Wanderlust

3.22 — “The Savage Curtain”

3.22 — “The Savage Curtain”

Plot: During a survey of a lifeless world, the image of Abraham Lincoln appears on the viewscreen of the Enterprise. The 16th President then asks to come aboard. The crew meets Lincoln, whose life turns out to be a special interest of Kirk. Then Lincoln convinces Kirk and Spock to beam down to the planet surface. This turns into a melee between famous historical figures, for the edification of all-powerful aliens made out of rock. During this process, Honest Abe does judo throw a Klingon, but does not yell “sic semper tyrannis!” while doing so.

Thoughts: This episode presents so many things to ponder. Like, how high would I have to be to truly enjoy it? “The Savage Curtain” is is just an adventure story; it doesn’t seem to have any ambition other than to amuse. If only the action were better staged and the pacing of the second half was faster. This episode reminded me less of Star Trek, and more of the “Seven Little Super-Heroes” episode of Spider-man and His Amazing Friends (1981-1983).

The episode trivia at IMDB and Memory Alpha is more interesting than anything I have to say:

From IMDB: (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708477/trivia?ref_=tt_trv_trv) 

Colonel Green’s uniform was recycled into the spacesuit worn by Mork in his appearances on Happy Days (1974) and Mork & Mindy (1978).

“The Savage Curtain” introduces Klingon founding father Kahless and Vulcan founding father Surak to the Star Trek universe. Kahless’ history played an important role in several episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1993) (where he is regarded as a force for good, contrary to the sentiments expressed here), and Surak’s history was crucial to the final season of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) which also gave a little bit of backstory to Colonel Phillip F. Green. Zora of Tiburon is the only “historic” figure introduced here who was not further developed in a later Star Trek series.

From Memory Alpha: (http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/The_Savage_Curtain)

This episode includes two further contributions to the ambiguous time period that the series is set in, establishing that “Lincoln died three centuries ago,” indicating a mid-22nd century time period, while at the same time establishing, more ambiguously, that the 21st century was “centuries ago.”

(Me again.) Apparently, the introduction of Surak inspired a lot of fan mail. I just wish they’d cast a more interesting performer.

The actor who played Lincoln was okay, but they should have used more of Lincoln’s real words as dialogue.

Kirk’s dress uniform doesn’t fit as well as it used to .

Finally, the writer who made Shatner end the episode by narcissistically comparing Kirk’s personal disappointment with the sacrifice necessary to achieve final peace on Earth didn’t do him any favors.

I told you I didn’t have much interesting to say.

1 out of 5 floating armchairs in space.

Edit: Post-season, I’m retroactively bumping this up to 2 stars. It’s Abraham Lincoln versus a poop monster, for chrissakes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Savage_Curtain

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7 responses to “3.22 — “The Savage Curtain””

  1. Randi Cohen Avatar
    Randi Cohen

    Oh, I don’t know, I enjoyed it.  The whole Abraham Lincoln thing was a bit hard to swallow as anything other than camp, and there were various logical inconsistencies… like, why not Martin Luther King or Gandhi instead of Abraham Lincoln?  And why not beam down some test objects to the surface first?  And, why would anyone be so naive as to think that Surak was still alive after being captured by the enemy?  Did they not think of the voice imitation thing?  Really?  And, since apparently that tactic did work, I thought they were going to actually cry like Lincoln rather than just giving away his death to Kirk and Spock like that?  And, why is two on four suddenly easy odds when four on four was not?

     OK, so shooting ducks in a barrel aside, I’ll tell you why I liked this one.  First, I did think it posed an interesting moral question of what actually does make the difference between good and evil, the answer being not much, much of the time, and that it pretty much comes down to intentions.  Which is not all that obvious of a point, really.

    Also, I loved all the new back-story the Star Trek universe got and I kind of liked the ending — Shatner was pretty believable in his acting for a change and I also felt he had quite good chemistry with Lincoln, despite the fact that it is kind of ridiculous to put on dress uniform even if Lincoln is the ex-President for real.

    I kind of liked the lava-men, and would like to think that they would have let the Enterprise go on its way even if Kirk and Spock had lost.  On the other hand, how can you understand “good” and “evil” beings well enough to replicate their appearance speech and behavior yet not understand the difference between good and evil?  It seems like being able to write a novel without knowing the alphabet.  

    It was slow in the first half, but overall I was entertained and interested.  

    Rating: 3 out of 5 Roberts the Bruce (if that is indeed the proper pluralization).

     

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  2. Katharine Bond Avatar
    Katharine Bond

    I have had vague memories of this episode for a long, long time. But, I’d always assumed that I must have dreamed it up because who would have written something like this?

    Also, the bit about Uhura not minding being called a “negress” by Lincoln was particularly cringe-worthy.

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  3. Kevin Black Avatar
    Kevin Black

    Kathy caught up! I thought the point about the words not having the power to harm because the underlying prejudice/animus had been eliminated was a fine one, and rather noble to find on TV in 1969, proximate in time to the assassination of MLK, and when open racial atrocities were not uncommon. Lincoln would certainly have used the word Negress–I thought his interaction with Uhura was a high point, and wished there was more of it.

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  4. Katharine Bond Avatar
    Katharine Bond

    I don’t know. It really played more to me like “we are in a post racial future where we whitewash all offensive terms and pretend like they weren’t offensive”. I can see the other interpretation, but I’m not sure I buy it especially in 1969.

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  5. Randi Cohen Avatar
    Randi Cohen

    Hmmm. I also liked that interaction, as an optimistic wish for the future, although also was thinking at that moment that people in the series seem to feel no compunction about calling spock names at certain times. So a certain contradiction there. But overall I choose to interpret it as benign. But can see why you are seeing it otherwise.

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  6. Katharine Bond Avatar
    Katharine Bond

    I think that at other points in my life I would have also seen it as benign. However, especially this week, I may be more primed to see it differently.

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  7. R. Alex Reutter Avatar
    R. Alex Reutter

    I didn’t hate this episode.  For me, the high point is the contrast between Lincoln and Surak and how they would achieve “good”.  It would be a much better episode if Spock and Kirk presented further differences in how one might achieve good.  For that matter, if their enemies presented contrasts in how one achieves power.  It’s not at all clear to me why three of these powerful figures from history defer to the white male human.

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