Star Trek Review - The Corbomite Maneuver

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