Cheap Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 77: The Savage Curtain (Video) (James Goldstone, Murray Golden, James Komack, Don McDougall, Robert Butler, Marc Daniels, John Meredyth Lucas, Leo Penn, John Erman, David Alexander) Price

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Customer Reviews of Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 77: The Savage Curtain

An alien species exhibits intellectual curiosity
The major premise of this episode is intellectual curiosity, although in this case the curiosity is exhibited by alien creatures made of liquid rock that live on a volcanic planet. They probe the minds of the Enterprise crew and from Kirk's they create a facsimile of Abraham Lincoln as an emissary to the Enterprise. Lincoln is beamed aboard and is treated as a visiting dignitary. He demonstrates all of Lincoln's charm, wisdom and humor and Kirk is taken with him. Lincoln then asks Kirk and Spock to beam down to the surface of the planet with him. After reflection, they agree and beam down to an area on the planet that has been made suitable for human habitation. Once there, they discover Surak, a Vulcan revered for his principles of nonviolence, the founder of the Vulcan way of logic, and a hero plucked from Spock's mind.
A rock creature called Yarnek appears and conjures up four people from history considered to be the epitome of evil. The four evil ones are then to battle against the four "good guys", in an experiment so that Yarnak's species can learn which is stronger, good or evil. To guarantee compliance, Yarnak vows to destroy the Enterprise if good is defeated. Surak and Lincoln are killed, but in the ensuing battle, the evil ones are defeated and the survivors flee. Yarnak returns and is puzzled and disappointed by the results. He feels that they have learned nothing of the difference, although he releases the Enterprise.
The choice of of the four evil ones puzzles me. They are Ghengis Khan, Khalis, the founder of the Klingon Empire, and two others that are unknown. My first choice would have been Adolf Hitler, and I will always wonder why they did not make that choice. Perhaps his time does not go back far enough into history for the producers to consider it appropriate. To the Klingons, Khalis is a hero, which may explain some of the ambiguity that Yarnek senses. Ghengis Khan is also a significant figure in the history of northern Asia, not necessarily considered to have been evil. Yes, he conquered a large part of Asia and Europe, but there are other figures from human history that were far worse.
The main premise of this episode is one that I believe has a higher probability of coming true than many others used in the Star Trek series. When humans encounter other intelligent beings, the two species could immediately go to war. Barring that, the other species could easily demonstrate an enormous curiosity about humans and our values. If they are a species that does not possess a moral sense equivalent to ours, then good and evil would be concepts that they would not understand. If they are capable of probing human minds, then experiments of this type could certainly be possible. Therefore, I enjoyed the episode, ranking it roughly in the middle of the list.

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Another season 3 that is only good if taken lightly
Another real tanker, this one is a sort of celebrity death match in which Lincoln and the good guys throw down with Genghis and the bad company. Everything about this episode feels dark and pessimistic, right down to the lighting. Even the scenes with Lincoln are oddly cold and foreboding; as soon as he transports aboard, the lighting/print become as dark as any in the show. An episode featuring Lincoln also deserved better dialogue.

Once on the planet, things become even more frightful. The rock aliens are some of the creepier and crueler of Star Trek creatures, particularly given their specious reasons for wanting to watch a battle between good and evil. The episode's dream-like feel makes the threats seem real, even though the plot is laughably simple. The episode is classic 3rd season in never even attempting to reach a firm conclusion about the philosophical/moral question it poses as well. On the one hand, Lincoln and Surak in particular prove to be poor fighters (Surak even proves to be a poor logician, suggesting Kirk negotiate even after the aliens have threatened to destroy the enterprise if Kirk does not fight). But the bad guys prove to be even worse fighters. So maybe the strongest are the people who are good, but not too good? Or maybe Kirk and Spock are more moral even than Surak? Don't spend too much time thinking about it, because the braintrust behind this episode didn't bother to. The bottom line is that for a supposedly intelligent species, the Excalbians present an extremely poorly posed question/challenge. But there is something truly disturbing about both their appearance and their arbitrary and brutal methods. And who says they would have a value system like ours, after all?

Tidbit: Several gaffes occur here. Not only is the negative reversed in one shot of Kirk, but there are speed changes at three points, at least one of which seems unintentional. Very bizarre. And why don't Genghis and Zora have speaking parts? Perhaps it saved the show money, but it conveys the unfortunate impression that the producers thought of the minorities as intellectually subhuman.

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Deserves Better
This is a difficult episode to rate. It is very uneven, seems rushed, maybe everyone was having a bad week but any Trek fan will know the third season was hell for all involved.

But I think it is better than most think. It is actually a wonderful story, it is just limited by budget and admittedly heartless acting. This could have been a masterpiece if done better , but it still deserves a look.

I lo ve the spooky music and Yarnek is pretty spooky looking if you are in a dark room and not taking things too seriously.

If you are a Trek fan, I believe this is worthy of collection. This episode seems to air very rarely; I don't know why. Give it a chance.