TOS - 1.14 - Court Martial

Star Trek enters the word of courtroom drama when Kirk is put on trial for apparently causing the death of one of Lt Cdr Benjamin Finney, the Enterprise's records office. It is alleged that Kirk is motivated in this since Finney is said to have held a grudge against Kirk for an incident in the past that resulted in Finney being demoted and affecting his subsequent career.

For the most part, "Court Martial" is an entertaining and successful attempt to merge Star Trek with another popular drama genre and it has a clever twist when it is revealed that Finney is not actually dead, having faked his death in order to punish Kirk. It is only when one actually things about the plot later that it doesn't really hang together with somewhat contradictory details about Kirk and Finney's relationship, given their apparent previous closeness in the past and Finney's absolute raving madness when he is revealed. The role of Finney's duaghter is also somewhat confused - she starts off angry with Kirk for supposedly killing her father, before later becoming reconciled with him for no apparent reason. This did lead me to suspect that she might actually be involved somehow, but I think this was more a result of the somewhat torturous scripting process that the episode went through, rather than being a clever red herring.

We meet an old flame of Kirk's in the form of Lt Areel Shaw (the first of many!). In a clever touch, it is revealed that she is prosecuting her old boyfriend. Shaw is probably one of the strongest and most successful female characters to have appeared in the show to this point - she is not patronised by the script and does her job to the best of her ability, rather than being influenced by Kirk's charms.

Kirk's legal counsel is another successful character - an amusing old school lawyer called Samuel T Cogley who believes in books rather than computers which makes for a nice counterpoint with the fact that evidence against Kirk is all coming from the Enterprise's computer including a video recording that shows the incident in a manner that is contrary to Kirk's memory. Indeed, this element of the plot seems amazingly prescient in the world of 2019 when there is increasing awareness of the danger of "deep fakes".

The fact that the Enterprise's own evidence appears to have been changed does at one point seem to suggest some sort of conspiracy against Kirk, with Shaw indicating that Starfleet wants to make an example of Kirk, suggesting that it is not necessarily a completely benevolent organisation. The face of Starfleet here is Commodore Stone, who heads the enquiry against Kirk and who has somewhat unclear motivations, especially given his frequently changing attitudes to the accused. Of course, it is ultimately revealed that Finney is behind everything and acting alone so the show isn't quite ready to start asking questions about is institutions...

Planetary Gazetteer

The episode takes place mainly on Starbase 11 which is located on an un-named mainly. This is the first time that we see a Starbase, which would later become space stations and therefore probably a more practical location for undertaking repairs to starships.

Cogley’s speech listing documents that mention human rights include the “Fundamental Declarations of the Martian colonies” and “the Statutes of Alpha III”

Starship Spotting

There is a status board in Commodore Stone's office which lists the registry numbers of ten starships including the Enterprise. This presumably represents all of the starships which are being repaired at Starbase 11. One of these is named as the Intrepid, which is lower priority than the Enterprise.

Kirk and Finney previously served together on the Republic, number 1371. Kirk was an ensign at this time and Finney was a lieutenant.

General Observations

• The episode takes place between Stardates 2947.3 and 2950.1. The incident that supposedly caused Finney's death took place on Stardate 2945.7.
• Sulu and Scotty do not appear in the episode. Sulu's place at the helm is taken by Lt Hansen. I would if he is any relation to Commander Hansen from "Balance Of Terror"?
• This is the first episode in which the organisation that operates the Enterprise is named as Starfleet Command. This is of course the name that would become fixed after a number of earlier attempts to establish a controlling organisation (UESPA in "Charlie X," Space Control in "Miri" and the Star Service in "The Conscience Of The King").
• Commodore Stone wears an insignia that is a multi-pointed star which appears to be one that is worn by Starbase personnel. The crewmen from other starships that taunt Kirk in the bar all wear delta insignia that is the same as that displayed by the Enterprise crew.
• McCoy holds the rank of Lieutenant Commander and an expert in space psychiatry. It is made explicit that Spock is a Lieutenant Commander and both First Officer and Science Officer of the Enterprise.
• Spock's race is again referred as "Vulcanian", rather than just Vulcan as would used later.
• Kirk is the very first starship captain to go on trial.
• The Enterprise has a Personnel Officer who is an un-named ensign. Finney was Records Officer.
• It is revealed that Finney has been hiding on the Enterprise all along, in presumably a very good hiding place. The method used to locate him is ridiculously convoluted - the starship is evacuated apart from the key personnel with McCoy then tracking everyone's heart beat and removing them from the monitoring on an individual basis. Clearly no one has heard of internal sensors at this point!
• The episode is pretty talky for much of its duration, so its inevitable that we get a big fight between Kirk and Finney. Unfortunately, the direction makes it very clear that this is a couple of stuntmen, and not William Shatner and Richard Webb.