Episode Title: The Gamesters of Triskelion
Air Date: 1/5/1968
Written by Margaret
Armen
Directed by Gene
Nelson
Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk Leonard Nimoy as Commander Spock DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones” James Doohan as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty” Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Booker Bradshaw as Dr. Joseph M'Benga Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley Victoria George as Ensign Jana Haines Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman Angelique Pettyjohn as Shahna Joseph Ruskin as Galt Steve Sandor as Lars Dick Crockett as Andorian Thrall Jane Ross as Tamoon Mickey Morton as Kloog Bart La Rue as Provider #1 Walker Edmiston as Provider #2 Bob Johnson as Provider #3
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701
Planets: Gamma II, Triskelion
My Spoiler filled summary and review: On a routine mission to the uninhabited planet Gamma II Kirk is taking Uhura and Chekov to accompany him. As they are preparing to beam down the trio mysteriously vanish. Now they came to the transporter room to do a scheduled vanish, but this was instantaneous and not transporter-like. Scotty calls the bridge in a panic, while Mr. Spock provides calm and steady leadership in a search for the missing crewmembers.
 |
| Where are we? Transporters don't work like this! |
It turns out that this blinking transportation takes quite a bit out of you. As the three manage to get up with some aches and pains, they then find themselves under attack by four alien warriors, two male and two female. One of the female attackers looks like Lady Gaga. Kirk orders his team to pull out their phasers, but they quickly discover that the phasers don’t work. So Kirk tells them to prepare for hand to hand combat.
 |
| Uhura outnumbered but doing good |
One of the male warriors attacks Kirk and that is his bad luck for he chosen to engage in battle with greatest warrior in the known galaxy. Kirk using his speed and grace handles his opponent with ease while Ensign Chekov struggles with his. Uhura gets attacked two-on-one but holds her own. The fight ends after the Gaga lookalike sees her fellow struggling against Kirk and goes to help him. Then a man who identifies himself as Master Thrall Galt, shows up and ends the battle.
Galt somehow knows the name of Captain Kirk and the other two Enterprise crewmembers. He claims he is going to help them. It turns out "by helping them" means he is going to chain them to a wall. He explains that they are now all thralls to the Providers. Their status is thralls-in-training. The trio are then taken off the wall and given simple “collars of obedience.” They’re about to be brought to their individual cells when they make their first escape attempt. The collars however prevent this as their activation gives them all sudden pain.
 |
| Galt helping |
Each of the Enterprise crew gets to have a drill thrall. Kirk lucks out and gets Shahna, the Lady Gaga look alike. She is not only beautiful but is very informative. From her Kirk learns that they are all considered to be chattel slaves under the Providers. The thralls are taught to think of themselves this way as she calls her mother “the one that bore me” and talks of that woman's death as it were just another piece of factual information. She thinks of mating as something that she will be assigned with the mate selected when it is time to increase the heard. Shahna is also starting to develop feelings for Captain Kirk as she is this episode's love interest.
 |
| Lessons in pain |
The other two crew members are not
so lucky Lt. Uhura is nearly assaulted but she manages to fight her drill
thrall off. There is even a dramatic cut to commercial scene where she is screaming and Captain Kirk is yelling "What is happening to Lt. Uhura!?!" We get back from this word-with-our-sponsors and turns out everything is fine and Uhura's drill thrall leaves in frustration. Ensign Chekov’s drill thrall
is clearly sexually attracted to him but she is not conventionally attractive
as Shahna. In fact she seems to creep
poor Mr. Chekov right out.
Throughout this episode there is a continuing subplot on the Enterprise with the remaining crew running around desperately looking for their lost crewmembers. Scotty and Dr. McCoy are in an utter panic, especially Scotty since he was running the transporter when the three disappeared. Both of them however are continuously on the bridge and figuratively stepping on Mr. Spock’s toes questioning every decision he makes. Mr. Spock, as it is in his character, takes a calm and rational approach to solving the problem. Actually is one the best examples of Spock showing leadership in the series with Bones and Scotty both looking like they could have a stroke at any moment Mr. Spock is the anchor keeping everyone all on task. Chekov’s fill-in Ensign Haines picks up an ion trail that is their first hint since this nightmare began. With McCoy and Scotty about to have a seizure, Spock takes the ship on that trail.
 |
| Not a happy Ensign |
Back on Triskelion—which is the planet that our heroes were taken to—Kirk, Chekov, and Uhura are going over their training to the thralls. While this is happening they bring out one of their fellow thralls who had been disobedient and therefore had to be punished. It was commanded that this thrall shall be the target in their practice sessions. Uhura refuses to participate in her two crewmates join her. As all three are now going to face consequences, Captain Kirk volunteers take full responsibility and be punished solely.
 |
| Kirk taking on some else's punishment |
Kirk is then told he will take the place of the original disobedient thrall and become the target. His punishment begins with one of the training thralls continuously whipping the Captain. This thrall punishing Kirk is in for a bit of trouble, as Captain Kirk is still the greatest fighter in the known universe. Kirk begins fighting back against his tormentor defeating him even though he’s at a disadvantage. At this point we get our first glimpse at the Providers when we hear their disembodied voices making bids on Captain Kirk. One of the providers wins and buys all three Enterprise crewmembers and they get new red collars. The rest of the Providers start taking bets on how soon Captain Kirk will have to be destroyed. They warn that since they are now fully trained any disobedience will result in their immediate destruction.
 |
| Kirk and his Lady |
The threat of immediate destruction
turns out to be something of a bluff however because the Providers start to
find Kirk very entertaining and he is given a much longer leash in which to operate.
While training with Shahna they come across some old ruins and Kirk starts to
question her about the history of the Providers. She resists his questions but is clear that
she is very attracted to him and she starts to fall for the Captain. Then the Providers start to punisher to which
Kirk screams out that they need to punish him instead. They relent and let her go. The Providers send Galt
to warn Kirk that such disturbances will not be tolerated forever. Despite this warning Kirk still tries another
escape attempt where he tries to short out the collars.
The Enterprise finally arrives in orbit around Triskelion but is unable to accomplish anything because the Providers managed to shut the ship down with their power. As the Providers are communicating with the Enterprise Kirk discovers that he can communicate with them as well. Kirk then explains to Spock everything that has been going on since they’ve been brought to the planet. Kirk then challenges the Providers directly; he calls them cowards who dare not reveal themselves. To prove him wrong the Providers place Kirk directly in front of them.
 |
| The enemy: try not to laugh |
It turns out the Providers are nothing more than disembodied brains we strong telepathic and telekinetic abilities. Probably disappointed that they weren’t an artificial life form that he could talk into killing itself, Kirk at first just exchanges threats with them. In this he almost loses when the Providers explain how they could destroy the Enterprise and make it so that no one in the Federation would ever find out, Kirk almost nearly has a meltdown. He then proposes something else since the Providers like to gamble Kirk chooses to exploit that. He raises the stakes to be the complete enslavement of the Enterprise’s crew or complete freedom for all the thralls. The game Kirk proposes is that Kirk leads his entire crew against an army of equal number made of thralls. They accept his stakes but not his game instead the Providers decide that Kirk will individually fight three thralls all at once. Without any real choice Kirk agrees.
 |
| Final Battle |
Setting those parameters and accepting the stakes was a major mistake on the part of the Providers. As Kirk is the greatest warrior in the known galaxy he easily defeats the thralls with his amazing and graceful fighting skills. He even gets the thralls’ leader, who was Shahna now the woman scorned when Kirk knocked her out in his last escape attempt, to publicly surrender. All is well the crew gets to go home, the thralls are free with committed Provider support, and Shahna pledges to always look at the stars for Jim Kirk.
Additional thoughts:
This was fine episode. It satisfies all
the criteria for entertainment. It is
fun, at times exciting, and has great character moments. When was over however it didn’t leave me with
any great thoughts. This is the section
of the review where I typically like to reflect but the episode didn’t really
leave me with anything to reflect upon.
I suppose I could try to talk about slavery or gambling both important
issues being brought up in the episode but neither was addressed in a way that
made me want to discuss those things.
The Captain was kidnapped by
powerful telepathic aliens who wanted to make him their source of
entertainment. It is kind of like “The Cage-lite.” The only other thing I can
think to say about this that in the final battle I noticed that Kirk did step
out of bounds a number of times.
Fortunately for him this wasn’t called so it didn’t affect the
outcome. That is the way it was in the days of Star Trek. When a
referee missed a call back then, calling for a booth review on instant replay
was not a thing in the 1960s.
FINAL GRADE 3 of 5
No comments:
Post a Comment