Star Trek: 0018: "Arena"

---

0018

The Original Series (1967)
Season 1: Episode 18: “Arena"

Stardate: 3045.6 (2266/01/16 - 15:27:24

Story by: Fredric Brown
Teleplay by: Gene L. Coon
Directed by: Joseph Pevney

---

PLOT INTRODUCTION

With both their ships held captive by powerful beings, Kirk and the captain of the alien vessel are placed on an asteroid to fight for their lives and the lives of their crews.

---

REVIEW

"You are still half savage, but there is hope"

Definitely an action-packed Trek episode if there ever was one, ‘Arena’ has some of the best effects, sets and action of the Original Series, but fails to deliver anything substantially satisfying.

Before we even get to all the drama and fighting however, ‘Arena’ opens up with some brilliant dialogue between the Trio that I absolutely loved. Actually, for such a small moment it is actually one my favourite scenes of the episode and uses the character’s personalities well. Particularly amusing was the following: Spock-“Doctor, you are a sensualist.”; McCoy-"you bet your pointed ears I am!". Ah, as scarily racist as old man McCoy can be, you can’t doubt his southern charm.

Following this, we’re taken down onto a federation planet which has been attacked by unknown aliens. And boy does this planet look good! It’s not often that you get such an elaborate set such as this on Trek, and it really has an impact on the episode’s tone… and those explosions! Real fire and explosions! I know, I know, I’m getting excited over some silly effects that really aren’t that special. For 60’s Trek however, these are special. In fact I loved this entire setup of the landing party being down on the surface and being targeted by missiles. There is always an imminent sense of threat and danger present and it is well created through the effects, sound and set design. What we end up with essentially is one of the most exciting ten minutes of the entire Original Series. Oh there’s also the joy of watching Shatner run around like a chicken; would it ever get old? And please note I am referring to his commando run, and not his ‘running’ that he does for the majority of the latter parts of ‘Arena’… snore.

The next ten minutes maybe aren’t quite as suspenseful as the previous but nonetheless I enjoyed the use of the warp drive as a build up of tension. Very little do we know of the engines that power the Enterprise, but enough is done here to create a sense of danger along with the thrill of the chase.

Eventually we end up down on an asteroid where Kirk has to do battle with a giant lizard-like creature named the ‘Gorn’. Now a lot of people have problems with the Gorn costume, but I’m on the other side of the fence. I don’t have that much of a problem with the suit. It’s the person inside the suit, or more accurately, the director who told the guy in the suit to move like he was underwater, that I have a problem with. I can understand that it needed to be established that the Gorn were far less agile than Kirk, but the movement used just never comes off as natural or anywhere near convincing.

Perhaps one of the most interesting themes that I picked up on was of humanity becoming out of touch with our primal instincts and intuition; becoming too reliant on our advanced forms of weaponry. Kirk, stranded on this barren planet certainly wants to kill the Gorn but he does not posses the knowledge -or at least cannot remember how- to do so without technology. Bare in mind that he cannot do the obvious (strangulation or physical force) because the Gorn would simply tear him to shreds if he got close enough. Well, that’s at least what we’re set up to believe. The reptile never really comes across as being that powerful, but hey, Kirk says so, so that’s all that matters right? No, afraid not, major flaw number one.

My second problem comes from the episode’s stalling nature after the first 25 minutes, right up until the last few scenes. What we have is essentially twenty minutes or so of Kirk running around, annoyingly ignorant to the materials around him. I accepted it the first time he stopped near diamonds and announced that he could find ‘no weapon that the Metrons talked of’, but after so many repeated scenes such as these, I got tired, and quite bored. Kirk’s interspersed ‘diary’ recordings did offer some relief at times, but not much. This is really a shame because the action of the first twenty minutes is top-notch and the finale to the episode is a great morally focused ending; great bookends, terrible books.

And as if the pace couldn’t be killed any more, we get a series of sequences where the crew aboard the Enterprise are forced to watch Kirk down on the planet. Frankly, I didn’t see the point in this. It simply doesn’t work as well as it could have and doesn’t have as much character reaction to make it worth while. If anything it dims the drama and brings down the tension even more.

What I did enjoy was the analysis of Kirk and his sudden disregard for alien life. This is well contrasted with Spock’s opinion that the Enterprise should not seek vengeance, and not destroy the enemy’s ship. Of course, Kirk doesn’t take heed to his first officer’s advice and goes forward anyway, with a smile on his face that only a wild predator tasting the blood of his enemy could possess. Fast forward to the end of the episode, after battling with the Gorn (and almost losing) on a level playing field, Kirk, at the very edge of satisfying his thirst for revenge, puts down his weapon and refuses to kill. It may come off as a little sudden and contrived but it sets up the final conclusion to the episode well.

A Metron finally appears to Kirk and congratulates him on his success. However the success is not from having the knife at his opponent’s throat, but for taking the knife away. The Metron then goes on to speak a statement that I believe just about sums up the main jist of Trek’s moral ideology: "You are still half savage, but there is hope". Hope, that’s exactly it. If ever there was a key theme underlying every single Star Trek production, it is exactly that: Hope. We acknowledge our past, we resent our misgivings and our savagery, but we also seek to rid ourselves of such traits. Star Trek is such a vision of this future humanity, and ‘Arena’ although definitely flawed as a piece of television, is a good example of the Trek ideas.



Written by Jamie Robert Ward, 09/11/2007.