We met Dr. Helen Noel in Dagger Of The Mind. What kind of a doctor is she? She's a psychiatrist.
Helen Noel first met Jim Kirk at the science lab Christmas party. At that time, they partied, danced together, and after, took a little stroll and chatted about the stars. That's as far as it went.
When Kirk sees her again, it's in the transporter room, right before he's about to beam down to the Tantalus colony. Noel can't understand why Kirk doesn't seem happy to see her. She obviously was expecting a much warmer welcome. Confused by his coldness, and thinking that perhaps he simply doesn't remember her, she reminds Kirk of how and when they met. Oddly, Kirk gets very uptight and shushes her up. Very strange.
Spock (who witnesses this) seems very curious to know all about how it is that Kirk has met her before. That too seems strange.
Strangest of all is when Kirk actually crosses the room to Spock, and stands next to Spock as he makes a big deal out of shutting Noel down, firmly. Poor Noel doesn't know WHAT to think, now.
She's in good company. Many fans of the show don't know what to make of that scene either.
Later in the episode, Kirk is mechanically hypnotized by bad guy Dr. Adams into thinking that he is insanely in love with Dr. Noel. Noel is horrified by this. She would have liked it if Kirk had genuine lust/love for her, but this artificial ardor of his sickens her, the way it would sicken any decent person.
To Noel's credit, she proves herself to be a brave and capable lady with a moral core. While incarcerated by their foe, Kirk asked her to crawl through a duct and go interfere with the security field power supply, and although she had no idea what she was about, she gamely gave it a go, anyway.
"Mega-voltage" Kirk warned. "Touch the wrong line and you're dead."
"Anything's better than Adams's treatment room!" the gallant Noel replied, and dove into the duct.
The beauty of it is, she was successful. She had to crawl through the ducts and find her way without a map, and fight with one of Adam's goons and defeat him by kicking him into the electrical field (nice fireworks), so it wasn't easy, but yes, she was successful! Hey, hey, Noel! You GO GIRL!
With the force field down, Spock could beam down, and it was all downhill from there. So Noel was the heroine of the hour!
Noel has to several times remind Kirk that his love for her is false. She's doing that very thing at the end when Spock suddenly busts in and sees them locked in an embrace. He seems very surprised to catch Kirk hugging a woman. Why Spock thinks that's surprising is not explained. I mean, it's not really like there is anything wrong with her. She's pretty, and smart, and nice, n stuff.
Hmm. Strange.
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