10 Greatest TV Bottle Episodes

Gene Roddenberry’s space opera was one of the first shows to utilise bottle episodes for their most practical of purposes: cut costs for one episode and you’ll have more money to spend down the line. Early instalment The Enemy Within takes this notion to its logical extreme, having William Shatner double down as good and evil Captain Kirks.

The majority of the action here takes place in the confines of the Enterprise, and is based on the somewhat unlikely notion that Shatner is able to convincingly act two distinct characters at once. Needless to say, he goes for broke as Kirk’s evil doppelganger: it’s a frenzied, scenery chewing performance even by Shatner’s standards, and it’s great fun.

This was the fifth ever episode of Star Trek, and it’s bold move: to fully enjoy it requires a decent knowledge of the players, who we’ve really just met. The Enemy Within does a great job of fleshing out what would become iconic TV characters, though, from Kirk on down.

Star Trek would return to the bottle episode well repeatedly in its various iterations, but The Enemy Within was the first classic bottle they managed, and perhaps the first classic episode full stop. It’s a great way to bring new viewers into the franchise.