Star Trek 1.10 (The Corbomite Maneuver)

First Aired: November 10, 1966


Cast:
Anthony Call (Lt. Dave Bailey)
Clint Howard (Balok)

Writer: Jerry Sohl

Another early one (at least in production terms. It must be. Uhura's back in yellow for this one). I like the start of the episode - Kirk is not on the bridge when everything kicks off - you see that he doesn't live there, which we don't really see as the series progresses. It's nice to see the others dealing with the situation then calling their Captain when things seem to be getting out of hand. There's also a really unusual (and really cool) hand held shot as Kirk walks from the turbolift onto the bridge. You get a much better idea of the size of the bridge, and it suddenly seems a lot more real than it has before. In fact, this whole episode is set on the Enterprise, and sometimes episodes that do this seem cheap and a bit dull, however on this one it works and helps to create a somewhat (and increasing) claustrophobic feeling as you watch the show. The Corbomite bluff is nice, in fact it is one of the moments I most remember as a kid when watching the original series. It's also nice to see McCoy seriously challenge Kirk on his actions regarding Bailey, although I'm guessing he doesn't go through with it.

Some less cool things. Firstly, Bailey is obviously not coping with what is going on, and should have been removed from the bridge as soon as he showed signs of this (and he really showed plenty). Also, the green aliens (which I think are used as the final still in the end credits for most of the run of this series) look great static, but rather than use a person in makeup they used a puppet, which looks dreadful, especially when it "speaks".

This episode is what The Next Generation producers would have called a bottle show - one that cost very little to make, as it only uses existing sets and has a minimal guest cast. These shows are usually a bit crap, mostly because it only uses existing sets and has a minimal guest cast. This goes to show every rule has an exception - whilst a little slow in the middle, this is a nice episode. Even the twist (that the alien is not actually a green monstrosity but a cute bald kid) is not as annoying as it sounds on paper!

All in all, not bad at all.

Crew Deaths: 0
Total Crew Deaths So Far: 19
Score: 7/10