Essentially, you're saying he aimed for a suggestion of future unity, but wound up implying a dismissive stereotype instead?
Star Trek TOS Re-Watch
- Thread starter Commander Troi
- Start date
Well observed! There are episodes where Spock's dialogue is merely okay, a handful where it's substandard, and many (but too few) where it's fantastic. This is one of the latter. Someone really, really worked on that Spock dialogue pretty hard. It's just about perfect. Although this is more of a "Kirk episode," it's an excellent one to watch to get a sense of Spock at his best-written.
He does have a rather biting wit, does he not?
Arena by Gene L. Coon
I'd forgotten the entire first 20 minutes of this episode! Wow.
@Tallguy - you're right. There are definitely potential canon issues now with what SNW has done. But there are ways around most of them. I'm curious to see what the writers come up with in the second half of Hegemony.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are in the transporter room waiting to beam down to Cestus 3 to see Commodore Travers. McCoy is looking forward to "a good non-reconstituted meal." The Commodore wants them to bring their tactical aides with them. But when they beam down, they find the colony destroyed and it looks like it happened days ago, meaning the message from Travers was a fake to lure them here. They find one survivor in bad shape. There are also readings for other beings who aren't warm-blooded. They start getting "shelled". At the same time, the Enterprise reports it's under attack by an unidentified vessel. Kirk is unhappy to not be on the ship. He runs through enemy fire to the arsenal.
KIRK: Any identification on the attacking vessel?
SULU [OC]: No, sir. Doesn't correspond with any configuration we're familiar with.
SULU: We can't get visual contact. She's too far away.
Spock joins him there and has to throw away his tricorder (and he looks quite annoyed) because the enemy locked onto it an overloaded it. Sulu takes the Enterprise out of orbit. Kirk gets an estimate of where the enemy is from one of the tactical aides and fires grenades. The enemy transports up its party and withdraws. Kirk orders medical personnel down to search for survivors. The Enterprise beams up the party and pursues the other ship as it heads "toward a largely unexplored section of the galaxy."
The survivor they found tells them what happened:
"We called up. Tried to surrender. We had women and children. I told them that! I begged them! They wouldn't listen. They didn't let up for a moment."
Kirk is pissed off. Spock tries to calm him but fails.
KIRK: How can you explain a massacre like that? No, Mister Spock. The threat is clear and immediate. Invasion.
Kirk orders them to catch up, even though the higher warp speeds are dangerous when sustained. Kirk wants to blow up the other ship. Badly.
Suddenly, they come upon an uncharted solar system and get scanned. The other ship slows to a dead stop and Kirk prepares to fire when the Enterprise stops too. The Metrons announce that Kirk and the captain of the other ship will be taken to a planet to settle their dispute.
"The place we have prepared for you contains sufficient elements for either of you to construct weapons lethal enough to destroy the other, which seems to be your intention. The winner of the contest will be permitted to go his way unharmed. The loser, along with his ship, shall be destroyed in the interests of peace. The contest will be one of ingenuity against ingenuity, brute strength against brute strength. The results will be final."
Kirk vanishes from the ship and appears on a desert-like planet. A big lizard man is there too. Both have recorder/translators but no weapons. They fight a bit. Kirk throws a rock. The Gorn throws a bigger and heavier one. Kirk flees. On the Enterprise, nothing Spock or Scotty can do works.
Kirk gets to high ground and sees the Gorn sharpening rocks below. He pushes a boulder down on him, but when he goes to see, Kirk runs into a trap of vines and rocks and the Gorn gets up. Kirk gets away, but with a limp.
Spock asks the Metrons for communication.
METRON [OC]: Your violent intent and actions demonstrate that you are not civilized. However, we are not without compassion. It is possible you may have feelings toward your Captain. So that you will be able to prepare yourself, we will allow you to see and hear what is now transpiring.
At this point, if SNW had actually come before TOS, Spock, Scotty, and maybe Uhura would recognize the enemy. We can rationalize that they were too concerned about Kirk to say, "Hey, I know what that is!"
The Gorn Captain talks to Kirk through the recorder/translator. From his point of view, Cestus 3 was an invasion of their space.
Meanwhile, Kirk teaches us how to assemble a crude grenade launcher. He fires at the Gorn, incapacitating him. But when he takes the stone dagger, he chooses not to stab the Gorn.
KIRK: No. No, I won't kill you. Maybe you thought you were protecting yourself when you attacked the outpost.
(He throws the dagger away, stands up and shouts to the sky)
KIRK: No, I won't kill him! Do you hear? You'll have to get your entertainment someplace else!
A Metron appears. By demonstrating mercy, the Metrons feel there is hope for humanity. Both captains are returned to their ships, healed. The Enterprise is now 500 parsecs from where it was. They head back to Cestus 3.
I've never seen the ENT episode with Gorn, so this was my only exposure until SNW brought them back. I can see why - we never learned much about them except that they're intelligent and very alien to humans. And, other than the rubber suit, this is a damn good episode. Kirk is seriously out for revenge, then survival, then, once communicated with, decides on mercy. Shatner does his usual fine job here, as does Nimoy, who shows obvious frustration at not being able to help Kirk and then a little "cheerleading" as Kirk assembles the weapon.
It really boggles me how many Damn Fine Episodes are in this first season!
I'd forgotten the entire first 20 minutes of this episode! Wow.
@Tallguy - you're right. There are definitely potential canon issues now with what SNW has done. But there are ways around most of them. I'm curious to see what the writers come up with in the second half of Hegemony.
Kirk, Spock, and McCoy are in the transporter room waiting to beam down to Cestus 3 to see Commodore Travers. McCoy is looking forward to "a good non-reconstituted meal." The Commodore wants them to bring their tactical aides with them. But when they beam down, they find the colony destroyed and it looks like it happened days ago, meaning the message from Travers was a fake to lure them here. They find one survivor in bad shape. There are also readings for other beings who aren't warm-blooded. They start getting "shelled". At the same time, the Enterprise reports it's under attack by an unidentified vessel. Kirk is unhappy to not be on the ship. He runs through enemy fire to the arsenal.
KIRK: Any identification on the attacking vessel?
SULU [OC]: No, sir. Doesn't correspond with any configuration we're familiar with.
SULU: We can't get visual contact. She's too far away.
Spock joins him there and has to throw away his tricorder (and he looks quite annoyed) because the enemy locked onto it an overloaded it. Sulu takes the Enterprise out of orbit. Kirk gets an estimate of where the enemy is from one of the tactical aides and fires grenades. The enemy transports up its party and withdraws. Kirk orders medical personnel down to search for survivors. The Enterprise beams up the party and pursues the other ship as it heads "toward a largely unexplored section of the galaxy."
The survivor they found tells them what happened:
"We called up. Tried to surrender. We had women and children. I told them that! I begged them! They wouldn't listen. They didn't let up for a moment."
Kirk is pissed off. Spock tries to calm him but fails.
KIRK: How can you explain a massacre like that? No, Mister Spock. The threat is clear and immediate. Invasion.
Kirk orders them to catch up, even though the higher warp speeds are dangerous when sustained. Kirk wants to blow up the other ship. Badly.
Suddenly, they come upon an uncharted solar system and get scanned. The other ship slows to a dead stop and Kirk prepares to fire when the Enterprise stops too. The Metrons announce that Kirk and the captain of the other ship will be taken to a planet to settle their dispute.
"The place we have prepared for you contains sufficient elements for either of you to construct weapons lethal enough to destroy the other, which seems to be your intention. The winner of the contest will be permitted to go his way unharmed. The loser, along with his ship, shall be destroyed in the interests of peace. The contest will be one of ingenuity against ingenuity, brute strength against brute strength. The results will be final."
Kirk vanishes from the ship and appears on a desert-like planet. A big lizard man is there too. Both have recorder/translators but no weapons. They fight a bit. Kirk throws a rock. The Gorn throws a bigger and heavier one. Kirk flees. On the Enterprise, nothing Spock or Scotty can do works.
Kirk gets to high ground and sees the Gorn sharpening rocks below. He pushes a boulder down on him, but when he goes to see, Kirk runs into a trap of vines and rocks and the Gorn gets up. Kirk gets away, but with a limp.
Spock asks the Metrons for communication.
METRON [OC]: Your violent intent and actions demonstrate that you are not civilized. However, we are not without compassion. It is possible you may have feelings toward your Captain. So that you will be able to prepare yourself, we will allow you to see and hear what is now transpiring.
At this point, if SNW had actually come before TOS, Spock, Scotty, and maybe Uhura would recognize the enemy. We can rationalize that they were too concerned about Kirk to say, "Hey, I know what that is!"
The Gorn Captain talks to Kirk through the recorder/translator. From his point of view, Cestus 3 was an invasion of their space.
Meanwhile, Kirk teaches us how to assemble a crude grenade launcher. He fires at the Gorn, incapacitating him. But when he takes the stone dagger, he chooses not to stab the Gorn.
KIRK: No. No, I won't kill you. Maybe you thought you were protecting yourself when you attacked the outpost.
(He throws the dagger away, stands up and shouts to the sky)
KIRK: No, I won't kill him! Do you hear? You'll have to get your entertainment someplace else!
A Metron appears. By demonstrating mercy, the Metrons feel there is hope for humanity. Both captains are returned to their ships, healed. The Enterprise is now 500 parsecs from where it was. They head back to Cestus 3.
I've never seen the ENT episode with Gorn, so this was my only exposure until SNW brought them back. I can see why - we never learned much about them except that they're intelligent and very alien to humans. And, other than the rubber suit, this is a damn good episode. Kirk is seriously out for revenge, then survival, then, once communicated with, decides on mercy. Shatner does his usual fine job here, as does Nimoy, who shows obvious frustration at not being able to help Kirk and then a little "cheerleading" as Kirk assembles the weapon.
It really boggles me how many Damn Fine Episodes are in this first season!
I can ask the SFB player when he gets home from work. 
Did I miss something specific? SFB has never been canon, so I wasn't really thinking about it when watching. I'm trying to go in to these as "fresh" as I can.
I have never assumed the thrown-together cannon would work in real life. At least, not the way it's shown on screen.
I love that they tried it.
Did I miss something specific? SFB has never been canon, so I wasn't really thinking about it when watching. I'm trying to go in to these as "fresh" as I can.I have never assumed the thrown-together cannon would work in real life. At least, not the way it's shown on screen.
I love that they tried it.
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Yes, I know. I played SFB myself, but it was a looooooooooooooong time ago. I just wondered if there was a specific reason you brought it up.
Just because you had said
Ah. Just blame my faulty memory.
Hilarious.
I find that very hard to rationalize.
And now that I'm thinking about it, that was a pretty primative violent solution the Metrons came up with. Seems to me the oh-so-civilized Metrons could have shown us primitive violent humans how to solve disputes by oh say having Kirk and the Gorn captain TALK out a solution perhaps?
Supporting characters not having first names (or proper names at all) isn't limited to Star Trek.
Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea had: Kowalski, Patterson, Sparks, Doc, Benson, Clark, etc...
The Time Tunnel had "Jerry."
Not to mention Gillian, Endora, Quincy and Carleton the Doorman.
Growing up, I never once wondered if Sulu or Uhura had, or even were, first or last names.
Too much work.
That was sort of the point - the Metrons were offended by these primitive trespassers on their territory.
A bit of a case of "OK junior, you want violence? You'll it!"
It belies their superior attitude at the end but that's fine too; the Metrons have flaws
I guess that's what I'm saying. The Metron acted so above us, but they have flaws too.
Interesting contrast to the earlier appearance of the Organians.
The whole Minnow compliment were indeed given full names, but they were never used in the show:That's right! Gilligan himself never got a first name. And he never got a dinner.
Willie Gilligan
Capt. Jonas Grumby
Prof Roy Hinkley, Ph.D.
Thurston Howell III
Eunice Wentworth "Lovey" Howell
Mary Ann Summers
Ginger Grant
"Willie" was suggested by Bob Denver, and Sherwood Schwartz agreed.
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