Sunday, June 29, 2014

Star Trek: S1E10 The Corbomite Maneuver review

If you want to play me at tarbish, or at cribbage, I have to warn you in advance that I had very good teachers. Poker is a different story. I really like poker, but good god do I ever suck at it. I can't tell you whether Captain Kirk is any good at it either, since he didn't really have chips on the table, but I can tell you that there was a lot of charm to this episode.

Another thing I'm coming back to on a positive note. This could have easily been the first episode of the show, I think. As far as I can remember this is the first time the Enterprise has ever encountered a spacefaring extraterrestrial. It could have also happened in the skipped episodes, but for me this is new.

Now I understand Uhura's job a bit more clearly; and Sulu's as well. I had hoped we'd be sticking with Riley in the job Bailey is occupying, but I guess Riley was a one-time thing. Come to think of it, Bailey's staying with Balock's ship, so he's not sticking around either.

For a while I wished I'd been doing first impressions on this episode, because some of the thoughts were just hilarious: "They're being chased by a screensaver! The horror!" and whatnot. A lot of the design choices in Star Trek make me that much more aware of how tremendous an accomplishment all of the imaginative designs in Star Wars were, because the Fizarius is one hell of a stupid looking ship and its warning buoy was a spinning Pepsi logo. Balock himself goes from "oh hey a cliché" to "oh hey a creepy... bald... ugly... child," but I actually appreciated how overblown his performance was. It's like he was trying to act in a way that humans would recognize, only completely out of proportion.

I've watched seven episodes of Star Trek now and I'm sure I've solved its winning formula: the relationship of these three men, Kirk, Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy. There was a moment in the episode where I was sure something was actually going on between the Captain and his first mate (if you know what I mean) that would be extremely bold for a show of Star Trek's age to have been implying. The superego/id/ego idea is also sticking with me; when he's out of use for logical answers (chess), McCoy appears behind him on the bridge and stokes Kirk's emotions, resulting in an illogical but successful approach (poker).

Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy make a wonderful duo of opposites. McCoy ignoring the alert status and waving off the threatened destruction of the vessel to talk to the Captain about Bailey shows that he's more concerned with people than things or events. Conversely, Mr. Spock's brushoff of Bailey's feelings is part of how his concern is things, not people. Now if only we could get a bit more of Mr. Scott. I'm hoping Janice's role gets expanded because right now it feels like she's just popping up once per episode because nobody knows what to do with her.

Last thoughts: how novel, I think, to have a meeting between United Earth and an extraterrestrial intelligence where the latter is testing us. It's not hostile, it's a meeting between two different species with a common goal of meeting, learning and sharing - to seek out new life and new planets, to boldly go where no man or crazy eyebrows bald child has gone before. The ultimate reveal of Balock's intentions made me smile and gives me hope that the series is going to keep going to interesting places, at least in the selected episodes.

12 comments:

  1. Yes, the three of them are ABSOLUTELY the core of the series. Scotty and Uhura and Sulu and [you haven't met him yet] are the others.

    I am giggling because you noticed the Kirk/Spock dynamic. And I put that / in there for a reason.

    Look up the term "slashfic" in Wikipedia, but don't follow any of the links… yet.

    Best wishes on the continued healing, always.

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  2. Yeah, this probably should have been the first episode or so. It was the first episode I can remember watching, anyway. Had a tape with just this one that starts with them almost getting killed by a glowing Rubik's Cube and ends with moving in with a little bald guy who was just pretending to be scary... (AND THEN HIS SCARY PUPPET KEEPS SHOWING UP IN THE END CREDITS)

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  3. Once again I'm amazed at your perceptiveness, Jeremy. "The Corbomite Maneuver" was indeed the first regular episode produced and as such does serve as a more proper introduction to the show.

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  5. Only seven episodes into the series and he's already speculating about Kirk and Spock. :D

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  6. Blalock (not the creepy puppet version) was played by a very young Clint Howard, Ron Howard's (aka Opie, aka award-winning director) brother. He shows up in later Star Trek series too, as different characters. The dude still looks a bit like an alien.

    Now, let's all go have some Tranya, and relish it. RELISH IT, I say!

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    1. Psst, vffpublishing: Howard played Balok-- one 'L'. *Blalock* played a sexy Vulcan on 'Enterprise'. :)

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    2. Oops. :p Darn typos.

      ...and I wish it wouldn't put my blog's name as my name.

      -JediSoth, aka Hans

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    3. He's also appeared in at least one movie or TV show every year for almost 50 years now.

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  7. If memory serves, I believe The Corbomite Maneuver was the first episode of the series that was FILMED, but was not the first one to be BROADCAST.

    The ugly little kid is Ron Howard's brother Clint (Ron Howard: the kid who spits while singing in "The Music Man", Opie in "The Andy Griffith Show", Richie Cunningham in "Happy Days", and finally director of "Splash", "Parenthood", "Apollo 13", "The DaVinci Code", "A Beautiful Mind", "Frost/Nixon"...)

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  8. That Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad really is a magic formula.

    Riley actually does show up a few more times I think.


    (SPOILER ALERT) sadly Janet's actress had the same complaints as you and ended up leaving early on, though she did eventually return in the movies.

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    1. He shows up once more, in "The Conscience of the King".

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