TITLE BOUT

Episode Title:  Arena

Air Date: 1/19/1967

Written by Fredric Brown and Gene L. Coon

Directed by Joseph Pevney

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”        George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu              Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Sean Kenney as  Lieutenant DePaul            James Farley as Lieutenant Lang      Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn, Bobby Clark, and Gary Combs  as The Gorn Captain    Ted Cassidy as voice of Gorn Captain        Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent                      Jerry Ayres  as Lieutenant O'Herlihy             Grant Woods as Lieutenant Commander Kelowitz              Tom Troupe as Lt. Harold            Ron Veto as  Crewman      Carole Shelyne as the Metron       Vic Perrin as the voice of the Metron

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,  Unseen and Unnamed Gorn vessel

Planets:  Cestus III and Metros

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode begins with an away team consisting of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy and a number of supporting cast are getting ready to transport the surface of the colony for some easy-going times.  The commanding officer there is known for having the best table the galaxy.  As their mouths are salivating for some unprocessed food they are transported the surface.  When they arrive they find that the colony has been completely destroyed!  Not only was it destroyed but the attack appears to have begun days ago making the communication that they been getting false.  The unseen enemy had a plan to lure their starship into this system to so they can destroy it.  Explosions let them immediately know that the attack still ongoing.  They run for cover and find a survivor.  While the attack is continuing on the surface, a Gorn ship comes into orbit and attacks the Enterprise.  Having to raise their shields, the Enterprise cannot beam the away team back.

No Thanksgiving dinner for us!

With a communicator in one hand and a phaser in the other Captain Kirk directs both the defense on the ground and the space battle above.  Resisting the advice of Mr. Spock to let Mr. Sulu handle the Enterprise’s engagement, Kirk insisted it’s his ship and he should be there.  Through his communicator the Captain tells his Helmsman what weapons to fire, when the fire them, and when to retreat.  Lt. Sulu follows his orders firing the phasers and photon torpedoes as commanded.  When the Gorn vessel’s shields hold Sulu pilots the Enterprise out of orbit.

Fighting two battles at once. 

On the ground Captain Kirk having organized their defense strategically places his men in the best place to fire their phasers for maximum effectiveness.  He then heads to the colony’s weapon supply to grab a photon grenade launcher.  The Captain with one of his crewman then launch it destroying their opponents.

With their ground forces annihilated the Gorn ship flees, the Enterprise returns to pick up the away team.   Captain Kirk leaves a medical crew behind to help with survivors and then engages the Enterprise in a chase of their enemies.  The whole event is reminiscent of “The Balance of Terror” where an enemy ship has attack colonies and is heading home to report on the Federation’s weakness.   It then becomes the duty of their starship to prevent that from occurring. Mr. Spock initially agrees, like he did the aforementioned episode, then he becomes reluctant to become is a voice to urge caution on the part of Captain Kirk.  Where the Captain is more determined if they don’t stop that ship it could mean war.   Spock's hesitance and attempts to calm the Captain down seem rather awkward giving his rather hawkish nature in “The Balance of Terror.”  The situation they face is similar.  It seems that Mr. Spock is given a different opinion in this episode is just for the narrative purpose of vocalizing the episode's ultimate moral.

 As the Enterprise continues to pursue the Gorn vessel, Captain Kirk brings his ship up to maximum warp to catch their prey.   Then as they pass this unchartered solar system the Gorn ship drops out of warp and shuts down.  At this point Captain Kirk should really expect that something is up as he is too smart of a tactician not to suspect at the very least they are playing possum.   He doesn’t and the Enterprise falls into the same trap as the Gorn vessel and are dead in space.

The Enterprise receives communications from a group called the Metrons.  The Metrons accuse both sides of violating their space with intentions of violence.  To show them that violence is wrong they intend to destroy one or both ships.  That part doesn't make a lot of sense.  How they will determine this is the captain of each ship shall be transported to the surface where there will be weapons. The two will battle the captain who prevails will be allowed to return to his ship and allowed to leave.  The captain who fails will be killed by his opponent and his ship destroyed by the Metrons.  With that Captain Kirk disappears from the bridge.

The meanest reptile in the galaxy!

Kirk is teleported to the surface of Metros (that resembles some deserts you’d see in the Southwest United States or Spain) and beside him is the captain of the Gorn ship.  The Gorn are race of reptiles and the Gorn Captain is a mean looking one at that.  Kirk decides that now is good time to enter one of his famous Captains Logs, in which he details that he has a natural revulsion towards reptiles.  He challenges himself to overcome this bigotry and remind himself that his opponent is a starship captain just like him.  He is cunning and dangerous.  As they each reach for a club it becomes clear the Gorn can carry a bigger club. 

At the start the battle Captain Kirk unleashes an attack using martial arts skills are famed throughout the universe for his debilitating strikes, speed of attack, and precision. The attack Kirk lays out would’ve put down any other man.  But Kirk wasn’t fighting a human, he was fighting a Gorn.  The Gorn thick reptilian hide made all of Kirk’s strikes as useless as if you were punching a rubber suit.  Fortunately for Kirk what the Gorn had in toughness he lacks in speed.  The Gorn Captain could only strike at the speed of glue allowing for Kirk to make an easy escape. 

After escaping the Gorn Kirk decides to use recording device provided to him by their captors, as opposed to his non-existent Captain's Log.  He says he records for whatever might receive this and he lets them know that he is looking for the weapons that were promised but he can’t find any the only thing he sees is loose materials.  While Captain Kirk is recording his frustrations of looking at rocks the Gorn is busy building a number of Kirk-traps.

Kirk returns to see the Gorn building one of the traps for him and notices above head a large rock.  At this point the episode seems to have turned into a Roadrunner and the Coyote cartoon.  Kirk climbs the mountain and pushes the rock off to land right on top of the Gorn.  Kirk is happy and victory skips down to see what he hopes to be the dead Gorn but to his surprise it turns out the Gorn’s hide is tougher than he thought and the Gorn easily pushes off the rock.

Looking to get the drop on him. 

Kirk then decides to make a run for it but ends up running into one of those Kirk-traps, and it looks like the good Captain is done for.  However the Gorn made a miscalculation, just as Kirk forgot how tough the Gorn were the Gorn Captain forgot how fast Captain Kirk was.  As he moves the object pinning Kirk the Starfleet officer scurries away.

Not looking good!

Kirk continues to give a blow-by-blow description in his recording device and in the one of the most funny moments of the episode we learn the entire time Kirk’s been recording he’s actually been transmitting to his opponent with a translation.  The Gorn Captain allows Kirk to know this, he communicates back to him and to tell Kirk that he’s been beaten and there is nothing that he could do about it.  However the Gorn has grown tired of chasing him around and wants Captain Kirk to accept the inevitable and just wait for him.  The Gorn Captain promises a swift and easy death for Captain Kirk if he is good enough to cooperate.  The Captain doesn’t think this is a good idea, but he does stop recording or to prevent the Gorn Captain from knowing everything is going to do.  During their disagreement the Gorn Captain revealed that the colony they attacked was in space that had already been claimed by the Gorn.  They felt they were defending themselves.

The funniest moment in the episode.

As the battle went on the Metrons decide to give the crew of the Enterprise bad news.  They are informed there Captain is losing and they should begin whatever religious rites they have to prepare for death.  The Metrons decide to allow the crew of the Enterprise to see the battle on their viewscreen.  Since Kirk is no longer giving commentary the audience gets to have it from Mr. Spock who described was going through the Captain’s mind.  Kirk has been surrounded the entire time with materials for gunpowder which he eventually figures out.  He built himself a makeshift cannon and uses it to defeat the Gorn.  With the Gorn at his mercy Kirk refuses to kill him for the satisfaction of the Metrons.  This impresses the Metrons, whose leader appears before Kirk and agrees to allow both ships to leave.   Kirk hopes there can be negotiations with the Gorn, and also have negotiations with the Metrons in the few thousand years that the Metrons thought it might take for us to catch up with them. 

The power of gunpowder

Additional thoughts: Interesting story about how this episode was written: Gene L. Coon had written the story independently but it was discovered to be very similar to a story written in a science fiction magazine in the 1940s.  Coon was afraid that he had plagiarized subconsciously so he contacted the author, Frederic Brown and bought the rights to the story from him. 

The episode is brilliant I love the way Captain Kirk was portrayed in the first act: commanding both the ground and space forces against the enemy.   I also love the similarities with “The Balance of Terror” which lead to a great misdirection to where the audience thinks the episode is going.  The end of the episode we see Kirk’s brain prevail over the enemy’s brawn. 

I didn’t really particularly care for the way Spock was written of this episode is seemed his sole purpose was to act as a sounding board for Kirk or as a general narrator.

Crew looking in on their Captain!

Some notable returning guests stars Ted Cassidy who played the fake voice of Balok in “The Corbomite Maneuver” and the android Ruk in “What Are Little Girls Made of?” is featured in this episode as the voice of the Gorn Captain.  Sean Kenney who played the disabled Fleet Captain Pike in “The Menagerie” is here playing Lieutenant DePaul, whose just as talkative as Pike even with a healthy set of lungs.              

Another strange Captain's Log entry made even stranger that Kirk started to use the recording device given.  Is the Captain's Log recorded post adventure? Why does Kirk use the present tense?  Is he hoping to publish them into his written memoirs someday?  I openly laughed when we find that Kirk recording into the Metrons' device was actually broadcasting to the Gorn. It is really funny. 

 

The photo next to the word "hypocrite" in the dictionary. 

Metrons are some of the biggest hypocritical characters we’ve ever seen in on this series.  The Gorn attack because they were afraid the Federation was encroaching on their territory and they felt threatened.  Kirk wanted to destroy the Gorn ship because of their ruthless attack on the colony.  The Metrons denounce both sides for violence and because of it they threaten violence.  Now I can understand the Metrons not caring for the Gorn and the Federation for bringing their fight into Metron territory.  Unfortunately for the Metrons that would morally put them on the same space as a Gorn and the Federation.  But their poop doesn’t stink.  They have the morally lecture everyone about their problem with violence and enforce their decision with violence.  They don’t let the Federation vessel in the Gorn vessel to battle each other with one ship being destroyed.  They would rather have the captains fight it out and they destroyed the losing ship for them.  I am failing to see how they are moral in any way superior to anyone else.  They said that human race would not be ready to deal with them for at least thousands of more years, and I say good riddance.

(FINAL GRADE 5 of 5)