star trek with abraham lincoln

Abraham Lincoln

• View history

Abraham Lincoln was a 19th century Human politician who served as the 16th President of the United States of America . As one of his duties as president, he served as the Commander-in-Chief of the Union Army from 1861 until 1865 during his country's civil war . ( TOS : " The Cage ", " The Savage Curtain ")

After Jonathan Archer restored a damaged timeline, Abraham Lincoln signing a document could be seen in the time stream as the timeline realigned itself. ( ENT : " Storm Front, Part II ")

A photograph of Lincoln was scanned by the Talosians as they reviewed the library computer files on board USS Enterprise in 2254 . ( TOS-R : " The Cage ")

As a boy , Lincoln grew up using a sling , was accomplished at wrestling , and became well developed as an experienced backwoodsman . ( TOS : " The Savage Curtain ")

The painting entitled First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation of President Lincoln , depicting an image of Abraham Lincoln surrounded by his Cabinet members, Salmon P. Chase , Gideon Welles , Caleb B. Smith , William H. Seward , and Montgomery Blair during the first reading of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1862, was contained in the library computer aboard the Enterprise . A second image overlaid the painting representing Lincoln's signature of the document. These images were also flashed on the viewscreen when the Talosians scanned the Enterprise computer in 2254. ( TOS-R : " The Cage ")

In 2259 , Pelia owned a print of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address . ( SNW : " Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow ")

Voters celebrate his victory in 1860

Scenes from Lincoln's election victory were among the images of Human history on Earth displayed by the Guardian of Forever . Contained in these images were voters carrying signs that read such slogans as: "Lincoln Wins!", "Lincoln and Liberty", and "Old Abe Lincoln: Came Out of the Wilderness." ( TOS : " The City on the Edge of Forever ")

Lincoln was a personal hero of James T. Kirk . In 2269 , the USS Enterprise encountered an image of Lincoln while in orbit of Excalbia , created by the Excalbians to help their understanding of the Human concepts of " good " and " evil ." After witnessing that Lincoln's "death", Kirk felt he understood something of what Earth had to endure before achieving "final peace". ( TOS : " The Savage Curtain ")

Paintings depicting portraits of both President Lincoln and Surak were hung in the USS Enterprise -A 's officers' mess in 2293 . ( Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country )

When Berlinghoff Rasmussen made clear that he couldn't tell Captain Jean-Luc Picard about the future, he compared the captain's situation to that of Abraham Lincoln, who might have changed his theater plans had he known what lay ahead of him. ( TNG : " A Matter Of Time ")

In 2380 , when Lieutenant O'Connor ascended, he mentioned Abraham Lincoln. ( LD : " Moist Vessel ")

Gallery [ ]

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

A retconned drawing of Lincoln from "The Cage"

Lincoln on Mount Rushmore (right)

A matte painting created for a deleted scene from Star Trek V: The Final Frontier featured Lincoln's face on Mount Rushmore monument.

The script of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode " The Homecoming " describes Li Nalas as having "a quiet self-effacing Abraham Lincoln/ Gary Cooper charisma."

Abraham Lincoln served as a visual inspiration for the look for David Warner 's character of Chancellor Gorkon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . According to Richard Snell , " Nick [Meyer] told me, 'When people look at Gorkon, I want their brain cells to go, "Abe Lincoln, because he's the savior of this race.'" The resemblance is almost subliminal. Warner's face was actually pretty conducive to Abe's distinctive beard and eyebrows. In fact, there's also a tie-in on set during one of the sequences where they're having a formal stated dinner, and you see a portrait of Lincoln on the wall. " ( Charting the Undiscovered Country: The Making of Trek VI , p. 91)

Kirk and the Enterprise crew encountered Abraham Lincoln again in the 1971 Gold Key comic book story " The Legacy of Lazarus ".

According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia  (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 465), Abraham Lincoln was born in 1809.

External links [ ]

• Abraham Lincoln at StarTrek.com
• Abraham Lincoln at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works
• Abraham Lincoln at Wikipedia
• 1860 presidential election at Wikipedia
• 1 Rachel Garrett
• 3 USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-G)

In the third season episode of Star Trek: TOS , The Savage Curtain , a 19th-century President Lincoln is thrust into the 23rd century not for laughs, but to represent a person of good nature and character in history in this “good vs. evil” and the struggle for peace-themed episode.

Captain James T. Kirk and the crew of Starship Enterprise are getting readings of possible carbon-based life forms on a seemingly uninhabitable planet they’re orbiting. The planet’s molten lava-like conditions and poisonous atmosphere make it impossible for a landing crew to beam down to the surface and investigate the readings. Just as Kirk gives the order for the ship to warp out and continue on to the next assignment, Spock picks up a signal that the ship is being scanned by a probe. On the ship’s view screen, a familiar outline appears floating in space, which eventually becomes a person resembling Abraham Lincoln, complete with necktie and stovepipe hat, sitting in an armchair reminiscent of the one in the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

While the crew is skeptical of the Lincoln figure’s identity, armchair Lincoln clearly believes he is the former U.S. President. “I am Abraham Lincoln,” he proclaims.

The episode focuses are several themes: Kirk’s admiration of Abraham Lincoln; Lincoln’s quest for peace in time of war; good vs. evil and the struggle for survival; and self-sacrifice for the greater good. I talk about this episode in length below, so beware of SPOILERS . You can watch a clip of the scene, which takes place before the opening theme, over at Amazon and you can buy the episode there too for $1.99 (or 12 Pepsi points).

Lincoln (played by Lee Bergere ) requests to come aboard the Enterprise and upon arrival via transporter is greeted with Presidential honors by the crew, including ceremonial music (taped, not live) and Kirk, Spock, Dr. McCoy, and Scotty in full-dress uniforms (with Scotty in a Scottish-themed uniform). Scotty tells McCoy that what he beamed aboard could have been made of living rock, and Kirk ponders whether this figure is an illusion or a reincarnation.

Lincoln invites Kirk and Spock down to the surface with him to a small area of the planet with Earth-like conditions. The two officers know they’re being lured down to the planet for some reason, but don’t know why. Spock states that whatever the purpose, it’s obvious that the life form was made to look and act like the President as a way to titillate Kirk’s curiosity, since Lincoln has always been a hero of his. The life form is also meant to affect Spock, who finds the President “fascinating” and charming.

Once down on the surface, Kirk and Spock realize that their phasers and tricorders did not beam with them, and that all communications to the Enterprise have been cut off. The trio finds out from the powerful rock-like entity Yarnek that they’ve been lured to the planet, called Excalbia, to participate in a battle for survival. Lincoln, Kirk, Spock, and Vulcan founder Surak are to fight Genghis Khan and three other notoriously evil figures from Star Trek history, so that Yarnek and his kind can observe which of the two humanoid philosophies — good and evil — is the stronger.

After the evil figures attack, the sides get into a scuffle, but quickly conclude that Yarnek is the real enemy. Yarnek observes that the good side will not fight without a cause, so he sets the Enterprise to self-destruct in four hours if the good side does not defeat its evil opponents.

In an allusion to the American Civil War, Lincoln tells Kirk, “The war is forced upon us. History repeats itself.” They have no choice now but to fight. Kirk strategizes their attack plan, which Lincoln says reminds him of another man he admires — General Grant (leader of the northern Union army — the “good” side — during the U.S. Civil War).

Surak approaches the evil opponents offering peace, but they capture him to provoke the others to battle. Lincoln comes up with a rescue plan that has them fighting on the same level with “trickery, brutality, finality … we match their evil.” He explains that while he’s typically thought of as a gentle man, he was Commander in Chief during the four bloodiest years of his country’s history, giving orders that sent 100,000 men to their deaths during the Civil War.

Both Lincoln and Surak perish in the battle, but ultimately Kirk and Spock win by fighting until their opponents flee. The good side wins out, though the entity still doesn’t see many differences between the two sides. Kirk and Spock are free to return to the Enterprise and all’s well again.

Back aboard the ship, Spock conjectures that the entity was able to scan their minds to create the perfect images of Lincoln and Surak, the two people Kirk and Spock admire, respectively. “They seemed so real,” Kirk says. “I feel I actually met Lincoln.” Kirk says that after seeing Lincoln die again, he feels like he understands what Earth must have gone through to achieve final peace.

Of Lincoln and Surak, Kirks says:

Amazon.com Widgets

Follow me on Twitter and Instagram .

• Show Spoilers
• Night Vision
• Sticky Header
• Highlight Links

Follow TV Tropes

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Recap/StarTrekS3E22TheSavageCurtain

Recap / Star Trek S3 E22 "The Savage Curtain"

Edit locked.

Original air date: March 7, 1969

The One With… Abraham Lincoln IN SPACE!

Another day on the Enterprise , another new planet to explore. Excalbia will be explored from afar due to excessive amounts of volcanic activity. Kirk asks Spock if he detects any life forms. He actually detects a few, though there should be none. Oh well, obviously a computer error. Time to pack it in and call it a....is that Abraham Lincoln hovering in space? note  We are not making this up, okay?

He's posed just like his statue in the Lincoln Memorial, armchair and all. Somehow, he can not only exist in space but speak in the vacuum of space . He politely requests to be beamed aboard. Kirk beams him aboard with full presidential honors. He realizes there is no logical way this should be the Great Emancipator himself, but he'll play along anyway. Lincoln, still charmingly polite, requests Kirk and Spock to beam down to Excalbia with him. He cannot explain why, only that they must. Bones and Scotty think this is a very dumb idea. So of course Kirk's willing to do it! Spock declares he will accept the invitation too. And so they do.

On beaming down, they meet Surak, a Messianic Archetype from Vulcan history who makes Spock look like a Keet . They also meet a Rock Monster called Yarnek who wants to know if Good or Evil is stronger. To find out, he becomes Teddy Long and makes an 8-person Tag team match, pitting Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak against Genghis Khan , Zora (a Mad Doctor from Tiburon), Colonel Phillip Green (ecoterrorist and genocidal maniac from World War III ) and Kahless the Unforgettable ( Hero of the Klingons ). Why? Eh, why not?

The Savage Tropes:

• Yarnek is never named in dialogue, but is so named in the script. Even in the closed captioning, he's merely identified when speaking off-screen as "Excalbian."
• This episode would get a sequel of sorts in the novel Savage Trade , which develops the mindset of the Excalbians and reveals their true motives for staging this fight, as well as the aftereffects that set in after the Enterprise leaves.
• Artistic License – Biology : The rock monsters are stated to be carbon life forms, where silicon based life would make much more sense. Even more baffling is that silicon based life has appeared on the show earlier.
• Artistic License – History : The historical characters, most notably Lincoln, do not look or act much like their real counterparts. Justified, since they are based on Kirk's and Spock's images of these historic figures.
• Badass Pacifist : Surak refuses to take part in battle, even though Kirk insists the war they're fighting is for a just cause. Still, Surak insists on a peaceful negotiation with Col. Green. Even Kirk is moved to remark to Spock that "your Surak is a brave man", to which Spock replies "Men of peace usually are, Captain." Unfortunately, it gets him killed.
• Black-and-White Morality : Sums up the whole episode, with Yarnek the super power who wants to know if Good or Evil is stronger. Ultimately subverted — at the end, Yarnek expresses confusion because the distinction between the two isn't as clear as he'd been expecting, since Kirk's team also resorted to violence to win. Kirk explains the difference was in what motivated them: the villains were offered power, while Kirk and Spock were fighting for the lives of the Enterprise crew.
• Blatant Lies : Green tells Kirk that he would like to peacefully team up with Kirk against their common foe. It's all a deception to attack him when his guard's down.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality : Yarnek does not understand the concept of good and evil.
• Broke Your Arm Punching Out Cthulhu : Kirk decides he's going to slug Yarnek for what he put Spock and himself through. Yeah, punch the monster made of lava rocks, Jim. You'll have third degree burns on top of that broken arm!
• Captain Obvious : Yarnek tells Kirk "If you and Spock survive, you return to your vessel. If you do not... your existence is ended." Thanks for telling us, Yarnek! That's right up there with "People die if they're killed!"
• Characterization Marches On : Kahless is based on the Federation's conception of the Klingon hero, and it is (due to the political climate) both not terribly favorable and comparatively ignorant. If this episode were to be made in the era of Star Trek: The Next Generation , Kahless would undoubtedly be on the good side along with Lincoln and Surak. Especially if Worf were one of the participants. note  The tyrant Molor, established as the true Big Bad in Klingon mythology, would have been a likely candidate for the evil side.
• Combat Pragmatist : Lincoln advocates fighting just as dirty as Colonel Green and his friends.
• Door Jam : Yarnek disables the Enterprise 's transporter until they show whether good or evil is stronger. This leaves Kirk and Spock stranded on an alien planet without the support of their crew, with only a pacifist alien and Abe Lincoln to aid them in fighting history's greatest villains.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good : Col. Green expects Surak's peace talks to be a trick. That's what he'd be doing if he tried to talk peace with someone. (In fact, he just did a few minutes ago.)
• Colonel Green to Kirk - Cunning human officers who easily take charge of their respective packs
• Zora to Spock - Alien scientists
• Kahless to Surak - each the greatest influencer of his race
• Genghis Khan to Lincoln - commanders-in-chief from human history
• Famous, Famous, Fictional : Of the six "historical" characters in this episode, only two are known to modern day humans. The others got their characterization expanded on in future Star Trek incarnations, save for Zora. Pity. It would've been interesting to see what a female Josef Mengele of the future would be like.
• Faux Affably Evil : Col. Green seems quite polite and soft-spoken, despite freely admitting to at least some of his bad historical reputation. His good behavior is quickly shown to be a diversionary tactic.
• Forced into Their Sunday Best : Bones and Scotty rankle at getting gussied up for someone who is probably not Abraham Lincoln.
• Good Cannot Comprehend Evil : Surak, Spock and President Lincoln have a hard time understanding the motives and actions of the opposing "evil" side. Only Kirk seems to have a grasp of their potential for deceptiveness and duplicity.
• Historical Domain Crossover : The Hero team is Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, Abraham Lincoln and Surak of Vulcan. The villain team is Genghis Khan, the Klingon Kahless, Colonel Green and the Mad Scientist Zora. Everyone except Kirk and Spock are actually alien rock creatures masquerading as humanoids.
• Historical Hero Upgrade : Kirk's idealized picture of Abraham Lincoln is mostly based on the simplistic, idealized version of Lincoln that was popularized up to The '60s or even into The '70s . The dialogue at the end of the episode actually lampshades as Kirk acknowledges that the image of Lincoln was created out of his own idealization of what he wanted the man to be, not necessarily ignorance of actual history.
• Impromptu Fortress : Kirk and company find a raised outcrop of rock that he says will be their base of operations, because "it's defensible."
• Innocuously Important Episode : While the episode takes place too near to the end of TOS's run to count for anything in terms of that series, its introduction of Surak and Kahless (and to a lesser extent, Colonel Green) would have far-ranging implications for future spin-off shows.
• Innocently Insensitive : Lincoln casually refers to Uhura as a "charming negress". He quickly apologizes though Uhura isn't offended since bigoted terms like that are now only a thing of the distant past.
• Involuntary Battle to the Death : As in in "Arena", "The Gamesters of Triskelion", "Bread and Circuses", "Spectre of the Gun", and "Day of the Dove", Kirk is forced to fight for an alien's amusement.
• Kirk Summation : Kirk can't punch Yarnek, but he can give him a piece of his mind, demanding "What gives you the right to do this?"
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!" : Kirk and Spock are both pretty honored to meet their personal heroes. Spock even admits to showing emotion at the sight of Surak (albeit some of which was simple shock).
• Leitmotif : When Lincoln is beamed aboard, one of the security officers blows a bosun's whistle and they play a recording of "Hail To The Chief". Lincoln looks around and asks where the band is.
• Mirroring Factions : Played with. Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and Surak represent Good; Colonel Green, Kahless, Khan, and Zora represent Evil. Yarnek complains afterward that he can't see the difference between them; Kirk responds by pointing out that they fought for different things: the evil side fought for power, while he and Spock fought for their ship and its crew.

• "Not So Different" Remark : Yarnek insists his method of exploration is no different from Kirk's. That's Blue-and-Orange Morality in action, folks.
• Patrick Stewart Speech : Kind of odd to have an example of this twenty years before Star Trek: The Next Generation began, but that's what it is: Yarnek complains that he doesn't see the difference between 'good' and 'evil'; Kirk points out that he and Spock fought to defend life, while the evil side fought to gain power.
• Rock Monster : The aliens who set up the morality play are made of carbon-based stones.
• The Silent Bob : Neither Genghis Khan nor Zora have any dialogue between them, with Colonel Green and Kahless being the only members of the Rogues Gallery who actually speak.
• Truce Trickery : Kirk points out to Colonel Green that he was notorious for striking his enemies while in the midst of negotiating with them.
• Two of Your Earth Minutes : The Excalbian recreation of Abraham Lincoln asks if they still measure time in minutes, to which Kirk responds that they "can convert to it". (Lincoln consults a pocket watch as he says this.)
• Voice Changeling : The fake Kahless is able to perfectly mimic the voices of both Surak and Lincoln. Possibly Justified in that all three are Excalbian impersonations and thus all their voices are "fake".
• What the Hell, Hero? : Relatively gently, but Bones and Scotty call out Kirk for being a fawning fanboy over Lincoln and not using common sense.
• We Come in Peace — Shoot to Kill : Green pulls this and assumes Surak is doing the same.
• White Male Lead : Col. Green instantly takes command of the villain team, with no less than Genghis Khan obeying his orders. There seems to be no reason for this except that he's the one white dude. The real Genghis Khan and Kahless (a member of a race that considers humans inferior) would not approve. Of course, their uncharacteristic behavior is slightly justified because they're not the real Genghis or Kahless.
• Would Hit a Girl : Spock has no problem laying his fists on Zora. Wouldn't you slug Ilsa Koch if you got the chance?
• Star Trek S3 E21 "The Cloud Minders"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S3 E23 "All Our Yesterdays"

Important Links

• Action Adventure
• Commercials
• Crime & Punishment
• Professional Wrestling
• Speculative Fiction
• Sports Story
• Animation (Western)
• Music And Sound Effects
• Print Media
• Sequential Art
• Tabletop Games
• Applied Phlebotinum
• Characterization
• Characters As Device
• Narrative Devices
• British Telly
• The Contributors
• Creator Speak
• Derivative Works
• Laws And Formulas
• Show Business
• Split Personality
• Truth And Lies
• Truth In Television
• Fate And Prophecy
• Edit Reasons
• Isolated Pages
• Images List
• Recent Videos
• Crowner Activity
• Un-typed Pages
• Recent Page Type Changes
• Trope Entry
• Character Sheet
• Playing With
• Creating New Redirects
• Cross Wicking
• Tips for Editing
• Text Formatting Rules
• Handling Spoilers
• Administrivia
• Trope Repair Shop
• Image Pickin'

Advertisement:

Search this site

Star Trek: The Original Series

“The Savage Curtain”

Air date: 3/7/1969 Teleplay by Gene Roddenberry and Arthur Heinemann Story by Gene Roddenberry Directed by Herschel Daugherty

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

The Enterprise crew finds itself face to face with an entity that appears and claims to be Abraham Lincoln (Lee Berger). Lincoln invites Kirk and Spock down to the surface of a planet, where they all find themselves the pawns in a game of "good versus evil," courtesy of a rock-like creature that wants to learn the difference between the two powerful forces. Surak (Barry Atwater), the master who forged the peaceful Vulcan ideology milleniums ago, joins Kirk, Spock, and Lincoln to engage in a battle to the end against four nefarious figures from history.

This poorly conceived episode might've been better titled "Arena VII: The Abe Lincoln Factor." Seriously, was it really in remotely good taste for this episode to use Abraham Lincoln as a character in such a silly adventure? I'm inclined to say no. Who really wants to see President Lincoln reduced to a hollow supporting character—especially considering that in the end he takes a spear in the back?

"The Savage Curtain" is a routine, bland hour of TOS , with the same themes we've seen over and over again. It's another in a long line of Trekkian outings where the humanity of Kirk's crew is tested—but less enlightening than most.

Previous episode: The Cloud Minders Next episode: All Our Yesterdays

Like this site? Support it by buying Jammer a coffee .

◄ Season Index

Comment Section

70 comments on this post.

Col. Green "led a genocidal war early in the 21st Century on Earth"? That's funny, I always thought George W. Bush did that (hey, somebody had to say that, so it may as well be me).

This episode has a lot of bad TOS cliches -- Kirk in a fight to the death, the bridge crew helpless and forced to watch, bad-guy aliens playing puppet master, weak fight scenes and over-the-top-look-how-far-they've-come moments ("In our century, we've learned not to fear words."). But ... I still don't hate this episode and I would rate it at least 2 stars, maybe 2 1/2. The dialog between Kirk and Lincoln makes for some good moments (I love when Lincoln compares Kirk with General Grant). The episode is also an origin tale for both the Vulcans and the Klingons (admittedly, Kahless is done badly here, but Surak is interesting). And Colonel Green has some presence as a villain. My biggest problem with the episode is Kirk and Spock willfully beaming down to the planet, though McCoy and Scotty have a good scene where they try to talk them out of it. Scotty really grows as a character in season 3, actually. Probably the most important thing: This episode, while goofy, isn't dull like so many other season 3 offerings. Last thing: This is the final episode where the main cast appears together. We only hear Scotty's voice in "All Our Yesterdays" and Uhura isn't in "Turnabout Intruder".

So, what did the rock creature learn about good and evil by episode's end? Nothing - zero-which also describes the amount of watchable content this offers.

This episode is pretty dumb. Getting two sides to fight one another is not how you get to know these two sides. You need to see them when they're not under extreme pressure. That being said, I actually love the beginning of this episode. If this were just an episode where Lincoln comes aboard and helps the Enterprise do something, that would have been really fun. Surak could have come along too.

For me the most absurd a spect of the episode is the glimpse of Lincoln seated like he is in the Lincoln memorial monument floating around in space.It is intention getting at the beginning, but surely there was no one in the audience who thought it really was Lincoln or who did not think it was an illusion, or some alien in Lincoln clothing. How does he manage to breath in the vacuum of space? Yet Kirk and his crew apparently think it is real. Most of us know that Lincoln was well and truly dead by the 23rd century, and by assassination. Logically he could not have been the real Lincoln but Kirk and the crew put on their best full dress uniforms and practically genuflect to him. If, I remember rightly, no one asks him how he survived assassination, and how he swiped the chair from the Lincoln memorial and blasted off into space with it. A stronger degree of scepticism by Kirk, and if if the writers could have come up with a more convincing way of introducing Lincoln in the story, then the rest of the story premise might have been more acceptable too,even if we had seen the duel in the area used too many times already The Lincoln in space made for a striking visual opening teaser for the episode, but someone among the producers or writers should have realised how dumb or stupid it was.

This episode would have fit right in with season 1TNG

Lol at Jammer's second paragraph. I think they could have made a whole series out of shamelessly killing history's noblest figures! At least this inspired a pretty good Futurama episode.

213karaokejoe

Interesting that one of the villains chosen for the battle of good vs evil is the one and only Kayless(sp?)the father of Klingon Warriorism acting like an unhonorable cheater.

Home stretch! I think Jammer's review basically says most of what I want to say. There is an interesting, maybe not entirely developed, philosophical debate between Surak and Lincoln about how best to respond to evil: Surak recommends leading by example, passive resistance, pacifism in general, and Lincoln basically argues that they have to be as devious and ruthless as the enemy in order to beat them. As it turns out, neither survive the hour. Surak's being butchered because he puts up no fight at all is something of a cautionary tale. Valuing peace is noble and honourable, but it might get you killed if it's not counterbalanced. I also get a feeling that this episode's FICTIONAL Lincoln's being stabbed in the back was meant as some sort of weird poetic justice for his especially "sneaky" campaign suggestion. Or, maybe not. In general, WHO IS BETTER -- GOOD OR EVIL?!?! FIGHT! -- is one of the dumbest ideas to come out of this series. At least "Arena," for its flaws in execution, had the point more or less be that Kirk had to show he could use his brains rather than brute force, and so the point was something more akin to what Q tested Picard with in "All Good Things" (on a much smaller scale): not "are you good?" but "can you expand?" The episode's closing conversation comes down to, "good" and "evil" actually use similar tactics to each other in war, so what is the difference? The difference is fighting war for protection of oneself and people one cares about, and fighting for the sake of spoils. Great. You know, there are a lot of "aliens try to understand human concepts through testing them out" episodes in various series, and not many of them are good. Still, in an episode like TNG's "Allegiance" or "Liaisons," neither of which are exactly classics, for the flaws in the aliens' methodology it's more or less clear at least to an extent what information they think they're gaining. Not only do the aliens pit "good versus evil," but they actually pit...two real people and two imaginary people created out of whatever likely limited understanding those people had of the real versions of those people, again four imaginary people who are viewed as the worst of the worst, and thus are also presumably not really understood all that well. I'm not saying that "the genocidal Col. Green" was probably a great guy and Kirk just doesn't understand him, but I think if one is going to pit opposite philosophies (as if "evil" was a philosophy), one should at least make sure one gets real representatives. Kirk is surprised that Col. Green acts like a reasonable person (at first), even though Col. Green is a) not real, and b) is based on Kirk's (or maybe Spock's) imagined version of him. If the aliens can really just create whole people with the ability to self-determine, why do they need Kirk and Spock to fight at all? Can't they just scan their brains and then run simulations to their hearts', or rock-creature equivalent of hearts', content? Kirk also says: "It was so hard for me to see him die again. I feel I understand what Earth must have gone through to achieve final peace." I mean, this statement seems to imply that "final peace" came about as a result of Lincoln's death, which is ridiculous even if the episode didn't also introduce a 21st century genocidal dictator. It is an interesting footnote that Kirk's version of Kahless is pure evil. At the end it's more or less stated, in case it hadn't been clear, that the various monsters and heroes were created out of the minds of Kirk and Spock -- so that Kirk views the Klingon messiah as a figure of pure malice reveals, in retrospect, something interesting about Kirk's cultural biases against the Klingons, understandably since their warlike expansion is being as destructive as it is. In reality, I think it's true that Kahless' philosophy is damaging -- he does seem to value war and expansion and glory -- but the "real Kahless," whether it's the clone we eventually encounter or the mythological one Worf describes, would view treachery and stabbing someone in the back as the worst of transgressions. It highlights the way the 1980s-90s Trek complicates the assumptions in the original series, and retroactively both TNG and The Undiscovered Country suggest that Kirk's earlier perspective on Klingons was distorted, if not wholly inaccurate. I took a few weeks trying to think of something to say about this episode, and I'm still coming up mostly empty. 1 star.

This episode could have been better had the writers actually come up with a reason for Evil losing to Good other than Kirk being amazing at hand to hand combat. Evil has a tendency to turn on itself and it seems reasonable to me that at some point, possibly with the right push from the Good group, the Evil group would have self-destructed due to infighting.

I kind of liked this episode. Most of it. It was interesting seeing Kirk and Spock meeting their heroes. I wish Col. Green had been telling the truth when he offered to work with Kirk instead of fighting, maybe making the evil guys more 3 dimensional rather than cardboard cutouts. What bothered me was the ending. They have the good guys 4 on 2 but they lose because Kirk beats them up and they run away? That was weak. Guess the writers ran out of ideas.

George Bush

Col. Green "led a genocidal war early in the 21st Century on Earth"? That's funny, I always thought Osama Bin Ladin did that (hey, somebody had to say that, so it may as well be me).

Some people need to purchase a dictionary and look up the word "genocide".

@Jason - To be fair, Osama Bin Laden was TRYING to kill all the infidels, he was just really bad at it (with the notable exception of 1 good day followed by years and years of hiding in holes).

I don't understand the philosophical idea behind this episode. The question the episode posed was whether good will prevail over evil. At the end of the episode the creature said that the methods behind achieving peace (the good) were the same as the methods behind evil, both being murder. Seriously, how is that an answer to the question which of the two would prevail? Or did I misunderstand? When the creature said ''which of the two is stronger'', did it mean 'will fighting for evil (selfishness) lead to victory, or will fighting for good lead to victory?' If that's what it meant, then, well... this whole episode must've been about how survival instinct overpowers selfish goals. But that's not the idea I got from the episode, as it kept going on about good VS evil. At the end, Spock gives a pointless summary of the facts, rather than insight into what it was all about. Not only that, but the philosophical idea that good and evil often use the same methods isn't reflected upon either. It seems like the episode didn't know what theme to go with, and what story to tell. Such a shame.

Andrew Taylor-Cairns

Well in the midst of a lot of season 3 episodes that were fluff/out of character/ridiculous/boring (delete as applicable), The Savage Curtain was OK. I was certainly entertained, but there just wasn't much substance here. It was much better than watching The Way to Eden last night before bed, where I was worried about having song montage nightmares. Now that is a monstrosity of an episode, and I would advocate giving it a minus score.

At the point that they introduce evil historical figures I actually thought that they would have a philosophical debate and wondered if the episode just gets bad rap for the inherent silliness of the concept. Once it turn out it's another battle to the death... Yeah. I do give credit for developing Vulcans but this isn't just a silly episode, it's rather pretentious one as well.

Things I learned from this episode: Genghis Khaaaan attained his empire and military victories by throwing rocks from the bushes. He's reduced to a "Sneaky Asian" here instead of the complex and intimidating figure he really was. This is the kind of thing that probably annoys George Takei. Why include him if you aren't going to try to do it right? The rock alien costume and its voice effect was pretty cool, though. Arena + The Omega Glory + Catspaw = This (and many episodes in subsequent series especially those with Q)

zzybaloobah

The one saving grace is the interaction between Lincoln and Uhura, when he says "What a charming Negress", then immediately apologizes for calling her that. And she responds (I'm paraphrasing) "why should I take offense at a word? [regardless of how it was used in the past] I'm happy with who/what I am." That's a classic Roddenberry vision of the future. Yeah, the "let's examine good and evil by making them kill each other" is absurd. It's possible a truly alien race wouldn't know any better, but surely KIrk or Spock could have quickly pointed out the flaw in their experimental design. Kirk: "Both sides can fight -- to find meaningful differences, you need to examine *why* they fight..." or something to that effect would have been a good start. @JPaul - I like your notion of having the evil group implode with infighting. Maybe that's what was shown at the end. The good guys don't "win because Kirk is a good fighter" (and how lame is Spock here? you'd think he could easily kick butt of any of his foes, but can't seem to get the upper hand....); the good guys win because, despite a nominal 4 -to- 2 advantage, the "bad guys" weren't willing to commit their own skin to battle. Col Green comes across as a classic "lead from the rear" commander. Though I'm not sure history indicates that the "good guys" exhibit bettery unit cohesion than the "bad guys".....

This was a wonderful episode that gives an excellent insight into the decline in writing as Star Trek came to an end. Star Trek (2009) started that way only to get worst with with the Into the Darkness improving with Beyond minus the rubbish intelligence insulting villain plot and forced queers onscreen.

"forced queers"?

@MadBaggins - Don't feed the trolls :P (It apparently offended Why? so much that Sulu was gay and that they threw it in our faces for all of 5 seconds that he needed to associate it with the decline of all Trek).

One of the first TOS episodes I saw as a kid -- and I don't remember liking it. Over the years, I've wavered between grooving on it and finding it awful, but now I've come to decide that I like "The Savage Curtain." I'll give it 3/4 stars. While Lincoln's initial appearance on the viewscreen is campy, and soured me on this one as a kid, the story actually develops into a fairly serious, thoughtful, and well-scripted exploration of violence and pacifism. And at this point in my life, I've seen so much brainless and tasteless Star Trek episodes since I first saw this one -- including dozens of bad TNG, DS9, Voyager, and especially Enterprise episodes -- that I've softened on "Savage Curtain" quite a bit. For me, it's rather refreshing to watch "Savage Curtain" after seeing the 100th shuttle crash episode on Voyager or the 50th Archer-is-held-hostage episode on Enterprise. This show gets points from me for being consistently intriguing, attention-holding, and even compelling at times. The crew interaction, banter, and debate in the early scenes when "Lincoln" comes aboard is especially sharp -- I particularly like the idealism of the classic Roddenberry-scripted exchange between Uhura and the president about race. Scotty and Bones are delightfully combative, Chekov and Sulu get a bit of screen time as they cover for Kirk and Spock on the bridge, and the Excalbian rock alien is cool. This episode is important in Trek lore for introducing some major characters who later recur in the franchise's fictional universe. Although Kahless hardly makes an impact, being a fairly one-note projection of Kirk's negative image of Klingons, Colonel Green -- later seen on Enterprise as an inspiration for the xenophobic separatist group led by Peter Weller's character at the end of Season 4 -- makes a pretty strong impression as a symbol of humanity's dystopian past in a series that's normally very idealistic about humanity. But above all else, I really treasure the sensitive and thoughtful exchanges between Kirk and Spock with Lincoln and Surak, as they try to make sense of the situation and respond to it. It's a nice touch that the characters projected from the minds of Kirk and Spock, both good and evil, think themselves real despite not quite understanding their situation. Ultimately, I can't go higher than 3 stars because the concept of aliens forcing the Enterprise crew to do battle was already a cliche on TOS by this point in the series run, and had arguably been done better on earlier episodes. Also, the climactic victory moment of Kirk and Spock is underplayed to the point of being well over before you realize they've succeeded. But the intelligent characterization of Lincoln and Surak, who the plot takes very seriously, makes the show worthwhile -- the expanding of Vulcan's backstory with the introduction of Surak is a uniquely strong highlight of the show. While the final lesson that good fights for others while evil fights for selfish gain feels a bit obvious in the end, I also like how "Savage Curtain" concludes on a note of moral ambiguity, with the Excalbian rock creature remaining skeptical of the human distinction between good and evil even as he grasps it and frees the crew as promised. On that note, it's nice to see a TOS episode that ends with an alien who exists somewhat beyond our categories of good and evil, rather than being merely a good alien or bad alien or bad alien masquerading as good alien or good alien masquerading as bad alien. If you watch this episode closely, getting past the initial goofiness of the Lincoln reveal, there's actually quite a bit of substance and nuance in the plot. Incidentally, the Lincoln stuff reminded me of Voyager's "The 37s" episode, which began with a Chevy '57 appearing on the viewscreen and proceeded to discover Amelia Earhart and other figures from earth history living in stasis on a Delta Quadrant planet where they had been kidnapped. The difference is that Voyager took the idea of human historical figures living in outer space seriously, whereas this unfairly maligned TOS episode treats the same notion rather more sensibly as an illusion that is nevertheless real for the crew.

The 'message' of this show? Don't try for peace. Tell Edith Keeler that too.

While I agree with a lot of the above, e.g. That the fight was silly and it didn't really prove anything, I thought this episode had some very well written and performed scenes. I really like the way the Abraham Lincoln actor interacted with Kirk and similarly Surak with Spock.

I didn't hate this episode as much as I had remembered it. I think the guest performance by the Lincoln actor and some of the dialogue with Surak elevated it a bit for me. Where the episode falls flat on its face of course is in the conclusion. Obviously as others have noted, attempting to discern the nature of good and evil through physical combat is just silly. But beyond that, it's apparent the writers just haven't the foggiest clue how to resolve things at the end, so they just have Kirk and Spock flat out beat up the four villains in a fist fight. That's right - after Lincoln and Surak die Spock and Kirk just straight up kick the asses of the bad guys despite 2:1 odds. No cleverness, no twist (a la Kirk outwitting the Gorn) they're just better fighters.

I just re-watched this episode. While I still don't think think it is great, it was better than I remember, of course, sometimes when you see something again that you did not particularly care for, it seems better since you aren't expecting much. One thing about this episode I always liked was lee

To continue from above: One thing I have always liked about this episode is lee Bergere's potrayal of LIncoln.

Gene Roddenberry, an old white dude, uses Uhura to tastelessly lecture the audience on political correctness. I notice she didn’t turn and call Sulu a cocksucking g*** or refer to President Lincoln as a crusty cracker. No no instead she almost looks right into the camera and says (to the mainly white male audience) it’s okay for them to go up to black women and call them “charming Negress.” I suppose it’s meant as a compliment. Uhura has basically no lines or meaningful development in three seasons (much less this stupid episode). Why they didn’t have Lincoln ask to touch her hair and examine her behind for good measure is beyond me. Avoiding rudeness is not about fear of words, it’s about respect. Speaking about someone in the third person while they are standing right in front of you is rude and so is making undue comments about their physical attributes. Kirk says they’re “delighted” with what they are yet no one on the bridge dares call him a sweaty, brawling womanizer.

I thought that there was plenty of difference between good and evil regarding their tactics which the Excaliban should have picked up on: 1. Good tried to make peace with evil; 2. Good only fought when attacked by Evil; 3. Evil used deception to harm Good; 4. Evil captured and killed two unarmed members of good, whereas Good would not have done that 5. The motives of Good and Evil were opposite - personal survival vs. attaining power over others.

@troll.BLT LOL Sure, sure. And sane people everywhere summarize Seinfeld's essential characteristics as a thin, neat "womanizer." After all, nearly every episode in over three-times TOS's run (9 years v. 3 years) directly had or implied he was bedding yet another woman. So nah, he's not a comedian. The essential summary anyone now needs to know in 2017 about Jerry Seinfeld is that he's a "womanizer." LMAO Did someone recently read some snippets from Alinsky? 11. "If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive." 13. "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it." Oh, you'll have to do better, my dear little SJW--you and your silly finger-wagging while you're blind to those three other fingers on your same hand pointing back at you. Go virtue-signal somewhere else after you learn the meaning of respect. And while you crack the books, pick up some grasp of context, too. Until then, thanks for the amusement! Bill

There's a good idea in here (the bluring of good, evil, and the ways in which progress oft depends upon covert and overt violence), and a cool rock monster, but the action sequences are a bit too silly and devoid of tension. Imagine if this episode unfolded like Darmok instead; Lincoln, Kirk, Surak and Kahless on a planet, around a fireplace, simply talking and vying with one another via ideologically-loaded dialogue.

Definitely a goofy episode that fails to achieve the lofty goals its premise lays out. Gene Roddenberry himself with another ultimately below-average episode that attempts to come up with some kind of reasonable examination of good and evil. Along with "The Omega Glory" that's at least 2 weak episodes for the creator of Star Trek. Some padding here -- spent way too much time on Lincoln's veracity, his arrival on the Enterprise, and the prelude to the confrontation. And we have another all-powerful alien with undefined powers that can twist and turn the episode to whatever the writer needs. Kirk and Spock need motivation to fight -- so why not set the Enterprise to blow up in 4 hours? In terms of an experiment for an alien race to understand good vs. evil, it's is stupidly conceived. The alien rock creature doesn't seem to consider the peace motive of the good guys and thinks it can learn which is stronger -- good or evil -- in a fight with primitive weapons. I suppose maybe 1 lesson is that evil disperses when faced with a strong opposition although, in the final battle, 2 of the bad guys didn't even try and just gave up. So the whole thing was pretty poorly executed as well as conceived. Still, seeing Kahless, Surak -- and touching on the backstory of 2 of the most famous Trek races is cool. Some interesting philosophical debates among the good guys whereas 2 of the bad guys, aside from Col. Green and Kahless, don't do anything. The rock creature says it has the right to dish out life and death as Kirk has the right to explore the planet...OK then. Barely 2 stars for "The Savage Curtain" -- compare the experiment Kirk/Spock are subjected to here with that of "The Empath", which was a much stronger episode in which the live laboratory actually taught Gem self-sacrifice, loyalty etc. "Arena" is another episode that comes to mind that is similar but much stronger for the actual "fight" and the mercy shown by Kirk at the end. Here, a potentially interesting examination of good vs. evil just fizzles out.

What's wrong with me? I'm re-watching season 3 and finding my estimation of several episodes going up. This episode's introduction is wonderfully bizzare and Twilight-Zoney. It's a tone subsequent Trek, in its drive for "realism", too readily avoids. Then we get several wonderful utopian conversations with Abe Lincoln, prior to meeting Surak. His introduction is a haunting and powerful sequence. There's something so sublime and eerie about his presence. From here on, the episode shifts gears; something that promised to be high-brow SF becomes low-brow, on-the-nose pulp. But the attempts at embedding the episode's violence with philosophical ruminations now feel edgy in light of contemporary Trek. The rock-monster is also pretty neat visually, though his motivations and dialogue are poor.

Abe Lincoln floating in space? Strange and unconvincing, but the ep was kinda fun. The lava monster was fun, even if his reasoning made no sense. Surak was a nice addition. Average as average can be.

Rewatching this episode made me think about it more deeply. The rock creature’s experimental design was ridiculous. Trying to determine whether good is preferable to evil by staging a fight between representatives from history is laughable. They could have just as easily made Mother Teresa and Josef Stalin face off in a boxing ring. Which made me wonder if that wasn’t a form of misdirection on the part of the alien. There had been a “deep probe” of the Enterprise (presumably including its library banks) as well as of Kirk’s and Spock’s historical heroes. Perhaps the alien was really observing how the Federation representatives would try to reason with their enemies first, before resorting to violence. In other words, to see if their actions would live up to their ideals. Still, the execution was lacking somehow, with the story and side characters (especially two of the four villains) never quite coming together cogently.

@ Peter, Lolled at the Mother Teresa line. I agree that the episode never gives us a reasonable explanation for what this contest was supposed to show. On the surface it looks like a cheap excuse for us to be shown some famous historical characters, and to essentially allow us to backtrace to an extent how all of us got where we did. Some parts of Earth's history, in other words, seem to favor Klingon ideals (like Ghengis Khan or Eugenics people) whereas others like Lincoln seem to have a lot in common with Vulcan ideals like those of Surak. So as an 'arena' in which to see these threads this is a really good one. And I confess that even as a kid I was impressed with the implicity mythology element in the episode. As to the actual combat, maybe the alien was concerned with whether being a peaceful people would cripple one's ability to be strategically successful? Certainly in the case of Surak we see a failure case, but as we know Lincoln wasn't afraid of fighting, nor is Kirk. It's a bit unclear since we don't get to see all that much tactical games going on, but I guess the idea is supposed to be that certain pacifist types really are at a disadvantage, while others like Kirk and maybe Lincoln are completely capable of being both peaceful and fierce. This episode is actually a very small sample of a theme that would later be developed in DS9. If you haven't seen that series I won't spoil anything, but this issue does arise there.

Arena: Kirk is forced by an alien to fight the Gorn while the crew can only watch from the ship. The Gamesters of Triskelion: Kirk is forced by aliens to fight the thralls while the crew can only watch from the ship. The Savage Curtain: Kirk (this time along with Spock) is forced by an alien to fight simulations of historical bad guys alongside historical good guys while the crew can only … Once might have been creative. But every single season?! I'm a fan of Trek, but I can't deny its flaws.

Sleeper Agent

Perhaps the intention was well and good, but the "What a charming Negress!" dialogue felt really blunt. As someone already pointed out, would Sulu react the same if a historical character greeted him with "What a charismatic G***!"? Shouldn't Kirk have stepped in a explained that "With all due respect Sir, we would prefer it if you refrain from derogatory terms of such kind." Yeah whatever, a part from that I liked the episode enough to put it on my re-watch list. II I/II of IV

"Shouldn't Kirk have stepped in a explained that "With all due respect Sir, we would prefer it if you refrain from derogatory terms of such kind."" It wasn't a derogatory term in Lincoln's time or even at the time the show was made. But yes, Lincoln's fixating on her race is jarring. But then again, he came from a time when race was a big deal. Not sure what would be gained by lecturing the Lincoln apparition.

@Jason R. "Not sure what would be gained by lecturing the Lincoln apparition." Thanks for this, I found this line indescribably funny. I can just imagine "Piss off, ghost!" @Jason and Sleeper Agent My brief research suggests some black activists, like Malcolm X, viewed it as derogatory in the 1960's, but there seems to be disagreement (Martin Luther King Jr. famously used Negro in his I Have a Dream speech earlier in 1963). I don't know if anyone was saying "Negress" in the 1960's though. I think here there's a difference between in- and out-of-universe. The scene was probably there to make a point that in the post-racism future, Lincoln needn't worry about unintentional offense because race is no longer a sore spot with anyone. Whether or not this is a good point for the writers to make is its own issue, separate from what the appropriate thing for Kirk and Uhura to say to an alien space ghost hologram of Abraham Lincoln about to do battle with villains to demonstrate to a lava monster which is best of good and evil. In-universe, I think it's pretty reasonable to just slide past whatever antiquated gibberish is being said by Lincoln. It's not even like he's somebody's grampa who hasn't updated his terminology and so embarrasses himself; he's a five-century-old mirage probably about to disappear, so it seems probable that it's best for everyone to move on without bothering to do much comment or bringing him up to speed. Out-of-universe we can question the scene on various grounds.

It seems pretty clear to me they included that line just to provide the opportunity to say something about how racism is gone in the future. They used someone from the civil war to make that point, and someone with a reputation for trying to help the black population. So it ends up being rather apt. while not risking offending us because we do know that Lincoln was still from an era with a different way of talking. I don't know that 1960's accepted terms is necessarily the arbiter, but rather that they intended a civil-war era mentality that was forwarding-thinking to meet the result of his ambitions, far in the future. I suppose something similar would have been a phantom Ghandi meeting up with futuristic pacifists.

To chip in here. I wouldn't be surprised if the term negress, as the term negro, was pretty standard in the 1860s. To quote from Oxford Dictionary:"It remained the standard term throughout the 17th–19th centuries and was used by prominent black American campaigners such as W. E. B. DuBois and Booker T. Washington in the early 20th century." And I remember that DuBois used the term negro in his works. Here is one quote which I remember quite vividly from back then (got it from wiki):"Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: ... How does it feel to be a problem? ... One ever feels his two-ness, – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder ... He would not Africanize America, for America has too much to teach the world and Africa. He would not bleach his Negro soul in a flood of white Americanism, for he knows that Negro blood has a message for the world. He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American, without being cursed and spit upon by his fellows, without having the doors of Opportunity closed roughly in his face." Written in 1897.

Negress was much less commonly used than Negro in the United States. Note that negro can be used to mean any black person whereas Negress has a specific exotic black female connotation. If we were applying today's standards, we'd have to ask "would a black woman consider "Nigress" to be an endearing word?" to which I'm sure the answer is a resounding no. Actually, it is an interesting choice here because we usually consider Lincoln a progressive visionary but the writers purposely gave him antiquated politcally-charged jargon. The fact that he apologizes quickly afterwards shows that he was still struggling to get used to a situation where the inferior status of Africans he fought against was no longer status quo.

@Peter, I wasn't so much bringing up the contemporary 1960's usage as the absolute arbiter of how the scene goes, as to the comparison to the use of "G***" that Sleeper Agent suggested. To the extent that it was being viewed as derogatory in the 1960's, it was not to the same extent as something that began as and was always a racial slur. If some activist against American involvement in the war in Vietnam, for example -- like Martin Luther King, for that matter -- used a similar term in the future to a Korean crew member, I don't think it would be possible for the scene to play the same way.

@ William B, I agree, but that's also because g*** was always an insulting slur, whereas negro was at some points used by all concerned as simply the correct term to refer to black people. So g*** is more similar to the N-word in this sense. Not sure if the writers really wanted negress to be jarring, or if they just wanted an out-of-date reference to seeing each other according to color. I think it was the latter, and that it was supposed to mean Lincoln saw her - in a positive way - as a black woman, whereas in the 23rd century your first reaction to seeing a black person wouldn't be "oh you're black!" His apology may make it sound like he realized he said something dirty, but maybe it's just that he himself is a bit confused about the era, having the knowledge of a 19th century guy but also being quite aware that he's been summoned to participate in a 23rd century game.

Just to mention it: Either say G word and N word or just write anti Asian racial slur. Or write G**** and N*****. It bothers me a little that we have to read the word G*** now several times. In a rational debate about offensive word usage you can mention slurs. It's not like anybody here condones using racist language (I hope). Let's hope that at some point humanity will become enlightened enough to no longer discriminate based on skin pigmentation. *fingers crossed*

"Let's hope that at some point humanity will become enlightened enough to no longer discriminate based on skin pigmentation. *fingers crossed*" How unprogressive of you.

"How unprogressive of you." How so?

@Peter, That was sort of the point I was trying to make -- that Lincoln wasn't using a term that was originally designed to be offensive. @Booming, In terms of the repetition of the slur, I was trying to take the "you should just say the word you're referring to rather than dance around it," but I went back and forth. I'm not positive I made the right call.

OmicronThetaDeltaPhi

That Lincoln/Uhura dialog sure makes me long for Star Trek's future. Imagine that: A future without EITHER racism or the PC garbage that's going on right now. (I wonder how many people are going to misinterpret the previous paragraph as me being racist. What a surreal world we live in, these days)

Commodore Dubs

Fascinating to see everyone argue about whether negress was used as an offensive term in the og series. Now in modern trek everyone either hates a different race or species or economic class or whatever you can think of. And we have star fleet members dropping swear words left and while completely disrespecting captains and others in authority. Give me space Lincoln over modern trek everytime. I can't agree more with Omicron.

"In our century, we've learned not to fear words" - Uhura We gotta give Roddenberry props for writing an actual clever scene for once. Progressive Lincoln using an outdated racist term and Uhura who lives in a utopian society doesn't even know why she should be offended. If that same scene was in Star Trek Picard: "What a charming woman". "actually I'm gender fluid. HOW DARE YOU oppress me with your Patriarchal tyranny!!!"

The Savage Curtain Star Trek season 3 episode 22 “Human?” - Bones “All too human.” - Lincoln quotes Nietzsche 3 stars (out of 4) Given that the Nietzscheans are the key antagonists on Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda, we should hardly be surprised that Gene was interested in what the philosophy of Nietzsche had to say about man. Particularly about what it might have to say about man of the future. Khan was of course the most direct depiction of the Übermensch on the show’s original three year run. Unsurprisingly, the Augments (as we later learned to call them on Enterprise) were a product of genetic manipulation, which of course is how the universe in Andromeda got the Nietzscheans also. Here, Gene has penned a story that examines the core question of Nietzsche’s book, “Beyond Good and Evil,” in which he asks is there really any difference between good and evil men, or is it merely that what makes man man is expressed in purer form in evil men, while men we consider good, are those who temper those same instincts. In a lot of ways, this episode reminded me of DS9’s “Heart of Stone,” where shapeshifters similar to the rock creatures here, manufacture a situation for Odo, through the creation of a fake Kira, in order to teach Odo something about himself. Aliens who have no common moral reference frame for understanding humans, and yet can create human forms? Me thinks the Changelings owe a lot of their character to Yarnek. This episode marks the first time we see Surak of Vulcan. Spock is of course beside himself. Season 3 has been quite a journey of exploration for our favorite science officer. He’s played music with hippies. He’s fallen for the beautiful daughter of the administrator of an entire world. He’s played an original Brahms and coveted an original Da Vinci. He’s been offered power, love and glory in The Enterprise Incident. And now here, he meets his greatest hero. I’d say that if this is where The Original Series wanted to leave Spock, they did quite a fine job. On a side note, when watching Surak, I couldn’t help but think of T’Pol. Some of the smirks, some of the speech patters were very similar. Maybe Jolene Blalock was a lot better actress than I’ve given her credit for? For those who haven’t seen it, the Vulcan trilogy in ENT season 4 is really good. https://youtu.be/zBD6nKUYPNM Yeah, hard to imagine, but ENT had easily the best examination of Surak’s philosophy in Trek! We also meet Kahless, or at least as @William B points out, Kirk’s idea of Kahless. Suffice to say that for such a fantastic figure, a white man in black face was not exactly an auspicious beginning. Rounding out the baddies is Zora, aka Deathwalker from Babylon 5. https://youtu.be/braDD-4ZYQk And of course Col. Green, who we don’t ever really hear about again on Trek until, as @Trek fan notes, the end of Enterprise, on Terra Prime. https://youtu.be/aPKOhXVC6xQ Then there’s Ghengis Khan. I’m not sure why he’s on team evil, unless it is because Kirk thinks of him as evil? If you want a more nuanced portrayal of the great Khan @P, I’d recommend the incredible Kazakh movie Mongol, https://youtu.be/nHaYiA6u3Co?t=14 Really an epic movie. Highly recommended. That said, @P, don’t feel bad about Khan throwing rocks. Throwing rocks has sometimes been the sign of an epic warrior and leader of men https://youtu.be/Po3HbErxC-c Let’ see, did the episode give us anyone else from history? Oh yeah, they also bring back honest Abe. Or least they bring Abe back long enough to stab him in the back with a spear! Oh I know, I shouldn’t kid. These are revered figures for so many. I’ll only say, that this is the one piece of the episode that was 50 years ahead of it’s time, and only now, in the 20’s, starts to make perfect sense to me. After all, Kirk knows how to respect an alien who presents as a man, and he orders everyone on the ship to use Abe's chosen pronouns: MCCOY: Jim, do you really believe he's Abraham Lincoln? KIRK: It's obvious he believes it. Doctor McCoy, Mister Spock, full dress uniforms. SCOTT: Full dress? Presidential honours? What is this nonsense, Mister Dickerson? DICKERSON: I understand President Lincoln's coming aboard, sir. SCOTT: Ha! You're daft, man. DICKERSON: All I know is what the captain tells me, and he says he'll have the hide of the first man that so much as smiles. SCOTT: I'd have expected sanity from the ship's surgeon, at least. President Lincoln, indeed. No doubt to be followed by Louis of France and Robert the Bruce. KIRK: If so, we'll execute appropriate honours to each, Mister Scott. Scotty, dude, get with the program! OTOH, @Paul and @zzybaloobah point out the key note of 23rd century sanity from Uhura, UHURA: But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century we've learned not to fear words. I fear, as perhaps @Britz94 does, that we are still very, very, very far from that future. There are obvious flaws in the episode. And while I liked the fight sound track a lot, as @Jammer says and @Trish really elaborates on, they could have easily called this one Arena part III. Finally, I’ll admit that when I was reading @Strejda’s comment, and she says “bad rap,” I immediately thought that this episode would have worked better as an Epic Rap Battle of History. Good vs. Evil. Who wins? You decide. https://youtu.be/0N_RO-jL-90 How’s that, @JPaul, for the group turning on itself and imploding? Weirdly, I have zero recollection of ever having watched this episode before. But like @Trent, I quite enjoyed it.

Lots of potential here. Would have benefited from some good rewriting though

Jezzzuuuss. They really jumped the shark on this one. Abe Lincoln in his Lazy Boy? I was wondering what Bones really meant when he said “there’s no intelligent life here, let’s go Jim. “ WTF. Full dress uniforms? If that had been Trump, “MAGA hats to the transporter room gentlemen. “ Kirk all fan boi over Lincoln was a good illustration of the power of celebrity. Kirk: “I’m beaming down”. Scotty: “Don’t do it Captain. “ ( Besides Kirk you dumbass, can really trust ANY politician?) Jabba the Rock was well done. And then it gets serious Excellent prelude to fight scene and the internal conflict with ones beliefs. This is the exact internal conflict you go through pre-deployment, once in country, and waiting for the inevitable failure of negotiations and initiation of war. You have got to compartmentalize your fears and scruples. Breathe deep than jump in! Sirak’s logic was flawed. Unfortunately there is a time to fight. Lincoln’s oratory was succinct. Kirk and Spock are very mature about war. Freedom is not free. A very heavy topic for a play and brilliantly handled. Well written episode. Glad I survived the Service and retired! Phew.

Jillyenator

I love how Uhura doesn't even know why she should be offended. It's that much of a non-issue. I always remembered this small scene from when I saw it in childhood, and it was a part of shaping my beliefs and hopes going forward -- that we could have a future like that. I never remembered the rest of the episode because I had no real context for Surak, Kayless, or Colonel Green. Now, after doing an entire TNG, DS9, VOY, ENT, and feature films rewatch, I'm going through TOS. I was delighted to see these founding historical figures brought to life and it's cool the other series ran with them. I wish they did more with Kayless, but if Kirk perceived him as just a thug, I can live with that. He really hates Klingons. Speaking of which, did the shows ever have a racial slur for Klingons? They had two for Cardassians -- Cardies and Spoonheads. The Andorians called us Pink Skins (which, okay, the cast in question was not entirely White, but I get what the intent was: to show that Blueness was considered normal and correct to Andorians). Which brings me to Bones calling Spock a ton of seemingly anti-Vulcan racial slurs. I understand it's all meant with underlying affection, but they did make a point of Bones being a man from the South. I think that's notable. I'd love to see the series bible on McCoy. But the Uhura comment to Lincoln always stuck with me. In times like these, it's especially refreshing. There's no need to bend yourself into a pretzel trying to get the terminology right to not offend, when offense isn't an issue.

I really wanted to like this episode - and in some respects, I really did! The early moments featuring Lincoln on The Enterprise were both charming and mysterious, especially his meeting with Uhura; surely aimed at a viewing audience who so recently had witnessed MLK's peaceful mission for universal racial harmony, apparently achieved by 23rd Century. There were also some very interesting philosophical insights into war versus peace, the latter charismatically put over by the Vulcan Surak. So far, so 3.5 stars. But oh, the flaws! 1. The Animated Turd that was the rock monster... Even the Horta was better and less laughable, in fact so was the ridiculous oil slick that did for Tash Yar in TNG. Surely a being whose natural form was apparently an inert rock, but which could interfere with all The Enterprise's functions and create realistic self-aware copies of figures from history, could have projected something more acceptable to Kirk and Spock and Trek's viewers? 2. The Animated Turd told Kirk it was their first encounter with humanity. Er.. so Vulcanity didn't count then, and Spock's presence was a complete waste of time? 3. The staged battles were a nadir of unbelieveable hokum. Ok, I can accept they only had trees and bushes to use, but are we supposed to believe that Genghis Khan and Kahless were silent but obedient subordinates to "Colonel Greene"? Oh please! Tactically alone, Genghis would have wiped the floor with Kirk's party, thus setting up a battle royal between himself and Kahless. 4. Who was temporary second in command on the Enterprise? We saw both Sulu and Scotty in the captain's chair. Now, my understanding is that Scotty - a Lieutenant Commander - is 3rd in command when Kirk and Spock are both absent so I'm wondering what Sulu was doing in the chair. For these reasons I cannot award 3.5 stars, or even 3, but 2.75 seems fair. By the way, did anyone spot Kirk performing the Picard Maneouvre for maybe the only time? Ok, I think the dress uniform was rather tight over the Shatner belly, so there was an excuse, but I laughed out loud when I saw him do it!

So all that Kirk, Spock and the Enterprise did was survive. Nothing really resounding happened. This episode had potential but floundered badly. It seemed like they had no idea how to end it, so they abruptly did. Interacting with President Lincoln was probably the best part. He did not really have a full beard as depicted. Mainly just the chin whiskers. The dress uniforms were a nice touch, once again making an appearance. The episode seemed slow and was holding back. I give it a D+.

We learn in this episode that good is stronger than evil because evil takes its fighting principles from Monty Python. When it gets scary, “RUN AWAY! RUN AWAY!”

Horrible episode with Uhura's best line: "We do not fear words." I wish the sensitive cancel culture snowflakes would take that to heart.

C'mon. Not the best of TOS but the idea is still way above the tripe that passes for science fiction nowadays. Very imaginative.

What was a thin story from the outset gets overstretched. The best aspects are the interaction between characters and the cultural history mentioned. Of the four humanoids out of billions chosen to represent Good, two come from the Enterprise, wow, how lucky for us to know them! And, did they have to pick an old Lincoln? Why not the young Abe who built log cabins by hand? Who was the backup selection, FDR from his Potsdam days? I concur with JPaul from 2015, "This episode could have been better had the writers actually come up with a reason for Evil losing to Good other than Kirk being amazing at hand to hand combat. Evil has a tendency to turn on itself and it seems reasonable to me that at some point, possibly with the right push from the Good group, the Evil group would have self-destructed due to infighting." No one has yet mentioned that Col. Green's red uniform was resurrected for Robin Williams as Mork.

On the face of it one wouldn't think an episode like this one had that much of interest in it. But there are several gems scattered throughout this strange and abruptly-ended story. Maybe one thing I can note is that I've always loved the Abe Lincoln performance. Having seen other characterizations of him, including Daniel Day Lewis (the master himself), I still like this Lincoln the best. As my wife put it, he has a charming twinkle in his eye, and like Kirk, it feels like this Lincoln is somehow 'real' rather than a representation of a historical figure. Another nod should go to the performance of Surak, which held more gravity and focus than one would expect from a tertiary character. The small subplot of his moral position in the adversarial situation is quite compelling, considering the obvious fact that he's 'letting his team down' in the strategic side of things. Another interesting thing is the juxtupose of Lincoln with Surak, which has a double effect. For one thing, since we know Lincoln this helps inform what we're supposed to make of Surak: Vulcan's Abe Lincoln, the guy who ushered in unity. But it also works in reverse: by telling us that Surak is the most honored of his people, embodying peace and logic, it creates a mirror effect that ends up suggesting that Lincoln was Earth's Surak! That's quite a statement; I suppose historians in a few hundred years can weigh in on that one. Also interesting is the first mention of Kahless, in this case cast not as a great warrior or a hero but as a despicable villain, "notoriously evil." I suppose from a Vulcan's point of view anyone dedicated to violence would be 'evil'? Not sure why Kahless is worse than other Klingons, though. It's also interesting to put Genghis Khan in that category as well rather than, say, Alexander the Great, as both of them were conquerors. Either way, generating famous historical figures we know alongside some we don't does create some mystique and intrigue about famous people from the future. If I'm not mistaken, this episode also gives us our very first instance of Spock outright admitting he had an emotional outburst upon seeing Surak. Fascinating! Finally, there's a detail I never picked up on before, which is when the rock creature refers to his people as being spectators to the event. We already know from the scan in the transporter room that something funny was going on with Lincoln: SCOTT: Locked on to something. Does that appear human to you, Mister Spock? SPOCK: Fascinating. For a moment, it appeared almost mineral. Like living rock with heavy fore claws. It's settling down now to completely human readings. So Lincoln and the other historical figures are in fact members of the same race as the rock creature. Not sure why I never noticed that before. And it appears that they can change their form and even take on knowledge and memories collected from the minds of others, Kirk and Spock in this case, while forgetting whoever it was they were before. Presumably this also means that Surak and Lincoln didn't really die, since they would (I expect) just revert to being the rock creatures they were before. So some of that race not only spectate but also participate, to round out the numbers. The ending is just goofy since it ends up as a 4-on-2 that appears easy for Kirk and Spock to win. The only conclusion the rock creature is able to draw is that 'evil retreats easily' or something lame like that. I *think* the episode was trying to say something like that it's not so easy to tell good people from evil when looking at their methods alone; winning after all is a matter of strategy and power. Is that the 'savage curtain' we're meant to see is thin, diving up good and evil? The question is lame and so is the answer, but at least we do get to meet Surak and Kahless.

That's a zero stars episode for me. Everything was just too lame. I mean, c'mom, the alien ends saying he did all this dumb crap based on the "same right that brought the Enterprise there": the need to know new things. Fuck, the guy just compared Kirk visiting places peacefully with his "handing out life and death in dumb tournaments" AND THE EPISODE SEEMS TO THINK THIS IS WAS A LEGIT RESPONSE. Argh, I don't even want to talk more about this.

Projekt Kobra

Screw YOU, Genghis Khan!!! Runs off like a girl.

I thought it was okay. 2/4

One of the more commonly rerun episodes from my 80s childhood, I think “goofy” is a word I’d have applied even back then. The initial image of Lincoln sitting in a chair on the bridge view screen, intentionally, it seems, being reminiscent of the Lincoln memorial is definitely one of those “GuhWhaaa??” TOS moments. If you can get past that bit of silliness tho, there’s a great deal of potential in the episode. The exploration of good and evil, and the idea that good and evil are concepts of value tied to the human condition, are pretty rich areas for philosophical pondering. What we assume is intuitive about the good/evil dynamic might, to a lava monster, be seen as some bizarre oddity. Creatures who evolved in such extreme conditions might not have nuanced value structures, their philosophical framework might be built around pure pragmatism and as such, concepts like compassion or respect might seem suicidal to them. However, what they do evidently possess is curiosity. They want to understand the anomalous behavior of these squishy, space fairing, cold-goop creatures. Can beings representing two vastly differing perspectives achieve mutual understanding? It’s a good premise for discussion, and personally I’d have preferred more exploration in that direction. Unfortunately the episode doesn’t quite get us there, we instead get a bit lost in the whole fun-with-historical-dudes stuff. What I find most confusing about the episode’s setup is the nature of Lincoln, Surak, and all the other “illusions”. Are they projections of Kirk/Spock’s mind, imbued with agency but guided by our heroes preconceptions? Or are they manufactured by the rock monster, or even transmogrified rock monsters themselves, positioned to goad Kirk and Spock to play the game? Surak in particular is baffling given that he willingly dies for his beliefs; is he just fulfilling Spock’s ideal of how Surak would behave? Without knowing what, exactly, these historical figures actually are it’s difficult to gage the magnitude of Surak’s sacrifice. It’s also apparent that the strength of Surak’s commitment to peace and reason flies over the rock monster’s head. It seems that that form of inner strength, the courage of one’s convictions and the willingness to give all for the greater good, is lost on Yarnek. As is the willingness of team “good guys” to risk all to rescue Surak. Perhaps lava blob’s inability to grasp that sort of nuance was the point, but if so, then there seems to be something missing from the episode’s ending. It seems like we really could have used one of Kirk’s “big picture” speeches to wrap things up. I will say this tho, I was entertained. A few random observations: -Yarnek, the rock monster was a pretty cool, genuinely alien effect. Maybe he’s related to the Horta? -There was mention of “those old space legends” pertaining to this lava planet, implying that there’d been some previous contact with Yarnek’s civilization. Perhaps SNW should have explored that instead of revamping the xenomorp..I mean, Gorn. -“Do you still measure time in minutes?” “We can convert to it, sir.” Say what? -James this, James that, sheesh, I guess we’re on a first name basis, huh ABE? -I wonder if Kahless was “unforgettable” because he was so good at impressions. He must have been a real hoot at parties. 2/4 rough and tumble wraaslin’ Honest Abes.

The rock creature costume is kind of cool, even though it can only stand in one spot. Looks like it was made out of old Horta skins grafted onto an antique diving suit. The smoke and the lights-blinking-when-it-talks effects are suitably bizarre.

The confines of the set make this episode even weaker. A location shoot to any of the usual places would have helped it at least look less terrible. All the "sneaking around" shots amidst the fake rocks are laughable. I never thought "The Hand of Apollo" on the viewscreen would be topped for weirdness but Abe in his monument chair and with a stovepipe hat like he's a Disneyland robot got weirder (but not better)

Submit a comment

Historifans

“All Too Human, Dr. McCoy”: Abraham Lincoln and Star Trek

By Dr. M.A. Davis, Visiting Assistant Professor, Lees-McRae College

Featured image by Sam Nystrom Costales

On March 7, 1969, just over a century after the death of Abraham Lincoln, those still tuning into Star Trek: The Original Series in its third season got a chance to see the most famous American president on the Enterprise. 1 The story began with the crew  preparing to leave orbit of the planet Excalbia. They have had a strange mission, having detected lifesigns on what is supposed to be an uninhabited volcanic planet – but the strangeness has just begun. Suddenly, they are met in space by a figure in a familiar black overcoat and stovepipe hat (played by Lee Bergere) who introduces himself by declaring, “I am Abraham Lincoln.” 

So begins “The Savage Curtain.” The episode’s narrative is a morality play turned to action in which powerful aliens wish to witness a battle between good and evil. As their cast, they have summoned Lincoln to fight alongside Captain Kirk (played by William Shatner), Commander Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy), and Surak (played by Barry Atwater), a famous Vulcan philosopher and pacifist, against embodiments of Genghis Khan (played by Nathan Jung), Kahless (played by Robert Herron), an ancient Klingon warlord, Colonel Phillip Green (played by Phillip Pine), a near-future American dictator, and Zora (played by Carol Daniels Dement), an alien mad scientist. 2 During the struggle, Lincoln, Surak, Green, and Kahless are killed, the surviving villains flee, and the Excalbians allow the Enterprise crew to leave, their spokesman complaining that “Your good and your evil use the same methods, achieve the same results.” 3 The episode is not one well-loved by fans, appearing in multiple lists of the worst episodes of the Original Series , but its depiction of Lincoln is a fascinating one. In an era when Lincoln revisionism (for both good and ill) was spreading through academia and just about to break into popular culture, the show set in the future firmly looked to the past for its depiction of the 16th President of the United States of America. 4   

Lincoln’s appearance in “The Savage Curtain” began in a story treatment by Gene Roddenberry from 1964 called “Mr. Socrates.” The original was something of a satire of the network television he had been battling with for so many years, with the Excalbians explicitly portrayed as decadent consumers whose only source of knowledge and entertainment were their recreations of historical and current events. 5 This angle is largely abandoned in third-season rewrites by the show’s production staff, as was his ample cast of guest stars for the two teams of ‘good’ and ‘evil’ pitted against each other by the Excalbians. Roddenberry had hoped to put Adolf Hitler among the ranks of the evil team, and wanted to show the failure of a then-near-future pacifist named “Pon, the Flower Child Messiah” – but Lincoln was a constant. (Given the show’s difficulty in handling the hippie movement on-screen, perhaps this latter omission was for the best). 6 This should be no surprise; Roddenberry loved Lincoln, considered him a childhood hero, and filled his home with Lincolnia. Founded in 1967, Lincoln Enterprises, the mail-order catalog company that first marketed Star Trek memorabilia, bore the former President’s name because Roddenberry “loved Abraham Lincoln. It’s that simple.” 7

Roddenberry’s was not Lincoln’s first appearance in sci-fi network television; for example in 1961, a consoling, ghostly Lincoln appears as the last casualty of the Civil War to a grieving Confederate widow with secrets of her own in an episode of The Twilight Zone . 8 This was not even the first time someone in the cast of “The Savage Curtain” had played Abraham Lincoln in a supernatural context; Barry Atwater (who portrayed Surak) had played Lincoln in a 1960 episode of One Step Beyond about the alleged Spiritualist predictions of Lincoln’s assassination. 9 And the above examples are just the Lincoln of sci-fi television. Lincoln had already appeared as a stand-in for the values and virtues of 19th century America as a whole in Wilson Tucker’s 1958 time travel novel, The Lincoln Hunters . 10 These heroic and science fiction Lincolns were largely similar, reflecting the beloved, saccharine Lincoln of contemporary popular culture. They were the Lincoln of Sandburg and Henry Fonda, the self-made, humble man of the frontier, an iconic symbol of American democracy and justice. This omnipresent hagiography of the 16th president should be no surprise; Abraham Lincoln has long dominated American memory, and in the mid-1960s that domination was at its zenith, as I show below, the culmination of a Lincoln renaissance that had begun a few decades earlier. 11

An explosion in Lincolnia that began in the 1920s with a wave of Lincoln biographies continued full-throttle through the war years and beyond. This was a generation of Lincoln scholarship that viewed him through the lens of the conservative, anti-Reconstruction Dunning School that then dominated Civil War historiography; an interpretation that saw him as a Unionist moderate on race, a Great Emancipator nonetheless uninterested in Black equality. When there was Lincoln revisionism in this period, it was liable to be critical of Lincoln as a member of the ‘blundering generation’ of antebellum politicians, but that academic argument never made it into the popular consciousness. 12 In 1947, the Library of Congress unveiled the latest technological marvel to ease Lincoln research, a fully-organized collection of Lincoln papers available (through microfilm) for scholars distant from Washington, DC. The Lincoln Papers were a vast archive of more than 40,000 letters, memoranda, and other documents, so big that its index alone is more than a hundred pages long – Lincoln studies would never be the same. This new availability of Lincoln documents, combined with the gradual anti-racist moral realignment of American society brought by the Second World War and subsequent Cold War changed Lincoln scholarship. In particular, it paved the way for a new wave of revision and counter-revision. 13 The Lincoln scholarship of the 1940s and 1950s took Lincolnolatry to new heights, painting him as a cunning politician and progressive, in other words, as a precursor to FDR who was the hero for many of that generation of scholars. 14 But that historiographic line was itself utterly transformed after the publication of Lenore Bennet’s infamous “Was Abe Lincoln a White Supremacist?” article in Ebony in 1968. The article, which answered its title question in the vigorous affirmative, sparked a bitter debate among historians like Ludwell Johnson and Stephen Oates, who alternatively sought to portray Lincoln as either the embodiment of American racism or anti-racism. 15  

But this conflict, which would endure for decades in the academic literature, had little immediate impact on pop culture in the late 1960s. In any case, no academic book could hope to match the popularity of the gentle, wise statesman Lincoln of contemporary mass media, dominated as that was by the sentimental popular imagery of a previous generation. This was true both on-screen and on the page; those reading about him would have almost certainly encountered Lincoln through the pages of Carl Sandburg,  “the best-selling, most widely read, and most influential book[s] about Lincoln,” even now. 16 Sandburg, the poet and literary titan, was much more interested in a Lincoln who was “both steel and velvet…as hard as rock and soft as drifting fog, who [held] in his heart and mind the paradox of terrible storm and peace unspeakable and perfect” than he was in the fine details of emancipation and race. With all this in mind, the popular Lincoln of the 1960s owed far more to pop culture in film and print than to the academic historians of the day. And this should be no surprise. But of all of these, which was Trek’s Lincoln? 17

The Lincoln of “The Savage Curtain” is a backwoodsman, a wrestler, kind, wise, humorous, forced into war by an enemy, and dies a martyr just as the conflict is coming to an end. Of his role as emancipator we hear nothing at all, with the show’s only foray into race being an awkward conversation with Nichelle Nichols’ character, Uhura.

LINCOLN: What a charming negress. Oh, forgive me, my dear. I know in my time some used that term as a description of property. UHURA: But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century we’ve learned not to fear words. KIRK: May I present our communications officer, Lieutenant Uhura. LINCOLN: The foolishness of my century had me apologizing where no offense was given. 18

In retrospect it’s hard not to wince at this scene with a Black actress performing the words of White writers while reassuring Lincoln that he’s not a racist, particularly since the dialogue exchange is Nichelle Nichols’s last significant performance in televised Trek. (All of her subsequent dialogue in this, the penultimate episode of 60s Trek, is background filler and she does not appear at all in the last episode of the series.) But for a TV audience in the 1960s, the scene has a job – and it does it. We the viewers are reassured that Lincoln was good, and so too are those who admire him. 

This take on Lincoln, particularly the reassurance to the audience of his goodness, is a striking lapse, as Star Trek in general, and the oft-derided third season in particular, was quite willing to push the boundaries of what was socially acceptable in mainstream 1960s America. 19 Most famously, the episode “Plato’s Stepchildren” portrayed what is often remembered as the first scripted interracial kiss on network television. 20 Other episodes, too, tried for boundary-breaking social commentary. “Day Of The Dove” sympathetically portrayed the need for peace between hostile rival powers in the midst of the Cold War. 21 “The Mark of Gideon” wrestled with themes of contraception and overpopulation only a few years after Griswold vs. Connecticut legalized contraception nationwide. But as unconventional as the show could be, its Lincoln is thoroughly conventional. 22

Star Trek ’s Lincoln is the white Lincoln – specifically the white, canonized Lincoln of the early 20th century. A backwoodsman who wrestles but will not kill, who dies trying to save an innocent, he is Sandburg’s humble son of the soil made flesh, more put-upon saint than man. 23 One can imagine actor Lee Bergere taking performance notes from the “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” show, the audio-animatronic Lincoln show at Disneyland that had debuted in July of 1965 – certainly the writers of “Savage Curtain” gave him little more to do than play a stereotypical Lincoln in space. As discussed above, serious Lincoln historiography was quite young when Roddenberry would have begun writing his script for “Savage Curtain”, certainly younger even than the forty-seven year old Roddenberry himself. 24 Roddenberry was a Texan by birth who grew up in the middle-class Southern diaspora in Jazz Age Los Angeles. But in the early 20th century Lincolnphilia was common even in the white South. Many young white Southerners of Roddenberry’s generation were raised amid a cult of Lincoln that saw “Lincoln more often than Lee as their ideal character.” 25 Perhaps this should not surprise us; even someone as aligned with white Southern identity as D. W. Griffith had been a Lincoln partisan as far back as Birth Of A Nation. As late as Roddenberry’s college years at LA City College just before WWII, it’s much more likely he’d have picked up one of Carl Sandburg’s books on Lincoln rather than the Lincoln revisionists of the 1930s. 26 (Sandburg was of course not the first Lincoln biographer, but The Prairie Years and The War Years were among the best-selling popular biographies of their day and have never gone out of print. Poet and literary giant that he was, Sandburg was not a professional historian. 27 ) Thus it should be no surprise that Roddenberry, who was not a professional historian and did not rely heavily on their work, would embrace the Lincoln of popular culture rather than the Lincoln of the historians. Then, as now, academic historiography is (as the name implies) academic, generally having a limited influence on popular culture. Certainly the Lincoln of today has survived both revisionists and counter-revisionists. If Star Trek ’s Lincoln was hagiographic, so too were all the televised Lincolns of the era, and for that matter many years to come. 28

Star Trek fans are fond of pointing to the franchise’s influence on broader American culture, particularly our language, culture, and technology, ranging from the naming of the first Space Shuttle (Enterprise) through the communicator-like smartphone, among many other things. But just as television can influence the culture that watches it, so too can television reflect the culture of those that make it. Ultimately, Star Trek was influenced by the way its audience and creators remembered the past far more than it sought to influence the way they remembered things. And our pop culture isn’t so different than it was when “Savage Curtain” aired. Even now, our Lincoln biopics (such as Spielberg’s 2012 Lincoln) are often accused of abandoning African-American memory in favor of “The Great Emancipator,” of lionizing Lincoln in ways not too dissimilar from what Roddenberry and Heineman had done at the end of the 1960s. (Perhaps the closest we’ve come to changing the memory of Lincoln in our popular culture came with Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter in the same year as Spielberg, which gave Lincolnian hagiography a knowing wink before equipping its hero with a silver-tipped ax to fight the legions of undead.) 29

A righteous crusade against the forces of Hell seems a fitting place to stop in this brief look at the intersection of Lincoln and speculative fiction through the lens of Star Trek . Abraham Lincoln’s death in April 1865 made him a “saint” in the American national pantheon, a martyr who had sacrificed himself for liberty while freeing the helpless enslaved, at least in the minds of mainstream white American culture. 30 A century later when the original Star Trek aired, this memory of Lincoln was as powerful as ever, as indeed it is in the 2020s in most parts of American popular culture. Challenging a culture’s memory of a canonized “saint” is a difficult task. Often a legitimately ground-breaking show even in its worst moments, Star Trek’s much-derided third season was willing to challenge a great many of the 1960s cultural norms. But thanks to the culture of Lincolnia in which its writers and audience were steeped, Abraham Lincoln proved a subject too great to challenge, even on the Final Frontier.

Dr. M.A. Davis is a Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Lees-McRae College in Banner Elk, North Carolina. His current projects include a biography of California’s own Dalip Singh Saund and a piece on Lincoln and science fiction. He can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter at https://twitter.com/MikeDavisNoNot1 . 

•   Star Trek: The Original Series , season 3, episode 22, “The Savage Curtain,” directed by Herschel Daugherty, written by Arthur Heinemann and Gene Roddenberry, aired March 7, 1969. NBC.
•   Marc Cushman, These Are the Voyages – TOS: Season Three . 1st ed. (Los Angeles: Jacobs Brown Press, 2015), 591. 
•  “The Savage Curtain,” 46:30
•  “Worst Star Trek Episodes: The Savage Curtain.” Aspie Catholic, September 20, 2016, https://aspiecatholic.wordpress.com/2016/09/20/worst-star-trek-episodes-the-savage-curtain/ ; Jamahl Espicokhan, “‘The Savage Curtain,’” Jammer’s Reviews, January 1, 2013, https://www.jammersreviews.com/st-tos/s3/savage.php . 
•  Cushman, These Are The Voyages , 592, 594-596, 605. 
•  Kevin C. Neeceand John Tenuto, “The Way to Eden: The Edenic Imagination of the Original Series,” in The Gospel According to Star Trek: The Original Crew , 1st ed. (The Lutterworth Press, 2016), 33–39, https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvj4swr2.11.
•  Cushman, These Are the Voyages , 637; Tilotta, Dave, “A Conversation with Bjo Trimble: Film Clips and Lincoln Enterprises,” StarTrekHistory.com. Retrieved July 16, 2016.
•  “Shakespeare in the Twilight Zone: The Passerby.” Bardfilm, January 7, 2013. http://bardfilm.blogspot.com/2013/01/shakespeare-in-twilight-zone-passersby.html .
•   TV Guide. “One Step Beyond – Season 2 Episode Guide,” n.d. https://www.tvguide.com/tvshows/one-step-beyond/episodes-season-2/1030245529/
•   Tom Ruffles, “The Lincoln Hunters, by Wilson Tucker,” Book Notes , September 22, 2016. https://tomruffles.wordpress.com/2016/09/22/the-lincoln-hunters-by-wilson-tucker/.
•   Merril Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory , 1st ed. (London: Oxford, 1994), 346-347. 
•  David F. Ericson, “The Crisis in Lincoln Scholarship,” review of Crisis of the House Divided: An Interpretation of the Issues in the Lincoln-Douglas Debates , by Harry V. Jaffa. Reviews in American History 38, no. 4 (2010): 664–69, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40985429. 
•  Arthur Zilversmit. “Lincoln and the Problem of Race: A Decade of Interpretations.” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association 2, no. 1 (1980): 22–45.
•  Ericson, “The Crisis in Lincoln Scholarship,” 664. 
•  John M Barr, “Holding Up a Flawed Mirror to the American Soul: Abraham Lincoln in the Writings of Lerone Bennett Jr.,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Associatio n, vol. 35, no. 1 (2014): 43-65, http://www.jstor.org/stable/24573833.
•  Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory , 285, 335-340. 
•  James Hurt, “Sandburg’s Lincoln within History.” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association . 20, no.1 (Winter 1999): 55–65; Carl Sandburg, “Address before the Joint Session of Congress” (speech, Washington DC, February 2, 1959), National Parks Service, https://www.nps.gov/articles/000/carl-sandburg-s-abraham-lincoln-address.htm . 
•  “The Savage Curtain,” 12:50.
•  Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross, The Fifty-Year Mission: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Star Trek: The First 25 Years (New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2016), 224. 
•  “After 40 Years, Star Trek ‘Won’t Die.'” Space.com. 7 September 2006. Archived from the original on 8 October 2009. Retrieved March 23, 2011; Christian Höhne Sparborth “Nichols Talks First Inter-Racial Kiss,” TrekToday, accessed December 19, 2022, https://www.trektoday.com/news/050901_05.shtml.
•   Star Trek: The Original Series , season 3, episode 7, “Day of the Dove,” directed by Marvin Chomsky, written by Jerome Bixby, aired November 1, 1968, NBC;George A. Gonzalez, Popular Culture and the Political Values of Neoliberalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2017), 31.
•   Star Trek: The Original Series , season 3, episode 16, “The Mark of Gideon,” directed by Jud Taylor, written by Stanley Adams and George Slavin, aired January 17, 1967, NBC; Keith R.A. DeCandido, “Star Trek: The Original Series Rewatch: ‘The Mark of Gideon,'” Tor.com, September 20, 2016, https://www.tor.com/2016/09/20/star-trek-the-original-series-the-mark-of-gideon/ .
•  Carl Sandburg, “Lincoln: The Prairie Years and the War Years.” in Lincoln Anthology: Great Writers on His Life and Legacy from 1860 to Now , ed. Harold Holzer (New York: Library of America, 2008), 464-465. 
•  Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory , 256-257. 
•  David Alexander, Star Trek Creator: The Authorized Biography of Gene Roddenberry , (New York: Roc, 1995), 15–17; Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory , 252. 
•   Keith Booker, Star Trek: A Cultural History (New York: Bloomsbury, 2017), 72.
•  James Hurt, “Sandburg’s Lincoln within History,” Journal of the Abraham Lincoln Association , vol. 20, no. 1 (1999): 55-65, http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.2629860.0020.105.
• Peterson, Lincoln in American Memory , 346-347; K. C. Wheare, review of The Emergence of Lincoln. Vols. 1 and 2, by Allan Nevins, The American Historical Review , vol. 56, no. 3 (April 1951): 593-595, https://www.jstor.org/stable/1848481. 
•  Kate Masur, “In Spielberg’s ‘Lincoln,’ Passive Black Characters,” New York Times, November 12, 2012, retrieved December 4, 2012, https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/13/opinion/in-spielbergs-lincoln-passive-black-characters.html; Joseph Williams, “Honest Abe Slays Demons in Vampire Hunter.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch , June 21, 2012, retrieved July 5, 2012, https://www.stltoday.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/honest-abe-slays-demons-in-vampire-hunter/article_4476c47c-ba93-11e1-aafc-0019bb30f31a.html.
•  “Americans’ Perspective on Abraham Lincoln,” Participant, February 2013, accessed January 20, 2023, participant.com/2013/02/americans-perspective-abraham-lincoln.

Related Posts

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

• More to Explore
• Series & Movies

Published Jan 27, 2013

One Trek Mind #60: Trek's Take On Lincoln

“It is a magnificent work of duplication.” So said Spock himself concerning Lee Bergere's representation of President Abraham Lincoln, as drawn from the collective memories and historical records aboard the USS Enterprise.Daniel Day-Lewis is currently on a grand tour of awards-collecting, getting all sorts of recognition for his portrayal of Abraham Lincoln. In his version, written by Tony Kushner and directed by Steven Spielberg (whoever those two are!) Lincoln is an ends-justify-the-means chess player with a determination to evolve society at whatever cost. He's a raconteur and a kind-hearted man. He also wears a ridiculously ostentatious hat. And, as it is in so many other ways, Star Trek had nailed this down over 40 years earlier!

Star Trek 's third season is loaded with land mines. Alas, the antepenultimate episode to air, “ The Savage Curtain ,” is one of them. I can't lie. It kinda stinks. (Nota bene: “ Spock's Brain ” does not! Look for a future One Trek Mind column defending this oft-maligned work of tremendous entertainment!) The episode tries to rehash an “ Arena ”-style battle on a strange planet, but this time as some sort of tag team between the forces of Good and Evil. It doesn't really work – but it isn't for lack of trying.After an opening that peeks behind the curtain of “just another day on the Enterprise,” Kirk is about to throw in the towel on his current assignment. The planet they are observing is just molten rock with no breathable atmosphere. “There's no intelligent life here,” Bones declares. Sulu gets the order to break orbit, but then… sensors go off. The ship is being probed. And an image appears on the viewscreen that is sure to make Star Trek skeptics snicker.Abraham Lincoln, seated as though he were in his Washington D.C. monument, is floating in the inky blackness of space. Indeed, I have a wisenheimer friend who doesn't much care for the “jumpsuit-fest,” as she calls it, that is our beloved franchise. “Is that the one where they hang out with Ben Franklin?” whenever I mention any episode.

It's not really Abraham Lincoln, obviously, but a projection from the highly advanced Excalbian rock creatures on the planet's surface. (And something of a prelude of forthcoming holodeck adventures.) Kirk demands that the “being,” whose scans read as human, be treated as though he were actually the savior of the Union. He certainly looks like Honest Abe, and acts the way we expect him, too. In the transporter room he shows wide-eyed fascination at taped music and politely, but deliberately, urges the security detail to put away their phasers. He's insistent in his position (that he is real, and not a facsimile), but is thoughtful enough to recognize that that is how others see him. (“For an illusion, my opponent carried a considerable punch. Oh, I forgot. You consider me an illusion, too.”)There's also a bit of business on the bridge that may give modern viewers pause, but in 1969 was absolutely on the right side of progress. Lincoln refers to Uhura as a “charming Negress,” then jumps to apologize for his time period's attitude toward people of color. Uhura (and Kirk) don't miss a beat. That business is so behind them that no offense could possibly be taken.

Soon the meat of the episode is laid out. Kirk, Spock, Lincoln and the Father of Vulcan philosophy, Surak, must play a deadly game of cowboys and Indians opposite projections of Genghis Khan, Kahless the Unforgettable (a character who'll get the second biggest retcon after Zefram Cochrane,) Zora of Tiburon and 21st Century World War III villain Colonel Green. (Notable is how much Colonel Green looks like a space ranger straight out of Tom Paris' Captain Proton holonovels.)

Lincoln and Kirk quickly slip into roles of Commander in Chief and General. Kirk darn near blushes when compared to Ulysses S. Grant, and we get a peek at some of Lincoln's tactical thinking. (Okay, “sneaking around back” isn't exactly genius, but they've got to express these things quickly and efficiently.) What's amazing is how, once we're in the heart of it, you actually do kinda buy that it is Abe Lincoln on the planet's surface.

Lincoln's demise comes with an axe to the back. Not a bullet, mind you, but a weapon thrown by Kahless, who was previously impersonating the voice of Surak. (So, he was an actor just like John Wilkes Booth, if you really want to extend the metaphor.)According to legend, Mark Lenard was originally offered the role. This would have made his third appearance after the Romulan Commander in “ Balance of Terror ” and Spock's father Sarek in “ Journey to Babel .”The role ultimately went to Lee Bergere, who would later find great success on TV's Dynasty . He was a journeyman actor, appearing in guest appearances on many shows as well as theater in New York and Los Angeles. He also pushed the envelope for gay rights playing one of the first openly homosexual characters on a television program, the short-lived 1975 situation comedy Hot L Baltimore .Did Daniel Day-Lewis crib everything for his portrayal of Lincoln from this episode? We can never know for sure. But I say yes. I also say he based There Will Be Blood 's Daniel Plainview on Gul Dukat and prepared for The Boxer by studying the sport of Anbo-jyutsu. Then again, I'm insane. Does Lee Bergere's performance as the 16th US President hold any special meaning for you? Sound off in the comments below.

_______________________________

Jordan Hoffman is a writer, critic and lapsed filmmaker living in New York City. His work can also be seen on Film.com , ScreenCrush and Badass Digest . On his BLOG , Jordan has reviewed all 727 Trek episodes and films, most of the comics and some of the novels.

Get Updates By Email

• Movies & TV
• Featured Categories

Image Unavailable

• Sorry, this item is not available in
• Image not available
• To view this video download Flash Player

Star Trek - The Original Series, Episode 77: The Savage Curtain VHS

• VHS Tape from $9.99

Editorial Reviews

Perhaps best known as the episode in which Abraham Lincoln is seen, rather absurdly, floating through space in a big ol' presidential chair, "The Savage Curtain" is one of those death-match shows in which a busybody alien wants to witness true human(oid) mettle in an arranged battle. Lincoln asks Captain Kirk (William Shatner) and Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy) to accompany him to a planet where Excalbians have organized a fight between good (Kirk's party plus a Vulcan icon) and evil (Genghis Khan, Kahless the founder of the Klingon Empire, and two guys you never heard of). The derivative, obvious story was half-written by Gene Roddenberry and dumped on another writer, Arthur Heinemann, after Roddenberry pulled back from Star Trek in its third season. Heinemann added some interesting moral underpinnings, but this is one of those instances in which a good television show seems to be mimicking itself. On the plus side, the show gives Sulu (George Takei) a rare opportunity to command the Enterprise bridge--experience that surely served him well later as a Starfleet captain in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . --Tom Keogh

From the Back Cover

TREK TRIVIA Lee Bergere (Lincoln) later appeared as Joseph, the head of the household staff, in TV's long-running series Dynasty. In this episode, Sulu is left in charge of the bridge, foreshadowing things to come in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

Product details

• Package Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 7.32 x 4.19 x 1.12 inches; 6.13 ounces
• Release date ‏ : ‎ April 15, 1994
• Date First Available ‏ : ‎ February 9, 2007
• Actors ‏ : ‎ Star Trek Original Series
• Studio ‏ : ‎ Paramount
• ASIN ‏ : ‎ 6300988732

Customer reviews

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

• Amazon Newsletter
• About Amazon
• Accessibility
• Sustainability
• Press Center
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Start Selling with Amazon
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Supply to Amazon
• Protect & Build Your Brand
• Become an Affiliate
• Become a Delivery Driver
• Start a Package Delivery Business
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Ways to Make Money
• Amazon Visa
• Amazon Store Card
• Amazon Secured Card
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Credit Card Marketplace
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Amazon Prime
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices
• Recalls and Product Safety Alerts
• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices

The Next Star Trek Movie Is More Important Than Ever After A Huge Announcement

It's been the better part of a decade since the last "Star Trek" film hit the big screen in 2016. Fans dying to see what happens next in the Kelvin timeline have gradually felt their hopes slipping away as rumors of the next installment — including scuttlebutt about an R-rated Quentin Tarantino "Star Trek" film — keep failing to pan out. But according to  Variety, Paramount has confirmed plans to move forward with the Kelvin timeline's "final chapter" — and that's just the beginning of the good news for Trekkies. There's reportedly a second feature "Trek" film in the works that's even closer to pre-production. The studio says this film will prove fundamental to the "Star Trek" canon by helping establish the primary timeline's origin story.

The emphasis on the second project's relationship to the primary timeline gives fans even more insight into a storyline hinted at by  Deadline in January 2024, when sources teased a tightly guarded plot that would be set decades before the events of the 2009 "Star Trek" movie. Like the Kelvin timeline films, it will be produced by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot Productions. On track to write it is Seth Grahame-Smith, who penned "Dark Shadows," "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter," and "The Lego Batman Movie." 

Even more promising is who Paramount brought on to direct the film: Toby Haynes, a director whose resume includes "Andor," "Sherlock," a handful of the very best "Doctor Who" episodes from the Eleventh Doctor's tenure, and the critically lauded "Black Mirror" take on "Star Trek," "U.S.S. Callister." Insiders told Variety the origin film will be in preproduction by the end of 2024.

Even more Trek films could be in the works

The origin film is just one piece of Paramount's big plans to continue growing the "Star Trek" franchise in the coming years, which also include a push for more television movies, starting with the long-awaited "Section 31" story starring Michelle Yeoh. A look at the fandom-divisive darker side of Starfleet that first showed up in the "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine" episode "Inquisition," the film will have a decidedly spy-fi flavor that Yeoh compared to "”Mission: Impossible' in space" when speaking with Variety.

With filming already wrapped on the "Section 31" movie, executive producer Alex Kurtzman is more than ready to consider making even more streaming "Star Trek" films. Up for consideration is a follow-up to the "Picard" series. And with all of the "Star Trek" stories currently in production beginning with the 32nd-century-set young adult series "Starfleet Academy," which is currently in its planning phase, who knows where the franchise could be headed?

• Non-player characters
• Information givers

Abraham Lincoln

• VisualEditor
• View history

Lincoln in space

A simulacrum of Abraham Lincoln was created by the Excalbians in the 23rd century out of the mind of James T. Kirk . He was constructed as part of the first trial of good vs evil, alongside a simulacrum of Surak , to assist Kirk and Spock against the simulacrums of Kahless , Colonel Phillip Green , Zora and Genghis Khan .

Lincoln was killed during the trial, but his simulacrum was recreated as the Excalbians continued to debate good vs evil. During the second trial, in 2411 , he assists the player in navigating the trials and dealing with Yarnek . He is shown as a moderating influence on the Excalbians, defending the player when their choices are criticized.

• 2 Missions involved
• 3 References
• 4 External links

Notes [ | ]

• Despite being a simulacrum, Abraham Lincoln is the first real-life person to appear in Star Trek Online , as he is based on the 16th President of the United States .

Missions involved [ | ]

• “The Measure of Morality (Part 1)”
• “The Measure of Morality (Part 2)”

References [ | ]

• ↑ For those of you who asked on the stream, the voice of Lincoln is Mark Dodson. Who, according to IMDB, is also the voice of Salacious Crumb.

External links [ | ]

• Abraham Lincoln (Excalbian) at Memory Alpha , the Star Trek Wiki.
• Abraham Lincoln at Memory Beta , the non-canon Star Trek Wiki.
• 2 Playable starship
• 3 Atlas Prototype Dreadnought Cruiser

Star Trek (TV Series)

The savage curtain (1969), nichelle nichols: uhura, photos .

Quotes 

Abraham Lincoln : [interrupting]  What a charming negress. Oh, forgive me, my dear. I know that in my time some use that term as a description of property.

Uhura : But why should I object to that term, sir? You see, in our century, we've learned not to fear words.

Release Dates | Official Sites | Company Credits | Filming & Production | Technical Specs

• Full Cast and Crew
• Release Dates
• Official Sites
• Company Credits
• Filming & Production
• Technical Specs
• Plot Summary
• Plot Keywords
• Parents Guide

Did You Know?

• Crazy Credits
• Alternate Versions
• Connections
• Soundtracks

Photo & Video

• Photo Gallery
• Trailers and Videos
• User Reviews
• User Ratings
• External Reviews
• Metacritic Reviews

Related Items

• External Sites

Related lists from IMDb users

Recently Viewed

The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans

“I can’t believe I get to play the captain of the Enterprise.”

“Strange New Worlds” is the 12th “Star Trek” TV show since the original series debuted on NBC in 1966, introducing Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a hopeful future for humanity. In the 58 years since, the “Star Trek” galaxy has logged 900 television episodes and 13 feature films, amounting to 668 hours — nearly 28 days — of content to date. Even compared with “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Star Trek” stands as the only storytelling venture to deliver a single narrative experience for this long across TV and film.

In other words, “Star Trek” is not just a franchise. As Alex Kurtzman , who oversees all “Star Trek” TV production, puts it, “‘Star Trek’ is an institution.”

Without a steady infusion of new blood, though, institutions have a way of fading into oblivion (see soap operas, MySpace, Blockbuster Video). To keep “Star Trek” thriving has meant charting a precarious course to satisfy the fans who have fueled it for decades while also discovering innovative ways to get new audiences on board.

“Doing ‘Star Trek’ means that you have to deliver something that’s entirely familiar and entirely fresh at the same time,” Kurtzman says.

The franchise has certainly weathered its share of fallow periods, most recently after “Nemesis” bombed in theaters in 2002 and UPN canceled “Enterprise” in 2005. It took 12 years for “Star Trek” to return to television with the premiere of “Discovery” in 2017; since then, however, there has been more “Star Trek” on TV than ever: The adventure series “Strange New Worlds,” the animated comedy “Lower Decks” and the kids series “Prodigy” are all in various stages of production, and the serialized thriller “Picard” concluded last year, when it ranked, along with “Strange New Worlds,” among Nielsen’s 10 most-watched streaming original series for multiple weeks. Nearly one in five Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. is watching at least one “Star Trek” series, according to the company, and more than 50% of fans watching one of the new “Trek” shows also watch at least two others. The new shows air in 200 international markets and are dubbed into 35 languages. As “Discovery” launches its fifth and final season in April, “Star Trek” is in many ways stronger than it’s ever been.

“’Star Trek’s fans have kept it alive more times than seems possible,” says Eugene Roddenberry, Jr., who executive produces the TV series through Roddenberry Entertainment. “While many shows rightfully thank their fans for supporting them, we literally wouldn’t be here without them.”

But the depth of fan devotion to “Star Trek” also belies a curious paradox about its enduring success: “It’s not the largest fan base,” says Akiva Goldsman, “Strange New Worlds” executive producer and co-showrunner. “It’s not ‘Star Wars.’ It’s certainly not Marvel.”

When J.J. Abrams rebooted “Star Trek” in 2009 — with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldaña playing Kirk, Spock and Uhura — the movie grossed more than any previous “Star Trek” film by a comfortable margin. But neither that film nor its two sequels broke $500 million in global grosses, a hurdle every other top-tier franchise can clear without breaking a sweat.

There’s also the fact that “Star Trek” fans are aging. I ask “The Next Generation” star Jonathan Frakes, who’s acted in or directed more versions of “Star Trek” than any other person alive, how often he meets fans for whom the new “Star Trek” shows are their first. “Of the fans who come to talk to me, I would say very, very few,” he says. “‘Star Trek’ fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young.”

As Stapf puts it: “There’s a tried and true ‘Trek’ fan that is probably going to come to every ‘Star Trek,’ no matter what it is — and we want to expand the universe.”

Every single person I spoke to for this story talked about “Star Trek” with a joyful earnestness as rare in the industry as (nerd alert) a Klingon pacifist.

“When I’m meeting fans, sometimes they’re coming to be confirmed, like I’m kind of a priest,” Ethan Peck says during a break in filming on the “Strange New Worlds” set. He’s in full Spock regalia — pointy ears, severe eyebrows, bowl haircut — and when asked about his earliest memories of “Star Trek,” he stares off into space in what looks like Vulcan contemplation. “I remember being on the playground in second or third grade and doing the Vulcan salute, not really knowing where it came from,” he says. “When I thought of ‘Star Trek,’ I thought of Spock. And now I’m him. It’s crazy.”

To love “Star Trek” is to love abstruse science and cowboy diplomacy, complex moral dilemmas and questions about the meaning of existence. “It’s ultimately a show with the most amazing vision of optimism, I think, ever put on-screen in science fiction,” says Kurtzman, who is 50. “All you need is two minutes on the news to feel hopeless now. ‘Star Trek’ is honestly the best balm you could ever hope for.”

I’m getting a tour of the USS Enterprise from Scotty — or, rather, “Strange New World” production designer Jonathan Lee, who is gushing in his native Scottish burr as we step into the starship’s transporter room. “I got such a buzzer from doing this, I can’t tell you,” he says. “I actually designed four versions of it.”

Lee is especially proud of the walkway he created to run behind the transporter pads — an innovation that allows the production to shoot the characters from a brand-new set of angles as they beam up from a far-flung planet. It’s one of the countless ways that this show has been engineered to be as cinematic as possible, part of Kurtzman’s overall vision to make “Star Trek” on TV feel like “a movie every week.”

Kurtzman’s tenure with “Star Trek” began with co-writing the screenplay for Abrams’ 2009 movie, which was suffused with a fast-paced visual style that was new to the franchise. When CBS Studios approached Kurtzman in the mid-2010s about bringing “Star Trek” back to TV, he knew instinctively that it needed to be just as exciting as that film.

“The scope was so much different than anything we had ever done on ‘Next Gen,’” says Frakes, who’s helmed two feature films with the “Next Generation” cast and directed episodes of almost every live-action “Trek” TV series, including “Discovery” and “Strange New Worlds.” “Every department has the resources to create.”

A new science lab set for Season 3, for example, boasts a transparent floor atop a four-foot pool of water that swirls underneath the central workbench, and the surrounding walls sport a half dozen viewscreens with live schematics custom designed by a six-person team. “I like being able to paint on a really big canvas,” Kurtzman says. “The biggest challenge is always making sure that no matter how big something gets, you’re never losing focus on that tiny little emotional story.”

At this point, is there a genre that “Strange New Worlds” can’t do? “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman says with an impish smile. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”

This approach is also meant to appeal to people who might want to watch “Star Trek” but regard those 668 hours of backstory as an insurmountable burden. “You shouldn’t have to watch a ‘previously on’ to follow our show,” Myers says.

To achieve so many hairpin shifts in tone and setting while maintaining Kurtzman’s cinematic mandate, “Strange New Worlds” has embraced one of the newest innovations in visual effects: virtual production. First popularized on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” the technology — called the AR wall — involves a towering circular partition of LED screens projecting a highly detailed, computer-generated backdrop. Rather than act against a greenscreen, the actors can see whatever fantastical surroundings their characters are inhabiting, lending a richer level of verisimilitude to the show.

But there is a catch. While the technology is calibrated to maintain a proper sense of three-dimensional perspective through the camera lens, it can be a bit dizzying for anyone standing on the set. “The images on the walls start to move in a way that makes no sense,” says Mount. “You end up having to focus on something that’s right in front of you so you don’t fall down.”

And yet, even as he’s talking about it, Mount can’t help but break into a boyish grin. “Sometimes we call it the holodeck,” he says. In fact, the pathway to the AR wall on the set is dotted with posters of the virtual reality room from “The Next Generation” and the words “Enter Holodeck” in a classic “Trek” font.

“I want to take one of those home with me,” Peck says. Does the AR wall also affect him? “I don’t really get disoriented by it. Spock would not get ill, so I’m Method acting.”

I’m on the set of the “Star Trek” TV movie “Section 31,” seated in an opulent nightclub with a view of a brilliant, swirling nebula, watching Yeoh rehearse with director Olatunde Osunsanmi and her castmates. Originally, the project was announced as a TV series centered on Philippa Georgiou, the semi-reformed tyrant Yeoh originated on “Discovery.” But between COVID delays and the phenomenon of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” there wasn’t room in the veteran actress’s schedule to fit a season of television. Yeoh was undaunted.

“We’d never let go of her,” she says of her character. “I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this.’”

If that means nothing to you, don’t worry: The enormity of the revelation that Garrett is being brought back is meant only for fans. If you don’t know who the character is, you’re not missing anything.

“It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers,” says screenwriter Craig Sweeny. “I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it.”

Nevertheless, including Garrett on the show is exactly the kind of gasp-worthy detail meant to flood “Star Trek” fans with geeky good feeling.

“You cannot create new fans to the exclusion of old fans,” Kurtzman says. “You must serve your primary fan base first and you must keep them happy. That is one of the most important steps to building new fans.”

On its face, that maxim would make “Section 31” a genuine risk. The titular black-ops organization has been controversial with “Star Trek” fans since it was introduced in the 1990s. “The concept is almost antagonistic to some of the values of ‘Star Trek,’” Sweeny says. But he still saw “Section 31” as an opportunity to broaden what a “Star Trek” project could be while embracing the radical inclusivity at the heart of the franchise’s appeal.

“Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, ‘Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?’” he says. “I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray. I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a ‘Star Trek’ bridge.”

For Osunsanmi, who grew up watching “The Next Generation” with his father, it boils down to a simple question: “Is it putting good into the world?” he asks. “Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about ‘Star Trek.’”

Should “Section 31” prove successful, Yeoh says she’s game for a sequel. And Kurtzman is already eyeing more opportunities for TV movies, including a possible follow-up to “Picard.” The franchise’s gung-ho sojourn into streaming movies, however, stands in awkward contrast to the persistent difficulty Paramount Pictures and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot have had making a feature film following 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond” — the longest theaters have gone without a “Star Trek” movie since Paramount started making them.

First, a movie reuniting Pine’s Capt. Kirk with his late father — played in the 2009 “Star Trek” by Chris Hemsworth — fell apart in 2018. Around the same time, Quentin Tarantino publicly flirted with, then walked away from, directing a “Star Trek” movie with a 1930s gangster backdrop. Noah Hawley was well into preproduction on a “Star Trek” movie with a brand-new cast, until then-studio chief Emma Watts abruptly shelved it in 2020. And four months after Abrams announced at Paramount’s 2022 shareholders meeting that his 2009 cast would return for a movie directed by Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), Shakman left the project to make “The Fantastic Four” for Marvel. (It probably didn’t help that none of the cast had been approached before Abrams made his announcement.)

The studio still intends to make what it’s dubbed the “final chapter” for the Pine-Quinto-Saldaña cast, and Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant”) is writing a new draft of the script. Even further along is another prospective “Star Trek” film written by Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and to be directed by Toby Haynes (“Andor,” “Black Mirror: USS Callister”) that studio insiders say is on track to start preproduction by the end of the year. That project will serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire franchise. In both cases, the studio is said to be focused on rightsizing the budgets to fit within the clear box office ceiling for “Star Trek” feature films.

Far from complaining, everyone seems to relish the challenge. Visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman says that “working with Alex, the references are always at least $100 million movies, if not more, so we just kind of reverse engineer how do we do that without having to spend the same amount of money and time.”

The workload doesn’t seem to faze him either. “Visual effects people are a big, big ‘Star Trek’ fandom,” he says. “You naturally just get all these people who go a little bit above and beyond, and you can’t trade that for anything.”

In one of Kurtzman’s several production offices in Toronto, he and production designer Matthew Davies are scrutinizing a series of concept drawings for the newest “Star Trek” show, “Starfleet Academy.” A bit earlier, they showed me their plans for the series’ central academic atrium, a sprawling, two-story structure that will include a mess hall, amphitheater, trees, catwalks, multiple classrooms and a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge in a single, contiguous space. To fit it all, they plan to use every inch of Pinewood Toronto’s 45,900 square foot soundstage, the largest in Canada.

But this is a “Star Trek” show, so there do need to be starships, and Kurtzman is discussing with Davies about how one of them should look. The issue is that “Starfleet Academy” is set in the 32nd century, an era so far into the future Kurtzman and his team need to invent much of its design language.

“For me, this design is almost too Klingon,” Kurtzman says. “I want to see the outline and instinctively, on a blink, recognize it as a Federation ship.”

The time period was first introduced on Season 3 of “Discovery,” when the lead character, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), transported the namesake starship and its crew there from the 23rd century. “It was exciting, because every time we would make a decision, we would say, ‘And now that’s canon,’” says Martin-Green.

“We listened to a lot of it,” Kurtzman says. “I think I’ve been able to separate the toxic fandom from really true fans who love ‘Star Trek’ and want you to hear what they have to say about what they would like to see.”

By Season 2, the “Discovery” writers pivoted from its dour, war-torn first season and sent the show on its trajectory 900-plus years into the future. “We had to be very aware of making sure that Spock was in the right place and that Burnham’s existence was explained properly, because she was never mentioned in the original series,” says executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise. “What was fun about jumping into the future is that it was very much fresh snow.”

That freedom affords “Starfleet Academy” far more creative latitude while also dramatically reducing how much the show’s target audience of tweens and teens needs to know about “Star Trek” before watching — which puts them on the same footing as the students depicted in the show. “These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Noga Landau, executive producer and co-showrunner, says. “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

In the “Starfleet Academy” writers’ room in Secret Hideout’s Santa Monica offices, Kurtzman tells the staff — a mix of “Star Trek” die-hards, part-time fans and total newbies — that he wants to take a 30,000-foot view for a moment. “I think we need to ground in science more throughout the show,” he says, a giant framed photograph of Spock ears just over his shoulder. “The kids need to use science more to solve problems.”

Immediately, one of the writers brightens. “Are you saying we can amp up the techno-babble?” she says. “I’m just excited I get to use my computer science degree.”

After they break for lunch, Kurtzman is asked how much longer he plans to keep making “Star Trek.” 

“The minute I fall out of love with it is the minute that it’s not for me anymore. I’m not there yet,” he says. “To be able to build in this universe to tell stories that are fundamentally about optimism and a better future at a time when the world seems to be falling apart — it’s a really powerful place to live every day.”

More From Our Brands

Sarah paulson says she and pedro pascal disagree on who beyoncé blew a kiss to, joseph eichler’s personal silicon valley home is up for grabs at $6.4 million, a-rod, lore say they’re ‘going to be’ the next timberwolves owners, the best loofahs and body scrubbers, according to dermatologists, tvline items: chicago fire’s new paramedic, invasion additions and more, verify it's you, please log in.

Screen Rant

Abraham lincoln's relationship with frederick douglass was way more complicated than manhunt implies.

Manhunt portrays calm meetings between Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, but these conversations may have been more difficult than depicted.

This article contains spoilers for Manhunt.

• Manhunt's portrayal of Lincoln, Stanton, and Douglass meetings is intense, but likely not more so than in real life.
• Frederick Douglass played a significant role in fighting for African American rights during and after the Civil War.
• Despite disagreements, Douglass respected Lincoln and became a key advisor, influencing important decisions.

In the third episode of Manhunt , there are two flashback scenes involving meetings between Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass, and though those meetings likely did occur, there is a good chance that they were much more intense than what is depicted on-screen. Manhunt is a brand-new historical drama series from Apple TV+. It follows Secretary of War Edwin Stanton as he embarks on an intense search to find President Abraham Lincoln's assassin John Wilkes Booth in April 1865. The series stars Tobias Menzies, Anthony Boyle, Hamish Linklater, and Lovie Simone.

While Abraham Lincoln is undoubtedly the most recognizable face among Manhunt's cast of characters , there are other key historical figures present in the series, including Frederick Douglass. Douglass was a notable abolitionist, orator, and leader for African American civil rights throughout the 19th century. After escaping slavery in Maryland, Douglass earned attention for his oratory skills, fighting the racist argument that slaves were not smart enough to function as independent citizens. Later, Douglass held several public offices and wrote autobiographies about his experiences. Overall, Douglass was a vital voice for the African American cause during and after the Civil War.

Manhunt Episode 3 Ending Explained: Why John Wilkes Booth Wants To Get To Richmond

Frederick douglass' role in manhunt explained.

In Manhunt episode 3 , Frederick Douglass plays a small but significant role. For the most part, his presence in the show thus far helps provide context to the historical era, the Civil War, and to Abraham Lincoln's beliefs . In the first flashback scene, Edwin Stanton, Abraham Lincoln, and Frederick Douglass are discussing whether to allow Black men to join the Union army. Lincoln is seemingly opposed, while Stanton and Douglass are totally on board. Douglass argues that his sons are eager to fight and die for the Union . Lincoln seeks a compromise, disliking the idea of non-citizens as true soldiers.

The first flashback takes place two and half years before April 1865, where the second flashback takes place six months before.

The second flashback of the third episode returns to Stanton, Lincoln, and Douglass, and not only has time passed, but Lincoln's opinions have significantly changed. He notes that if the Union does not win the war, and if he is not reelected, he wants Stanton and Douglass to work together to free as many slaves as possible . He reveals that abolishing slavery is his most important ideal. Both Stanton and Douglass are seemingly surprised by Lincoln's determination, but agree to his request that they collaborate with the Underground Railroad and bring as many escaped slaves to the North as possible.

How Frederick Douglass Pushed For Change During Lincoln's Presidency

Abraham Lincoln's presidency notably coincided with the Civil War, which emboldened Frederick Douglass to meet with the president and share his beliefs. At the time, Douglass was already incredibly well-known for his impassioned speeches , and though many Americans disliked him due to his skin color, others were convinced by him to join the abolitionist cause.

As Manhunt episode 3 portrayed, in 1863, Frederick Douglass met with Abraham Lincoln to discuss the role of Black men in the war. Douglass staunchly believed that if the war revolved around African American freedom, then they should be allowed to participate in that fight.

Once Lincoln allowed Black men to become soldiers in the Union army in 1863, Douglass went even further in his fight. Not only did his three sons, Charles, Lewis, and Frederick Jr., enlist in the army, but he continued spreading awareness on the topic through his writings. The most notable piece he wrote was a broadside called "Men of Color to Arms!," which inspired Black men to join the fight for their freedom. Ultimately, the controversy and struggle of Black men as Union soldiers is explored in Manhunt when a group of Black Union soldiers are harassed by white citizens.

Although Abraham Lincoln did follow some of Frederick Douglass' ideals, such as allowing Black men to join the army, they did not completely see eye-to-eye. Notably, during the Election of 1864, Douglass publicly endorsed John C. Frémont , who was the candidate for the Radical Democracy Party. Douglass did not endorse Lincoln because he disliked that Lincoln was not openly supportive of African American suffrage. In this way, Douglass and Lincoln were able to agree on many topics, but Lincoln's measured activism was not nearly enough for Douglass , who wanted big and immediate change for America and its African American population.

Douglass & Lincoln Respected Each Other Despite Criticisms

Although Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln did not agree on every topic during Lincoln's presidency, there was no animosity or hostility between the men . Though their meetings may have been more heated than what was depicted in Manhunt, Douglass still respected Lincoln's role as president, and Lincoln respected the work Douglass did for African Americans. This respect even translated after Abraham Lincoln's assassination in April 1865. In 1876, more than ten years after Lincoln's death, Douglass made the keynote speech at the unveiling of the Emancipation Memorial , which honored Lincoln and his fight against slavery.

Douglass' speech is a strong indicator of how the activist respected Lincoln, but wouldn't look past his flaws. During the unveiling, Douglass talked frankly about Lincoln's work as president, noting that it took Lincoln quite a time to join the abolitionist cause . Though he did not agree with expanding slavery, he did not oppose it either. Douglass criticized Lincoln's slowness, but also praised Lincoln for keeping his word and doing what no other president had done before. While Lincoln's personal relationship with African Americans may not have been strong, his dedication to passing laws was something that cannot be forgotten.

How Douglass Became A Key Advisor Prior To Lincoln's Death

Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln's working relationship ultimately came to be due to Douglass' unending passion towards the abolition movement . Their initial meeting in 1863 was called because Douglass wanted to confront Lincoln about Black soldiers in the Union Army. At that time, Douglass was still critical of Lincoln and the speed at which he was taking on abolition. As previously mentioned, Douglass even went so far as to endorse a different candidate for president in 1864. However, once Lincoln became a leading candidate, Douglass supported his campaign and became an advisor .

Ultimately, Frederick Douglass' presence around Abraham Lincoln may have been a saving grace during the second half of the Civil War. With Douglass' knowledge and opinions around, Lincoln was likely able to get a better grasp on the perspective of African Americans in the United States. As shown in Manhunt , Frederick Douglass was an important figure not only in the United States, but in the final years of Abraham Lincoln's life and presidency.

Manhunt (2024)

‘Star Trek 4' Beams Up New Screenwriter: ‘The Flight Attendant' Co-Creator Steve Yockey (EXCLUSIVE)

Steve Yockey, co-creator of the Max series "The Flight Attendant," is joining Starfleet as the new screenwriter for "Star Trek 4."

Story details remain under a powerful cloaking device, but Paramount Pictures still intends the project to be the final chapter for the cast that rebooted the franchise in movie theaters with 2009's "Star Trek," including Chris Pine (as Capt. James T. Kirk), Zachary Quinto (as Cmdr. Spock), Zoe Saldaña (as Lt. Nyota Uhura), Karl Urban (as Dr. Leonard McCoy), John Cho (as Lt. Hikaru Sulu) and Simon Pegg (as chief engineer Montgomery Scott). ( Variety first reported the news in its cover story on the future of the "Star Trek" franchise.)

Bringing the cast back following 2016's "Star Trek Beyond" has proven trickier for the studio than finding an altruistic Ferengi. At least three previous attempts fell apart for various reasons, most recently with director Matt Shakman ("WandaVision") and screenwriters Lindsey Beer ("Sierra Burgess Is a Loser") and Geneva Robertson-Dworet ("Captain Marvel") that the studio had slated to open in late 2023. When Shakman left the film in 2022 to direct "The Fantastic Four" for Marvel Studios, however, Paramount pulled it from its slate and sent it back to spacedock.

Yockey's involvement is the most promising sign of forward momentum the project has had since. The playwright started his TV writing career on the MTV series "Awkward" and "Scream," before joining the writing staff of "Supernatural" for four seasons. His latest series, the Sandman universe adaptation "Dead Boy Detectives," will premiere on Netflix in April.

Paramount is also developing a separate "Star Trek" project, with writer Seth Grahame-Smith ("Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter") and director by Toby Haynes ("Black Mirror: USS Callister"), that would feature a new cast in a story meant as a kind of origin story for the franchise. A project with screenwriter Kalinda Vazquez ("Fear the Walking Dead") first announced in 2021 also remains in development.

More from Variety

• 'Star Trek' Origin Story Movie Set From 'Andor' Director, 'Star Trek 4' Still in the Works as 'Final Chapter' of Main Series
• Quentin Tarantino's 'Star Trek' Movie Writer Calls Unmade Pitch the 'Greatest Star Trek Film,' Says the Director Just Didn't Want It to Be His Last Movie

The Next Star Trek Movie Will Be An Origin Story For The Entire Franchise

When a franchise has lasted for upwards of half a century and is still going strong, the decision-makers in charge will inevitably run into one pressing question above all others: Where do we go next? "Star Trek" became a beloved institution among the nerdiest of fans for a pretty good reason, largely because of its wholesale commitment to treading new ground and envisioning a new future. But with the franchise firing on all cylinders these days (on television, at least) and no signs of slowing down anytime soon, writers have become increasingly hard-pressed to boldly go where no others have gone before ... literally speaking, that is, since recent "Star Trek" shows like "Strange New Worlds," "Lower Decks," "Discovery," "Picard," and more have filled in all sorts of gaps in the official canon.

It's no secret that Paramount is eager to get back in the big-screen business for "Trek," however, and one of the more intriguing productions currently in the works seems to have settled on its main focus. We previously knew that "Black Mirror" and "Andor" director Toby Haynes had been tapped to lead an untitled upcoming "Star Trek" movie – one that's not  meant as a continuation of the alternate-universe (aka Kelvin Timeline) movies starring Chris Pine and the rest of those films' cast. The studio is still playing its cards close to the chest on this, but a new report has shed a little more light on what we can expect from this mysterious motion picture.

The key phrase, apparently, is "origin story."

An origin story ... 'of sorts'

Variety has the scoop on the future of "Star Trek," unveiling a flashy new cover story covering practically every corner of the (fictional) universe. One tidbit buried among the rest, however, paints a rather interesting picture of what one of the movies in development could end up focusing on. With names like Toby Haynes and writer Seth Grahame-Smith ("The LEGO Batman Movie," "Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter") attached, there's clearly no shortage of creative talent looking to put their stamp on future plans for the franchise. Figuring out what exactly that direction should be, however, is another story altogether.

According to the report, fans can expect the movie to "serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire ['Star Trek'] franchise ." What that means, of course, is anybody's guess. In terms of the timeline, the best guess is that this will take place long before the events of the 2009 J.J. Abrams semi-reboot and that of "The Original Series" as well. Discounting time-travel adventures that placed contemporary "Trek" characters on, say, 20th Century Earth, the earliest era of the canon that we've seen was previously explored in "Star Trek: Enterprise," which is set a full century before the likes of Captain James T. Kirk or Mr. Spock ever stepped foot on the USS Enterprise.

Trekkies already know how events like First Contact between humanity and the Vulcans unfolded or how events like the Eugenics Wars ravaged the Earth and set our civilization on a course for the stars, so could this in-development movie tackle the formation of Starfleet and the Federation as a whole? At this point, your guess is as good as ours. We'll definitely be keeping a close eye on this one.