Star Trek TOS S01E16 – The Galileo Seven

Dir. Robert Gist, Wri. Oliver Crawford & Shimon Wincelberg

The Summary: A shuttlecraft with key crew members aboard crashes and Spock tries to save them while Kirk searches for them.

The Good: The episode gives us an interesting examination of Spock’s worldview, although I do feel that there is some missed potential here—I feel the conflict is actually too heightened, too obvious, which makes it seem foolish. There’s also some good tension before they reveal what’s going on on the planet that creates a pretty legitimate air of mystery to the opening. The final liftoff is a pretty exciting and effective setpiece, with some nice character moments, even if they come a little late in the episode to have the impact they might have otherwise.

The Bad: The governmental stooge is way too stooge-y—he is a caricature, and not in a funny or enjoyable way. He serves a utilitarian function as a plot obstacle and that’s about it. The men insisting on having full funeral services for some random guy while they are working against time come off as patently absurd. These are supposedly trained military officers; retrieving the body is one thing, but wasting potentially hours on burying him on the battlefield seems ridiculous. The movie has to contrive an illogical way for redshirts to die off, in that least interesting way where they do something unbelievably stupid in order to facilitate the death. The monsters are incompetent; they are supposed to be a terrifying threat but they seem incapable of capitalizing on any of their opportunities. Spock seems dumb before the end of the episode, which is never what you want for your purportedly genius character—being logical has never before made him ignorant of the existence of emotions, and presenting him that way damages his overall character in the series. The everybody laughs scene at the end is very forced and painfully unfunny.

The Review: Unfortunately, this one frustrates more than it fulfills. I definitely see what they were going for, but it’s just way too on the nose to be effective. The episode actually has a pretty interesting premise, with the second in command having to lead and realizing how difficult it is. The traditional Spock conflict of logic versus emotion is almost always a pretty sure bet for this show, and you’ve actually got a pretty effective ticking clock in the plot. All of the ingredients are there for a really solid and exciting episode, but it just doesn’t come together.

The main problem is that everything seems cartoonish and over-the-top, including the conflict. From the very outset we seem to be getting heightened versions of everyone’s basic character traits turned up to eleven, as if the writers were incapable of expressing anything with any subtlety whatsoever. A group of security and combat experts on the most prestigious ship in the entire Federation fleet insist on stopping their potentially life-saving work against the orders of their superior officer in order to actually dig a grave and hold a funeral service for one of their comrades in arms. It beggars belief that this could happen. In response to this, their incredibly logical commander simply tells them they’re being ridiculous and to get back to work. No one ever attempts to find a compromise, or discuss their motivations for why they’re at odds, or anything that makes sense in the situation. It seems very much as if all of the characters have been reduced to children, who simply pout and complain if they don’t get their way as opposed to working through their problems. It feels petty, and not in tune with the spirit of Trek.

I do really like that they try to mirror the conflict above and the one below. It’s an interesting attempt at parallel narrative that I think could have worked much better if the episode had stronger character writing. As it is, it makes the back third of the episode at least more interesting and engaging than what came before. In general, this one comes to a pretty thrilling conclusion as Spock and Kirk’s plans converge. I feel like it’s too little too late, though. This episode suffers from the problem of padding out an interesting setup and exciting conclusion with a bunch of filler. Unlike some other episodes, though, the filler is actively frustrating as opposed to just boring, and that really works against it. While it’s far from the worst episodes of Trek, there really isn’t much here to recommend except to the serious fan or someone who can’t get enough of Spock’s whole logic vs. emotion thing. Anyone else can give this one a pass.

The Score: