Star Trek Logo 'The Conscience of the King'

by Barry Trivers
Star Trek Cast

The Enterprise is contacted by Doctor Thomas Leighton concerning a new synthetic food concentrate. But when he is beamed aboard, Leighton reveals to Kirk that his real reason for contacting him was to inform him that he suspects Anton Karidian, the head actor of a travelling theatre troupe called the Karidian Players which recently arrived on Planet Q, is in fact 'Kodos the Executioner', the former governor and war-criminal of Tarsus IV. Twenty-two years ago, a severe food shortage on Tarsus IV led to Kodos evoking emergency martial law and ordering the execution of half the planet's population; it was believed that Kodos died on the planet, but some believe that he may have escaped and assumed another identity. The only surviving witnesses to Kodos' crimes are Kirk, Doctor Leighton and Lieutenant Kevin Riley; over the years, everyone else who knew Kodos has been mysteriously killed in suspicious accidents. When Leighton is then murdered, Kirk agrees to transport the Karidian, his daughter Lenore and the rest of the players to the Benecia Colony on board his ship; however, his real motive is to study Karidian to ascertain if he really is Kodos, and responsible for the death of Leighton. But after Riley is poisoned, Kirk soon learns that even if Karidian is Kodos, he may not be the real murderer after all…

William Shatner (Captain James Tiberius Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (First Officer Lieutenant Commander Spock), DeForest Kelley (Doctor Leonard H. ‘Bones’ McCoy), Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Nyota Uhura), Arnold Moss (Anton Karidian / Kodos), Barbara Anderson (Lenore Karidian), Grace Lee Whitney (Yeoman Janice Rand), Bruce Hyde (Lieutenant Kevin Riley), Karl Bruck (King Duncan), Marc Adams (Hamlet), Eddie Paskey (Lieutenant Leslie), David Troi (Lieutenant Matson), Natalie Norwick (Martha Leighton), William Sargent (Doctor Thomas Leighton), Majel Barrett (Computer Voice)

Directed by Gerd Oswald

TX:
8th December, 1966

Notes:
*Featuring Captain James Tiberius Kirk, First Officer Lieutenant Commander Spock, Doctor Leonard H. ‘Bones’ McCoy, Lieutenant Nyota Uhura, Lieutenant Kevin Riley, Lieutenant Leslie and Yeoman Janice Rand