"The Conscience of the King": Plot Holes and Questions.

[Christopher]

^Heh. I'm doing a TOS watch with friends and we just covered that one about a week ago. Kirk and Miri together is pretty creepy even if she is the older woman.

At least, it's creepy if you decide to read into the dialog more than was likely intended.

Well, Miri's the one making romantic advances on Kirk, a teenager (psychologically) with a crush on an older man. Kirk's focused on, you know, not dying and all, so his flattery of Miri is just in the vein of trying to make her feel good about herself -- because to a '60s man (or a 2260s man written by a 1960s writer), the way to build a woman's confidence is to tell her she's physically desirable and will make a good wife for somebody someday.

I mean, let's not forget that Janice Rand also throws herself at Kirk and he rebuffs her advances. Again, first-season Kirk was about duty above all, nothing like the womanizing stereotype he's saddled with in pop culture, or like the more conventional, womanizing action hero he became to a greater extent in seasons 2 & 3.

 

[Forbin]

Thoughts on the age difference discussion (having only read to page 2 so far):

1) Lauren Bacall was 19 in To have and Have Not. Watch that movie and tell me that isn't a grown woman. Bogart was 25 years older than her.

2) My mother was 17 or 18 when she met my father in the late 1940s, and he was 8 years older. Her mother did think he was too old for her, but she fought for him, winning out against a woman closer to his own age. She was 19 when they got married in 1950. Dad passed away in 2003, after a nice long, devoted marriage. Mom hasn't even considered another man.

I don't know why anyone would consider an age difference a problem, especially if it isn't a problem to the couple.

 

[T'Girl]

John Gage tells a doctor that Dixie McCall's age is around 30, even though she was already said to have been in the Korean War which would make her a pre-teen army nurse!

Was it that she was a nurse in the Korean War, or that she was a nurse in Korea? The latter easily could have been early 60's when Dixie was in her late teens/early twenties..

Mom hasn't even considered another man.

A decade is more than a respectable time to wait after the death of a loved one, as her son did you ever tell her it would be okay?

 

[JimZipCode]

first-season Kirk was about duty above all, nothing like the ... conventional, womanizing action hero he became to a greater extent in seasons 2 & 3.

Just to nitpick – I agree with your observation of the difference in Kirk in this area from s1 to later seasons – but season 1 Kirk was not entirely above dallying.

• Dagger of the Mind – we're supposed to understand there is some backstory btw Kirk & Helen, something that happened at the last Christmas party.
• Court Martial – In Kirk's first scene with Areel, in the bar, he seems eager to jump in the sack with her and make up for lost time. Not just gallantly courteous (as he is with Lenore): nearly importunate. Honestly his demeanor is not that much different from Maverick's in the bar in Top Gun, when he first meets Kelly McGillis: sailor just back from a long cruise.
• Shore Leave – After everything has been sorted out, Kirk is quite willing to go off with "Ruth". Which frankly seems a bit creepy.

So: while Kirk is certainly scrupulous and energetic about his duty in season 1, he's no monk.

 

[Christopher]

Just to nitpick – I agree with your observation of the difference in Kirk in this area from s1 to later seasons – but season 1 Kirk was not entirely above dallying.

• Dagger of the Mind – we're supposed to understand there is some backstory btw Kirk & Helen, something that happened at the last Christmas party.

• 
  
  That is hugely, hugely misunderstood by fandom. The episode makes it clear that nothing actually happened -- they danced, they talked about the stars, and that was it. Period. Yet Kirk was extremely uncomfortable to be reminded of it afterward. Later, when he and Helen were testing out the neural neutralizer, she created an explicitly false memory in which they left the party and fell into an intimate embrace. The whole point of their romantic flashback was that it didn't actually happen, that it could never have happened, that it was an artificial memory Helen induced in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of the machine. Yet generations of fans have misremembered the episode and believed that there actually was something between Kirk and Helen, when the whole point was that there wasn't. It's a classic example of the myth of Kirk blinding people to the reality.
  
  Really, the telling thing here is that, even after Dr. Adams turns the neutralizer up to full power and brainwashes Kirk into thinking he's madly in love with Helen, all it takes is a reminder of his duty and Kirk readily shakes off his illusory love and quite coldly orders Helen to crawl through a tunnel with lethal, exposed electric circuits all around her. It couldn't be clearer that this is a man who puts duty above all and considers romance a distraction.
  
  
  

  [*]Court Martial – In Kirk's first scene with Areel, in the bar, he seems eager to jump in the sack with her and make up for lost time. Not just gallantly courteous (as he is with Lenore): nearly importunate. Honestly his demeanor is not that much different from Maverick's in the bar in Top Gun, when he first meets Kelly McGillis: sailor just back from a long cruise.

• Shore Leave – After everything has been sorted out, Kirk is quite willing to go off with "Ruth". Which frankly seems a bit creepy.

So: while Kirk is certainly scrupulous and energetic about his duty in season 1, he's no monk.[/QUOTE]

But both of those are old flames, women he knew in the past when he wasn't a starship captain. TOS makes it very clear -- particularly in his "a beach to walk on" speech in "The Naked Time" -- that he does have a deep yearning for female companionship, but suppresses those urges because his first duty is to his ship and his crew. He does have women in his past, yes, but he would never, ever permit himself to act on his attraction to a member of his crew, or let his desires get in the way of his duty. The one time in season 1 that he's in his right mind and is tempted to place love over duty is with Edith Keeler -- and that episode makes it very clear that he's profoundly in love with her, drawn to her intelligence and kindness and vision. And even there, he ends up choosing duty.

And Kirk's reaction to Ruth isn't that of a horny man-child -- it's deep, soulful love and longing. This is someone he cared for profoundly in his past, a painful memory of a lost love, and seeing her again overwhelms him with regret and yearning. It's nothing like the shallowness of McCoy conjuring up the Rigel II cabaret girls.

The myth of Jim Kirk is that he was a shallow womanizer. The reality is that he was a man capable of deep, devoted love and tenderness, who if anything tended to fall too hard and too deeply for his own good when he allowed it (see Rayna Kapec), but who strove to keep that side of himself from interfering with his discipline and duties. Quite a lot of the time, in fact, it was the women who chased him, rather than him chasing them.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Thoughts on the age difference discussion (having only read to page 2 so far):

1) Lauren Bacall was 19 in To have and Have Not. Watch that movie and tell me that isn't a grown woman. Bogart was 25 years older than her.

2) My mother was 17 or 18 when she met my father in the late 1940s, and he was 8 years older. Her mother did think he was too old for her, but she fought for him, winning out against a woman closer to his own age. She was 19 when they got married in 1950. Dad passed away in 2003, after a nice long, devoted marriage. Mom hasn't even considered another man.

I don't know why anyone would consider an age difference a problem, especially if it isn't a problem to the couple.

I dated a 19 year old when I was about Kirk's age. Had a friend who was slightly put off by that, until her boyfriend point out her parents had the same age difference.

 

[Maurice]

I'm far, far from an expert on hostage situations and such, but could not one of these able-bodied crewmen and women have helped out somehow?

What are those on that wall panel? Coat hooks?

 

[LMFAOschwarz]

What are those on that wall panel? Coat hooks?

Wow...I was so spellbound by seeing actual light bulbs on Star Trek, that I didn't even notice the coat hooks! Bet they got a lot of use.

The only other time I think we saw coats hanging up was The Man Trap, at the Crater residence!

 

[GSchnitzer]

The "ships theater" set was a redress of the "ship's gymnasium" set from "Charlie X" (which was a redress of the Engineering Room set).

In "Charlie X," those doohickies served two functions:

1) "Sam" was using one set as some kind of exercise device--raising and lowering the levers--presumably with some amount of tension or resistance--as part of his workout.

2) these hinged hooks also had one stray gi top (and belt) hanging on them. (Presumably, the gi top and belt were Kirk's--the one guy who wasn't wearing a gi top and belt).

For the "ship's theater," they just repurposed the back wall of the set that contained those lever/hook things. It's a bit of a mystery whether or not the "ship's theater" was meant to be a completely different place on board the ship, of if they simply chased everyone out of the gym that evening for the Karidian Players' show and dubbed the room the "ship's theater."

I'm far, far from an expert on hostage situations and such, but could not one of these able-bodied crewmen and women have helped out somehow?

What are those on that wall panel? Coat hooks?

 

[The Old Mixer]

At least when Kirk was working out, he had the good sense to take off his gi so it wouldn't get all ripped up....

 

[GSchnitzer]

At least when Kirk was working out, he had the good sense to take off his gi so it wouldn't get all ripped up....

And that's why Kirk always wins when he does randori with Sam: Sam never has anything to grab, so Kirk has Sam at a disadvantage. Kirk can fling Sam around like a bag of potatoes, but Sam needs to try to grab Kirk as if Kirk were a greased pig.

 

[JimZipCode]

At least when Kirk was working out, he had the good sense to take off his gi so it wouldn't get all ripped up....

Tough to rip a gi. And judogi's usually don't have those little ties inside them, that a karate gi has: so even tougher to rip.

 

[Nerys Myk]

At least when Kirk was working out, he had the good sense to take off his gi so it wouldn't get all ripped up....

Tough to rip a gi. And judogi's usually don't have those little ties inside them, that a karate gi has: so even tougher to rip.

I thought it was reference to Kirk's propensity for ripping his shirt.

 

[The Old Mixer]

^This.

 

[GSchnitzer]

At least when Kirk was working out, he had the good sense to take off his gi so it wouldn't get all ripped up....

Tough to rip a gi. And judogi's usually don't have those little ties inside them, that a karate gi has: so even tougher to rip.

Interestingly, those are vintage Tokaido-brand karategi tops that Charlie and Kirk have, dyed in that weird salmon red color. They are the thinner karate/kendo gi tops made of cotton, designed for kicking, punching, and kata, not the thicker canvas-like judogi/aikidogi tops made for tugging.

 

[Mytran]

It made no sense that Kirk went topless to practise Judo throws, for the reasons mentioned above. William Shatner was not too pleased either (an alternate cut was actually filmed with him wearing the tunic, but it was not used).

 

[Christopher]

Did Kirk ever need a sensible reason to take his shirt off...?

 

[Mytran]

Those uniforms are pretty fragile and tear at the least provocation! I would have thought Kirk would welcome a more durable gi, TBH

 

[Marsden]

Now I can just see him sitting in the command chair on the bridge wearing that gi instead of the green wraparound.

 

[Forbin]

John Gage tells a doctor that Dixie McCall's age is around 30, even though she was already said to have been in the Korean War which would make her a pre-teen army nurse!

Was it that she was a nurse in the Korean War, or that she was a nurse in Korea? The latter easily could have been early 60's when Dixie was in her late teens/early twenties..

Mom hasn't even considered another man.

A decade is more than a respectable time to wait after the death of a loved one, as her son did you ever tell her it would be okay?

a) None of my business.
b) She's still not interested.