Customer Reviews

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 77: The Savage Curtain [VHS]

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4 star:		(7)
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1 star:		(0)

 

 

Looks like the latter to me! While surveying a planet that has a poisonous atmosphere and is covered with molten lava, sensors reveal an artificial atmosphere and a patch of ground that resembles earth. What their eyes see on the view screen and what their sensors read are not jibing.

Uhura sends hails in all frequencies with no response. Just as they're ready to break orbit, the ship is probed by some sort of beam whose source is unknown. Then, without explaination, Abraham Lincoln is right in front of their ship, wearing his stove pipe hat and sitting in a large chair reminiscent of the Lincoln Memorial.

There he is, floating in space, talking to Kirk like he knows him. Lincoln is not freaked out by being in space and encountering a space ship with aliens and even knows the crew by name without being introduced, but is freaked out by taped music he hears aboard the ship when he is beamed over. Pulleease!

Kirk is trippin' - here is his childhood hero, President Linoln - he knows that Lincoln has been dead for over 3 centuries (in Star Trek time), but believes that this image of Lincoln believes that he is Lincoln. Whatever! Kirk makes everyone get in dress uniform. For some reason, this means Scotty wears a kilt, purse and the whole Scottish regalia. This simply doesn't make sense - unless someone wants to explain it to me. I know Scotty is supposed to be Scottish, but he's a member of the Federation, not the Scottish Space Agency. You don't see Sulu wearing a Samurai uniform or Spock in a robe. The dress uniforms are extremely cheesy, but they do look a tad dressier than their normal dress. They really improved the look of the dress uniforms on Next Generation, thank goodness.

After touring the ship and visiting with the crew, Lincoln manages to persuade Kirk and Spock to beam down. Scotty and Bones try to reason with Kirk that this is madness and they could get beamed right into a pile of lava, but Kirk doesn't care. They don't even bother to try beaming a plant over first to make sure it survives.

When Scotty beams Lincoln, Kirk and Spock down, their tricorders and phasers are left on the transporter pad. When the party lands and realizes they are unarmed, they try to use their communicators but can't reach the Enterprise. The crew on Enterprise doesn't know if Kirk and Spock are even alive because their sensors are going crazy.

Soon a pile of living rocks materializes - it actually looks like someone emptied a gigantic diaper and brought the baby-poo to life. It is baby-poo brown and looks about the right consistency, too. It has glowing things in its "head" that I guess are supposed to be eyes that blink when he talks.

The rock-poo dude explains that his culture doesn't understand concepts of good vs. evil and instead of just asking for an explanation, this rock-poo-man would rather pit Spock & Kirk against 4 well known evil characters. Interesting. One is Ghengis Khan, another is an evil doctor from the 21st century, another is an evil alien woman who has some really bad hair and the fourth one is Kahless. Very interesting. We learn in The Next Generation that Kahless is equivalent to a prophet, nearly a diety to the Klingons. He is revered, almost to the point of worship - but in this early episode, Kahless is supposedly the epitome of evil. Why not use Hitler instead? Granted, Hitler was more of a dictator than a warrior.

In addition to Lincoln, Spock now has a legend to admire - Surak, the most revered Vulcan of all times, who changed Vulcan culture to one of peace and logic. Now the four of them are to battle to the death against their evil counterparts so that the rock-poo can learn if it is evil or good that is more powerful. They must fight to the death - for if they refuse to fight or if they are killed, the Enterprise will subsequently be destroyed.

Spock & Kirk know that Lincoln and Surak are just illusions, but seem to take offense at being forced to fight to the death with the 4 evil folks - who must also be illusions. There is certainly no guilt in killing something that isn't even real. There are always holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through in these early episodes, but they make broader points.

Star Trek was such an innovative show - a Russian, an Asian and an African - a woman at that, are major characters. At the heat of the civil rights movement, Uhura was the first black woman on a TV show that wasn't a maid - a risky move for risky times.

Lincoln, who found slavery morally reprehensible and paid the ultimate price for ending slavery, meets Uhura on the bridge and shakes her hand and appears to be smitten by her beauty. Equals. As easy as it is to look back nearly 40 years at these shows and giggle because of how cheesy some things were, I can barely fathom how some folks must have gasped when they saw such a display on the show, when there were separate bathrooms and water fountains for blacks and whites.

Our culture owes a debt of gratitude to these early ground-breaking shows on many levels and even though the ultimate nemisis literally looked like a pile of crap, the show was pretty monumental.

This is a difficult episode to rate. It is very uneven, seems rushed, maybe everyone was having a bad week but any Trek fan will know the third season was hell for all involved.

But I think it is better than most think. It is actually a wonderful story, it is just limited by budget and admittedly heartless acting. This could have been a masterpiece if done better , but it still deserves a look.

I lo ve the spooky music <tho it is somewhat repeptitive, one of Star Trek's greatest faults I think> and Yarnek is pretty spooky looking if you are in a dark room and not taking things too seriously.

If you are a Trek fan, I believe this is worthy of collection. This episode seems to air very rarely; I don't know why. Give it a chance.

"The Savage Curtain" is actually a pretty good episode. When I first seen it and when someone claiming to be Abraham Lincoln first appeared on the Enterprise, I thought this episode would be crazy, but it proved me wrong. Kirk and the Enterprise crew must team up with Abraham Lincoln and go to a planet to fight off other famous figures in history.

When you first start to watch this episode, it might make you think that it won't be any good, but if you watch the whole thing, you'll probably like it pretty well. I recommend anybody to get this episode. It has an intriguing plot and some good effects.

The premise is goofy. Abraham Lincoln appears and invites Kirk and Spock to beam down. There they are forced to fight against some of the great villains in history, including Ghengis Kahn. The rock-like aliens of the planet don't understand Earth concepts of good and evil, so they stage a fight to see which is strongest.

Kirk, Spock, and Lincoln are joined by Surak, the founder of Vulcan philosophy. Surak is a total pacificist. He is gracious toward the Earthmen, though a bit formal. Despite the impossibility of a pacificist solution, Surak insists on suing for peace, and Spock argues that he must be given a chance to do so.

Credit must be given to Roddenberry for tackling a perennially difficult issue for liberals: is it better to adopt the Ghandi-like tactics of Surak, or to defend what is right as Lincoln did, at the cost of many lives? Making things difficult is that the bad guys have no problem with taking human life. In this episode, the good guys must ultimately stand and fight. But the idealism of Surak is not shown to be completely invalid. Indeed, the final words of the episode are "There is still plenty of their work [Surak's and Lincoln's] to do in the galaxy." Surak was surely a brave man (er, Vulcan).

Note: This episode inspired a memorable episode of the BBC series "Red Dwarf." In that story, a planet contains a museum of animated wax figures of famous Earthlings. For some reason, the musuem is empty and the wax figures have run amok, providing another showdown between the good guys and bad guys of history -- with the good guys at an apparent disadvantage because some of them are pacifists like Ghandi.

Another note: One of the bad guys in this Trek episode is Kahless the Unforgettable, the founder of the Klingon empire. In TNG episode "Rightful Heir," Kahless is a Klingon Christ figure. In that episode, members of a cult have preserved the DNA of Kahless and used it to clone him. The result is a Klingon Second Coming. The episode suggests that a Second Coming, if it happened, might be disappointing. "You have the words of Kahless already," the clone finally says to Worf. "Why be disappointed?" Be faithful to the ideas rather than worshipping the man.

The major premise of this episode is intellectual curiosity, although in this case the curiosity is exhibited by alien creatures made of liquid rock that live on a volcanic planet. They probe the minds of the Enterprise crew and from Kirk's they create a facsimile of Abraham Lincoln as an emissary to the Enterprise. Lincoln is beamed aboard and is treated as a visiting dignitary. He demonstrates all of Lincoln's charm, wisdom and humor and Kirk is taken with him. Lincoln then asks Kirk and Spock to beam down to the surface of the planet with him. After reflection, they agree and beam down to an area on the planet that has been made suitable for human habitation. Once there, they discover Surak, a Vulcan revered for his principles of nonviolence, the founder of the Vulcan way of logic, and a hero plucked from Spock's mind.
A rock creature called Yarnek appears and conjures up four people from history considered to be the epitome of evil. The four evil ones are then to battle against the four "good guys", in an experiment so that Yarnak's species can learn which is stronger, good or evil. To guarantee compliance, Yarnak vows to destroy the Enterprise if good is defeated. Surak and Lincoln are killed, but in the ensuing battle, the evil ones are defeated and the survivors flee. Yarnak returns and is puzzled and disappointed by the results. He feels that they have learned nothing of the difference, although he releases the Enterprise.
The choice of of the four evil ones puzzles me. They are Ghengis Khan, Khalis, the founder of the Klingon Empire, and two others that are unknown. My first choice would have been Adolf Hitler, and I will always wonder why they did not make that choice. Perhaps his time does not go back far enough into history for the producers to consider it appropriate. To the Klingons, Khalis is a hero, which may explain some of the ambiguity that Yarnek senses. Ghengis Khan is also a significant figure in the history of northern Asia, not necessarily considered to have been evil. Yes, he conquered a large part of Asia and Europe, but there are other figures from human history that were far worse.
The main premise of this episode is one that I believe has a higher probability of coming true than many others used in the Star Trek series. When humans encounter other intelligent beings, the two species could immediately go to war. Barring that, the other species could easily demonstrate an enormous curiosity about humans and our values. If they are a species that does not possess a moral sense equivalent to ours, then good and evil would be concepts that they would not understand. If they are capable of probing human minds, then experiments of this type could certainly be possible. Therefore, I enjoyed the episode, ranking it roughly in the middle of the list.

The Savage Curtain is a worthy episode of Star Trek. Don't let Abraham Lincoln's absurd way of revealing himself turn you off from this episode. I wish Lincoln had been introduced in another way. Because of this, I took off a star. However, once Lincoln came aboard the Enterprise, the story unfolded itself in an excellent way.

This episode is so pivotal because it introduced so many important characters. Kahless the Unforgettable and Surak both explained important parts of Klingon and Vulcan history respectively. Most people do not realize that Season Three provided a lot of information on the History of Vulcan (sadly destroyed in Star Trek XI). It was in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield that we learned Vulcan almost destroyed itself until logic was adopted.

The U.S.S. Enterprise is scanned by a powerful energy source coming from the planet Excalbia. The starship had been sent to survey the planet, but it was thought to consist of nothing but a lavalike surface without inhabitants. The image of Abraham Lincoln appears in space and requests to be beamed aboard, claiming to be the genuine Lincoln. Against McCoy's objections, Kirk and Spock beam the entity aboard. They accept his offer to visit Excalbia, where a rock-like creature named Yarnek appears. Yarnek declares that the Enterprise officers are to participate in a battle between good and evil. This is to teach the Excalbians about humanoid concepts. Fighting for the "good" are, Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak, founder of the present Vulcan culture. On the "bad" side are, Genghis Khan, Colonel Green, Zora, a vicious killer, and Kahless, father of the Klingon Empire as it was now known. When the Enterprise officers refuse to fight, Yarnek freezes the starship's engines, starting a breakdown of the matter/antimatter shielding. If Kirk doesn't win, the ship will explode in four hours. There is much plotting and counter-plotting, until only Kirk, Spock, Khan and Zora remain alive. After some philosophical discussion regarding "good" and "evil," Yarnek returns Kirk and Spock to the U.S.S. Enterprise and frees the ship.