Star Trek – The Savage Curtain

★★★★1/2 March 7, 1969 Season 3 Episode 22

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Gene Roddenberry, Arthur Heinemann,  and Arthur H. Singer

This is a bizarre episode…even for Star Trek. I like the episode more than some Trek fans. When you see Abraham Lincoln materialize in space and talk to you…you know you are in for a different kind of episode. I will say this… it works because of the actor playing Lincoln… he is exactly what I would picture Lincoln. 

The Enterprise crew once again encounters highly advanced/highly evolved aliens, who, in this case, wish to study the concepts of good and evil and use crew members as pawns in their inquiries. This episode, a morality tale, borrows elements from some of the better episodes of the past.

 Apparently Lincoln (Lee Bergere) was a boyhood hero to Captain Kirk, while everyone on the planet Vulcan revered the legendary Surak (Barry Atwater). The two heroes are teamed up with Kirk and Spock to do physical battle with the galaxy’s most notorious outlaws, with a mute Genghis Khan representing ancient Earth history. This, all in the name of defining good versus evil, life versus death

 I simply love the improbable idea of a stunning recreation of Abraham Lincoln and “father of Vulcan civilization/peace/logic”, Surak from the minds of Kirk and Spock (it is established how much admiration and respect Kirk and Spock have for these historical figures) forced into combat with evil historical figures representing the worst kind of lot as rock beings on a planet primarily of lava want to study good vs. evil and judge the results. 

From IMDB:

This is the final episode of the series to feature the entire ensemble cast of Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov. This episode also marks the final appearance of Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) in the series.

This marks the second time TOS encounters a silicon-based life form. The first time is in The Devil in the Dark (1967). Janos Prohaska played both lifeforms, with Bart La Rue supplying the Excalbian’s voice.

Lincoln tells Kirk, “There is no honorable way to kill, no gentle way to destroy. There is nothing good in war, except its ending.” This speech, written by the Star Trek screen writers, has become so popular that some people mistakenly believe it to be something the real Abraham Lincoln said.

“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.

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

Tiburon, homeland of the cruel scientist Zora, is named after the Spanish word for shark, and was also the homeland of Doctor Sevrin, the villain-of-the-week of The Way to Eden (1969).

The first choice for the role of Lincoln was Mark Lenard, best known for playing Sarek, but prior commitments prohibited him from taking the part.

The characters of Zora and Genghis Khan have no lines. This is probably due to budget constraints, as actors with speaking parts were paid significantly more than background actors.

The war that included Colonel Phillip Green’s atrocities was later decided to be World War III in the mid-21st century, which served as an important macguffin in later Trek productions such as Encounter at Farpoint (1987), Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and a number of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) episodes.

This is the second and final mention in a TOS episode that it may be possible to separate the nacelles from the ship, in this case by specifically jettisoning them.

A Star Trek trading card set gave Colonel Green’s full name as Edward Featherstone Green, but this was superseded by the last few episodes of Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) where he was spoken of as Phillip Green.

Kahless is seen here in the Klingon style typical of TOS. It would seem to contradict the explanation given in Divergence (2005) for the change in physical appearance of the Klingons, since Kahless lived long before those events. However, since the image of Kahless was drawn from Kirk’s and Spock’s minds, not from “fact”, this is not necessarily a contradiction.

The appearances of Kahless and Surak mark the final respective appearances of a Klingon and (full) Vulcan in The Original Series.

The budget cuts imposed by the network for series three are noticeable here. Although, at first glance, this appeared to have a number of guest actors, at least two of them were actor/stunt performers with no lines of dialogue. The planet surface was the Desilu set with fiber-glass rocks that had been used in previous stories or borrowed from the recently canceled CBS show Lost in Space (1965), Genghis Khan’s outfit had been used at least once previously, in The Omega Glory (1968), and Kahless’ Klingon outfit had also been used previously. Note that both Kirk and Spock materialize on the planet surface without their tricorders or phasers, meaning that money could be saved by not requiring any additional visual effects. Also, many of the planet surface props, such as spears, had been used previously. In fact, the only significant spend was on commissioning the molten rock creature costume (which was connected to a smoke machine).

This episode marks the final appearance of dress uniforms in the original series.

Scott’s kilt is the 1826 Scott black and white tartan, which “..was produced for his own use by Sir Walter Scott in 1822, and that he wore it in private, in the form of a Lowland shepherd’s plaid.” In Scotland, the patterns are referred to as ‘tartan’ as opposed to ‘plaid’ preferred in America. The one exception is the design known, in Scotland, as Shepherd’s Plaid.

William Shatner struggled to keep weight off during the show’s run and found the pounds piling on as filming dragged on over the course of a season. His weight gain is particularly noticeable in this story in comparison to episodes earlier in season three.

In the teaser, McCoy says, “There is no intelligent life here.”, and is quickly proven wrong. This is the only time anybody actually says this oft-quoted phrase on the original Star Trek series.

This is one of three productions in which Genghis Khan and Abraham Lincoln appear together as characters, in spite of the fact that Lincoln was born 582 years after the Khan’s death. The others are Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure (1989) and Clone High (2002).

Summary

When someone purporting to be Abraham Lincoln asks them to beam down to the planet below, Kirk and Spock agree to join him. Soon Surak, the greatest Vulcan of all time, is with them. They are told by a rock-like creature that they are there to do battle against four of history’s most evil characters. The rock creature’s society does not understand the concepts of good and evil and the battle between the two groups will determine which has the greatest merit. They are free to use any materials available to them on the planet and Kirk soon realizes that there are weapons to be made.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Lee Bergere … Lincoln
Barry Atwater … Surak
Phillip Pine … Col. Green
James Doohan … Scott
George Takei … Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Arell Blanton … Chief Security Guard
Carol Daniels … Zora (as Carol Daniels DeMent)
Bob Herron … Kahless (as Robert Herron)
Nathan Jung … Ghengis Khan
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Bart La Rue … Yarnek (voice) (uncredited)
Janos Prohaska … Yarnek (uncredited)