship with reality has been permanently altered by LSD, which was still legal when this episode was written. Or is it a commentary on mental illness in general? Then there’s the title: what does “The Alternative Factor” even refer to? Obviously the two versions of Lazarus alternate with one another, but that doesn’t really seem to explain it. In the end, it’s all completely incomprehensible… but the utter strangeness of it all makes it interesting (to me, at least).

I too agree that there’s something oddly compelling about this episode, even if it is a confused and padded-out mess. I like the air of mystery, even though it is mishandled. The biggest difficulty is that Lazarus is never consistently depicted; even though the mad Lazarus is supposedly swapping throughout with the sane one, the only time he ever actually seems sane is when Kirk enters the alternate Universe to chat with him (a scene I admittedly like.)

I’m always amused when a stock astrophotograph of some galaxy or nebula is used inappropriately in a sci-fi movie, but zooming in and out on a picture of the Trifid Nebula is a particularly lazy and goofy way to show that all reality is being threatened.

The planet below, that Spock describes as “typical” with “no surprises”, has an “oxygen-hydrogen atmosphere”. That’s pretty surprising actually. Maybe Nimoy was supposed to say “nitrogen” but fluffed the line.

Look at the love pouring out for “The Alternative Factor!” The Christmas spirit must still be lingering. While it would be absurd to elevate this episode next to the best episodes of TOS, I feel it is equally absurd to pretend that it is not fascinating, and eminently rewatchable. Lazarus!

I do appreciate interesting failures! I probably won’t re-watch it any time soon, but it’s no “Plato’s Stepchildren”.

Despite the many flaws, this has always been a favorite of mine, one I would always watch in the syndication years, for the ending payoff of the sacrifice Lazarus makes.

I don’t know if the scriptwriter or Leonard Nimoy made this mistake, but at one point in the episode, Spock describes the planet as having an atmosphere composed of oxygen and hydrogen , instead of nitrogen.

If that were the case, the entire planet’s atmosphere would go up in flames with the first lightning bolt, not to mention that an Earth-sized planet would never have sufficient gravity to hold a large mass of uncombined hydrogen in its atmosphere. :P

Entirely appropriate for this episode, which IMHO, fully deserves its foul reputation.

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The Alternative Factor (Episode)

Stardate 3087.6 : A mysterious being fights himself across two realities.

Orbiting a lifeless planet, the Enterprise 's instruments detect a moment of "nonexistence" experienced throughout the universe. Starfleet Command believes it to be the prelude to an invasion, and Captain Kirk must determine its cause. When Spock 's sensors detect the sudden presence of a humanoid life form on the planet, Kirk beams down and meets Lazarus . The stranger is actually two different people: one rational, the other a madman from what is described as an " antimatter " universe. The "nonexistence" effect is the result of the irrational Lazarus passing through a dimensional corridor between universes. The sane Lazarus steals the ship's dilithium crystals to prevent his mad counterpart from using them to open the rift between the parallel universes . When he discovers the truth, Kirk aids Lazarus in trapping his insane counterpart within the dimensional corridor, and the two Lazaruses will likely remain locked in combat in that area outside spacetime for all eternity, thus assuring the safety of both universes.

Image Gallery

Lazarus' planet

Surface of Lazarus' planet

Surface of Lazarus' planet (OS20)

Assistant Engineer

Commodore Barstow

Lazarus (OS20)

Lieutenant Leslie

Lieutenant Charlene Masters

Redshirt #1

Redshirt #2

Transporter Chief

Communications station

dimensional rift

Negative Magnetic Corridor

Transporter controls

Lazarus' ship

Lazarus' ship (OS20)

Related Data

Starring William Shatner

Also Starring Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Directed by Gerd Oswald

Written by Don Ingalls

Produced by Gene L. Coon

Executive Producer Gene Roddenberry

Created by Gene Roddenberry

Associate Producer Robert H. Justman

Script Consultant Steven W. Carabatsos

Guest Star Robert Brown as Lazarus

Music Composed and Conducted by Alexander Courage

Director of Photography Jerry Finnerman

Art Directors Rolland M. Brooks and Walter M. Jefferies

Film Editor James D. Ballas , A.C.E.

Assistant to the Producer Edward K. Milkis

Assistant Director Michael S. Glick

Set Decorator Marvin March

Costumes Created by William Theiss

Post Production Executive Bill Heath

Music Editor Jim Henrikson

Sound Editor Douglas H. Grindstaff

Sound Mixer Jack F. Lilly

Photographic Effects Film Effects of Hollywood

Script Supervisor Billy Vernon

Music Consultant Wilbur Hatch

Music Coordinator Julian Davidson

Special Effects Jim Rugg

Property Master Irving A. Feinberg

Gaffer George H. Merhoff

Head Grip George Rader

Production Supervisor Bernard A. Widin

Makeup Artist Fred B. Phillips , S.M.A.

Hair Styles by Virginia Darcy , C.H.S.

Wardrobe Mistress Maragaret Makau

Casting Joseph D'Agosta

Sound Glen Glenn Sound Co.

A Desilu Production

In Association with Norway Corporation

Executive in Charge of Production Herbert F. Solow

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Episode Preview: The Alternative Factor

Star Trek: The Original Series

The Alternative Factor

Cast & crew.

Robert Brown

Lazarus/Anti-Lazarus

Janet MacLachlan

Charlene Masters

Richard Derr

Arch Whiting

Assistant engineer

Eddie Paskey

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