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Star Trek - The Savage Curtain
episode 3.22
Raumschiff Enterprise - Seit es Menschen gibt
USA 1969
produced by Fred Freiberger, Gene Roddenberry (executive) for Norway Corporation, Paramount/NBC
directed by Herschel Daugherty
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Lee Bergere, Barry Atwater, Phillip Pine, James Doohan, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, Arell Blanton, Carol Daniels, Bob Herron, Nathan Jung, Janos Prohaska, Bart La Rue (voice)
story by Gene Roddenberry, screenplay by Gene Roddenberry, Arthur Heinemann, created by Gene Roddenberry, music by Fred Steiner
TV series Star Trek, Classic Star Trek, Star Trek (original crew), Abraham Lincoln, Genghis Khan
review by Mike Haberfelner
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The Enterprise receives a very unexpected visit from none other than
Abraham Lincoln (Lee Bergere), and with him, Kirk (William Shatner) and
Spock (Leonard Nimoy) - without their fazers or tricorders - are beamed
down to a tiny stretch of land on a mostly uninhabitable planet that
mostly consists of pure lava. On the planet, they are met by Surak (Barry
Atwater), father of Vulcan pacifism and thus founder of their civilisation
as it is. Soon enough that foursome is greeted by rock creature Yarnek
(Janos Prohaska, voiced by Bart La Rue), who tells them they represent all
that's good in the universe - and thus have to fight to the death with a
foursome that represents all evil, Genghis Khan (Nathan Jung), Klingon
warlord Kahless (Bob Herron), evil scientist Zora (Carol Daniels) and
their leader, 21st century earth warlord Green (Phillip Pine). And nothing
less than the fate of the Enterprise is at stake of course. At first,
Green suggests a strategic alliance to find a way out of the situation
together, but it's of course a ruse, and our heroes can only just fight
off the baddies. Then though Surak insists to go on a peace mission - and
is overcome by the villains. Kirk, Spock and Lincoln hear his screams of
pain and know it's a trap - and yet decide to go and free Surak. The plan
is for Kirk and Spock to create a diversion while Lincoln frees Surak. But
not only does Lincoln find Surak already dead, the baddies are also much
too clever not to notice what's going on, and kill Lincoln. With Lincoln
dead, Kirk and Spock though outnumbered intensify their attack, and
ultimately kill Kahless, upon which the others take a powder. Yarnek
appears again to declare the experiment over, gets in a half-hearted
debate with Kirk over the difference between good and evil, and then sends
them, and the Enterprise, on their way ... A very ambitious
episode, at least storywise - that doesn't live up to its premise: Now an
alien wanting to find out about the nature of good and evil, that's an
idea as fun as it is inventive and promising, and making that alien as
non-human as possible really goes with the concept regardless of what you
think of the actual creature design. But having that distinction decided
by hand-on-hand combat is the story's first weakness - even if it goes
with the concept of the series where almost everything is decided by
hand-on-hand combat. It's also of course questionable why two of the four
representants of all that's good in the universe would be serving next to
one another on the Enterprise, and if their "goodness" isn't
vastly overstated. Likewise, the baddies are portrayed at just evil, no
layers, all they do is just for evil's sake - which pretty much robs the
story of its potential to say something meaningful. That said, the
episode's still some fun at least, there's plenty of camp like Lincoln
going into battle in this one, the whole thing just doesn't feel fully
rounded.
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