KIRK, SPOCK, AND PIKE CONTINUE TO WATCH “THE CAGE” AND CREATE A COMMENTARY EDITION

Episode Title:  The Menagerie Part 2

Air Date: 11/24/1966

Written by Gene Roddenberry

Directed by Robert Butler

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”        Hagan Beggs as Lieutenant  Hansen                   Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Sean Kenney as Fleet Captain Christopher Pike (disabled)         Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley     Frank Da Vinci as Guard                    Malachi Throne as Commodore José Mendez           James Holt as Starfleet Officer              Jeffrey Hunter as young and healthy Captain Christopher Pike          Majel Barrett as Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley         John Hoyt as Dr. Phillip Boyce       Peter Duryea as Lieutenant José Tyler        Laurel Goodwin as Yeoman Second Class J. M. Colt       Clegg Hoyt as Transporter Chief Pitcairn          Ed Madden as Enterprise Geologist            Adam Roarke as C.P.O. Garrison              Susan Oliver as Vina             Meg Wyllie as The Keeper           Malachi Throne as The Keeper (voice)         Georgia Schmidt as the First Talosian            Robert C. Johnson as the First Talosian (voice)         Serena Sande as the Second Talosian         Jon Lormer as  Dr. Theodore Haskins            Leonard Mudie as the Second Survivor            Anthony Jochim as the Third Survivor               Michael Dugan as The Kaylar                 Robert Phillips as Space Officer (Orion)              Joseph Mell as Earth Trader

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Talos IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode starts with a quick recap reminding the audience of everything that happened in the previous episode, even showing a bonus scene of Spock pleading guilty to all the charges put to him.  At the conclusion of the previous episode Commodore Mendez, having received confirmation that the images were indeed coming from Talos IV, took command of the Enterprise and ended their viewing of “The Cage.” Spock now tells the Commodore tough, they still don’t have physical control of the ship and the Keeper is now in control of the viewscreen.  So they will continue to watch and I will quote from my own review of “The Cage.”

You don't want to continue to watch, well logically explain to me why I should care.

        “When Pike wakes up he finds himself in a cage in what appears to be a zoo.  The Talosians come out to examine him and they communicate using thought patterns that even Pike can here.  Despite Pike being able to understand their form of communication the Talosians seem to be talking more at him than with him as they regard him as some sort of creature for their entertainment.  Pike demands to know what is going on and what their plans are and the Talosians think that is funny.   The one known as “the Keeper” shows off his telepathic skills by predicting what Pike will do before he does it.  They leave and Pike is placed in an illusion putting him back on Rigel VII where he had been weeks before.   It was in this place that he had his disastrous mission and members of his crew died.  Here Vina, the same woman from before but with a new dress and longer hair, is acting as the damsel in distress who Pike must protect.  Pike defeats the Rigelian warrior just like he did in real life, then he is back in the cage with Vina.  He tries to get information out of Vina but she speaks to him in riddles.

                “Back on the Enterprise Number One takes command with the determination that would terrify studio executives and test audiences alike.  A woman in command of men?!?  Even women in test audiences wondered why she wasn’t allowing one of the boys to take charge.  While the senior staff discusses options Boyce tries to continually warn them what they are facing beings that can read their minds and create illusions so powerful they are like reality.  He echoes what Vina told Pike, even if it is not real they will still feel it.

                “Number One ultimately decided on the old US Grant belief that doing something was always better than doing nothing.  And a giant laser cannon powered by a starship’s engines is an awful lot of something.   However as they continue to blast the top of the hill nothing happens, or as the Doctor says maybe something did happen but they aren’t able to notice.

                “While his crew was blasting a big rock with lasers, Captain Pike continued his adventure in his cage of make believe.  The one consistent thing in each fantasy is the beautiful Vina who Pike comes to believe must also be real and prisoner like him.  She advises him on how to deal with their captors but also begs him to comply warning they can be punished with their own nightmares brought to life.  The Talosians are pleased as Pike becomes protective of Vina.

                “They are given different fantasies to try out.  In one fantasy the couple is put in an ideal domestic situation where they are husband and wife, who live on Earth, and ride out on Pike’s horses for daily picnic lunches.   When Pike starts calling it out for not being real it causes Vina to think she has figured out what is bothering Pike.  She rationalizes why none of the previous fantasizes worked for him.  Everything before was pulled from his memories places he has been to before, where a person’s fantasy is about what they cannot or should not have.   With that the world transforms and Pike is now a wealthy merchant trader and Vina is dancing Orion slave girl.  This works for a moment but Pike then tries to leave with Vina following him.”

             

Vina a damsel for Pike to save!

Vina a wife for Pike to love!

Vina a sexy slave girl for Pike to do what ever he wants with.

                       There are breaks from the viewing for the tribunal to ask questions about Talosian motivations, discuss their thoughts on Orion Slave Girls, and at one point Captain Pike faints.  There is also a point where the Talosians stop broadcasting for some unknown reason that is never really explained but is just used as an excuse to show a unanimous guilty verdict by the tribunal (which I don’t understand the point of at all seeing as we all saw Mr. Spock pleading guilty in the beginning at the recap.)  However the tape roles again and we all forget everything that has just happened.

              “ In his conversations with Vina, Pike starts to learn something about his captors.  At first he thought they captured him for their entertainment purposes to live experiences through him.   Vina tells him that the Talosians use to live on the surface but a horrible war brought them underground.  Pike reasoned the found physical life limited so instead they concentrated on their mental power.  Over time they become the big-headed masters of illusions.   Vina says it’s a trap that they are stuck living the experiences of others and have forgotten how to work the machines of their ancestors.   Then Pike learns the actual reason he was captured: they don’t want him to entertain them they want to rebuild their civilization with Vina.

                “Vina tries to explain that they are to be like Adam and Eve.  With that knowledge Pike has discovered an undeniable truth.  For all their telepathy and illusion making powers, the Talosians are an exceptionally stupid people.  They are so dumb that it is arguable that in the first episode Star Trek introduced us to the stupidest creature they would ever create.  As one later Star Trek character would say 'How can you be so dumb with heads like that?'  

               “It is really hard to conceive how stupid the Talosians, as a group, would have to be in order to believe that they could create and entire planetary population with just two people.  Why did they believe this?  Because Vina told them the story of Adam and Eve?  Did they find a copy of the Bible on the ship she crashed in?  Did they read the rest of it?  I assuming not since they didn’t try steal one of Pike’s ribs to grow a woman.

                “With the Vina not winning Pike over the Talosians grow more desperate.   As the crew of the Enterprise attempts another landing party the Talosians arrange that only Number One and Yeoman Colt are transported down right into Pike’s cage.  This actually is a better idea in terms of creating a world population.  If Pike reproduces with three women at least the next generation will only be required to marry half-siblings and not full ones.  However the Talosians are not thinking this way they expect Pike to choose between them.

               “Vina understands and is angered by Talosians bringing in the new women.  She berates both of them leading Number One to mention that she went over Vina’s ship manifest and the only Vina in there was an adult.  As she begins to do the math the Keeper and his agents show up.  He demands Pike makes a choice and he begins to compare the new arrivals.  The Keeper points to Number One’s intelligence as good reason to choose her because she will provide intelligent offspring.  The Keeper also points out Number One often has him as the object of her fantasies.  He then mentions that the Yeoman also fantasizes about him and that she has ‘usually strong female drives.’

               “Number One and Yeoman Rand had hand lasers that were set aside for being drained of power.  As Pike and his trio of women sleep however the Keeper himself sneaks in the cage and tries to steal them.  Pike however catches him, the Keeper tries make himself appear as a creature but Pike isn’t buying it.  Pike then tries one of the lasers on his cage.  When it doesn’t work he points it at the Keeper’s head explaining he thinks the lasers are working but they are keeping them from seeing it.   The Keeper gives in but it is all just a ruse to the prisoners to the surface so the baby making and world building can begin.  This scene once more demonstrates the Talosians intelligence and stupidity, they are smart enough to lure their prisoners to the surface but dumb enough that they still think Pike can choose one of the females and start a civilization.

 

More women, right idea

              “Number One startles the Talosians by setting her laser to self-destruct that and when they scanned the Enterprise’s data base they also found the humans incompatible with captivity.  With this the Talosians give up and decided to let Pike and humans go.  Vina, however, tells Pike that she cannot leave with them.  As the two other women beam back up to the ship, the Talosians show Pike why Vina couldn’t go.  Now if you thought the Talosians were dumbest creatures in the galaxy going into this you discover that there is a level of stupidity in the Star Trek universe that you didn’t even know was possible.  Vina isn’t young and beautiful.  She was a young woman when her ship crashed and she had barely survived the Talosians helped as best they could but as they had never seen another human, and weren’t too particularly bright to begin with, all they ended up with was a mutilated Frankenstein type woman.

“So the Talosians thought they could create an entire planetary population with one healthy man and one horrible disfigured and mutilated middle aged woman!  "Everything works" according to Vina but with all due respect how can she know?  She hasn’t had much of an opportunity to become pregnant and I wouldn’t trust the word of Talosians.  Not because I thought they were lying but because they are not smart meaning they are probably just wrong.”

               

The Talosians were betting their future on this woman's reproductive capabilities. 

                   Upon seeing the secret of Vina, Captain Kirk instantly knows why it is Mr. Spock had risked so much to bring his former captain here.   If Captain Pike were to go to Talos IV the Talosians could probably do for the injured Captain that they were already doing for Vina.  With that in mind Captain Kirk turns the Commodore only to see him vanish.  The Keeper, directly communicating with Captain Kirk, tells him that the Commodore ever since the shuttlecraft was there only as an illusion, and Captain Pike is free to come to their planet where he can live a life as if the injuries that befell on him never happened at all.

Kirk speaks with his predecessor one last time

                With that we get word from Starfleet that they too have seen the Talosian transmission, and in a one-off exemption have chosen to pardon Spock and give Captain Kirk free reign to what he sees as best.  Kirk confirms with Pike that he wants to go and Spock takes him away to the transporter room.  Kirk gives a passing jab about Spock’s giving into emotion.  To which Spock replies he has been logical about the entire affair.  On the viewscreen Captain Kirk gets to watch Captain Pike have his reunion with Vina.

Happy ever after!

 Additional Thoughts: The first part of this story contained mostly new material with a few clips from “The Cage,” this part however is really just “The Cage commentary track.”  We get to basically learn Captain Kirk’s opinions on the only episode of the series that he was not present for.  Come to think of it that is a good commentary track idea: having an actor play their character while commenting on an episode.  I don’t know if anyone has ever done that.

                There are some noted differences from the unedited The Cage. Here are some of the changes that I noticed in part two:

·         Vina’s comments about her headaches in the domestic fantasy have been removed.

·         The comments from Pike’s illusion trader friends about the nature of Orion slave women have been removed and replaced by comments from Commodore Mendez.

·         The final scene on the bridge we get neither Dr. Boyce’s sarcastic remarks nor Yeoman Colts inquiring about who would have been “Eve.”

·         The most important change is instead of Vina running off with a fictional version of Captain Pike for herself, that scene is shown as the real Pike joining Vina in the land of illusion where they were young and healthy.

           Now about that last part, given that scene is so dramatically changed in what it is supposed to represent to us we must ask: which one of these is canon?  I would say probably the second one as that one was actually broadcast on TV the first one wasn’t.  However, can they both be canon?  Did Vina have her own fictional Captain Pike to hang out with these 13 years the real Captain Pike was off living his life in the real world?  If so how’s the real Captain Pike going to compete with a fictional version of himself created out of what Vina considers to be ideal?  Does the relationship not work out and instead they both get a fictional Pike any fictional Vina instead of the people they both really are?  No, no, no!  They lived happily ever after that’s my ending and I’m sticking with it!

           Of course the true losers here are the Talosians.  As previously stated my belief in their stupidity increased by a factor of ten upon learning the truth of Vina.  They really thought that she was going to be a mother of a new generation to continue on their civilization with her age and deformed body.  I imagine the arrival Captain Pike must grant them excitement they probably think they can start getting their civilization back on track with their Adam returning to join their Eve to be parents of a new generation of surface dwellers committed to continuing the Talosian culture.  They are going to be so disappointed.

           So why again is there a death penalty for going this place?  I think were supposed to believe it is something to do with their power of illusion, but in all honesty I think the reason they prohibit any starship from going there is they believe at Starfleet Command that there is a chance the extreme stupidity of the Talosians could potentially be contagious.  And not wanting to see their collective average  IQ drop 30 or 40 points Starfleet Command  have instead chosen to protect their people by imposing such drastic measures.

          Despite its flaws “The Menagerie” was a creative and clever way to include the original rejected pilot into the early canon of Star Trek.  It gave the relatively young show a bit of a history.  Captain Kirk not being the original captain and having predecessors was one of the things I thought was really cool about the original Star Trek when I was first watching it. Granted when I started watching it The Next Generation was on, but being able to name a captain other than Kirk and Picard was something that could be used to impress the casual viewer.

FINAL GRADE 4 of 5

MR. SPOCK KIDNAPS HIS OLD DISABLED CAPTAIN FORCING BOTH HIM AND HIS CURRENT CAPTAIN TO WATCH AN EPISODE OF STAR TREK

Episode Title:  The Menagerie Part 1

Air Date: 11/17/1966

Written by Gene Roddenberry

Directed by Marc Daniels

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”        Hagan Beggs as Lieutenant  Hansen                   Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Sean Kenney as Fleet Captain Christopher Pike (disabled)         Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie                 Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley     Frank Da Vinci as Guard                    Julie Parrish as Miss Piper                    Brett Dunham as Guard        Tom Lupo as Security Guard          Malachi Throne as Commodore José Mendez           James Holt as Starfleet Officer              George Sawaya as Chief Humboldt               Jeffrey Hunter as young and healthy Captain Christopher Pike          Majel Barrett as Lieutenant Commander Una Chin-Riley         John Hoyt as Dr. Phillip Boyce       Peter Duryea as Lieutenant José Tyler        Laurel Goodwin as Yeoman Second Class J. M. Colt       Clegg Hoyt as Transporter Chief Pitcairn          Ed Madden as Enterprise Geologist            Adam Roarke as C.P.O. Garrison              Susan Oliver as Vina             Meg Wyllie as The Keeper           Malachi Throne as The Keeper (voice)         Georgia Schmidt as the First Talosian            Robert C. Johnson as the First Talosian (voice)         Serena Sande as the Second Talosian         Jon Lormer as  Dr. Theodore Haskins            Leonard Mudie as the Second Survivor            Anthony Jochim as the Third Survivor               Michael Dugan as The Kaylar                 Robert Phillips as Space Officer (Orion)              Joseph Mell as Earth Trader

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, Starbase 11, Shuttlecraft  SB11-1201/1

Planets:  unnamed planet that hosts Starbase 11, Talos IV

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode begins on Starbase 11 where the big three of Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy beam down for a surprise visit.  They are greeted by a young woman who says that the Starbase’s commander, Commodore Mendez, is wondering why they are here.  I would wonder too if I were them, considering everything Kirk went through here last episode this should be the last place he would want to hang out.  Captain Kirk however is surprised at their surprise.  He says that the Enterprise was summoned here from a transmission from his predecessor, Fleet Captain Pike.

Yeoman confused at their presence

                The trio goes to see the Commodore, who has changed since last episode.  I suppose Commodore Stone received a promotion and transfer for his excellent handling of the Finney incident.  The new commanding officer, Commodore Mendez, is shocked at their claims.  Kirk doesn’t see what’s so amazing about getting a message from Fleet Captain Pike. Commodore Mendez says it’s impossible.  Kirk asked why that is the case, Mendez then gives him a look which would probably be the same if Kirk told him that Spock had received a communication from Santa Claus.  Mendez then says, “You really don’t know do you?”  He finds it strange that Kirk doesn’t know the latest news on Pike seeing as there has been some subspace chatter about it for months, and not to mention he was just here last week when he was court-martialed.  Granted Kirk might have been distracted at the time but one expects a highly respected decorated Starfleet Captain to be up on current events.  Mendez then has to tell Captain Kirk the horrible truth of what happened to his predecessor.

Commodore shows the Enterprise crew Captain Pike

                The Commodore takes the trio down to the medical facility, while there they talk about Captain Pike.  Mendez describes Kirk as being around Pike’s age.  I guess in the Commodore’s world “around the same age “means 15 or so years distance.  The Commodore is right however describing that Kirk and Pike’s share very similar traits; it’s almost like their fictional characters who were created by the same man who was basing them on Horatio Hornblower.

                Commodore Mendez explains that Pike was inspecting an old class J starship that was being run by a number of Starfleet cadets.  The plates ruptured exposing the crew to delta rays. Pike ran in there and pulled every cadet he could out of the ship, but he overexposed himself wrecking his body.  Captain Pike is now completely paralyzed and horribly disfigured.  He has to be kept in a life-support wheelchair that can be slightly controlled by his brain waves.  He can move the chair forward and backwards a little bit, with his vocal cords burnt out the chair allows him to communicate by signaling yes or no.

                When the four of them enter the room Captain Pike is looking out a window, he then turns his wheelchair to face his guests.  His heavily scarred face is stuck in position the only thing that gives away his emotion is his eyes.  Mendez informs Pike that he has visitors and Pike refuses to see them in his depressed state he’d rather just stare out the window all day than being surrounded by men who can talk to him but he can’t talk back.  Spock asks to remain a request Pike grants.

 

                When the two of them are alone Spock tells Pike that it is only four days at maximum warp from here.  Pike starts flashing “no” with his wheelchair but Spock is determined to help his former Captain, even if the Captain does not want him to risk it.

Ever the hero, Captain Pike does not wish Spock to risk his life to save his.

                Later in the conversation amongst Captain Kirk and Commodore Mendez the subject of Talos IV comes up for no other reason then is about to be important in the plot.  Kirk mentions that General Order 7 prohibits any starship for any reason going there.  Commodore Mendez reminds Kirk that is the only death penalty they have left on the books.  He then says only Starfleet command knows why, however even though he’s only a Commodore he actually has access to it and will share it with Kirk.  When the Captain opens the top secret document he must be really disappointed because this isn’t much interesting written except for the fact that the Enterprise actually went there when it was under the command of Pike.

                Why is this penalized with the death penalty? That seems a bit extreme.  I realize the crew did not have a fun time when they were there and I also understand the Talosians can be a little dangerous, maybe even a lot dangerous given their telepathic and illusion making abilities, but killing people just for going there seems to be rather over-the-top.

                The Captain and Commodore also argue about the origin of the communication received by the Enterprise.  Kirk says if Spock claims to have received a communication that he did and Mendez is saying that’s all but impossible.  Mendez is willing to look a little harder but the deck is going stacked against them.

                Unfortunately for Kirk, it turns out he’s wrong.  Spock did lie and he goes into the communication room, assaults some Starfleet personnel, and then tricks the Enterprise to think Captain Kirk is sending it on a secret mission.  Spock then abducts Captain Pike, tricks McCoy into returning to the Enterprise so he can care for him, and takes off with the ship stranding Captain Kirk at the Starbase.

Spock revealing to McCoy that Pike is on the ship

                Captain Kirk doesn’t take such a thing lying down.  With Mendez he takes a shuttlecraft and heads after his ship; it is a hopeless effort but Kirk still has some faith in Mr. Spock’s devotion to duty.  That faith is rewarded Spock stops the Enterprise in order to pick him in the Commodore up.  Then Mr. Spock places himself under arrest with the security personnel and admits that he stole the ship.  But he has sabotaged the ship’s system enough that they are headed to Talos IV on auto pilot and cannot be manually overridden.

                What a strange is Mr. Spock hands temporary operational command to this week’s replacement for Lt. Sulu as opposed to Mr. Scott who last I checked is technically next in command of the ship after Mr. Spock.  It’s a moot point as Kirk arrives to take command of the ship right away.

                Kirk now has to hold a hearing into the actions of Mr. Spock which is ripping him up inside especially since just last week Mr. Spock testified so elegantly at his own court-martial.  And court-martial is what Mr. Spock wants.  He waives his right to a hearing altogether and asks to just move to the court-martial phase, Kirk refuses because it has to be at least three officers of command rank to conduct a court-martial.  Spock reminds his Captain that there are such three.  For Captain Pike is still on the active-duty list. 

                So the court-martial opens up with poor old Captain Pike dragged out to participate.  The Commodore demands to Mr. Spock explain why he is doing this.  Spock asks if that question is officially part of the record, the Commodore acknowledged that it is.  With that we come to the point of this episode: Mr. Spock pulls out “The Cage.”

When being court martialed on Star Trek make sure to have another episode to watch

                As the episode-in-the-episode begins the Commodore objects right away, claiming that no such recordings have ever been made on a starship.  I find that to be an odd claim considering just last week in Kirk's court-martial we saw video very similar to the bridge scene that we’re seeing right now.  One thing is clear however the person who decided the paint scheme for the bridge of the Enterprise in the time of Captain Kirk is a far superior talent then the person who is designed it back when Captain Pike was in charge.  Kirk probably just makes better personnel choices.  Mr. Spock has Captain Pike confirm that what we are seeing is genuine and that the images that are being shown are being shown as they happened.  Mendez does not want to continue, but Kirk wants to see more and Pike breaks the tie in Kirk’s favor.

                So to discuss what happens next I will use excerpts from my own review of “The Cage.”

“The first scene opens on the bridge of the USS Enterprise, the crew notice sensor reading of some unknown object out in space but they can’t pick it up on their view screen.  It turns out that it wasn’t an object at all but a radio waive designed to fool ship sensors to think it was an object.  Captain Pike says that it was an old-fashioned distress call that was designed to track attention.  Spock is able to trace the signal to planet Talos IV.   He reports that is an M class planet[1] and it is possible that there are survivors.   Pike however doesn’t think this is likely given that the message was very old.  Whoever sent it probably died or was rescued long ago.  Pike said they had their own “sick and wounded” and decided they should stay on course to the starbase they were already headed for.  Once that was settled they could come back just in case.”

            Notice the line about ‘not use to having a woman on the bridge’ was edited out.

The Bridge of the Enterprise for the first time.

“Captain Pike suddenly realizes he is being way too dark and moody to stay on the bridge and decides to go be dark and moody in his quarters instead.  While there he calls the Doctor to come see him.  Not because he is sick but because he knows Boyce will bring booze.  Doctor Boyce brings the booze and Pike pretends to be surprised.  The two drink and Pike starts crying in his martini  about how his last mission went and how he lost people under his command.  He feels guilty and wants to quit his job and go retire back to Earth or become a merchant.  He wants to do something other than what he is doing, while the Doctor thinks he just needs a vacation.   Just then a call from Mr. Spock interrupts their drinking to tell them they have located survivors.  It’s a good thing that Pike only had one drink because now he has to organize a landing party.

"So I heard you were being a dink on the bridge?"

“ Captain Pike organizes his landing party and leaves Number One in command of the Enterprise.  The away team uses the transporter, a mode of transportation that would become the staple of the series being used for the first time.   They transport far enough way as not to startle the survivors and then they walk to the camp.  When they get there they find a group of old scientists and a young beautiful woman named Vina.  

"Pike really likes Vina and she feels similarly about him.  She is not at all shy coming outright and saying what a fine specimen of a man he is.  The lead scientist explains Vina was a child when they landed and she spent her whole life among aging scientists”

            I have to admit when the camera cuts to the Talosians Commodore Mendez comments about not being real footage starts to make sense.

“While everyone is packing up, Vina takes Pike over the hill.  Pike probably thinks he is about to get lucky and is completely unaware of these large headed Talosians who have been watching him this whole time.   In an instant the camp and all its survivors disappear.  One of the Talosians appears from under the hill and zaps Pike with a weapon knocking him out.  They take him underground while the remaining landing party, led by Lts. Spock and Tyler try to free him by blasting the hill with their hand lasers, but to no avail.”

 

Vina wants that fine specimen of a man she is looking at!

         

"You can't take our Captain!  Oh, you can."

                As we come to the end of the episode it is revealed that the images are coming from Talos IV itself.  The Commodore uses that as an excuse to stop watching “The Cage.” Captain Kirk is removed from his command because his ship is in contact with the forbidden world.  Mr. Spock objects pointing out that Captain Kirk knew nothing of what was going on.  The Commodore points out to Mr. Spock that the captain is responsible for the actions of his men.  Which is a rule that they must’ve made up yesterday, because when Ben Finney was caught sabotaging the ship nearly killing everyone aboard after he faked his death no one thought of holding Captain Kirk accountable for it.  If anything they thought he was vindicated.

                This episode ends with Mr. Spock begging Captain Kirk to please watch the end of the episode because it was a great episode that should be viewed.  Or because he needs it understand one or the other.

Additional thoughts: As you can guess when it comes to two-parters I’m going to be reviewing them with each part being its own episode.  The only exception to this will be in series premieres and finals.  This will be useful for later series are going to use two-parters for their season finals.

                I have a special place in my heart for this episode when I first watched Star Trek as a kid I would occasionally catch episodes on the sci-fi channel.  In my day when I first started watching it was Star Trek: The Next Generation that was on all the time, from seeing the films however I myself preferred the original series but only got to watch it rarely.  Then came Columbia House, and I was able to order the entire series.  I got one tape a month with two episodes on it in the first one they sent me was The Menagerie parts 1 and 2.  So for brief while this episode was the only episode of Star Trek I had and I ended up watching quite a bit.

                I do think that the episode is a clever way of including the events from "The Cage" to be incorporated into the greater canon of Star Trek.  Otherwise it would have just gone down as a forgotten and failed pilot. 

                I have a theory that they were not paying attention to the Starbase numbers in each of these episodes considering this is supposed to be the exact same Starbase that we encountered in the immediate previous episode.  Although in some ways it could be made to make sense.  In this episode Kirk seems behind of the times or least not keeping up with Starfleet gossip.  Since space does not allow for instant communication in the same way we have in the 21^st century where we are all on the same planet, living in the Federation is more like it was during the old West where news may take months to spread.  It could’ve been their trip in the previous episode to this very Starbase is where Spock learned of Pike’s condition.  After all it looks like Spock had been planning this for quite some time.

                 As with all two-part episodes we don’t have the complete story and we have to wait for next week to find out how this is all resolved.  However it is a good cliffhanger and it should keep the viewer interested.

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5

CAPTAIN KIRK IS IN SERIOUS TROUBLE SO NATURALLY HE GETS A LAWYER

Episode Title:  Court Martial

Air Date: 2/2/1967

Written by Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos

Directed by Marc Daniels

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”              Richard Webb  as Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney        Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura          Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley                  Frank Da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent                     Hagan Beggs as unnamed Helmsman      Nancy Wong as Ensign who was  Personnel Officer              Tom Curtis as Crewman Corrigan                  Winston DeLugo as Timothy          Elisha Cook Jr. as Samuel T. Cogley, Esq.        Joan Marshall as Lieutenant Areel Shaw               Percy Rodriguez as Commodore Stone         Bart Conrad as Captain Krasnovsky               William Meader as Captain Lindstrom               Reginald Lal Singh as Captain Nensi Chandra            Alice Rawlings as Jamie Finney         Majel Barrett as Enterprise Computer 

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,  Starbase 11, unnamed Constitution Class Starship, several unnamed shuttle craft

Planets:  unnamed planet that hosts Starbase 11

My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode begins with Captain Kirk at Starbase 11 reporting to Commodore Stone about the death of one of his crew members.  The lost crew member is Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney.  The Enterprise had encountered ion storm.  While in the storm Cmdr. Finney was in a pod that had to be ejected by Captain Kirk himself.  The whole story itself is rather weird why these pods are necessary is never really quite explained nor is it ever understood why before going into a dangerous ion storm someone would have to board one of these pods to begin with.  

Kirk meeting with his superior officer

It’s at this point that Mr. Spock shows up.  He beams down with the official computer records and presents them to the Commodore.  Stone looks at them then asks Kirk if there’s anything about his story he wants to change, Kirk says no, and then Stone tells Kirk he’s either mad or willfully ignorant for Finney’s pod was ejected before the red alert siren.

Something is not adding it up

With the computer now against him Captain Kirk has to tell his story on the record officially for Commodore Stone.  Kirk tells a story of him and Ben Finney that Finney had been an instructor at Starfleet Academy when he was just a cadet, in a way is their relationship was the reverse of him and Gary Mitchell.  They formed a tight friendship and Mr. Finney even went so far to name his young daughter in honor of James Kirk.  During a period of time where they’re both serving on the Republic, the then Ensign Kirk relieved a Lt. Finney of duty and noticed an open circuit.  That circuit should’ve been noticed and corrected by Lt. Finney but Kirk corrected it himself and logged what he did.  This caused Finney to get in trouble and drop him to the bottom of the promotion list.  The two men eventually got past what had happened to recover their friendship but since then Kirk rose all the way to become one of the greatest Starfleet captains and Finney was still waiting for his first command.  Kirk  repeats the story about how they were heading into the ion storm so the plot demands that a member of the crew has to be put in danger and the list said it was Finney’s turn.  Kirk warns him when the yellow alert came on he warned Finney that he had to get out of their or he would be dead.   Kirk then activates the red alert and few moments later jettisoned the pod.  

However since the computer is against Kirk and the computer is never wrong Commodore Stone tries to talk Kirk into accepting a desk job, he feels that Kirk was probably stressed and panicked and doesn’t think he should be sent a Federation Penal Colony because of it since we know how bad they can be.  Kirk refuses and demands a court martial.

After Captain Kirk gives his deposition to Commodore Stone, Jamie enters the room.  His namesake is infuriated she looks at him and calls him a murderer, Jamie’s reaction breaks his heart he tries to give his sympathy and explain but she has no intention of listening to the Captain.  And she is not the only one who is upset, when Kirk visits the bar on Starbase 11 he is confronted by number of officers some of whom he went to the Academy with all of them upset over the death of Lt. Cmdr. Finney.  It’s understandable considering at this point the computer records all say that he did it, Captain Kirk elects to leave the bar rather than confront men over the accusation that they have already made up their minds.

Kirk's namesake and Finney's daughter

As Kirk leaves McCoy runs into a beautiful woman and attempts to flirt letting her know that she had just past the famous Captain James T Kirk.  She said she is quite familiar with Kirk and McCoy asks if she’s a friend or foe to which she replies friend.  McCoy wonders how Captain Kirk and have so many beautiful women amongst his circle of friends.   She introduces herself as Lt. Areel Shaw and she asked Dr. McCoy if you’d be kind enough to arrange for Kirk to meet her.  McCoy agrees to let Kirk know that she is here.

Captain Kirk meets with Lt. Shaw and they get caught up on old times. It is very clear that the two of them at one point had a real romantic relationship and they still generally cared about one another.  She gives him advice on how the prosecuting attorney’s most likely to proceed and what he needs to defend himself.  She has even gone out of her way to contact an attorney on his behalf a civilian named Samuel T. Cogley, Esq.  Kirk is pleased to see that she still cares and is taking an active interest in this case not to mention believing him as well.  In a moment where Captain Kirk forgot there is such a thing called judicial ethics he asks Lt. Shaw why she can’t be his lawyer.  Then Lt. Shaw shows Kirk and the audience that there are no legal ethics in the 23^rd century and that she’s already involved in the case as the prosecuting attorney.  That’s right in the United Federation of Planets is perfectly acceptable for one’s former significant other to be their prosecuting attorney and no one thinks the wiser.  Dr. McCoy’s earlier suggestion about possibly hooking up with Yeoman Rand no longer seems odd at all.

When you meet your old girlfriend and she tries to send you to jail

Captain Kirk enters the quarters that he’s been assigned to on Starbase 11 and finds Samuel T. Cogley Esq. has already moved in.  Yes he’s moved in, in the 23^rd century when you need an attorney your attorney comes to live with you.  He also brings with him stacks upon stacks of books, mostly law books, to help him in his case for Captain Kirk.  Kirk wonders why he does doesn’t use a computer like normal people,  Cogley responds by explaining to the Captain that the law is in the books and you if you want understand the law must you read in the books.  That doesn’t make any sense to me but I suppose a crazy lawyer has some advantages when it comes to courtroom strategy.

Kirk's new lawyer and roommate

The court-martial begins Kirk is asked if there’s any person involved in the court-martial the he feels prejudiced against him to which he says no.  Lt. Shaw calls the USS Enterprise’s personnel officer to explain the history that we already heard of why Finney didn’t like Kirk.  Then she has Dr. McCoy testify with his knowledge of space psychology and asks him if Kirk knew that Finney hated him then he might also hate Finney.   That seems like some awfully bizarre logic and Dr. McCoy says so at the time.   Shaw has Spock testify to what happened on the bridge to which Spock then declares that Captain Kirk is innocent in the computer is in error because Captain Kirk cannot do what it is that he is accused of doing.  It seems to me at this point things are going Kirk’s way: the motive Shaw assigns Kirk is highly in doubt and the two of three witnesses were fans and friends of Captain Kirk who testified that the evidence against him was faulty and against the nature of his character. 

Cogley never cross-examined any of the witnesses that strikes me as fine as I think things were going his way anyway and then he does something really bizarre: he has Captain Kirk take the stand.  Now most lawyers try to keep their clients from testifying in their own cases however as we already demonstrated:  Cogley is somewhat crazy. Captain Kirk’s long list of rewards is read out for the record and Kirk confidently testifies to what happened on the bridge.  Then Lt. Shaw delivers a devastating piece of evidence she has a videotape of Captain Kirk ejecting the pod on yellow alert.  It looks like Kirk is toast.

Ex-girlfriend with her game face

As Captain Kirk’s fate is still being decided Jamie now feeling guilty asks Captain Kirk to take a plea deal and just accept the ground assignment.  The Captain is happy that Jamie no longer hates him but he’s going to take his chances. Then Spock calls to let Captain Kirk know that he went over the computer one last time hoping to find an error and he couldn’t, Kirk thanks him for his efforts and lets him know he may be able to beat his next Captain at chess.  This makes Mr. Spock think and he goes to play chess with the computer.  Dr. McCoy finds him and is surprised that he’s playing a game when the Captain’s career is on the line.  I personally don’t see why so surprising people do lots of things in distress to distract themselves particularly when there’s nothing they can do about with is happening, however Mr. Spock had a plan and he is able to use the computer’s chess program to proven an error. 

Spock and McCoy show up in the courtroom just as Cogley rests his case.  They explain they have new evidence and Cogley turns the tribunal and tells that to the Commodore.  Commodore Stone shows some general interest in what this evidence might be, then Cogley goes on to a long rant which is completely pointless.  Now I’m sure the two writers probably thought that the speech by Cogley about rights was the greatest part of the episode and were so happy and proud to put it there. However it doesn’t make any sense for Cogley to go on his rant when the Commodore has already asked about the evidence instead of pointing out that Cogley had rested his case, which when you want to get technical about meant that their time to present evidence was now over.  Nevertheless we get to hear his rant about rights and about how unfair it was that Captain Kirk was not allowed to confront the computer.  

The court-martial moves to the Enterprise where Mr. Spock explains to the tribunal that he programed the computer with an equal amount of skill as his own.  Therefore if he played it and he made no error the best he could hope for be a stalemate after a stalemate.  Yet when he played the computer he beat it five straight times, more times than would be logical to suggest he had just gotten better.  Someone had sabotaged the computer and is only three people on the Enterprise who had the authority to do that: Kirk, Spock, and Finney.

  

Spock outsmarting the computer

The court-martial then moved to the bridge of the Enterprise and nearly the entire crew is transported to the Starbase with exceptional of the court-martial tribunal, Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Dr. McCoy, Lt. Uhura, unnamed helmsman, and Lt. Shaw.  Dr. McCoy and Mr. Spock take over the use of technology of the Enterprise to track the heartbeats of all who remain on the ship they find there is one extra heartbeat hiding in engineering room.  This is bad because from there Finney has managed to sabotage the ship making it difficult to turn back on and prevent it's orbit from decaying.

Tribunal on the bridge, imagine being Lt Uhura normally there is only one captain!

Captain Kirk leaves the bridge and heads to engineering to confront Finney.  When Kirk arrives Finney gets the drop on him with a phaser.  Finney confesses to everything how he framed Captain Kirk for his death in revenge for him stalling his career.  Kirk tells Finney that they need to restore the ships power and stabilize the orbit for if they don’t they will all die and Kirk lets Finney know that his lawyer Cogley brought Jamie aboard ship. Finney begins the panic in this gives Kirk an opening.   Kirk attacks Finney with his amazing set of fighting skills that are unmatched anywhere the side of the galaxy.  Finney shows that he can fight too but his skills are nowhere near as amazing as the graceful and vicious attacks that Captain Kirk can impose on opponent.  Kirk defeats Finney and then goes to undo this to sabotage the Finney did to the ship saving it in the nick of time.

Finney looking good for a dead guy!

The episode ends with Kirk now fully exonerated saying goodbye to his former girlfriend and former prosecutor, Lt. Shaw, he gives her a parting kiss.  It’s a good thing we established that there are no legal ethics the Federation or conflicts of interest for that matter because she leaves telling him that Samuel D Cogley is now representing Lt. Cmdr. Ben Finney in his court-martial.

Additional thoughts: When I went to watch this episode again for the review I was determined from memory that I was going to spend a good deal of time discussing what is portrayed about Starfleet’s unrealistic and rigid standards for story purposes. We often hear about that Starfleet Academy is so difficult that only the best of the best can possibly get through it, yet we encounter incompetent officers from the Academy all the time.  In this story Ben Finney makes a terrible mistake early in his career and because it is logged on his record it makes it near impossible for him to get his own command, at least according to Finney.  I remembered how silly I thought that was when I first watched the episode when I was a teenager.  In real life Chester W Nimitz, when he was an ensign, was in charge of small ship that was run aground.  As a consequence he received a letter of reprimand entered into his record.  This is did not stop him from becoming one of our great leaders of World War II and one of the few naval officers to rise to the rank of fleet admiral.  It would seem to me is organization that would still hold onto a mistake made by officer decades after the event despite other achievements in his career would tell me something very negative about that organization. However as I re-watched this episode a new question emerged in my brain: was Finney’s career as negatively impacted as he thought?

Let’s view this from Finney’s perspective for second.  He first meets Captain Kirk when Kirk is only a cadet and he is a lieutenant serving as an instructor.   Later when serving together on the Republic the incident happens and ever since then Finney received only a single promotion to the rank of lieutenant commander while Kirk rose all way to captain it is now Finney’s boss.  It is easy to see why this might rub somebody the wrong way.  But is Finney making a huge error by comparing his career to Captain Kirk’s?  One of the things we know about Kirk is that he’s an exceptional officer, he’s considered to be the very best, and his rise the position of Starfleet captain is unparalleled for its speed.  Any officer comparing their careers to Captain Kirk is going to view their own career probably negatively. Picture a normal eighth-grader meeting a five-year-old child genius and then being shocked when that same child genius graduates high school before him. 

McCoy, a lieutenant commander just like Finney

 Now lets compare Finney’s career to other officers around the same age.  Finney is in his late 30s possible early 40s.  So he is about the same age as Mr. Spock, Mr. Scott, and Dr. McCoy.  Finney holds the rank of lieutenant commander, the exact same rank as the three other characters mentioned.  Also where is he in the command structure of the ship?  I mentioned in my review of “Where No Man has Gone Before” that while the traditional Star Trek command structure for the Enterprise is Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock as first officer, Mr. Scott as second officer, and Mr. Sulu as third officer.  However up to this point in the series we have yet to see command of the Enterprise fall below Mr. Spock.  So I’m not sure if that is command structure is set up yet.  As I said about Gary Mitchell I thought it was a very high probability that he in “Where No Man” may have been the second officer.  It would make narrative sense command of the Enterprise to have started Kirk/Spock/Mitchell/Scott, after losing Mitchell, Kirk still early on in his command wanted, to have someone familiar in his command structure and he was still getting to know Mr. Spock and Mr. Scott.  So he asks for Ben Finney to transfer over, a gold shirted lieutenant commander, to serve as the ship’s second officer as well as records officer.  Then after the events in this episode Mr. Scott is bumped up to second officer and invites Mr. Sulu to be the third officer. 

Mr. Spock, also a lieutenant commander like Finney 

So Ben Finney was a lieutenant commander and the second officer of starship, it doesn’t look like his career is suffering that much.   In addition, he also wears the rank insignia of a full commander not a lieutenant commander.  Now this could just be a wardrobe design error or maybe, like our dear Mr. Spock, Finney is frocking because a promotion is already scheduled.  This guy looks like he’s headed for full commander and most likely a first officer job somewhere.  It doesn’t look like his career is doing so badly after all. That is until he ruins it himself by focusing on the success of Captain Kirk.

That look on your face when you wreak your career and Kirk still lives!

One of the great unanswered questions of this episode is: was Jamie involved and how much did she know and when did she know it?  In one moment she’s angry at Captain Kirk blaming him and later she’s playing for mercy for him.  I just felt in every scene that she was in on it but this is never answered. Finney’s goal was not for Kirk to be convicted but for him to take a plea deal and accept the ground assignment.  This would complete his revenge for Kirk would now have a reduced Starfleet career just like he was forced to endure (at least in his mind).  I think there’s a third Jamie scene the needed to be shown.

Kirk and his lawyer

So about Captain Kirk’s chair, in the altered recording we get a good look at what the top Captain Kirk’s chair looks like.  Now I always assumed that the buttons on the captain’s chair just represented communication.  This allows him to talk to engineering or talk to the science department.  I didn’t realize he could just do red alert/yellow alert from his chair.  If this is the case why does he always order someone else to do it?  Wouldn’t be faster for him to the push the button himself rather than tell someone else to push a button?  Also he can jettison the pod from his chair?  Shouldn’t that be an order he gives to another station?  It seems to me this is a one-off deal for this rather poorly written episode.

On a positive note, I would like to note the social forward thinking that often make Star Trek great.  Star Trek’s rather casual commitment to diversity is part of what makes a show legendary.  We know through Nichelle Nichols, that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a fan of the series for that reason.  Now Star Trek was aired out of order, however when you watch the series in production order—as I choose to for both myself and this blog—this is the first episode where we encounter a Starfleet officer who’s higher than Captain Kirk.  We met a Federation official in the previous episode but he himself was not part of Starfleet.  Since the show takes place on a starship the captain is typically speaking the highest ranking official we ever see on an episode to episode basis.   In this episode however we get Commodore Stone, the first Starfleet official we see Kirk reporting to.  Not only does he outrank our Captain, but he himself has held that position.  He lectures Kirk on the pressures of being a starship captain, as something they have both experienced. Commodore Stone is an African-American, shown as a high ranking Starfleet officer in the episode that aired a little under three years after the Civil Rights Act was passed.  In addition to the Commodore, when Kirk is court-martialed there are three more captains who join the tribunal one and they are quite a diverse panel.  Although I should point out they are all men.

Kirk's Tribunal 

FINAL GRADE 3 of 5