- Title: Star Trek – The Corbomite Maneuver
- wiki: link
Today’s Throwback Thursday post takes us boldly back to where no man had gone before and the original five-year mission of the U.S.S. Enterprise. The first episode of Star Trek produced after its two pilot episodes, “The Corbomite Maneuver” was the tenth episode aired due to the number of special effects involved in the episode. It will mark the first, but certainly not the last, time a ship bearing the name Enterprise would come across something unusual in space. In “The Corbomite Maneuver” that turns out to be an unusual cube blocking the ship’s path. Unable to remove the ship from the path of the cube, and being bombarded with radiation, Kirk (William Shatner) orders the destruction of the cube which leads to all new problems for the crew of the Enterprise after they begin to search for the origins of the crew.
At the beginning of the show’s production, there are some curiosities with the episode including our less-than-professional navigator in Lieutenant Bailey (Anthony D. Call) who, for someone who has raised through the ranks in Starfleet over several years, panics early and often over the course of the episode even with only minimal provocation. Bailey’s hesitation and cowardice may help sell the severity of the sudden threat, and show some of the humanity of the crew underneath the Starfleet uniform and discipline, and provides a point of contention between Kirk and Bones (DeForest Kelley) over the man’s ability to perform his duties, but I’ve always found it as an awkward plot device opening the door to several questions about the competence of the Enterprise’s crew and its Captain.
Along with the introduction of the show’s opening monologue at the start of the credits, several characters make their first appearances in the episode including DeForest Kelley, who marks the third doctor of the ship in as many episodes, along with both Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Yeoman Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). The episode sees the show continuing to adjust the uniforms from the show’s two pilot episodes including the addition of the black collars for all the main characters and the first skirt uniforms for the female members of the crew (although some of the extras can be seen wearing the older uniforms).
Continuing on its path, the Enterprise finds itself blocked by an unusual ship under command of the alien Balok (Clint Howard) who, deciding the primitives should be removed, starts a countdown to the destruction of the ship. The countdown provides a reason for a rising tension aboard the ship, and on the bridge, culminating in Kirk’s bluff to save the ship which gives the episode its title as Kirk teaches Spock (Leonard Nimoy) about poker. After breaking free of Balok’s ship, the away team heads aboard for the shock of the alien’s true appearance (appropriately weird, just as Gene Roddenberry wanted), and pounding home the ideals of Starfleet to seek out new life wherever it may be found.
