The Good: Basic idea is not bad, Yarnek is surprisingly cool, Moments of character
The Bad: Poor execution of pretty standard plot, Guest acting
The Basics: When the U.S.S. Enterprise meets Abraham Lincoln, he leads Kirk and Spock into a battle to illustrate what good and evil are to an alien race.
As Star Trek wound down, it seems at times like the producers knew it was on its way out. Creatively, the show seemed to sputter out near the end and there were moments that were derivative of earlier episodes, yet lacking in the punch or intrigue of the earlier ideas. The characters began to become blandly good and the actors seemed to relax some on their standards of pushing their performances in new and intriguing ways. Perhaps the best example of the late-hour lapses of genuine creativity came in one of the last three episodes, "The Savage Curtain."
The Enterprise has taken up orbit around a volcanic planet Excalbia when Abraham Lincoln appears on the main viewscreen and requests to come aboard. As Captain Kirk had been thinking of Lincoln - who happens to be a childhood hero of Kirk's - the captain opts to humor the being, who comes aboard and appears to be exactly who he says he is, despite the obvious reasons why he cannot be. Lincoln invited Kirk and Spock down to the planet surface and, much to their amazement, a habitable area forms. Beaming down, the trio meets Surak, the Vulcan father of logic, whom Spock respects, but refuses to acknowledge as anything other than the "Image of Surak." The quartet is confronted by Yarnek, a being made of living rock who introduces them to four of the galaxy's greatest villains: Genghis Khan, Colonel Green, Kahless and Zora. Yarnek wishes to study good and evil and sets them into a battle for survival with the Enterprise being leveraged against Kirk and Spock's winning!
"The Savage Curtain" bears a number of resemblances to "Arena" (click here for that review!) from the first season of Star Trek, with the only substantive difference being the number of people involved. Instead of a one on one battle with a little moral at the end, "The Savage Curtain" is a battle royale and the moral of the episode is somewhat twisted. Actually, the biggest detraction to this episode is its moral, especially considering how the episode gets there and that it is essentially the correct conclusion given the scenario.
Without giving away who wins in the great contest of good vs. evil that Yarnek compels Kirk and Spock to join in, the Excalbian ends up disappointed because good and evil ultimately use the same methods to achieve their goals. This is a ridiculous statement based on the mechanics of the specific contest Yarnek itself set up! In other words, given the resources at hand in the habitable section of the planet, the protagonists and antagonists both act essentially the same way, fashioning weapons out of what is available and fighting for survival against their adversaries.
"The Savage Curtain" is lame in virtually every one of its fight scenes. It's the Star Trek version of a cafeteria food fight with foam rocks and spears instead of milk cartons and gummy bears. The fight sequences and the strange absurdity to the absolutism of the pageant is enough to make the viewer cringe.
Honestly, "The Savage Curtain" could have been made better if even one of the villains had had an ounce of true villainy in him or her. While Surak takes the high road - like a Vulcan - and opts for pacifism and refuses to fight, it would have been great to see one of the adversaries do the same for a much more cynical reason. After all, if Kahless had been a Klingon like Klingons became once the franchise progressed, it would have been more than reasonable for him to say "There's no honor in killing these people!" Given that one of the villains is known for genocide, it would have been refreshing if they had said, "There's not enough of them for me to even bother with" or "eh, they're not the race I hate." But, alas, in "The Savage Curtain," Gene Roddenberry created a pretty monolithic front and the result is a somewhat monotonous episode.
Part of the reason for the episode feeling rather banal - other than the fact that fans of the series will have seen something remarkably like it before! - is that there is no genuine character development. For sure, we learn that Kirk has a childhood hero and he still gets giddy with the thought of meeting him in real life as an adult. Abraham Lincoln is not a bad choice for Kirk, but it's a pretty obvious and American ethnocentric one. Similarly, Spock's respect for Surak makes a great deal of sense. But as far as character goes, it's hard to say "The Savage Curtain" actually develops Kirk and Spock any. Indeed, if one were to guess which side of a fight involving good and evil the pair would end up on, most people would probably guess they represent the good elements. Therefore, they are put into a role where they are not truly challenged. If Kirk, Spock, Kahless and Colonel Green had been forced to wipe out the other four or else the Enterprise would be destroyed, that could have made the episode interesting and truly work!
The Abraham Lincoln character has more chance to express himself in a genuine fashion than Kirk and Spock do. Similarly, Colonel Green is characterized as conniving and manipulative in a way that makes him interesting, before he degenerates into simply throwing rocks.
What does work is Yarnek. Yarnek is one of the more intriguing alien villain-of-the-weeks that Star Trek created, though it is certainly one of the more neglected ones. It is a squat rock creature with claws that is just begging to be made into an action figure! Yarnek's eyes were lights that lit up when it talked and while it might sound '60's campy, it actually is a pretty well-executed costuming effect.
What is not well-executed is the bulk of the performances. "The Savage Curtain" relies on guest stars that are either lackluster (Barry Atwater's Surak) or window-dressing as in the case of Carol Daniels Dement's sneering villain Zora. While Lee Berger gives a fair enough performance as Abraham Lincoln, he does not quite sell the performance as convincing. In other words, Berger seems like a guy playing Abraham Lincoln instead of Abraham Lincoln. The difference is more than semantic; Berger's Lincoln lacks any sense of leadership qualities and it becomes difficult to believe in the reality of the Lincoln character as a result.
In a similar vein, William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy fail to bring their a-games to this episode. Instead, Shatner smirks through the opening and carries himself with a far too relaxed posture once he finds himself embroiled in the life or death struggle against the others. When the rocks star flying, Shatner actually looks like he might be having fun, which robs the scenes of their desired emotional resonance.
Leonard Nimoy seems to be going through the motions of acting the way Spock briefly takes up true pacifism with Surak. The usually dependable actor seems to sleepwalk his way through this performance and it takes a mediocre premise and sucks it down further.
Indeed, the only people who might like "The Savage Curtain" are the younger members of the audience, for whom the fight sequences might seem engaging and the lack of intellectual complexity to the episode might just be at the right speed for them. Fans of drama will expect more and fans of science fiction will likely be disappointed by the lack of a twist or any true plot (or at least one they haven't seen before). The only other people who might want to take in the episode are the Star Trek historians. After all, Kahless pops back up in Star Trek: The Next Generation's "Rightful Heir" and Surak appears in the fourth season of Star Trek: Enterprise. Devoted fans might enjoy seeing the contrast in characters.
But for the rest of us, this is a lot of talk about good and evil broken up by some of the silliest fight scenes to grace television ever.
[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third and final season by clicking here!
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5/10
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© 2010, 2008 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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