TV Verdict

“The Conscience of the King”

Man, Star Trek is on a run right now. Last week’s episodes, “The Corbomite Maneuver” and “The Menagerie,” were pretty awesome (particularly “Corbomite”; “The Menagerie” was merely good) and set a high bar for this week’s installments. What an unbelievable happy surprise that these episodes are as good or better. We’ve got the first appearance of the Romulans. We’ve got Shakespeare. We’ve got important backstory and mythology. We’ve got a giant bunny suit. If I didn’t have to stop and write about every episode, I’d be getting through them a whole lot faster — they’re so good that I want to watch the next one instantly.

But here’s something depressing I learned from “Memory Alpha,” the Star Trek Wiki page: the episodes I watched this week are numbers 13, 14 and 15 of 80 in The Original Series. I’m not even a quarter of the way done. What’s worse is that I’m only at 15 out of 727 total Star Trek shows. While I remain enthusiastic about watching every episode of every Star Trek, that number is a little disheartening. This Boldly Going project is going to take a while. Like, a loooong while. Like, people may actually be flying around in spaceships by the time I’m done. It’s the future!

Stardate: 2817.6

Original Air Date: December 8, 1966

The Story: Kirk is summoned to the Planet Q by his friend Dr. Thomas Leighton under the guise that the doctor has discovered a new kind of synthetic food. Once there, however, Leighton reveals his true motivation: he believes that Anton Karidian (Arnold Moss), a member of the Shakespearean theater troupe performing on Planet Q, is actually Kodos the Executioner — the man responsible for the murder of thousand of people decades earlier.

Kirk, skeptical of the actor’s identity (though less so after Leighton mysteriously turns up dead), convinces Karidian’s actress daughter to bring the troupe aboard the Enterprise for a performance. Spock, confused and suspicious as to why Kirk would offer transport to civilians (especially on a course that’s out of the Enterprise’s way), begins conducting his own research on Kodos the Executioner. He discovers that Kodos ordered the deaths of over 4,000 people on the planet Tarsus IV when their food supply became scarce. Applying his theories of “eugenics,” Kodos determined who should live and who should die according to his own standards of superior breeding and genetics. Ultimately, the murders weren’t even necessary, as Tarsus IV received aid and supplies to provide for the entire population. Among those murdered on Tarsus IV were the families of Dr. Leighton and Captain Kirk, and both men — along with Lt. Kevin Riley, also aboard the Enterprise — are (or were, in Leighton’s case) the only surviving humans who could possibly identify the long-rumored dead Kodos.

After attempts are made on the lives of both Kirk and Riley (who is poisoned and put into a coma), the captain attempts to confirm the identity of Karidian/Kodos, who is able to remember the murderer’s final words without reading from the paper Kirk has provided. Riley, awaking from his coma, overhears McCoy recording his log and suggesting that the actor might be Kodos, then sneaks away to kill Kodos himself during a staging of Hamlet. Before he can exact his revenge, Kirk confronts Karidian and his daughter, Lenore, and it’s revealed that it is Lenore who has been murdering the eyewitnesses to protect her father from their vengeance. As she attempts to shoot Kirk with a phaser, Karidian sacrifices himself and jumps in the way, dying in the process. Lenore, overcome with grief, blocks the entire incident from her mind and rewrites history to believe her father is still alive.

Reflections from a First Timer: “The Conscience of the King” is a rare Star Trek episode (thus far) in that I liked it more and more upon reflection. I certainly enjoyed it while I was watching it — there’s some great Spock/McCoy banter (about the effects of alchohol and the fact that Vulcan was conqured, which I didn’t know until now) and another solid performance by Shatner as a man torn between responsible leadership and his own desire for revenge, plus a lot of cool Shakespearean overtones (even the title of the episode is pulled from the final lines of Hamlet) that recall (or, more accurately, predict) elements of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country. It’s an entertaining hour of the series that suffers a little from being sandwiched between “The Corbomite Maneuver” and “Balance of Terror,” two really awesome episodes (yes, I know “The Menagerie” is in there, too, but I’ve almost forgotten about it already) that showcase Star Trek at its best.

The more I thought about “Conscience of the King,” however, the more it resonated with me. In much the same way that Spock skirts the rules and laws to achieve an endgame in “The Menagerie,” so Kirk does here; watching the captain venture into some moral grey area for reasons he believes to be right offers us to see another side of the character. And while I drew some comparisons between the “perfect robot race” of “What Are Little Girls Made Of?” with Hitler’s vision of Germany, that might have been a stretch. It’s most definitely not a stretch to make the same comparisons with “The Conscience of the King,” as it’s clearly a show about holding former Nazis/war criminals accountable for their actions (the introduction of the whole “eugenics” concept really drives the point home). It’s a tricky area for a network science-fiction series, but it’s handled with care and maturity. While it’s clear that Kodos is a monster, the consequences for his actions aren’t so black and white. Yes, Kirk wants revenge, but he’s not willing to exact it without consideration of what that means (not being sure of Kodos’ identity doesn’t help). It’s what separates the good guys from the bad ones.

The episode also features another goofy, very-’60s song by Uhura (she’s singing to Riley over comms, right before his milk is dosed with poison from a spray bottle. Feel free to read that again). The musical break — like the one in “Charlie X” — reminds us that the show is still something of a product of its time. Too often, it’s easy to think of Star Trek as a show unto itself, removed from any time period or context. Whether that’s because it deals in far-out concepts of the future and space travel or because its legacy has made it timeless I couldn’t say. Every once in a while, though, something pops up that brings us right back into 1966.

Enterprise Casualties: None.

Badass Kirk Moment: “If I had gotten everything I wanted, you might not walk out of this room alive.” Bam! Served!

“Balance of Terror”

Stardate: 1709.2

Original Air Date: December 15, 1966

The Story: While presiding over a wedding ceremony between two Enterprise crew members, Captain Kirk learns that someone or something is destroying federation space stations. The most recent station destroyed is Outpost 4, a station near the forbidden Romulan Neutral Zone. Though the humans and the Romulans have never seen one another (they’ve communicated by radio only), Kirk begins to suspect that it’s the Romulans who are responsible for destroying the outposts.

Surprise, surprise — Kirk is right. A Romulan Bird of Prey has attacked the Federation and is in the process of returing to Romulus to report back on Starfleet’s weaknesses. Spock is able to hack into the Romulan’s onboard cameras, and the entire crew is shocked at their first glimpse of the Romulan race — they look identical to Vulcans. Spock suggests that the Romulan race evolved from the Vulcans, but that they do not possess all the same traits, such as the endless embrace of logic. The similarities between the two races cause one crewman, Lt. Stiles (who lost family during the war with the Romulans), to become highly suspect of Spock.

The remainder of the episode follows the ensuing battle of wits, agility, power and skill between the two ships and their captains. Though the Enterprise is faster and more maneuverable, the Romulan Bird of Prey has a cloaking device that allows it to become invisible, as well as a massively powerful phaser cannon onboard capable of destroying any opponent. Ultimately, Kirk and crew get the better of the Romulans. With their adversaries facing defeat and death, Kirk extends an offer to the Romulan captain to beam their crew aboard and save their lives. The Romulan captian, who has gained tremendous respect for Kirk as an equal in combat, declines the offer and says that it is not the Romulan way just before triggering the self-destruct device on the Bird of Prey.

Reflections from a First Timer: Wow. “Balance of Terror” is the first Star Trek episode devoted almost solely to combat, and another in a steady streak of ass-kicking episodes (seriously, Star Trek is killing it right now and making it very difficult for me to choose my favorite episodes). The show is set up like an old-school submarine duel, meaning that even more than in “The Corbomite Maneuver,” we get to see how Kirk and crew are in a fight. It turns out they are awesome. Essentially an hour-long battle between the two ships (in some ways anticipating The Wrath of Khan, making this the second time in two episodes that the film series can be seen to have drawn influence from specific episodes — and, yes, I know that Khan draws much more from “The Space Seed” than “Balance of Terror,” but the similarities are still there), the show offers the chance not just to see how Kirk uses his wits about him in battle but also how the Enterprise handles in combat. It turns out it’s awesome.

Here’s where having seen most of the films already has me at a disadvantage: the first time the Enterprise crew sees the Romulans, there is a long (looong) pause where we get to see every crewmember’s stunned reaction. I’m assuming that’s because the Romulan captain is played by Mark Lenard, who would go on to play Spock’s father, Sarek, in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and several subsequent Star Trek films. I instantly recognized him as Spock’s father, and assumed that the Enterprise crew were shocked because why was Spock’s dad commanding a Romulan vessel? I asked myself the very same thing. Obviously, I was way off and the reaction was actually due to the fact that the Romulans look just like the Vulcans (which I also had no way of knowing, as the only Romulans I’ve seen look like Eric Bana’s Nero in the 2009 Star Trek). It turns out that Lenard plays Sarek in later episodes of The Original Series, too, but having not seen them yet I couldn’t possibly have known.

This being Star Trek, we do get a few little lessons shoehorned in amidst all the space battle coolness. The most heavy-handed example is yet another lesson about tolerance: Lt. Stiles begins to resent Spock once he learns of the similar ancestry between Vulcans and the hated Romulans, but realizes his own prejudices after Spock risks his own life to save Stiles. This, to me, approaches the subject of racism with a simplicity that’s uncharacteristic of the show; it would have been much stronger for Riley to realize that he’s being unfair to Spock — and to all Vulcans — on his own, without the broad gesture of possible self-sacrifice from Spock. I’m not opposed to Riley wrestling with these feelings. I just feel like it was resolved in too obvious a way. Still, it’s a relatively minor sticking point in an episode that’s otherwise terrific.

Enterprise Casualites: Crewman Tomlinson never does make it to his wedding day.

Badass Kirk Moment: The entirety of “Balance of Terror” is a badass Kirk moment.

“Shore Leave”

Stardate: 3025.3

Original Air Date: December 29, 1966

The Story: The crew of the Enterprise puts its mission on hold so that they can take some much-needed shore leave on an Earth-like planet in the Omicron Delta System. Once on the planet’s surface, the crew begins seeing strange things that are difficult to explain: McCoy sees a giant rabbit with a pocket watch being chased by a young blonde girl (in case it’s not clear, it’s Alice in Wonderland); Kirk encounters — and is again harassed by — Finnegan, a childhood bully; Sulu is attacked by samurai and Yeoman Tonia Barrows is accosted by Don Juan.

Spock beams down to investigate what’s going on, but the strange occurrences continue. A medieval knight charges the group, and when McCoy steps in front of Yeoman Barrows to prove that these hallucinations can’t hurt him he’s run through and killed. Kirk shoots the knight, who upon closer examination appears to be created out of plant life from the planet itself. Both the bodies of McCoy and the plantknight disappear during an attack from a fighter jet in which crew member Angela Martine is gunned down and killed.

After a long fistfight with Finnegan, Kirk and Spock deduce that the strange visions everyone is experiencing are actually being conjured up by their thoughts. Kirk orders everyone to clear their minds; immediately afterwards, an old man appears and explains just that, likening the planet to an amusement park that’s meant be enjoyed. After returning a very-much-alive McCoy to the crew (acompanied by two showgirls), the old man explains that humans would be unable to comprehend the workings of the special planet. All the same, he invites the crew of the Enterprise down to the surface to conjure up any fantasy they like and enjoy the rest of their shore leave. Kirk gladly takes him up on the offer, but Spock decides to return to the ship, having had all the shore leave he can handle.

Reflections from a First Timer: I’m going to float a theory about “Shore Leave” that actually speaks to the circumstances under which I’m viewing Star Trek: if I was simply watching a new episode as it aired each week, an installment like “Shore Leave” might leave me disappointed and a little annoyed. Watching the show in bigger, multi-episode chunks the way I am for this Boldly Going experiment, however, made “Shore Leave” a welcome respite from the intesity of the last few episodes. It’s the first real light-hearted episode of Star Trek I’ve seen, and while it’s not exactly comedic it certainly is goofy at times. Compared to the episodes that came right before it, the stakes are relatively low — pretty much nonexistant, really.

“Shore Leave” reminded me of “The Naked Time,” actually, largely because that episode, too, was somewhat lighthearted and both plots rely on the inner conscious of the characters. “The Naked Time” played that particular game more effectively, though, because the manifestation of their subconsciousnesses actually revealed something about each character; aside from learning that Kirk was bullied when he was younger, not much is revealed about the inner minds and lives of the crew in “Shore Leave.” What happens is just a result of something they happen to be thinking about, not necessarily their fears, passions or what drives them. It doesn’t make for a less entertaining episode, but it does make for a less essential episode. It’s fun and goofy and not much else. Coming as it did at the end of a large block of shows, I didn’t mind that. It was as much a break for me as it was for the crew of the Enterprise, but now I’m ready to get back down to it.

Enterprise Casualties: Bones bites it, but only for a bit, as does crew member Angela Martine (whose husband Robert was just killed in “Balance of Terror.”)

Badass Kirk Moment: Man, that fistfight just goes on and on. John Carpenter must have had this in mind when he devised the Roddy Piper/Keith David alley fight in They Live.