Star Trek (TOS): Court Martial

[drewder]

I want to know how many red alerts are just the captain bumping that button with his elbow

Attention all hands the red alert was just a drill... just like the one 10 minutes ago. Just trying to keep you all on your toes.

[Mickey_Rat15]

Re that dress: if my teenage daughter was going to be spending any time around James T. Kirk, I'd make sure that her wardrobe was as unflattering as humanly possible too!

Kirk is unquestionably a horndog, but I don't see him as the kind of cad who seduces under-aged girls. She'd be in far more danger around Wesley Crusher.

I would hope Kirk would have the taste to not hit on a girl who was named after him, no matter what her age. Though obiviously, the Japanese schoolgirl outfit has not aged well into the 23rd Century. I conten dthough, there is no fashion worse than Jake Sisko's blue, light green, darker green jumpsuit thing.

Why is the button to jettison the pod even on Kirk's chair? How often is that thing used? Or do they reconfgure the button on the coomand chair per mission?

Unfortunately, too many things about this episide do not stand up to close inspection. Cogley's luddism just happens to lead him to the right answer despite not trying all that hard. However, I do understand that in the Navy a screw-up like Finney's could derail a career beyond a certain level permanently.

[Deledrius]

TOS is exceptionally campy, that tends to put people off.

This is one of those things I see people saying, but is it really true, or just received wisdom? Batman was a campy show. I'll even grant that by the third season, TOS unfortunately became not very well-produced. But camp is more than just budgetary limitations. I don't see a lot of justification for this assumption (and I do see people frequently building bad arguments on it, so it matters).

Kirk is unquestionably a horndog

I would question that.

[AlucardNoir]

TOS is exceptionally campy, that tends to put people off.

This is one of those things I see people saying, but is it really true, or just received wisdom? Batman was a campy show. I'll even grant that by the third season, TOS unfortunately became not very well-produced. But camp is more than just budgetary limitations. I don't see a lot of justification for this assumption (and I do see people frequently building bad arguments on it, so it matters).

Kirk is unquestionably a horndog

I would question that.

I only watched TOS because I had grown up on TNG, DSN, VOY, and ENT and it was being shown on TV because a celebration was approaching and it was being rereleased on DVD or Blue-Ray or something like that.

While I am a great Batman fan I have yet to see the 60's show, or have any inclination to do so. There is camp and there is camp, while I was in middle school and starting high school a TV station showed all the Godzilla movies that had been made by that point, the last one had been the bullshit american one and the Japanese were making their 1999-2004 new Godzilla series. I liked most and fell in love with Mothra movies but if they had started by showing the campier ones I would have never watched any of them in the first place.

Camp puts me off. I loved TNG, I grew up with DSN, VOY, ENT and TNG yet that gorn scene did more to put me off TOS then all the other shows and movies did to make me want to watch it.

There is camp and there is camp. Having a look on the TVTropes page for camp I see a lot of shows and movies I like and a lot I don't. I like the Burton Batmen movies, but hate the Schumacher one, all are considered camp, some I like one I don't. Camp itself is relative. If I hadn't seen the Burton movies mentioned there I wouldn't even consider them camp. Same for Labyrinth.

AS I said, there is camp and then there's camp. Thing is though if something is good I don't usually even think of camp when thinking of it, yet if something is bad, the camp elements just jump out at me as being some of the more egregious reasons for it's low quality. I don't subscribe to the "so good it's bad" school of thought. I either like something or I don't, and if I do it can't be bad, or at the very least I can't find it bad because I like it, because I take enjoyment from it. I can find part of it bad, but the work as a whole still has to be considered good (again, by me). I don't watch stuff to poke fun at it, I don't watch stuff to criticize it. I watch it to enjoy it, to be entertained. If I'm not, or if I'm bored by it, or annoyed, or made angry by it's logic or plot wholes or whatever else - I.Stop.Watching.

Some people look at the gorn scene and laugh. I look at the gorn scene with disgust, and as a trek fan with shame. Shame that that scene is part of the cannon I like. Shame that if I were to ever recommend Star Trek to someone they might end up watching TOS and see that scene (then again, with Discover on the air now and the 3 abramsverse movies I doubt I'll ever be recommending Star Trek to any). I look at that scene with pity for the people that had to draw the line there and call it good enough. But even if I weren't a trek fan I still wouldn't like that scene. I still would look with questioning eyes at the people that did. There is intentional exaggeration and then there's attempting intentional exaggeration to hide a lackluster budget... and then there's personal opinion and taste. Batman Forever had money, but there's no accounting for taste.

TL;DR I don't like camp and am actively put off by anything that looks camp. Even in works I enjoy.

[chaos42]

This episode actually makes me wounder about starfleet's promotions and assigning because this sounds really screwed up. First Finny has the qualifications but he isn't at least put up for first officer or second. And then his career is put on hold because hes kept on to teach and he isn't given the same chances as his fellow officers. This sounds like discrimination or there is something more sinister. Also his reprimand is a little unfair yes it did endanger the ship but i have a few counters, one that's why you have more than one person working on something dangerous in case one make a mistake so why didn't he have another person with him to double check things, and second how is it you don't have a emergency system to catch that? This smacks of bad designs or bad organization, or worse cost cutting. Having one person do the job because its cheaper -uses less people, or there safety isn't up to code.

Plus here is something ive worked in jobs where people who are unqualified get promoted over me and here is what happens they don't do there job they don't get reported the people under them work harder to cover their laziness and have to work double shifts and end up over worked and tired and make mistakes or do something minor but have a complaint made that follows them around forever and used out of context. Im sorry but i think Finny might be dealing with not a fantasy but noticing that there is a group of people who are keeping him down but only in so much as their keeping everyone they don't like down its not directed against him alone but he is getting hurt by it.

[Enterprising]

Plus here is something ive worked in jobs where people who are unqualified get promoted over me and here is what happens they don't do there job they don't get reported the people under them work harder to cover their laziness and have to work double shifts and end up over worked and tired and make mistakes or do something minor but have a complaint made that follows them around forever and used out of context. Im sorry but i think Finny might be dealing with not a fantasy but noticing that there is a group of people who are keeping him down but only in so much as their keeping everyone they don't like down its not directed against him alone but he is getting hurt by it.

This difference between the ordinary Joe, and what Finny ultimately wants to do was made clear, and deliberately so at the start of the episode. A starship Captain makes hundreds of decisions everyday, and they're depended upon to get each and everyone of them right. It's not a job where someone can report them slipping up, and the HR department files something that hopefully would get dealt with in a few weeks. Screwing up in this job either costs lives, or the entire ship. I don't really have any qualms that he was effectively blacklisted on the quiet of a command. The fleet at the time was so small (8 to 12 Constitution class vessels, with some smaller ships) that Starfleet wanting to have that absolute perfection was understandable, especially with things in the frontier so "wild west" at the time.

I found it quite fitting and "human" that as the frontier got a bit tamer and more well known, those standards dropped off a bit in the TNG era. That brash arrogance up until meeting the Borg, combined with the expanding fleet and the advances in technology also being major contributing factors.

[CharlesPhipps]

It should be noted, of all episodes, this got an expansion in the AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF CAPTAIN KIRK.

Finney took the instructors position at the academy as an error in ambition as he was intending to use it to pad his resume, essentially, on the road to being a starship captain. However, academy instruction is meant to be the END of a career rather than the beginning and he was locked out of the job track he wanted for close to a decade.

The carelessness he displayed with the atomic whatchagigdit was accompanied by Kirk also mentioning that Finney was habitually careless because he felt the work was beneath him. This, combined with his attitude, essentially destroyed the respect of Starfleet command and he was put down as a glory hound with an exaggerated sense of self-importance.

The book also had Kirk note Finney's career was STALLED not ENDED and he was a still a Lieutenant Commander. If he'd shown sufficient contrition and hadn't let his attitude completely go to shit, he could have still salvaged a Commandership or even lesser captaincy but figured he should be a Constitution class captain which Kirk very politely says was grossly above his abilities at the best of time.

[chaos42]

i could accept that better if it was in the show but this is after the fact and used as justification. Now if its true in show ya thats a valid point but my point stands as yes a captain has to be correct most of the time but he also has a first and second officer to advise him plus my point about there should be 2 people doing that kind of work also stands. Anything that dangerous should have 2 people checking it as we are human not super men. The thing with novels like that is also they are unoffical parts of the story and subject to change constantly. They recon these things all the time. So just going on whats in the story of the episode, i think finny may have a point that he isn't getting a fair chance.

[CharlesPhipps]

Eh, in the show I have a simpler theory.

He almost blew up the ship and clearly thinks HE'S the wronged party.

Screw that guy.

[chaos42]

At that point he has had his life crushed look at what his job is, Records officer. If you work hard your entire life and your constantly given crap jobs or looked down on by others its going to stress you out. Im not saying hes right but im also not say hes wrong. I think there is something more here that should be looked at.