In the twenty-second episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>, ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN SPACE. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek<\/i>.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Trigger Warning: For discussion of racism, war.<\/b><\/p>\n
THAT WAS A JOURNEY.<\/p>\n
There are elements of this script that actually felt like classic\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>to me, particularly in how the show managed to maintain a sense of social commentary within the action unfolding on the screen. While there is a fascinating exploration of war and peace within \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Savage Curtain,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also not something entirely new. This is not the first time we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen crewmembers pitted against opponents solely for the amusement of an alien race, nor is it all that refreshing to see the main characters used as an experiment for someone else. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t expect\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>to become so repetitive in its third season, but\u00c2\u00a0I do appreciate that I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m getting to see the show in this manner. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m beginning to truly understand how\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek\u00c2\u00a0<\/i>defined a genre and influenced television for years to come.<\/p>\n
But more on that in a bit. Let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just talk about the absolutely unreal opening to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Savage Curtain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d because\u00c2\u00a0ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN SPACE<\/b>. Will I ever get over this? Will I ever recover?\u00c2\u00a0No<\/i>. (I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m now convinced that Abraham Lincoln\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s appearance in the beginning of\u00c2\u00a0Adventure Time<\/i> has to be a reference to this because\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 WHAT.) It is a deliberately bizarre scene that sets the tone for how fucking\u00c2\u00a0weird<\/i>the remainder of this episode will end up being. I mean\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s impossible! It can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t be happening because ABRAHAM LINCOLN IS DEAD. He can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t float in space! For the most part, I think the writers handle this absurdity quite well, especially when it comes to the pacing of this mystery. They don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t waste time having nearly every character openly question the presence of Lincoln, which helps avoid making this feel like some sort of unsatisfying mystery. We know that this can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t actually be Lincoln, and everything that Spock, Scotty, and Bones observe suggests highly that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some rock-like species down on the planet that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00c2\u00a0actually<\/i> behind the illusion.<\/p>\n
Because of this format, the audience more or less just waits for the other shoe to drop. We know this isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t the real Lincoln, we know that there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some other life form on Excalbia, and we know that Kirk is walking right into a trap. Which\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 that was a strange to me. All of the signs pointed towards this being a trap, but apparently, Kirk loves Lincoln so much that he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d be willing to put the entire\u00c2\u00a0Enterprise<\/i> at risk just so he can hang out with him? All right, I can let that go because it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not like Kirk hasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t been shown to be a flawed captain. I was<\/i> a little disappointed when the show revealed that this was a fight-to-the-death style twist again because we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen it so many times.<\/p>\n
But that didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make this episode a disaster. I did have issue with the sanitization and simplification of history present here, since that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t do anyone a service. For example, when Lincoln called Uhura a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153negress\u00e2\u20ac\u009d and then kindly apologized for it, I wanted to punch every writer who looked at this script. Look, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m a little tired of the nature of science fiction to solve racism by simply saying it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just over because it is, above all else, lazy as hell. Plus, THAT\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S NOT WHAT THEY CALLED BLACK WOMEN BACK IN LINCOLN\u00e2\u20ac\u2122S TIME\u00c2\u00a0OH MY GOD<\/b>. I understand that this show wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t going to drop an anti-black slur on the network, so why include a mistruth so openly in the show? Because it serves to portray Lincoln as some sort of progressive figure of history. (Newsflash, friends! Lincoln was a massive racist, and the Emancipation Proclamation didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come about because Lincoln was some sort of ahead-of-his-time abolitionist; that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ahistorical and ridiculous.) This same issue pops up when the characters themselves \u00e2\u20ac\u201c even the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153illusions\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c begin to talk about war and its role in the world. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not bad, so much as it felt unfortunately simplistic, particularly Lincoln\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s justifications for war and Kirk\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s view of it.<\/p>\n
At the same time, SPOCK AND SURAK.\u00c2\u00a0YES<\/i>. First of all, it was a real treat to get to see another Vulcan on screen, and it made me wish that this show had more episodes about Spock\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s species. From the very first time the two met to Surak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s death, I found Surak\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presence to be the best part of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Savage Curtain.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d His cold chiding of Spock for showing emotion \u00e2\u20ac\u201c shock \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at seeing him WAS SO GREAT, Y\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ALL. In that moment, the clear difference between Spock and Surak is established, and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the first time we ever see Spock come close to\u00c2\u00a0cowering<\/i> in someone else\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s presence. Of course, Nimoy plays Spock with a beautiful subtlety during these scenes, but you could absolutely tell that Spock was in awe of one of the Vulcans\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 greatest heroes. I found this so much more compelling than the dynamic between Lincoln and Kirk. It was so satisfying to get scenes where Spock had someone just as committed to logic on his side (and vice versa), and it gave this moral fight nuance.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what most of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Savage Curtain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d lacks. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of blunt and silly in the second half because there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s no real commitment to anything, and the narrative peters out nonsensically. We don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t find out if Yarnek ever learned of anything from forcing Kirk and Spock to fight historical tyrants. I\u00c2\u00a0think<\/i> the writers were trying to say that war taints everything, that any commitment to violence sullies those involved, but the best I can do at this point is to provide conjecture. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m not exactly sure because the end of this episode has such an abrupt conclusion. The Excalbian illusions run away, and apparently, that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s all Kirk and Spock had to have them do? And then they win? What was learned here? If evil \u00e2\u20ac\u0153retreats\u00e2\u20ac\u009d when met with force, why has history repeatedly shown this to be untrue? If the ends justify the means, how can you justify what happened here when Lincoln and Surak were both killed for literally nothing?<\/p>\n
It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s messy, but somehow much better than most of this third season, so that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s something.<\/p>\n
The video for \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Savage Curtain\u00e2\u20ac\u009d can be downloaded here for $0.99<\/a>.<\/p>\n Mark Links Stuff<\/b><\/p>\n – Mark Does Stuff is now on Facebook<\/a>! Feel free to Like the page, which I’m running myself, for updates and SILLINESS. In the twenty-second episode of the third season of\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek, ABRAHAM LINCOLN IN SPACE. Intrigued? Then it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s time for Mark to watch\u00c2\u00a0Star Trek.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[614,616],"tags":[615],"class_list":["post-4410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-star-trek","category-the-original-series","tag-mark-watches-star-trek"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/markwatches.net\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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