The Corbomite Maneuver
(Season 1: Episode 10 – Production Episode 3)
When I reflect on Star
Trek in its various incarnations, I often think of teamwork and intriguing
ensembles of characters. Yet upon
rewatching The Corbomite Maneuver,
I’m struck by how much the early episodes of the original series center around
Captain Kirk. Almost everything in the
show seems structured to highlight the boldness, importance, and strength of
this singular main character. Spock is
an effective foil but not yet the brotherly friend of later episodes. McCoy is a kind of mentor, but Kirk is more
than ready to challenge the older man and remind him of his subordinate
position in the ship’s hierarchy. The
later pseudo-equality of this fascinating trio has not yet been fully
established.
Kirk’s centrality is reinforced in other ways. His physicality is highlighted by his
shirtless scenes at the start of the episode, while his competence is
contrasted with the immaturity of his protégé, the panicky helmsman, Bailey. Even the starship is personified into a
subordinate position: when McCoy teases him about sexual self-restraint, Kirk
responds that he’s already got a female to worry about (“Her name’s the Enterprise”). The whole plot of the episode pivots on
Kirk’s tough-guy bluff about Corbomite. All
of this helps to establish Kirk as a heroic man of action, albeit in a way so
exaggerated that it almost toys with the camp and the absurd. In any case, I still prefer the multivalent
character dynamics of later episodes, when Kirk, Spock, McCoy are more
comfortable with one another, more playfully antagonistic as they spar and
support each other. Along the way, other
characters like Scotty, Sulu, and Uhura also rise in importance. Kirk is always the fulcrum of decision-making,
the embodiment of the thoughtful but decisive leader – but it seems to me that he
grows in stature, rather than diminishes, as the series progresses and the
other members of the spacefaring team become more prominent.
There’s a lot of filler as the crew frets about whether the
ship has enough power, or is using too much power, or is being overpowered. In the end, though, we get that cool meeting
with a weird and enigmatic alien.
And now, your moment of Trek friendship:
Spock: Has it occurred to you that there’s a certain…
inefficiency in constantly questioning me on things you’ve already made up your
mind about?
Kirk: It gives me emotional security.
Image: IMDB
