Court Martial by: Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos, from a story by: Don M. Mankiewicz, and directed by: Marc Daniels

 

“Court Martial” is written by Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carbatsos, from a story by Don M. Mankiewicz, and is directed by Marc Daniels.  It was filmed under production code 15, was the 20^th episode of Star Trek Season 1, and was broadcast on February 2, 1967.

 

There is something interesting about older pieces of television that set up their leading men as characters with little flaws.  The leading man in a story is often meant to be a paragon of their respective story, something that Star Trek has been keen to avoid in the way it portrays Captain James T. Kirk.  “The Enemy Within” is a perfect example of an early episode that examines Kirk’s flaws by extracting them into a different person and “Miri” does an excellent job of seeing him begin to break under extreme pressure (despite being more of a mixed bag episode).  “Court Martial”, however, stands out in putting Kirk into the mold of the perfect leading man with impeccable judgement who could never do anything wrong.  The plot obviously involves the court martial of Captain Kirk for the death of Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney during an ion storm with the record showing only a yellow alert and not the emergency red alert which would allow Kirk to jettison the pod which he did.  This is all recorded in the computer banks of the Enterprise which cannot be at fault.  The episode’s plot thrust is unraveling the mystery through a sequence of courtroom scenes where writers Don M. Mankieweicz and Steven W. Carabatsos have Spock and McCoy adamant that Kirk is a good man who could never have made the mistake or had the lapse in judgement to lead to the death of Finney.

 

There is an issue with the way “Court Martial” is presented.  The episode opens in media res, the Enterprise already being on Starbase 11 for repairs from the ion storm and Finney already dead.  This means that all we learn about Finney is from the characters themselves during the court martial itself, his daughter played by Alice Rawlings convinced Kirk is responsible because they apparently hated each other.  There is this brilliant detail that in Kirk’s adherence to the rules, a mistake by Finney reported by Kirk to Starfleet led to Finney being kept in a lower position.  The problem with this comes from the fact that all of this information is communicated second hand through exposition instead of allowing Finney to be a living, breathing character.  The viewer is already primed to know that Kirk wouldn’t have endangered the man’s life while the episode itself is trying its hardest to communicate that as a distinct possibility.  Combine this with the fact that the information isn’t really shown to us, it makes the first third of the episode quite the slog to get through.  Kirk does have some excellent scenes with the prosecutor, an ex-girlfriend Areel Shaw, played by Joan Marshall, who is perhaps the most fleshed out of the Kirk love interests so far.  Shaw is allowed to have a character of her own and there is a genuine sense that Mankiewicz and Carabatsos have written her to have her own life and personality outside of being a love interest.

 

The actual court martial sequence is particularly fun with Percy Rodriguez’s Commodore Stone providing a clipped and harsh judge while guest star Elisha Cook Jr. as defending attorney Samuel T. Cogley is a delight in every scene.  Cook Jr. gives Cogley this utterly eccentric and over the top reliance on physical books over technology that makes “Court Martial” feel like it is going for a man vs. machine plot that sadly doesn’t become nearly as fleshed out as it could be, but his legal speeches and defense of Kirk, despite many adlibs, are great.  The direction from Marc Daniels is also incredibly interesting to watch, formatting the computer footage from three distinct angles doing an excellent job to mimic what security cameras could actually be shooting.  The final third also includes a tense reveal that Finney is alive and a great action set piece in the engine rooms where Kirk of course saves the day, outside of a very odd cut in the middle of the sequence as it’s clear while tense there are portions that ran long and had to be deleted for time.  Finney is played by Richard Webb who plays the man as utterly unhinged which while making the events of the episode clearly undercut, does lead to some great action.  Oddly enough, while this episode is focused on Kirk, it’s the performances from everyone who isn’t William Shatner that makes it work.

 

Overall, “Court Martial” is an episode that while clearly meant to be a bottle episode for budgetary reasons, isn’t nearly as effective as it could be due to having a trial plot that really needs the viewer to see the relationship that calls into question Kirk’s competency instead of leaving things just to be right at the end.  It’s a good episode, but it’s a very messy episode when split into its three story acts.  7/10.