5. Andrea, desire, and the uneasy gender politics
Andrea (Sherry Jackson), Korby’s beautiful android assistant, is one of the most striking visuals in the episode and one of its most complicated elements. She’s explicitly designed to be pleasing, hyper-feminine, and obedient, incapable of being anything to Korby but what he built her to be.
At the same time, the story keeps nudging at the edges of that programming: Andrea reacts with hurt when Korby says she’s “not a woman,” nor could she love someone. And, ultimately, Andrea is destroyed by the one she loves when Korby uses a phaser to vaporize them both while they embrace.
For modern viewers, there’s an obvious male gaze problem in how the camera treats Andrea, and in the way her body is used as visual shorthand for temptation and danger. But if you scratch at the surface, there’s also an interesting question: if you build a person to love and obey you, what happens when they start to want something that isn’t you?
Andrea’s final act, kissing and actually loving Korby, before he presses down on the phaser's trigger and kills them both, reads as the only genuine choices she’s allowed to make. That doesn’t absolve the episode’s gender issues, but it does give you something chewy to unpack in a 60th anniversary retro review.
When combined, these five aspects make "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" one of the better, if sometimes inconsistent, episodes of the first season of Star Trek.
Beneath its androids, ancient ruins, and gothic atmosphere lies a surprisingly thoughtful examination of identity, mortality, and the temptation to escape human vulnerability altogether. The episode is still relevant 60 years later because it understands that our flaws, emotions, and limitations are not weaknesses to be discarded, but essential parts of what make us human.
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