The Savage Curtain

Gene Roddenberry's stories tended to reflect his social views, and "Star Trek's" sci-fi dramas were frequently metaphors for social and historical issues. The 3rd season's "The Savage Curtain" was Roddenberry's take on President Lincoln and the American Civil War. Specifically, Roddenberry explores the ethics of the leadership provided by Lincoln and weighs in against those who bemoan Lincoln's willingness to adapt expedient but extra legal tactics against his opponent.

In the episode Roddenberry nicely illustrates this by using two Lincoln's. Surak is the newly elected Lincoln, a President significantly more moderate and conciliatory than most of his party. Someone who arrived in Washington fully convinced that the union could be preserved peacefully.

And during his first couple months in office many Unionists began to question whether they had put the right man in the White House for the unprecedented crisis faced by the country. They feared he lacked iron and would be unable to rise to the occasion.

Colonel Green appears to be a blend of John Floyd (Buchanan's outgoing Secretary of War) and Brigadier David Twiggs (Army commander of Texas); who had specialized in especially deceptive (and unnecessary) acts of treason following Lincoln's election. Aggressively abusing their positions of trust and violating their oaths of office; all in the service of gaining a short-term advantage. From the devious actions of opponents like these Lincoln learned that pro-Union people would be increasingly vulnerable should they expect the old rules to still apply.

As occurred in history, the Surak Lincoln is only briefly a part of the equation. Replaced by the Lincoln who when finally compelled by events to accept the gravity of the situation, worked extra-legally to prevent the secession of Maryland and Missouri. In the episode this Lincoln states: "We fight on their level with trickery, brutality, and finality".

In the end the creature poses the same question often posed by students of the American Civil War: if good and evil use the same methods toward the achievement of the same results, what is the difference between them? Of course, Roddenberry has already answered it; Kirk is fighting for the lives of his crew and in a bigger sense his mission of advancing civilization. His opponent is fighting for the rewards of power, fighting to gain an advantage over others.

Kirk and Spock's final confrontation with the evil forces is deliberately listless; representing secession as the retreat of evil when forcibly confronted. As in 1865, evil retreats to preserve itself - knowing there will be less direct ways to protect its advantaged status.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

"History tends to exaggerate," says, Col. Green, one of history's most evil people. He makes an interesting point. Perhaps history does exaggerate. And perhaps history does much, much worse.: perhaps history even lies. Humans have a difficult time extricating themselves from their many webs of lies. Surely it has invaded our history. Who knows what really happened? Who indeed.

But that's not really the main point of this episode. It's good vs evil. Pure and simple. It's so simple it's almost like a Saturday morning kid's show. But that's part of its charm. This episode has a folksy charm to it, like an old western TV show where good guys both sing and defeat evil all in a day's work. But it does have depth of ideas even if they are presented as simple as possible. Simplicity is not always a weakness. It can also bear strength, like a rock, if you'll pardon the pun.

My main complaint is the cheesy looking alien/rock thing with flashing lights. Not good. It's just a big blob of rubber. The best part is the performance by Lee Bergere as President Lincoln. And his lines are very well written also. I also like the scene early in the episode when Dr. McCoy and Scotty are trying to talk Kirk out of going down to the planet. They think it's going to be suicide. Kirk reminds them of the basic mission to seek out new life. It is indeed their #1 mission. It's a good scene. Familiar, but good.

I think this is an underrated episode. Not great, but underrated. Look past the childlike simplicity. Don't hate it. It's not something you hate. Eat your popcorn and enjoy it. It's Star Trek.

Season 3, episode 22. The Enterprise arrives at the volcanic planet of Excalbia for a geological expedition where their sensors detect carbon-based life forms. Suddenly an image of Abraham Lincoln appears floating on the ship's screen. Spock says its not the real Lincoln but Kirk invites Lincoln aboard the ship with honors. Lincoln claims to be human but knows nothing of technology past the 19th century but knows the Vulcan philosophy of Nom (meaning "all"). Lincoln invites Kirk and Spock to the planet where an area is earth-like. Scotty and McCoy protest the idea but Kirk and Spock go anyway. Once there they find their phasers, tricorder and communicators gone and out steps the Vulcan Surak who is the father of the Vulcan civilization - Spock again does not believe: Not in Lincoln now Surak. Next a boulder becomes a rock-like creature and the alien, Yarnek, announces to inhabitants to conduct an experiment: which opposing human philosophy is stronger good or evil. The alien puts Kirk, Spock, Lincoln, and Surak against Colonel Green, the Klingon Kahless, Zora, and Genghis in a fight to the death. To force Kirk and Spock to fight, the alien has set the Enterprise to explode in 2 hours if Kirk is defeated and all the Enterprise can do is watch on the screen.

Not great but it's Star Trek fun! Very entertaining.

8.5/10

Summoned to fight with sticks and with stones, by a blob with claws but without any bones, it's good verses bad, sane verses mad, the losers are the ones overthrown.

Greeted by Abraham Lincoln the crew of the Enterprise come under threat from a pile of rocks.

The Enterprise crew once again encounter highly advanced/highly evolved aliens, who, in this case, wish to study the concepts of good and evil (a bit ironic as I thought humanity had evolved beyond the simplistic notion of such concepts by the 23rd century) and use crew members as pawns in their inquiries. This episode, a morality tale, borrows elements from some of the better episodes of the past, such as "Arena" and "Day of the Dove," as well as "Spectre of the Gun" and even "The Devil in the Dark," which had another silicon-based lifeform. The better scenes, however, are not the later action sequences, but when Abraham Lincoln beams aboard the ship and gets acquainted with Kirk and the crew. It's an excellent guest appearance by actor Bergere, who is given some entertaining dialog, mirrored later by actor Atwater, who plays the famous Vulcan, Surak. The crew reactions to such famous personages and their debates about the nature of these obvious aliens-in-disguise is what elevates this above the average 3rd season episode. Doohan, as Scotty, steals a couple of scenes here, as usual.

In the last two-thirds of the episode, Kirk & Spock, along with Lincoln, beam down to the planet, meet Surak, and then are forced to confront four other famous, er, infamous figures from the past: Colonel Green, Kahless the Unforgettable, Zora (who?) and Genghis Khan. Col.Green made his name in some genocidal war in the 21st century (probably related to the 3rd World War brought up in later Trek series). Kahless, of course, is the famous/infamous Klingon, reinterpreted on the TNG series. The plot, at this point, is fairly simple: with no advanced weapons, using whatever resources are on hand in the primitive setting, such as spears, the two quartets must fight it out until one side is the victor. It's very basic, very primal, with our heroes and villains reduced to chess pieces on the cosmic board of some higher powers. There are no astonishing revelations towards the end, with Kirk & Spock merely showing that their Starfleet training can be put to use, if required. Even so, it seemed to me they were lucky in the end - that Green miscalculated and didn't press on to victory when he had the chance, due to, I suppose, cowardice. This episode also showed, again, the ingenuity necessary to come up with unusual-looking aliens when you have almost no budget for special make-up and FX.