[3.9/10] I’ve talked about this before in my write-ups for Star Trek, but I try to hard not to impose my modern values and norms on a show made fifty years ago when watching The Original Series. I’m sure that people fifty years from now will look at the art being made by people today and have serious issues with how things are depicted or glossed over, and so I do my best to take these stories as I find them, acknowledge areas where they’re lacking in how we view morality and what’s appropriate today, but still attempt to appreciate them on their own terms.
“The Gamesters of Triskelion” is an episode that really tried my patience and tested my ability to do that. The episode is nominally focused on Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov being secretly beamed to a gladiator planet where some unseen “providers” force them to train and fight, but it centers on issues of slavery and gender dynamics that the show is ill-equipped to handle, and it makes this one pretty hard to watch at times.
First and foremost, one of the local enslaved gladiators attempts to rape Uhura (and the episode is a little cagey about what exactly happens) and “Triskelion” pretty much glosses over the aftermath, essentially forgetting about it once it’s happened. Nichelle Nichols does an amazing job, with her horrified screams being truly chilling, in a way that reinforced that this was not a subject that a colorful show like Star Trek was in any way set up to address in a meaningful fashion. The fact that it’s almost immediately forgotten, and treated like any other indignity the crew, is a pretty hard thing to get past.
But that brevity at least means the episode isn’t throwing the uncomfortable aspects in your face every five minutes. There’s something more than a little disturbing about Kirk seducing Shahna, the alien gladiator who is ostensibly training him, when at best, she is someone who has lived her whole life as a slave and has only very fuzzy notions of concepts like consent or autonomy, and at worst she seems to have the understanding and roughly the capacity of a child.
“Triskelion” tries to gloss over this by putting her in one of those costumes that leaves little to the imagination, and having Kirk try to couch his affections in ideas above freedom and love. But the reality is that Kirk makes a move on this individual who is not at all equipped to handle such things. The episode is founded on the idea that he teaches her to love, and that comes off as him grooming her rather than a free and equal concordance between the two, it makes half of the episode devoted to something that just scans as wrong.
The other problem is that even if you separate out those uncomfortable parts of “Triskelion,” you’re left with a pretty standard, dull episode. Kirk is hoodwinked by aliens with god-like powers, falls in love with a babe of the week, and uncovers the terrible secret of the new planet before concocting some plan to escape. There’s nothing wrong with the formula, but if you’re not going to do anything novel it means the execution has to be good, and the gladiator theatrics and unpleasant sexual and slavery stuff really detract from whatever the episode’s trying to do.
There’s only a couple of genuinely good things about “Triskelion” that save it from being the absolute pits. One is that the Spock-Bones-Scotty effort to try to find Kirk and company is pretty darn good. A lot of these episodes have the main action going on down on the latest planet of the week, with the business on the ship trying to rescue them feeling perfunctory. But here, there’s a legitimate conflict between the three men about what the best approach is, and a legitimate challenge in trying to track what happened to their crewmen.
As always, Spock is great here. I love the tack that even cold logical Spock is willing to act on a “hunch” when all other options are exhausted. Following a random energy trail may be a longshot, but if the transporter is working properly and their searches of the area prove fruitless, then it works with his Vulcan logic that following that path, however unlikely, is the best thing to do.
There’s also great interactions between him and Bones and Scotty, with Spock’s line about taking any suggestion “even an emotional one” about where to look, Bones responding that Spock finally asks him for something and it’s that, and the little interlude about mutiny and compromise standing out as particularly great.
The other quality part of the episode is that the action choreography is actually pretty good here. I’ve had my beef with the fights on Star Trek before, but the creative use of the weapons and the recess-like rules of staying on particular colors made for an interesting battle with Kirk versus his three aggressors, and eventually Shahna at the end there. It’s good to know the episode can do some combat even if it can’t handle the storytelling or character stuff.
Still, again, the plotting is pretty dull too. The reveal of the lit-up trio of brains and Kirk giving another one of his tedious speeches about what it means to be truly advanced and blah blah blah didn’t do much for me. (Even if it did seem to be the inspiration for the robot elders of Futurama, one of my favorite gags.) And the ploy to wager against them and free everybody seems contrived as well, even when it’s not rooted in something that’s supposed to be romantic but comes off kind of disturbing.
And yet, as cheesy as the line is, there is pathos when Kirk leaves Shahna and promises that she’ll look up to the stars and remember him. It’s a good performance from the guest actress, and it suggests that more could have been made from this -- that there’s juice in having to say goodbye to someone who opened up your world and understanding, and that if it hadn’t been wrapped up in what reads as a hasty and inappropriate relationship, the episode could have been markedly improved. It’s unfair to judge something from five decades ago according to the standards of today, but it’s also unfair to expect an audience to be able to grin and bear the sort of uncomfortable sexual politics that “The Gamesters of Triskelion” puts on display, mixed in with a weak base plot to boot.
Review by Andrew BloomVIP 9BlockedParent2017-05-29T22:49:13Z
[3.9/10] I’ve talked about this before in my write-ups for Star Trek, but I try to hard not to impose my modern values and norms on a show made fifty years ago when watching The Original Series. I’m sure that people fifty years from now will look at the art being made by people today and have serious issues with how things are depicted or glossed over, and so I do my best to take these stories as I find them, acknowledge areas where they’re lacking in how we view morality and what’s appropriate today, but still attempt to appreciate them on their own terms.
“The Gamesters of Triskelion” is an episode that really tried my patience and tested my ability to do that. The episode is nominally focused on Kirk, Uhura, and Chekov being secretly beamed to a gladiator planet where some unseen “providers” force them to train and fight, but it centers on issues of slavery and gender dynamics that the show is ill-equipped to handle, and it makes this one pretty hard to watch at times.
First and foremost, one of the local enslaved gladiators attempts to rape Uhura (and the episode is a little cagey about what exactly happens) and “Triskelion” pretty much glosses over the aftermath, essentially forgetting about it once it’s happened. Nichelle Nichols does an amazing job, with her horrified screams being truly chilling, in a way that reinforced that this was not a subject that a colorful show like Star Trek was in any way set up to address in a meaningful fashion. The fact that it’s almost immediately forgotten, and treated like any other indignity the crew, is a pretty hard thing to get past.
But that brevity at least means the episode isn’t throwing the uncomfortable aspects in your face every five minutes. There’s something more than a little disturbing about Kirk seducing Shahna, the alien gladiator who is ostensibly training him, when at best, she is someone who has lived her whole life as a slave and has only very fuzzy notions of concepts like consent or autonomy, and at worst she seems to have the understanding and roughly the capacity of a child.
“Triskelion” tries to gloss over this by putting her in one of those costumes that leaves little to the imagination, and having Kirk try to couch his affections in ideas above freedom and love. But the reality is that Kirk makes a move on this individual who is not at all equipped to handle such things. The episode is founded on the idea that he teaches her to love, and that comes off as him grooming her rather than a free and equal concordance between the two, it makes half of the episode devoted to something that just scans as wrong.
The other problem is that even if you separate out those uncomfortable parts of “Triskelion,” you’re left with a pretty standard, dull episode. Kirk is hoodwinked by aliens with god-like powers, falls in love with a babe of the week, and uncovers the terrible secret of the new planet before concocting some plan to escape. There’s nothing wrong with the formula, but if you’re not going to do anything novel it means the execution has to be good, and the gladiator theatrics and unpleasant sexual and slavery stuff really detract from whatever the episode’s trying to do.
There’s only a couple of genuinely good things about “Triskelion” that save it from being the absolute pits. One is that the Spock-Bones-Scotty effort to try to find Kirk and company is pretty darn good. A lot of these episodes have the main action going on down on the latest planet of the week, with the business on the ship trying to rescue them feeling perfunctory. But here, there’s a legitimate conflict between the three men about what the best approach is, and a legitimate challenge in trying to track what happened to their crewmen.
As always, Spock is great here. I love the tack that even cold logical Spock is willing to act on a “hunch” when all other options are exhausted. Following a random energy trail may be a longshot, but if the transporter is working properly and their searches of the area prove fruitless, then it works with his Vulcan logic that following that path, however unlikely, is the best thing to do.
There’s also great interactions between him and Bones and Scotty, with Spock’s line about taking any suggestion “even an emotional one” about where to look, Bones responding that Spock finally asks him for something and it’s that, and the little interlude about mutiny and compromise standing out as particularly great.
The other quality part of the episode is that the action choreography is actually pretty good here. I’ve had my beef with the fights on Star Trek before, but the creative use of the weapons and the recess-like rules of staying on particular colors made for an interesting battle with Kirk versus his three aggressors, and eventually Shahna at the end there. It’s good to know the episode can do some combat even if it can’t handle the storytelling or character stuff.
Still, again, the plotting is pretty dull too. The reveal of the lit-up trio of brains and Kirk giving another one of his tedious speeches about what it means to be truly advanced and blah blah blah didn’t do much for me. (Even if it did seem to be the inspiration for the robot elders of Futurama, one of my favorite gags.) And the ploy to wager against them and free everybody seems contrived as well, even when it’s not rooted in something that’s supposed to be romantic but comes off kind of disturbing.
And yet, as cheesy as the line is, there is pathos when Kirk leaves Shahna and promises that she’ll look up to the stars and remember him. It’s a good performance from the guest actress, and it suggests that more could have been made from this -- that there’s juice in having to say goodbye to someone who opened up your world and understanding, and that if it hadn’t been wrapped up in what reads as a hasty and inappropriate relationship, the episode could have been markedly improved. It’s unfair to judge something from five decades ago according to the standards of today, but it’s also unfair to expect an audience to be able to grin and bear the sort of uncomfortable sexual politics that “The Gamesters of Triskelion” puts on display, mixed in with a weak base plot to boot.