One of the things I love the most is Courtroom Drama, and when mixed with Science Fiction, it becomes a feast.
What happens here, as Kirk is accused of negligence in the death of a crewman, a friend... is that he is prosecuted by one of his girlfriends. But she provides him a defender, in the shape of Samuel T. Cogley played by the great Elisha Cook of The Maltese Falcon.
A similar thing happens to Jean-Luc Picard in the Next Generation episode "The Measure of a Man" - He is prosecuted vehemently in front of one of his ex girlfriends, who had prosecuted HIM when he lost his original ship, the Stargazer.
In this Original Series Courtroom, Cogley defends Kirk much like Perry Mason would have, with that little smile on his face.
It is only when Spock discovers that the Three-Dimensional Chess he had programmed into the Enterprise Computer has been Futzed with, also explains why the ships computer would record an event incorrectly.
This brings up new cogitations in Cogley's Brain, so he creates a Theatrical Fishing Expedition and Court Venue move to the Enterprise Bridge - To Prove his Cogitations. And these pan out.
The only thing I find pretty funny in this episode, in the Kirk-Finney fight scene, is the use of fighting doubles who have no resemblance to Shatner and Richard Webb. On Low-Resolution CRT Televisions, this could not be seen - But it CAN, in the remastered Enhanced Edition at 1080p.
Court Drama can be intriguing, if done right. It is done right in this episode. "The Menagerie" does not count, as it is actually the "Fiction" of a court martial, but here, this is a real case and Kirks career is on the line. It's a De-Facto mystery. My only issue is with the denouement, where Kirk kicks poor Finney's Arse. I mean, the poor guy, it was not a malice issue, but a madness issue.
I just have to make a comment on Richard Webb, who played "Finney" who was also in another world famous courtroom drama, 'Perry Mason' season 6 episode 22 "the case of the velvet claws" as Patricia Barry's husband who had been shot. In that episode he was a simple criminal who got his just desserts. But here before we see him in engineering, he is a voice being played back by the enterprise computer, and he is also a voice over the enterprise intercom which is needling and provoking Kirk. The man had a magnificent voice, in fact we could say that it was a handsome voice. But apparently he did not do very much voiceover work, he was your standard television actor during the 60s and 70s. But he had some pretty impressive movie credits as well, he was in the original "a star is born", uncredited of course, and he was also 'Sir Galahad' in 1954's "prince valiant". And also "Carson City" with Randolph Scott, he had a much better part in that. He was also an evil crook in a movie called "the invisible monster", but he was also noticeable in several movies from the 40s and 50s particularly "out of the past". He did a lot of film noir. His voice in this Star Trek episode is absolutely magnificent. It is because of this that I wish the final confrontation between Finney and Kirk would not have simply been a fistfight, because we actually develop empathy for his character during the course of the episode. In fact we can continue to have empathy for the character even after that final confrontation: because this wasn't simply just your average crew man, this was a crew member who had a deep friendship with Kirk to the point where he named his daughter after James Kirk. Which almost makes us wish that they had come back to this character later in the show, but it never happened.
As far as the Enhanced Edition, which I have always had a problem with because they edited some of the original photographic special effects but did not try to capture the spirit of those original shots, in this case the CGI artists actually do Justice to the exterior shots, where they added objects in the sky in orbit and people walking around in the buildings, in what had originally been simple matte painting shots. I am finding out, not all of these TOS episodes in the Enhanced Edition have been as Hamhandedly "reimagined" in the same terrible way that "Where No Man has Gone Before" had been, where they did not do homage to the original scene of the Enterprise "At the Galactic rim". This episode is one of the better Enhanced versions.
In fact they also did a pretty good job transferring those old-fashioned Matt paintings during "the menagerie" as well. But this episode has always been one of my favorite original series episodes, and because it uses two film noir actors, Elisha Cooke and Richard Webb, there is a slight film noir edge to this episode, and those 1960s style Matte paintings cement the film noir aspects. In fact that same image was later used in a Deep Space Nine episode.
What happens here, as Kirk is accused of negligence in the death of a crewman, a friend... is that he is prosecuted by one of his girlfriends. But she provides him a defender, in the shape of Samuel T. Cogley played by the great Elisha Cook of The Maltese Falcon.
A similar thing happens to Jean-Luc Picard in the Next Generation episode "The Measure of a Man" - He is prosecuted vehemently in front of one of his ex girlfriends, who had prosecuted HIM when he lost his original ship, the Stargazer.
In this Original Series Courtroom, Cogley defends Kirk much like Perry Mason would have, with that little smile on his face.
It is only when Spock discovers that the Three-Dimensional Chess he had programmed into the Enterprise Computer has been Futzed with, also explains why the ships computer would record an event incorrectly.
This brings up new cogitations in Cogley's Brain, so he creates a Theatrical Fishing Expedition and Court Venue move to the Enterprise Bridge - To Prove his Cogitations. And these pan out.
The only thing I find pretty funny in this episode, in the Kirk-Finney fight scene, is the use of fighting doubles who have no resemblance to Shatner and Richard Webb. On Low-Resolution CRT Televisions, this could not be seen - But it CAN, in the remastered Enhanced Edition at 1080p.
Court Drama can be intriguing, if done right. It is done right in this episode. "The Menagerie" does not count, as it is actually the "Fiction" of a court martial, but here, this is a real case and Kirks career is on the line. It's a De-Facto mystery. My only issue is with the denouement, where Kirk kicks poor Finney's Arse. I mean, the poor guy, it was not a malice issue, but a madness issue.
I just have to make a comment on Richard Webb, who played "Finney" who was also in another world famous courtroom drama, 'Perry Mason' season 6 episode 22 "the case of the velvet claws" as Patricia Barry's husband who had been shot. In that episode he was a simple criminal who got his just desserts. But here before we see him in engineering, he is a voice being played back by the enterprise computer, and he is also a voice over the enterprise intercom which is needling and provoking Kirk. The man had a magnificent voice, in fact we could say that it was a handsome voice. But apparently he did not do very much voiceover work, he was your standard television actor during the 60s and 70s. But he had some pretty impressive movie credits as well, he was in the original "a star is born", uncredited of course, and he was also 'Sir Galahad' in 1954's "prince valiant". And also "Carson City" with Randolph Scott, he had a much better part in that. He was also an evil crook in a movie called "the invisible monster", but he was also noticeable in several movies from the 40s and 50s particularly "out of the past". He did a lot of film noir. His voice in this Star Trek episode is absolutely magnificent. It is because of this that I wish the final confrontation between Finney and Kirk would not have simply been a fistfight, because we actually develop empathy for his character during the course of the episode. In fact we can continue to have empathy for the character even after that final confrontation: because this wasn't simply just your average crew man, this was a crew member who had a deep friendship with Kirk to the point where he named his daughter after James Kirk. Which almost makes us wish that they had come back to this character later in the show, but it never happened.
As far as the Enhanced Edition, which I have always had a problem with because they edited some of the original photographic special effects but did not try to capture the spirit of those original shots, in this case the CGI artists actually do Justice to the exterior shots, where they added objects in the sky in orbit and people walking around in the buildings, in what had originally been simple matte painting shots. I am finding out, not all of these TOS episodes in the Enhanced Edition have been as Hamhandedly "reimagined" in the same terrible way that "Where No Man has Gone Before" had been, where they did not do homage to the original scene of the Enterprise "At the Galactic rim". This episode is one of the better Enhanced versions.
In fact they also did a pretty good job transferring those old-fashioned Matt paintings during "the menagerie" as well. But this episode has always been one of my favorite original series episodes, and because it uses two film noir actors, Elisha Cooke and Richard Webb, there is a slight film noir edge to this episode, and those 1960s style Matte paintings cement the film noir aspects. In fact that same image was later used in a Deep Space Nine episode.