155: Star Trek TOS Season 1, "Court Martial"

https://youtu.be/hRYi_5QOlRY

Matt and Sean talk about … space… madness in Star Trek: The Original Series. From courtroom drama to a crazy man committing sabotage, this one has it all. BUT … does it hold up?

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Creators & Guests

Host

Matt Ferrell

Host of Undecided with Matt Ferrell, Still TBD, and Trek in Time podcasts

Host

Sean Ferrell 🐨

Co-host of Still TBD and Trek in Time Podcasts

What is Trek In Time?

Join Sean and Matt as they rewatch all of Star Trek in order and in historical context.

In this episode of Trek in Time, we're talking about space madness. That's right, we're talking about Star Trek Season 1, Court Martial. This is episode number 15 in shooting order. But 20 in broadcast order, so it's a little late in the season. We'll get into the details of why I think that's a good idea later on.

But first, let's just get into our introductions and then the mailbag. Welcome to Trek in Time, where we're watching every episode of Star Trek in chronological Stardate order. We're also taking a look at the world at the time of original broadcast. So right now we're talking about the original series and we're also talking about 1967.

And who are we? I'm Sean Ferrell. I'm a writer. I write some sci fi. I write some stuff for kids, including my recently released The Sinister Secrets of the Fabulous Nothings, which is a robot and smuggler filled adventure for younger readers. And with me as always is my brother, Matt. He's that Matt behind Undecided with Matt Ferrell, which takes a look at emerging tech and its impact on our lives.

And Matt, how are you doing today? I'm doing well. Uh, there's something, there's a modern show that I've been going through recently, Sean, this past week. I've been barreling through the show, The Boys. Have you watched that show? I have watched most of it. I dropped out at a point in, I think, season two, and then I returned for it later.

There was a point for me where the show was a little too close to the real world, feeling like the real world was on fire. And then when we were watching a show about the world being on fire, I was like, this isn't helping me feel good. So I did get back into it, but it's a very well done and interesting take on a, Very popular comic.

You can tell we're brothers. Same thing happened to me. I watched season one, started like season two and was like, uh, I can't, this is too, too close to home right now. I can't deal with this. And then just recently came back, rewatched all of season one, went through two, three, and now I'm in a four. It's still cutting kind of close to home.

Yeah. But at the same time, I think there's enough of a distance I have to what's been going on here that it's allowing me to enjoy the show for the show. And it is just a blast. So I've been having a lot of fun over the past couple of weeks. Before we get into our conversation about this most recent episode, we always like to go back into the mailbag and see what we had to say about our previous episodes.

So Matt, what did you find for us this week? As always. A lot of great comments. Uh, there's a couple I want to share from The Galileo Seven, which is the giant men in apesuits throwing gigantic spears at people. Um, there's a lot of agreement that this was not a great episode. It's a classic. From Happy Flappy Farm.

And I love it, but it's not a great episode. Exactly, exactly. That actually is a sentiment. It's like, I remember loving this as a kid, but man, does it suck. This episode was difficult to watch quietly. Spock's crew ranges from rude and whiny to all about insubordinate Oh, let me re say that. Spock's crew ranges from rude and whiny to all out insubordinate and hostile.

It was irritating and for Spock to add to the problem by speaking his alien thoughts out loud, not using his inside voice, and encouraging more rancor. Then you have the commissioner and his irritating interactions with Captain Kirk. He may be mad, but you make a good point in that we're all in this together.

Why would they delay taking the medical supplies for a quasar that's not going anywhere? We felt like the laughing scene at the end of the episode was wrong and sends a bad message. Terrible. What was the point the writers were trying to get across in this episode? That logic is wrong and emotion should be the driving force behind decisions.

It's like, yeah, this is just like when you, as a kid, I can understand why as a children, we enjoyed this, but as adults, it's like, whoa, whuff. Yeah. And then we have PaleGhost69 piling on with, I've been struggling with leaving unique comments that weren't overly negative, but I was sounding like a broken record.

However, I can't let that slide with this episode. OMFG. The effects were so bad. A fat guy in a bear fur was supposed to be some 20 foot violent ape with a shield as big as their shuttle. There was more than just that, but that made me vocally disgusted. Why is every random crewman an idiot? Did you know they said logical 18 times during this episode?

Can someone get the writer a thesaurus?

But other than that, PaleGhost, how did you like the episode? Yes. So onto a more fun episode. Wrong answers only. What's the next episode about? Which is the one we're talking about today, Court Martial? Well, Mark Loveless wrote, Court Martial synopsis, Kirk meets an alien named Martial and tries to unsuccessfully date her.

Spock offers some logical reasoning to Kirk, which accidentally leads to a, quote, success. As a result, the rest of the crew begins to hound Spock for dating advice. Hilarity ensues. And then AJ Chan wrote, court martial, the Enterprise encounters a planet in which the population of sentient animals is being occupied by invaders.

A deal is brokered by the two sides. If the animals win a game of basketball, the invaders will leave. The animals capture Kirk, ask him to teach them basketball as they play on their famed court martial. Meanwhile, Spock and the crew try to find the captain. I like both of those very much, but I have to say about

Mark Lovelace's, uh, synopsis, that actually could be a good comedic episode. Yes, it could. It, I actually could see that working on Strange New Worlds of Spock giving somebody dating advice and then word getting out that he gives good dating advice. So I won't put too much of a note on that, but that noise you hear in the background, that of course is the read alert, which means it's time for Matt to tackle the not Wikipedia description this time around.

This one is from a gentleman or gentle lady, TonyB4 at IMDB. Take it away, Matt. After encountering a severe ion storm, the Enterprise visits Starbase 11 for repairs. While there Kirk files a report about the death of crewman and former friend Finney, who was taking scientific readings in an externally mounted instrument pod before Kirk needed to jettison it for the safety of the ship.

However, the computer log shows that Kirk jettisoned the pod before there was a danger, thereby revealing that Captain's willful perjury and culpable negligence in crewman Finney's death. Or so it would seem. Dun dun dunnnn. Yeah. Thank you, Tony B4, that's a nicely done synopsis. This episode, directed by Marc Daniels, story by Don Mankiewicz and Stephen W. Carabatsos, and teleplay by Mr. Mankiewicz, originally aired on February 2nd, 1967. So we're jumping forward about a month and a half forward in time from 1966, which we've been talking about mainly into early 1967. And our cast, as always, is William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock, DeForest Kelley

as Bones, we also see Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Uhura, but we don't get a lot of the rest of the cast in this one, but we have quite a lineup for guest stars. We have Elisha Cook Jr. as Samuel T. Cogley, Esquire, Percy Rodriguez as Commodore Stone, Joan Marshall as Areel Shaw, Richard Webb as Commander Ben Finney.

Hagan Beggs as the Helmsman, Winston DeLugo as Timothy, Alice Rawlings as Jame Finney, Nancy Wong as the Personnel Officer, Bart Conrad as Captain Krasnovsky, William Meader as Captain Lindstrom, and Reginald Lal Singh as Captain Nensi Chandra. Big guest star list, big list of named side characters, many of whom don't even get a line, but are just named on screen.

And it's a big list. And I think this is worth noting, showing a wide diversity in the casting. And the portrayal of what Starfleet looks like in the future. I really like this depiction of Starfleet in this episode. And what was the world like at this time? February 2nd, 1967. Number one at the, like the, the listing booth that Matt used to like to visit when he was growing up in the sixties.

Well, Matt, you'll remember this song. We all do. I'm a Believer by the Monkees. Matt, why don't you hum a few bars for us?

I don't know about anybody else, but Matt, that made me a believer. And at the box office, we had a return in it, and we keep talking about this when movies used to go to the theater and they would stay in the theater for as long as they continued to make money. Dr Zhivago returned to number one in its 58th week of release.

Oh my god. Imagine that. I don't know, Matt, if you remember this, but we saw Star Wars, I think at least three times in the theater in its first run.

And

the third time was a full year after it had been released. Used to happen. And on television, we've been comparing Star Trek, which earned a roughly and a 12 in its first season in the Nielsen ratings, against other programs that would have been running that same era.

And we've talked about everything from Bonanza to The Andrew Griffith Show, The Beverly Hillbillies, Lawrence Welk, Ed Sullivan. And this week We're dropping in with The Dean Martin Show. The Dean Martin Show was a variety comedy series that ran from 1965 to 1974 for a total of 264 episodes. It was of course hosted by Dean Martin with the theme song, Everybody Loves Somebody, one of his biggest hits.

Dean Martin, of course, was the godfather. of the comedic roast. And after this program ended, he would continue to bring comedy roasts to NBC for the next 10 years and would earn high ratings for them for the, for the entirety of that run. And in the news. Bunch of stories that were straight out of Vietnam, some students in Russia protesting the fact they weren't allowed to visit the graves of Lenin and Stalin.

And these were Chinese students who at that point, the relationship between Russia and China was closer than it would be in the following decades. There were also some Articles about taxes in New York City. But the two headlines that caught my eye, the first one being the U. S. dropping its plan to build two dams in the Grand Canyon.

That record scratch you just heard in the background was my brain trying to wrap itself around the idea of building dams in the Grand Canyon. I,

what, what? And the other story that caught my eye was. The decision to go ahead with a U. S. plan to build super jets. My initial thought was, Oh, this must've been beginning of research that would lead to the 747, the 767, like, like that family of jets. No, this is a, this was research with Boeing heading into research to develop supersonic jets that would have been similar to The Concorde, where you would have had a swing wing, you would have had a nose that would have moved.

And the plan was to build jets that would be able to fly at Mach 3. Currently, Our jets, like the 767, fly at sub Mach 1 speeds. So back in the late sixties, we're talking about the space era. We're talking about, we can put a man on the moon. We're talking about, we can, we can build whatever we can dream of.

And this plan would go on for about 10 years before cost overruns and the decision of noise. I mean, imagine living near an airport and a plane that is trying to get up to speed is hitting Mach 1, 2, and 3, uh, I don't think anybody would want to live near that airport. So eventually the plan had to be scrapped.

But the image that we are sharing from the, my research about this design, it doesn't take a literal rocket scientists to figure out. This is basically like 2001 space odyssey. This is the Pan Am jet that goes to the space station at the beginning of that film. So this was very much in the cultural zeitgeist and people could easily see it being a part of their future.

On now to our conversation about this episode. We are of course talking about court martial in which we see Captain Kirk being brought to trial for basically, this is a episode that puts not so much, uh, Spock at the center of the debate of, is logic better than emotion? This is about, can we trust technology when it seems to contradict

us and our lived experience and our memories of it in a weird way, prescient of the era we're going through right now with deep fakes, AI, like misinformation campaigns. We, we hear and talk about this constantly and the idea that you could have something that you could visually look at and see, Oh, there's the captain very clearly pressing a button that says jettison

before they were red alert, but it turns out to be a fake. And so it's kind of a prescient episode from that perspective. But before we get into like my deeper thoughts about how I feel this episode went, I wanted to quickly throw it your direction. How did you feel about this episode? Did you enjoy this episode?

And what do you think were the big themes that were being wrestled with? And how do you think the show coped with those themes? Oh, Sean, um, the AI angle you just brought up was something that popped in my head, too. And I thought it was really kind of funny how this theme still, Resonates today.

So it was very, I think, prescient of the writers at the time for what they were exploring. And I think they did a decent job with that. And this is another one of those episodes, Sean. I know I've seen numerous times, but it's been 30 years. So I didn't remember a lot of it, but when it started up, I was like, Oh, right.

This is the one where it's the courtroom drama episode. And I was like, I love these kind of episodes. My favorite Next Generation episode, one of my favorites, is Measure of a Man, where Data's on trial. Is he a life form or not? That's just like candy for me. I love it. Love it. That Measure of a Man is how you write one of these episodes.

This is not. This was weird. It was, I thought they did a decent job when they started the courtroom drama, but it quickly spun out into What the hell's happening? There's a crazy dude running around in the frickin bowels of the ship, taking over the ship, and Wait, why are they losing power and falling into the planet?

Like, what, why, what, what the hell? It, like, devolved into this Like childlike drama, like, you know, a kid, you know, kids playing with dolls, like, and then this guy does this, come on, boom. It was like, it felt very, I don't know, like a kid came up with the plot line at the end where the courtroom drama, even though it had holes in the way that the lawyers were making arguments that were kind of like, well, that's kind of hearsay.

That doesn't like work that way. It still was interesting. I still found it compelling. It just kind of like, went off the rails halfway through the episode. It was like, they, they, if they, if they had stayed truer to the initial setup, I think it would have played better. Um, and then on top of that 1960s acting, the young girl was like chewing scenery the first time we see her.

And then later in the episode, she just turns on a dime and is suddenly on Kirk's side. And it was like, wait, how did that happen? It was like, it made that her character's turn was not shown to us. It was just told to us. And it was like, made no sense to me. So there were, there were aspects of the show that just completely, I guess the bottom line is, I had serious issues with this episode.

I liked what they tried to do, but it didn't quite work. I love this episode. I knew you were going to say that. With everything you've just said being absolutely true. It is a bonkers setup. Yes. In It is At times it's like somebody inadvertently presses a fast forward button and then releases it and you're like, wait, where did that transition come from?

Uh, but I feel like those fast forward buttons are all to serve very clunkily obvious storytelling beats. They want to get into the courtroom. So the speed with which they end up in the courtroom is understood. They want there to be some kind of, not love triangle, but love involved triangle, so he has a background with the prosecuting lawyer.

They want there to be the whole humanity against technology argument. So when Cogley shows up in his apartment and says, I've moved in, how did he move in 200 books? How did he get in to Kirk's room? Like it's this setup of like, it's for a TV show. And I, I, for me, this episode does a great job of being entertaining,

because it is reminding you constantly. This is a TV show, as opposed to other shows and episodes that maybe fall apart a bit, because it's somewhat trying to work, and in other ways it's not working, and it keeps tripping over itself. I don't feel this one trips over itself, because it's so bonkers at the speed with which stuff moves.

And then The other side of it for me is I feel like despite the fact that you point out it's 1960s acting, it's very obviously like pushing it really, really hard in a kind of these are stage actors in front of a camera. So they're projecting to the back of the camera. But I feel like Everybody's committed in a way that really sells it for me.

I like the performance of Cogley. I like the performance of the prosecutor. I really like the performance of the Commodore who's bringing charges against Kirk. I like the dialogue between the two of them. When he first sees the evidence that looks like Kirk has just lied to him. His performance as a man in command over Captain Kirk, I thought was really, really well done.

I feel like it's a well directed episode from that perspective. It's just, it stands up constantly and reminds you as a viewer. Now, this was made in the sixties. This was made largely for a very wide audience that would have included kids. And I completely agree with yours. Like when you end up with the crazy man in the bowels of the ship, it is like, What?

Like, he's so sweaty and out of his mind. He's so sweaty and he's out of control. He's like, you took my ship from me. And at that moment I was like, holy cow, what they've done is in a weird way, had a courtroom drama that steps backward into being an Edgar Allen Poe short story about madness. It feels very telltale heart when they do that.

I love the sequence where Bones goes around with the microphone that is clearly. Just a microphone, like they took it off of a boom and they were like, use this as your prop. Here's your SM7B now put it against your chest. Yeah. It was like, it was like a two fine a point. Like if this was a next generation episode, they would have been something that would have been like a nondescript white thing.

They would have been just like, you know, like that, but he's literally walking around with this microphone. And that scene is so long in him walking up to everybody and going, click, click. And now the pilot. Click, click. And now me. The favorite part about that Sean was, when he does the first click, click, I'm like, all he did was take the little XLR jack out and push it back in because it makes that click, click.

And I was like, Oh, oh, you poor guy. Yeah. And he, and they must have been dealing with every single person. What am I doing? What am I doing? Yeah. What is this supposed to be? Can I, can I just build on something you just said though? When, when Shatner pulls it out first and goes, this white noise device. And I'm just like, how did they all keep a straight face?

I I couldn't believe how goofy it was. I loved it. I loved it. Can I just build on something you just said? This is one of those things about the original series that kind of drives me nuts. I love it and I hate it. And I brought this up in the episode with the drama within a drama, the play within a play thing where I hated that episode.

The conscience of the king. Yeah, there were some amazing scenes like between Kirk and the big villain having their back and forth. It was riveting. Fantastic. Fantastic. This episode had the same things. Like, you just brought up the Commodore and Kirk. That scene in the Commodore's room, I was riveted. I thought it was fantastic.

It was a great back and forth because you're starting to get a really good sense as to who Kirk is and that he's very well respected. And then you have this Commodore who's clearly at the top of his game. And the fact that they cast a black actor in the late 60s to be one of these head folks on, at Starfleet, I was like, that's brilliant.

Yeah, absolutely brilliant. It's like, it's not just Uhura on the bridge. Here's a black man in charge at Starfleet. It's like the diverse casting in this episode was mind blowing. And I was like, I can't believe they did this in the late sixties. Holy crap. So there was so much stuff in this episode that I was just really impressed with.

But it was that glue, the connective tissue again, that they completely botched again. So for me it was, that's why I didn't like, and as a whole, I didn't like it. But there are definitely scenes in this episode that I think are top notch. Yeah. And so for me it's like there were scenes with Kirk in the courtroom, in the Commodore's office that for me kinda resonate and are in my

like imprinted into my Star Trek fandom brain of like, this is why people love Kirk and it stuff like this is why, but at the same time, the episode as a whole just doesn't hold together. Yeah. And there are things about it that are like overwrought in the structuring of it, too much is spent in, and it's this, it's a, it's a thing that Star Trek does again and again and again, for whatever reason, it's kind of in the Trek DNA, and it's because of the nuances of military tribunals, Where you have a military tribunal and you're like, we need offices of a certain rank.

You, you and you come in, you're now part of this panel and you are an officer of a certain rank, so you're the prosecutor and you're an officer of a certain rank, so you're the defending attorney. So let's go. And that's how military tribunals work. And I think drama writers like that because they're like, Oh, I know what I can do, but it seems like every single writer who writes an episode like that thinks they're inventing the idea of, Oh, I'll make a personal connection between the different people.

So you end up and Trek does this three times that I can think of. They did it in Measure of a Man where Picard has a personal relationship with the judge. They do it here with Kirk having had a personal relationship with the prosecuting attorney. And they did it in Strange New Worlds in their courtroom scene where it was the prosecutor was the captain who is related in a romantic entangle with, with Pike.

So it is this like constantly resurfacing like, Oh, I know what I can do. I can have personal relationships because these people are you know, colleagues in other circumstances. Yeah, but it's like it happens again and again and again. And this episode didn't need the prosecutor being in a personal relationship.

It would have been fine if she'd been a friend, but there is A logic that is being ignored, where conflict of interest would have been first and foremost, she would have recused herself from being the prosecutor. There's no way she would have been the prosecutor in this, in this circumstance. And the episode highlights the fact that there is decorum and ethical and moral, uh, measurement of the courtroom.

I really like the courtroom setup, the ringing of the bell, which is something like the look of this is picked up in all of future Trek. It's based on naval experience and, and the look of it. Kirk is asked right away. These are the three that will sit in judgment of you. Do you have an issue with any of these three?

And Kirk says, no, I don't. And yet He's made out and possibly more with the prosecutor, like, uh, what? And as you pointed out the speed with which Jame shows up, Jane Finney shows up, you murderer, you always hated my father. She says all of that, which then gives you the sense of, okay, she's been fed information.

She's been hearing something from her father about Kirk always hated me. Like this is like, where's this coming from? We never know because the next time we see her, she shows up and she's like, I'm really sorry about all that. And I really feel bad about saying all that stuff. I'm like, yeah. Like, what, what's happened here?

But for me, the dropkick moment. Is, I became friends with Finney when I was a student at the academy. Despite the fact that I was a student and he was an instructor, we became good friends. In fact, his daughter is named after me. We know that Kirk is the youngest captain in Starfleet. We know he's about 32 years old at this point.

Is she supposed to be 13 or 14? She looks like she's a 20 year old actress. She's an 18 to 20 year old actress. And like, it like, Okay, it's fine. Kirk was 12 when he had this conversation. It's fine to set up, like, I became friends with an instructor, and then beyond our being Like, at the Academy at the same time, I ended up serving with him on a ship.

I caught a mistake he did. I like the setup of all of that. Nothing personal. I showed up. It was my watch. I showed up. There was a mistake. I logged it because it was a mistake on his watch that could have been catastrophic. He was knocked back. And then he held a grudge. Like all of those pieces, I think are great and fine.

It's just like her as a character kind of stands out as like the timing of who, of how old she's supposed to be and like, how did that come about? Okay. And it's all mysterious. But having said all of that, by the time you get to the end and you get a severe shift in the tone of what the episode is about, because at this point they're clearly saying, and now we need some action.

Because we've been very talky for all this episode, and now the kids are going to want to see Kirk throwing some punches, so you get the action sequence. I even like that. I even like sweaty Finney. I like the you stole my ship from me. I like the crazed look on his face, because I like the idea, I like the idea of up to this point, And to go back again to the conflict of interest idea between Kirk and the prosecutor, the conflict of interest of having Finney on the Enterprise at all is not addressed.

And I would have appreciated, similar to in Next Generation, when you have one of the cadets who's involved in the accident with Wesley Crusher, and she ends up serving on the Enterprise, and they have, there's the episode where you see her getting tested and pushed around by various commanders. And then Picard says, do you know why I brought you here?

Because I knew you would get a fair shake from anybody else. And he's giving her the fair shake. I would have liked a moment in this where Kirk said. He was knocked back because of a mistake, but I knew he would never make it again because I knew who he was as a person. So I asked for him to be on the Enterprise because I wanted to give him the opportunity to grow beyond where he was.

And to have that turn in this way, I think, would have been a really compelling moment. But they didn't go with that. They didn't go with that idea. Instead, they just went with, he's had a chip on his shoulder this entire time. Kirk is very casually about, casual about him being on the ship at all. And then when this all takes place, and the only way we see Finney, is he is chewing on the scenery, sweating nonstop, and is willing to destroy the ship and murder people.

But he sounded super composed in all of the clips they showed, like, I'm going into the capsule now. It's like, isn't he super calm? Yeah. Hi, Captain. And it's like, for him, apparently, on the spur of the moment, this is not a plot that you could put together ahead of time. I know what I'll do. If we ever get into an ion storm, I'll make sure to doctor the records and be on duty at the time that that pod needs to be used.

And then I will get out of the pod, but not let them know. And then they'll jettison the pod and I'll make it look like he killed me. Like this is not a premeditated thing. This is a spur of the moment move that he does brilliantly, which presents the idea that on any normal day, for months ahead of this moment, for months ahead of this episode, anytime Finney was walking through the hallways, he was sweaty and he was walking around and he was just like, Captain stole this ship from me.

This should be my ship. You've all been plotting against me. I love the idea that there was a wildly crazy man walking around as a part of the crew of the Enterprise and people in the mess hall are eating and they watch him walk in and he's like, Oh, there's old crazy man Finney. He thinks the captain stole this ship from him.

He thinks we're all plotting against him. This is weird.

So the reason, the reason I've been laughing is for two reasons. Which was like, that crossed my mind too. It's like, would nobody have noticed this guy is losing his mind and said to somebody, Hey, uh, looks like Finney's kind of losing his shit. Somebody do something about this. Nobody? Okay. But the second thing was you said you liked the fight scene with Kirk and Finney.

Sean. I liked the fight scene with Kirk and Finney obvious body double. The obvious stuntman. It was, I remember like Saturday Night Live and other comedy shows making fun of Star Trek. And for how bad the body doubles were, like it's clearly not the same person doing the fight scene. And it's like, I forgot how obvious it was.

It cuts to like a Kirk close up, like, you know, looking like Kirk and then the wide shot is from, you see Kirk from the front and it's clearly, Not Kirk. And it's like, why wouldn't you put the camera behind him? It's like, it's like basic filming 101. Have Kirk with his back to the camera. Just do that. And at least it somewhat hides it.

But they didn't even try. They didn't even try. There were so many shots of him head on from a distance. And it's like, that doesn't even, doesn't even look remotely like Kirk. Their body type is even slightly different. Their hair color is different. Everything about them is different. And they'd even try to hide it.

And it was hysterical every time they'd do the close up and then Kirk is all sweaty and he's doing the stuff. The stuff they were doing was not that hard. It's like, why weren't they just having Shatner do it in the first place? It was kind of bizarre to me of like, why even have the stuntman? Just, just, just do it.

Yeah, it struck me that there were moments where, like, Kirk has Finney pressed against the panel and is trying to force his hand with the phaser away, and it's obviously, he's trying to, like, get him to drop the phaser, hurt his arm so that he will drop the phaser. Uh, and then that moment, which is very dramatic and, and like a gripping moment is followed by a kind of like camera pullback so that somebody can flip somebody else or just not even flip him, but throw him.

And it's clearly the doubles. And I'm, I was in the same place you are, which is like, what was it about tumbling that was a problem? Like, like the actors couldn't have done that. But again, having said all of that, I loved it. I loved Sweaty Finney. I loved the doubles. I loved the fact that the camera would pull back.

I loved the fact that Kirk is not the only person on the ship. And yet he's like, no, no, this is my ship. I'll go down by myself. And then it's clearly fighting for his life down there while the ship is spiraling out of control. And everybody on the bridge is just like

You know what? You know what I love, Sean? I love that you love this episode. Thank you. Because for, for the listeners and viewers of this, I cannot understate how much Sean loves the original series. Like this was formative for his childhood. For me, I was like a tangentially interested in it at that age. I got really into Star Trek when I was a teenager, like 13, but next generation came on is when my fandom grew.

Sean was a hardcore Trekkie like at 10, like he was watching this stuff every time I was on TV. And so it's like, I adore the fact that Sean, you're watching these new episodes, these episodes as an adult. And I can totally tell there's still 10 year old Sean in there. That's just eating this up. Oh, absolutely.

I love, I love that you love it this way. Absolutely. When this episode, when this episode came into rotation, I remembered all of these things. I remembered all these details and I sat down and happily watched it. And one thing I did note about this, and maybe your experience is different because you had a different response to a lot of this stuff.

I felt like this was a remarkably quick episode. It felt like, like start to finish, it didn't feel like a full 40 minutes plus, it felt like 30 because I was just like, wow, they have so much in here and it moves at such a pace that suddenly it's like, I'm going to go down and beat this guy up. I'll be right back.

And suddenly the episode is over and you're like, Holy cow. That was the entire thing. Um, as opposed to a couple of the previous episodes that we've talked about where it has felt like, Oh, this is dragging a bit or Conscience of the King, which is an episode I did like a lot of has some moments where it's like, what we're going to, they're going to put on another play.

Really? Do we really need another play? So. Listeners, viewers, let us know what you think. Jump into the comments and let us know what you thought about Court Martial. Do you agree with either of us or do you have a completely different take on all of this? Let us know. We look forward to hearing what you have to say.

And coming up next time, we're going to be visiting the episode Menagerie. This is a case of a two parter. So Menagerie is parts one and two, both episodes will be discussed next time by Matt and me. And I know what it's about. Matt knows what it's about. I mean, I think you guys know what it's about, but let us know what it's about.

Wrong answers only in the comments. Let us know what you think Menagerie will be about. And if you want to give us the idea of Menagerie as a whole, that's great. But if you want, if you think that Menagerie part one might be about one thing and part two might be about something else, let us know what each part is about.

And just to give everybody a little bit of background about what Matt just said, Sean has always liked Star Trek, the original series, very, very deeply. Well, as we've been watching these episodes, I have been chomping at the bit and it came up either last week or the week before, I don't remember which one it came up in, Matt, where we talked about, somebody mentioned that James Blish had done novelizations, basically wrote short stories based on the screenplays.

of the original series. So I won't say who, but somebody recently went to Amazon and bought all 12 books. That's right. My thought was, yes, I need to read these again. I actually own one of these. I own six. But I don't have any of the others, so I finally now will have the entire collection, and my plan is that I will be reading the stories that are connected to the episodes we're talking about, and maybe chatting, when it's appropriate, about some of the differences between them, and maybe those fun cases where a short story provides something in the background that can't appear on screen, but informs it in an interesting way.

I love it. I love the myriad of themes that can come out depending on the medium that you're in when you're talking about Star Trek. So I look forward to bringing some of that into our conversations. Before we sign off, Matt, is there anything you wanted to share with our listeners and viewers about what you have coming up on your main channel?

Sure. I've been going down a rabbit hole on new battery technologies and there's a new one that is not in the lab. It's hitting the market from one of the biggest manufacturers in the world, in China. And it's a battery that has like no degradation in the first five years, which is the first kind like that on the market.

And people say, batteries don't last. That's changing. Um, and it's really interesting to see what kind of stuff they're doing to make an old technology so advanced like this. It's, it's, it's really fascinating. Very cool. As for me, if you're interested in finding out more about my books, please go to seanferrell.com

or you can go directly to wherever it is you buy your books. My books are available at bookstores everywhere or even your public library, so I hope you'll be interested in taking a look for those. If you'd like to support the show, the easiest way is always to just subscribe, to like the episode, maybe leave a comment, and share it with your friends.

Those are easy ways for you to support us. If you'd like to more directly support us, you can go to trekintime. show. Click the Become a Supporter button there. It allows you to throw coins at our heads. We appreciate the welts. And then we get to talk about Cogley moving into Kirk's apartment with 200 law journals.

Thank you everybody for taking the time to watch or listen. We look forward to talking to you next time and we'll see you next week.