By 
Title: Spectre Of The Gun
Airdate: 10/25/1968
Plot Summary
In Spectre Of The Gun, The Enterprise has been ordered to make contact with the Melkotians, a reclusive race who distrusts outsiders. After blatantly ignoring the “No Trespassing” sign, a landing party beams down only to be confronted by the Melkotians who decide to punish the party by putting them into a recreation of the gunfight at the O.K. Corral.
Kirk must figure out how to get them out of this situation and still complete his mission but the recreation blocks him at every turn. After Chekov is killed, he and the crew must face down the Earps who believe they are the Clanton gang. History did not go well for the Clantons, will it go better for our heroes?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk once again shows why he’s awesome. Much like Arena, he has every reason to kill Earp and yet chooses not to, much to the Melkotians’ surprise. It’s a nice reinforcement of what Trek is supposed to be all about.
Logical
Spock uses his mind meld to convince the others that what they are experiencing is not real, thereby saving all their lives.
During the coda, Spock questions that Kirk wanted to kill, even though he didn’t to which Kirk admits. But Spock shouldn’t have been surprised by Kirk’s deeds versus his wants after Arena.
He’s Dead Jim
This has to be the most clumsy way to try to vary “He’s dead, Jim.” At one point Spock asks McCoy, “Is this a dead man, doctor?” to which McCoy simply answers, “Yes.” We get it.
McCoy also makes the tranquilizer gas for Spock’s device.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu sits this one out.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov dies but he gets better. He marks the fourth crewmember to die and come back to life, after Kirk, Spock, and Scotty. Kirk in Amok Time, Spock in Return To Tomorrow, and Scotty in The Changeling. There may have been more.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura does very little in this episode other than open comms and remarks that the language she heard from the Melkotian buoy was Swahili.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty takes the opportunity to work on his alcoholism by enjoying Bourbon. He volunteers to try out the gas (can’t keep that guy off the chemicals) and has a hilarious exchange with Spock:
Scotty: (downs a shot) To kill the pain.
Spock: But this is painless.
Scotty: Well you should’ve told me sooner.
Canon Maker
Melkotians are introduced and never heard from again. But this does cement the idea that the Federation is always trying to recruit new planets, something that would become much more of a plot point in various TNG episodes.
Canon Breaker
While this isn’t really a “canon breaker” per se, the gunfight at the O.K. Corral wasn’t anywhere near the actual O.K. Corral. In point of fact, it was six doors down next to a photography studio. The events of the day didn’t become famous until 1931 with the publication of Stuart Lake’s book Wyatt Earp: Frontier Marshall, 50 years later. It became known as the “Gunfight at the O.K. Corral” because of a 1957 film with the same name. It’s funny how a movie can skew everyone’s understanding of history but it happens all the time.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No deaths in Spectre Of The Gun! Chekov doesn’t count.
At this point Kirk has died, Spock has died, Scotty has died, McCoy has died, Chekov has now died, and Uhura had her mind wiped, which is pretty damn close to death. All have come back. Sulu is the only one who never actually died and came back.
Technobabble
Since Spectre Of The Gun mostly takes place in the fictionalized Deadwood, there’s really not a lot of tech to babble about.
I Know That Guy:
Ron Soble plays Wyatt Earp. Soble played a lot of supporting roles in TV and movies including as Capt. Boots Finch in the original 1969 True Grit.
Bonnie Beecher plays Sylvia. Beecher didn’t do ton of acting, instead becoming an activist and a director of Camp Winnarainbow. She did briefly date Bob Dylan in the 60s and was possibly the inspiration for his song Girl From North Country. Huh?
Charles Maxwell plays Virgil Earp. He didn’t do a whole lot but was known as the radio announcer on numerous episodes of Gilligan’s Island.
Rex Hollman plays Morgan Earp. He didn’t do a ton but funnily enough came back to Trek in Star Trek V as the dude digging holes in the sand at the beginning.
Sam Gilman plays Doc Holiday. He was best known for playing Harvey Johnson in One-Eyed Jacks. He was also friends with Marlon Brando and did a lot of work as an acting coach.
Charles Seel plays the bartender. You might know him as the old man in Steven Spielberg’s first movie, Duel.
Ed McCready plays the barber and Abraham Sofaer plays the voice of the Melkotian.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
Spectre Of The Gun is a criminally underrated episode but even so, it’s not a top-tier one either. It seems to be overlooked or forgotten in a lot of Trek circles though and that’s a shame. I really enjoy what they were going for here even though Arena did it much better.
Part of the issue with Season 3 was that NBC slashed the budget. Gene Roddenberry was barely involved in the day to day anymore and everything had to be done on the cheap. In this case, they couldn’t recreate an entire Old West town and it was even more expensive to film on-location, what with insurance, crew expenses, etc. So they took what they could and made an incomplete surreal town and that really lends to the weird setup the crew finds themselves in.
The buildings being half-built and the ominous clock which appears to just float on an unseen wall makes it all really trippy. I mentioned the historical inaccuracies but really this can be all explained as the Melkotians made the town based on Kirk’s memories. It’s understandable that he would know the surface-level details of the Old West and that’s shown here literally.
Then we have the tried and true “Kirk chooses not to kill” which impresses the Melkotians. Once again showing the Federation is not like the various Empires of the galaxy but a more enlightened organization.
Spock figuring out it’s all unreal is great. I also like that we never really get an idea of what that was. Was it all in their minds, Matrix-style? Was it a weird advanced holodeck? Telpathy? It was mentioned the Melkotians are telepaths.
Still some things in Spectre Of The Gun don’t work quite as well as Arena. For one, Kirk may be mad at the Earps for killing Chekov and sure, that’s a pretty strong motivation for Kirk’s emotional state. But it really just doesn’t hold up as he knows, and WE know, that this is all BS.
True we don’t know until the end if Chekov is alive or dead but still it just doesn’t have the strong motivating factor like the Gorn killing actual people. The Gorn captain was a real being, not this weird fantasy. Earp doesn’t even know what’s really going on, just playing the part that history has him play. He’s an NPC and you can’t really get that worked up over an NPC.
Chekov being just fine at the end because he was thinking about banging the saloon girl the whole time was weak sauce as well.
Still overall, I really enjoy the surreal nature of Spectre Of The Gun. It’s truly an example of making lemonade from budget slashing lemons and I appreciate the creativity that was put into it. It doesn’t quite rise to the top of the pile but it’s a strong episode nonetheless.
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