The Corbomite Maneuver (TOS)

Season 1 Episode 12

When the Enterprise bumps into Clint Howard, Kirk trades chess for poker and ultimately demonstrates humanity’s respect for all life forms.

Transcript

auto-generated transcript has not been edited for formatting or accuracy.

hey everybody Sarah here uh before we get the show started today I just wanted to take a moment to talk about the tragic shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs Ali and I recently both moved to different parts of Colorado and we’re not right outside Colorado Springs but
we’re close enough and we both moved from Florida to Colorado pretty recently and so we were both in Florida for the Pulse Nightclub shooting and I think I was probably closer than Ali physically
but also the people that I knew that were involved that had been there and left early and so now we have another incident like this and I just I wanted to take a moment before we start the show on behalf of
myself a member of the queer Community an Ali who’s a amazing Ally to say our thoughts are with you and we’re thinking about the families of the victims and the survivors and to them and the broader community we love you
now on with humanist Trek [Music] perhaps I could use this as an excuse to go to those far-off planets but little polka dotted people if necessary and be able to talk about love war nature of God sex all those things that go to make up the excitement of The Human Condition
I’m Captain James Kirk Spock Jim Kirk of the Enterprise what’s going on I’m James these people are my friend and my shipment leave my crew alone out of the question James ideas get out of it now my greetings and felicitations kept so
good of you and your offices to uh drop in absolutely smashing hey everybody Welcome to humanist Trek it’s a Star Trek podcast about the humanism in Star Trek I’m Sarah Ray and I’m Ali ashmead and don’t adjust your dials we this is a weird week uh I’m sick again and because of that we’re
recording remotely so if we sound weird that’s why yeah that’s all right though yeah being sick sucks though like we we just had another cold snap and a bunch of snow it’s beautiful outside and I remember now growing up in Illinois how every time the weather would take a hard turn like
this I would get sick yep so apparently that’s still a thing welcome to Colorado yeah uh what’s going on so by the time we by the time this episode airs we will have had our friendsgiving Extravaganza and I’m sure it was great
it sure was wonderful it was awesome uh by the way what can I bring to bring a dessert oh a dessert something to drink bring a dessert yeah okay we’re having oh God am I gonna be able to remember what all what all we’re having we’re having uh pork loin and ribs because turkey I
don’t like turkey I’ve never been a big fan of turkey turkey’s like cardboard I don’t like the only the only part that’s good is the leg honestly and and the destroy the breast is so it ends up being so dry and you just end up with so much [  ] leftovers that and then you end up throwing it away because you’re sick of eating it after a week I mean yeah I’m tired turkey salad afterwards maybe I guess but yeah yeah but you get tired of turkey salad sandwiches too so then we’re gonna have that cracked green beans that that Becca makes yeah and the whatever we’re calling those potatoes that she makes oh yeah the cheese cheesy crust toast buttery something yeah Art Attack on a plate yes yep I’m due for a heart attack what else are we I think I can’t remember what else we’re making there’s something else but anyway it’s gonna be a good time we’re having some uh you’re gonna be there we’re gonna have some friends over from the zoo that I worked with and uh hang out with them again and and just it’s going to be a good time and like I don’t know we’ve kind of talked about this before like how stupid Thanksgiving is as a holiday yeah but the opportunity you know to get everybody together and have a meal and like enjoy each other’s company and that’s great so we’re gonna you know take advantage of a week off yeah I’m looking forward to the two-day four-day weekend for me so yeah awesome well let’s get into our episode today then it’s Star Trek the Original Series season 1 episode 11 the corbamite maneuver sir contact with an object it’s moving toward us no visual contact yet reflector is full intensity let’s do it yes yes anything on your skin it’s coming at live speed Collision Course visual contacts dominated by ionization effects all engines full stop so we start out on the bridge there’s some routine photographing taking place they’re creating some star charts and we get a really fun overhead crane shot down into the bridge that you don’t I don’t think we get to see that very often that was a cool directorial Choice um also did you notice that Uhura is not only wearing the gold uniform instead of her red one but she’s also sporting the Madonna bra this time so she’s not wearing red she’s wearing gold well you know why I think is this was in production order yeah there was three so this was another option that they were thinking about using as the pilot so this was why it was still early on so they hadn’t like refined you know what who was wearing what and so that was probably why so the flashing red light of death goes off and Sula reports that an object is traveling at light speed on a collision course and you mentioned this on the previous episode it’s a cube spinning on the screen yeah it looks like it looks like some kind of Rubik’s Cube but also do you remember the Video Game Keeper yeah oh yeah that’s what it looks like it’s one of those cubes yeah but so they’re not getting a signal from it and when they finally make visual contact they see this weird Cube pubert looking thing and then uh suddenly this spooky audio of thousands of voices speaking always one comes across the speakers invasive Maneuvers aren’t effective every turn they make the object matches finally Spock orders a full stop Captain to the bridge um this whole opening reminded me a lot of the Next Generation pilot encounter at farpoint right so that’s the one where they meet Q for the first time and there’s this like this fear he like turns into a sphere and is following them and then it like the sphere turns into this big like I remember like flights yeah like a freaking fence in the middle of space I remember that yeah yeah so and there’s other moments in this episode that remind me of that too and we’ll I’m sure we’ll come to those after the theme we get a Captain’s Log and while all of this was going on upstairs McCoy’s got Kirk in sick Bay for a quarterly physical AKA he’s got he he’s got he’s working out on that machine that you talked about before where it’s like um oh it’s like a stair stepper but the stairs are in the wall yeah and it’s so so silly it’s a gratuitous shirtless sweaty Kirk scene thank you very much any chance we can to get our leading man shirtless naked half naked so McCoy this was interesting McCoy sees the red flashy light red alert light hey buddy but he doesn’t tell Kirk yeah I guess because he has trouble getting Kirk to do these physicals which is that’s a thing that that’s such a Star Trek Trope and I don’t know if that comes from like an actual military truth or not but like the idea that it’s hard to get the commanding officer to come in and do their routine medical stuff yeah we see that with Picard 2 I think I don’t remember I don’t remember I don’t remember seeing it with Janeway I think they had like they didn’t do it they didn’t I don’t remember them doing any annual any things yeah it’s silly and so this indicator light means because uh Spock is called like a red alert or something but that’s a that’s really what’s the word I want to use irresponsible of the doctor to ignore that right they could be in a life or like a literal life or death situation right and Mccoy’s just like yeah well we gotta finish this physical he’s yeah he’s focused always focus on the wrong thing okay so Kirk finally skype’s up to the bridge and spot catches him up on what’s going on and then we get another gratuitous scene where Kirk walks around shirtless around the corridors like like you know like those preppy guys you know what they put the sweater over your shoulders that’s what it looked like ridiculous on the bridge Spock and Navigator Dave Bailey are rapping this is another opportunity to poke at the difference between emotional humans and logical Balkans so there’s a great line here where Bailey says I happen to have a human thing called an adrenaline gland and Spock’s like that does sound most inconvenient have you considered having it removed Sulu laughs at him and he’s like you don’t tangle don’t tangle with the Box you know and the reason that they’re having that that whole conversation was when so Kirk was heading to the bridge he hadn’t gotten there yet and Bailey was squabbling with Spock about raising his voice because yeah during the discovery of this Cube I guess Bailey said something that and he said why are you raising up voice and I’m like why are you getting on Bailey for raising his voice when later Spock’s raising his voice at the end so that’s where that was that we’re talking about the adrenaline Bailey has a lot of trouble this episode yeah I feel bad for the guy he’s like he does I don’t feel like he’s cut out for right he’s not cut out for stars Starship exploration so finally Kirk arrives on the bridge and we go around the horn and get reports from all departments this thing is a solid Mass no life signs no response to any hails no idea how it’s powered and there’s another great bit of dialogue here Bailey again he’s like we’re not just gonna sit here trapped are we we have phasers let’s blow him to bits and Kirk’s like I’ll keep that in mind when this becomes a democracy yes and she says he’ll select what kind of action so and I thought I thought that was an interesting point too because like I’ve always found it fascinating that the universe that Gene created here right and we’ve talked about a little before about how like his police and military background heavily influenced the show um which is essentially a submarine in space right it is it totally is so so you have this military hierarchy in Starfleet but that’s also set in sort of a post-scarcity future where there’s also supposed to be more equality and like things are different there so that that dichotomy between trying to be Progressive and and forward but also still having a military structure like that is an interesting thing to kind of mash together yeah yeah I think it actually relaxes a little bit in the in further um further different series is like you know it’s not that way of Janeway and it’s right it may start out that way with TNG but it just they kind of relax out a little bit later on after after Gene died is that what it was too soon yeah probably listen I hot take I think next-gen got a lot better after Gene’s hand was removed from the throttle we’ll talk about that if we ever get there so 18 hours have passed now and everybody’s down in the conference room drinking coffee and trying to figure this cube out and Spock suggests it’s either a warning buoy or fly paper do they have fly paper is it I don’t know what your fly is a big problem on Vulcan I have no idea what he meant by fly paper so okay we used to have fly paper out in the country right and it was this I’m you sure you can still buy them uh the little thing open it up and it spirals down and it’s like a sticky tape right the testing don’t touch it no it’s no because you’ll get it on your hands then so that I don’t know that was a very sign of the times word choice I guess but like you know is it just trying to trap the Enterprise I guess was was what he’s trying to say with that yeah I think Kirk tries to make a joke here but it doesn’t land at all he says so you don’t recommend sticking around get it [  ] Vulcans it was funny it was a little too cheesy a little bit Kirk starts to give anybody you have to
understand what fly paper is and I don’t think people in in space 2022 know what fly paper is let alone no that’s true they don’t know I mean I guess unless you grew up in the country that’s that’s where I know it from I don’t know yeah Kirk starts to give Bailey some orders but bayley like Cuts him off and starts
calling down to have phasers heated up and Kirk’s like whoa buddy still not a democracy I want you to plot a spiral course away from this thing and on the bridge they try this attempt to pull away but it’s not successful at all and then they kill a ton of time trying to warp away from the cube yeah
and apparently the Q the cube starts emitting some harmful radiation and this is when Spock starts yelling that his updates he’s starting to yell his updates radiation levels are critical and I’m like okay Spock why are you yelling when you gave Bailey a hard time for yelling they just spent so much time
on this thing there’s a all this tense music and they cut around the bridge for reaction shots oh there’s so many people in the hallway what what the hell okay first of all there’s a red alert they know that they’ve been told what’s going on why are these people just casually walking around in the hallway why don’t
they sit their asses down somewhere because they’re just you know like doing the fake explosion to swinging yeah but yeah there’s that that bothered me there’s too many people in the hallway oh this thing is gaining on them fast and finally Kirk makes the call to shoot at it Point Blank Range
phasers fire the ship lurches people are falling all out of their chairs and it suspense music too commercial after the commercial we learned that they destroyed the cube and Kirk and Spock are talking about the next moves Spock assumes they’ll find whatever intelligent life sent the cube and
they’ll probably be both different and superior to the Enterprise to be different to Superior to the humans I mean everyone they meet pretty much is superior in most ways there is a fun nugget of relationship building here where Spock says isn’t there a certain inefficiency in asking me questions
you’ve already made up your mind about and I connected with this so hard because I like that’s how I work through my decision making personally like I talk [  ] out with you I talk [  ] out with Becca like this is this is how I do when I’m thinking about a thing and yeah I know what I need to do and I’m
probably gonna do it whatever that thing is but I do need to talk through it first yeah and someone shouldn’t feel slighted just because they you know that you don’t take their opinion you know don’t take their advice or whatever just it’s just a you know get over it spot Kirk orders them to move forward and
asks for Sulu and Bailey to prepare some simulated attacks and evasions because weapons and Engineering didn’t respond as quickly as he would have liked yeah in the turbo lift McCoy gives Kirk an earful about Bailey he thinks Kirk sees himself in Bailey promoted him too fast expects too much of him so that kind of
really sets up the character Arc that we get with Bailey through this episode and then yeah and then never see him again yeah he’s like that you know but we’ll get to that but yeah so I think McCoy just thinks he’s unseasoned um
and then he says maybe there’s something about Bailey that reminds Kirk of himself like 11 years ago so he doesn’t think Bailey’s ready so the this conversation spills over into Kirk’s quarters where McCoy pours out some drinks and then apparently McCoy changed Kirk’s dietary
restrictions and didn’t tell him so Rand walks in with some salad and Kurt Kirk’s like what well first of all why is she bringing him food right like like she’s not a waitress like I know a yeoman they do clerical and admin duties but yeah part of that that feels real wrong yeah so while we’re talking about
misogyny then Kirk says like when I get my hands on the headquarters genius that assigned me a female Yeoman and Doc’s like do you what does that mean you don’t trust yourself right that plays so differently in 2022 yeah so different and like 100 also like this this also points out the the difference
in the order filmed in the order released right because this was some [  ] we heard in the in the pilot right so yeah number three it’s weird to have it come back well it’s because yeah yeah yeah it is it’s a little bit weird I mean I think from here on out I think it’s pretty much close to how it was produced but this was weird to go back yeah to that misogyny this is this level of massaging yeah yeah uh during all of this they’re listening to the drills playing out over the speaker and Sulu interrupts with this is not a drill so back on the bridge there’s another object now it’s another cuber similar makeup to the Q tube but a much higher energy reading and this time it’s a sphere it’s a sphere it’s a really cool like glowy gold sphere thing and these both both of these ships look much better in the remaster of course yeah the original Graphics were for their time great but I was gonna say I bet I appreciate that old one I bet the old one looked like crap because the sphere when in the remaster which is um the one I’m watching I’m not I haven’t seen I can’t remember the old one but it’s really nice and detailed and like HD the little Globes on the sphere it’s pretty cool important plot Point here when Kirk asks Bailey to zoom out he’s Frozen at his station like you just can’t focus on anything but the sphere and Sulu who reaches over and hits a control and minus key to do the zoom out I want to say this isn’t the first time that we’ve seen Sulu have to like take over for somebody sitting next to him falling apart yeah everyone seems like the I don’t know so sue is a Helmsman right and then whoever that position is the Navigator right Navigator they’re just constantly changing that position out because nobody ever laughs they just don’t do it well and Bailey just can’t seems to like hesitate every time Kirk gives him an order so Kirk hails the spear and here we’re still using the United Earthship Enterprise language after the hail we cut around the bridge getting reaction shots from everybody and eventually we’re back on Bailey who now has one of uhura’s Bluetooth devices in his ear this made zero sense to me at all apparently they’re responding to this message by using the Enterprises navigation beam whatever the [  ] that is I don’t know that seemed pointless and I didn’t I didn’t understand why he had one of uhura’s little earpieces yeah and and I see Spock has one too
occasionally as well yeah I need to get one of those I need to get one of those like like fake ones I think that makes more sense for Spock to have than the Navigator though I don’t know anyway it was weird so hura puts the message on the speakers this is baylock commander
of the flagship visarius of the first Federation and baylock points out that they’re primitive and Savage civilization and this is another thing that reminded me of farpoint where Q puts Humanity on trial for for being a Savage child race yeah but guess what Lurch is back
[Music] you’re right well at least the voice of lurch anyway um so commander Baloch is actually uh the guy that played Lurch um and he also played what was his name in the other oh God where what little girl what are little girls made of no no we called him
Lurch yeah we called him Rook yeah yeah yeah yeah uh Kirk calls back and is like listen man we didn’t know that Cube thing even was a warning buoy you know trying to explain but then they’re overwhelmed with exceptionally strong sensor probes everywhere we’re being probed baylock says they
won’t accept any further attempts at communication and if they make even the slightest move they’ll blow the Enterprise to bits Spock says they’re shutting down some of the Enterprise systems now very sophisticated and Kirk asks for a recorder marker like a black box right
with everything they’ve learned so far is that what that was I said he said he told Bailey to deploy the recorder marker but I didn’t know what that was I’m pretty sure yeah it’s like you’re my final communication back to the back yeah right what happened to us no no he tells
Bailey to do it to deploy it of course Bailey hesitates again yeah he needs to be fired but then he finally does and then large or bailock destroys it and then baylock’s like look we scanned you gotta destroy you now but I assume you have a deity or deities of some or some such belief which go pray to them right
now and that’s that’s really interesting that you know that like we or I guess back then Gene assumed that because we have deities does every civil is that part of every civilization I think that was an assumption that wasn’t necessarily I
think it was a misplaced assumption I don’t know what do you think yeah I agree I think well and and we see this in you know future Star Trek a lot where where we really poke at the god question um and I I just wonder how much of that was past Gene you know BG or or AG
where that influence comes from but yeah the Assumption of like well surely everyone has deities so we’re just going to extend that assumption to humans yeah it was surprising Scotty and McCoy arrive on the bridge and McCoy mentions that baylock’s message was broadcast ship wide so Kirk
does his own shipwide call to the crew reminding them that their greatest danger is themselves and an irrational fear of the unknown and he argues that any civilization advanced enough for space travel should be Advanced enough to interpret peaceful actions yeah well I I think does he know I think he knows
balock is listening or does I think baylock is listening absolutely yeah probably so Kirk calls balock back and tries to negotiate a reversed course like really sorry for entering your space we’ll just slowly back out the door the way we came and never come back yeah we didn’t mean
it we had no intention of trespassing we only have Good Will and as a demonstration a Goodwill we’ll just we’ll just go yeah later so sorry that does not work no they he get hit with this high-pitched hum and Kirk orders them to move but Bailey’s all squicked out again and Sulu has to lean over and
do his job for him again but the engines aren’t responding and neither are weapons Spock’s been trying to get a visual from balok and he’s finally got got this and puts it on screen okay question I have questions all right so how and again this is early on so I get it but
he’s typing in some TCP addresses or something I don’t know when he gets to the camera and turns it on IPv6 I don’t know but but like before you can’t like get a picture into someone’s ship unless they turn that on for you or give it to you what I would think yeah so this was like out of place
as well yeah for sure if you can turn on cameras inside other people’s ships that’s it then yeah yeah so the the baylock we get a picture of balog and it is clearly a uh a [  ] mannequin looking blue thing I don’t move but they’ve warbled the screen a little bit to give it that wavy look and he’s just his eyes are not blinking it’s it’s clearly a like a a mannequin or something yeah they I mean they did a great job monster of the week style creating this alien but balox like quit wasting time eight minutes left Bailey goes completely unhinged now he’s ranting and raving all over the bridge and finally Kirk has him relieved of Duty and escorted to quarters because he’s like why isn’t anybody doing anything why are we just sitting here you know waiting to die and and that’s yeah so Kirk calls baylock back and is like listen this is all just one big misunderstanding you know you scanned our records you know that but the humming starts again seven minutes left and of course Sulu loves to give the countdown because he’s like he’s looking at them he’s the one looking at the clock and he’s like okay seven minutes left and and um Scotty is annoyed by this by the fact that he’s giving us the countdown but like what else is he gonna do right why are you annoyed be annoyed at the alien don’t be annoyed at Sulu so after the break sulu’s still counting down four minutes 30 seconds Kirk is literally pacing back and forth by Spock station when Spock uses chess again to explain their situation like essentially we’re at Checkmate here yeah when when somebody’s outmatched the game’s pretty much over yeah and he doesn’t really have for once he does not have a logical alternative McCoy arrives on the bridge and starts rapping with Kirk about Bailey he says he’s going to enter it a simple fatigue in the record but it was Kirk’s fault for pushing him so hard and letting him get to that point and Kirk gets so wound up in this he shouts and everyone on the bridge kind of looks around like what the hell yeah you guys are so silly they’re arguing about what McCoy is going to put in his medical record but they’ve got like four minutes to live right and Mccoy’s like I’m gonna put this in his medical records that I challenged your action and I’m not bluffing and then then a light bulb comes on on on Kirk’s face when he mentions the word Bluff it’s not chess they’re playing it’s poker and he’s about to call up a big old Bluff so Kirk calls up baylock again and he’s like listen because we respect other life forms so much I’m obligated to warn you about this and and it’s never been recorded never ever so you wouldn’t have seen it during your scans uh but see we have a material and a device called corbamite which essentially uses the I’m rubber in your glue method of returning any attack on us back to the attacker destroying them so you don’t want to do that and then he and then he ends with death has little meaning to us if it has none to you then attack us now and he’s like I’m growing anointed you’re foolishness I’m like really kirked he’s playing it on real thick yeah but they don’t but you know they don’t know so I thought it was actually pretty uh pretty smart yeah think outside the box which is not something that like Spock is pretty logical but sometimes he doesn’t like he’s not creative because of that right yeah and and this was like really creative solution so McCoy and Kirk make up from their argument a bit and then with the bluff in play 30 seconds on the clock Bailey returns to the bridge and requests permission to return to station I guess he’s like I’m gonna go ahead and die with you guys yeah you guys hate me but I’m gonna go ahead and die with y’all and then Sulu counts us down like okay it’s my turn my cue to count down from ten for drama of course and we get down to one nothing happens we get some more tense music and reaction shots around the bridge until finally baylock calls back will hold off destroying you but I need proof of this carbomite device Kirk makes him wait a little and then replies simply request denied and hangs up click so balock turns on his Skype video and now he’s like listen we’re still deciding what to do with you but in the meantime here’s another example of our superiority and then Janus appears on the bridge with a tray of coffee what the [  ] again she’s serving coffee this is again
early early episode right so not really sure what to do with her yet and she’s like and Mccoy’s like I thought we didn’t have any power and she’s like oh I hate it up with a hand face She’s So Dedicated I’m I’m gonna get them some coffee no one Wonder like what is the lowest setting on a phaser right I mean
we’ve seen we’ve seen people heat up rocks with phasers yep uh all kinds of [  ] with phasers so and on the lowest setting of supposedly stuns Sun’s a human what would that do to coffee we’ll probably boil it I guess I don’t know and honestly you’re not really supposed to have food and drink at your workstation I mean what anyway I don’t know I love my coffee you take that out of my cold dead hands well I haven’t I have my coffee today too at your workstation at my workstation but I’m not piloting a Starship so that’s crazy she turns to leave and a smaller ship comes up from the spear and baylock says they’ve decided to take the Enterprise to one of their planets and basically imprison the crew there so this pilot ship snags the Enterprise in a tractor beam and then we get another very long suspenseful music into the commercial break this episode seemed to have a lot of that long drawn out suspense building that’s like oh my God was the script too short and we just had to kill time could be could be or it again for when it was the third episode and they wanted to like build a drama just because it was going to be one of the pilots so who knows Kirk decides to try to outmaneuver this small pilot ship and they try to pull away but it starts overloading the engines and again they fall back on this long suspense building the music is growing and we cut back and forth to shots of crew being tossed around from one side of the ship to the other again those people in the hallway again they’re tossing being tossed from one side to the other I’m like go sit down somewhere like they use this um there was another effect that they did here a camera angle they did that reminded me of like an airplane taking off like the way they the way they shot it sort of made you try to feel like the Enterprise was trying to pull up in a way and I thought that was interesting just as the engine temperature is about to blow everything up Kirk order Sulu to pull power from impulse two and they finally break free right at the last second this I guess this apparently burns out the alien vessel or disables their engines and so then the crew start picks up the distress call which the mothership just seems to ignore and baylock says his engines are out and so is life support and assuming that that signal didn’t make it to the visarius Kirk decides to move in and he gives another all-call speech here like we’re about to board this hostile vessel but life is life and we’re committed to protecting all of it McCoy tries to protest but Kirk’s like do you people even listen to the intro I say it every [  ] week seek out new
life and new civilizations to seek out new life well there it sits so Kirk chooses his away team McCoy to deal with any injury and Bailey because he feels bad for him I guess and gives him a chance to redeem himself it’s like a Pity pick right totally totally now did you when they were in the transporter
room getting ready to beam over what were they putting on what was it that they were putting on this leather suede looking belts what is that I want to say this is the last time we see those um so I was like there there was a a point in the like costume design where you well you’d have to have something to
hook your your phaser and your Communicator onto so that’s what this belt was for was like to hook your your phaser on one side and your communicator on it it but they did away with them I think okay I think this is the last one it was um design wise it made no sense to be a
phaser holder yeah I was like is this it looks just like a piece of felt and then they sort of like tucked it up underneath their shirts yeah to try to hide it like yeah yeah it didn’t play very well and I got rid of them and I think that was a good choice yeah on the transporter pad now
Scotty tells them to bend down a little bit because it reads is pretty cramped over there so they all hunch over a little and beam out and I couldn’t help but think like what if they didn’t bend over far enough right would they would like a sliver of their head materialize into
the ceiling yeah anyway they beam into the room and they were bending down just enough and but then this was dumb too because they step out into a into a taller room yeah where they can stand up straight so why did you just beam them into that room right that was a whole like McGuffin that I did not understand
at all it’s so silly it’s so silly but around the corner there sits baylock but it’s not bailock it’s a puppet yeah that’s a big puppet yeah the real baylock is behind them this kid looks a little creepy it’s it’s a child yeah I got when Becca asked us this question I
got very confused because I for some reason I thought this was a little person actor not a child actor so that’s a bad one on me I got that one wrong but I did while watching this episode figure out the answer to the question here so yeah we’ll talk about that later this is a child he’s got these arresting blue
eyes but he’s got to be like eight or nine I think and and they did they did a great job with the lip sync so the child was talking but there was a man’s voice right so great job with the lip sync they really had that down back then we suck at it now but and that was such like difficult technology back then too
like that would have been a hard thing technologically to pull off so this kid he’s a apparently a hyper intelligent child he’s like Come Aboard come aboard and and he makes them all sit and he offers him a drink called try some Tanya Tanya something something like that looks like pineapple juice yeah it looks
like pineapple juice in a martini glass but they try it and they’re like oh this is good you know okay again here they kind of wait for balok to take the first sip to show that it’s safe but then they all just dig right in without a single scan like nobody’s checking to make sure that this stuff is is safe for them to
drink yeah I mean and and this was the alien that just threatened to blow them out [  ] sky but it’s that’s but it’s a little kid and they think oh he’s harmless you know and Kirk asks about the puppet and baylock explains that that’s his alter ego like Mr Hyde to his Jekyll so to speak and Baloch says this was all a test to determine the crew’s intentions we learned that there is no crew baylock runs the whole damn thing from his little small ship and uses the puppet to frighten people away but he does get lonely and could do with some company He suggests to exchange information and culture and like without skipping a single beat Kirk looks over a Bailey and Bailey’s like well I guess I volunteer yeah it was it’s silly yeah kind of weird but yeah so now Bailey is going to stay behind with the little guy and be like the an ambassador or something yeah yeah for the Federation or well actually it’s not even the Federation yet so baylock walks Kirk and McCoy out to take a tour of the vessel and a button on the episode is baylock talking about how alike they are after all the end weird very strange very strange episode so let’s talk about the humanist themes if if any I got a couple I’ll go first at the end when Kirk decides to board baloch’s pilot ship their choices were like leave and presumably Let bailock Die from loss of life support destroy baylock’s ship or try to save him and so there’s the humanist theme that comes back time and time again in Star Trek which is life is important and valuable and worth saving even if that life might be a giant dick and set out to destroy you right we still have things in common and we’re still you know living beings in this universe right and the thing that we do have in common with that alien life form is the fact that we want to destroy what we fear or you know we immediately go on the offense when we’re uh encounter something that we don’t understand we think it’s dangerous I mean there’s always a good amount of caution you should have but but to the point where you know I’m gonna destroy you because I don’t know your intentions or whatever yeah and I guess then kind of the final thing that ties it all together like even despite obvious differences even between enemies there’s likely a lot more that we have in common than is readily apparent and and this is something I talk a lot about in my activism work right like religious people aren’t an enemy of the non-religious we do have a lot in common and if we can find ways to start on that Common Ground perhaps we can work together on the shared goals that we do have rather than make enemies of of each other and you’re seeing a lot of that in politics today too where we just nope my side’s this side and your side’s outside and we can’t possibly work together on anything anymore so screw you kirkling real heavily on this throughout the encounter with baylock and like he was just sure that a life form that advanced would also have developed compassion and empathy like we have right yeah yeah well there’s no dead to honor nobody died in this episode yeah I’m bummed I don’t get to spit man bars with that but it’s it’s good it’s all good can’t win them all that’s right um but yeah this was a it was a fun episode not too deep but only we want to thank our patrons big patrons let’s get right to business fine I’m authorized to pay an equitable price Federation has invested a great deal of money in our training they’re about to do for a small return yes and we pay off percentages we’re entitled to a little service for all money yeah is this the way your citizens do business the right of petition type better percentages and the boss takes care of them is there anything else there are a lot of great ways to help support the show here and one of the free ways to do that is to leave us a review or rating wherever you’re listening to humanist Trek we’ll be plucking some of those out to read on the show and feature on our website one of the best ways to support us though is to give us some of your Federation credits by becoming a patron of the show patrons get early access to every episode and we’ve uh we’ve come up with some merch ideas there are some levels that have a humanist Trek sticker and uh we we have added to the top level our humanist track Communicator badge so if you want one of those go over to patreon.com humanistrek and pledge to support the show it goes a long way to helping us keep doing this thing and uh our goal is to get through every episode of Star Trek films so we got a long way to go yep come here so yeah join us for the ride I assume you’re loitering around here to learn what efficiency rating I plan to give your Cadets praise to the breathing room is that all you gotta say what about my performance aren’t you dead I don’t believe this was a fair test of my command abilities there was no way to win there’s no correct resolution it’s a test of character now what is that supposed to mean I am understandably curious may I ask you a question who’s been holding up the damn elevator and now let’s bring Becca back in for the exciting answer to this week’s Starfleet Academy Cadet challenge last time on humanist Trek you asked us the actor that played little balak is the younger brother of what famous child actor of the time we both know it now yeah yeah we know it now ready one two three it’s Opie’s little brother Clint Howard [Music] and I [  ] I’m so mad because I knew this
I was surprised that you but but I think it’s because you hadn’t watched the episode no I hadn’t and that’s why I like the format of this trivia game but that’s why I like to be able to redeem ourselves and like I’m terrified of when we get into next gen and yeah she thinks we’re really gonna know our [  ] I know Sarah will I mean she watches it and well she used to watch it in her sleep that’s true right so yeah be afraid because I think I know a lot too um Clint Howard and then when we get to uh what’s the other one Voyager it’s over I love that show so Clint Howard went on to play a bunch of other characters in Star Trek yeah did he yeah including like reprising his role basically like in New Trek so he had to be he was seven I was gonna say he had to be eight seven years he was seven years old when the when they recorded this how do you know did you look it up yes yes well I mean after I checked it figured it out okay I’ll give it to you then when you when you press pause as much as we do you know that’s true who the who the art who the actors are on that particular scene or whatever so oh I didn’t know that well I’m done skipping through the [  ] intro back
to VHS no more cheating with this Paramount Paramount Paramount app it’s really kind of a garbage app yeah I know to be very honest it’s not great I I use well I get Paramount through Amazon so it’s it’s easy I bought it I bought it straight out from from
Paramount is it any benefit not really yeah it’s cheap it’s pretty cheap um as an add-on to Amazon so all right so next week we’ll be reviewing the Menagerie part one what is our question for the Menagerie part one what was the reason behind
reusing footage from the pilot for the Menagerie I think I know this I think I know this too I think they got mid-season and ran out of ideas ran out of steam that’s exactly right they didn’t have like enough they didn’t have stories in the can ready to go and this was a cheap and easy way to reuse the
the footage that they already had yep Final Answer lock it in yep lock it in and um and a lot of shows did this back then where they had like mid-season they had some kind of episode flashbacks where there was all something’s being questioned and they have to go flashback
so it was a time waster but it was also a give them so then they ended up splitting it into two yeah thought a whole bit and then they had like had two weeks of just being able to get more material and better scripts or whatever because I think that was that was just uh yeah I think episodes or series do
that now still occasionally just have that time waster episode there is a classic episode of Star Trek the Next Generation and this may be in season one where Riker is put into this machine this device thing in sickbay and like the these metal like needles go into his head do you remember this one and then
he like relives a bunch of old memories from things that happened earlier in the season same same idea just just an easy episode yeah well I think a lot of um shows did that and I I hated it that was always my my least favorite episode in the series I’ve already seen it we know it’s gonna
be fine so all right well we’ve locked in our answers if you want to play along no cheating no Googling set a course for your nearest social media app and post your answer use the hashtag Starfleet Challenge and we’ll pick our favorite to be the winner you can still play on Twitter I haven’t abandoned that ship
yet we still do have a Twitter account but I’m watching the [  ] dumpster Firebird yeah I try to not say things on the show that are that won’t be Evergreen right that if you listen to this 10 years into the future you know right it doesn’t pull you away from but holy [  ] that whole thing is
something else it’s it’s gonna be part of part of American History or not American history but just part of world history world history this whole dumpster dumpster fire as you said well next time on humanist Trek season one episode 12 of The Menagerie part one Spock hijacks
the Enterprise to return an injured captain pike to Talos IV and we’ll see you next week for that episode live long and prosper cumulus track is available wherever you replicate your podcast follow us on all the social medias at humanistrek become
a patron at patreon.com humanistrek open hailing frequencies to podcasts at humanistrack.com and visit our website cuminustrack.com is a production of Sarah Austin media