THE PLOT
The Enterprise arrives at an observation outpost whose commander is an old friend of Kirk's, for what Kirk hopes and expects will be a relaxing visit. Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and a couple redshirts beam down... right into the ruins of the outpost, which has suffered a massive attack! The Away Team come under attack by an unseen force in short order. They manage to hold out until the ship can rescue them, but the colony has been completely wiped out.
Back on Enterprise, Kirk obsessively pursues the attackers' ship, determined to avenge the lost colony. Abruptly, however, both Enterprise and the other ship are frozen in space. Kirk is transported to a planet below, where a super race (*drink*) makes Kirk do battle with his enemy - the lizard-like Gorn captain. Whoever wins, will be allowed to go on his way. Whoever loses will not only die, but lose his entire ship as well!
CHARACTERS
Capt. Kirk: Kirk gets to indulge his inner Ahab this episode, in his obsessive pursuit of the Gorn ship. He shuts out all other possible explanations for the attack, insisting that this can only be the prelude to an invasion. In the early scenes, at the destroyed outpost, we see Kirk's prioritizing of his ship above himself and his command crew, insisting to Sulu that the navigator protect the Enterprise first, and worry about the Away Team second. The last part of the episode also shows Kirk's resourcefulness. The Gorn is clearly stronger than Kirk, but he uses his wits to combat the creature, and ultimately turns the tables.
Spock: Gets to be the voice of caution and reason during the first half of the episode, pointing out that there are alternative explanations for the attack than invasion, and seeming to try to deflect Kirk away from his anger as much as he can. Beyond that, there isn't much for him to do in this episode - though watching Kirk's combat on the viewscreen in the latter part of the episode, he puts the pieces of Kirk's victory together even as the captain does.
Villain of the Week: The Gorn. They are most effective in the first half of the episode, as an unseen enemy attacking relentlessly and mercilessly. Once Kirk comes face-to-face with the Gorn, it loses much of its effectiveness, simply because it turns out to be a guy in an unwieldly, fake-looking lizardman costume! The remastered edition does try to offset the artificiality of the costume by having the Gorn blink, which sells the effect a bit better than in the original version.
LET'S PLAY... ZAP THE REDSHIRT!
Redshirt count: Two. Crewman O'Herlihy barely survives past the titles, zapped by a disintegrator ray after leadenly intoning, "Captain, I think I see something!" Well, at least he got a line in. That's more than can be said for Crewman Lang, who is zapped off-camera, with another redshirt reporting "They got Lang."
THOUGHTS
OK, I'm officially tired of superbeings. In first season Trek, Gene Roddenberry apparently had an obsession with advanced, superior, godlike beings, and by this point, superbeings have simply become a cliche. What's more, this episode could have worked without them. Kirk could have gone one-on-one with the Gorn on the outpost world, with the two ships away, to much the same effect and even with much the same solution. We might have lost the "Ahab Kirk" bit in the middle, with the obsessive pursuit, but I think I would have preferred that to the intervention of yet another superrace.
This bunch of superbeings is also a bit capricious. The rules are laid out for Kirk and Gorn at the start of the encounter: Kill the other, and live; fail to kill the other, and your crew dies along with you. Then, at the end, after Kirk refuses to finish his opponent off, the superbeing conveniently reveals that this was a test. If Kirk had killed the enemy, then Kirk and his ship would have been destroyed. Oh, very nice - so if Kirk had placed the 400+ lives aboard the Enterprise above the life of the vicious lizard creature, had killed the Gorn out of necessity if nothing else, he and Enterprise would have been zapped? I get that TOS is often a series of morality plays, but this instance feels less like "morality" and more like "Gotcha!"
Grumbles aside, the episode is really very good. This was a personal favorite when I was a kid, and I was pleased to see that - lizard suit and all - it actually does hold up. The pace is intense, with both encounters carrying a distinct sense of danger. I admit, I preferred the destroyed outpost as a setting to the generic planet, but both combats are well-realized. I liked seeing Kirk using his brain to first stay alive, then win. Without cheesy voice-overs, we are able to follow Kirk's reasoning at every stage of the latter combat. The last parts of this are explicitly sold, with the intercuts to Spock, but even before that, director and actor sell Kirk's thinking process through POV shots and Shatner's face. It's quite well-done. The most action-intensive episode of Trek yet, but it isn't dumb action.
Rating: 7/10. Almost an "8." But I have to admit, I'm getting a bit burned out on morally superior superbeings.
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I gave this episode a 9.
ReplyDeleteIn the 1960s when the ep aired, we viewers were willing to be tolerant of the cheap reptile costume. We knew that they couldn't do much better on a TV sized budget--the monsters on shows like Outer Limits and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea were no better designed. (In fact, Wah Chang was the designer of both the Gorn and a number of creatures for Outer Limits.) It's willing suspension of disbelief--ignore the costume and focus on the story.
The first act of this ep featured some dandy ground war action, with disrupters against hand phasers until Kirk finds a grenade launcher.
Meanwhile, Sulu commands the Big E against the Gorn ship, firing both phasers and photon torpedoes (one of the few eps where both are employed).
The action and suspense in this ep are definitely above par.
9/10