What are little girls made of is an odd episode, but upon reflection a pretty good one. The theme of what makes a human and if a machine can be human gets explored a lot more in TNG, but this is an interesting way to introduce the idea. Majel Barrett plays a major role in this episode as the fiancee of the lost genius medical archaeologist Roger Korby. In classic trek fashion Korby's reputation is established with the simple statement that one of his books is standard reading at the academy, so in addition to having the love of nurse Chapel, he has the instant respect of Kirk. After establishing contact Korby requests that the captain beam down alone, and since he is so respected it can't possibly be a trap!
It's a trap. Kirk, Chapel and two red shirts beam down, and within 3 minutes both red shirts are killed by a mysterious figure in a goofy puffy jacket. Kirk and Chapel are greeted by Korby's assistant Dr. Brown who seems both totally certain the red shirts are dead, and also totally cool with it. They also meet the beautiful but cold Andrea, but more on her on a minute because in comes the main attraction, Dr. Korby. After passionately kissing Chapel. And then kinda out of the blue Dr. Brown pulls a phaser on Kirk who doesn't stand for that garbage and blasts him hard enough blow a hole in him but not hard enough for a full vaporization. Which is lucky because this reveals he is an robot!
Korby keeps insisting that everything is cool and he can explain, but never seems to get to the actual explaining. Instead he has the hulking puffy jacket android named Ruk fake Kirk's voice to call back to the Enterprise and reassure Spock. Then to prove things are totally cool and not shady at all Korby makes an android clone of Kirk, insists it isn't to replace him, and then sends it up to the ship to steal some sort of secret command codes. But the real Kirk is way smarter than that and tricks android Kirk into thinking he is hella racist against Spock, so when Spock encounters the android he is clued in pretty quick since real Kirk is only kinda hella racist.
Meanwhile Kirk is trying to teach the beautiful Andrea (yeah, also an android, see a theme here?) how to love, which confuses her poor logic brain. He also convinces Ruk (who is actually millions of years old) that Korby is the real threat. Finally things come to a head when all the androids (including Korby to the surprise of no one by this point) go all Hamlet and kill each other leaving only Kirk and Chapel. Spock bravely arrives after all this is over to be supportive I guess.
Reviewish part: Given the state of computer technology when this episode was made it isn't all that different from the ideas expressed in TNG about androids, but then again these are largely the same issues brought up in classic Metropolis by Fritz Lang. Some of the alleged logic traps seem kinda shallow, but overall a good episode.
6 out of 10
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