155: Star Trek TOS Season 1, "Court Martial"

[@stile8686]

Sean, great to hear you now have all the James Blish books and are planning to compare them to the viewed episodes. Its something I was thinking of doing myself and now I don't have to. I am looking forward to hearing your opinions.

[@kcollett]

Towards the end, there is a voice-over by Kirk of how a "beaten and sobbing" Finney told him about the sabotage. For some reason, the phrase "beaten and sobbing" has been indelibly inscribed somewhere on my brain, and sometimes pops out of my mouth to bemuse everybody within earshot.

[@aj_chan]

Wanted to highlight the new intro song for Trek in Time. You changed it up around year 3 of this podcast, similar to how TNG and DS9 changed their intros on Season 3

[@AnnoyingCritic-is7rp]

Why was there a courtroom drama? It could have been a mystery or a procedural where they get some clues and solve them. Then you find Finney at the end and they have a fight. The idea of generating conflict from a post-scarcity future is difficult, but it works when you're talking about the conflict a meritocracy can bring. This episode is great for its theme - as you guys suggest. I would add it is great for its world building, the characters, how they thought of Kirk in the past and his relationship with the prosecutor. It's wonderful that you have a science fiction show which has a positive future based on technology that is somehow also untrustable. And now that we have AI apps like Lensa, a picture is not worth a thousand words, And it's wonder we don't have more cases like the one with Finney and Kirk. And we are really entering a dangerous time.

[@aj_chan]

In the DS9 episode Past Tense, Sisko and Bashir look at a calendar in the San Francisco Sanctuary District A and see the date: Friday August 30, 2024. They have been sent back in time to just days before the Bell Riots. Real life has finally caught up to the date in this episode. It was aired Jan 2, 1995, and produced in 1994.

[@mark_loveless]

The Menagerie plot: Scotty wins an alien zoo in a drunken card game on shore leave, sells it, but secretly keeps one of the animals in his quarters after the sale. It goes fine except its urine is a form of acid that slowly eats through wires, and its feces is radioactive, and Scotty gets caught. However the feces is used as a fuel later on and saves the day, with Scotty famously saying "Well, shit happens" and everyone laughs.

[@Dan-Simms]

Um... so why is the pod jettison button right beside the red alert button? Right on the arm rest too, it's not like that would ever get hit by mistake from any sort of turbulence.

[@jdlewis3706]

This episode feels like it was made to placate the network by doing a story to appeal to mainstream audiences. As far as Star Trek courtroom drama episodes go, my favorite is the TNG episode, The Drumhead. Next week's very special 2 part episode, The Menagerie, is about when Mr. Spock leaves Starfleet to pursue his life-long dream to become a zookeeper, and Kirk & crew conspire to find a way to lure Mr. Spock back to Starfleet, and as a result, hijinks ensue! Today's reaction was great. I can't wait for the next one! ❤

[@PaleGhost69]

I was half confused for most of this episode. It wasn't until halfway in did they mention what pod, why it had to be manned or why it had to be jettisoned. The twist that the officer was still alive and planting evidence feels weird. I think it would have been a better story to explore how parents teach hate with Jame and Kirk. Or they could've just blame the space madness on the ion storm instead having to assume Ben was crazy and loose on the ship for a decade or two with no one knowing. They never tell us when the original accident took place so when was Jame born? Either way it lands, it raises some peculiar questions... Also, **Achievement unlocked: Caused Matt to uncontrollably snicker**

[@mark_loveless]

I was able to divorce myself from the attitude of someone who has seen a lot of more accurate and realistic lawyer-type shows over the years, and tried to remember that this was from an era where the wildly inaccurate original Perry Mason first run had ended in 1966. So I was somehow able to get around this for some reason, and I, like Sean, really enjoyed this episode despite the writing problems and the inaccurate law stuff.