It appears that Adam Sandler and Chris Farley have a connection with this episode ...

They appeared in a Saturday Night Live sketch spoofing a TV commercial pitching the "Herlihy Boy" that will do your house-sitting for you while you're gone, but then pleads to stay.
AND ... at the beginning of this episode of Star Trek, Kirk is accompanied by a red shirt named O'Herlihy who gets zapped by a Gorn disruptor blast.

Perhaps he's a descendant of Mr. Herlihy with a rich past of house-sitting ... maybe that's why he joined Starfleet!

Note when Kirk launches his grenade. Everyone moves back and cover their heads. Kirk has nothing in his hands. But after the explosion, he moves forward and all of a sudden he has a phaser in his left hand...

Several references give Vic Perrin as the voice of the Gorn. Another gives Ted Cassidy. I think it is Ted. anyone agree?

On Cestus III, Kirk says that if Sulu drops the screens, the Enterprise will be vulnerable to phaser attack. However, Sulu didn't tell him what sort of weapons the Gorn ship had.

Anti-nit. The Guide says Kirk "pops" into a scene as he runs toward the camera.

On tape, it seems Phil is correct. If you watch the DVD, however, you'll see Kirk is there all the time. Some sort of error in the film processing left everything faded (the ground, the rocks, and Kirk, to the point it seems he's not there.

I noticed a similar shot. The very first thing you see when the Metrons show the asteroid surface on the viewscreen is a shot with nobody in it, just grass, etc. Then the Gorn seems to "pop" into existence.

If the Gorn was as clever as Kirk thought, why didn't he figure out what Kirk was busily building with the bamboo tube and throw a boulder at it? Instead he obligingly kept walking closer to Kirk to make himself a target.

I must add that Spock also saying "Good" during the whole thing is silly...Kirk can't hear him!

Personally, I think Spock was showing off his knowledge of chemistry. He kept going "good...good" knowing SOMEbody on the bridge would break down and say, "Pleeeease tell what you're talking about, Mr. Vulcan, sir. Please educate us with your vast knowledge, yada yada"

The Gorn sounded like a smoker with a bad cough.

The ending of this episode bothers me because Kirk seems to be drawing a moral equivalence between himself and the Gorn. "Maybe you thought you were protecting yourself" and McCoy says "We might be in the wrong." Look at what the Gorn (Gorns?) did. They attacked an observation outpost for being in their space. Even though they could simulate the message from Travers, they still gave no warning or even territorial claim before their attack. Then when they attacked, they kept firing even though the outpost was essentially defenseless after the first shot. Does this sound like a benevolent race only acting in what they think is self-defense?

I saw this episode on the SCI-FI channel on vacation, and boy...did they hack this episode to death! They cut out the Enterprise firing its torpedoes...yet they kept the part where Sulu said, "Photon torpedoes also ineffective". Does this make sense? I quit watching after that.

glenn of nas; Vic Perrin was the voice of the Metrons; you can tell how similar he sounds to his other major voiceover-- Nomad. I'm not sure about the voice of the Gorn, although I agree it sounds alot like Ted Cassidy when he finishes his line with, "...we've destroyed invaders as I shall destroy youuu!"
Starfleet and the Federation look pretty bad in this episode from the Metrons point of view. They observed the Enterprise chasing a smaller ship, and when the Metrons stopped the Gorn ship, the 'peaceful' Starfleet ship locked on weapons, seconds from blowing away their enemy.
The Gorn ship would have to be smaller than the Enterprise, or else the fight would have lasted longer.
Also, the Gorn are either not too smart or are very far from the rest of their fleet, because logically the Gorn ship should have tricked the Enterprise into following them into an ambush by several hidden Gorn ships. Maybe they were waiting for the two ships on the other side of the Metron solar system, in which case the Metrons saved Kirk and crew.

There's an odd shot right when the title card appears. It's a wide shot of the settlement and the hills behind it. But over the hills, instead of sky, is that fake rock they use in their cave sets. It looks really weird. I wonder if they were cropping out the LA skyline, and I also wonder why they didn't matte in a sky rather than the paper-mache rock wall. Other shots (but not as wide) show a normal sky.

**LESLIE ALERT**

Mr. Leslie is at the Engineering station again.

I really get around dont I?

missed line: "We are the Gorns"

TRIVIA:

Ted Cassidy did the voice of the Gorn in this episode. (From IMDB.com)

Sorry to contradict the Chief, but I'm pretty sure the guys running through the pyrotechnics were the stunt doubles, not Shatner and Nimoy. The editing was good, though. The double goes into a roll, and the scene cuts to a closeup of Shatner coming out of the roll.

Anti-nit: I think the shadow that goes across the bunker is a puff of smoke from an explosion.

I like the ASPN idea. Nice cinematography by the aliens -- dramatic zooms and such.

The preview for the epsiode contains the sweeping zoom into the bridge from "The Cage", but this doesn't appear in the episode itself.

And they lifted one other trick from "The Cage". The Metron is played by a woman (Carole Shelyne) but voiced by a man (Vic Perrin).

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


Whenever Sulu makes an adjustment to his controls, it sounds only like his fingers banging a board. Perhaps some low frequency beeps could be added.

As the Enterprise is pursuing the Gorn ship, there is a "flux" in the television picture while it focuses on the main viewscreen. I suppose it could be a fault in my VHS cassette tape. (I haven't watched the DVD yet.)

While Kirk is trapped in the Gorn's rock-vine trap, the fade-out scene and the fade-in scene are staged slightly differently, but probably it will have to stay as is.

At one point, the Gorn appears to be walking along a road. If it could be made to look more like a wash rather than a road, it probably could fit in. Also, one scene shows Kirk suddenly appear in the background, approaching the Metrons' "camera". Maybe a second or two of footage could be cut out prior to Kirk appearing.

When the Metrons transport Kirk back and forth, he instantaneously disappears and appears. When the Gorn leaves and the Metron appears at the end of the episode, one fades out, the other fades in. Perhaps the Gorn's disappearance should be instantaneous, but the Metron's could still be a fade-in, since the Metron is probably close by.

Hah! I found a nit that Phil missed in his book and that surprisingly no one here or in the archived nits above saw either, and that's when after the requisite redshirt gets killed Kirk and Spock rush up into the corner of the destroyed building there and Kirk flips open his communicator while at the same time bumping up against the ruined concrete reinforced wall and the wall moves! No wonder the place was so easily pulverized by the Gorn! The walls weren't so very well reinforced after all, were they?

This is the second episode in a row where Kirk is in a fight for his life, and just as things are looking hopeless, someone steps in and stops the fight.

I never noticed this before I received the first season on DVD. Kirk is wearing boxing/wrestling boots that lace up the front, not the usual Starfleet issue.

Perhaps the Metrons knew he'd be doing a lot of running. :-)

Quite a silly episode after all, although it all starts very promising, but the man (sorry woman) in a rubber lizzard suit just cracks me up (looks like a reject from the Black Lagoon).

Two things: One. Kirk is really on a Die Hard With A Vengeance mission, isn't he? First he does all the possible to kill those green slimey bastards from a distance (without trying to use diplomacy or contacting the Gorn ship first, that missed lunch on Cestus III really must pissed him off). But when he is physically confronted with the monster he refuses to kill it. Easier to kill someone with a laser than with a knife, ain't it Kirky. All that blood (probably green) over your clothes. Would be very messy indeed... 8-)))

Two. In the beginning Kirk struggles with the Gorn and kicks it on the ears. Stupid. He had a chance to poke his fingers in the Gorn's eyes and blind it forever. But probably that would've got him into troubles with the Interstella Peta Organisation...

Oh well. Three. Why didn't Kirk start a diplomatic session on the Arena planet? Never too late to negotiate, or at least, try to negotiate...

I love the scene in "Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey" where they're watching this episode on tv, then 5 minutes later they're thrown off the same cliff from the show. I remember seeing that in the theatre and being the only one laughing.

New effects: All new space shots, of course. We get to see the phaser effect, which is much cleaned up over the original. The original beams originated somewhere midway up the saucer section, rather than at the base. The beams are now blue rather than red. The photon torpedo effect, though, kept the red torpedos. Both effects reflect against the bottom of the saucer.

The nit I caught above is fixed: the title card wide shot now shows a normal skyline, rather than an awkwardly matted fake rock wall.

There are some new bridge screen effects; new streaming stars, and a very distant view of the Gorn ship. The animated Metron effect on the screen is unchanged.

The Gorn has a new trick -- he can blink!

The Metron at the end is shinier. The lens flares to the left of the Metron have been augmented by a bunch of sparkles around the Metron.

The matte alignment problems of video on the viewscreen hasn't been fixed.

An anti-nit to a remark of Phil's (not releated to the new effects). Contrary to what Phil says, it does look like the Gorn tries to bite Kirk on the neck in their first confontation.

There's also a question of how strong the Gorn is. When they first wrestle, Kirk can hold back the Gorn. But then the Gorn lifts a giant boulder. The Gorn should have been able to lift Kirk one-handed and smash him on the ground.

One other question. Cestus III has a building with a sign reading "Life Support". This is a Class M planet and doesn't seem to require any special protection for humans.

Personally, I liked seeing the Gorn blink. I thought it was kind of a cool effect.

Live long and prosper.

The view of the "high" group on Cestus III actually looks like high ground now.

Also, Kelowitz tells Kirk to aim the gun towards the right of the high ground. Before, the gun just seems to splash lights all over the screen. Now, it actually aims a little to the right of the high ground like it should.

Personally, I liked seeing the Gorn blink. I thought it was kind of a cool effect.
I thought the Gorn should have blinked a bit more often, though.
The close-up of the Enterprise's saucer section, and the fly-away of the starship at the end, rocked.

Here's a review of the remastered version.

It's been a long time since I've seen the episode, so I don't remember enough detail to see much difference in the remastered version.

The Metron was played by Carole Shelyne. Carole *could* be a man's name, with a different spelling. If it was a woman, wouldn't she be bothered that Kirk has to say the Metron looks like a boy, instead of saying "girl" or "youth"?

It's just another example of the writers' sexism, assuming all advanced aliens have to be male. The only female advanced alien was Trelayne's mom, and she has to be somebody's wife.

And why would the Metron say Kirk is surprised by his appearance? Kirk doesn't seem surprised. And Kirk would expect such an advanced race to be very long-lived.

What is that watery thing we see on the screen when the Metrons are talking to the Enterprise crew? Why couldn't they show their faces?

In the Archived nits somebody mentions bits of India on the planet shot--I didn't see any of that in the remastered episode. Did they change the planet's look completely?

It looks like, apparently, the syndication cuts weren't restored for the remastered version? Why not?

Oh, and another thing!

The Gorn says he "will be mercy-full and quick!"

I wonder what Earth accent that corresponds to? I can't think where I've heard that before. Obviously they wanted the alien to sound alien, but I guess a Southern accent or a Cockney accent were out of the question.

And who was the actor in the suit? The credits don't say.

When the Gorn is trying to sharpen the rock, it looked plenty sharp already. The actor wasn't even trying to make it look convincing. He was holding it wrong.

THE GORN:

Ted Cassidy .... Gorn (voice) (uncredited)
Bobby Clark .... Gorn (uncredited)
Gary Combs .... Gorn (uncredited)

(From IMDB.COM)

I was lucky enough to catch it last weekend and now just remembered that I'd forgotten to check it out today because I was really into watching DVDs and then going out to eat!

Anyway, I liked that the Gorn blinked, too. Did anyone notice the ruins wall that Kirk and Spock duck behind moves whenever Shatner bumped into it? It was pretty obvious. I'd commented on it before.

Is that Metron gender-bending or what?

As I mentioned above, they used the same trick as in "The Cage": The Metron is played by a woman (Carole Shelyne) but voiced by a man (Vic Perrin).

Felix Attagong;
"Quite a silly episode after all, although it all starts very promising, but the man (sorry woman) in a rubber lizzard suit just cracks me up (looks like a reject from the Black Lagoon)."
>>>>>
Actually it was a man inside the suit. And there's just not very many real lizard men working in Hollywood to make it more realistic!

Felix;
"Two things: One. Kirk is really on a Die Hard With A Vengeance mission, isn't he? First he does all the possible to kill those green slimey b******* from a distance (without trying to use diplomacy or contacting the Gorn ship first, that missed lunch on Cestus III really must pissed him off). But when he is physically confronted with the monster he refuses to kill it. Easier to kill someone with a laser than with a knife, ain't it Kirky. All that blood (probably green) over your clothes. Would be very messy indeed... 8-)))"
>>>>>
The landing party wasn't on Cestus III 5 minutes before they were attacked by the Gorns, killing the redshirt and then Lang a few minutes later. Also, the Gorn ship attacked the Enterprise, so there was absolutely no time for any kind of diplomacy. Also, the Gorns pretty well implicated themselves in the murder of the hundreds of innocent human settlers on the planet. It was the GORNS that refused to speak with the humans when they first arrived at Cestus III to find the humans there.
As for Kirk being reluctant to kill face-to-face, he had second thoughts because earlier the Gorn Captain revealed that Cestus III was previously considered Gorn territory. And Kirk is no stranger killing someone in hand to hand combat (Kloog, Colonel Green); his reason and compassion prevented him from making the Cestus III situation even worse.

Felix;
"Two. In the beginning Kirk struggles with the Gorn and kicks it on the ears. Stupid. He had a chance to poke his fingers in the Gorn's eyes and blind it forever. But probably that would've got him into troubles with the Interstella Peta Organisation..."
>>>>
'Kicks it on the ears'? I'm assuming English is second language to you (no offense meant by that). I think the word you're looking for is 'slaps', or 'slams' or even 'hits', as he used his hands not his feet.
As for scratching the Gorn's eyes, yea, that was an option, but we are talking about 1960's tv, and the episode would have been pretty short with a blind Gorn stumbling around!

Felix;
"Oh well. Three. Why didn't Kirk start a diplomatic session on the Arena planet? Never too late to negotiate, or at least, try to negotiate..."
>>>>
I guess he felt that there wasn't going to be any rationalizing with an alien that wiped out the humans on Cestus III, that attacked his ship, who was told by the Metrons that they would have to fight to the death, and that the lives of his crew depended on him killing the Gorn, and not chatting with it. On the other hand he did send the ship 'back to where we're supposed to be', after the Metrons transported them hundreds of light years back towards Cestus III. In fact, he even told the Metron 'We can talk...maybe reach an agreement'. The episode just needed to be 15 or 20 minutes longer to show any sort of diplomacy.

The Metrons must have scanned the ship's computer records of the battle and the chase, because up to the point that both ships lose velocity, the Metrons shouldn't jump to the conclusion that they're at war. The Enterprise locks on weapons, but not a single shot is fired.

Spock had a perfectly clear view of the action on the viewscreen of the fight, but at one point he stands up and practically stands in front of McCoy blocking HIS view!

Edited for language

Mystery solved (at least for me). The Metron, Carole Shelyne really IS a woman, and not an effeminate-looking guy with a female name. According to IMDB Carole played other female characters in series like Bob Newhart and The FBI among others.

She still looks ambiguous, though.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENTS

New Cestus III planetscape

New Enterprise Phasers

New Enterprise Photon Torpedoes

The Gorn blinks his eyes

New Gorn ship

The Metron's outfit is now glistering and sparkling

I must add they really enhanced the mountains on Cestus III. The colors look razor sharp. It might be an enhanced CGI footage, I can't tell. It's that good.

I have not seen the enhanced vertion of this (or any) episode, but one thing that could have used some enhancment here was the firing of the phasers and photon torpedoes.

BrianB: Why would a tricorder explode? What's the purpose of an exploding tricorder? A self-destruct mechanism if it falls into enemy hands?
Maybe the Gorn located the tricorder with sensors and then used some type of directed-energy weapon, focusing so much energy on the device that it exploded. If you hit something with enough energy, it will explode; it doesn't need to be packed with explosives.

KAM: Spock says that Kirk must find a carbon deposit[. Well,] the next thing shown is Kirk finding...diamonds. Diamonds are the crystalline form of pure carbon.
I was very confused at this point. Diamonds, while composed of carbon, will not work as the carbon component in gunpowder, as Keith correctly points out. You need carbon which is chemically free to react (most commonly charcoal), and diamonds are inert. However, Kirk finds charcoal later on, and we see that the diamonds are used, not as a carbon source, but as "bullets," or projectiles to be launched by the cannon. So what happened, I think, was that Spock's narration about needing carbon and Kirk's discovery of the diamonds were oddly juxtaposed. (Spock mentioned one of the ingredients of the gunpowder and it showed us Kirk finding, not that ingredient, but rather his "bullets.")

Why would a tricorder explode? What's the purpose of an exploding tricorder? A self-destruct mechanism if it falls into enemy hands?

Could also just be whatever powers it. Seems that they must have lots of power (by 20th century standards) to do all of that stuff they do and often things that generate lots of power can be a bit volatile. I'm sure Starfleet does what they can to make it safe (from the people who brought you 10,000 volt exploding computer consoles) but a 21st century car has a safe gas tank that was designed to safely house explosive fuel (and even in most car crashes it is still very safe) but if I stick a road flair down the gas tank or puncture it with a screwdriver I can make it quite dangerous if I want.

KAM: Spock says that Kirk must find a carbon deposit[. Well,] the next thing shown is Kirk finding...diamonds. Diamonds are the crystalline form of pure carbon.
Jesse - I was very confused at this point.
I don't think I was saying it was a nit, I believe I was just amused at the sequence.

Me - To my knowledge there are no official rules on what makes something a planet or asteroid.
Well, there wasn't when I wrote that in 2002, but in 2006...

The Gorn would not have been able to throw that largest boulder up toward Captain Kirk with those slow moving arms. It was not believable.

I always felt that the Cestus III starbase was a wonderful use of location filming which made this an impressive episode. I've read differing accounts as to exactly what the set was. One states that it was the fort built for the classic Gary Cooper movie Beau Geste from the '30's,but another report said it was a massive set built for another movie. In either event,it was really epic looking.I've seen it used in several other TV shows from that '60's. The Big Valley had it as a religious mission run to help Indians in one of their episodes,the High Chaparral had it as an abandoned military fort used by some outlaws.I always get a kick out of seeing the fort pop up on other TV shows,however,it'll always remain Cestus III to me.

"I guess he felt that there wasn't going to be any rationalizing with an alien that wiped out the humans on Cestus III, that attacked his ship, who was told by the Metrons that they would have to fight to the death, and that the lives of his crew depended on him killing the Gorn, and not chatting with it. On the other hand he did send the ship 'back to where we're supposed to be', after the Metrons transported them hundreds of light years back towards Cestus III. In fact, he even told the Metron 'We can talk...maybe reach an agreement"


And that is exactly what happened. Cestus III was mentioned in several episodes of Deep Space Nine as having a Federation colony there. The brother of Kasidy Yates, Sisko's girlfriend (and later wife) lived there.

It's too bad they never did an episode set there. I was thinking that Sisko and Kasidy could have gone to visit her brother, and then we see Sisko pay a visit to a memorial dedicated to those who died in the Gorn attack in this episode.

The remastered "Arena" airs next week. The following week is "Return of the Archons".

I don't know if the mountains in the distance on Cestus III were CGI or just a photo of mountains matted in for the remastered edition. The Memory-Alpha.org article indicates the awkward matte on the original wide shot was to cover the Vasquez Rocks (used for the Gorn fight) which were visible in the distance.

I compared the "high ground" shots, and they're completely different -- it's not even the same set of rocks. The photon grenade effect was completely redone -- the original had a flare that came from a clearly visible cup.

Right before the Gorn throws the giant rock at Kirk in their first encounter, there are some lights dancing across the rock wall behind Kirk, as if there were some mirrors lighting it up.

In reality, there probably was -- mirrors are often used for fill lighting (reducing shadows) in daylight filming. They were probably blowing in the wind, which made them wobble.

In addition to the shaky matte framing on the viewscreen, the Alien Sports Programming Network feed has a lot of scratches on it.

There's a board on the floor around one side of the control console on the bridge in the last scene.

Not only do the Gorn not bother to post boundaries letting people know when they are entering Gorn space, neither do the Metrons. They capture both the Enterprise & the Gorn ship & state that the loser will be a lesson for entering their space.
It's called automated space bouys, aliens, look into it some time.

Off-hand I think Kirk had it pegged right when he says he won't kill for their amusement. For all the Metrons claims of being advanced I think they enjoy battles like this.

>It's called automated space bouys, aliens, look into it some time.

Yeah, you might want to contact the First Federation and the Melkotians to see where they got theirs from.

Well... the buoys never really made sense. Space is 3D, so you'd have to space them along a sphere. You'd need billions.

Not necesarily. If the buoys had sensors & engines they could detect approaching ships & move to intercept.

The Metrons apparently scanned & stopped the Gorn & Enterprise from the home planet so they wouldn't need billions.

As for the Gorn, since it's the planet that's important, just put buoys in orbit.

In a future episode (probably airing next season), Mythbusters will attempt to build Kirk's cannon.

Well that's just AWESOME!

Uhura's reaction to seeing the Gorn has always bothered me.
She holds her hand to her mouth, palm outwards, like an old-time silent movie actress, seemingly saying, "Oh,, nooo! There's a lizard man on the screen and he might eat me!"
She would have looked less silly if she'd covered her mouth slightly, with her palm facing her mouth. It looks alot less wimpy (see for yourself in a mirror), and looks more like,
"Oh, no! The Captain has to fight THAT?!"

Since they put blinking eyelids on the Gorn, I would have CGIed a couple droopy ones on the Gorn, as he lay on his back, defeated.

Mythbusters airs the Gorn Cannon episode on 12/28. Preview here. Rather than using a clip or animation, they reenact the scene with Tori as Kirk and Grant as Spock.

The Mythbusters bit was funny, albeit predictable. Right off they noted Phil's nit -- bamboo is blocked between the segments. They punched them out.

There's a full recap at TrekMovie.

Here's Frederic Brown's short story, which was the basis for this episode.

And, here's some differences between Gene Coon wrote and what was aired. Including the original intentions of the Metrons. Which, IIRC, James Blish kept when he adapted the "Arena" script for his short story version.

Excuse me, Adam-they seem to go to the same place.

Oh, for cryin' out loud. Guess I'm getting more senile than I thought (which doesn't run in the family, BTW.) Here's the correct page. Thanks for alerting me.

One correction on the odd title card shot in the original. It wasn't a matte after all; it was just a crumpled piece of metal in the foreground in front of the camera. I think the idea was that it was supposed to be some debris (which conveniently obscured the Vasquez Rocks), but it always looked weird which is why they replaced it in the remastered edition.

In the episode Arena, Kirk is wearing his normal heeled black officer boots. When he appears on the planetoid confronting the Gorn, he appears to be wearing laceup flat bottom wrestling boots. Great thing the Metrons helped him out there. Can you imagine running around the rocky landscape in the heeled boot version.
Also, Kirk acted like this thing could move like a Velociraptor or something. It took the Gorn 3 full seconds to throw a punch. Why he couldn't have created some sharp spear with flint or stone and just walked within range and chucked it at the Gorn is beyond me.

Kirk, or rather Shatner, fights the Gorn again in a funny promo for a new Star Trek game. You can catch it here.

MarkN on Sunday, December 19, 2004 - 1:30 pm: Hah! I found a nit that Phil missed in his book and that surprisingly no one here or in the archived nits above saw either, and that's when after the requisite redshirt gets killed Kirk and Spock rush up into the corner of the destroyed building there and Kirk flips open his communicator while at the same time bumping up against the ruined concrete reinforced wall and the wall moves! No wonder the place was so easily pulverized by the Gorn! The walls weren't so very well reinforced after all, were they?

The foundations were probably weakened by the Gorn attack.

Who threw that?!

Neil deGrasse Tyson has an issue with the fight scene in the episode. I won't tell you what it is; you can watch it here.

Kirk is wearing lace-up boots while fighting the Gorn, not his usual uniform boots. I doubt the Metrons had boots waiting for Kirk on that desolate planet. Nor do I think that they would allow him to go to a Reebok/Rockport store to buy new kicks.

After Kirk drops a big boulder on the Gorn, he climbs down a cliff and goes to check if the Gorn is dead. He skips down a loose gravel slope, slowing himself down with his left foot. Then he stops and the shot switches to a closer view and he is instantly stopping himself with his RIGHT foot instead.

Kirk also stops dead in his tracks, apparently alarmed by something he saw. But the Gorn gave no indication at all that he was still alive and about to revive, even remaining inert for several seconds after Kirk stops, so what exactly was it that spooked our good captain?

Spock sees a white deposit on some rocks and quite confidently identifies it as potassium nitrate? Come on, there are a GREAT number of chemicals that look just like that, starting with ordinary salt.

Here's some behind-the-scenes skinny about the filming of this episode, courtesy of These Are The Voyages. Director Joseph Pevney was offered a $500 bonus if he could keep the difficult to shoot episode on (a six-day) schedule and on budget. Which he did. Rubbing DP Jerry Finnerman the wrong way in the process.

During the first battle between Kirk and the Gorn, you can see that the Gorn's costume is ripped in the back, over the right shoulder blade, just inside the Gorn's tunic. It's quite easy to see in the HD remastered version.

I read the original short story that, this episode was adapted from, many years ago. At the end of that story, the human does not spare the alien, nor is there talk of a diplomatic solution.

Said short story also involves a force field that can only be penetrated if one is not conscious. I remember an episode of Buck Rogers that used that idea. Wonder if they got it from the story.

Truth be told, I much prefer the Trek episode, because Kirk does not kill the Gorn and says that perhaps diplomacy can solve the issue (and it does, as a Federation colony is eventually established on Cestus III, that is where Kassidy Yates, Sisko's girlfriend, and later wife, comes from).

I read the original short story that, this episode was adapted from, many years ago.

Actually Gene L. Coon did not base his scenario on Fredric Brown's short story. The similarities between the two stories were identified afterward, and Desilu decided to contact Brown and offer him a fair price and screen credit for his permission, which he happily gave.

It's another example of how Roddenberry made a TV series superior to most others, as he tried to show that just becauzse something is hostile or scary (the Gorn, the Horta), doesnt't necessarily mean it's evil. Even McCoy wonders if the great and always perfect Federation 'may be in the wrong' for once. Usually, in other shows the aliens would be 100 % hostile and killed off and then the next alien would bite the dust next week (Lost In Space, Space:1999).
Roddenberry was smart enough to change that, and that's one reason we're still watching his show.

Actually Gene L. Coon did not base his scenario on Fredric Brown's short story. The similarities between the two stories were identified afterward, and Desilu decided to contact Brown and offer him a fair price and screen credit for his permission, which he happily gave.

I did not know this.


Roddenberry was smart enough to change that, and that's one reason we're still watching his show.

I couldn't agree more.

Why is the Gorn permitted to hear Kirk's entries into his recorder? And why can they use the same device to talk to each other? The Metrons referred to it as a "recording-translating device," and made no mention of its power to transmit to the other one. I guess we have to assume that the Gorn made no such entries himself, since Kirk doesn't hear his voice until he actually communicates with him.

In my youth, before I had my first VCR, I made audio tapes of the episodes (microphone next to the TV speaker) and listened to them over and over. This was the worst episode to listen to in that format because of the long segments with no dialog. Not that that has anything to do with nitpicking--it was just how I remembered this one before I had the ability to record the video as well.

And why can they use the same device to talk to each other?

I guess the Metrons allowed for the possibility, unlikely as they thought it was, that the two captains would chose to negociate a settlement instead of killing each other.

Well, an agreement was reached between the Federation and the Gorn at some point.

Cestus III was colonized by the Federation and Kassidy Yates, Ben Sisko's future wife, came from there.

Of course, Kirk could simply keep running away. He is much faster than the Gorn and so he could easily elude him. Of course, that would be cowardly, plus it wouldn't free the ship. And eventually he would have to worry about food.

And I just noticed something else. Just after Kirk selects a piece of bamboo and a length of vine he starts running up the side of the rocks. This is well after the scene in which he already went up there and pushed the boulder over the edge. But as we see him go up the second time, you can see the boulder up at the very top of the rocks again.

In the James Blish adaptation, Kirk actually asks the Gorn if they could just talk this out, rather than fight.

The Gorn replies that it would only result in both of them staying there until they starved. The Gorn adds that he hasn't seen any water, nor anything he could eat, with the possible exception of Kirk!