First, let's describe the episode: After an 'ion storm' - which lead to the death of a crew member - damages the Enterprise, they hit a base for repairs. Filing a report on the incident, it is discovered that the computer record disagrees with Kirk's version of events and suggests that Kirk either wilfully or negligently killed the poor crew member. The head poobah is all, "Look, you dumb fucker, smile, nod, take a fall, and we'll refrain from locking you up, and just give you a shit job on the ground on some planet somewhere." Kirk is, obviously, all "Fuck you guys. I didn't do anything wrong; it wasn't MY fault!"
And we get a courtroom drama, where Kirk - with the assistance of a brilliant legal mind who is old and curmudgeonly and doesn't like computers - attempts to prove he ain't done nothin' wrong, while his ex-gf (now a high-falutin' attorney in the prosecutor's office of the Federation JAG) is forced to go against the wishes of her heart and try to prove he's a total dick.
Somewhat predictable, in that I sort of guessed what the dillio was early on, discarded it as too cheesy, but kept coming back to it as the only possible reconciliation of the facts that would lead to a positive ending. But who gives a shit? Predictability is a plus, as far as TV-shows are concerned. I think. All the evidence points that way, anyways. It was a fun episode. There was some stuff I was curious about that wasn't resolved - Kirk apparently tells a bald-faced lie to get the one-up on a baddy, and that seems out of character for him, generally speaking, and I'd also just like to know what the object-of-that-lie's reaction was to the whole situation - but the important shit is resolved in that by the end of the episode, the status quo is restored, and Kirk is an awesome good guy who ain't done nothin' wrong.
Okay: too civilized? This is a throway thing I noticed, and not really important (even by the standards of this blog), but apparently, in the future... justice has abandoned the gavel for the dinner-bell. Specifically, that 'ding... ding...' thing that Jeeves-esque "Butlers of the Old School" do in super-old movies. It was absolutely ridiculous, watching the proceedings of this super-serious Tribunal get underway with this silly sound. Justice is not a pussy, and justice does not serve cucumber sandwiches. The Federation has obviously become "too politically correct" or something. THE REPUBLICANS ARE RIGHT!
Okay, they're not. Neither are the Democrats, but that's not important now, and don't call me Surely.
Re: the whole 'as bad as the thing we hate' half of the shit I wanted to talk about... I now want to talk about it less, because it just seems like an awful lot of effort, and I'm so over this blog-entry. I want to drink more.
But in short, the Federation are the good guys. And here in this magical future wonderland, they're supposed to be enlightened and full of win. Instead, they're trying to shitcan the greatest err... Naval?... mind to ever enlist in a service, because they believe in computers, not people. And they pre-judge court trials. And they care more about the perception of their branch of service than they do about justice. Like, you could probably change less than twenty words in this hour of television and have a plot that demonstrated the evils of Soviet Russia.
And while that was not, maybe, a thing that would leap out at someone who wasn't already sort of weirded out by the whole Cold-Warness of the whole show, so far, the tiny way in which it was true for Star Trek is really easy to find in reality. Virtually no one argues that the fact that the USSR tried/claimed-to-try to feed all of the hungry, educate all of the populace, ensure both employment and subsistence to all of the populace, and ensure growth as far as economic, physical, and spiritual well-being was concerned, was a bad thing.
Well, okay, the right-wing in the U.S. is now probably totally capable of seeing a government with those goals as a bad thing.
But anyways, during the 60s, none of that was why communism was presented as being bad: The Red Menace wasn't the a menace because it wanted to give people bread. It was a menace because it dehumanized people, was autocratic, was dishonest and hypocritical, and ruined the lives of good people.
And all of those criticisms can be applied to both Star Fleet in this episode, and McCarthyist politics. Also, PATRIOT Act, etc., I have no interest in talking about current-day politics on this blog, but if you want to draw parallels, you can make a case for 'em.
That is amusing.
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