It's time for another quick Star Trek review, this time checking out the original 1960s show! And yes, that is who you think it is on the Enterprise viewscreen. Yep.
"The Savage Curtain" is a very late Season 3 TOS episode, actually the third last episode of the entire series. Season 3 has a reputation of being notoriously terrible: creator Gene Roddenberry wasn't much involved anymore, the new producers didn't quite understand the concept and NBC was licking their lips to finally cancel the show (after fans had mailed in to save it after Season 2). While the final season of TOS has some truly baffling and dreadful stories (like the one with space hippies, or the one with evil children and the villain in a mumu, or the one where aliens steal Spock's brain... and there's plenty more awfulness), Season 3 does have some rather strong episodes mixed within those.
Photon torpedo spoilers away! This is not one of the strong ones. It begins with the Enterprise getting strange readings from a planet covered with molten rock. Uncertain what to do about it, they decide to leave until a strange figure appears on the viewscreen: yep, it's Honest Abe.
This episode is without a doubt best known as "that one where the Enterprise meets Lincoln", an idea so ludicrous to be so memorable. Naturally (and thankfully) the crew is reluctant to accept this is actually Abraham Lincoln, this being hundreds of light-years from Earth and, ya know, the 23rd century. This is actually the strongest (and only good) part of the story: Kirk giving Lincoln a presidential tour of the ship and gushing (as much as a cool cat like Kirk can) over a personal hero made flesh, while Scotty and McCoy are demonstrably skeptical. When Lincoln requests Kirk and Spock transport down with him to the planet covered in lava, you get one of those good little scenes of character conflict TOS could be so good at: McCoy and Scotty are incredulous Kirk actually wants to transport down into instant firey death, Kirk arguing how their mission out here is to discover new lifeforms despite the inherent risk, while Spock points out the illogic that some malevolent creature would simply want to kill just the two of them in such a way.
Of course Kirk and Spock beam down with ol' Abe, and here's where the episode goes completely out of it's mind. They're in a breathable rocky terrain and meet a fourth person to join their party: Surak, a legendary figure of Vulcan history. It is then that the true source of this wackiness shows itself.
Look, I get that we're talking about 60s Sci-Fi here, and looking back half a century later some of the alien costumes you see on Lost In Space, Doctor Who and Star Trek are going to look pretty silly. This one though is ridiculous even by that standard. This alien is a molten rock creature and yet has two tiny little feet (even though it never walks), claw pincers for hands and a mushroom shaped "head" with little bulbs that light up when it talks. Like come on... this is too cartoonish to be a Super Mario enemy.
Anyways, Rockman declares it is trying to discover the difference between good and evil, and so Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak must battle the four most evil figures in history! Ooooooo! Those end up being the genocidal General Green from 21st century Earth (lets keep our eyes on that guy, everyone), a wicked unethical doctor named Zora, the Klingon Kahless (seeing as they describe him here brutalizing his own people like a Mao Zedong, this seems very unlike the revered Kahless described in later Trek series) and finally, wait for it.... Genghis Khan! I'd say you can't make this stuff up but clearly somebody did.
Yep, once again it's another TOS alien forcing a Fight To The Death!(tm) with the Enterprise also in mortal danger depending on the result. Sigh. This is partly what makes Next Generation's "The Last Outpost" so awful in that they copied this trope that already tired itself out twenty years earlier. Anyhow, Surak is very much a pacifist and instead goes to the evil camp in hopes of negotiating some truce, though at least aware such a prospect is slim. There is much debating of "when and if there is ever a good time to fight", which can be good drama when it isn't some actor in a bad Lincoln costume spouting vague wisdom while William Shatner chews the cheap scenery. Lincoln is killed in an ambush trying to rescue Surak, forcing Kirk and Spock to fight the four evils themselves (and win! Hooooo....ray....). Kirk angrily speeches at the rock alien how pointless and dangerous this spectacle was, then in the coda of the episode he seems to reflect curiously, even admiration at it's methods? Whatever.
The biggest problem with "The Savage Curtain" is how contrived it is. Like, this belongs in the Hall of Fame of Contrived Ideas. There's no way a story where Kirk, Spock and Abe Lincoln battle evil figures of history was ever not going to be silly, yet sadly it never embraces that silliness. It didn't have to be a comedy exactly, maybe something a bit looser like "Shore Leave" where the mystery of these strange figures appearing is as much the focus than any threat to our heroes. The mystery of why Lincoln is here, after all, is the only part of this episode that works. Instead they play this straight, which results in a bizarre story with an overdone premise, further hampered by weighty ideas of good versus evil fired blindly without any sense of direction. It's not even enjoyably corny, you wind up shaking your head more at how stupid this all is. For me this is barely a Warp 3, the first ten minutes or so the only salvageable part of a completely derivative brainless tale.
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