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Star Trek – Arena (Review)

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Arena is a fascinating piece of Star Trek , because it’s such an iconic and important piece of franchise history, despite the fact that it’s far from the best that the show has to offer. Indeed, the basic premise of the show is rather generic science-fiction B-movie stuff. Kirk is forced to compete against a lizard-like alien by some god-like beings to ensure the survival of his crew. The script, by producer Gene L. Coon, is credited to a story written by Fredric Brown. Despite its similarities to Brown’s short story of the same name, Arena also shares quite a few plot points with a 1964 episode of The Outer Limits , Fun & Games . None of this is to suggest that Coon was consciously channelling these sources when he wrote the teleplay, just to illustrate how generic the basic plot is.

However, despite (or perhaps because of) this rather straightforward and familiar set-up, Arena is a truly memorable episode of Star Trek . Like quite a few other episodes of the original Star Trek , the episode produced images and concepts that have resonated well outside Star Trek fandom, to the point where elements like the Gorn or Kirk’s highly dubious improvised weapon will be recognisable to people who have never actually seen the episode. However, the episode is also vitally important to the Star Trek franchise itself, as it offers a more thorough expansion and exploration of the back story that has been inconsistently hinted at throughout this first season. Arena is really the first episode to feature a fully-formed framework for the internal logic of the Star Trek universe, one that has informed half-a-century of the franchise.

Plus, you know, Kirk wrestles a lizard man.

Don’t pretend you aren’t loving every minute of this, Shatner!

I’m quite prone to pointing out the people working behind the scenes on Star Trek that never get enough credit. Gene Roddenberry is the creator of the show, and an incredible visionary, but it’s easy to overlook the skill of the people who shaped and crafted that idea into an iconic television show. I’ve already talked quite a bit about Dorothy Fontana, and I’ll undoubtedly come back to talking about her place in the pantheon of “great people who worked on Star Trek.” However, let’s share the love a bit here. Let’s talk about Gene L. Coon.

Coon died relatively young, at the age of 49. However, he made a lasting impression. His distinguished writing career included the script The Killers , Ronald Reagan’s last acting job before moving into the world of politics. When it comes to Star Trek , however, Coon was one of the defining influences. The writer was credited with eight scripts under his own name, and four more scripts under the pseudonym Lee Cronin in the third season. Given the production difficulties facing the third season (and the use of a pseudonym), it’s hard to blame Coon for how Spock’s Brain turned out.

A red-hot red shirt…

Coon worked uncredited on a lot of other scripts during his tenure on Star Trek , much like did working on The Wild Wild West . However, even restricting our discussion to the scripts credited to his name, it’s clear that Coon was a massive influence in defining and shaping Star Trek . Arena is the writer’s first credit for the show, and it’s quite clear that – as soon as Coon started writing for the show consistently – the mythology and the back story of Star Trek became a lot firmer and more rigidly defined.

He was responsible for turning Space Seed from a mess of a story ( featuring a revived Aryan gangster ) into a Star Trek masterpiece. For those interested in Coon’s development of the shared universe, that episode established the Eugenics Wars and offered a justification for the franchise’s relatively subtle distaste for trans-humanism, a science-fiction staple. He apparently wrote The Devil in the Dark in four days, which is another classic of this pretty solid first season. He also created the Klingons in Errand of Mercy , and added a bit of history to the development of faster-than-light technology in Metamorphisis .

Solid like a rock…

Outside of Coon’s credited Star Trek episodes, it has also been suggested that the lead character from his aborted television show The Questor Tapes may have inspired the creation of Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation . That’s a fairly impressive resume, if you choose to measure a writer’s success by their lasting contribution to canon. More than that, though, Coon had a wonderful grasp of the sort of the B-movie mentality that made the classic Star Trek so charming, and arguably the aspect of the show most sorely missing from the misguided attempt to imitate the original series during the first couple of years of The Next Generation .

Coon is, after all, the writer who gave us the Gorn – a species with remarkable pop cultural awareness, given their next on-screen appearance would occur in In a Mirror, Darkly in 2005. He’s also responsible for both the space! Romans (in Bread & Circuses , co-written with Roddenberry) and space! gangsters (in A Piece of the Action ). Even in the third season, writing under a pseudonym, Coon gave us the wonderfully eerie space! western vibe of Spectre of the Gun and the cautionary space! racism morality tale of Let That Be Your Last Battlefield .

It’s the sixties all right…

Apparently, Coon wrote Arena without realising that he was drawing on Fredric Brown’s short story. As discussed in Great Birds of the Galaxy :

According to the on-air credits, the script for “Arena” was based on the Fredric Brown short story of the same name. “What happened,” says Dorothy Fontana, “is that Gene wrote the script as an original. When it was read by research, they said, ‘Oh, this is very much like the Fredric Brown story.’ Gene said, ‘Yes, you’re right. I must have read it and just didn’t realize it.'” So he instantly gave story credit to Fredric Brown and Mr. Brown was properly paid.

It’s a nice story, and – based on Coon’s delightfully pulpy aesthetic – it’s not too hard to believe that he’d stumbled across the idea of Kirk fighting an alien to the death without realising that he was drawing on a short story from 1944.

Been and Gorn…

Despite the somewhat basic premise and set-up, there’s a lot to like here. The Gorn, for example, is an absolutely wonderful creation. It’s one of the few Star Trek aliens that wouldn’t look out of place in a schlock horror film. It’s very clearly just a guy in a suit, but the up-front absurdity of it all is hard to resist. We are discussing space! dinosaurs who can fly space craft while wearing loinclothes.

It’s hard to ignore the B-movie appeal of that image, and it’s probably a reason why the Gorn have become such an iconic alien despite only appearing once during the entire original Star Trek run. (Okay, and briefly in an episode of Star Trek: The Animated Series ). Still, the Gorn stand among the most distinctive and recognisable of the classic Star Trek aliens, to the point where a trailer for the 2013 Star Trek game even features an affectionate reunion of William Shatner and the Gorn .

Talk about scorched earth…

The Gorn have featured quite heavily in spin-off media, with The Gorn Crisis exploring the obviously pressing question of what the Gorn were doing during the Dominion War at the end of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine . They’ve played a crucial part in the expanded universe, as part of the Typhon Pact series of novels by Pocket Books. They feature heavily in one line of Star Trek video games, the Star Fleet Universe strategy games. They’ve even cameoed in a scene cut from the 2009 Star Trek reboot. Not bad at all, eh?

Of course, the fight itself is part of pop culture history. Even the filming location has become a piece of pop geography, with Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back celebrating the use of the same location by setting a scene at the “Arena” diner. In Galaxy Quest , the script can incorporate a shout-out to Arena without even naming the episode. When the movie’s Shatner-esque lead finds himself confronting a monster in a desert locale, the only member of the team to have watched the show offers sage advice. “Look around, can you form some sort of rudimentary lathe?” The lathe itself has been the subject of a Mythbusters episode .

Gorn, you will go on my first whistle…

And, despite the fact that the villain is an extra wandering around in a lizard suit, Arena still manages to stay true to Roddenberry’s Star Trek ideals, by allowing Kirk to refuse to kill his defeated opponent and by making it clear that the Gorn is not a monster. Coon’s script is careful to justify the Gorn aggression, rather than presenting the creature as a mindless brute. While massacring an entire colony without warning is hardly a civilised act, Arena does offer some excuse for the atrocity, with McCoy observing, “Then we could be in the wrong.”

That said, the massacre of innocent colonists without any warning or prior contact is hard to justify no matter what external factors are at play. It seems like Kirk and McCoy are too easy to forgive the brutal attack made on a base that welcomed the Gorn ship with open arms. Still, it’s nice that Arena makes some effort (however small) to humanise the Gorn and to clarify that they aren’t mindless killing machines. This would become something of a speciality for Coon, with The Devil in the Dark revolving around the revelation that the Horta is not – despite its appearance – a monster.

Dagger of the… chest, I guess…

Kirk’s refusal to kill the Gorn is also a nice moment, even if forgiving the creature seems a little too much to ask. Kirk’s decision not to kill the alien would have carried more weight had the show acknowledged that – whatever their justifications – the Gorn were still mass-murderers. Given Kirk’s earlier emotional response to the atrocity, it would be nice if he’d seemed more conflicted, or if the show made it clear that he was unwilling to commit cold-blooded murder in any circumstance, rather than because this alien had a valid excuse for his violence.

Interestingly, the final scene omits an interesting piece of plot, which is included in James Blish’s Star Trek episode novelisations, after Kirk spares the life of the Gorn:

Then there was a humming, much like that he had heard so long ago aboard ship, when the screen had been scrambled. He turned. A figure was materializing under the overhang. It was not very formidable — certainly nothing so ominous, so awe-inspiring as its voice had suggested. Also, it was very beautiful. It looked like a boy of perhaps eighteen. “You’re a Metron,” Kirk said listlessly. “True,” said the figure. “And you have surprised us, Captain.” “How?” Kirk said, not much interested. “By winning?” “No. We had no preconceptions as to which of you would win. You surprised us by refusing to kill, although you had pursued the Gorn craft into our space with the intention of destroying it.” “That was different,” Kirk said. “That was necessary.” “Perhaps it was. It is a new thought. Under the circumstances, it is only fair to tell you that we lied to you.” “In what way?” “We said that the ship of the loser of this personal combat would be destroyed,” said the Metron. “After all, it would be the winner— the stronger, the more resourceful race— who would pose the greatest threat to us. It was the winner we planned to destroy.” Kirk lurched to his feet. “Not my ship,” he said dangerously. “No, Captain. We have changed our minds. By sparing your helpless enemy — who would surely have killed you in like circumstances — you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy. This we hardly expected — and it leaves us with no clear winner.”

It’s a nice, nuanced touch which suggests that there’s more going on here than might first appear, and the episode feels a little bit simpler for the fact that the scene was cut.

No comment.

Arena is also the first episode to establish the Federation. Early on, episodes like Where No Man Has Gone Before , Mudd’s Women , The Corbomite Manoeuvre , What Are Little Girls Made Of? and The Man Trap painted space as this large and empty void. Even the previous episode, The Squire of Gothos , featured a desolate “star desert.” In those episodes, space seemed inherently hostile and mostly empty.

Only with episodes like The Conscience of a King and Court Martial did we begin to get a sense that Kirk and his crew were actually part of a much larger framework, and weren’t really that isolated and alone in the cosmos. Indeed, Court Martial was the first episode to mention “Starfleet.” The authority that Kirk reported to had been somewhat ambiguous throughout the season, with quite a few episodes suggesting that the Enterprise was an “Earth” ship. That creates the impression of one solitary planet reaching out into an impossible expanse of space.

A cold-blooded killer…

Arena expands on the idea of a large centralised authority from episodes like Court Martial and The Menagerie . The Federation is one of the core ideas of the Star Trek franchise, and it feels strange that it would only appear so late in a season that established so much so quickly. More than many earlier episodes, Arena seems to reflect the mood and atmosphere that would become prevalent throughout the rest of the franchise.

For the first time, space is presented as something that really shouldn’t be a hostile environment occupied by god-like beings and monsters. The Federation, it seems, is taming the frontier. The colony here seems to be completely surprised by the ambush, as if this sort of behaviour is completely alien to Federation values. “Scanners reported a ship approaching,” the survivor tells Kirk. “We get them now and then. They’re all welcome to use our facilities. You know that.” It suggests a measure of blind trust which seems out of place in the generally hostile wilderness we’ve seen in other adventures.

A net loss?

In contrast, the Gorn seem to come from that hostile darkness we saw in earlier episodes. “We have beamed back to the Enterprise and immediately set out in pursuit of the alien vessel,” Kirk reports in his log. “It appears to be headed toward a largely unexplored section of the galaxy.” This suggests that there is in fact a great deal of explored space, space that has been claimed and charted and researched. This seems more in keeping with the depiction of space seen in the Star Trek films and in The Next Generation than with some of the earlier episodes.

Indeed, Arena sees a bit of a subtle shift in the Enterprise’s role. The crew are no longer cowboys exploring a brave new frontier. Instead, they are police men trying to impose order on a part of the universe that they have claimed and tamed. “Out here,” Kirk explains at one point, “we’re the only policemen around. And a crime has been committed.” There’s fear of “invasion” , which relies on the idea that the Enterprise is part of some relatively large galactic power, rather than a few scattered colonies dotted throughout the cosmos.

No time for a love bite…

This might have been implicit in stories like The Conscience of a King , Court Martial or even Dagger of the Mind , but it’s explicit here. In fact, much like Dagger of the Mind and Shore Leave , Arena seems somewhat critical of these institutions. The script’s sympathy for the extreme actions of the Gorn suggests that the Federation’s actions should be read as imperialist – albeit accidentally. “Was Cestus III an intrusion on their space?” McCoy asks, with the episode suggesting that the Federation’s expansion had been rushed and ill-advised.

After all, the fact that the Federation seemed so comfortable and so secure on Cestus III suggests a certain amount of arrogance, and a clear lack of consideration. It isn’t that the Federation laid claim to something which didn’t belong to them, it’s that they never stopped to think that it could belong to anybody else. The Federation didn’t annex or invade Cestus III, but they still behaved like a colonial power, with little regard for what nearby civilisations might make of their colonies.

James Kirk: fighting aliens through the power of applied chemistry!

In fact, it has been argued that the depiction of the Federation in Arena is a criticism of colonial values :

Arena raises questions that depict the underlying shadow of the colonial period in which indigenous populations attack invaders in response to colonial encroachment. In the episode Captain Kirk faces a member of the alien species, Gorn, a bipedal reptilian humanoid from a technologically advanced race, in a battle to the death as imposed by the seemingly supernatural, advanced Metron race. In the case of the Enterprise/Gorn dispute, it is noteworthy that the Federation (Kirk and his Crew), are portrayed as transgressors by attempting to encroach into a Gorn planet. As is implied by the name, Arena brings forth the primal concept of survival amongst two captains, battling on apparently equal grounds. In the process of battling the Gorn, Kirk’s aside acknowledges the Gorn’s contemporaneous equality and concedes that he is a powerful adversary, acknowledging his own bias by saying: “I find it hard to conceive that this reptilian creature so different from me, is also an educated captain of a starship, not inferior but technologically advanced as well” (Coon & Pevney, 1967). In the end, Kirk is victorious after fashioning a rudimentary cannon and gunpowder from the resources made available to him on the planet’s surface and his use of modern natural science. Similarly, though ultimately defeated (but not killed), the Gorn manages to create an Oldowan-like axe made of stone. In this respect, Kirk is portrayed as superior due to his use of modern science by creating a projectile weapon as opposed to the Gorn, who is placed in a more primitive state by his use of a stone axe, a symbol of the premodern human state of evolution.

It’s fascinating that so many of these sixties episodes are so clearly critical of these future institutions, another sign that Star Trek was channelling the growing discomfort with authority that was a massive part of late-sixties counter-culture.

A glowing review…

In Court Martial , Starfleet was presented as institutionally corrupt, willing to cover up the death of an officer to avoid embarrassment. In Dagger of the Mind , Earth was implicitly responsible for allowing Doctor Adams to abuse those in his care. Here, the Federation is shown to be imperialist and expansionist. It’s a portrayal that Roddenberry would shy away from while producing The Next Generation , but it’s also something that writers like Ronald D. Moore and Ira Steven Behr would develop further while working on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine .

It’s also worth noting that Arena represents the first time that Star Trek has really tackled the implications of using a “space western” to explore Roddenberry’s futuristic ideals. After all, the western is an American mythology that is built around some morally questionable practices – the brutal subjugation of the native people by European settlers chief among them, with institutionalised and systemic attempts to displace and to marginalise those cultures. Arena hinges on that often-overlooked piece of history, the reality that is glossed over with romanticism.

He’s dead, Jim…

Early episodes of Star Trek had avoided the colonial subtext of the western genre by suggesting that the universe was a big empty place – that mankind was only really strolling in the ruins of long-dead societies and civilisation. It’s worth noting that the first half of the first season features relatively few alien civilisations. From here on out, alien cultures become a lot more common, so the issue of the Enterprise’s potential imperialist attitudes needs to be tackled head-on.

While The Man Trap alluded to the near-extinction of the buffalo, that episode ended with the death of the buffalo analogue. It’s hard to read it is an explicit criticism of that sort of colonial attitude, as Kirk goes out of his way to dismiss the person making the comparison as insane. As such, Arena is the first time the show really grapples with that idea, and it does so remarkably well. While the episode probably lets the Gorn off relatively easily for mass slaughter, it accepts that sometimes humanity’s self-centred view of the universe can allow us to overlook acts that undermine or damage other cultures.

Kirk smash!

Arena is a wonderful piece of Star Trek , despite the fact that its plot is something out of a cheesy science-fiction B-movie. There’s a lot of charm to the idea of Kirk and an alien captain resolving their differences mano-a-mano , and it demonstrates the wonderful way that sixties Star Trek could have its cake and eat it too. A criticism of colonial values, Arena also works as a visceral pulpy action adventure. It’s a testament to the show, and also a triumph for writer Gene L. Coon.

You might be interested in our other reviews from the first season of the classic Star Tre k :

Supplemental: Vulcan’s Glory by D.C. Fontana
Supplemental: Early Voyages #1 – Flesh of my Flesh
Supplemental: Crew by John Byrne
Where No Man Has Gone Before
The Corbomite Manoeuvre
Mudd’s Women
The Enemy Within
The Man Trap
The Naked Time
Supplemental: My Enemy, My Ally by Diane Duane
Supplemental: Romulans: Pawns of War by John Byrne
Supplemental: Errand of Vengeance: The Edge of the Sword by Kevin Ryan
Dagger of the Mind
The Conscience of a King
The Galileo Seven
Court Martial
Supplemental: Early Voyages #12-15 – Futures
Supplemental: Burning Dreams by Margaret Wander Bonanno
Shore Leave
The Squire of Gothos
Supplemental: Requiem by Michael Jan Friedman & Kevin Ryan
Supplemental: The Fantastic Four #108 – The Monstrous Mystery of the Nega-Man
Tomorrow is Yesterday
The Return of the Archons
A Taste of Armageddon
Supplemental: The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II by Greg Cox
This Side of Paradise
The Devil in the Dark
Supplemental: Spock Must Die! by James Blish
Supplemental: The Final Reflection by John M. Ford
Supplemental: The City on the Edge of Forever by Harlan Ellison/Cordwainer Bird
Supplemental: Crucible: McCoy – Provenance of Shadows by David R. George III
Supplemental: Star Trek (Gold Key) #56 – No Time Like the Past
Operation — Annihilate!

8 Responses

I once had a mind to create a short film about a university student who’s so utterly obsessed with this episode that he becomes convinced he’s in a life or death struggle with his roommate. He, of course, then proceeds to create weaponry from his dorm room surroundings.

It’s just a classic piece of pulpy sci-fi, isn’t it? I mean, it’s instantly recognisable under any circumstance. Just drop that guy into anything, especially a desert, and people will go “huh, that’s familiar.”

Late response… sorry… but, as always, this was a superb analysis. A agree with you about Gene L. Coon. His contributions to the Star Trek mythos, and to the moral complexity of the series (along with its spin-offs) are unfortunately all too often underrated. He did a fantastic job of universe-building utilizing the basic foundation set down by Gene Roddenberry.

It’s never too late! I can see all the comments, so I can respond to them whenever and wherever they are.

I agree Coon is horribly, horribly underrated. (See also, to a lesser degree, if only because they lived longer and thus stayed involved longer: D.C. Fontana and David Gerrold.)

I really feel that you’re building far too much on one unsubstantiated statement by the Gorn captain. Imperialism on Earth has always involved conquest and oppression of native populations, but it’s difficult to believe that there were any Gorn living on Cestus III, or that the Gorn had made their claim to the planet clear, considering that the crew didn’t recognize either the Gorn ship or the Gorn themselves and the attack seemed to have come as a complete surprise. Even if the Gorn claim is legitimate, which, again, we don’t know for sure, the Federation offense is more like trespassing on unmarked property than outright imperialism, given which I feel that your criticism is unduly harsh.

I definitely think that it is intentional, even just looking at Gene L. Coon’s other work in contemporary episodes like The Devil in the Dark and Errand of Mercy, and even the General Order mentioned in A Taste of Armageddon.

Kirk’s Federation was an extension of Kennedy’s American. Gene Roddenberry seemed to think that this was the coolest thing ever, while Coon was more skeptical. I think, given all of that context, and the fact that if you have a character on sixties television lie then you generally make that explicit, it’s fair to suppose that the Gorn have a reasonable and legitimate claim and that the Federation was… at best careless and at worst indifferent to their colonialism.

What always seemed weird to me isn’t how the episode handles the potential culpability of the Gorn, but rather that of the Metrons.

These incredibly powerful beings pitting the two ships’ captains against each other in a brutal life-and-death conflict on a planet the Metrons control, for any reason offered or concealed, seems like the amoral experimentation of “The Savage Curtain” at best, the childish torture from “The Squire of Gothos” at worst. It appears to demand the same sort of critique from Kirk that those other episodes’ vaguely powerful beings prompted, and that recurs all over this series: what exactly is superior, or even worth respecting, about employing barbarous methods for dubious ends?

When Kirk calls out to the Metrons at the end, and one appears, it seems for a few moments that we might get that story; Kirk shouts that the Metrons will “have to get [their] entertainment somewhere else” and remarks that the Metron looks like a child to his eyes. But instead we get a not-very-twisty twist about the supposed purpose of the Metrons kidnapping two people for a pit fight on a planet, which does nothing at all to justify it, and suddenly Kirk seems to believe the Metrons had good reason to do what they were doing. None of that seems remotely justified by what we see or hear.

I remember having a similar issue with the end of the Survivors, when Picard is similarly wishy-washy on a man who committed genocide.

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Star Trek: Arena

4 comments:

Prior to viewing this episode for the first time, I had read the short story it's based on. So that was kind of a cheap thrill. It was a great story. Brown was one of my favorite authors. The short story was a bit different, of course. No Star Trek. Humanity and an alien space fleet were poised for a decisive battle at the edge of our solar system. There'd been no communication between the two sides other than skirmishes. A much more advanced alien race recognized both races were equally matched and equally worthy of victory. However, this battle would so weaken both sides that neither would survive in the long run. So the alien race chose one fighter pilot from each side and took them to strange planet where they would fight to the death, determining which side would win. The things that happened on that planet were very different than in this episode, stranger and more interesting actually. But of course, the story had to be poured into the Star Trek mold. The human is cleverer than the other alien (well, Duh!) and so we survive. The super aliens distroy the rival fleet. It was really a quite good story.

I've always liked this one. You know, Mythbusters (actually the Build Team) tackled the myth in this one: Kirk being able to make a working canon from bamboo and pure sulfur and potassium nitrate. The result: no. According to their findings, no only would the Gorn not be hurt at all, Kirk may have killed himself when firing it. The bamboo would not have held up at all. But I comfort myself thinking that, although Kirk's Rock is the main rock (and, boy does that rock get around the galaxy!) they're on an alien planet (or, according to Kirk, an asteroid) so the bamboo may be a lot tougher than that on Earth. It would have worked on an alien planet (or, you know, asteroid). Kat

Kat, I saw that episode of Mythbusters. Even though I try my best to avoid Mythbusters. The geek quotient is just so high! :)

I love this one! The Gorn captain was scary as a child, and cool as a teenager and later. They were my go to race in Star Fleet Battles for years too. The game even mentions that the Federation and Gorn became allies after 'an unpromising start between two hot headed captains', referencing this one! This is a such a good one and has good lessons without coming off as too preaching. Spock's play by play got a little annoying, but it also fits him and keeps the audience in the loop, so it works. This is definitely a top 5 TOS episode for me.

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Home » TV » TV Recaps

Flashback | Recap | Star Trek: The Original Series S1E18: “Arena”

The Earth Outpost on Cestus III is completely destroyed by an unknown alien vessel that struck viciously and then fled. The Enterprise must give chase. Just as Captain Kirk and his crew are on the cusp of capturing the vessel, they’re stopped by a third party, a seemingly all-powerful race called the Metrons. The Metrons have observed these two ostensibly aggressive races chasing and attempting to kill one another, and they’re determined to make peace. So, they abduct Kirk and his counterpart and send them to an uninhabited planet to duel to the death. The losing Captain’s crew will be obliterated, while the winner may go home again. And the Enterprise crew will watch as their captain battles a large reptilian alien, a Gorn, who is physically superior.

Ultimately, Kirk finds a way to communicate with the Gorn and learns to defeat him using his resources. Kirk shows mercy and does not kill the Gorn. The Metrons then reward Kirk and don’t kill the Gorn when he insists upon further mercy. They declare that there just might be hope for humanity yet.

Let’s Dig Deeper

This episode regularly finds a place on top five and ten lists of Star Trek episodes (not just The Original Series episodes, but in all of Star Trek ) – and it’s entirely deserved. The brunt of the story falls upon William Shatner’s shoulders and acting chops, and he delivers, thoroughly and completely.

The premise here is really simple, yet profound in its execution: mankind tends to alienate the Other, and yet the Other may do the same to us. The moment Kirk sees the Gorn, he gives us his feelings: “Like most Humans, I seem to have an instinctive revulsion to reptiles.” The Gorn is as non-human as possible. Whether we’re talking about aliens in the extraterrestrial sense or in the extra-national sense, we stereotype, we generalize, we fear those who are different than us. And yet we’re all people. Even those differences – and our fear of them – unite us. The sooner we realize that, the better we all are.

We learn that both Kirk and the Gorn believed that there were no other options. They view one another as invaders in their space. They’re nearly equally matched in intelligence, firepower, and cunning. One has to give. However, instead of one simply beating the other into submission, the victor submits. He has mercy. He sees the humanity in the Other.

And deeper…

This attracts the attention of the Metrons, this time in a positive way. They choose not to kill the humans or the Gorn, because Kirk has shown compassion. One of the Metrons then arrives and commends Kirk: “By sparing your helpless enemy who surely would have destroyed you, you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy. Something we hardly expected.” This demonstrates to the Metrons that the humans aren’t as evil as they seem, and they’re allowed to go on their way. “You are still half savage. But there is hope,” the Metron tags onto the end, reminding Kirk of his place in the universe.

I find it highly ironic that the Metrons, as enlightened and omnipotent as they seem to be, choose this contest as the method of determining worth. They’re utterly peaceful (so they say), yet a duel to the death will solve the problem. On top of that, “the winner of the contest will be permitted to go his way unharmed. The loser, along with his ship, shall be destroyed in the interest of peace.” Hundreds of lives hang in the balance, and the enlightened beings will kill all of them if the captain loses. Seems like the Metrons have some learning to do.

Unfortunately, we really never hear from the Gorn again, and it’s unclear how Kirk affected the Gorn as a whole. Kirk walks away from the encounter a tad more enlightened, while the Gorn just may not. But that’s entirely normal, too: change takes time. What we do discover in Deep Space Nine is that Cestus III has been rebuilt and is thriving. They even have a baseball team! So at least the Gorn haven’t been back.

Well that’s good to hear.

Oddly, despite the amazingness of this episode, that’s what makes it so difficult to expound upon. It’s very straightforward – there’s not a lot to critique or attempt to take apart.

There’s no ham-fisted or hackneyed message. Shatner does a spectacular job dashing around Vasquez Rocks, essentially narrating the episode. For all the stereotyping and parody that Shatner has garnered over the years, this is not an episode that earns such commentary. He is strong and clear-eyed, in command of the situation, holding his own against what must have been a tough scene partner.

Random Thoughts on Star Trek

Blatant redshirt death: 1

Frederic Brown receives a writing credit here because of his short story, also titled “Arena.” It’s not originally a Star Trek story but was adapted to fit the series. The premise is the same, and it’s just as excellent a read. You can find it here .

I love the huge location shoot, from the destroyed colony of Cestus III (I’m fairly sure that the MASH 4077 camp is just behind the ruins) to the iconic Vasquez Rocks, which are seen throughout nearly every series of Star Trek .

In “ Context is for Kings ,” the third episode of Star Trek: Discovery , Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) enters Captain Lorca’s ( Jason Isaacs ) menagerie – his lab of alien oddities. Lorca has a myriad of military objects and bits and pieces from other cultures: one of which is the skeleton of a Gorn. This doesn’t work, timeline-wise, unless some of the speculation of Lorca being from another universe, possibly bringing some trinkets with him, is true. Regardless of continuity and canon ( Discovery plays fast and loose with this at times…), it’s an interesting connection.

Just how many all-powerful beings are there in the universe? Do they bump into one another? Do they hang out? What are their parties like?

Memorable Quotes from Arena

Spock: “Doctor, you are a sensualist.” McCoy: “You bet your pointed ears I am.”

–McCoy is really excited about having real food, cooked by a Commodore’s chef. Spock disapproves.

Keep Watching?

Much like “ Balance of Terror ,” if you’re not sold after this episode, just move on. Go watch The Orville or Babylon 5 . Or just sit and think about your life choices. Then rewatch “Arena.” I’ll wait.

Article by Tyler Howat

Tyler Howat joined Ready Steady Cut in November 2017, publishing over 100 articles for the website. Based out of Wenatchee City, Washington, Tyler has used his education and experience to become a highly skilled writer, critic, librarian, and teacher. He has a passion for Film, TV, and Books and a huge soft spot for Star Trek.

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Star Trek : "The Squire Of Gothos" / "Arena"

There's the universe, and the universe is basically everything. Inside the universe are things called galaxies—and there are a ton of these, probably around a 100 billion. And inside each galaxy are suns and around those suns are planets. Some of those planets can support life. Hopefully, some of those planets already do. And if we go by Star Trek , at least two-thirds of that life consists of godlike-beings who want nothing more than to screw around with James T. Kirk. The first time I went through this set (a year or two back, I think), I was amazed by two things: the shows held up much better than I was expecting, and the writers used the "like flies to wanton boys" plot, on average, at least six times per episode. Okay, so my math wasn't very good back then (I'd invented a drink that mixed Wild Turkey, Benadryl, and some pink stuff my dad bought me for my car that I think was supposed to be windshield wiper fluid. Most of what I remember of the past five years is in black and white and has subtitles), but whatever the actual numbers are, the god-plot happens a lot in TOS. It's the kind of mechanic that allows for a lot of fluidity in story-telling; the "science" of Trek is already loose enough to allow some breathing room, but an all-powerful alien force makes anything possible. The reason we're frightened of the unknown is that we can't predict it, but from a story-telling perspective, that's actually a benefit. You can have, say, a spoiled brat conjuring castles and planets out of the void, or a man-child in a silver dress freezing a star-ship, and because we don't know that these things are impossible, we accept it. Of course, that sort of thing can get old—you keep taking away the rules, eventually your audience is going to get bored. Because if anything can happen, when it does, there's no reason to be surprised or delighted or engaged. The trick is to use the ability sparingly, and either have it be a means to an end, or else make sure the being with the magical powers has a distinctive enough personality that their abilities are less of interest then they are. The latter is the tack that "Squire of Gothos" takes, and it works beautifully; while the episode is in some way reminiscent of "Charlie X," all the way down to the ending, "Squire" is by far the superior, enough to make any familiarity seem irrelevant, and to earn it a place as one of TOS 's most deservedly iconic hours. Both eps this week are wonderfully structured; in "Squire," we open with the Enterprise finding an uncharted planet seemingly incapable of supporting life. Before anyone can do much about it, Sulu and Kirk disappear from the bridge, and we get to watch Spock and the crew trying to figure out what's going on. Kirk's gone adventuring before, but this is a rare case where we don't actually follow him on the trip, and that change, though small, does a nice job of setting the hook. It gets weirder when one of the screens on the bridge displays the words, "Greetings and Felicitations," followed by "Hip-Hip-Hoorah. Tallyho!" (Nimoy's reaction here is hilarious.) The message appears to be coming from the one spot on the planet below with life forms, so Spock sends McCoy and two men, Jaeger and DeSalle, down to investigate. For once, we get a sense of a landing party being selected rather than assumed, as Scotty volunteers, but Spock, wisely enough, says it's more important he stays on the ship. Instead of the hellscape they were expecting (for once, they even wore air-masks!), McCoy and the others find an environment remarkably like Earth's, with breathable air, plant-life, and your standard-issue castle. Inside the castle is a drawing room with a number of trophies on display, including the salt monster from "The Man Trap," what appears to be a crocodile head over the mantle, and, most importantly, the frozen forms of Kirk and Sulu. McCoy takes a reading and can't make heads or tails of it, but just when things couldn't get anymore confusing, a stranger appears in period garb, does a few riffs on a harpsichord, and sets Kirk and Sulu free. The stranger introduces himself as General Trelane, now retired, and informs the puzzled crewmen that they are guests on planet Gothos. Trelane's been observing Earth for some time, and, apparently, he wants some friends. Well, maybe not friends; friendship implies roughly equal status. This is more like a Elmyra from Tiny Toons getting a home delivery from the pet store. Squire Trelane is that most terrifying of creatures, a brat who expects to get exactly what he wants with the power to make that expectation a reality. Like Charlie X, he can do just about anything, but unlike Charlie, there's not an emo bone in the twerp's body. It makes the episode a lot more fun to watch; in the title role, William Campbell is demanding, energetic, and endlessly delighted with himself. The serious captain/whimsical threat dynamic is one that Trek would return to again and again, and while it would get more dramatically complex over the years, there's something pure right here at the source. Campbell hits the ideal funny/annoying balance, and the dynamic between him and the various crew-members he torments is terrific. Of special note is the way the Enterprise's resident straight man (in comedy terms, not sexuality; Kirk'd screw anything if it took the time to put on a mini-skirt, but McCoy's just a pipe and smoking jacket away from hitting a 0 on the Kinsey Scale), Mr. Spock, handles the crisis. After the first group to encounter Trelane makes a brief escape back to the ship, the squire magicks himself onto the bridge and steals away most everyone there, including the first group, the Yeoman of the Week, Uhura, and Spock. Unsurprisingly, the half-Vulcan takes an instant dislike to His Twerpishness, and when Trelane calls him on it, Spock responds with the best line of the episode: "I object to you. I object to intellect without discipline. I object to power without constructive purpose." It's simple, straightforward, and all kinds of bad-ass. Nimoy delivers it without ornamentation, and the dignity he conveys without just a few calm sentences makes Trelane seem about as impressive as a five year-old with a box of matches. Which is appropriate, given how things wind up. We've got another deus ex machine, but while that's usually death to good writing, it works here because it feels like an organic plot development; in one sense, the writers put themselves in an impossible spot, but once you've seen how they choose to get out of that spot, you can't imagine it going anywhere else. In terms of build-up, "Squire" never feels like a series of fake-outs in order to pull us through to the last five minutes, although that's what it is—the crew never gives up on defeating Trelane, despite the hopelessness of it, so we never give up ourselves. For example, there's the business with a mirror that may or may not conceal a device Trelane may or may not be using to do all the crazy things he does; Kirk takes a risk and manages to manipulate the situation to a point where he can shoot the mirror out. There is a machine behind it, and that machine is wrecked, but it's all for naught, since Trelane didn't really need it. (I suppose Tommy will be pleased, at least.) In a way that's sort of a cheat, but given that we never really know exactly how Trelane operates, I'd argue that it's an acceptable cheat. And since we're all trained to expect magic bullet solutions in situations like these, it's a decent twist to have someone succeed at something only to find that the success doesn't work out quite the way they'd hoped. In the end, Kirk is left in a one-on-one fight against a creature who can do whatever he wants and can't stand losing; but just when things are at there darkest, two blobs of colored light appear in the sky and tell Trelane it's time to put away his toys and come home. Again, this is a lot like "Charlie X," but while Charlie's predicament was played for pathos, this one is done largely for laughs. It works, too; even knowing what's coming, I still get a kick out hearing Trelane's mom tell him to go to his room. (There are a lot of nice visual effects in this episode; I loved how the spotlight on Trelane gradually tightens until both it and he disappear.) There's something terrifying in the idea that a race of beings with the power to warp space and time might have kids running around, but I guess when you have all of cosmos and eternity to play in, it's important to find ways to keep yourself occupied. Some folks create new versions of themselves to instruct, while others prefer to out-source the whole parenting thing by interfering in the lives of significantly less powerful alien races. Such is the case of our second episode this week, "Arena." Here's another one you've probably heard referenced, even if you haven't seen the original—it introduces us to a race of irritable space lizards (aka, the Gorn), and the second half features Kirk struggling against one of the Gorn in a duel that will determine the fate of the Enterprise. If your wondering where Guy's "rudimentary lathe" line in Galaxy Quest came from, look no further. Our heroes have just gotten an invite from Commodore Travers of Cestus III; he wants everybody to come down for a meal and chit-chat, and, given past experience, Kirk can tell you that the Commodore's meals are very much worth the time. (I love the nice touch here that McCoy et al are really jonesing for a "home-cooked" meal. Makes you wonder what synthesized food tastes like. Is there that much of a difference, or is the good doctor just hungry for a change in atmosphere?) Weirdly enough, Travers makes a special point of requesting Kirk bring his tactical crew with him. This sets off a few alarm bells for Spock, but everyone still beams down to the planet as planned; there they find that Cestus III has been laid to waste, and whoever did the waste-laying immediately sets to work bumping off Kirk and his men. It's a trap, and soon the Enterprise is under attack as well. As with "Squire," the hook is set fast in "Arena"; but unlike "Squire," we get two premises combined instead of just having one develop over time. The first premise has the landing party fighting against an unseen (and clearly well-armed) enemy. We actually don't find out who the opponent is until well into the episode—before then, all we have to go on is that they're cold-blooded, and there's a lot of them. Oh, and they got some nasty guns, that's probably relevant. The sequence planetside is effectively tense; that tenseness generally translates as Kirk running around and the occasional red-shirt getting toasted (we even get a classic "Captain, I see somethiZAP" moment), but it works. Shatner gets in a tuck and roll and some serpentine running action, so I'm sure it was a happy day of filming for him. We're reminded of James T.'s love of his ship, as he orders Sulu to make an escape even though the Enterprise can't beam the landing party back aboard through their defense screens. We lose a couple crewmen, and find a survivor near death, before Kirk remembers the planet's arsenal, and manages to launch a missle at where he and Spock presume the enemy to be. The attack works—maybe a little too well, really—and the aliens flee, allowing everyone planetside to escape to the ship. Kirk has his blood up now; as we've seen in "Balance of Terror," an attack on an Earth outpost is never a good sign, and the most obvious conclusion to make here is that whoever blew up Cestus III is prepping for a full-scale invasion. This is supported by the fact that the Enterprise was lured in—apparently, they're the only ship in the quadrant capable of defending against an outside force. (Which is interesting; I guess the Enterprise does policing duty in between its more scholarly pursuits?) The lone survivor of the attack describes a slaughter, and Kirk makes the decision: pursuit, and destruction. It's the only way to be sure. Really, a lot of the set-up of "Arena" matches "Balance," which makes it even more of a surprise when things make a sharp veer left to our other premise in the second act. (Or is it third? I can never remember if hour-long shows are considered five acts or three.) As Kirk grows more anxious to catch-up with the enemy, the enemy suddenly comes to a dead stop; and when the Enterprise moves to engage, they find themselves caught as well. There's a light show on the monitor, and a booming voice informs the crew that they've just stumbled into the Metrons' neighborhood, and the Metrons are not pleased. Like nearly ever super-intelligent race, the Metrons have decided that humans are too warlike and savage to be trusted (it's funny how such a huge chunk of sci-fi seems structured as an apology for war and the atom bomb; maybe in the absence of a God who'll listen, we find it necessary to create substitutes that we can beg for forgiveness), so it's time for some Reality TV, space-style. Kirk gets snagged from the bridge and finds himself on the standard "rock and dirt" planet, and along with him is the captain of the alien ship. The Metrons named the other race the "Gorn," which is as much name as we ever get, but really, all you need to know is that it's a SPACE LIZARD. Wearing a rather fetching cave-man outfit, as well. The Kirk/Gorn fight is one for the ages; the combat on Trek isn't really up to modern standards in terms of pacing or choreography, but there's a certain charm to it nonetheless. The Gorn movies very slowly, but it's a strong mofo—the initial wrestling convinces Kirk that his best bet is to try and construct the weapon that the Metrons promised would be available. (This promise calls their motives into question; they claim, in that infuriatingly snooty manner that these things always use, to look down on humankind's violence, but all this seems like the perfect excuse to get some hand-to-hand action in without having to get their own hands dirty in the process. It would've been awesome to learn that the whole set-up was the space equivalent of a wrestling match on Pay-Per-View.) Kirk dictates his plans into the "recorder" the Metrons provided, but what he doesn't realize is that the recorder, which looks suspiciously like an electric razor, is actually a direct communicator to the Gorn, who listens to Kirk's plans and moves accordingly. It puts a hilarious spin on things when Kirk talks about how he hopes he's got cleverness on his side. While the Gorn constructs an elaborate rope and rock trap, Kirk comments on the scenery (Kirk on diamonds: "Perhaps the hardest substance known in the universe." Is he speaking for the benefit of Ms. Johnson's third grade class?), and does some rock throwing of his own. The battle weighs heavy on him and his opponent, and once the Gorn lets Kirk know about the whole communicator/recorder thing, Kirk learns that the Gorns attacked Cestus III because it was an intrusion into their territory. In their eyes, it was the Earthmen who were invading, and they responded accordingly. This doesn't erase the fact that the Gorns went on a massacre without bothering to make their problems known to anyone, nor does it fully explain why they were so eager to get the Enterprise involved, but it does make the previously black-and-white situation a lot more gray. (Shades of cowboys and indians here, as well.) Just when things are at there darkest, Kirk manages to construct a handmade gun out of found deposits of nitrate, sulfur, and charcoal, and shoot the Gorn captain in the chest. It isn't a killing shot, though, and when it comes time for Kirk to finish the job, he demurs; given what he's learned of the Gorn's actions, he'd rather take his chances negotiating with the other race, rather than continue with the killing. The Metrons, impressed by Kirk's maturity, let him and the alien go, but not before revealing themselves to our hero, and telling him that, maybe in a thousand years or so, everybody can sit down for a chit-chat. Apparently, the human race is a promising "predator," and, given time, we may develop into someone worth knowing. As always, we're left to peice together our own motives from the information given. The aliens in "Squire" and "Arena" are, by turns, fickle, arrogant, and uncompromising, and it's hard to take much comfort in their seeming omnipotence, even when that omnipotence appears just. If one of the main themes of TOS is the uncertainty of exploration, with that uncertainty comes the possibility that there are others out there, waiting between the stars, with far more experience and wisdom—and you have to wonder, given their love of screwing around with the humans they run across, who's pulling their strings? Grades: "Squire Of Gothos": A "Arena": A- Stray Observations:

Star Trek Episode Review Arena

Episode Title: Arena
Star Trek Type: TOS
Original Air Date: 19 January 1967
Teleplay: Gene L Coon
Story By: Frederic Brown
Directed By: Joseph Pevney

The episode begins with the Enterprise in orbit of Cestus III. Commodore Travers requests a tactical team join the away team. When the away team beam down Cestus III has been destroyed.

Spock detects non-human life signs, obviously the aliens that destroyed the outpost. They attack the Enterprise, stranding the away team who are under heavy fire. Sulu is instructed to do whatever he can to protect the Enterprise and leaves orbit.

Kirk finds the armoury and a grenade launcher, after firing the enemy withdraws.

After beaming back aboard the Enterprise they pursue the unknown enemy into uncharted space. One of the survivors of Cestus III explains that the enemy attacked without warning.

Kirk is determined to destroy the enemy ship before it reaches home and the Enterprise prepares for battle.

An unknown solar system scans the Enterprise as they continue their pursuit of the enemy ship. The enemy ship comes to a complete stop. The Enterprise prepares to attack but before they can they also come to a complete stop. The Metrons have stopped both ships because both ships were on a mission of violence. The captains of both ships will be placed on a planet where the winner can destroy the other.

Captain Kirk and the enemy captain appear on a desert planet. The enemy is a reptilian like species called the Gorn. The Gorn has superior strength to humans but Kirk manages to escape his first encounter.

The Metrons said that the planet contained materials to allow the building of a weapon, however at first glance Kirk sees nothing that could help him defeat the much strong Gorn captain. He does find some diamonds, too small to be used as a weapon.

Kirk pushes a huge boulder over a cliff onto the Gorn captain, which appears to knock him out, however he survives and Kirk barely escapes. Kirk then finds Sulphur, which triggers a memory.

The Metrons allow the Enterprise to watch the last stages of Kirks struggle. They see Kirk discover Potassium Nitrate. The Gorn accuses the Federation of trespassing into their space.

Kirk starts constructing a weapon using the diamonds, sulphur and potassium nitrate to make a gunpowder explosion to fire the diamonds at the Gorn captain. Just in time he applies a spark to his weapon and his opponent lies defeated.

Kirk refused to kill the Gorn captain as they may have been just defending themselves. The Metron announces that Kirk has displayed the advanced trait of mercy and there may be hope for humanity after all.

Thoughts: I like this episode very much. It has some classic Star Trek ideas in it.

We have a super powerful alien race (the Metrons) that think there is hope for humanity.

We have Kirk using raw materials to construct a weapon using simple chemistry.

We have an enemy race that appears destructive but may have just been defending themselves.

We have the classic location of Vasquez Rocks, somewhere that if I ever visit the US I have to visit.

We have the very cheesy Gorn mask, yes its not realistic but the story is strong enough that it doesn’t really matter. Enterprise brought back the Gorn but as a CGI character and I think I may prefer the rubber mask.

Interestingly the weapon Kirk builds would likely not work. The US show MythBusters proved that the bamboo wasn’t strong enough to hold the explosion and the weapon would likely wound Kirk as much as it would wound the Gorn.

Score: 10/10 Redshirt Count: Cestus III Outpost, 1 Red Shirt and 1 yellow shirt from away team.

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Midnite Reviews

Detailed analysis of classic sci-fi movies and tv shows, star trek episode 18: arena.

Technical Specs

Director: Joseph Pevney

Writer: Gene L. Coon

Cast: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, Jerry Ayres, Grant Woods, Tom Troupe, James Farley, Carole Shelyne, Sean Kenney

Composer: Alexander Courage

Air Date: 1/19/1967

Stardate: 3045.6

Production #: 6149-19

Concluding Comments

“Arena” contains an intellectually-stimulating narrative that benefits from clever writing and riveting battle scenes. For those who can easily overlook outdated special effects, this episode will have much to offer in terms of storytelling and humanistic philosophy.

Overall Quality: 10/10

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The Movie Bastards

Movies. trailers. reviews. badasses. bastards., review: arena (1989).

Two thousand years from now we’re gonna be living in space and watching aliens, robots and cyborgs kicking the shit out of each other. But not humans. In fact, there’s been no humie combatants in the Arena for nearly 50 years. Mainly because we suck compared to the rest of the universes’ badass warriors. Enter Steve Armstrong to change everything.

This is a film I’d supposedly seen before. Back as a kid, my mate Phil introduced me to such classics as the Evil Dead movies, Disney’s Black Hole , and once cruelly told me that Empire was the last Star Wars movie. But I had no memory of Arena . Selective amnesia perhaps? Maybe my child-like mind was just too fragile to accept vicious alien-on-alien combat? Watching it again I couldn’t say that it all came flooding back either.

The intro is hardly special. The titles come up in a barely readable scrawl, followed by a slow burn credit sequence. We’ve got plastic model spaceships zipping by all with the radio or TV on listening/watching the Arena fights. The blue screening is blatantly evident, and the music (more on this later) barely rousing. Like poor amateur porn, it just doesn’t get you excited.

Looking at the actors names I barely recognized any save for Claudia Christian (a 90’s sci fi vixen). But then BOOM Marc Alaimo! He’s in this?! Shit yeah! He’s a classic movie/TV bastard, with great appearances in Total Recall, Tango & Cash, The Last Starfighter and as the main villain in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (my favorite Trek iteration). Moments later we get another holy shit moment – Armin Shimerman is in this too! Another DS9 regular, Shimerman is more recognized for his TV and video game voice work (including Bioshock and Mass Effect ).

Still, some martial arts experience would have been good. There is no mention any where of main star and Christopher Reeve lookalike Paul Satterfield (B ruce Almighty ) having any black belts or anything. And it shows. But these were unsophisticated times. Director Peter Manoogian ( The Eliminators ) probably reckoned that he could not compete with any of the chop socky movies now infiltrating their way into the main stream. So instead of actual martial artists fighting, he pits crazy fucking aliens against each other in the arena.

Any way, we’re in space. The future. The Starstation. A giant floating thing somewhere in the cosmos. Loads of aliens and people come and live in this giant city-in-space. It’s also the home of the Arena – the intergalactic battleground and number one TV sports draw in all corners of the universe.

We’re immediately thrust into the midst of a title fight. We’ve got the challenger, Spinner, a bipedal robot with spindle arms, rotund waist and domed head battling the reigning, defending, undisputed king of the arena, Horn. He’s half…horn alien and half robot. A cyborg of brutal badassness. Literally half of his body is robotic. Like he was split in half like a coconut. How he lost half his body isn’t really explained, but he just looks cool. And he’s beating the crap out of Spinner, to the bored bemusement of the attending crowd.

Horn knocks Spinner out of the ring using a blatant low-blow, winning a point and ending the round. I guess like in S tar Trek: The Undiscovered Country , not all aliens have their balls in the same location, so this kind of shit is not totally unforgivable. Or maybe it’s just par for the course, like in Bloodsport for this kind of thing.

Back in his corner, Spinner’s coach Quinn (Christian) is concerned he’s gonna get killed. Meanwhile, some shadowy spectator high above in a private box – Rogor (Alaimo) watches. He looks like some crazy space Dracula. He calls down to his boy Weasel (Shimerman) on the ground, and he gives a suspect looking syringe to Horn’s corner. They inject him and it seems to perk him up even more.

Drugs, in the future? Well it’s gonna happen I suppose. But then it doesn’t matter, as both fighters are governed by the Arena handicapping system (TM). This reduces or increases the relative power of each combatant to keep things competitive.

This whole concept, while interesting, really bugs me. It’s designed so that humanoid aliens can actually stand a chance against giant slug creatures and whatnot. I get that. But by adjusting it round-by-round kind of makes things unfair. It totally makes roiding up between the rounds pointless. Plus half the spectacle of something like Rocky is all about the underdog taking all that punishment to come back with a final knock out blow. If Apollo Creed was made weaker and weaker and the end of each round, and Rocky stronger and stronger, the end result would seem forced and lame.

We’re not boxing though, we’re areana-ing.

One other particular guy is watching the fight, in the middle of work no less. Steve Armstrong is a big-ass human short order cook in one of Starstation’s take out joints. And he’s crap at his job. No wonder, considering he’s pouring over the fight and no concentrating on making the dilithium eggs or whatever.

Round three begins and Horn starts channeling WWF’s Ultimate Warrior. He clean and presses Spinner above his head, then literally throws him into the crowd. Not satisfied with his total domination, he follows him into the crowd, much to Spinner’s surprise, Quinn’s annoyance (“Where is the commissioner?!”) and the crowds exultation. They’re going crazy for this stuff.

Back at the McStarstation, Steve’s boss Shorty (Hamilton Camp – Dr. Dolittle ), a four armed Nebulon with 28 kids to feed, is getting grief due to all the fucked up orders. He snaps back at too particularly spoiled little punks, whose dad, Fang gets involved. He’s one mean looking fish alien with a good two feet on the small dude. Fang threatens to kill Shorty, but Steve jumps out of the kitchen and kicks Fang’s ass. Everyone is all “holy shit a human can fight?!” He finally boots him through a glass window using a double-footed drop kick.

Starstation’s automated senses detect the fracas and auto-terminate Steve’s employment contract. This has a knock-on effect of getting him evicted from his space apartment. Shorty, unconcerned with the fact that it was Steve’s inattention at work that caused the fight, believes that he now owes the human one for “saving his life”. He tells him to move in with him and he’ll help him find a new job. Seems a bit weird, a bit suspect, a bit sexual predicated by old Shorty. He’ll later tell Steve to avoid the sexy women of Starstation’s underworld, while offering to give him a four armed rub down.

To make things worse, Shorty lives in the “cube”; an underground section of the station where all the drug dealers, perverts and weirdos live. It’s sort of like where the scraps and Denis Learly live in Demolition Man . Seeing something in his two-armed buddy, Shorty thinks Steve should enter the arena. But Steve isn’t interested.

It turns out he came here two years ago to do just that. He even won a bunch of fights in the human division, but the real deal is all corporate and corrupt and shit. He wants none of that. Thinking about it, Arena is actually a pretty accurate parody of modern boxing. That sport has been corrupt for years, with promoters exploiting fighters for decades. In Arena , it’s Rogor who manipulates everything so that his fighters stay the champions. With his dude the champ, he controls the sport. Now if you know anything about boxing, you’ll realize that not much has changed two thousands years into the future, save that it’s a space Dracula who is running shit and not the likes of Don King or Bob Arum.

But I don’t understand Steve’s reticence about stepping into the ring. Later, when Quinn offers him a fighter contract, he turns it down. Fang turned out to be one of her fighters, and Steve busted up his arm and neck. Despite the heavy makeup, he still manages to pull off the “it’s not my fault” expression, which made me laugh. Plus Spinner needs some costly parts to repair. Those micro relays ain’t cheap. I feel real bad for Spinner here. We later see what happens to Fang (he’s watching Steve and Horn’s championship match with his kids), but Spinner is totally forgotten. He’s just some dumb robot egg who probably shouldn’t have been there in the first place. He didn’t even get a chance to do any fucking spinning, for Christs sake. Later, in the back, he’s all “don’t deactivate me boss”. Quinn doesn’t want to, but we never see him again. Poor bastard.

Steve meets Marcus Diablo, the last human arena champion from 50 years ago, who is now rattling around the cube. “It was still a sport back then. But there’s no room for real fighters anymore. It’s just a show and not for human competitors.” Sort of a weak ass justification. Later, when he takes the contract to save Shorty’s life, he becomes a successful fighter. He also starts becoming a bit of a dick, slacking off his training and media obligations to mess around with the seductive Jade (Shari Shattuck – On Deadly Ground ), a night club singer. Basically, I found Steve to be unlikable. Yeah we root for him because he’s human, but isn’t there someone better we could get into the ring besides this gimp?

Wanting to run back to Earth, Shorty decides to gamble what little money Steve has left in an illegal underground casino (also run by Rogor). When it’s rumbled by Starstation police (basically cops wearing white skull masks), Shorty steals the money. They reconvene at a bar and Shorty gives him a ticket home. “Our debt is paid…so before you go why not do some cool Arena matches first?” But Steve still isn’t interested. What has got his attention is the girl on the vid-screen singing. Now the singing is awful. All the music in this film is bad, but this is especially terrible. Composed by synth maestro Richard Band (brother of Robot Jox and 80’s B-movie god Charles), it’s at once forgettable, uninspiring and grating on the nerves.

When Weasel dobs Shorty into Rogor, Steve is given an ultimatum; get the money in 24 hours or Shorty loses a finger every hour thereafter. Rogor is pretty shocked when Steve returns with the full amount less than 20 minutes later. He’s doubly shocked when the human turns up that night at the Arena.

In fact everyone is. Steve’s first duel is against a giant sloth monster. Seriously, his front legs are longer than Steve is tall. Note the costume chosen for him. I figure it’s a cartoon accurate but abandoned prototype for He-Man’s costume in the Master of the Universe live action movie. Only with some Taekwon Do pads thrown in.

They touch gloves (seemingly the UFC tradition has lasted two thousand years into the future) and it’s on. Steve is a bit overwhelmed to begin with and is forced out. The commentators and everyone are just thinking “more proof dumb humans shouldn’t be doing this fighting shit”. Quinn gives him some tips during the break, and he goes out and wins it via flying kick knock out. Everyone is on their feet and Rogor is concerned his boy Horn might have a challenger.

Fearing the worst, he meets Steve and offers him loads of cash if he’d just join his stable. Steve naturally refuses and goes off to party. Cue a montage of him defeating various other aliens and he’s about ready for a title shot. But make no mistake, Rogor is going to do everything in his power to keep Steve from winning, including having his babe Jade poison him and Weasel and the local cube crack addict Skull tamper with the handicap system. With the odds so clearly stacked against him, how the hell is Steve gonna win??

Come on, the gladiator concept is hardly new in cinema, and is only one horse that was beaten to death in the b-leagues of the 80’s and 90’s. To be fair, there are some classic remnants from that era. American Samurai, Best of the Best, Robot Jox . However, Arena is the only one that I know of that throws aliens in to the mix. And for all it’s faults – the unlikable lead, the budget special effects, the weak story – it really does go to town with the aliens and the weirdness.

Arena far outshines any Star Trek episode for sheer variety in aliens, hell more so than the modern alien madness Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets . Fuck, considering that Arena was all done with conventional make-up effects and no CGI, that’s impressive. Well done to John Carl Buechler (who also did the effects from the cult From Beyond ). It’s a shame that the fight choreography, costumes, and set building were not as up to scratch.

Another bugbear is that it’s hardly super violent or gory (though Weasel’s death – thrown from a high gantry by shorty- is pretty shocking). Nor is the fighting really intense. So I can’t really pin-point who’d get off with this kind of thing. In fact the fighting is almost childish, lacking the bone-breaking of Bloodsport or the passion from Rocky . Yet there are some adult elements, including the social and racial commentary and some brief nudity from Shattuck. Sadly, this is really only implied nudity. Nothing to pause the VHS for (though I’m sure some of you tried).

Sometimes these old films still have an appeal because they have no real modern equivalent. Sadly, the hugely underrated 2011 Real Steel is superior to this in every way. So you’ve only really got nostalgia that may bring you back to this unusual film. Maybe the reason why I couldn’t remember it was because it was pretty forgettable. Still, seeing pre-DS9 Alaimo and Shimerman together, on another space station no less, was pretty fun. I bet they used to reminisce about the time they made that crappy alien boxing film between takes. Unless they were trying to forget. Like I must have been doing.

The film is certainly part of a lineage of movies, all being produced by Charles Band’s production company, Empire International Pictures. Similar to the Cannon group movies of the 80’s, it used the “throw everything at the wall and hope something sticks” philosophy of mass produced low budget movies, typically of a sci-fi, horror or action theme. They were responsible for some decent stuff , but a lot of dross before folding. Arena is probably a pretty standard film of the company, being released a few years after it went into bankruptcy.

One final thing I want to say is that not enough time is focused on Horn. No only is he the ruthless champion, he’s also secretly the real MVP, playing a great heel character to Steve’s face. When Steve turns up late to their title fight, Horn goes out first (despite being the champ), to warm up the crowd. What a pro. There’s no hug or handshake moment at the end when he’s beaten, but still, you gotta give it to the cyborg. So do him the honor and get it watched.

Review of Star Trek: The Original Series Episode "Arena"

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Arena (episode)

View history

Kirk battles an alien captain who has destroyed a Federation outpost.

1.2 Act One
1.3 Act Two
1.4 Act Three
1.5 Act Four
2 Log entries
3 Memorable quotes
4.1 Production timeline
4.3 Production
4.4 Props and costumes
4.5 Continuity
4.6 Preview
4.8 Remastered information
4.9 Video and DVD releases
4.10 Apocrypha
5.1 Starring
5.2 Also starring
5.3 Featuring
5.4.1 Stunt double
5.5 References
5.6 External links

Summary [ ]

Captain Kirk and a landing party – Spock , Dr. McCoy , O'Herlihy , Kelowitz , and Lang – beam down to the Federation observation outpost on Cestus III at the invitation of its commander, Commodore Travers , who has received quite the reputation for setting a fine table with his personal head chef . When the away team arrives, they discover that the invitation is a ruse and the colony has been destroyed.

Act One [ ]

After the landing party takes cover and Kirk declares full alert , they discover a single Human survivor in the ruins, Lieutenant Harold . Spock quickly locates the presence of other lifeforms nearby but no other colonial survivors. His tricorder reads them as cold-blooded creatures but definitely not Human. O'Herlihy attempts to scout them out, but is immediately disintegrated by an alien weapon as the landing party is bombarded by a massive shelling attack.

" Captain, I see something…! " O'Herlihy is suddenly disintegrated by an alien weapon.

At the same time, the USS Enterprise comes under attack in orbit by an unidentified starship . With her deflector screens up, the Enterprise cannot beam up the landing party. Kirk orders Lieutenant Sulu to return fire with the phaser banks , but it has little effect as the alien ship has screens up as well. Kirk orders the use of photon torpedoes , but the torpedoes are ineffective, as the alien is too far away even for visual contact. The captain orders Sulu to take whatever action is necessary to protect the Enterprise , be it leaving orbit or engaging maximum warp. Sulu opts for the former and takes the ship away from Cestus III.

Kirk makes his way to the colony's arsenal, avoiding large blasts from the unidentified attackers, and retrieves a grenade launcher . Spock and Kelowitz rendezvous with him as the first officer reports that the enemy troops are moving towards their location. Kelowitz reports that Lang has been killed (Lang's death in not shown, only mentioned), and gives Kirk his best guess as to where they have moved; Kirk launches the grenade in that direction. The tactic proves successful as the aliens begin to decamp back to their vessel, allowing Sulu to return with the Enterprise and retrieve the landing party and quickly set a pursuit course of the attacking ship.

In sickbay , Harold tells Kirk and Spock of the attack on the colony. The aliens had knocked out their phasers with their first salvo, leaving the colony defenseless; and confirms Kirk's earlier theory that the aliens had faked the message from the colony, diverting the Enterprise to Cestus III in an attempt to destroy what was the only protection in that part of the Federation. Such a move, a prelude to invasion, suggests the correct course: overtake and destroy the enemy before he can return to his home base and report. The captain orders the ship to battle stations and to warp 6 to overtake the aliens. " Red alert . I repeat, red alert. This is no drill, " Kirk announces to the crew through the Enterprise 's intercom . " This is no drill. "

Act Two [ ]

" We are the Metrons. "

The aliens, aware that the Enterprise is in pursuit, jump to warp 6 as well. Kirk orders warp 7 engaged, drawing concern from Spock and chief engineer Scott that a sustained warp 7 speed would be hazardous to the Enterprise 's warp engines. Spock argues against destroying the enemy vessel on the basis of respect for sentient life . Kirk disagrees; his opinion is that a crime has been committed and the perpetrators must be punished. Sulu reports that the aliens have moved to warp 7, as well. Kirk, mulling over his options, orders the ship to accelerate to warp 8 and have all weapons departments at battle ready.

Closing in at warp 8, the Enterprise records a scanning beam from an uncharted solar system at 2466 PM . The alien is not approaching this system; it appears that a third party is "curious" about the Enterprise . The alien abruptly begins to slow, going quickly to sublight speed until finally stopping dead in space. Kirk closes for the kill, but the Enterprise is soon slowed to sublight, as well, stopped dead like the alien with all power to the engines and weapons simply cut off.

The architects of this reveal themselves: the Metrons , an advanced race who regard intrusion into their space for the purpose of conflict as entirely unacceptable. They remove Kirk from the Enterprise along with the Gorn captain from the alien vessel and deposit both of them on a suitably prepared world. From there, the two captains will settle their differences, using strength and ingenuity, and the most basic of weapons. The winner and his ship will be free to go; the loser and his ship will be destroyed.

Act Three [ ]

The Gorn captain is a green, Human-sized reptilian creature, and quite slow compared to Kirk; however, he makes up for this by his superior strength and bulk. Kirk is able to evade him initially, but knows he can't do so indefinitely. He'll have to find a way to defeat his opponent, who is far stronger and tougher, and may have more stamina.

Kirk fighting the Gorn captain

The key may lie in a comment the Metron made, i.e. that the prepared environment around them contains elements suitable for fabricating weapons. Attack and evasion continue for some time, with Kirk narrowly evading death at the Gorn's claws. Back on the Enterprise , the crew is unable to restore power to the engines and the weapons and remains immobilized. The Metrons reestablish communications and inform the crew that Kirk is losing the battle. In view of his impending death, they allow the crew to watch what is happening on the viewscreen .

The Gorn finally communicates: it proposes that Kirk cease trying to evade him, and promises in exchange to be merciful and quick in killing him. Kirk compares this offer to the supposed "mercy" that was shown to the Humans at Cestus III; this enrages the Gorn, who tells Kirk his people regard Cestus III as part of their territorial space. From the Gorn perspective, they were repelling an invading force. Watching from the bridge (for the Metrons are now allowing this), McCoy posits that perhaps it was the Humans who were in the wrong. Spock agrees it is possible.

Act Four [ ]

McCoy, Scott, Spock, and Uhura watch Kirk

" If there were only some way we could contact him. " " Yes, indeed, Doctor. If only there were… "

As the conflict continues, Kirk remembers an old formula: gunpowder . Using sulfur , coal , potassium nitrate , diamonds, and a bamboo-like plant, Kirk constructs a makeshift cannon . Spock, impressed by the captain's ingenuity, posits that Kirk might be successful if he can complete construction of the cannon before the Gorn closes in for the kill. Moments from a fatal attack, Kirk rips up his own uniform to make a fuse and uses the metallic recording-translating device provided by the Metrons to spark the coal, allowing Kirk to touch off his crude device, which incapacitates the Gorn.

Kirk fires his makeshift cannon.

Kirk has won the contest, but stops short of delivering the fatal stroke to the Gorn captain. He yells out loud to the unseen Metrons that he won't kill him and that they will have to find their entertainment elsewhere. The Gorn suddenly disappears, and a Metron representative appears before Kirk on the rocks above him: a tall, youthful-looking blond male in a silver toga, who looks rather like a Greek god. The Metron expresses surprise, saying their analysis did not prepare them for Kirk's demonstration of mercy towards his helpless opponent. The Metron claims to be 1,500 Earth years old and informs Kirk that the Gorn has been returned to his ship. The Metron will destroy him for Kirk, if he so chooses. Kirk declines and claims that the Federation and the Gorn can talk their dispute over and perhaps reach an agreement. This also impresses the Metron, who theorizes that although Humanity is still half-savage, perhaps in several thousand years it will be civilized enough to be of further interest to the Metrons. Kirk is returned to the Enterprise (he is no longer dusty and dirty from the battle, and his torn uniform is pristine again), where he discovers that the ship has been relocated five hundred parsecs away from the Metron solar system.

A male Metron representative appears on the planet.

Talking over the incident with the Gorn captain and the Metrons with Spock, Kirk tells his first officer that " We're a most promising species, Mr. Spock, as far as predators go, " when Spock asks what happened after Kirk fired off his cannon. Spock remarks that he frequently had his doubts about that, but Kirk informs him that in a thousand years or so, Humanity will be able to prove it to the Metrons. " A thousand years, Captain?, " Spock inquires. " Well, that gives us a little time, " Kirk replies as the Enterprise heads back to Cestus III.

Log entries [ ]

Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2267

Memorable quotes [ ]

" Doctor, you are a sensualist. " " You bet your pointed ears I am. "

" Like most Humans, I seem to have an instinctive revulsion to reptiles. "

" This place is a mineralogist's dream. "

" We appeal to you in the name of civilization! Put a stop to this! " " Your violent intent and actions demonstrate that you are not civilized. "

" I weary of the chase. Wait for me. I shall be merciful and quick. "

" Can he do it? " " If he has the time, Doctor. If he has the time. "

" By sparing your helpless enemy who surely would have destroyed you, you demonstrated the advanced trait of mercy. Something we hardly expected. "

" You are still half savage. But there is hope. "

" We're a most promising species, Mr. Spock, as predators go. Did you know that?" " I've frequently had my doubts. " " I don't. Not anymore. "

Background information [ ]

Production timeline [ ].

"Arena" is published in the June 1944 edition of Astounding Science Fiction magazine
Story outline by Gene L. Coon : 10 October 1966
First draft teleplay by Coon: 13 October 1966
Second draft teleplay: 18 October 1966
Final draft teleplay: 28 October 1966
Revised final draft teleplay: 3 November 1966
Additional revisions: 4 November 1966 , 7 November 1966 , 8 November 1966 , 10 November 1966 , 15 November 1966
Day 1 – 8 November 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge
Day 2 – 9 November 1966 , Wednesday – Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park : Ext. Planetoid surface
Day 3 – 10 November 1966 , Thursday – Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park : Ext. Planetoid surface
Day 4 – 11 November 1966 , Friday – Fortress set near Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park : Ext. Cestus III surface
Day 5 – 14 November 1966 , Monday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge
Day 6 – 15 November 1966 , Tuesday – Desilu Stage 9 : Int. Bridge , Kirk's quarters , Sickbay , Transporter room
Original airdate: 19 January 1967
Rerun airdate: 6 July 1967
First UK airdate (on BBC1 ): 15 November 1969
First UK airdate (on ITV ): 3 January 1982
Remastered airdate: 21 October 2006
"Arena" was written at short notice when several other writers failed to produce scripts on time, leaving the series without a script to shoot. Gene L. Coon volunteered to write a script, leaving at 6pm on a Friday and returning on Monday morning with the initial script.
This teleplay was credited to an original story by Fredric Brown , also titled "Arena", that was first published in 1944 on the pages of Astounding Science Fiction magazine. In Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p.206, Herb Solow writes that Gene L. Coon, an avid reader of science fiction, was unaware of the accidental similarity between his work and Brown's story until it was recognized by script reviewer Joan Pearce . To avoid a possible plagiarism lawsuit, the company called Brown and offered to buy the rights to produce his work as an episode, although they did not tell him that the script was already written.
The plot also bears some similarity to the Outer Limits episode " Fun and Games " (1964), in which advanced aliens known as Anderrans "electro-transport" Humans and other intelligent beings to do battle with one another on the moon known as "Arena". The Anderrans see Humanity as violent, and the losers of the battles are supposed to forfeit the lives of all the inhabitants of their own planet, and they are only allowed to use primitive technology.
In his final speech, the Metron informs Kirk that because he demonstrated mercy, he will not be destroyed. Initially, they said they planned to destroy the loser, "in the interests of peace". In Coon's script, in dialogue not aired, the Metron admits that they had, all along, planned to actually destroy the ship of the winner of the personal combat, because that race would represent the greater danger to them. James Blish preserves this disclosure in his novelization in Star Trek 2 .

Production [ ]

This was the first episode directed by Joseph Pevney , brought in by producer Gene Coon ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 208). Pevney was known for his fast work, and finished this episode – originally expected to be shot in seven days (one day extra) – in six days, remaining on schedule, for which he received a $500 bonus ( These Are the Voyages: TOS Season One [ page number? • edit ] ).
The scenes on the planet surface were filmed at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park , California, the same location used for " Shore Leave ", " Friday's Child " and several other Star Trek productions. These are notable for their tilted ledges which form a part of the pursuit.
A piece of black aluminum foil resembling stone was placed at the top of the frame of a wide shot of the outpost, to hide houses that would otherwise have been seen in the distance. The remastered version of the episode replaces this with a CGI landscape.

Props and costumes [ ]

Cestus III was a globe of the Earth (previously seen in " Miri "), printed backwards and tinted a hazy orange.
The recording-translating device Kirk and the Gorn were given later appeared in " Metamorphosis " as a universal translator .
Wah Chang designed and built the Gorn suit, and the Gorn's clothing was designed by William Ware Theiss . Casual viewers will be unaware that the Gorn captain was played by no less than four actors, all of whom remained uncredited on-screen, even though the Gorn had dialogue; and that two suits were made, which were worn by stuntmen Bobby Clark and Gary Combs . One of these was for the location shoots at Vasquez Rocks , and the other for portraying him aboard the bridge of his vessel. Also, William Blackburn wore the Gorn head for close-ups. The suit had air vents to keep the wearer from becoming overheated. ( Star Trek: Lost Scenes ) Ted Cassidy was used to provide the voice dubbing throughout. After production finished on the episode, the two Gorn costumes were placed in Robert H. Justman 's office, one dressed up to look like a girl ( Inside Star Trek: The Real Story , p. 216).
Harold , the outpost's only survivor, wears the recycled uniform Commander Hansen had worn in " Balance of Terror ".
The closing credits use a different shot of Vina from what was used for most of the first season episodes.

Continuity [ ]

This is the first episode to establish the existence of a "Federation". The full title of " United Federation of Planets " would not be used until later in " A Taste of Armageddon ".
The phaser control room reported that the " aft phasers " were ready, making the first reference in dialogue to the Enterprise having aft weaponry. Aft phasers were later shown to have been a feature of the USS Defiant in Star Trek: Enterprise episode " In a Mirror, Darkly ", which, perhaps not coincidentally, is the first of a two parter featuring a Gorn.
This episode is the first to reference, and show the use of, photon torpedoes .
According to the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " Family Business ", by 2371 , Human colonists were once again living on Cestus III , suggesting that the Gorn Hegemony had relinquished control of the planet, or moved to accept Human settlers, after the events of this episode.
In the DS9 episode " Trials and Tribble-ations ", Captain Sisko admits to Jadzia Dax that he would love to meet Kirk and ask him about "fighting the Gorn on Cestus III…."
This was the first episode broadcast in color in the United Kingdom. After the initial uncut showing, the BBC chose to edit the episode for repeat viewings removing all references to the ingredients of gunpowder. The episode was later screened uncut in 1992. [1]

Preview [ ]

The preview contains a Captain's Log recorded solely for the preview: " Captain's log, stardate 3045.6. The Enterprise has responded to a call from Cestus III. On landing, we have discovered the outpost has been destroyed. "
William Shatner currently suffers from tinnitus due to a special effects explosion on the set of this episode. Both Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley reportedly suffered from tinnitus as well during the remainder of their lives. [1]
Bobby Clark later reprised his Gorn performance from "Arena" in the Bring Back... Star Trek documentary in 2009. William Shatner also fought a Gorn in an "Arena" parody to advertise the 2013 Star Trek video game. [2] The same video game, which featured an attack by the Gorn in the alternate reality , used this episode's title as a chapter title.
The creation of the diamond cannon was tested on the show MythBusters in late 2009 and deemed implausible. (It's been suggested the wood on the Metron planet may have had different properties, however.)

Remastered information [ ]

"Arena" was the seventh episode of the remastered version of The Original Series to air. It premiered in syndication on the weekend of 21 October 2006 and most notably featured new effects shots of Cestus III from space, the Enterprise battling the Gorn ship, and an expanded matte painting of the outpost, showing more battle damage and giving greater scope to the surrounding terrain. A small but significant alteration also appeared in the form of the Gorn, which blinked several times throughout the remastered episode – achieved with computer-generated eyelids. Another small detail was finally inserted into the episode: the Gorn starship .

Video and DVD releases [ ]

Original US Betamax release: 1985
UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video ): Volume 11 , catalog number VHR 2295, release date unknown
US VHS release: 15 April 1994
UK re-release (three-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.7, 4 November 1996
Original US DVD release (single-disc): Volume 10, 21 March 2000
As bonus episode on the region 2 release of VOY Season 1 DVD , 3 May 2004
As part of the TOS Season 1 DVD collection
As part of the TOS Season 1 HD DVD collection
As part of the TOS Season 1 Blu-ray collection

Apocrypha [ ]

A cat version of "Arena" was featured in Jenny Parks ' 2017 book Star Trek Cats .

Links and references [ ]

Starring [ ].

William Shatner as Capt. Kirk

Also starring [ ]

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

Featuring [ ]

DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy
George Takei as Sulu
James Doohan as Scott
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
Jerry Ayres as O'Herlihy
Grant Woods as Kelowitz
Tom Troupe as Lt. Harold
James Farley as Lang
Carole Shelyne as Metron
Sean Kenney as DePaul

Stunt double [ ]

Dick Dial as stunt double for William Shatner

References [ ]

8th century ; 2279 PL ; 2466 PM ; 2466 PM solar system ; advice ; agility ; agreement ; alert status ; all hands ; " all right "; Archanis ; area ; Arena planet ; arsenal ; asteroid ; atmosphere ; azimuth ; battle ; battle stations ; " Bones "; cannon ; Canopus ; captain ; Cestus III ; Cestus III civilians ; chance ; Channel 1 ; charcoal ; chef ; chemistry ; circuit ; civilization ; club ; coal ; combat officer ; commander ; commodore ; communications officer ; compassion ; composition ; computer banks ; contact ; coordinates ; course ; crime ; " crystal clear "; culture ; damage control ; day ; deflector screen (aka defensive screen ); degree ; demonstration ; deposit ; diamond ; diplomat ; disruptor ; doctor ; dream ; drill ; ear ; Earth ; Earth Observation Outpost ; Earthling ; electronic ; ensign ; facility ; Federation ; feeling ; full alert ; Gorn ; Gorn starship ( unnamed ); Gorn space ; gravimetric ; grenade ; grenade launcher ; gunnery officer ; gunpowder ; hardness ; head ; heat ; home base ; hope ; hospitality ; hostility ; Human ( Human being ); identification ; impulse engine ; ingenuity ; " in place "; internal injuries ; " in the name of "; invasion ; jewel ; " just in case "; lieutenant ; lieutenant commander ; life system ; light ; living creature ; logic ; magnetic ; massacre ; maximum warp ; meal ; medical personnel ; memorial arrangements ; mercy ; Metron ; Metron colony ; Milky Way Galaxy ; mineralogist ; mission ; mortar ; nature ; ordnance officer ; orbit ; overload ; parsec ; peace ; phaser ; phaser banks ; phaser battery ; photon torpedo ; place ; plot ; policemen ; potassium nitrate ; power ; predator ; projectile ; proof ; propulsion system ; radiation burn ; raider ; range ; " rank hath its privileges "; recording-translating device ; red alert ; reptile ; result ; revulsion ; risk ; rock ; rumor ; salvo ; savage ; scanning beam ; search ; search party ; section ; sensors ; sensualist ; sentient life ; shock ; signal ; Sirius ; space ; space legend ; space-normal speed ; species ; " stand by "; star chart ; Starfleet Command ; sublight ; subspace channel ;; sulfur ; surface ; surrender ; survivor ; table ; tactics officer ; thousand ; threat ; tractor beam ; transformer bank ; transporter ; trap ; Travers' personal chef ; tricorder ; universe ; unscientific‎ ; vine ; visual contact ; (not) warm-blooded (aka cold-blooded ); warp drive ; wavelength ; weapon ; word ; yard ; year ; yeoman

External links [ ]

"Arena" at StarTrek.com
" Arena " at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
" Arena " at Wikipedia
" Arena " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
"Arena" short story review and episode comparison at Orion Press
" Arena " at the Internet Movie Database
↑ https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-looking-back-at-the-bbcs-ban-and-censorship/
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Star Trek Episode Review: Arena (1967)

by StevenHelmer

A review of the television episode that first aired January 19, 1967,

Synopsis: The Enterprise discovers a human outpost has been completely obliterated and, after a short fight with the lizard-like Gorn, pursue the alien ship in an attempt to destroy it. However, another alien race, the Metrons, intervene by disabling both ships and sending both Kirk (William Shatner) and the Gorn captain to a deserted planet so they can fight each other in hand-to-hand combat.

Thanks to the rain we had yesterday, I figured the trails I would normally walk would once again be too wet and I wound up going home for lunch instead. While there, I remembered starting this episode a couple days ago and decided to finish it.

As I have watched both this episode and previous episodes of this original series for the first time, I have come to two conclusions. The first is the original series seemed to have plots that were very similar to each other (especially plots that involved all-powerful alien races). The second, and more important one, is I have serious doubts about Kirk's fitness as a captain.

This episode is one that actually does a great job of revealing his major character flaw as the guy in charge on the Enterprise, he lets his emotions influence way too many of his decisions.

In this particular case, none of his decisions made any sense. The Enterprise was up against an alien race that showed superior firepower in a ship that didn't even get scratched when the two ships battled it out. Yet, he decided to pursue the ship, putting the lives of his crew in danger by pushing the Enterprise to the limit, believing he had a chance of destroying the other vessel? Even his explanation about trying to delay or prevent an invasion was kind of weak considering they were in the middle of nowhere and wouldn't blame his crew if they decided to commit mutiny as a result.

In fact, there were times when his determination actually made him look a little insane. Though, to be fair, that could have just been William Shatner's infamous overacting.

I also found I wasn't a big fan of the battle between him and the Gorn captain. This is both because the alien (which was played by Gary Combs , Bobby Clark and Ted Cassidy ) looked pretty darn fake and because Kirk pretty much only survives by luck.

Let's face it, if the Gorn had any sort of speed, Kirk would have been killed in a matter of minutes. He only survived because the other captain gave him plenty of time to remember his chemistry lessons, collect a bunch of supplies and make a primitive gun, making their deadly battle actually a little dull.

Final Opinion

I'm sure this episode has redeeming qualities I am missing. But, with Kirk's arrogance costing him some respect in my eyes, I just have a hard time liking this one regardless.

My Grade: D

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StevenHelmer, Thank you for practical information, pretty pictures and product lines. Have you seen Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan? That may have been the film where it comes out that Captain Kirk cheated on his final exam in that he altered the game and didn't follow the rules.

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For bringing hostility into their solar system, a superior alien race brings Captain Kirk into mortal combat against the reptilian captain of an alien ship he was pursuing.
When a reptilian alien race known as the Gorn destroys an Earth colony, the Enterprise comes under attack by the Gorn vessel. Captain Kirk soon gives chase to the Gorn ship, leading them to an unexplored solar system, gradually (and dangerously) increasing speed. Kirk prepares to destroy the Gorn ship until another race of powerful aliens called the Metrons stops them and forces both captains to face off in mortal combat. The main purpose of this one-on-one duel is to solve their dispute, the winner will be released and the loser will be destroyed along with his ship and crew. — Anonymous
After an alien vessel attacks the Federation outpost, Kirk goes in hot pursuit with every intent of destroying the attacker. Spock advises moderation, but Kirk is dogged in his determination to teach them a lesson. When they enter an uncharted solar system, a superior being stops them and transports both captains to a planet where they are to engage in mortal combat. The reward for the winner is to have his ship go free while the loser will have his ship destroyed. Kirk's opponent, a Gorn, is a large lizard-like creature and much stronger than Kirk who must use his wits to defeat this new enemy. — garykmcd
Cestus III sends a message to welcome Kirk. Cestus III is a remote earth outpost but well stocked with friends and other things, so Kirk is happy to beam down with Spock, and some others to enjoy the hospitality. But, They have beamed into a trap. An alien race, the Gorn, a reptilian species who resemble large crocodiles with sharp fangs and beehive eyes, have completely destroyed every living thing. Kirk's friends are all dead. During a shootout, Kirk and the five crewmen try to plan strategy. They attack Gorn formations with mortar fire and force them to withdraw. Meanwhile the Gorn ship attacks the Enterprise in orbit. Sulu is in command and attacks the Gorn ship with Photon torpedoes. The Gorn have fled in their ship. Kirk is angry. His friends and his men are dead. "We will chase them" Kirk says. The Enterprise chases the Gorn ship, after beaming Kirk and his team from the surface, to an uncharted section of the galaxy. Kirk wants revenge for the loss of life of his crew. Both the Enterprise and the Gorn ship are frozen in space. A powerful voice comes on the loudspeaker while an eerie light is throbbing. It says "we cannot allow violence in our sector. we are the Metrons." Kirk debates this until he is gone. The Metron voice explains. "The two captains will fight and decide the fate of their ships." Spock and everyone are stunned. Kirk and the Gorn ship captain are transported to an Asteroid, which has materials to build a weapon and attack each other. But they cannot communicate with their ships. The Gorn is over 7 feet tall and powerful. Now Kirk fears for his life. He tries to set a trap for the Gorn by throwing rocks on him and trying to stab him, but this is a monster. Kirk hesitates a moment before killing him. The Gorn hurts Kirk's leg and Kirk is limping. Because the Metrons are powerful and civilized, they allow the rest of the crew to see Kirk die and to prepare themselves as well for death. But Kirk is not out of ideas. And Spock sees it too on the video monitor. The Gorn calls Kirk on the communicator and says that humans were intruding in their space by building a colony on Cestus III. McCoy is intrigued to learn that humans may be in the wrong in this situation. Kirk finds sulfur, diamonds, coal and other things to make gunpowder and a missile launcher. Now Kirk is about to die and he lights a piece of his uniform on fire as a match and uses his translator as a flint. The cannon goes off, the video goes blank on the ship. Kirk's cannon worked and the Gorn is almost completely unconscious. Kirk grabs the Gorn's knife and is ready to thrust it into its neck. Then Kirk throws away the knife and says to himself "I won't kill you." Then he yells at the sky. "I won't kill him. The Gorn thought they were defending their sector. I won't kill him for you". The Gorn of course is almost dead anyway. Now Kirk relaxes waiting for the Metrons to kill them all. But they do not. A Metron appears in a glistening shimmer. A young man, with blond hair, wearing a thin wispy robe, appears. He says "Why didn't you kill the Gorn?" And Kirk says "Maybe he was right in the fight. I don't know," The Metron says "You showed mercy. maybe you are worth having in the universe." Kirk smiles. The Metron says "In all honesty, I will kill the Gorn and his ship if you wish." Kirk says "No, we will work it out." Then Kirk is back on the ship. Spock says "What did the Metron say?" And Kirk says to Spock "He said we were a very promising species. Did you know that?" Spock says "I had my doubts." Then Kirk and all the human crew begin laughing including the yeomen.

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Recap / Star Trek S1 E18 "Arena"

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Original air date: January 20, 1967

The Enterprise is invited to visit an outpost near the edge of Federation space; Kirk, Spock, McCoy , and three Redshirts beam down at the outpost commander's behest — only to discover that the invitation is a pre-recorded ruse; the outpost has been destroyed.

Almost immediately Kirk and co. are beseiged by unseen aliens. Simultaneously, the Enterprise is attacked in orbit by an alien vessel, so the landing party cannot beam up. Two of the Redshirts are killed (one is allowed to die offscreen), but Kirk finds a mortar-like weapon among the rubble and manages to repel the alien attackers. Beaming back up to the Enterprise , Kirk initiates a pursuit of the alien ship, which was clearly responsible for the outpost's destruction, and he means to avenge that attack.

However, as the two ships fly through space, they are seized by a group of Sufficiently Advanced Aliens called the Metrons, who are not pleased with the war-like goings-on. But, as Sufficiently Advanced Aliens typically do, the Metrons have the solution, and Kirk abruptly vanishes from the bridge.

Kirk finds himself out at Kirk's Rock , sans weapons but with a recording device/universal translator/short-range transciever, where he is to engage in a Forced Prize Fight To The Death with the alien captain (called a Gorn, and no, it's not that kind of Gorn ), with the loser's ship also being destroyed in the bargain. Kirk has no weapons but is told that the environment has been "prepared" with everything he might need to make one. Kirk quickly begins casting about for a phaser or some sort of technological gizmo as the Gorn captain (a huge reptiloid creature) comes after him. Just for good measure, the Gorn is not only bigger than Kirk, it is much stronger and tougher as well.

The Metrons, by means of their Sufficiently Advanced-ness, somehow allow the Enterprise bridge crew to follow the action on their viewscreens (and presumably the Gorns as well). As Kirk futilely fights off the Gorn, the Gorn raises the accusation that the outpost was in Gorn territory and that they thought it might be the foothold of a Federation invasion — a possibility which shocks McCoy , thinking that the Federation might actually be in the wrong this time. Despite Kirk's denial of the accusations, the Gorn keeps coming, relentless and seemingly unstoppable.

Finally, an exhausted and nearly defeated Kirk begins to notice the various mineral deposits all around, and eventually recalls that these can be used to formulate a crude form of gunpowder. Kirk quickly assembles a makeshift mortar using a bamboo shoot and crystal shards for bullets as the Gorn approaches, firing it off Just in Time . The Gorn is pierced, and falls immobilized and helpless.

Kirk is the victor and is ready to deal the death stroke... and abruptly announces to the Metrons that he refuses to kill the Gorn, whom Kirk believes was only defending his territory. An image of a Metron appears and expresses surprise at Kirk's mercy, noting that were the tables reversed, the Gorn would not be so merciful. "You are still half-savage . But there is hope."

Recapper's Note: According to Word of God , the Forced Prize Fight was indeed a Secret Test of Character , but not quite as it comes across: The script includes a bit of dialogue (not aired) which reveals the Metrons had planned to destroy the winner of the fight rather than the loser, considering the winner to be a bigger threat to them . Luckily for us, Humans really Are Special. (The line is, however, included in the novelization by James Blish.)

Compare to " Duel ", an early episode of Blake's 7 that is practically a remake of this story.

Adaptational Modesty : The original tale by Brown had the human protagonist running around in the nude. Kirk only suffers some Clothing Damage from his peril.
Animal Eyes : The Gorn has insect-like compound eyes on a reptilian body, further adding to its abhorrent alien appearance .
Attack Its Weak Point : In their first encounter, when Kirk is grappling with the Gorn and unable to do it any harm thanks to its strength and rock-hard skin, Kirk buys himself time and escapes by slamming his hands onto its ear holes, which clearly causes the Gorn a great deal of pain.
Bamboo Technology : Kirk's cannon.
Big "WHY?!" : Just because you're seriously injured doesn't mean you can't pour it on. Cestus III survivor: Why did they do it? WHY?! There's got to be a reason!
Blood Sport : Kirk accuses the Metrons of this, declaring "You'll have to get your entertainment somewhere else" after refusing to kill the defeated Gorn.
Boulder Bludgeon : Captain Kirk and the Gorn captain are forced to fight each other with improvised weapons. Kirk picks up a smallish boulder and throws it at the Gorn. The Gorn captain then shows his strength by picking up a much bigger boulder and throwing it at Kirk.
Captain's Log : The Metrons are kind enough to provide Kirk with a recorder for this purpose.
Catchphrase : The Metrons insist on saying, "We are the Metrons" every time they start a conversation .
Clothing Damage : Kirk tears his pants (in a totally non- Fanservice way) to make a fuse for his makeshift cannon .
Mythbusters in an episode dedicated to Star Trek tropes demonstrated exactly the uphill climb Kirk was up against. Making gunpowder is not anywhere as easy as the episode makes it look, the Mythbusters ended up having to spend a LOT more time in trial-and-error and meticulous weighing and measuring than the Gorn would have allowed to even get in the ballpark of useable gunpowder and not just a mess that wouldn't even ignite. And even if that hurdle was surmounted, bamboo, even reinforced by rope, is NOT strong enough to withstand the pressure of exploding gunpowder note "But, the Japanese had wooden cannon", you might say. Yes, but those were hollowed out logs orders of magnitude thicker than the bamboo Kirk had to work with. And even then, they still had a tendency to blow up . Mythbusters showed a near 100% chance that the weapon would have been more deadly to Kirk than to the Gorn. In fact they suggested Kirk would be better off to create the cannon and give it to the Gorn. When the Mythbusters set the weapon off (using their trusty guinea pig, Buster), it promptly exploded in a manner that would have shredded an actual human being beyond hope of survival. It was only when they finally cheated in the last try and reinforced the weapon with a metal interior that they had a confirmed Gorn kill. However, in the episode the bamboo, mineral deposits, and diamonds were all placed by the Metrons specifically so they could be used to construct weapons. It's quite possible the bamboo was stronger than earth-variety bamboo, and the mineral deposits more pure and more easily combined to create gunpowder.
Dangerous Forbidden Technique : Kirk's orders to increase speed to Warp 7 and then Warp 8 are played up as risk-taking that seriously worries the bridge crew.
Death from Above : Kirk pushes a huge boulder off the top of a cliff onto the Gorn captain and apparently kills him. But he's Playing Possum , either because the rock just missed him or because he's just that tough.
Depleted Phlebotinum Shells : Kirk drops a small blue ball into a mortar-like device, the resulting blast being enough to drive off their attackers.
Disproportionate Retribution : We're meant to think the Gorns may have been justified in repelling what they saw as an invasion of their territory, but this kind of ignores their killing helpless women and children. It's made worse when you consider the fact that the Gorn can understand our language note As evidenced when they created the fake message to lure Kirk and co. to the surface of Cestus III - specifically asking that he bring his tactical officer along with him , meaning that they decided to kill everyone at the outpost without trying to communicate with them and knowingly refused their attempt to surrender.
Door Jam : The aliens force Kirk to duel the lizard creature alone on the planet's surface and prevent the rest of his crew from coming with him. This is a case where the hero being stranded was actually the plan.
Dramatically Missing the Point : The Metrons state the planet has materials with which the combatant's can fashion weapons. Kirk mishears or misremembers this as the Metrons saying there were weapons , and spends the bulk of the episode running around, hoping to find a phaser under a pile of sand or a sword stuck in a rock. Meanwhile, the Gorn captain, having paid more attention, has fashioned a crude stone knife, vine booby-traps, and a net.
Early-Installment Weirdness : A minor example—the sound effect of the Enterprise firing phasers is different from what it will end up being.
Explosive Instrumentation : A literal version when the Gorn remotely overload Spock's tricorder, and he has to throw it away before it blows up in his face.
Forced Prize Fight : The plot.
Forced to Watch : The bridge crew are shown a transmission of what Kirk is undergoing, though this is presented as a Pet the Dog rather than the usual Kick the Dog .
Forged Message : The Enterprise is sent a faked transmission to lure them into beaming down with their Tactical personnel. Everyone ignores Spock questioning this Schmuck Bait .
Forgotten Phlebotinum : A Star Trek tradition. This is the first and last time we see Starfleet officers use a mortar in battle, even despite situations where such weapons would be very useful, such as during the Siege of AR-558 during the Domionion War.
Gadgeteer Genius : Kirk shows hints of this when he cobbles together a crude cannon out of the elements in the landscape.
George Lucas Altered Version : The remastered version includes a few shots of the Gorn blinking and images of the Gorn ship on the main viewscreen.
Humans Are Special : The Metrons' justification for sparing the Enterprise .
Improbable Aiming Skills : Kirk's bamboo cannon is not even aimed at the Gorn, yet he hits the target.
Insult Backfire : Spock accuses Bones of being a sensualist when the doctor mentions how much he's going to enjoy having non-reconstituted food . "You bet your pointed ears I am!" the good doctor says proudly. It isn't often one of Spock's insults backfires on him!
In the original script, which was used and expanded on by James Blish when he wrote the adaptation, the Gorn Captain and Kirk have several extended conversations (cut out from the episode for time and pacing). During one conversation, the Gorn Captain says that they have to finish this quickly, for their own sake as well as their crews'. There's no water to be seen, and the Gorn Captain also notes that he doesn't see anything he can eat... with the possible exception of Kirk. Damn.
The Juggernaut : The Gorn.
Kirk's Rock : The trope-naming appearance.
Late to the Tragedy : The outpost was destroyed at least a day before the Enterprise 's arrival.
MacGyvering : The Metrons announce that the planet has been stocked with "everything [the fighters] might need to make [a weapon]." Luckily, our good captain is extremely resourceful.
The Main Characters Do Everything : A striking example: the Enterprise is under attack in orbit while Kirk is planet-side. Although Kirk is himself under fire, he takes time out to micromanage the space battle over the communicator (with such insightful tactics as 'fire phasers' and 'fire torpedoes'), rather than just letting Sulu do his job.
Meaningful Name : The story takes place on Cestus III. A cestus is an ancient battle glove, similar to a boxing glove, filled with iron plates or with spikes or blades attached to them.
Mighty Glacier : The Gorn may be much stronger than Kirk, but he is also much slower.
Moral Myopia : The Gorns and the Enterprise crew intend to inflict violence on each other, and the Metrons won't have it. So they send Kirk and the Gorn captain to the planet's surface so they can inflict violence on each other until one is dead, so the Metrons can make his entire crew dead. Because killing is bad .
No Name Given : The Gorn Captain's name is never mentioned. Some Expanded Universe sources gave him different names: either S'alath, S'slee, S'salk, Rheuzz'r or Arijog .
No One Gets Left Behind : Averted; Kirk orders Sulu to do a Hyperspeed Escape , abandoning himself and the other crewmen who are under attack on the surface. Fortunately the Gorn retreat before Sulu carries out the order.
Obscured Special Effects : We never see the Gorn attackers on the planetary surface, as they're firing shells and disrupter weapons from behind a ridge. This actually adds an air of realism to the scene, similar to how a contemporary military force would use snipers and indirect mortar fire to soften up an enemy before launching an attack.
Oh, Crap! : There's several in the episode, especially when both Kirk and his bridge crew get their first look at the Gorn he's up against. The security officer who helps Kirk fire the mortar also has one when Kirk gives him the range to target when firing the mortar. The officer complies, but does take a moment to remind Kirk that the target range is uncomfortably close to their position. Considering how powerful the mortar shell was, his concerns were entirely justified. Kirk knew it was a risk that had to be taken, as the Gorn were blasting them to pieces.
Only Smart People May Pass : The Metrons make it clear that the planetoid has all elements necessary to manufacture weapons... including the minerals that are elemental to create basic gunpowder, if someone knows chemistry. The original story by Brown makes it much more specific, by means of the same planetoid having various obstacles like a forcefield between the two champions that halts anything conscious trying to cross it (meaning the protagonist must figure out a way to go through it while unconscious, and not be completely at the mercy of their opponent afterwards).
Otherworldly and Sexually Ambiguous : The Metron who talks to Kirk at the end has an androgynous appearance note and is one of several aliens in the series where the body and voice are provided by actors of different genders and wears a shimmering dress-like garment.
Punch! Punch! Punch! Uh Oh... : Kirk lands some pretty good blows on the Gorn, but he's less effective than usual .
Really 700 Years Old : The Metron that Kirk deals with is 1500 years old.
Redshirt : The first man to die is wearing a red shirt. A yellow-shirted man dies offscreen. O'Herlihy: Captain, I see something! (vaporizes)
Reptiles Are Abhorrent : Kirk admits "Like most humans, I seem to have an instinctive revulsion to reptiles."
Revenge : Kirk's goal for the first part of the episode. When given the opportunity to take it, however, he refuses.
Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale : At the end of the episode, Sulu states that they've been thrown 500 parsecs to the "other side of the galaxy." While 500 parsecs is certainly a considerable distance, our galaxy spans thousands of parsecs. The Federation itself in future Star Trek canon is said to span over 8,000 light years, or several times 500 parsecs.
Secret Test of Character : Kirk passes the Metrons' test by refusing to kill his Gorn adversary, thus showing the Metrons that humans have the advanced trait of mercy. note The Secret Test of Character element was added for the screenplay; in the original story the script was loosely based on, the Kirk-analogue wins by killing the Gorn-analogue, though in a completely different way than Kirk uses to defeat the Gorn.
Sssssnake Talk : The Gorn says "I weary of the chasssse. Wait for me. I ssshall be mercccciful and quick. "
Sheathe Your Sword : Kirk refuses to kill the Gorn. The Metrons commend him for his decision, saying that there might be hope for mankind yet.
It could simply be Spock making an educated guess based on logic. Kirk is collecting the mineral, and the Metrons have said that there are materials on the planet's surface which can be used to fashion weapons, therefore the mineral must serve a role in this. A weapon uses an energy source, something to contain the reaction and possibly a projectile. The only one of those that the powder could be used for — unless the Metrons expect Kirk to find the time and resources for primitive industrial processes — is an energy source. That narrows it down to a weapon which uses chemical reactions for energy and can be used against the Gorn, and the powder to one of the reactants used. It's not too long of a shot to say that the weapon is a rudimentary cannon and from there Spock can simply narrow the powder down to whichever reactant fits the appearance.
Sword over Head : Kirk, in this position with the Gorn, refuses to kill him.
Viewers Are Morons : Wait... what's the hardest substance known to man?
Villain Has a Point : The Gorn wipe out a Federation outpost, including women and children. Later, we find that from their point of view they were merely defending their space against invaders.
Worst Aid : The survivor Kirk and the others find is left with his head propped up against the wall. If he fell unconscious (quite likely as he has serious injuries) he'd die of asphyxiation.
Worthless Yellow Rocks : Kirk runs into a huge bunch of diamonds while running away from the Gorn, and deems them useless... at least at first. Kirk, narrating into the recorder given to him by the Metrons: A large deposit of diamonds on the surface. Perhaps the hardest substance known in the universe. Beautifully crystalized and pointed, but too small to use them as a weapon. An incredible fortune in stones... (tosses them away) and I would trade them all for a hand phaser, or a good solid club.
Wowing Cthulhu : During the first encounter with the Gorn, the Enterprise and the Gorn ship are stopped in space by a mysterious and powerful race called the Metrons, who take Kirk and the Gorn captain to a deserted planet to fight to the death. When Kirk finally gains the advantage, he refuses to strike the final blow, which surprises the Metrons, who finally manifest before him and admit they had not expected him to have the advanced trait of mercy.
You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious : Spock: Destruction of the alien vessel will not help that colony, Jim.
Star Trek S1 E17 "The Squire of Gothos"
Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek S1 E19 "Tomorrow Is Yesterday"

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Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6 Review – Whistlespeak

Discovery’s search for the Progenitors’ technology takes the crew to a pre-Warp planet and runs afoul of the Prime Directive.

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Alfredo Narciso as Ohvahz and Sonequa Martin-Green as Burnham in Star Trek: Discovery, episode 6, season 5

This Star Trek: Discovery review contains spoilers .

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6

Star Trek: Discovery (mostly) gets its final season back on track after last week’s flashback-filled snoozefest , but Michael and company’s search for the next clue hits a snag when the trail leads to a pre-Warp planet whose lack of technology makes accessing it more of a challenge than anyone expected. It’s a shift that comes as a welcome relief—the best part of this more adventure-oriented season has been its old-fashioned space explorer feel as Burnham and her crew bounce from planet to planet (or random interdimensional pocket of space). And it’s nice to finally get back to that, even if the planet Halem’no isn’t quite as exciting a side quest as some of us (read: me) may have wanted it to be.

The planet is largely arid, with a habitable zone that’s been created thanks to the work of Denobulan scientist Hitoroshi Kreel. A weather tower disguised as a sort of mountain peak, the tech emits a low-grade force field that protects the land around it from dust storms and pulls rain from the atmosphere on a semi-regular basis. All in all, it’s a technology that’s wildly advanced for the pre-Warp, pre-industrial society that lives on its surface and may have been built as part of some kind of humanitarian mission to help the people on its surface survive. The question of how, precisely, Kreel managed to do this without anyone on the planet noticing or why he chose this particular spot to hide his clue is something the episode is happy to handwave away. But, sure! Why not!

But, then again, very little about this consortium of old scientists determined to hide the Progenitor technology makes a ton of sense. Thanks to Kovich, we at least learn the identities of all five participants—Jinaal Bix (Trill), Carmen Cho (Terran), Marina Derex (Betazoid), Hitoroshi Kreel (Denobulan), and Vellek (Romulan)—who each came up with their hiding places and clue themes tied to their own lives or areas of expertise. How they all joined forces is anyone’s guess, but at least we have something of a roadmap as to where we’re headed now. (And I have to assume the Betazoid scientist is named in honor of Star Trek: The Next Generation ’s Marina Sirtis, which I admittedly already love.)

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After Tilly and Michael disguise themselves in shabby, planet-appropriate attire (complete with convenient retinal tricorders that only make them look a bit like they belong in The Matrix ), they beam to the surface of Halem’no, which—at least in its habitable zone—is lush and green. The conceptualization of this planet and its society is the most intriguing part of this episode—particularly the phonetic elements of their language, known as Whistlespeak, which sounds like birdcall, doesn’t have words to denote things like class or status, recognizes at least three distinct genders, and prioritizes connection amongst its people. A timely reminder that simply because a society is not advanced in one way, doesn’t mean it isn’t in another.

To find the next clue, Team Discovery must make their way inside the High Summit, the weather tower that the locals see as a place to commune with their gods and pray for the rain that keeps them all alive. A sacred place, access is restricted to those deemed especially holy or chosen through a race called the Journey of the Mother Compeer. Michael and Tilly immediately decide to participate in this very specific ritual without doing any research in it or even asking around about why everyone who’s won it appears to no longer be alive. To the surprise of no one, it’s actually a method of choosing those who will be sacrificed within the tower, trading their lives for the promise of rain and the chance to commune with their gods before they die. Tilly wins, because of course she does, and she allows a kind young woman named Ravah to tie with her so that she can too fulfill her dream of proving herself to her father, and now they’re both essentially marked for death. Good times!

Not that any of us likely really expected Tilly to suffocate during this episode or anything, but truly the speed with which Michael jettisons the Prime Directive in the name of saving her friend is…honestly, something I wish the show would explore in a bit more depth. Because it actually ought to be an interesting story about how important Tilly is to her! Instead, it’s…just another example of the way that Michael’s constantly allowed to break the rules in ways that others are repeatedly punished for. Because, let’s face it, Rayner was demoted and publicly humiliated for doing much less.

And, for whatever reason, Discovery feels the need to overtly justify Michael’s choice, deliberately leaning into the idea that because she’s in for a penny, she might as well be in for a pound. I mean, it’s one thing to explain that the High Summit is a weather machine rather than the seat of vengeful gods. But it’s quite another to literally ferry Ravah’s dad Ohvanz up to their actual spaceship that is parked in space and show him what his planet looks like from orbit! Did she leave a spare warp drive behind her to top everything off? Maybe it all would be less annoying if it had truly ever felt as though Tilly was in some kind of real danger, or if it seemed as though the show was finally ready to tackle the cost of Michael’s reckless choices in a more serious and lasting way. Instead, it’s just another convenient shortcut she’ll inevitably face no consequences for.

If every one of these clue hunts is supposed to either teach or test the person doing the searching—to ensure they’re trying to find the Progenitor technology for a good reason—what is this search (and Michael’s response to it) meant to show us? That friendship is magic? That climate change is real? That false gods exist? That you shouldn’t allow your loved ones to participate in poorly explained and potentially deadly rituals? Or it’s okay to do whatever it takes to save someone you care about, even if it means breaking rules to do so?

It’s particularly jarring when much of this episode is about unintended consequences—about what can happen when technology is used irresponsibly, even with the best intentions of the world behind it. The Denobulan scientist Hitoroshi Kreel tried to do a good thing by disguising high-tech weather equipment in what is essentially religious iconography, but it still ended up giving rise to ritual sacrifice and murder in the name of bringing rain. Discovery isn’t normally very subtle about such parallels, so I think we can all assume that whatever the Progenitors did leave behind for future generations to find, the question for Michael and the Federation will be more about whether anyone should have access to it at all.

With just one more clue to go—and four more episodes in the season—-it’s anyone’s guess what’s coming as the Discovery enters the final phase of this story. Will Michael manage to unearth the Progenitors’ ancient, potentially galaxy-changing secret? Or will it turn out that the real advanced technology was actually the friends we made along the way?

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Lacy Baugher

Lacy Baugher is a digital producer by day, but a television enthusiast pretty much all the time. Her writing has been featured in Paste Magazine, Collider,…

'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 6 goes old school and benefits because of it

Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Star Trek: Discovery" season 5, episode 6

Here we are then, the other side of the halfway mark of the very last season of " Star Trek: Discovery ." Will the plot actually advance any further? Or does the chase across the galaxy for the Progenitors MacGuffin continue, offering another chance to insert a stand-alone, episode-length adventure along the way? Interestingly, a look at the IMDb top 10 rated episodes of "Discovery" there isn't one single entry beyond the second season.

This week's curiously named installment is entitled "Whistlespeak" and it's almost a throwback to old school-style of sci-fi storytelling, more typically found in something like "Stargate SG1." And a 10 episode-long chase for an alien artifact would be just fine in that show, because each season was typically 22 episodes long. Sadly, that's one reason why "Discovery" has been deteriorating, rather than improving, because each season — and it's far more obvious in seasons 3, 4 and 5 — seems to follow a very cookie-cutter formulaic approach.

Related: Star Trek streaming guide: Where to watch the Star Trek movies and TV shows online

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There's always a threat facing all life in the universe (killer AI, exploding dilithium, gravity waves, Progenitor tech), there's always a series of clues-of-sorts that have to followed and that usually entails a set of standalone adventures before finally everything concludes in a disappointing payoff. Tragically, "Discovery" never really found its identity and it struggled from the outset when the original concept was not to focus on the captain of a particular starship, but rather the first officer.

That combined with the fact that big-budget TV sci-fi has shifted to shorter seasons with more expensive episodes over longer seasons and more expansive storylines. Just remind yourself what other sci-fi shows have managed to achieve in five seasons; "Stargate: Atlantis" and " Babylon 5 " both had five seasons, "Battlestar Galactica" only had four and "Stargate: SG1" had 10. (Although the less said about the whole Ori storyline, the better.)

All that aside, this particular episode was a quirky little number that was actually quite enjoyable. So, that's nice. Yes, there are one or two enormous small plot holes and the super-convenient tech has somewhat taken a turn for the ridiculous. This is not swallowing a pill to genetically alter you temporarily, these are easy-install "optical tricorders" — yes, indeed, you need never have the burden of having to actually carry a tricorder anymore, because now they can be worn like contact lenses.

This week, Capt. Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green) and Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) beam incognito down to the surface of a pre-warp, pre-industrial world much like the Planet Vancouver that we often saw in just about every incarnation of "Stargate." And why-oh-why do these primitive, unevolved civilizations always have traditions that seem harmless at first, but upon further examination almost certainly seem to involve decapitation, disembowelment or any one of a hundred different, excruciating ways of dying, all in the name of glorious sacrifice to some god or another. Was the human race ever like tha...oh wait, hang on. Damn .

In this particular instance it's simply suffocating. Of course if you blew the fires out that also happen to be burning in the room, you know, using up all the precious air that's left, you might last a teeny-tiny bit longer. But that's probably not covered in standard Starfleet training, rather undergraduates are instead taught how to rebuild an illudium Q-36 explosive space modulator using only a discarded toothbrush, a clothes peg, an empty washing up liquid bottle and sticky-back plastic.

You also have to wonder how the local population had such an in-depth knowledge of the sacrificial chamber if no one ever survived, but we'll look past that, just like the writers did. And boy-oh-boy, there's along time to kill before you get killed. On the up side, the dialogue is pretty sharp this week and despite all its flaws, this is a well-paced installment. Still, a cliffhanger might be nice at some point before the show wraps permanently. All things considered though, given the low bar "Discovery" has sadly set itself, this one isn't terrible.

In other, somewhat related news, Paramount CEO Bob Bakish has stepped down and it's rumored that the entertainment giant is going to create an "office of the CEO" and have a team making the important decisions rather than a rich, white man who doesn't seem to have much of a clue. Sounds like a plan, right? Well, wait for it... Instead, three rich, white men will be making all the important decisions. George Cheeks, president and CEO of CBS; Chris McCarthy, president and CEO of Paramount Media Networks and Brian Robbins, president and CEO of Paramount Pictures.

Needless to say, Paramount's share value has taken a nosedive this week. Now while most of this is related to Paramount Global, it will of course affect the future of Paramount Plus, including programming choices, budget and just about everything else that determines whether or not we'll get to see any "Star Trek" going forward, let alone quality "Star Trek." Let's face facts, the only reason we're getting a Section 31 TV series TV movie is because of contractual obligations.

The fifth and final season of "Star Trek: Discovery," and every other episode of every "Star Trek" show — with the exception of "Star Trek: Prodigy" — currently streams exclusively on Paramount Plus in the US, while "Prodigy" has found a new home on Netflix.

Internationally, the shows are available on Paramount Plus in Australia, Latin America, the UK and South Korea, as well as on Pluto TV in Austria, France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland on the Pluto TV Sci-Fi channel. They also stream on Paramount Plus in Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. In Canada, they air on Bell Media's CTV Sci-Fi Channel and stream on Crave.

'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 6 goes old school and benefits because of it

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Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage

The first model of the USS Enterprise is displayed at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, shake hands over the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at the Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

Joe Maddalena, executive vice president of Heritage Auctions, left, and Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, the son of “Star Trek” creator Gene Roddenberry, view the recently recovered first model of the USS Enterprise at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original “Star Trek” television series — has been returned to Eugene, decades after it went missing in the 1970s. (Josh David Jordan/Heritage Auctions via AP)

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DALLAS (AP) — The first model of the USS Enterprise — used in the opening credits of the original “Star Trek” television series — has boldly gone back home, returning to creator Gene Roddenberry’s son decades after it went missing.

The model’s disappearance sometime in the 1970s had become the subject of lore, so it caused a stir when it popped up on eBay last fall. The sellers quickly took it down, and then contacted Dallas-based Heritage Auctions to authenticate it. Last weekend, the auction house facilitated the model’s return.

Eugene “Rod” Roddenberry, CEO of Roddenberry Entertainment, said he’s thrilled to have the model that had graced the desk of his father, who died in 1991 at age 70.

“This is not going home to adorn my shelves,” Roddenberry said. “This is going to get restored and we’re working on ways to get it out so the public can see it and my hope is that it will land in a museum somewhere.”

AP AUDIO: Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from ‘Star Trek’ boldly goes home after twisting voyage.

AP correspondent Margie Szaroleta reports on the return of the original model of the USS Enterprise from the TV show “Star Trek.”

Heritage’s executive vice president, Joe Maddalena, said the auction house was contacted by people who said they’d discovered it a storage unit, and when it was brought into their Beverly Hills office, he and a colleague “instantly knew that it was the real thing.”

FILE - Dan Schneider, center, accepts an award in Los Angeles. Schneider sued the makers of “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV” on Wednesday, May 1, 2024, alleging the makers of the documentary series wrongly implied that he sexually abused the child actors he worked with. (Photo by Matt Sayles/Invision/AP, File)

They reached out to Roddenberry, who said he appreciates that everyone involved agreed returning the model was the right thing to do. He wouldn’t go into details on the agreement reached but said “I felt it important to reward that and show appreciation for that.”

Maddalena said the model vanished in the 1970s after Gene Roddenberry loaned it to makers of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” which was released in 1979.

“No one knew what happened to it,” Rod Roddenberry said.

The 3-foot (0.91-meter) model of the USS Enterprise was used in the show’s original pilot episode as well as the opening credits of the resulting TV series, and was the prototype for the 11-foot (3-meter) version featured in the series’ episodes. The larger model is on display at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The original “Star Trek” television series, which aired in the late 1960s, kicked off an ever-expanding multiverse of cultural phenomena, with TV and movie spinoffs and conventions where a fanbase of zealous and devoted Trekkies can’t get enough of memorabilia.

This USS Enterprise model would easily sell for more than $1 million at auction, but really “it’s priceless,” Maddalena said.

“It could sell for any amount and I wouldn’t be surprised because of what it is,” he said. “It is truly a cultural icon.”

Roddenberry, who was just a young boy when the model went missing, said he has spotty memories of it, “almost a deja vu.” He said it wasn’t something he’d thought much about until people began contacting him after it appeared on eBay.

“I don’t think I really, fully comprehended at first that this was the first Enterprise ever created,” he said.

He said he has no idea if there was something nefarious behind the disappearance all those decades ago or if it was just mistakenly lost, but it would be interesting to find out more about what happened.

“This piece is incredibly important and it has its own story and this would be a great piece of the story,” Roddenberry said.

Thankfully, he said, the discovery has cleared up one rumor: That it was destroyed because as a young boy, he’d thrown it into a pool.

“Finally I’m vindicated after all these years,” he said with a laugh.

May 2, 2024 | Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Goes On A Spiritual Journey In “Whistlespeak”
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Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Reflects On Its Choices In “Mirrors”

| April 25, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 119 comments so far

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 – Debuted Thursday, April 25, 2024 Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco Directed by Jen McGowan

A solid episode with plenty of lore and character development gets weighed down with a bit too much exposition.

No, I didn’t kiss you in the past last week, what makes you say that?

WARNING: Spoilers below!

“Maybe we’re not so different.”

As the crew regroups following the time bug incident that lost them 6 hours, they try to trace the trail of their main rivals in the search for the Progenitor tech. Book takes this time to reflect on the choices he has made in life and how it isn’t too late for Moll; perhaps he can redeem the daughter of his mentor and namesake Cleveland Booker. Stamets and Tilly figure out the trail didn’t disappear into nowhere: Moll and L’ak went through a wormhole. The aperture isn’t big enough for the Disco, so the captain assigns herself to shuttle duty—over the objections of her new XO, who is still struggling a bit. After a little bonding over old Kellerun poetry, she leaves him with “I know you can lead this crew” and heads off with her ex. Returning to their old banter, including some teasing about what happened during her time tour last episode, Book and Michael head through the wormhole. Things get really choppy as they fly through exotic matter “deaf and blind,” losing comms with the Disco, and dodging debris. Skilled piloting and good ol’ Starfleet engineering saves them, but things aren’t so hot for Moll and L’ak, whose ship is spotted cut in half. Their only hope for survival is another relatively intact ship that looks familiar. A 24 th -century scientist hiding a clue in this pocket dimension on a shipwreck from another universe makes as much sense as anything. It’s the ISS Enterprise—and that’s no typo. If the “Mirrors” title wasn’t clue enough, the ISS does it: Things are about to get Terran, again.

After docking, Michael and Book make their way through the mess of a ship to the bridge with more playful banter. The warp drive has been bricked and all shuttles and escape pods are gone, very out of character for ruthless Terrans. They track three quantum signatures in sickbay, but start with a trace in the transporter room, which looks more like a makeshift refugee camp. A chronicle reveals the crew mutinied after the Terran High Chancellor (aka Mirror Spock) was killed for making reforms. A certain Kelpien rebel leader (aka Mirror Action Saru) led refugees to the Prime Universe, where they abandoned ship. While Book expositions, Michael puts a piece of her badge (and its important Prime Universe quantum signature) in a locket she finds. Pay attention BTW, or you will be confused later. In sickbay, they find Moll and L’ak, Moll and L’ak, and Moll and L’ak—until they take out the holo-emitters so the four former couriers can face off for real. Book tries the “I knew your father” gambit and is immediately rebuffed by Moll’s serious daddy issues. The baddies figure they have the clue so they have all the leverage, but Michael uses that locket as a bluff, claiming she has the real clue. Still, no deal with the Federation is good enough because they need the Progenitor tech to get rid of an Erigah… a Breen blood bounty. That’s right, L’ak is Breen. Holy refrigeration helmet , Batman.

Mirror McCoy was a bit of an evil pack rat.

“You both still have choices .”

Cut to a series of Burn-era flashbacks when Moll was delivering dilithium to the Breen Imperium. The “bucket heads” are not amused by the wisecracking courier who gets into a fight with one of them, but she turns the tables, revealing she knows he’s a disgraced member of the royal family—and she even knows his name. It’s L’ak, of course. He is intrigued by her plan to skim more latinum, getting payback for being humiliated for this cargo duty demotion. Soon enough, this unlikely pair is hooking up between cargo containers and he even takes off his helmet to show her his face, as well as his “other face.” It turns out the Breen have two: the one we have been seeing with L’ak and a glowing eyed translucent one. Later, the star-crossed romance is threatened when Moll is drawn to the lure of even more latinum by delivering to the Emerald Chain. Before they can sort out if he should join her, Uncle A-hole shows up, not happy about his nephew’s little interspecies exchange program. He’s also not cool with L’ak using that old face and not the “evolved” glowy face. L’ak is given one chance at redemption: Kill Moll. He picks door number 2, killing some guards but sparing Primarch Ruhn, who declares the Erigah. L’ak knows this means they will never stop hunting him, but Moll is all-in on being a fugitive, so they escape together. Ah, true love.

Back on Mirror Enterprise, the standoff devolves into another quick firefight as the Breen/Human duo chooses not to take the offered off-ramp before going too far down the bad guy road. Moll and Book end up outside force fields that pop up around sickbay, so she reluctantly agrees to a ceasefire. The current Cleveland Booker tries again to connect, but Moll only has bad memories of a brutal childhood of abandonment after her Cleveland left her on her own at age 14. L’ak is all she has. L’ak feels the same about Moll, telling Michael that he would die before being separated, but seems open to the idea of them sharing a cell in the Federation pen. On the bridge, Book pivots to use his relationship with Michael to connect, but Moll’s need to get back to L’ak means no waiting for computer hacking, so she starts yanking out wires. The resulting short does lower the forcefield, but now the ship is out of control. Their shuttle is flung off with the jolt and there’s only eight minutes until the Big E is squished in the little wormhole. Book takes his final shot, handing over his phaser and telling Moll she is the only family he has left. She finally relents and they head to sickbay, where Michael and L’ak have resumed fighting. The captain gets the upper hand and ends up with the clue L’ak was holding and the Breen is left with a knife in his side, but impressed by the locket bluff. Moll arrives and is super pissed, so the Disco duo makes a quick exit before things escalate into yet another phaser fight. This former courier couple’s double date is over.

Uh, can you go back to the other face now?

“Maybe we can shape our own futures too.”

As Moll tries to patch up her boyfriend, Michael and Book work through the problem on the bridge, deciding that the tractor beam as their only hope. Over on the Disco, they detect an oscillating pattern, 3-4-1-4, which means something to Rayner. He now wants the nerds to figure out how to open the wormhole aperture big enough for a ship, offering kegs of Kellerun booze for the best idea. Adira sparks a team effort and Rayner rallies around the crowdsourced solution involving a hexagon of photon torpedoes. “We are only going to get one shot at this. I trust you will all make it count, red alert.” That’s the stuff. With what may be the last seconds of her life, Michael lets Book know she shared a “happy” moment with his past self during the whole time bug incident. Discovery fires the torpedoes and the crew is surprised to see the ISS Enterprise emerge at the last minute from the permanently collapsing wormhole. Everyone releases their tension as the captain informs her crew they saved her… but why is the Enterprise about to fire? A warp pod is launched! It’s Moll and L’ak. Before you can say “plot armor,” they escape to another episode. The captain returns to the Disco to tell Rayner she’s impressed with how he handled the crew during her time away, and he tells her how impressed he was with her subtle “3-4-1-4” message using the Kellerun “Ballad of Krull.” Alien poetry FTW!

In the background of the episode, Tilly has been noticing that Dr. Culber seems out of sorts. Everyone else leans on him, so she offers to be a friendly ear. As things wrap, Hugh takes her up on her offer over drinks at Red’s, admitting that ever since he was possessed by a Trill a few episodes back, he has been feeling a bit off, and he’s beening having some trouble coming to grips with the quest they are on with questions “so big and impossible to grasp.” He is not sure his matter-of-fact husband will understand what Tilly points out is a sort of spiritual awakening. This thread is left unresolved, unlike Adira’s mini-crisis of confidence: They were losing their science mojo due to guilt over the time bug, but got it back through Rayner’s tough love and being the one to come up with the hexagon of torpedoes solution. Things wrap up with Michael and Book looking over their prize, the latest piece of the map and a mysterious vial of liquid hidden inside, ready to set up the next episode once Stamets unlocks its secret. Burnham is starting to see a pattern with these clues and how the scientists who left them were trying to teach lessons along the way to the successful questers. The clue hidden in the ISS Enterprise came from Dr. Cho, a former Terran junior officer who later became a Starfleet Admiral. This happy ending for her and the others from Saru’s band of Mirror refugees fills them with hope as they can’t wait to find out what they will learn when they put the map together. There are just 2 more map pieces and 5 more episodes to go.

I think I have a thing for being possessed—no judgment.

Love stories

This halfway point episode is a bit of a mixed bag. Strong performances were a highlight, bringing extra life to welcome character development for both heroes and villains. But valiant attempts to expand upon franchise lore got weighed down in overly complicated exposition. And for an episode with a strong (and yes, often repeated) theme about choices, some of the directorial choices just didn’t work, potentially leaving some audience members confused or requiring a second viewing to follow the narrative. On the other hand, the episode carried on the season’s reflection on Discovery’s own lore and the evolution of its characters. David Ajala stands out as the episode MVP as he shows Book’s struggle to navigate the emotional complexities of his own choices and those of Moll while desperately trying to forge a new family connection. While some of the action scenes in this episode felt a bit perfunctory, the show is still getting better (for the most part) in finding moments for those character sidebars to talk about their emotional journeys and relationships. That was especially important in this episode, which took a closer look at how the events of the season are impacting some of the key romantic pairings of Book and Michael, Paul and Hugh, and Moll and L’ak.

Eve Harlow—and especially Elias Toufexis—stepped up to add layers and nuance to Moll and L’ak, with Discovery finally embracing how fleshing out adversaries and their motivations goes a long way towards making your plot hold together. The nicely drawn-out reflection of their love story with the rekindling one between Michael and Book adds another layer to the more obvious meaning behind the episode title “Mirrors.” Moll’s single-minded anger and L’ak’s desire for safety now all make sense, as does their unshakable bond. The episode also did a good job weaving in a handful of substories, including Rayner’s growing connection with the crew, with a nice sprinkling of Kellerun lore-building — adding some color to his character. Callum Keith Rennie continues to be a stand-out addition for the season, although Doug Jones is sorely missed, presumably not appearing in two episodes in a row for some scheduling reasons. Culber’s spiritual journey also gets just enough time, as it and these other substories all feel like they are heading somewhere without distracting or spinning their wheels, something that often weighed down mid-season Discovery episodes in past seasons.

Okay, let’s just agree we both have daddy issues.

Under the mask

The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise, but also nicely teased through the previous episodes. Fans of Deep Space Nine should relish finally getting some answers about this enigmatic race and finally having a first look under those helmets. “Mirrors” picked up on many elements from DS9, including the Breen language, refrigeration suits, neural truncheons, and the position of Thot , while adding lots to the lore, including some worldbuilding behind this new Breen Imperium and its “faction wars.”

Setting the Breen up as what appears to be the real big bads for the season involved a lot of data dump exposition here, surely keeping the editors of Memory Alpha busy for the next week. The notion that Breen have two forms with their signature suits and helmets allowing them to hold the more “evolved” form and face makes sense. If one were to get nitpicky, the Breen aren’t supposed to bleed, but perhaps that was a function of his suit; fill in your own headcanon. L’ak’s desire to hold the other, less evolved form making him a pariah in Breen society has echoes of allegorical episodes such as TNG’s “The Outcast.” That being said, the nuances are still not entirely clear, and fans who like the lore shouldn’t have to rewatch scenes to pick up the details. It feels like some details were cut, perhaps because this episode was already trying to cram in too much exposition with the Breen, Kelleruns (they boil cakes?), and the Mirror Universe.

Like the previous time travel adventure, this was a mid-season bottle show, this time using the conveniently located Strange New Worlds sets. Bringing back the ISS Enterprise was clever and fun, with the twist of how this time the Mirror Universe came to us. If you follow closely, “Mirrors” did a nice job of filling in some lore gaps and tying together the MU storylines from the first visit in “Mirror, Mirror” to follow-ups in Deep Space Nine , Enterprise , and Discovery . There is now a nice throughline from Emperor Georgiou saving Mirror Saru through to Mirror Spock, killed for the reforms he instituted after being inspired by Kirk. However, the redress of the Enterprise sets was not very inspired, with only a smattering of Terran wall sconces and some repainting, instead of demonstrating the brutality of the Empire with elements like agony booths. But what was even more missed was the promise of any character crossovers. There was a lot of talk about Mirror characters like Spock, Saru, Dr. Cho, and others, but we don’t get to see any, one of the many examples of how this episode broke the golden rule to show not tell. There were plenty of opportunities for a flashback or holo recording. Burnham longingly gazing at her brother’s science station is no substitute for Ethan Peck with a goatee.

We’re back!

Final thoughts

“Mirrors” is a decent episode, but it could have been much better with a few tweaks here and there. While not falling into the pointless plate-spinning trap of past mid-season Disco outings, it still dragged a bit for something so jam-packed with lore and revelations. Still, it provided a nice hour of entertainment, and possibly more with rewatches to catch up on the little details. The episode also continues the season’s welcome trend of weaving in the show’s own past, which makes it work better as a final season, even if they didn’t know that when they crafted it. Season 5 hits the halfway mark, and it’s still the best season yet, and hopefully the second half of the season will nail the landing.

Wait, we’re in this episode too? Anyone remember their lines?

Like the previous episode, “Mirrors” began with a warning for flashing images.
The episode is dedicated “to the loving memory of our friend Allan ‘Red’ Marceta ,” the lead set dresser who died in a motorcycle accident in 2022. Presumably the USS Discovery bar “Red’s” was named in his honor.
This is the first episode where Book’s personal log starts it off.
Stardate: 866280.9
Booker examined wanted notices for Moll from the Federation, Orion/Emerald Chain (who have a new logo), and the Andorian Empire.
Tilly was able to reveal the wormhole by compensating for the “Lorentzian Coefficient,” referencing the real Lorentz Factor used in special relativity equations.
A new ensign on the Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet.
The ISS Enterprise was built at Tartarus Base, possibly referencing Tartarus Prime , from the TOS novel The Rings of Time .
Moll refers to Breens as “bucketheads” (just as Reno did to Emerald Chain Regulators last episode). This could be a nod to the use of “ bucketheads ” in Star Wars as a derogatory term for stormtroopers.
Moll’s mother died on Callor V in a mine for Rubindium , a substance first mentioned in TOS “Patterns of Force.”
Linus can play the piano.
Breen Primarchs may be a nod to the genetically engineered Primarchs from Warhammer 40,000 .
How does Book know that Pike’s catchphrase is “Hit it”?
This is the third (of five) season 5 episodes in which Oyin Oladejo and Emily Coutts do not appear, but their characters, Detmer and Owosekun, are mentioned when they get the honor of escorting the ISS Enterprise back to Starfleet HQ.
Even though we didn’t see it warp away, presumably the missing intermix chamber was replaced, otherwise Owo and Detmer’s trip is going to take a very long time.
Tilly says her long day makes her feel like she has been through a Gormangander’s digestive tract.

Remember when Mudd hid inside a Gormagander? Gross.

More to come

Every Friday, the TrekMovie.com All Access Star Trek Podcast covers the latest news in the Star Trek Universe and discusses the latest episode. The podcast is available on Apple Podcasts , Spotify , Pocket Casts , Stitcher and is part of the TrekMovie Podcast Network.

The fifth and final season of Discovery debuted with two episodes on Thursday, April 4 exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S., the UK, Switzerland, South Korea, Latin America, Germany, France, Italy, Australia, and Austria. Discovery will also premiere on April 4 on Paramount+ in Canada and will be broadcast on Bell Media’s CTV Sci-Fi Channel in Canada. The rest of the 10-episode final season will be available to stream weekly on Thursdays. Season 5 debuts on SkyShowtime in select European countries on April 5.

Keep up with news about the Star Trek Universe at TrekMovie.com .

Discovery , Review

Recap/Review: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Goes On A Spiritual Journey In “Whistlespeak”

Toronto Stage Used For ‘Discovery’ Renamed “The Star Trek Stage” By Pinewood Studios

Preview ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Episode 506 With New Images. Trailer And Clip From “Whistlespeak”

Discovery , Interview

Interview: ‘Star Trek: Discovery’ Writer Carlos Cisco On Unmasking The Breen And Revisiting The ISS Enterprise

waste of ISS Enterprise

While I enjoyed the episode overall, the ISS Enterprise was a huge letdown and not even worth being an easter egg with what little they did with it. They should have just made it a generic constitution class ship from the mirror universe.

It felt like it was nothing more than a budget saver. Use existing sets from the other show. Which is weird because one of the arguments in favor of mini seasons is it allows more money to be spent.

That’s exactly what it felt like. Along with the missing, yet again, Detmer and Owosekun.

There must have been some deep budget cuts for the season.

Detmer and Owosekun were replaced by other characters so I don’t think they are missing for budget reasons. It’s more likely that the actresses were unavailable.

I get the budget issues considering what’s going on with the studio. But the end result was it showed that there isn’t much difference at all in the 900 years between the SNW Enterprise and the aesthetic of Star Trek Discovery. They both look as if they were set in the exact same era.

And there really shouldn’t be much. Discovery is from the same era, as the Enterprise. While the ship gets a technological upgrade, why would it get an interior design makeover?

Since it was deemed important (Stamets certainly makes since) that the crew stay on the Discovery, I would certainly think that psychologically having its design aesthetics stay similar to what it was would help give the crew a little bit of their past to hold on to, versus having all physical interactions be with a timeline that they aren’t native to.

Now where we should see it is in native places in this time. And we have seen some differences in design from standard Starfleet settings, versus Starfleet settings on this time (I actually wish we got more).

I did wish for a little more of self reflection from Burnham’s point of view as the ISS Enterprise should of course remind her of Spock (the Enterprise tie in), but also Georgiou (the ISS tie in). We get a small brief nod to Spock, but nothing to Georgiou (and while I still question the use of the character, there is no question that Burnham did have a connection with her, even if its primarily transference from her former Captain, not the mirror Universe Empress.

It’s not just the ship. It’s everything. Everything else looks like it matches the ship’s aesthetic. As if 900 year old retro is the current fad in design.

That’s always been my issue with Discovery.

To me that is part of the downfall of going so very far into the future. What aesthetic you make should be radically different. Not just shinier.

This is a VERY common trope in Trek, historically. Using redressed older sets, even ones from distant eras, to save money. It’s just downright foolish to think that a big budget series with fewer episodes to get better production value would simply have no limits at all. Discovery is one of the most expensive-looking sci-fi shows out there for a reason: a lot of money is being spent. On sets, effects, and even the cast. Oded Feherer, Callum Kieth Rennie, Michelle Yeoh, Jason Isaacs, Sonequa, David Cronenberg, Tig Notaro, and plenty of others during its run — its cast is broad and extremely strong, with well-known, talented actors, not to mention some of the best TV directors, set decorators, costumers, etc in the business.

Now, sure I think it’s fair to be let down by a budget-saving measure, particularly because of how much money IS being spent, so I get the logic here, but it’s sorely misplaced. The fact is, Trek has done this for decades, and often not nearly as well. Let it go — just try to enjoy the show and not worry about that kind of thing. But that’s the thing I struggle with, with you on this board: you seem to be looking for reasons NOT to like this show because you find more enjoyment in watching and hating it than anything else. Go watch a show you actually like, it’s been five years and it’s ending now. It’s time to let it go, my good friend.

Agreed. The last two episodes just felt very budgeted and basically bottle episodes. And this just felt like a twofer, a way to use an existing set and add a little fan service but that’s all it was. I thought the Enterprise itself was going to be a viral part of not just the episode but the story overall.

Instead it was just a backdrop. And yeah it’s obvious they cut the budget for this season but all the live action shows have felt this way starting with Picard season 3 and SNW season 2. That all felt pretty bare a lot of the times. I guess this was all during Paramount+ belt tightening and probably not a shock why the show was cancelled.

And maybe the I.S.S. Enterprise should have been the refit or maybe the Phase II Enterprise? That would have been a lot of fun but combine a lack of vision with a reduced budget and this is what you get.

Looking back on “In a Mirror: Darkly”, season 4 of Enterprise was dealing with a reduced budget but managed to recreate sets from TOS, introduced a few new set pieces and did a lot of great effects work.

This was a missed opportunity.

Which was added by stretching that story over two episodes, so that they had the budget to recreate the sets they used. Having half the episode count, doesn’t really help avail yourself to planning out a two parter for a way to save costs.

If Picard could pull off recreating the bridge of the Enterprise D for three days of shooting with barely half the budget of Discovery season 5, they could have done something equally as fun for Discovery on the cheap without actually having to building anything new and using the Enterprise as a crutch. They could have come across Deep Space Station K-7, where the exterior would have been immediately familiar and with interiors served by redressed sets from virtually anything available from Discovery or SNW.

I thought Discovery is basically the PII Enterprise?

The Phase II Enterprise looks like a slickly modified version of the Enterprise from TOS, falling squarely between the Enterprise from TOS and the refit. The “Star Trek: Phase II” fan series did a great job bringing it to screen.

No, Discovery resembles the Enterprise concept for the Planet of the Titans movie.

I don’t get that. I never assumed that the Enterprise (or its mIrror Universe history) was going to feature in significant manner (certainly the producers and promotional department didn’t make a significant deal about it). Perhaps it’s the time difference. But I literally assumed it would be as significant as the Defiant going in and out of phase like TOS “Tholian Web” the time difference. And that was primarily set dressing. That’s not a bad thing. I mean Tholian Web is considered one of the better third season episodes.

And the only reason I assumed it was the Enterprise versus another Connie, is simple to give Burnham a moment to reflect on Spock. Now I do freely admit that I wish this was a slightly larger moment. But I never expected it to be anything but a small moment. Roughly my preconceived notion would be something like Spock’s Mind Meld scene with La’an in SNW where she is able to get a peak into Spock thinking about his sister and the emotion that comes with it. It’s a very brief scene, but I thought SNW did a good job in conveying the emotional aspect, especially from a half Vulcan/ Half Human.

Ok fair enough. This is probably more my hang up and to be fair since they never really promoted the the Enterprise being back then clearly they weren’t trying to make it that big of a deal.

But same time a lot of people do feel there could’ve been more done. The main problem is it just feels like a ridiculous stretch this ship itself is even there. It’s a ship from 900 years ago from a DIFFERENT UNIVERSE that conveniently happens to be the ship that gives them their next clue. I know it’s Star Trek so whatever lol. But when you go through the effort to present it I think it would’ve nice to build a bigger story around it. It could’ve just been any ship.

Exactly! The ship could have been any ship. The fact that with such an enormous universe(s) they would happen to find the next clue on a Mirror Universe ship and the ISS Enterprise no less–it’s such “Small Universe Syndrome”.

When you feel like the Mirror Universe has been nothing but a let down after the initial TOS episode, It’s really not a surprise. There’s really nowhere to go with it, but I did find that the fulfilling of the promise that Prime Kirk spoke to Mirror Spock about from the original TOS episode quite satisfying. The ship’s inhabitants embraced the benevolence of the prime universe, and I thought that was great.

I felt the idea that the MU people just easily adapted was pretty ridiculous. But then, they admitted SNW was an alternate timeline. It’s not a stretch that alternate extends to all the Secret Hideout productions.

I’m not sure I would feel the same about Picard given it depicts the Prime events of ST:2009. The others tho yeah I think of it that way too. Although The Chase does make that harder to swallow about DISCO

I liked the MU in DS9. It was fun to revisit and a great reminder of the Prime Directive. But… after that it got tiresome.

It was pretty benign there, but the problem with it, is finding it plausible. It was a fun idea in the 1960’s, and it had a good message. After that, it an indulgence. The notion that that the same people would even exist in the same fundamental places, and that the same ships would exist with virtually the same crew just seems like too much of a stretch even for modern Star Trek.

That’s my only complaint about this episode. Seeing the tantalus field show up would have been really cool. When Michael talked about how she was sure that Mirror Spock was a savage just like the other Terrans, I was sure that we would see a recording or something of Ethan Peck in a goatee to prove her wrong. Or flashbacks with Ethan Peck and Paul Wesley as their mirror counterparts would have also been cool.

All the stuff with the Breen and Mol and Lak was really cool though.

“ waste of ISS Enterprise” should be the official episode description.

waste of series

They ate Mirror Saru in season one…

Was that Saru or another Kelpian? It’s been a while since I watched Season 1, but I recall Mirror Saru saving Burnham from Tyler just as Voq’s personality re-emerged. I know Mirror Georgiou served Burnham some Kelpian, I just didn’t remember it being Mirror Saru.

Mirror Saru saved Michael from Tyler in The Wolf Inside, which was the episode that preceded the one in which they ate the food made from a Kelpien (Vaulting Ambition).

Looking at Memory Alpha now, it says that the chosen Kelpien ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aVQSipQlJR8 ) was played by someone other than Doug Jones, but they look so much alike that I thought for sure she had chosen Mirror Saru.

As per Memory Alpha, we never saw him again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Nope, that was another Kelpien.

“They ate Mirror Saru in season one…”

They didn’t.

Wasn’t Mirror Saru established as having survived in Season 3 (can’t remember the episode name).

A s per Memory Alpha, we never saw Mirror Saru again after The Wolf Inside until season three, but that was in the alternate timeline Carl sent Georgiu to, so it wasn’t the same Mirror Saru.

Loved this episode. I liked seeing the I.S.S Enterprise though i would of loved to of seen maybe a video log of Mirror Spock.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

I enjoyed seeing Book/Burnham trying to get through to Moll/L’ak and i hope they can eventually get through to them. With this season about connections and 2nd chances i can see Book and Burnham talking both of them down before they do something that they can’t come back from.

The shot of the I.S.S Enterprise coming out of the ‘wormhole’ is probably one of my favorite CGI scene in all of Trek.

I’m glad they didn’t. I think the conceit of using the I.S.S. Enterprise was not much more than a budgetary decision to be able to use the sets. Could have made it a different constitution class, but then they don’t get to tell the story of the crew’s transformation into our society. Just don’t think about it too much.. because that universe is just pushing out its own doppelgängers into our universe.. which seems problematic. lol.

As a big fan of DS9 I’m glad we finally get to see what a breen looks like and the 32nd century breen outfits look great.

Any kind of big reveal was bound to be disappointing, I suppose. Still, the idea that they were just another latex alien was a letdown. I had always hoped that the Breen were gaseous or plasma creatures.

Ethan Peck with a goatee would have been EPIC

“This is the way.” 😉

But seriously that was a pretty good episode. I’d like to see a 31st century restored Terran empire that never went through “the burn.”

“ The reveal that L’ak is a Breen was a surprise ”

It really wasn’t, though. That was many viewers’ guess since the beginning of the season, and it’s been a common discussion on many websites. The surprise would have been if he HADN’T been a Breen.

I am on a lot of other sites and I haven’t heard anyone thinking he was Breen. And I don’t believe anyone voiced that in Trekmovie either.

LOL. It’s been a common theory.

Obviously not THAT common. LOL

I’ve seen the theory mentioned in the comments here on TrekMovie.

Yes, quite common from what I’ve been reading. I just commented on this very site a couple weeks back that I liked the idea, when somebody else theorized it (forget who it was)!

I guess it’s just where you go for these discussions but yeah the first YouTube review of episode one I saw theorized Lak was a Breen in the first scene he was in when he took off his helmet. And this was obviously before the species was mentioned on the show.

So yeah some people caught on the first episode the way others theorized Tyler was Voq the first time he showed up. Others needed more convincing.

I never saw it but I certainly don’t read the majority of comments. And almost never watch video reviews. Now Voq, was something I remember seeing in many places. Though in fairness, the amount of conjecture done about any Trek series for its Pilot and early couple episodes has been in my experience far more than what you see for most regular episodes. So that shouldn’t;t surprise me.

It was a surprise to me.

The Breen being so ordinary looking was a bit of a surprise.

Well, one of their forms are. It explains the frozen wasteland/tropical paradise. Their “evovled” form needs cryo suits, their “normal form” doesn’t

Was a surprise to me. Then again, I don’t run around the internet and over analyze the show.

This season started out so well. What happened? It’s falling apart.

I hate to a agree. But its once again a long slow burn (pardon the bun) that I fear is going to lead to another whimper of a conclusion. I feel like the season could have been a movie instead. Where is Chapel?!

Wrong show. Chapel is on SNW. The ending was rewritten and new scenes were shot to make it a series finale. They had already started shooting when they got the word that it was ending after season 5.

presumably on Her show, SNW?

“pardon the bun” …🍔⁉️

What’d that poor bun do for it to be in need of a pardon? 😋

This is what happens in every single season of Discovery. Two lovers who want to destroy the galaxy so they can get to paradise was the plot of season four, and now they are recycling the exact same plot for this season.

Did you watch the show. In no seasons has two lovers wanted to destroy the galaxy….Period. L’ak and Moll want to pay off their bounty. Nothing about what they are doing is about wanting to destroy the galaxy.

Outside of the destruction caused by the aliens referred to as 10-C, did any character want to destroy the galaxy let alone a couple. The only couple we had, was one person wanting peaceful means of communication to prevent destruction, while the other wanted to use force to ensure the destruction doesn’t occur. In no case does that equal people wanting to destroy a galaxy.

I can understand not liking the show, but to have such a misconstrued concept of the plot of the seasons shows a shocking lack of basic understanding of what the plot and motivations of the characters are.

I mean the show has plenty that one can find legitimate issues with. Thats not one of them.

They want to pay their bounty by giving a weapon of potential mass destruction to the Breen, thus destroying the galaxy, as seen in the time jumps last episode. They want to do that so they can escape to the Gamma Quadrant while the Breen take apart the Alpha Quadrant.

Last season the scientist wanted to let the 10-C species bulldoze the Alpha Quadrant so he could get across the galactic barrier to meet his lover in paradise, without caring what happened to trillions of other lives.

It is the same basic plot point. Your analysis is incorrect, Wood.

I think you’re overreacting a little. As always.

This episode was disappointing and fell flat. The return of the ISS Enterprise from the mirror universe was of no interest. I had hoped to possibility see a video log from Kirk, Spock, or another familiar character. Why not explore other Constitution Class Starships like the ISS Lexington, Hood, or Potemkin? Enterprise, Enterprise, Enterprise. (Sigh)

Maybe cause the enterprise is the trek ship pretty much everyone knows even if they are a new trek fan or a casual trek fan or not even a trek fan it is so engrained and intertwined with the name Star Trek that is why they chose to make it the iss enterprise instead of one of the others you mentioned

Because exploring a random ship isn’t the plot of the episode. It’s basically set dressing. Having it be the Enterprise versus a different Connie, gives it a tie to the lead character and part of her family she left behind. That it sorry wise. Another ship wouldn’t have any emotion aspect to the characters. Now production wise its to save a ton of money, as creating a random ship with multiple settings to take use of takes money (if your trying to give it the same level of production that you see for the primary ship). Now of course they could have just created a redress of an existing set to be random alien ship of the week. Those usually aren’t done to the same level of using the existing bridge set of another show. So it serves a small story purpose (ie a setting), it serves a small character purpose *reflection for Burnham, and it serves a production purpose (having high quality set pieces without having to build or do a serious redress and thus saving some money).

Seems rather obvious, to me.

I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. I assume that the actors are absent because Paramount wanted to pay them less, and that’s poor treatment for characters who have been around since practically the beginning of the series.

“ I’m annoyed by what they seem to be doing with Owosekun and Detmer this season. ”

…as opposed to the previous four seasons, when all they did was sit in chairs and look meaningfully at each other?

Which is all Sulu and Chekov do in the average TOS episode. So yes, it’s aggravating for them to be replaced by other actors who are doing the same thing.

I doubt they are paid exorbitantly as recurring guests. It could be similar to what happened in season 4 and Bryce Ronnie Rowe Jr’s absences – he had another gig.

I have a theory that before it was decided that Disco would be cancelled, they were going to replace some of the characters. I think Owosekun and Detmer were going to be replaced, and also that Rayner would become captain and Burnham would go away to do something else. But then that didn’t work out, and so to us it just makes no sense why those two main characters are suddenly missing.

You might be right — I hadn’t considered that revamps due to cancellation might be involved.

Well… It is what it is . This was easily the worst episode of the 5. Tropes galore and really bad plot contrivances.

It feels like the reshoots for when they got the cancelation news are getting dropped in throughout the season. A lot of scenes appear grossly out of place. It feels like they just aren’t even trying anymore to be honest. As flawed as the show has been one thing that never came across among the other problems was a lack of trying.

I am loving the addition of Rayner and the professional Starfleet officer energy he is bringing to the ship. I also liked when he told Burnham the mission was too dangerous for the captain to go on. He is turning out to be a nice counterbalance to the unusual way Discovery has been run as a Starfleet ship after season 2.

I hope he doesn’t get killed off.

Sorry but this was another big fat ‘meh’ for me. This was very very disappointing. Nothing of consequence happened. We learn Mol and Lak backstory basically and it is cool we learn that Lak is a Breen which has been the leading theory since he showed up but it just felt sooo bare overall. Like another Discovery infamous spinning wheel episode where they do the bare minimum to move the plot along but just through a lot of action scenes and inconsequential dialogue to feel like we were getting any real development.

And the biggest elephant in the room (or dimensional wormhole) was the ISS Enterprise. Such a let down. It almost felt like a gimmick or just shoehorned fan service. There was no real reason it needed to be there other than HEY THE ENTERPRISE IS BACK!

Again one of the problems with this show, no real development just there for another connection. Think about what they did with In a Mirror Darkly on Enterprise. They brought in the Defiant as obvious fan service from TOS but the ship had a very vital part to the story. It helped changed the dynamics of the MU. It wasn’t there just for show like this was. And Anthony made a great point the redress felt like a joke. It just felt like an excuse to use the set but little else.

Here it was nothing more than just a backdrop and a really forced one at that. And the whole Saru thing just felt very contrived.

I did like all the Breen stuff though and hopefully they will be the big bad the rest of the season. I still think they should’ve used the Breen as the main villain for SNW instead of the Gorn but I digress.

But yeah this is probably the weakest one for me which is disappointing since last week is my favorite so far. I’m getting a little nervous now. It’s usually the second half of the season this show begins to falls apart but still open minded. Still enjoying it overall but please don’t end up a tedious bore like last season felt once it got to its mid season.

You have one last chance Discovery, make it count!

I never considered the Breen in SNW before, but that’s a cool idea. Yeah, I would’ve liked that much more than the Gorn.

For me it was literally the first Gorn episode I thought the Breen would’ve been a better idea. You get the same type of stories and it doesn’t feel like it’s breaking any canon like the Gorn obviously does. I ranted enough about it but nothing about their appearance on SNW feels remotely canon anymore.

But the Breen could’ve been a great substitute if they wanted a known species not named Klingons and zero canon issues.

Agreed. I always enjoyed the mysterious quality of the Breen. Seems ripe for exploration.

This season is largely working for me. Not as good as last week, but the chase is enjoyable. I have a little trouble buying that Mol and L’ak fell in love so fast. I would have liked to have seen that handled better.. but the slow burn of the plot works because of what they do to sustain individual episodes. Only episode I thought was kind of wasteful was the one on Trill.

That is a big part of the problem, yes. The characters have little chemistry.

The flashbacks took [place over an extended period of time, it wasnt THAT fast

They both felt like outcasts in their family/society, fusing them together like lightning. I had no problem with that as it gave me a Bonnie & Clyde-vibe which is historical.

It’s fine, but the romance piece just isn’t clicking for me.

Tarka was a similar situation last season with the reveal of his motivation not really moving me, but I’m also not the biggest fan of waiting several episodes to fill in a lot of backstory in a flashback. It’s not easy to pull off, and Discovery hasn’t really perfected it.

It’s a wonder I stuck with Lost as long as I did, now that I think about it.

“ it’s still the best season yet ”

Well, it was for the first two episodes, but the three since then have been a downward spiral. Seasons one and two were much better than this week’s episode and last week’s.

I’ve enjoyed it all except for the Trill episode. I think it’s been fun with a faster pace.. which has helped with a lot of issues that haven’t gone away. Raynor has been a very welcome addition to the cast.

Overall, very entertaining!

For complaints: any other constitution ship would be cool – but I also feel like we don’t know what happens next – there could be some Prime Mirror Universe people out there. & the “hit it!” joke felt like Dad was in the writer’s room.

Otherwise, I the pairings felt very TOS. Rayner is a little bit Serious Scotty when performing a captain’s role. And he took pride in rescuing her – which is feels good.

For me, this season has been 5/5.

Personal Log. Stardate: Today.

Week 4 of not-watching Discovery continues without incident. Opinions gleaned from critics on the latest episode seem to confirm that ‘mid-season malaise’ has been reached right on schedule.

Based on the collective opinion of commentators, there have been a grand total of one episode out of five that qualifies as “actually good”.

In conclusion, it appears the decision to not-watch until the penultimate episode has been vindicated. The plot points I am privy to following the one episode I watched are:

– There is a chase (or ‘The Chase 2.0’) for the Holy Grail / the technological marvel Salmone Jens left behind.

– The Cylon is now the First Officer.

– The Trill and the Robot are no longer together.

All in all, I remain confident that the recap at the beginning of the penultimate episode should be sufficient to fill in all the key points required.

Again, my thanks go out to the resolute souls who manage to endure what I could not.

these threads are for people to talk about the episodes they have seen. CLOSED.

Am I wrong or did the DS9 episode Through the Looking Glass make a reference to the Mirror Spock being on Romulus? Also given all the DS9 cross overs with the Mirror Universe you would think Burnham would have known something more about her brother’s counterpart.

Spock was not mentioned in Through the Looking Glass. We know between Crossover and the new dedication plaque of the ISS Enterprise that he reformed the Terran Empire and was killed for it. Burnham has clearly boned up on a lot of info since coming to this century, but easy to assume the future history of the mirror universe wasn’t part of that. Also, that info could have been lost or been classified.

Wow! The Breen. From CGI to burn victim.

Does anybody think the Commander Rainer is gonna become the Commandant of Starfleet Academy?

Everything involving Book is incredibly tedious. They brought back the ISS Enterprise as a way to resurrect the OG Enterprise in continuity. Perhaps it ends up as the Enterprise Q or whatever, if Saru is in command then ok. Burnham insisting on going on the away mission is diametrically opposed to how TNG dealt with this – e.g., when Riker as captain insisted on boarding the Borg cube in Best of Both Worlds, and his senior officers reminded him his place was on the bridge. I guess everyone got much dumber in the 32nd century, but “dumber” is Discovery’s whole concept.

This post missed an important Easter egg towards the end: Morn was at the bar “Red’s” just like he did on Quark’s on DS9.

We don’t call out or find every little egg, but when the bar was introduced last season we noted the Lurian (Morn’s species), who has been there ever since. We don’t usually do repeated easter egg bits for each episode

Yay! Good seeing the Breen again and their evolved design in the 32nd Century is great.

Boo! Pretty much everything else except Rayner who is the best character in the show.

Imagine they used the Star Trek: Tour set in Trekonderoga for the ISS Enterprise? What a cool surprise that would have been. But nope, we got the generic canon-breaking Discoprise. Not surprised.

I swear if they make the new Enterprise in the 3190s a refitted Constitution, I will facepalm. Just a stupid idea, when you have far superior tech and designs in the future time period. Please don’t, Disco-writers. Bad enough they did it with the Ent-G (one of my few criticisms of the great PIC S3).

here are 6 points for a reply to each of your issues with snw and dsc as a whole and this episode in particular

1.there is already a constitution class in the 32nd century it’s design was also used pre burn in the late 31st century so i dought they would refit iss enterprise like they did with the discovery plus they did say the ship was being taken to a federation storage facility

2.as for why they used the snw sets and cg assets well two reasons for one location/budget convenience as snw is shot in toronto at the same studio as dsc is and two they have said from the start they visually updated the 23rd century to fit visually better between ent era and tmp era mainly star trek 5/6

3.and there is nothing canon breaking about any of the new shows as they give explanations that tie back to enteprise and first contact since enterprise tied into that movie for the reasons of in unverse changes to the prime timeline universe and that is time travel to fix the past either on it’s own or part of the temporal cold war

4.and the temporal Cold War which later turned into the temporal wars is the reason the discovery was refited and givin the -A at the end of the registry is to hide the fact the ship and crew time traveled and broke the law agaisnt any form of time travel that was put into place after the temporal wars and a smaller part to protect starfleets butt

5.and if you have to don’t look at seasons 1 and 2 of dsc and snw as prequels to tos but as sequels to ent and then veiw ent as a sequal to first contact as i hear it makes it easier for some tos fans to enjoy these trek shows

6.or use the in universe reasons for the changes mentioned above in point 3 to be able to enjoy watching new trek shows mentioned above in point 5

Would it have been too much if Dr. Cho was instead Marlena Moreau? Just saying. Kind of like Dax in Jinaal… I feel like they are making all of these deep cuts, why not make them count a bit more to the overall lore, instead of just throwing the ISS Enterprise in with no good reason. Making these deep cuts actually count towards the overall lore might make the obvious (potential) budget cuts, set reuses, etc. be a bit more forgiving. Giving loved characters some finality that affect the course of this in our face galactic scale quest… might make it hit harder? Maybe I’m wrong, I’m sure someone here will think so lol

Overall the episode was okay. I do understand using the ISS Enterprise since this is supposed to be the final season of Discovery it was a nostalgia play and kind of wrap up the history of that ship in regards to the series. But overall it just seems kind of mashed together. Have to see how it ties in with the rest of the season.

I would say this episode along with the one before it were definitely the weakest of the season. They started out with a bang on the first few, and while I know that they tend to slow down in the middle of the season before ramping up the action for the final few, this episode dragged. There were also a few things with the Breen and the Enterprise that seemed a bit confusing:

– The Breen have 2 faces…great! Awesome twist to the species and fantastic to finally be able to see them after all the mystery around them in DS9. If the second face is supposed to be the more evolved one though, why do they need the masks and the suits? Can the more evolved face not breathe in a standard atmosphere? When L’ak and his uncle opened up their masks, they seemed fine, so there’s still quite a bit we don’t know about why they use that whole setup, especially when they’re around their own people

– Does the more evolved form extend past the face?

ISS Enterprise

– The stardate on the commemorative plaque is 32336.6. Popping that number into a couple of online stardate calculators puts that around mid-2355, which would be a few years before the prime universe Enterprise-D was commissioned in 2363. They mentioned that Dr. Cho came back to the Enterprise to hide the clue, so the assumption is that she also placed the plaque there at the same time. The timing doesn’t quite add up though because The Chase took place in 2369. Nobody would have known about The Progenitors or their technology before that, so they were at least 14 years off with the plaque

– If this Enterprise has been caught in extradimensional space since at least 2355, that means it’s been there for over 800 years by the time it’s discovered. How does it still have power?

– It’s been discussed by the Disco production team that the Discovery-era Enterprise was designed so that it could eventually be refit into the TOS Enterprise. The ISS Enterprise was contemporary with Kirk’s version and was seen on screen in TOS in that configuration. Why is the version in this episode the Discovery one? I know the real-world explanation is that it was easier to just re-use that model to align with the sets, but we saw a TOS-era Constitution class USS New Jersey at the Fleet Museum in Picard, so they had that model available to use. Just a bit sloppy

– How did Stamets immediately know that the ship exiting the wormhole was the ISS Enterprise and not a different prime Constitution class ship?

Photon Torpedo

– The solution to hold the wormhole open for the Enterprise to escape was to remove the payload from the torpedoes and replace them with antimatter. Photon torpedoes are matter/antimatter weapons, so this is a little confusing. Are they taking out the matter and just loading them with more antimatter?

I don’t know that it’s been there for 855 years.. not sure if it’s kind of like the Nexus or the black hole in Trek 09, where time does things differently. My guess is, that’s how the people on board were able to integrate into society. Their doppelgängers were long deceased.

Here’s the other thing… if the idea of revolution started with Mirror Spock, and the crew of the Enterprise more or less went along with him.. this is a way of explaining how they didn’t spread the idea to teh rest of the Empire.. they were lost in space and didn’t have much, if any, influence off of their own ship.

But they did spread the idea enough to weaken the empire to the point where it could be conquered.

Yeah I was wondering that also. It’s possible since it was extradimensional space that it didn’t put them in exactly the same time that they left. Also odd that they said Dr. Cho went BACK to the Enterprise to hide the clue. That’s a pretty risky trip unless the wormhole was more stable back in the 24th century.

It is strongly implied, if not explicitly stated, that the wormhole’s instability was caused by the Burn. So, it had to be more stable in the 24th century.

they never said that the ship would be refited into the tos version as they said those 60’s sets and ship model design would not look good or belivable as from our future with modern filming cameras they said from the start they visually updated the mid 23rd century to fit better visually between ent era designs and tmp era designs mainly using Star Trek 5/6 as the basis for the tmp era side of the designs

as for the new jersey that was just a pandering memberberry easter egg for the fans that hate the visual updates and even blass has said he objected to using the 60’s design for the ship and pointed out that it should have used the snw model for it and that it was all on terry who was more interested in filling episodes with those easter eggs and memberberries like all the stuff on daystrom station and for having data come back instead of having a brand new soong type android that was exactly as alton soong designed it to be a amalgamation of data lore lal and himself

I feel like I’m seeing the same episode over and over, what a waste this series is became.

Great episode! This season has really been fantastic so far. The writing has been consistent, the acting of the principals is fantastic, and the pacing has been great.

I really loved the scenes with Rayner in command. That worked so well!

Loved getting the backstory about Moll and L’ak – it really did add layers to their characters and their story. And the reveal that L’ak was a Breen! I never saw that coming! Was great to know more about the most underdeveloped and mysterious alien race in Trek history.

Seeing the ISS Entreprise was a treat! I am guessing it was lost quite some time after mirror Spock took over from mirror Kirk. Nice Easter Egg… better than having some unknown ship in there.

Looking forward to the remaining episodes.

Did anyone else see “Morn” (or one of his species) sitting at the bar in Red’s?

Yes, I did catch that. It was a fun detail.

Seriously, an episode doesn’t go by without at least one eye roll over the touchy feely huggy share my feeling vibe that is shoe-horned into worst places. I wonder what this series would be like if Bryan Fuller had stayed on…

It would had been .. a Star Trek show, not this happy sad feeling sharing at all costs every single time somebody speaks.

I have a question because I’m really confused:

So discovery originally was set less than a decade before ToS. (And then they ended up far in the future)

The ISS enterprise is a reference to the ToS episode about the mirror universe. So that means the ISS enterprise is a contemporary with ToS and the USS enterprise, which means Dr Cho (who was expressly stated to be Terran) was about back in Kirk’s day.

However the progenitor technology and science in general was only discovered in TNG under Picard and i think it was expressly stated that the scientists that hid this research were originally asked to research it after the discovery by Picard in the first place.

TNG is set in the 24th century but ToS is set in the 23rd century – theirs about a hundred years between them.

So I’m trying to understand the timeline here because at the moment, from what I understand, it’s a human from the 23rd century somehow became a scientist on a study in the late 24th century and then stole the research and helped hide it with her 4 pals.

No the iss enterprise entered that anomaly in the mid 24th century sometime after 2355 going by the stardate on that plaque and the ship got unstuck in time via the anomaly and the refugees and survivors of mirror Saru’s revolt ended up in the late 31st century prime verse timeline sometime prior to the burn happening and then doctor Cho who was one of those survivors returned later to the ship to hide the clue there before leaving again and never returning and wiping all references to the ship from records so that it would not easily be found

I thought for sure the Real Captain Lorca would be found in the transporters.

What a waste of an episode… filler and feelings…. Rinse and repeat

What an empty, disappointing episode. Discovery feels smaller and smaller every season.

the basic idea of the episode was already good. and it would have been really great to connect the MU and the 32nd century. in the end, however, the solution and especially the writing was weak. there could have been so much more …

what really annoys me is how owo and bryce are said goodbye with a side sentence, “so long …” and so on. the way DISCO treats secondary characters is really sad at times. there should have been much more space for a bridge member like owo … sad. again and again we are given hints of interesting background stories, but then nothing else happens. that’s really lousy. compare that to the way supporting characters in earlier series were built up into really multi-faceted carriers of stories …!!

This episode was the perfect opportunity for the series to bring back Prime Universe Lorca.

Instead of having Mirror Saru be the one that brings the ISS Enterprise from the Mirror Universe to the Prime Universe, it should have been Lorca that does it.

Additionally, they could have revealed that Lorca was STILL onboard the ship, trapped in the transporter buffer like Scotty was in Relics.

IMAGES

Star Trek Arena Review
Star Trek Episode 18: Arena
Star Trek Episode 18: Arena
Arena
Battle Analysis!! Star Trek: Arena- Animated Breakdown!
Star Trek The Original Series Rewatch: “Arena”

VIDEO

Mr. Gorn
Arena
Arena // Star Trek: The Original Series Reaction // Season 1
Mentos Trek
Trek/Re-Trek: Star Trek TOS Episode 18 "Arena" Review & Discussion
Tarkov Arena

COMMENTS

Star Trek
It's only logical. Arena is a fascinating piece of Star Trek, because it's such an iconic and important piece of franchise history, despite the fact that it's far from the best that the show has to offer. Indeed, the basic premise of the show is rather generic science-fiction B-movie stuff. Kirk is forced to compete against a lizard-like ...
Doux Reviews: Star Trek: Arena
Brain is mightier than brawn. Mercy toward an enemy is the right thing to do, even if you're not sure they deserve it. I'll admit out of the gate that the Gorn doesn't wear well, and probably always looked like a guy in a bad monster suit and a psychedelic sixties outfit. But most of this episode was memorable and fun.
"Arena"
In-depth critical reviews of Star Trek and some other sci-fi series. Includes all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds. Also, Star Wars, the new Battlestar Galactica, and The Orville.
Flashback
Flashback | Recap | Star Trek: The Original Series S1E18: "Arena". The Earth Outpost on Cestus III is completely destroyed by an unknown alien vessel that struck viciously and then fled. The Enterprise must give chase. Just as Captain Kirk and his crew are on the cusp of capturing the vessel, they're stopped by a third party, a seemingly ...
"Star Trek" Arena (TV Episode 1967)
Arena: Directed by Joseph Pevney. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, George Takei. For bringing hostility into their solar system, a superior alien race brings Captain Kirk into mortal combat against the reptilian captain of an alien ship he was pursuing.
"Star Trek" Arena (TV Episode 1967)
User Reviews. Although it may seem like a silly story on the surface (in essence, Kirk fights against a man-sized reptile), Arena is actually one of the best Star Trek episodes, being an insightful critique on the unnecessary casualties of war. The episode begins with the destruction of a Federation outpost, which prompts Kirk to go after the ...
Star Trek: "The Squire Of Gothos" / "Arena"
Title. "The Squire Of Gothos" / "Arena". Score. A. Episode. 18. There's the universe, and the universe is basically everything. Inside the universe are things called galaxies—and there are a ton ...
Star Trek Episode Review Arena
Star Trek Episode Review Arena Jan 21, 2016 4 min read 2016-01 StarTrek Gorn Arena 2016. Episode Title: Arena; Star Trek Type: TOS; Original Air Date: 19 January 1967; Teleplay: Gene L Coon; Story By: Frederic Brown; Directed By: Joseph Pevney; The episode begins with the Enterprise in orbit of Cestus III. Commodore Travers requests a tactical ...
Review of Arena Remastered
April 15, 2024 | Actor Talks "Authentic" Scotty On 'Star Trek: Strange New Worlds'; Season 3 Production Passes Milestone Search for: Review of Arena Remastered
Star Trek Episode 18: Arena
Concluding Comments. "Arena" contains an intellectually-stimulating narrative that benefits from clever writing and riveting battle scenes. For those who can easily overlook outdated special effects, this episode will have much to offer in terms of storytelling and humanistic philosophy. Overall Quality: 10/10.
Review: Arena (1989)
Arena far outshines any Star Trek episode for sheer variety in aliens, hell more so than the modern alien madness Valerian and The City of a Thousand Planets. Fuck, considering that Arena was all done with conventional make-up effects and no CGI, that's impressive.
Review of Star Trek: The Original Series Episode "Arena"
In conclusion, "Arena" remains a standout episode that encapsulates the essence of Star Trek's thought-provoking narratives. Through its exploration of themes, character dynamics, and the complexities of interstellar relations, the episode continues to captivate audiences, reminding us of the enduring appeal of the original series.
Arena (episode)
Bobby Clark later reprised his Gorn performance from "Arena" in the Bring Back... Star Trek documentary in 2009. William Shatner also fought a Gorn in an "Arena" parody to advertise the 2013 Star Trek video game. The same video game, which featured an attack by the Gorn in the alternate reality, used this episode's title as a chapter title.
Dissecting Trek Episode 29: Arena (Star Trek the original series Review
A Review for Arena an episode of Star Trek the original series featuring the iconic Kirk vs The Gorn fight. A third party forces Kirk into combat with the re...
Star Trek Episode Review: Arena (1967)
Star Trek Episode Review: Arena (1967) by StevenHelmer. A review of the television episode that first aired January 19, 1967, Synopsis: The Enterprise discovers a human outpost has been completely obliterated and, after a short fight with the lizard-like Gorn, pursue the alien ship in an attempt to destroy it. However, another alien race, the ...
Filming of "Arena"
Odds were most of the Star Trek cast and crew were "hitting the hay" before The Big Valley cleared the air. They all had an early morning call. ... Joan Crosby previewed "Arena" for her syndicated "TV Scout" column. Among the newspapers to carry the review on January 19, 1967 was the Edwardsville Intelligencer, serving Edwardsville ...
Star Trek (S1E18) Review
Star Trek The Original Series Arena review from the Salty Nerds has them admiring William Shatner and his double-hammer fist as he goes toe-to-toe with the G...
Arena (Star Trek: The Original Series)
"Arena" is the eighteenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Gene L. Coon (based on a 1944 short story of the same name by Fredric Brown) and directed by Joseph Pevney, the episode was first broadcast on January 19, 1967.. In the episode, while pursuing a Gorn vessel for an apparently unprovoked attack on a Federation outpost ...
Star Trek: The Original Series "Arena" Review
Ted Mader has rewatched Star Trek: The Original Series, Season 1, Episode 19 "Arena" (1967), as part of a Ted Trek 60s TV rewatch podcast series. Joined by s...
"Star Trek" Arena (TV Episode 1967)
An alien race, the Gorn, a reptilian species who resemble large crocodiles with sharp fangs and beehive eyes, have completely destroyed every living thing. Kirk's friends are all dead. During a shootout, Kirk and the five crewmen try to plan strategy. They attack Gorn formations with mortar fire and force them to withdraw.
Star Trek S1 E18 "Arena" / Recap
Recap /. Star Trek S1 E18 "Arena". You might have heard of this one. Original air date: January 20, 1967. The Enterprise is invited to visit an outpost near the edge of Federation space; Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and three Redshirts beam down at the outpost commander's behest — only to discover that the invitation is a pre-recorded ruse; the ...
Episode Preview: Arena
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"Star Trek Timelines" Review, Tips, Strategies, and Gripes
Basically, the ability to freeze time before the catastrophe hits and see how or if it can be avoided is intriguing to me. Star Trek Timelines offers none of this. Or at best, fragmented pieces of it. At its core, the game is a collectible trading card game. Today, there over 500 possible crew members.
REVIEW: 'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5 Episode 6
Furthermore, Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6 delves into Dr. Culber's introspective journey. This sheds light on his unresolved existential crisis and the notion of finding purpose ...
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Episode 6 Review
Star Trek: Discovery (mostly) gets its final season back on track after last week's flashback-filled snoozefest, but Michael and company's search for the next clue hits a snag when the trail ...
Recap/Review: 'Star Trek: Discovery' Goes On A Spiritual Journey In
The weather control interface was in the Denobulan language, first seen on Star Trek: Enterprise. If Kovich's 21st century legal pad is made of acid-free paper, then it could indeed survive for ...
'Star Trek: Discovery' season 5 episode 6 goes old school and ...
Get all the Star Trek content you can possibly handle with this free trial of Paramount Plus. Watch new shows like Star Trek: Discovery and all the classic Trek movies and TV shows too. Plans ...
Preview 'Star Trek: Discovery' Episode 506 With New Images. Trailer And
The second half of the fifth and final season of Star Trek: Discovery arrives on Thursday with the sixth episode, and we have details, new photos, a trailer, and a clip WITH SPOILERS.. Episode 6 ...
Long-lost first model of the USS Enterprise from 'Star Trek' boldly
1 of 8 | . The first model of the USS Enterprise is displayed at Heritage Auctions in Los Angeles, April 13, 2024. The model — used in the original "Star Trek" television series — has been returned to Eugene "Rod" Roddenberry, the son of "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry, decades after it went missing in the 1970s.
Recap/Review: 'Star Trek: Discovery' Reflects On Its Choices In
"Mirrors" Star Trek: Discovery Season 5, Episode 5 - Debuted Thursday, April 25, 2024 Written by Johanna Lee & Carlos Cisco Directed by Jen McGowan. A solid episode with plenty of lore and ...