3x22 The Savage Curtain

[6.7/10] It’s not every day that the Enterprise runs into Abraham Lincoln. “The Savage Curtain” gets credit for its high concept premise -- what if the greatest heroes of history (plus Kirk) squared off against the greatest villains? The mystery that leads up to that match up (How exactly did we just beam aboard the 16th President of the United States?) is a compelling one, but once Kirk and Spock beam down to the planet and the rumble actually goes down, the episode stumbles considerably and ends in one big muddle.

It feels odd to say, but one of the best parts of this episode of Star Trek was its depiction of Lincoln. Lee Bergere gives the man a certain inherent grace and dignity in how he conducts himself, but also a certain playful quality that marks him as a human being and not just a figure on a pedestal. The makeup for Lincoln is a little dodgy in places, but for the most part, between rescue attempts and back and forths with the crew, Honest Abe feels about right for someone who died in the 1800s beaming aboard a starship.

There’s two things that make him work here. The first is that he’s as guileless and puzzled about this situation as anyone. Rather than being an evil alien himself or a willing part of some nefarious plot, he’s just a genial guy who doesn’t know why he’s here or how he knows certain things, just that he’s doing what he’s supposed to be doing. That gives him an interesting part to play, because his very presence suggests a threat, or at least something unusual going on, but he has no answers. The second is the idea that he is a product of Kirk’s conception of Lincoln as a personal hero, giving the two of them a rapport that makes Lincoln seem avuncular and warm to the starship captain.

The problem comes when Kirk, Spock, and Abe beam down to the planet below. The trio run into Surak, the erstwhile patron saint of all Vulcans, who preaches a Gandhi-esque philosophy of peace and nonviolence. It’s then that they all meet Yamek, the latest in a long line of Star Trek’s uber-powerful beings who wants to put the crew in a fight to prove some philosophical point. In this instance, it’s to decide whether good or evil is better.

Yamek introduces team evil, which includes a double-crossing war criminal Colonel, a woman who performed inhumane experiments, Genghis Khan, and notorious Klingon warrior Kahless. (Comic Book Guy alert -- Kahless looks super different than the character we see a glimpse of in The Next Generation, though perhaps it can be excused with the idea that all these figures are reflections of Kirk’s and Spock’s minds, and they’ve only seen ridgeless Klingons). The two groups are then put in a fight to the death, “Arena” style, where the Enterprise is at stake and the crew can watch the battle going down live on pay per view.

The problem is that once the fight gets going things turn pretty dull. Sure, the rock creature facilitating this whole thing is neat design work from the production side, and there’s the playground conversation-level thrill about who would win in a standoff between Abraham Lincoln and the good guys vs. Genghis Khan and the bad guys. But Star Trek has done this sort of shtick so many times that once the novelty of the historical angle wears off, it’s just more foraging for weapons and strategizing on a foam rock planet for vaguely philosophical reasons with little to show for it.

There’s some minor intrigue from Surak taking his peace-loving ways to their logical ends -- namely pleading for understanding, getting killed, and then being staged as part of a trap. And there’s some fun from seeing Lincoln cite his history as a wrestler and a woodsman and try to arrange a rescue. But on the whole, it’s just more generic gladiator material that the show’s done several times before.

What’s odd is that the message of the episode is murky at best. After Lincoln is killed by Colonel Green and the others, Kirk and Spock say the hell with peace or strategy and just beat their opponents with braun and scrapping. That leads Yemak to say that all he’s learned is that good and evil are the same, because they use the same methods and so one prevailing says nothing. Maybe there’s some commentary there on moral equivalency, about how one person thinks them better than another, but when your back’s against the wall we all turn into animals. There’s a hint of that with Lincoln admitting that even though he’s a man of peace, he was the commander-in-chief of the bloodiest war in our nation’s history. But it’s not an idea delivered with much clarity.

Maybe that can be chalked up to complexity. Kirk claims that the difference between him and Colonel Green is that he was fighting to save his people, while Green & Co. were just fighting for power. On the other hand, he chastise Yemak for “doling out life and death,” but Yemak paints himself as a seeker of knowledge and new information just like Kirk is, and that his motivations for staging this fight were the same exploratory impulses that brought Kirk down to the planet in the first place. Again, there’s the potential for some nuance here, but it’s generally lost in rock-throwing tumult of it all.

“The Savage Curtain” isn’t a bad episode. Again, anytime you can put Abraham Lincoln on a spaceship and fighting alien overlords and make it work, you’ve done something noteworthy. But when the episode devolves into the usual “I’m a powerful alien and I’m making you all fight to prove a point” routine, the seams start to show quickly. Star Trek often tries to balance headiness and action, and these skirmishes with high-minded intentions serve that end. Unfortunately, it’s just another well The Original Series has gone to one too many times, to where even throwing in historical figures and an impressive-looking Power Rangers villain instigating can only sustain the same old combat for so long.

Gosh no. Why? I saw the thumbnail before I pressed the play button and I feared the worst. Abe Lincoln, really? In a chair? Floating in space? Well, we had native Americans (multiple times), the text of the constitution and the US flag on an alien planet. Lincoln fits in. Writers are obsessed with US history. I think that's a bit jingoistic. A move perhaps tailored to an American audience in order to counter the idea that the Enterprise was taken over by Chinese, Scottish or Soviet-Russian officers?

The rest of the story is mediocre and standard (captured, experiment, fight for survival). It's message is as expected at this point (good guys must stick together and will prevail but don't be mistaken: the line between good and evil is a thin one and sometimes even the good guys must resort to drastic measures), The execution is cartoon-ish. I guess the main point of this episode was the depiction of Abe Lincoln. I was bored. Plus, I still don't understand why Kirk was persuaded by Lincoln to follow him down to the planet. What's next? A guy appears and tells Kirk that he's the reborn Paul Revere and Kirk must ride with him? Would Kirk also trust him? Makes no sense. Where's the science based approach to space exploration?