Trek Review: “The Corbomite Maneuver”

We have arrived at the first Star Trek episode to be filmed after it was sold to NBC. This episode (and to a lesser degree, “Mudd’s Women”, the next episode filmed after this one) stands out as different from the episodes that followed in very subtle, and some not-so-subtle ways.

The story takes place almost entirely on the Enterprise, and involves Kirk having to outsmart and outguess a would-be enemy known as Balok of the First Federation ship, the Fesarius. What ends up happening is a test of Kirk’s intuition and resiliency. Thankfully for everyone involved, he passes with flying colors.

Now about those differences. First up:

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Check out that huge collar on Spock’s uniform.  Leonard Nimoy’s costume had to be in two halves so it could be taken off without damaging his time consuming makeup job.

Next:

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Uhura’s gold uniform.  She also wore this in “Mudd’s Women” before she changed to her red uniform with her appearance in “The Man Trap” (the 4th episode filmed in season one.)  I don’t know why they changed the color.  The best reason I can think of is that the red complemented her beauty more than the gold did.  Or at least that’s what I think.

Finally, from the “Before They Were Stars” department:

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Yes, that’s Ron Howard’s brother Clint as Balok.  I guess it pays to know people at Desilu.  After all, they did film “The Andy Griffith Show” at Desilu in Culver City.

The 1966 viewer in me would find this whole episode riveting and very fascinating.  It’s a great “ship in a bottle” bottle show.  It’s more emotionally intriguing in many aspects, albeit Kirk, McCoy, Spock and guest star Anthony Call as the navigator, Bailey.

Next week, we come upon an episode, which at least from the preview, made a lot of people probably say, “What the heck is that footage of those characters I don’t recognize!?!?”