Mudd’s Women

Written by: Stephen Kandel

‘Mudd’s Women’ was one of three scripts that Roddenberry submitted to NBC when the network requested a second pilot episode. They selected ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’, but ‘Mudd’s Women’ was also produced, soon after the series was picked up. The idea for this story existed as early as Roddenberry’s 1964 outline for the series, where he described it as:

‘THE WOMEN. Duplicating a page from the “Old West”; hanky-panky aboard with a cargo of women destined for a far-off colony.’

Thankfully, the story eventually made is—just barely—more sophisticated than that summary suggests. Note, however, series costume designer William Ware Theiss’ description ‘space hooker’ on his preliminary sketches:

Premise

The Enterprise rescues the occupants of a small private vessel destroyed in an asteroid field: its captain—Harry Mudd—and three women whom he describes as his cargo. Mudd is transporting  Eve McHuron, Magda Kovacs, and Ruth Bonaventure as ‘mail-order brides’ to settlers on a colony world. Many of the men among the Enterprise’s crew find the women highly, distractingly attractive.

Themes

It transpires that Mudd has been providing the women with a ‘venus drug’ to boost their allure. As the effects wear off, the women appear older and less beautiful until they take another dose. This is presented on-screen through make-up, lighting, and camera focus:

Karen Steele as Eve McHuron (left) and
Maggie Thrett as Ruth Bonaventure (right),
presented as under the effect of the venus
drug (above) and without the drug (below)

At the episode’s climax, Eve takes what she thinks is another dose of the venus drug but which is actually a placebo. She becomes as attractive as she was when taking the drug.

One of the difficulties in interpreting this story is that the transformation in the women under the influence of the drug is depicted on-camera as a dramatic physical transformation. Even their hairstyles change! However, the effects of the placebo are presented exactly the same way. Eve’s final transformation is unquestionably presented as one that is subjective, to herself and to others. Indeed this is the whole point of the story:

KIRK: Quite a woman, eh, Childress?

CHILDRESS: A fake, pumped up by a drug.

KIRK: By herself. She took no drug.

EVE: I swallowed it.

KIRK: Coloured gelatin.

MUDD: Yes, they took away my drug and substituted that.

EVE: But that can’t be.

KIRK: There's only one kind of woman.

MUDD: Or man, for that matter.

KIRK: You either believe in yourself, or you don’t. [...]

Since this transformation is subjective, it’s certainly possible to read the other transformations in this episode as subjective too, from the points of view of the women themselves and from the points of view of the men leering at them.

An understanding of the story which treats all the transformations of the women as subjective requires that the venus drug has no practical effect. This reading is mostly consistent with what’s presented on-screen. When told of the drug, Childress says, ‘Venus drug? I've heard of it but, it's not just one of those stories?’ Kirk assures him that the drug is real. However, at this point Kirk is still attempting to deceive Eve—who is present with them—so it’s not clear whether he’s telling the truth or not. Mudd’s concern early in the episode that the women should avoid medical examination is similarly ambiguous, since if he knows that the drug is a fraud, he is attempting to deceive all three women at that point.

Indeed, the only piece of evidence presented on-screen to suggest that the drug is in any way real is the anomalous effect that Ruth has on McCoy’s medical scanner, and—frustratingly—this plot point goes absolutely nowhere. On the other hand, the sensor probes connected to the Enterprise’s main computer can detect ‘No decipherable reading on females’ when Kirk asks if there’s anything unusual about the women, and these are sensors that can detect physiological changes in the men in the room.

Ethos: Appearances don’t matter

I take this to be an early expression of what would become a recurring theme in Star Trek—that physical appearances don’t matter. However, the theme is handled so clumsily here that a resistant reading—that the episode is saying exactly the opposite—is certainly easy to sustain. So, on the one hand, external appearances don’t matter because, as Kirk tells us, it’s belief in themselves that makes someone beautiful or not.

However, Childress makes it quite explicit that her beauty is what he values in Eve:

CHILDRESS: You’re not only plain as an old bucket, you’re not even good company. What the devil happened to your looks, anyway?

EVE: I got tired of you. I slumped.

CHILDRESS: You heard what I said. You’re homely! [...]

Earlier in the story, it’s apparent that it’s their appearances that Ruth and Magda value about themselves as well:

RUTH: Look what's happening. Look at my face.

[...]

RUTH: What if someone sees us like this?

[...]

RUTH: I'm going back to what I was. Ugly.

MAGDA: I can't stand myself like this.

The idea that true beauty comes from within is still the message that’s explicitly validated at the conclusion of the story. However, this message is substantially undermined, both by what has been said up to that point, but more importantly, by the fact that Childress only eventually accepts Eve in her beautiful state. The case for appearances not mattering would have been made far more strongly had Eve reverted to her ‘homely’ visage before Childress indicates that he wants her to stay with him.

The mind: Mind vs body

The notion of external appearances not mattering, and what’s inside being the only thing that counts is certainly consistent with a view that treats the mind and the body as separate from and in opposition to each other. This view even specifically privileges the mind as being the more authentic self, to the point of (at least as literally portrayed on screen) being able to reshape the physical body.

Romancing the ship

Kirk is portrayed as being very much in a relationship with the Enterprise. When Ruth shows a romantic interest in him, Mudd warns her: ‘You’ll find out that ships’ captains are already married, girl, to their vessels. You’d find out the first time you came between him and the ship. You’ll see.’

By the end of the episode, Eve has also seen this. In deciding whether to remain with Childress, she tells Kirk, ‘You’ve got someone up there called the Enterprise.’

Earlier in the story, Eve also raises the captain-as-moral-compass theme. Like Vina in ‘The Cage’, she does this in the context of attempting to seduce him:

EVE: [...] I read once that a commander has to act like a paragon of virtue. I never met a paragon.

KIRK: Neither have I.

EVE: Well, of course not. No one is. But some people try to pretend. Do you, Captain? 

Kirk begins to protest, and it is at this point that Eve realises that he is immune to her charms.

As science fiction

The centrality of the placebo effect to the story actually makes any consideration of ‘Mudd’s Women’ as speculative fiction or science fiction a moot point. 

A conman provides a woman with a substance promised to increase her attractiveness to men and therefore make her more marriageable. The woman discovers that having confidence in her own attractiveness is at least as effective as the substance.

It doesn’t really matter what the substance is for the plot to work. The basic story runs along similar lines to the mediæval tale of the loathly lady (most famously recounted by Chaucer as ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ in The Canterbury Tales) in which it is an enchantment—not a purported pharmaceutical—that transforms the woman between states of ugliness and beauty.

If this story is science fiction at all, the science is psychology, and its application is very weak. Kirk uses his understanding of the placebo effect to discredit Mudd; but really, Kirk’s actions do not seem to be informed by any specialised understanding of this principle.

If Wile E. Coyote pushes an anvil off a cliff and relies on gravity to accelerate the anvil in the direction of the Road Runner pecking at a pile of birdseed directly below, this understanding of gravity does not make this story constitute science fiction in any meaningful way. I believe that ‘Mudd’s Women’ is science fiction only to the same degree.

Kirk evidently forms a hypothesis about the ‘venus drug’—that if it has any effect at all, it is so weak as to be indistinguishable from a placebo. However, the first test of this hypothesis is when he puts his plan into action and makes the placebo available to Eve. Really, he is just gambling (a gamble that makes perfect sense within the context of the narrative, but still).

‘Dangerous, savage child-race’

This episode is almost completely devoid of violence. The only exception is a very brief tussle among the miners as they squabble over Ruth. This is depicted in a very negative light, though, and if anything tends to be a point in humanity’s defence.

Maybe the only other item to consider here is the overt leering and staring that Eve, Ruth, and Magda are subjected to by the Enterprise’s male crewmembers.  This is also depicted in a negative light, though, and remarkably for its time, the episode presents Eve’s experience of this behaviour. During the hearing against Mudd, she accuses the ship’s senior officers of ‘Staring at us like we were Saturnius harem girls or something.’ Later, she seeks refuge in Kirk’s quarters, visibly distressed because: ‘I was trying to take a walk, and I just, I just had to run in someplace. You see, all your men were looking at me, following me with their eyes.’ Leering is depicted here as harassment and specifically not as victimless. If we read the episode to mean that the ‘venus drug’ actually does have some genuine effect, then the culpability of the men of the Enterprise might be somewhat reduced. But if the effect is pure placebo, their behaviour becomes indefensible.

Conclusion

There is a small amount of mild savagery in this episode, but it is depicted with consistent disapprobation.

Literary and mythic references

I don’t think there are any deliberate literary or mythic references in here, but there are a couple of interesting resonances. First, as already noted, there is a similarity to the story of the loathly lady. Second, there appears to be yet another parallel to the creation story in Genesis. Intentional or not, I think both stories provide interesting contrasts with ‘Mudd’s Women’.

All three of these stories involve somebody leading a woman to make a choice that provides her with insight into her own nature and which reveals a hidden sexual truth:[1]

• In the Genesis story, the serpent presents Eve with the choice of eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Eve chooses to eat and know, and discovers her sexual nature.[2]
• In the story of the loathly lady, her new husband (Sir Gawain in some versions), presents her with the choice of whether to regain her true form—young and beautiful—or remain the hag that her enchantment has made her. (In some versions, the choice is over which form to take by day and which by night). His key concern about her regaining her beautiful form is that it might lead to her faithlessness. The lady chooses to remain beautiful and sexually attractive. Insight into self  comes here in the form of validation of the riddle that she previously answered for the knight: that above all else, women want ‘sovereignty’[3] (we might say ‘self-determination’ today).
• In ‘Mudd’s Women’, Kirk presents Eve with the choice of using her own innate hidden ability to make herself beautiful and sexually attractive—ability that he demonstrated to her by having her eat a placebo. When Eve gains knowledge of her power, she chooses to make herself beautiful and have Childress  accept her.

I think that ‘Mudd’s Women’ does not fare well in these comparisons. Star Trek’s Eve is the only of these women characters who is tricked into action. Her choice also appears to be primarily made to please another rather than herself. And while Kirk asks Eve what she wants to do right at the end of the episode, he actually asks Childress first, who deigns to have Eve stay with him! I find it sad that women characters from stories from centuries and millennia ago appear to act with greater agency and ‘sovereignty’ than a woman character in a modern mythos that is otherwise usually progressive .

Other notes

Really, issues of the degree to which this story can be considered science fiction or of which familiar Star Trek themes it explores are pretty secondary to the gender politics that dominate it.

Eve’s, Ruth’s, and Magda’s freedom and autonomy is central to the story, but remain problematic and ambiguous throughout. During the hearing convened against Mudd, Kirk establishes that the women are not being transported against their wills, and Eve expands on her reasons for wanting to marry off-world:

KIRK: Did these ladies come voluntarily?

MUDD: Well, of course! Now, for example, Ruthie here comes from a pelagic planet, sea ranchers. Magda there from the helium experimental station.

EVE: It's the same story for all of us, Captain. No men. Mine was a farm planet with automated machines for company and two brothers to cook for, mend their clothes, canal mud a foot thick on their boots every time they walked in.

MUDD: Fine, Evie. Fine.

EVE: It's not fine! We've got men willing to be our husbands waiting for us, and you're taking us in the opposite direction! [...]

That said, it’s difficult to see how marriage will change things for Eve. Having spent the night with Childress, she immediately settles into the same pattern of domesticity: she cooks and cleans for him before he wakes up. When she reacts to Childress’ comments about her ‘homely’ looks, she takes the placebo drug, transforms herself and explains her vision of what a wife should be (emphasis mine, in bold):

‘You don’t want wives, you want this. This is what you want, Mister Childress. I hope you remember it and dream about it, because you can’t have it. It’s not real! Is this the kind of wife you want, Ben? Not someone to help you, not a wife to cook and sew and cry and need, but this kind. Selfish, vain, useless. Is this what you really want?’

Nobody in the story questions either the honesty or worthiness of this view: it is tacitly accepted.

What to make of this? Broadly, two interpretations are available. The most honest reading is simply that the story openly embraces a very traditional sexism; precisely some of the ideas that second-wave feminism was challenging at the time it was made and broadcast. This, then, is an example of Star Trek failing to take a socially progressive stance that was certainly available even in its day.

A particular emerging third-wave feminist perspective now makes another—anachronistic and contentious—reading possible. As Lisa Miller wrote in New York recently:

‘If feminism is not only about creating an equitable society but also a means to fulfillment for individual women, [...] then a new calculus can take hold: For some women, the solution to resolving the long-running tensions between work and life is not more parent-friendly offices or savvier career moves but the full embrace of domesticity.’[4]

I feel certain that such concerns were far from Stephen Kandel’s mind when he wrote this episode, so if authorial intent is important to how you receive a story, you probably need to ignore any such reading. If we can lay aside authorial intent, though, a reading that upholds Eve’s and the other women’s freedom of choice to do whatever they wish with their lives is certainly available to us. It seems to me that to reject such a reading purely on the basis of the lifestyle chosen by these characters is problematic, because it de-legitimises precisely that freedom:

‘On the impetus of the Second Wave of Feminism, American women increasingly joined men in the workforce outside of the home. As women strove for equality, the home became a symbol of oppression. For feminists, it became imperative that women “escape” the home in order to pursue and secure true equality and freedom, which meant economic independence. [...] As women aligned with the Feminist agenda, mothering and homemaking were denigrated, alienating women in the home. While we have witnessed the validation of the female presence in the workforce, the same legitimization has not extended to women who work in the home.’[5]

On the other hand, we might conclude that legitimising such freedom isn’t worth as much as ensuring that any notions of gender essentialism don’t get legitimised along the way. Tracie Egan Morrisey responded to the Lisa Miller article that I quoted above with an article titled ‘“The Feminist Housewife” Is Such Bullshit’. In it, she refers to one of the women whom Miller interviewed and says:

‘I mean, I understand about being happy that you and your husband found the kind of balance that works for your lives and your family. But why not say that? Why state, specifically, that you are “grateful” that what you do is gendered? What the fucking fuck. Am I in the Twilight Zone? Don’t pee on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Don’t sell me some conservative flimflam and package it as neo-progressivism.’[6]

It is only an admittedly contrived neo-progressivist reading that can rescue ‘Mudd’s Women’ from a similar charge of conservatism. Without it, the women might not be travelling with Mudd against their wills, but their freedom is strictly circumscribed and restricted to traditional, socially sanctioned roles.

Finally, all this discussion of the loathly lady makes me want to recommend a beautiful retelling of it, titled simply Sir Gawain and the Loathly Lady. Written by Selina Hastings for older children, the language is evocative and lyrical even for adult readers. The book is illustrated by  Juan Wijngaard in a gorgeous mediæval style. I cannot recommend this book highly enough. The same team also published a telling of the Gawain and the Green Knight story. If, like me, you love the romance of the Middle Ages, you have to have these books on your shelf!

Mission objectives

The only world visited is Rigel XII, which already is home to lithium miners.   No new life forms are encountered. There’s no indication that the Enterprise goes anywhere previously unexplored.

Objective	This episode	Series so far
To explore strange, new worlds	0	1 (25%)
To seek out new life and new civilizations	0	2 (50%)
To boldly go where none has gone before	0	2 (50%)

Previous episode: ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’
Next episode: ‘The Enemy Within’

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Footnotes

The Matrix copyright
Warner Brothers

[1] As another modern take on this plot point, in The Matrix, Morpheus famously offers Neo a similar kind of choice to eat, this time without (overt) sexual overtones.

[2] The woman said to the serpent, ‘We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, “You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.”’
‘You will not certainly die,’ the serpent said to the woman. ‘For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:2–7)

[3] ‘My lige lady, generally,’ quod he,
‘Wommen desiren to have sovereynetee’
(Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales, ‘The Wife of Bath’s Tale’ ll.1037–38)

‘I saye no more, butt above al thyng
Wemen desyre sovereynté, for that is theyr lykyng.‘
(Anonymous, ‘The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle’, ll.467–68)

And she says, ‘A woman will have her will,
And this is all her cheef desire.’
(Anonymous, ‘The Marriage of Sir Gawain’, ll.104–05)

[4] Lisa Miller. (17 March 2013). ‘The Retro Wife: Feminists who say they’re having it all—by choosing to stay home’. New York. New York Media, New York. Retrieved 2013-06-15.

[5] Melissa Corliss Delorenzo. (1 May 2012). ‘The New Domestic: A Contemporary Redefining and Legitimizing of Homemaking’. Her Circle. Institute of Arts and Social Engagement, Wyandotte, MI.

[6] Tracie Egan Morrisey. (19 March 2013). ‘“The Feminist Housewife” Is Such Bullshit’. Jezebel. Gawker Media, New York.

The Corbomite Maneuver

Written by: Jerry Sohl
Watch online on CBS.com

‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ was the first episode of Star Trek as a regular series.

Premise

While mapping an unexplored region of space, the Enterprise encounters a cube-shaped alien device that homes in on the ship and starts emitting lethal radiation. After destroying the object, the Enterprise crew presses onwards in search of the device’s owner. They soon encounter a starship immensely larger and more powerful than their own, commanded by a being named Balok, who threatens to destroy them. 

Themes

‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ is a story about deceptions and misunderstandings and moving beyond them.

The mind: Intellect vs emotion

As usual, intellect and emotion—more specifically, instinct or ‘gut’—are portrayed in opposition. As in the previous episode, this is expressed through a chess metaphor. In this case, poker is invoked as the opposite of chess.

What it means to be human: Irrationality

Spock’s reason leads to an almost literal dead end. Threatened with destruction by a far superior force, he is forced to conclude:

SPOCK: In chess, when one is outmatched, the game is over. Checkmate.

KIRK: Is that your best recommendation?

SPOCK: [...] I regret that I can find no other logical alternative.

It is then up to Kirk to think laterally and find an irrational solution to their problem, by lying to Balok and bluffing him out of destroying the Enterprise.

The mind: Mind vs body

Star Trek’s familiar dualism is evident both in the puppet that Balok initially uses to represent himself, and in his true appearance. The puppet has proportions similar to the Talosians of ‘The Cage’—a hugely enlarged head and a slender, frail body.[1]

When Balok’s true form is revealed at the end of the episode, the dualism is even more profound: Balok has the appearance of a human child, portrayed with a shaved and polished head. This style draws attention to his cranium, which is further accentuated by the headgear he wears. His voice is overdubbed with an adult, male voice. I do not think that we are meant to understand Balok as a juvenile of his species, but that the advanced nature of his species has gained tremendous intelligence at the cost of a punier physical body.

Benevolence

Addressing his crew, Kirk explicitly states an assumed correlation between a species’ advancement and its benevolence: ‘In most cases we have found that intelligence capable of a civilisation is capable of understanding peaceful gestures. Surely a lifeform advanced enough for space travel is advanced enough to eventually understand our motives.’

This assumption does not need to connote any particular morality, however. It could simply be that there is a self-selecting quality to the observed phenomenon to which Kirk refers. Spaceflight requires the harnessing of tremendous energies, and it could be that overly-aggressive civilizations tend to use those energies to wipe themselves out before they get a chance to explore the galaxy. The Drake Equation implicitly contains just such a notion when considering just interstellar radio communication, let alone starflight.[2]

What it means to be human: Fallibility

As Lt Bailey cracks under pressure, he represents a rare example of Star Trek attempting (however heavy-handedly) to portray a character reacting in a psychologically credible way to the events unfolding around them. The story’s conclusion provides an explicit acknowledgement of human fallibility, as Bailey prepares to join Balok for a time (emphasis mine, in bold):

BALOK: Ah. You represent Earth’s best, then.

BAILEY: No, sir, I’m not. I’ll make plenty of mistakes.

KIRK: But you’d find out more about us that way, and I’d get a better officer in return.

Kirk observes that humans are not what we are despite our flaws, but because of them.

Ethos: Mercy

Balok’s final test for the Enterprise crew is one to assess their mercy. After the Enterprise breaks free from the tractor beam of his ‘pilot vessel’, his ship appears to lose propulsion and life support. It transmits a distress signal so weak that Uhura doubts that Balok’s mother ship can hear it. Despite the Enterprise having been attacked by the buoy and repeatedly threatened with destruction by Balok, Kirk’s immediate reaction is to mount a rescue mission:

‘First Federation vessel is in distress. We’re preparing to board it. There are lives at stake. By our standards, alien life but lives nevertheless.’

He reminds McCoy:

‘What's the mission of this vessel, Doctor? To seek out and contact alien life, and an opportunity to demonstrate what our high-sounding words mean.’

De-escalation

There are two separate and striking de-escalations of conflict in ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’. The first occurs after the Enterprise has destroyed the device that had pursued and irradiated the ship. Kirk discusses his next move with Spock:

KIRK: Care to speculate on what we’ll find if we go on ahead?

SPOCK: Speculate? No. Logically, we’ll discover the intelligence which sent out the cube.

KIRK: Intelligence different from ours or superior?

SPOCK: Probably both, and if you’re asking the logical decision to make

KIRK: No, I’m not. The mission of the Enterprise is to seek out and contact alien life. [...] Navigator, set a course ahead.

Protagonists in adventure series routinely encounter and overcome obstacles in pursuit of some goal. However, the goal here is of a fundamentally different kind from traditional adventure fare: Kirk is not seeking anything other than peaceful contact with a new civilisation. Now that the immediate threat has been removed, the conflict is thoroughly de-escalated and Enterprise continues on as if nothing has happened. There is no grudge here. I suggest that this is highly unusual in an adventure series, even today.

The second de-escalation takes place at the episode’s conclusion, after Balok sends his distress signal and Kirk leads a rescue mission to his ship.  In Star Trek’s signature style, what began as confrontation finishes with the former adversaries holding hands. In the case of this episode, quite literally!

Kirk doesn’t even seem to mind that Balok has been misleading him all along. The bluffs in ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ go both ways. Kirk successfully bluffed Balok out of destroying the Enterprise—or at least, thinks he did. When he finally gets to meet Balok, he learns that he himself has been duped. Most obviously and trivially, the visage they have come to know as Balok is a deception. More significantly, Kirk learns that  Balok has been testing humanity to verify the non-belligerency of our species. This means that Kirk might well have been fooled about almost everything Balok has said: Did he ever really intend to destroy the Enterprise? Was he really towing the ship to a First Federation planet (or just through deep space to see if Kirk would try to escape)? He was certainly lying in the distress call that Kirk treated as genuine. The episode concludes with a protagonist who has been thoroughly misled, but who still extends the hand of friendship.

Romancing the ship

The episode contains an explicit reference to the captain’s romantic relationship with the ship:

KIRK: When I find the headquarters genius that assigned me a female yeoman—

MCCOY: What’s the matter, Jim? Don't you trust yourself?

KIRK: I’ve already got a female to worry about. Her name’s the Enterprise.

Later, Balok identifies in Kirk a kindred spirit. At the episode’s conclusion, he says:

‘Now, before I bring back the Fesarius, let me show you my vessel. It is not often I have this pleasure. Yes, we're very much alike, Captain. Both proud of our ships.’

A captain’s relationship with their ship is cross-cultural in Star Trek.

As science fiction

The bluff at the heart of ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ relies on an encounter between groups of people who do not know each other’s capabilities:

‘Two groups of people meet. The more powerful group threatens to destroy the weaker. The weaker says that any attempt to do so will unleash a tremendous force that will destroy the attacker.’

For the premise to work at all, the more powerful group must believe that such a force might conceivably exist, and have no easy way of testing the claim without risk. The nature of the force is essentially unimportant: it could be magical, technological, or quite mundane (‘My uncle commands three legions and will avenge our deaths!’)

The strongest science-fiction element of ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ is actually in its meta-narrative. Kirk’s bluff—that there is an undocumented destructive material and device incorporated into his ship’s hull—is science fiction. Unable to match Balok’s power, Kirk relies on what we would now describe as social engineering to provide protection for his ship.

‘Dangerous, savage child-race’

Balok accuses humanity of savagery:

‘Your vessel, obviously the product of a primitive and savage civilisation, having ignored a warning buoy and having then destroyed it, has demonstrated your intention is not peaceful.’

I think it’s hard to make any charge of savagery stick to any part of this episode. On encountering the alien device, the Enterprise crew takes no aggressive action whatsoever; they simply wait and observe it. When it does not seem like there’s anything left to learn, they attempt to navigate around it peacefully. Only when the device actively pursues them and emits lethal radiation do they destroy it. Then, even after the device’s hostile actions, Kirk remains committed to making peaceful contact with the device’s builders. Kirk’s explanation of his actions rings completely true:

‘We destroyed your space buoy as a simple act of self-preservation. When we attempted to move away from it, it emitted radiation harmful to our species. If you've examined our ship and its tapes, you know this to be true.’

If anything, it is Balok’s (or, at least, his civilisation’s) motives that are morally suspect. The ‘buoy’ (if that is truly the purpose of the device) does not broadcast any kind of warning message, it pursues the Enterprise when it tries to withdraw peacefully, and it emits radiation lethal to life forms similar to those of its makers. Balok then goes on to terrorise helpless captives. Of course, this is all done in the context of ‘testing’ humans, but these are tests that would be unlikely to impress even a 21st century ethics committee.

Conclusion

‘The Corbomite Maneuver’ offers the Enterprise crew plenty of provocation to offer violent resistance to Balok, but they never give into it. Indeed, they offer Balok assistance when they think he needs it.

Literary and mythic references

Balok explicitly refers to Robert Louis Stevenson’s Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde. He describes his menacing-looking dummy as ‘Mister Hyde to my Jekyll’. This cultural knowledge was presumably derived from Balok probing the Enterprise’s computer records earlier in the episode.

Other notes

Thank you to D for pointing out that the Cuban Missile Crisis was recent history when this show was written and aired. In ‘The Corbomite Maneuver’, Kirk dares Balok to find out whether the Corbomite device actually exists. The real-world superpowers knew each other’s destructive capabilities did exist, but dared each other to find out whether their opponent was truly willing to use those powers. Could this have been the real-world stimulus for this episode?

Mission objectives

This episode takes place entirely aboard the Enterprise and Balok’s pilot vessel, with no worlds visited, let along explored. Balok and the First Federation are, however, a first contact for humanity, and Spock explicitly states, ‘We are the first to reach this far.’

Objective	This episode	Series so far
To explore strange, new worlds	0	1 (33%)
To seek out new life and new civilizations	1	2 (67%)
To boldly go where none has gone before	1	2 (67%)

Previous episode: ‘Where No Man Has Gone Before’
Next episode: ‘Mudd’s Women’

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Footnotes

[1] Indeed, Balok resembles the Talosians so much in general form that the action figure that toy company Mego released in 1975 to represent ‘The Keeper’ had a head and robe clearly modelled more after Balok’s puppet than the Talosian.

[2] The final variable in the equation, L, represents the length of time during which a technological civilization transmits radio signals into space. Carl Sagan called attention to the way that a civilisation’s tendency to self-destruct was necessarily a limiting factor on the value of L. Roddenberry was certainly aware of the Drake Equation as early as 1964, but I have not seen direct evidence that he had reached the same understanding of L that Sagan developed. On the other hand, if he had developed such an understanding, it could explain the assumption of generally benevolent aliens that forms a core part of the series’ ethos.