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"The Savage Curtain" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: TOS Season 3 (Patreon)

Published:
2024-12-27 19:00:09
Imported:
2026-06
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Follow along with me using your own copy of the episode!

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"The Savage Curtain" Full Reaction! - Star Trek: TOS Season 3

Comments

Greg

I've always really liked this episode, and think it's one of the better ones of Season 3 -- yes, they WILL spend money if they have to! But I admit a lot of my affection for this episode is due to my History degrees and my love of American History. The writers did their research -- Lincoln is depicted very well here, and the actor playing him also must have studied him cause he did a great job in the role. I could see why Kirk admires Lincoln so much, the two men are a lot alike in their personalities and how they see things. I also love the fact that Lincoln compares Kirk to a man he greatly admired, and one of MY personal hero's, General Grant, who was the savior of the Union with his battlefield wins and tactics during the Civil War and went on to be President himself. It's also very cool that we got to see Surek and learn more about Vulcan and how came to be, and this is the first time Khales, the founder of the Empire, is also shown -- although I feel like none of the 'evil' team was shown with as much detail and attention as the 'good' side and I also question their motives in working together. Great sets, great costumes, great acting, all what you expect from Star Trek, along with some really weird stuff going on which is classic Star Trek. Yes, the ending was not great, I prefer it when there's a clear resolution, but real life isn't always like that so I understand why they chose to end it the way they did. It's been said before that 'Good' and 'Evil' are just two sides of the same coin in how they go about achieving what they what, a point I think the episode strongly argues for. So time in the Star Trek universe is told by Stardates. In the original series it was just an afterthought -- tacked on in the script, and without any attention paid if it was a earlier number or not! It's also not explained very well. They flesh it out and expand it more in later shows, to the point where a person was appointed as the 'time keeper' whose job it was to keep track of Stardates and put the proper numbers in the script. Due to that, you can look at a Stardate for any ST show past the original series and the animated one and be like 'okay, this takes place in this month and this year' cause it's so accurate. However, despite what Kirk said, minutes are still used in his time, so you can just ignore that bit. :) In short, a very interesting and fun episode despite some flaws.

William Terry

Watch for the expression on bunny's face when Yarnek the rock creature shows up! Yarnek is a fine innovation in third season ST; TOS the Limited Budget. Four on four correspondence: Kirk vs Colonel Green; Lincoln vs Genghis Khan, interestingly & presumably as both were CinC, outranking everyone else. And Spock and Surrek vss the Klingon and the woman in the fur bikini. Notorious for the post-production decision to have Shatner mimic the voice of the Klingon when he says "Help me, Spock". Good acting especially the guy playing Lincoln. It's one of those roles many actors want to play, along with Queen Elizabeth the first. I read a book titled "Lincoln's Code and the Law of War" that explains that the concept of international law was invented around the time of the American Civil War. Before then the only remedy for someone committing a war crime against you was retaliation. The Civil War was when the idea of collateral damage was introduced, meaning that destruction of property and casualties were justified if they were committed during a war waged by civilian government in a democracy that furthered the goals of the democracy. The purpose of war went from conquest and subjugation to finding and overturning the enemy's means of waging war, to upset the apple cart, whether it's the army, the factories, the dear leader; the problem is deciding what it is. The result could be Sherman's March or the bombing of Dresden to take out the anti-aircraft positions. This was relevant in the sixties more than today, where getting access to the other side's passwords seems to be the objective.

Skyman's Follies

Bunny - you nailed this episode in 2 thoughts: "so that's it?" followed by your astute editor's observation that "Savage Curtain" boils down the battle between good and evil into the differences that each side is fighting for: the bad, for Power; the good for each other. So, this episode has something for everyone: cheesy fist-fights and a somewhat awkward ending (they ran off???), yet also some deep poignancy in Kirk's aforementioned answer to Yarnek's main question. Music trivia for this week: Lincoln's "fanfare" music was the last recorded (yes, it was taped, lol!) for the entire series. Next week: hold onto your hats!

dave zink

Hey Bunny , looks like you're doing well , don't worry about responding too quickly to our comments , although it's wonderful that you do ,anyway this is an ok episode , although that rock creature was unique -Abe Lincoln looked almost real *- anyway one more good episode then that's the end - if you go on to the animated series , DC Fontana wrote some meaningful episodes for being "a cartoon" - hey Thanks again - have a Happy New Year - sleep in that day at least , peace and kindness to ya 🍒🩷

Lee

As we've seen far too often this season, yet another episode that had an interesting concept but the writing couldn't pay it off. My main problem with the plot is that it's too much like "Arena" but without the satisfying conclusion. Also, I've never understood why Kirk and Spock were teamed with historical figures with very specific views on war and violence instead of a couple of Enterprise officers. If anything, those anti-violence perspectives should've been sufficient to prove to Yarnek the difference between good and evil, but then the episode would have been over inside of thirty minutes and without a fist-fight, something the network would never have allowed. LOL As a counterpoint, I feel it necessary to commend the third season production staff for putting Abraham Lincoln in the story. While I don't think the episode was more than slightly above average, they took a mighty big swing with this choice, and I admire them for trying. For anyone who found this version of the episode a mess, I invite you to read the original plot synopsis from Gene Roddenberry on Memory Alpha; it's a doozy. https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/The_Savage_Curtain_(episode)#Story_and_script We have some returning talent worth noting: the voice of Yarnek was provided by Bart La Rue, best remembered as the voice of the Guardian of Forever and briefly shown as the television announcer in "Bread and Circuses." Janos Prohaska, the creator and performer of the Horta in "The Devil in the Dark," played the form of Yarnek. Finally, even though I acknowledge that "All Our Yesterdays" would have made a far superior series finale than "Turnabout Intruder," watching them in that order now makes little sense to me. Of course, I've been secretly salty about whoever proposed switching the viewing order to airdates instead of production, so this isn't that hard to understand. In other news, Old Man Yells at Cloud. LOL

Mark Chrisco

Funny you should reference the Mugatu and the Horta. Janos Prohaska, a very talented contortionist performed both of those aliens as well as this weeks Excalbian ,Yarnek.

SuicuneSol

Just keeping walking, Bunny, and you'll get to the other side. This episode is fun for Lincoln alone. Without him, I don't think I would have been that interested. This episode also reminds me of a certain anime series in which heroes from the past are pitted against each other.

Trilogian

I LOVE The Savage Curtain! Plenty of great moments with Kirk and crew displaying skepticism and courtesy at the same time with Lincoln aboard, followed by a fantastic new creature in Yarnek. The best line is when Uhura says, “In our century, we’ve learned not to fear words.” The final battle is admittedly meh, but it does the job. Interesting to flip the last 2 episodes, I didn’t even think of that. I won’t say a word, other than I approve. Thanks again, Bunny for all you do, I know it must be a slog sometimes, but it’s so much fun to see someone new watching TOS (and more) for the first time!

Mark Gosine

Couple of things here. To start, this is just a fun episode. Abe and Sarek make for nostalgia and expand Trek lore. Second, when watching I realized the wine I was imbibing while watching was one I hadn’t had for over a year. It was the Federalist red blend. It has Lincoln on the label! Ha, what a co-inky-dink. Thirdly, this episode has some memorable moments. Which my daughter highlighted to me in a bust out laughing way. About 25 years ago, when she was in her car seat coming home with me and the Disney music mix tape that she enjoyed listening to broke, she sat in the car seat and repeated the lines perfectly, “Spock! Help me. Help me, Spock!” I couldn’t believe it. She may have seen that episode one time. I laughed so hard. It’s New Year’s Eve, and my wife is very under the weather but sleeping. We were hoping to see the Christmas lights tonight at the Upstate Holiday Light Show. Oh, well. Happy New Year!! Oh, and BTW I fully concur with the last two episodes swap. Did I mention that I agree with the order change. It really is a great idea to change the order on the last two. Yes.

Matthew Graves (Graviton)

Yeah, this one is a bit messy. But hey: Space Lincoln! It's worth it just for that! I find it grimly amusing that apparently about 70 percent of the galaxy is populated by super advanced species who are, well, kind of assholes. Not evil per se, but just real jerks. And they all seem to want to run humans through nasty little experiments, often involving fighting to the death.

bunnytails

Yeah, they just ran off what the heck! :P

bunnytails

Happy New Year! And yep, Animated series will be very soon now!

Dave Riley

I'm sure a few of us here must have watched a few episodes of MST3K over the years. One of their favorite off camera throw away lines to insert was, "Help me... Spock." Checking "These are the Voyages" again, Roddenberry wrote this episode but lost interest in it half way through. His concept started with Socrates being met in space and eventually Lincoln on the planet. Gene only got to setting up the fight of "good vs evil" Other writers came in to finish it. After the bad guys had already killed Surak and Lincoln they outnumbered the good guys two to one, yet they quit and ran (and we didn't even see that) a rather unsatisfying ending. The producers didn't like to revisit what had been done before, but this is a redo of "Arena." The Enterprise chasing the Gorn until the Metrons got involved, scanned them to find out what it was all about and having the Gorn and Kirk duke it out, while the crew got to watch on the viewscreen. It's also a redo of "The Gamesters of Triskelion" where the crew gets to watch on the viewscreen again Kirk fights the Throls for the ship's freedom/

Andrew Westcott

In Star Trek, they don't normally use minutes unless they're talking about aboard ship. Generally, time is measured in Stardates.

Andrew Westcott

Also, the Good Side did not kill anyone.