Arena
Arena (Memory Alpha; SD Video) is that episode where Kirk fights the big green lizard-suited guy. And it’s both just as bad as you think it is, and not at all.
The command staff is about to beam down to the outpost on Cestus III, and are looking forward to a nice welcome from the commodore, who’s got a reputation for hospitality:
McCoy: I, for one, could use a non-reconstituted meal!
Spock: Doctor, you are a sensualist.
McCoy: You bet your pointed ears I am.
But the outpost is destroyed! Oh noes!
Begin Spoilers
There’s a little fight on the ground, then the Enterprise gives chase to the unknown attackers. But suddenly both ships stop; held in place by… something.
Spock: “We’re being held in place, sir… apparently from that solar system.”
Kirk: “This far out? That’s impossible!”
Spock: “We are being held, sir.”
Kirk: “Tractor beam?”
Spock: “No; an unidentifiable power”Aside from having their terminology wrong (it’s just a star system; it’s just an unidentified power), it’s clear that the ship is in trouble. The Metrons ring up and inform Kirk and company that, dubious of these two violent ships, they’ve set up a planet that the captains can fight on. And [boing] the captains disappear from their respective bridges.
End Spoilers
At which point, Uhura screams. Really, Uhura? You’re not used to people mysteriously disappearing and reappearing on the bridge? Really? Because that happens just about every episode.
This is the first episode with Photon Torpedos. They’re not very helpful. Also on the technical front, we hear that “a sustained Warp 7 Speed will be dangerous” and that at that speed the Enterprise will “either catch them or… blow up.” That’s a new limitation, and it seems a bit bizarre next to Captain Pike flying about in Hyperspace at Warp 7 all the time. This really shows that in the early days there was a lot less attention to this sort of detail. (see also Sulu mentioning that “All of a sudden we’re clear across the galaxy! 500 parsecs from where we are… were.”)
Also strange coming from my TNG-marinated memory is the seat-of-your-pants decision-making that Kirk seems to use all the time. He can chase unknown people with the intent of starting (or ending) a war without talking to anybody. Contrast with next gen, where admirals are always calling on some subspace frequency to order the Enterprise to stop doing such-and-such. When does that change come about, I wonder?
All that said, though, this episode is pretty bad. It’s okay until the part with the arena, and it’s okay at the very end of the arena, but in the big murky middle it’s just Kirk doing badly-coreographed fist fights and running around Vasquez Rocks forever. There’s a nice-but-predictable moral at the end, but other than that it’s only passable.
Grade
C+
