Court Martial (Star Trek TOS - S1E21)

When Captain Kirk is hauled into a Starfleet courtroom for allegedly leaving a crewman to die, things get tense faster than a redshirt on an away mission.

This week on Treks and Tangents, we dive into Court Martial, the episode where Kirk swaps his captain’s chair for the defendant’s chair. There’s dramatic testimony, suspicious computer records, and at least one moment where you can practically hear Bones muttering, “I’m a doctor, not a lawyer.”

Is Kirk guilty? Is the Enterprise haunted by bad data? And how does 23rd-century justice still involve so much standing around in very dramatic lighting?

Join us as we object, overrule, and boldly go where no legal drama has gone before.

Transcript

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[Music] Hey, Lin Freakin sees open and walk aboard tracks and tangents. I'm your co-host Brian. And I'm your co-host Jackie. I'm the star track beauty who tracks off on tangent. And I'm your star track expert who is here to get the tangents back on track. Each episode we watch and talk about a different star track episode. This week we watched... Star Trek, the original series season one, episode 20. Court Marshall. Welcome back to another episode. I think I made a mistake last week in our episode. I think I said we were one-third of the way through the first season. We're officially two-thirds of the way through the first season. Look at us go. We're just like rolling through it. Rolling through it. Appreciate everyone jumping on board for another episode. Leave a like, leave a comment. Specifically, tell us what you thought about the episode. And tell us if there's any star track topic you would like us to cover in maybe a bonus episode, maybe in a separate post on our Patreon. Let us know what you'd be interested in hearing. Even if you want to know about us, we're really interesting. Some would say that, but let's just dive into the episode and start off as we always do by revisiting last week's Turbo Liftees. That's where we gave Jackie the title of this week's episode. And Jackie with no other information tried to guess or predict the plot of this week's episode. Computer. What was Jackie's random guess last week? Jackie's random guess last week was the enterprise is exploring space and the galaxy. But they get a call and somebody from somebody's past. I'm going to say, "Sulu is in trouble and obviously needs their help." So Jackie, I think we both agree on this one, but how do you think you did on this week's guess? Bombed it. Yeah, there's a... I mean, I'll tie it in. Someone from someone's past. Okay, we had Shaw in Kirk's past. Okay, but I mean, she wasn't really in trouble. Sulu didn't even appear in the episode. I was very sad about that. And neither Sulu nor Scotty appear in this episode. And a whole new navigator? Who is the navigator this episode? I never said this name, but it wasn't the cutie pie that posed in the Gotha's one. Yeah, it wasn't the Sal. The Sal. I don't remember who the navigator was. Not important. But yeah, I think we can both agree you missed on the terrible iftees for this episode. Well, I'm getting used to these weird names with weird episodes, so I'm getting more creative as time goes by. But let's put that behind us and talk about our initial impressions. What did you think of this week's episode? You're gonna be surprised, but I really liked it. Why? I really enjoyed the dialogue, the discussion between all the different characters, all the ranks. There wasn't too much, you know, fonding over the ladies and the ladies kicked butt. Okay. I also think this was a pretty entertaining episode. Dialogue, sure, cogly as a character is very entertaining. Yes. When they let him loose and let him do his thing. So his dialogue was pretty entertaining. It's got some pacing problems to it. It feels like it runs very, very long. Yes, I did feel that, but I wasn't feeling like bored though. No. And in the end, some of it's a little cheesy. His whole courtroom outburst speech about rights gets kind of repetitive, but I understand the importance to the episode to it. It's entertaining. I will say I ultimately liked it. I enjoyed watching a law drama play out. This is kind of what I think the menagerie was aiming for, because we had a court martial proceeding in the menagerie. But with the menagerie, everything was focused on the replaying of the cage, which that was very unique of itself. It was. So even though the menagerie was a courtroom setting, it's not really a law drama. This definitely was more of a law drama. Definitely had that feeling to it. Yeah. In the end, it was a good episode, I think. It's probably why I watched all of my true crime shows and stuff. But without any other delays since as an editor, I say our episodes run longer than they should. Let's try to jump into it. Jackie, why don't you walk us through the episode? We'll skip. How about that? So we're seeing beautiful space, the enterprise, and there's like that little pod. I've never seen the pod flying around with it. Yeah. That would be a repair ship of some kind. There's the shuttle craft. There's lots of little things zooming around it. We also get a shot of another galaxy class starship in the background. Spoiler, this is going to be the intrepid. We're going to hear it mentioned here in a little bit. It is, if I recall correctly from my star trek nerd lore, it is a Federation ship that is manned entirely by Vulcans. Oh, so Spokane wave and say hi. Pretty much. I think that was the first thing I noticed because it changed. But Kirk tells us that they have just been through an ion storm that sadly killed a crewman and damaged the enterprise greatly. So the ship will be stopping at starbase 11 to be repaired. And we'll get a full report of damages went through down there. Now we're in the Commander's Stones office and Captain Kirk is preparing his official statement of what happened during the storm. He has rewritten it and read it over three times. And the Commodores like, "Everything okay? You keep reading it." And Kirk just expresses that the loss of a crew member is quite important. Yeah, it's a little odd that this is the first time that we've seen Kirk have to give any sort of response of the ship. And we've seen a lot of responsibility to the death of a crew member. We've seen so many of them die so far in our adventures with the enterprise. But by golly, this is going to be the first one that he gets held accountable for. Well, maybe it's OSHA because it happened on the ship. Yes, that is when space OSHA kicks in is if it's on the ship. If it's on an alien planet, forget about it. All rules are off. So, well, Kirk is on that planet. Spock is on the enterprise preparing a report from the computer system that will print out everything that the computer did. Kind of like a transcript, like from a black box. And so he has to bring it down to the star base so that the report from Kirk and the computer report can be given together. As part of the deposition. So that's part of the sworn statement. Right. Stone is going to use the computer records to craft reference against what Kirk statement says and compare the facts, which is where he gets into trouble. And it's really weird that all these reports are on like tiny three by five floppy disks. That or just, yeah, hunks of plastic. So, but while we're waiting for that to pop down, the computer has already called the repair people and he's moved that intrepid that we saw earlier. He's bumped it out and put the enterprise above it on the fix me first list. Right. The enterprise is the flagship of star fleet. So besides maybe plain favorites just a little bit because at this point, no one suspects anything. No one blames Kirk for the death. They think it's just a routine death. So slightly favorites, but it could be argued that stone recognizes how important it is to get the enterprise out of repairs and back into space as quickly as possible. And when he has everything together, the comodore just comments to Kirk about how bad it is to lose a man like lieutenant commander, Fanny Kirk agrees saying I mean the storm got worse taking from the yellow alert that he created and then it was like immediately he had to take it to red. But he made sure that he gave Fanny plenty of time to get back to the ship before he did the dead is to move. And I didn't know what that was until I googled and I was like dropping everything and saying bye. Yeah. So we'll just knock this out of the park right now real quick. What this pod is when the ship travels through an ion storm and you can imagine it's got its deflector shields up. The pod is supposed to be this little device that hangs off the side of the ship. It's got all these extra sensors besides scientific investigation. It's helping give the ship data to know how severe the storm is is an danger. And I imagine it's because it hangs out outside the ship beyond the deflector beyond the shields of the ship. It's a dangerous position to be in someone has to be down there in order to I assume monitor the equipment. We don't really get a whole lot of details to what this thing is. If you look up later like we are now in 2026 nerds have expanded on the mythology of Star Trek and we get all this extra data so it's a little thing that hangs off the side of the ship. Finney was in it or near it and the whole purpose is if it gets ripped off it can destroy your severely damaged the ship. Jettison it means it closes it off shoots it off so that the hole is then sealed up by the ship but sends Finney along with it. And so while they're talking I added a twinkle twinkle because that's when Spock arrives with that report they've been waiting for and he is hesitant to give it to Kirk right away and the comodore just steals it from his hand because the Spock wanted to tell Kirk something but we don't know yet what it was. And then so they're all putting their paperwork together and then this young girl in a blue dress that I swear Sailor Moon got this outfit from runs in and is yelling at Kirk calling him a murderer because Finney was her father right her name is Jamie yes Jamie and she's screaming and hysterically. I mean she's sad her daddy died yep but Spock is asked to take her away while the comodore keeps asking Kirk right let's go again tell me what happened all those orders the lights when you put the button well specifically stone quickly homes in on this irregularity in the facts where Kirk is explaining that he jettison the pod after calling for red alert but all of a sudden the computer records are showing that the ship was still on yellow. The ship was still on yellow alert when Kirk jettison the pod will get into more detail later but in any case stone realizes that this is serious enough he has an 180 degree turn around with his attitude confines Kirk to base and says he needs to investigate whether a court marshal is warranted and we get our opening credits we come back from the credits and Kirk and McCoy are mosing into a bar on this star base. And they say hello to everyone and it even seems like hey this is like our graduating class from star fleet hey everybody but nobody is saying hi back they're all giving them the evil side eye. Yeah everyone's giving them the cold shoulder Kirk is trying to make the best of things but it quickly becomes apparent that everyone is heard about Finney's death. Everyone is heard about the fact that Kirk is now ordered to stay at the star base which would I think be unusual I would imagine once Kirk gave his report he would have been released and gone back up to the enterprise to oversee repairs so everyone knows that Kirk's kind of in a little bit of trouble. So Kirk is like I'm over this and he just like stomps out and he runs into someone like another guy you know they do that dance as you're like trained to leave and come into the room and he passes by this beautiful blonde lady as she walks in and she notices Kirk but he doesn't notice her so she doesn't really know for sure if that's him but we still have McCoy and since he's a young man he's a young man. We still have McCoy and since Kirk left him there with a drink in a tent he walked over to the young lady and he playfully just says yes that was the James Kirk that just walked out and then he introduces himself as a friend of Kirk's and this is when I learned that McCoy's real name is Leonard or his first name is and the woman introduces herself as Ariel Shaw who is also a friend of his and she. She inner a set for quite some time and McCoy and he's full of jokes tonight he says all of my old friends look like doctors and Kirk's old friends they all look like you I mean mentioning she's beautiful when she's wearing an outfit that definitely catches your eye yeah Kirk seems to always get the bad rap of being a schmoozer and a ladies man McCoy himself is also a hell of a schmoozer. And definitely doesn't get the credit or the attention I think that he deserves he's definitely a flirt we've seen it in past episodes I just wanted to point out that McCoy does okay in the ladies department he definitely is a flirt he's a space player. I like it they go off to have a drink together and then we are jump to stones office at this point stone has turned on his computer and he is starting to record the inquiry this inquiry is going to decide if there needs to be a court martial called for the actions that Kirk did during the ion storm and with Fanny losing his life comodore stone also wants to know how do you know each other might tell me about your history and Kirk explains that Fanny was an instructor at the Academy and while they when working together Kirk went to relieve Fanny on a ship there and then it happened to be an anti matter access panel and then if it had been left open five more minutes the entire ship its name is the Republic by the way with a blown up so it seems that bad things just seem to follow Fanny because of his his long time teaching that isn't normal and then having that air on his report being turned in my Kirk and can move up the ladder to where he wanted to be quite jealous yeah Kirk and his successes yeah because this would mean with the negative mark on his record he was constantly passed up for promotion ultimately we learn Fanny wanted to be captain of a starship he never got the promotion because other candidates were more favorable on paper because they didn't have this reprimand then comodore stone no wants to know why did you send Fanny out to work on the pod like couldn't somebody else do it and Kirk replies that he was nice on the duty roster there is no picking him ever he just had to go he doesn't play favorites and coincidentally doesn't play dis favorites again Kirk is trying to correct cometer stones inquiry or line of inquiry by saying I didn't have anything negative against Fanny it's also revealed of course that Fanny's daughter Jamie was named after Kirk James that super cute Kirk re-inrates that he was watching all the readings and all of the signals went from yellow alert to red alerts but cometer stone wants to know why the computer is showing different and Kirk doesn't have an answer because he knows exactly what he did and what the computer is showing is not what he did the comodore even kind of like you know brother come on get closer to me like we can make this just go away just admit that it's a stressful job and you have too much on your plate and you know just have a nice vacation and then have a groundwork there's no need to make a fuss he's doing that to try to protect star fleet and the integrity of starship captains instead of have a go to trial have what he presumes to be a fairly short straight forward trial because he has in his mind irrefutable evidence computer records saying that Kirk jettison the pod while it was still on yellow alert it is a plea deal to get Kirk to quietly sweep everything under the rug and they can try to make everything go away without a lot of negative publicity but Kirk is fighting all of this he did everything right so he's like bring on that trial and then we have a commercial and it feels like the episode is dragging on so much of pacing issues in act one for this episode thankfully they cut some things out geez I'm even looking at the memory alpha display act one and act two are just real slogs like how I used to write my notes yeah we won't talk about that but we come back from commercial break Kirk is back in the rec room where he runs into Shaw I don't know if he runs into Shaw or if it was a predetermined meeting maybe McCoy off camera told him that Shaw was here but in any case they meet in the rec room it's a very flirty rendezvous it's been about four years since they've seen each other there's obvious history between the two she mentions that she works in the judge advocates office foreshadowing we'll see in a moment but it's kind of odd because she gives Kirk all this advice about the upcoming trial she knows about it everyone knows about it tells him he's not taking it seriously enough Kirk is definitely not at least not in view of her I think Kirk is taking it seriously to a point where he is nervous but confident that he'll be found not guilty well I don't think he wants to show how worried if he is worried in front of this beautiful woman that he is fairly in store sure Shaw continues to give her unsolicited advice telling Kirk that it's obvious that he's going to try to refute the records of the computer she tells him that's a no-in situation no one's going to believe that the computer can be inaccurate she recommends a lawyer named Samuel T. Cogley and even goes so far as to say that he'll pay Kirk a visit later let's just pretend that Shaw hired him or at least tipped him off and got it all set up but in any case she finally maybe realizes that she's gone too far and stepped over a line in giving Kirk all this unsolicited advice she goes to leave but Kirk wants to know why she's trying to leave why she won't be his lawyer because again she works in the judge advocates office and she confides that she is the prosecutor she is going to be the lawyer the attorney that is trying to prosecute Kirk and she tells him it's my job to find you guilty for the good of everything and I think she's going to try her best yeah and part of that best though is that she has to truly make an example of this star fleet captain he's not some Joe Smow you know she's making an example of him at least that's the goal right which I think she heavily implies that that's maybe not necessarily her motivation or her wishes but that is her instructions from her higher ups this is what Shaw was trying to avoid was a star fleet captain especially one is decorated as Kirk to be made an example of and it's obvious that's what star fleet wants to do so Kirk decides that he's going to go to bed he wants to go back to his quarters but guess who's in his quarters and taking up all the space his new lawyer it's like he's a human library taking up all space with his books yes because that is where the law lives it's not just static and I'm moving to a live thing to him yeah and this is I think an unexplored or at least a wasted opportunity for cogley's character as a lawyer is someone who relies on the books it's also balanced it's not just that he has a preference for books he has a negative attitude and opinion about computers he finds them to be lifeless and they don't confay the meaning and the weight of the law I think this is a wasted opportunity because this is obviously going to be a trial of Kirk versus the computer's records and so this definitely could have been an opportunity and this could have played out more with cogley's character about his distrust for computers but in the end I think it's just kind of left on the floor as a quirk of his character even though it was obvious they were trying to tie it into the overall episode I totally agree and they could have done something more of this wardrobe they trained to make him eccentric but it did not come across the show as how eccentric I think they wanted him to be the term that Jackie is looking for is cogley's clothing was fugly yeah frumpy yeah you could have had like some color thrown in there but Kirk has to be honest he doesn't seem very confident in this man at all but Ariel Misha she recommended him so he must be good and we find out boy howdy is he and off to the court marshal we go I would just like to point out again for everyone who's paying attention to the pacing issues of this episode this marks with the opening credits the 15 minute mark of the episode so everything that we've just covered everything we've gone into detail for has been 15 minutes of this episode it accelerates really quickly at the end but as entertaining as this episode is pacing is definitely a problem yes imagine if I was writing it out like before oh my gosh a whole novel right so we're popping over to where we have the court marshal and on the bench we have the Commodore stone as well as space command representative Lindstrom and captains Krasnowski and Shandra and they bring everything to order by tingling a little bell is so cute much like I think they did in the menagerie Spock's court marshal I think it's super cute we also have the prosecution that Ariel Shaw we have the defense Kirk and his lawyer and then we have Jamie a red shirt and then Spock McCoy and a young lady that we don't know whose name is but she's a personnel administrator right first to the stand Ariel calls Spock and Spock states that the computer report is incorrect he goes on to explain that Kirk would never panic in such chaos and Ariel tries to object to this saying that Spock is speculating and then Spock has to go on and say I'm a Vulcan we don't speculate you know we tell the truth if the hammer is going to fall it's going to fall like okay thank you yeah specifically Spock says is is analogy that because this is all in reference to he says that he doesn't he knows Kirk didn't prematurely eject the pod before calling the ship up to red alert to warn Finney and Shaw asks if Spock saw Kirk actually pressed the button in what order he pressed him in and Spock says no but I know what he did and the analogy you bring up said that was good I think this is a good moment in a good scene for Spock's character he says if I know a hammer falls if I let go of the hammer on a planet with gravity I don't need to see it fall I know it falls so he's not going to fall so he's very good about not falling into any of missha's traps and ultimately I don't think this was a very strong witness for the prosecutors case shot closes up her questioning for Spock and the defense is asked about their questioning opportunity and that defense lawyer denies any questions shavin calls up the second witness to speak and we're introduced to the the personnel officer and we don't even know her name yeah we're not really introduced to her she never has a name she's not credited there's no character name in the credits even when you dig through every other piece of star Trek this is just one character that never gets a name that's wild it's possible that in maybe a snippet of cut dialogue she's given a name and that little snippet never saw the light of day there's lots of scenes from this episode they get cut especially as we get into the back half of the episode to save on time so while on the stand shot has the personnel officer reiterate the time that Kirk wrote up finny for his mistake when they serve together on the republic this is showing the viewers that shot is laying out a defense that not only did finny have a falling out and negative feelings toward Kirk but trying to show that Kirk had negative feelings and the stage was set for Kirk to hate finny as well after shawfinishes asking her questions they ask if the defense has any questions and again cogly declines to ask any questions and cross examination I found it super cute though that as you off the stand and walked away she was mouthing how sorry she was to Kirk but I mean she was called as the witness so that's what she she had to do what she had to do she's also the only one that walked around from the stand to pass close enough to Kirk to say anything to Kirk if you notice both Spock and now McCoy the other witness that will get called they walk the opposite way around the stand as far away from Kirk as they can just an interesting note prosecutor's shop then calls dr. McCoy to the stand and his his question was actually kind of weird she wanted to know if it's true that fellow employees if one thinks the other one has a problem with them they kind of each grow in their heads a similar story about each person not liking each other that this can grow into a giant mess right because McCoy is called to the stand not as an eyewitness to what occurs but as an expert witness on the topic of psychology he's a doctor but he also is highly trained in psychology and in Star Trek there's a special branch of psychology at this point called space psychology because all of these crew members are working together in confined spaces on a starship for long periods of time these are basically submarines in space although I don't think at any point in our history so far we've ever dealt with ocean psychology but yeah all of Shaw's questions are relating to psychology and mindsets and you're right she's trying to paint and put a button on that thought that she started with the personnel officer that if Finney hated Kirk and Kirk knew about that hatred maybe even unknown to Kirk but Kirk would start to resent and hate Finney as well and then in the end he could even take them out hypothetically of course during this chitter chatter and there is no questions to be asked by the defense for Dr. McCoy either Commodore Stone asks cogley if he has questions for Dr. McCoy and again no questions so then Commodore Stone says well it is now your turn to present your part are you going to bring anybody up or have anyone speak or are you just resting your case and cogley says well I guess I am going to call Kirk to the stand yeah specifically I think this is my favorite moment with cogley because when Commodore Stone kind of gets exasperated with him he kind of gives that sass right back to him he stands up and he says well I was just kind of holding myself back and holding back the defense until all of this quote preliminary business was over and wanting to get Kirk up on the stands so we could actually get down to the meeting bones of everything so it's not a I really wanted this to be my end of the episode quote but it's not significant enough without the context of it but this is I think that my favorite part this really shows the first moment that we get to see sassy cogley and all of his ego and not just like he's dreaming in the clouds right he's he's not the absent-minded bookworm that I think the episode is started to paint him as the old fashioned I refuse to use a computer inefficient lawyer I think this really is the first spark of a moment that is an audience we go oh shit he knows something Kirk takes the stand and the computer starts ringing off all of his out glades and shall jump up and says stop we only to be wasting time on all this let's just keep going and cogley is like nope let's let's I'd rather if we keep going so Commodore Stone agrees we're gonna keep going and we read some more awards and then cogley is like okay I think I'm done yeah it's another little fun scene where we get to see the sassyness of cogley obviously shot doesn't want all the accolades read because she doesn't want Kirk put too high up on a pedestal as a good character cogley obviously wants the accolades read off to add to Kirk's credibility but I think also this is the moment where cogley is kind of putting his foot down again I'm going to control this cogley asks the captain tell us how that day happened Kirk again states that he was called for red alert before it jettisoned a pod cogley asked if Kirk did everything correctly Kirk sent firm and everything he did during the Ion storm the same steps at the right time were necessary to save the enterprise nothing is more important than my ship cogley asked if he had to do it again with Kirk to the exact same thing and Kirk says yes he would interestingly she asked to bring up a visual of what happened on the bridge during the I of the storm when she's cross examining Kirk so we see a whole video of the bridge like a cc tv kind of thing yeah specifically it looks like a cc tv recording when I first rewatched this I had a flashback again to the menagerie I don't know why we keep referring to the menagerie but it was a big deal for them to watch the playback of the menagerie because they were so confounded and so confused because there is no record that is that detailed which makes sense because the menagerie is shot with cameras observing unseen the way this is shot is 100% a cc tv overhead shot they didn't reuse footage from earlier in the episode they filmed an entire scene from a camera's perspective of what would be set up as a surveillance camera to take a record I think it was really creative I agree I think it was extremely effective Kirk calls fennie to come back to the enterprise from where he's at so he could be safe but then shot freezes and zoomed in on the panel that Kirk has his hands on especially in buttons see we see that he pushes the yellow alert and again he's like fennie how you doing hurry up we need to go to red alert because remember earlier he said to comrade or stone I gave him the time he needed and then we're back to the bridge and it's wobbling and our great actors are doing their stunt work I love it when they're wobbling around and shodden has the screen freeze and it's still yellow alert that's lit up on the panel when Kirk pushes for the jettison button yeah let's also just mention really quick that the control panel that Kirk is using on the arm rest of his chair is literally just its five buttons the buttons are labeled with what looks like a label maker and it's just yellow alert with a yellow button red alert with a red button and I don't remember what color the button was to jettison the pod the little light that comes up next to it but it's just a little odd for a ship with his much sophistication that he's got five buttons but only three of them are labeled to do anything maybe they're programmable for different circumstances maybe that's what the yeoman's job is is to bust out the label maker every time they reprogram the buttons on the captain's chair or you know he doesn't remember anything and he's like shoot which one is it right but this is the definitive evidence against Kirk this is why Shah was advising Kirk earlier don't try to argue that the computer is inaccurate because she knew she had this piece of evidence that seems to be infutable that Kirk jettison the pod without calling the ship to red alert again the red alert would have warned finney it was time to get the hell out of there but Kirk super confused and he even says that loud that is not how it happened right we get William T. Shatner's most dramatic acting of the episode in that one line so we come back from her break and we're in the quarters and Kirk is on edge he's not accepting that the video is correct he knows he did the right thing cogley is you know trying to smooth it over say we still do like a plea deal but I mean accept that there's a lot of stress as a captain again everything that happened that we talked about at the beginning that they wanted to sweep under the carpet spot calls down to Kirk and Kirk calls back up spot has been running extra analysis on their computer and Kirk's like I don't know what to tell you you're just gonna have to live with it and do the next captain he might be able to beat you at chess and then spockets like an idea you know just see him light up but then we're still in Kirk's quarters and Jamie actually pops through the door and is introduced to the attorney Mr. cogley Jamie is crying and begging the attorney to please help Kirk with anything that he can so that he's not punished harshly he wants him to you know a ground job anything because she actually found writings and other memorabilia from her father and her father really enjoyed the relationship that he had with Kirk and one of the scenes or bits of dialogue that was filmed but cut from the final episode that really takes away a lot of context to this and what motivated Jamie's change of heart is that in reading those letters and journals from her father it led her to the understanding of just how deep of a hatred her father had toward Kirk in there falling out which leads Jamie to believe this is the cut part that her father is capable of deception and setting up and framing Kirk I don't think at this point she knows that her dad is still alive maybe she's starting to think that her father was willing to die in order to ruin Kirk's career but in any case that's the real reason why she runs in and tries to save Kirk and has the change of heart not only understanding the deep friendship that they had but also this conclusion that she's drawn look at you given a little spoiler alert yeah unfortunately though cogley tells her is too late to change anything but seems to be a little twinkle in cogley's eyes there's something around the corner yep so now cogley's got an idea on how to turn everything around and spark has an idea to turn everything around to pull it all together spark is on the enterprise playing with his vertical chess board and McCoy is going nuts how can he be playing chess when all this is happening but spark lets him know that he has beat the computer four times in a row yeah so well spark reprogram the computer to make it if he played it his best every single time the best that would happen would be a draw between spark and the computer so you think he's from the chink in the big time armor around this scenario and to the transport room we go so we're now back down at the trial this back in session and just as Shaw and cogley are getting ready to well they've actually rested their cases like it just happened but they spark and McCoy run in and be like no wait stop and they go and talk to cogley and Kirk to discuss what they found out and here's where you mentioned earlier Brian this is where cogley brings up all about his human rights and the everyone should be fair the laws in the book it's just great how is the monologue is trying to change the idea with the judges but they need time to set it up because it's like an experiment that they need to watch well specifically they have to get up to the enterprise because that's where the computer is and that's where cogley needs everyone to be so that he can start to show that the computer on the enterprise is flawed which would call into question the visual record that shot is relying on but then we get a commercial break we're back from break and we are in the briefing room on the enterprise where cogley has spark re-interrate how the computer has been messed with and that is how it's not a draw when they're playing chess but if spark can do that for a simple game can't it be done for the huge ship but who has access to that is Kirk, spark and the records officer which happens to be Finney cogley asks Kirk what steps did you do to locate Finney after he jettison the pod he instituted a stage one search to find him cogley been asked isn't the search for those who want to be found I mean perhaps Finney is alive and well and doesn't want to be found could a man evade the search on a ship of this size ultimately the scene ends with that question from cogley Kirk agree that yes someone could evade the search if they didn't want to be found which leads cogley to make his great declaration to the court marshal trial judges that Finney is still alive and hiding on the ship so excitedly we're all going to the bridge except the judges are annoyed everyone else is excited because they're going to do something different they're going to try to find Finney and using technology to set everything up Kirk says that they're going to evacuate the enterprise except the most basic essential personnel which basically exists a transporter room operator and those on the bridge in this moment cogley also says that he has to leave on some errand that is important for the trial he doesn't explain what it is but that he'll be back shortly once everyone has left and we just have the few select that are still with us so it's been able to eliminate outside noise beyond specific heartbeat from every person on the ship so it has all been brought together to just be like one ball doctor McCoy is going to use a white noise machine to bring it to every single person on board that will slowly eliminate that person's heartbeat from the extra at the tangles of heart beats but he doesn't bring it to everyone on board he only uses it on people on the bridge he doesn't go down to the transporter room as an example and use it on the person who was beaming everyone off the ship luckily he was able to eliminate that person by utilizing the dials on his computer right spotted so the heartbeat that is left is that of Finney thus proving cogley's theory even to eliminate the doubt of the judges in the court martial even Commodore stone stands up in reaction to the sound of the single heartbeat and stone confirms that he now understands it is finney hiding on the ship luckily spot is able to also pinpoint where finney's heartbeat is where it's located on the ship itself and Kirk makes his way to where he is hiding which is on B deck near engineering so well Kirk is searching for finney finney utilizes the open space of where he's hiding to make his voice boom yelling at Kirk about how he's special and his job is safe and he's just playing jealous Kirk he's looking for a finney but finney pops out from behind where he's hiding and it's holding his face or against Kirk and basically don't move finney reassures and he won't kill Kirk he'd rather harm something more important to Kirk more like the enterprise itself right because in and amongst all of this running around and court martial and everything in order to set up that little heartbeat experiment it was necessary to completely shut off the engines of the enterprise which again as a reminder is orbiting the planet where star base 11 is currently at without power to the engines they can't make any course adjustments eventually their orbit will and does start to decay and we become quickly aware of finney's plan he sabotaged the electrical circuits in engineering which would make it impossible to restart the engines which means the ship itself will eventually fall into the atmosphere of the planet and either burn up in the atmosphere or crash to the planet destroying the ship and killing everyone aboard but fitting isn't counting on Jamie being on board also right because we failed to mention there was a quick little scene when Kirk's running down to search for finney in engineering we get this weird inner monologue it's not a captain's log but it's just an inner monologue of Kirk to explain to the viewers that the errand that cogley had run or was going to go do and why he left the ship was to get Jamie they figured if they were able to locate finney they weren't sure how he would react to being cornered Jamie's presence the presence of his daughter might make a more compliant to go quietly and be arrested so the two engage in a physical fight like why are you fighting let's actually work together well finney doesn't want to work with Kirk even with Jamie being on board that news distracts him enough Kirk's the one who throws the first punch and I think maybe finney's just reacting to the fight luckily finney finally releases the location of the device that's holding everything hostage also and Kirk is able to go up it's like a tube and he's pulling everything apart which allows enterprise to stop it falling out of the orbit and gain back its control back on the bridge Commodore stone ask missha if she doesn't object to closing the case and of course she says no objection well everyone starts to get back to their positions on the enterprise bridge Kirk and missha slowly make their way to the turbo lift and they just have like a cute little meat cute where she fornaly says nothing would happen if the silly lieutenant kisses a nice captain right and then like let's check and a little kiss and then wow nothing happened and then she turns to leave before that though he does ask when he could see her again and she says oh you're feeling a bit optimistic hey I thought that was cute too it is a fun flirty scene between the two of them and Kirk then just goes back to his chair that is flanked by Spock and McCoy and just with a slice smile captain Kirk comments she's a very good lawyer yes yes she is and role credits so Jackie what did you think about season one episode 20 court martial what are your final thoughts I really liked it I felt that they it wasn't so in your face like they have had in the past with the whole women being a damsel in distress this one showcased a woman who knew she was and was powerful and it was able to show a whole new look on the enterprise itself and I thought the episode was again very entertaining maybe very entertaining too strong of a word cogley as a character as a lawyer I think when they finally took the leash off and let him go he was very entertaining overall the episode just suffers for some serious pacing issues I can tell this episode itself is going to run long for our podcast again it's so heavily dragging in the first two acts leading up to everything and then we get an entire second act where we discover Finney's alive we chase him down we have a fight scene to the point where they had to cut out significant dialogue and scenes at the end of the episode to make it all fit into the time frame that they had so ultimately a good episode that suffers from this pacing issue but will end with our quotes for the episode to round out our final thoughts Jackie what is your favorite quote from the episode I truly liked the quote when you're probably speaking to the court martial panel about I speak of rights a machine has none a man must again we have like the whole power shift of machine they're so vast but don't eliminate one for the other all right my favorite quote also is from cogley I guess he steals the show for the episode he's great it's the moment it's the moment when Kirk is called to the stand during the court martial for the first time in his awards and accolades are being read out and Shaw objects to the accolades being read she doesn't want to add too much to his character cogley objects and wants the accolades read so cogley's quote is in that moment I wouldn't want to slow the wheels of progress but then on the other hand I wouldn't want those wheels to run over my client in their unbridled haste immediately before this was the moment where cogley gives his first glimmer of being a sassy lawyer by saying I was just waiting for the thus to get rid of this preliminary business we can get down to the real stuff didn't have enough context as a stand alone quote so it's not the first instance that we get of sassy cogley but this is the second and I think the best quote that shows cogley knows his stuff as a lawyer so well and that is my favorite quote I do have some triple tidbits or fun facts about the episode first airing February second nineteen sixty seven this is the only appearance of the female dress uniform for a female starfleet officer in the original series it's worn by Shaw as the prosecutor during the court martial the difference between the dress uniform in the regular female uniform would be having more of an appearance and a sheen of a satin material it has the gold edge around the collar in addition to the black collar but it's also got a longer skirt so a lysha cook junior who played lawyer cogley while he did a fantastic job he had a lot of trouble remembering his lines so his dialogue had to be cut up and spliced together in order for it to make sense sound like me I'll take the fifth the white noise machine that was used by McCoy to isolate everyone's heartbeat for their little experiment to prove that he was still alive was absolutely not needed spot as we mentioned was able to mask the heartbeat of the transport a room operator who was not on the bridge so I couldn't spot just do the same thing he wouldn't have been hiding on the bridge so he could have just canceled out the bridge and the transport a room we didn't need the prolong scene of McCoy going around with this microphone is what it was the reason for Kirk's awkward voiceovers toward the end of the episode we get the awkward voiceover as he's running down to engineering to face as well as the awkward voiceover is he's crawling up the jeffries tube to untangle the voiceover that's explaining that after the fight finny confessed what he did to sabotage the ship was all needed because again they cut scenes out that would have explained why these next events were occurring specifically Kirk learned of the knowledge originally because there was a scene shot but didn't make the episode where after Kirk wins the fight cogly and Jamie join them in engineering Jamie confronts her father and Jamie convinces finny her father not to go through with his plan and to confess what he did to sabotage the ship they cut it for time so we needed an explanation is to Kirk suddenly magically knew how to fix the ship so we get the voiceover you can see the judges for the trial in the bar when Kirk and McCoy first enter the bar for the first scene in the bar but they shouldn't be there because it hasn't been determined that Kirk was needing a court martial and a trial so they wouldn't have summoned any of the judges to starbase 11 this of course is because they filmed scenes and then aired them in the episode out of order from each other originally Kirk was already going to have been found guilty in the initial inquiry and a court martial would have been called which is why they would have been summoned they did all of this airing out of order of the scenes to try to fix the pacing of the first half of this episode because it does drag on so much and lastly let's talk about Jamie Alice Rawlings is the actress who played Jamie we don't have an exact age for Jamie as a character we only know that she was born some time in 2250s so we get like a 10 year 10 year age or nine year gap as to when she could have been born we know this episode takes place in 2267 so that puts Jamie's age anywhere between eight and 17 I like to think that she's maybe 12 13 maybe 15 maybe 15 is the oldest I don't think she's a 17 year old not with the dress she's wearing but Alice Rawlings who is the actress who played Jamie was 26 when I watch the episode and I first saw Jamie I was like you are not able to pull off that age difference and those are your triple tidbits this is the part of our episode where we share our episode ranking where we pretend the episode is a member of our crew of our fictitious starship and what starfleet rank we would assign them based on how much we enjoyed the episode a higher rank means we enjoyed a higher rank means we enjoyed the episode and consider the episode a more important member of our crew a lower rank means we think the episode was less entertaining and the episode is a more disposable member of our ship our ranking system is loosely based on starfleet rankings we have the top 10 junior grade lieutenants which would be just under middle of the road and then we have above middle of the road where we limit the number of rankings we can hold lieutenant commanders commanders of course one captain and finally an admiral which we find to be the best most entertaining most important episode to the season and as a reminder we post a visual representation of our rankings as they currently stand over on our patreon at patreon.com/treksintangents we update our rankings and post them every Wednesday the day after an episode goes live so Jackie for your starship the USS galactic glitter beat what do you give this week's episode I think I will need to demote the conscience of the king and place it down with my lieutenant friends I've had it so high for a while but as we're going through more of these episodes I'm enjoying it more and so that way I can place this week's episode in that spot. Okay and why are you giving this week's episode the rank of commander. Like I said earlier how I liked it I greatly enjoyed the lawyers strength as well as still being very feminine and being able to have a happy ending at the end and they weren't always just fighting weird looking monsters. And for my ranking this week for the USS cosmic shark we will be adding this week's episode into the rank of lieutenant probably lower than I want to rank this episode again I find it entertaining I think the character of cogly is a lot of fun to watch but at the end of the day this is an episode that just suffers too much from the pacing issue and it really took me out of the episode where you have this huge setup for a law drama you have the trial and then they do a complete left turn and we get a rushed third and fourth act with the discovery of finny and the fight and again to the point where they had to cut vital scenes from the episode to make it all fit together too much pacing issues gonna give it a lieutenant rank for reference as of this recording on IMDB this episode currently ranks a 7.4 out of 10 again as a reminder we will post an update to our rankings with a graphic over at our patreon at patreon.com/treksintangins on Wednesday the day after this episode airs we'll be back next week to trek through another episode but before we go this is where we'll give our turbo lift ease or elevator pitch to next week's episode plot I'll give Jackie the title of the next episode and Jackie with no other information will give you brief pitch or guess or prediction to the plot of next week's episode Jackie next week will watch the return of the arcons this one should be exciting it sounds like we're going to be introduced to another alien species and they're coming home while they interrupt Kirk or an away party that is going through their layer and their home and tuning next week to see if Jackie's prediction is accurate if you want more show information you can find and directly support our podcast on patreon at patreon.com/treksintangins again we'll post our updated graphic for our rankings which is available for anyone to view we also post for our crew members who support our patreon once a month we do a bonus episode where we do a deeper dive into star track into star track the animated series we also have posted all of the test episodes that we recorded for preparing for this podcast you can hear us talk and debate and wonder why they made some decisions in the TV show fringe as well as stargate SG one don't forget Betsy the cow with Betsy the cow in fringe and of course don't forget to like subscribe comment this podcast let us know what again you'd like to hear from us what questions you have what topics on star trek you'd like us to dive deeper into maybe will do a special series over on our patreon where we do a deep dive on a specific topic in star trek maybe will do a book club oh that would be fun maybe we'll finally get our bonus episodes of bar trek off the ground but let us know what you want to see what content you'd like us to do besides our patreon you can also follow us on x at tracks underscore tangents were on instagram were on blue sky jackie working people find you and what are you up to you can find me on instagram at jibum which is j i b b o o m i have something super major going on i'm getting my hip replaced so i'll be having a few a lot of posts about that because i'm sure it's going to be quite the experience and plus I still have my music and I mean hey you can learn at any age and I'd be happy to help you you can also find my boutique on what not at good about boutique thank you you can watch me stream a variety of video games over twitch dot tv slash pirate pound town on youtube i post video game and other random content on my main channel pirate pound town and my secondary youtube channel can be found at pirate treasure hunting where i more and more rarely post hobby content coin collecting i post socially on blue sky at pirate pound town and i can be found on instagram under pineapple cannibal links to all social media mentioned can be found in the episode description thank you everyone for tuning into this week's episode we hope you had fun like we did we will see you all next week and don't forget to be a very good player and transmission you(upbeat music)(upbeat music)