Script: Don M. Mankiewicz and Steven W. Carabatsos
Director: Marc Daniels
Producer: Gene L. Coon
I think "Court Martial" is a pretty significant episode, although it's also very flawed.
What makes it worthwhile is the way that, like "Balance of Terror", it engages in some worldbuilding.
After fifteen episodes of vague terminology about who exactly the Enterprise works for, we finally hear about Starfleet, Starfleet Command, and Starbases. We meet a flag officer, Commodore Stone, who commands the Starbase. And he's played by Percy Rodriguez, a dark skinned man, a full four years before a man of color would ascend to flag rank in the US Navy. We see a court-martial and thus it's attendant proceedings, and in the course of it learn a lot about some of the main characters when their service records are read out. We get a bit more backstory for Kirk.
This is all great stuff, really helping to flesh out the series and it's world. And the central premise that Kirk is placed on court-martial after the death of one of his men is great. The prosecuting JAG being one of his ex-girlfriends is also a great idea. So it's just too bad that so much of the drama really falls short.
First off, the central nature of the crime is never really adequately explained. The ship was in an ion storm, an officer named Finney was in a pod, and Kirk jettisoned it and he died. Now it's basically implied that Finney was in the pod to take readings on the storm and it's implied that if Kirk hadn't jettisoned the pod, the ship would somehow have been destroyed, but the mechanics aren't very clear. The issue at hand is Kirk waiting until the last possible moment to jettison, since Finney was inside the pod, which begs the question, why didn't Finney just come back inside? Anyways, Kirk said he jettisoned at red alert, but the ship's logs say it was at yellow alert, meaning no emergency condition existed, and what Kirk did was murdered.
It's also stated that no starship captain has ever been court-martialed, and while the intent of that line is to increase the idea that starship captains are "paragons of virtue" and also emphasize the scandal Kirk faces, it's a ludicrous idea. Courts-martial happen for a variety of reasons as a matter of standard procedure, including if a captain loses a ship. And we will see going forward that starship captains who aren't in command of the Enterprise don't seem any more like paragons who never make mistakes.
It's suggested Kirk made a mistake under pressure, and if he agreed to that interpretation he'd be let off easy - that is, a ground assignment but not drummed out of the service. But Kirk won't have that, and takes it to trial. In essence, it's his word against the computer's. It looks bad, because as it turns out, Finney hated Kirk for years due to an incident between them long ago, and somehow this is Kirk's motivation to kill him.
So of course it turns out Finney is still alive and falsified the computer records to disgrace Kirk and get his revenge. Spock proves the computer's been tampered with when he wins five games of 3D chess in a row, and Kirk proves Finney's still alive through a ridiculously overdramatic sequence wherein everyone is ordered to leave the ship so that the ship's auditory sensor reveals Finney's heartbeat hiding down in engineering.
How did Finney plan this? Did he know that they'd be entering into this ion storm? Why would he fake his own death when he had a young daughter alive and waiting for him? What was the endgame here? And while Elisha Cook Jr. gives a good enough performance as Samuel T. Cogley Attorney-at-Law, Kirk's anti-computer pro-book basically-Amish lawyer, his big impassioned speech where he argues for the rights of man over the machine is basically saying that Kirk's rights have been trampled on because he hasn't "faced his accuser" which is used as a pretense to get the trial board onto the ship to prove Finney's still alive. What?
It's an episode with a lot of drama, new information, new characters, sights and sounds. But it doesn't really hold up to any sort of logical analysis. A lot of stuff that happens is too convenient or otherwise too obviously arranged for the plot's benefit. Which isn't to say it's not a clever or entertaining episode. It is. It's just not the great legal drama it wants to be, and it's also maybe the victim of not holding up to repeat viewings fifty years later, a fate no Star Trek episode ever really expected.
Still, it's definitely worth it as the moment in the series when a lot of the worldbuilding around Starfleet starts to settle into place, despite it's melodramatic excesses being used to pave over its plot holes.
Rating: 3 out of 4
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