In the sixth episode of the third season of Star Trek, when Kirk ignores a warning from an alien satellite, he discovers that the consequences are WEIRD AS HELL. Intrigued? Then it’s time for Mark to watch Star Trek.
Trigger Warning: For brief discussion of race/colonialism in re: the Old West.
This is a weird one, even for Star Trek, and yet? There’s a charm to how ridiculous and absurd “Spectre of the Gun†is, namely because the writers take this weird idea and run off into the sunset with it.
It’s hard to wrap my mind around the premise of this episode because at times, it’s almost a meta-commentary on both the adoration of the Wild West and a commentary on the production of the genre. That’s not to say that’s intent of the story; I feel like it’s more about an optimistic view of American violence than anything else. But when this all unfolds on a set that’s deliberately half-built (which reminded me of Lars Von Trier’s Dogville), when the characters on the screen are purposeful stereotypes meant to evoke specific images and feelings in the audience, it’s hard for me not to acknowledge those things. There’s something deeply intriguing to me about how this alternate history is composed. The Melkotians access Kirk’s mind for a proper execution scenario, and what they construct is a bare skeleton of the original world. You’ve got the basic facts of the actual gunfight at the O.K. Corral, but it’s placed within a heavily fictionalized version of Tombstone, Arizona, one that you could easily say was built off of Kirk’s own stereotypical understanding of that world.
It’s here that we get a jarring exploration of what reality means for these characters. If the Malkotians are forcing the Enterprise crew to re-live this gunfight, casting them as the cowboys who originally died, then how much free will do they have? Can they change history? Is that even how you should look at this? It’s not like the Malkotians sent the crew back in time, propping them up as the actual Clantons and McLaurys. This is all fake, right? I was somewhat distracted by the fact that no one seemed to be questioning the very nature of this reality until… well, they did. The first sign of this that we see is when they all try to leave town and discover that they’re physically unable to do so. There’s a force field around Tombstone, preventing them from an easy solution to their problem.
Of course, that’s not what’s truly fucked up about this place. It’s the fact that Chekov is killed by Morgan Earp and HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE. The main characters don’t die in this show, so I did not once expect any of them to be harmed prior to the big showdown. And yet? Chekov is shot for defending Sylvia, and he dies, and THIS IS AWFUL, HOW IS THIS EVEN HAPPENING.
Which is the key to unraveling this: How can any of this happen? It’s only when everyone starts openly questioning this entire reality that they begin to understand what the Malkotians have done. Actually, let me be more specific: Spock questions the reality, and that allows them to figure out that the Malkotians are using the crew’s perception against them. And it’s Spock who elminates the doubt within the minds of the crew so that they can truly believe that everything around them is fake. Seriously, that may have been the BEST use of the Vulcan mind meld in this whole show. IT’S SO COOL. Because of it, we get an incredibly tense standoff between the Enterprise crew and the Earps/Doc Holliday. I appreciate that the show was able to pull off that kind of suspense, despite that we knew at that point that nothing was real. It’s an effective sequence because the fear is built on the chance that at any moment, someone could doubt this reality, and they might die if that were the case. BUT NOPE, THEY ALL GET SHOT A TON OF TIMES, AND THEN KIRK KICKS WYATT EARP’S ASS.
So how does this all fit within the framework revealed in the final scene? The only Melkotian that Kirk interacts with tells Kirk at the end that they’re impressed Kirk did not kill any of the Earps; Kirk responds that humanity got rid of their reliance on violence to solve conflicts. Except… that’s not the case in this episode? Or in most of this entire show? Violence is constantly used to solve problems, and I’d even argue that the very thing that got the crew into this mess – Kirk ignoring the Malkotian warning – was an act of violence. So… no? I don’t buy this?
But I am not necessarily concerned with the internal logic of this episode so much as I am worried that this falls in line with an endless parade of fictional accounts that refuse to demonize American expansion in the Old West. There’s some truth to what we see in this episode (such as the citizens of Tombstone largely disliking the Earps), but the colonialist aspect of this expansion is utterly ignored. And when you try to write an episode that reflects the “violence†of the Wild West while simultaneously ignoring that the vast amount of that violence was against this country’s indigenous population, you’ve lost me.
I suppose that Star Trek goes out of its way to give us a future that’s… well, better. In some ways, of course. The cast is racially diverse, and that’s intentional. Women are in positions of power. The crew seeks out newness in the universe with an appreciation of the varied cultures that they come across. But this show is still a creation, an act of imagination, and that imagination was not made in a vacuum. You can see elements of American culture all over episodes like this, and the romanticization of the West is part of that. So is the claim that violence is no longer a pervasive part of humanity. That’s a hope on Roddenberry’s part, and while I admire the intentional re-imagining of a future like this, it falls short some times. It feels more ahistorical than anything else. But I don’t want to ignore that this is part of what the Star Trek experience means to those watching it: we can imagine a future where these things might actually be possible. It’s not just technology, which we’ve exceeded in many ways, but in the ways which humans interact with one another. It’s a nice thought.
The video for “Spectre of the Gun†can be downloaded here for $0.99.
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