Kirk Your Enthusiasm (23)

By: Matt Glaser
August 29, 2012

Twenty-third in a series of posts, each one analyzing a single Captain Kirk scene from the Star Trek canon.

***

Kirk’s ghost | “The Tholian Web” | Star Trek: The Original Series | Season 3, Episode 9 | November 1968

Around twelve minutes into “The Tholian Web,” there is a moment of introspection and quiet helplessness that grips James T. Kirk. The camera slowly pans and zooms out as he stands almost motionless on the bridge of a spectral ship he was meant to rescue, several bodies tangled up with one another on the deck around him. His glittered spacesuit evokes memories of textbook circulatory system diagrams. He is alone.

Framed by a wider shot now, Kirk shifts a furrowed gaze to look at nothing in particular — a deceased crewmember at his feet, something off-camera to the left. The ship around him is fading away, but he says nothing into his communicator as the Enterprise crew struggles vainly to beam him back to safety. The soundtrack during these moments goes perfectly and purposefully silent, and we are silent ourselves for a moment, barely breathing, left to draw our own bleak conclusions as the captain dissolves into some new infinity.

The Enterprise crew falls victim to a gathering madness, and at random they attack each other with psychotic rage. Kirk’s ghost appears thrice, visibly attempting to speak but making no sound on this plane of reality, drawing religious reactions from his crew but ultimately written off as febrile hallucinations caused by some unseen contagion. It is a weakness in the fabric of space, reports a glum Dr. McCoy. Our minds are being torn apart by the weakness that surrounds us.

Perhaps this is the state of things as we know it: a collective faith in ourselves cast aside by a space made of weak stuff, a universe bereft of real leadership.

But I think we know better, here in Star Trek’s distant past. Our universe never had a Kirk (he hasn’t been born yet), and as we watch the dissolution of order and logic onboard the now Kirk-less Enterprise we are reminded of just how powerful the absence of the man is; even Spock seems a bit worried. A leader in his mold is hard to come by, but the harsh reality is that a universe with nary a Kirk is in serious trouble.

It is a hopeless thing to stare at the ghosts of great men, as we so often do, and expect them to lead. Perhaps it is better to admit that it is not the fault of the space surrounding us, but our own weakness that drives us mad.

***

***

What do you think?

Adam McGovern says:

August 29, 2012 at 8:47 am

The fault lies in our spaces and ourselves, eh? True; silence is the strongest expression in Shatner’s vocabulary, after all, and in Kirk’s — urging you to fill in and follow along as he deliberately utters and gives meaningful pause. The truly good fathers want you to leap the void.
Joshua Glenn says:

August 29, 2012 at 9:03 am

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is Kirk?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him — you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying Kirk? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Kirks, too, decompose. Kirk is dead. Kirk remains dead. And we have killed him.”
Adam McGovern says:

August 29, 2012 at 9:20 am

So it’s possible to revise Nietzsche with *wonderful* results; I did not see that coming :-).
Peggy says:

August 29, 2012 at 9:27 am

Great essay. The trick is (perhaps) to try to maintain collective faith in ourselves *despite any weaknesses of outer or inner space? We must believe in our inner James T. Kirk! He may be a ghost, or lost in transporter limbo between broadcast and reality, he may be weirdly encased in ancient suits of metaphor – but he is trying to speak. We. need. to just. Listen!
Adam McGovern says:

August 29, 2012 at 10:23 am

Poetry, Peggy. Symbol-slam. Preamble to a three-century resurrection note. State of the Universe speech. It’s non-regulation, but it makes me happy.
Greg says:

August 29, 2012 at 12:53 pm

It makes me happy too.
Esoth says:

August 29, 2012 at 6:39 pm

The ghosts of great men. . . . This series is certainly hitting the highlights. Is to envision a Trekian universe, without a Kirk, to approach the brink of madness and despair, as Matt suggests? I recall the claustrophobic feel of the remorselessly spooling-out Tholian web, the horror of suffocation in the aparational Kirk, and the utter alien-ness of the Tholian Commander.

But not even the silence of interspace/interphase could stop Kirk’s quirky emoting (“He beckons!”). The sense of loss is palpable among the crew (and viewer) and Kirk himself seems trapped in a silent scream, a Marley’s lamentation, having lost the power to interfere for good in human matters.

At the close, Spock’s and McCoy’s sheepish fib about not viewing “Kirk’s Last Tape” begs the question, why were ye fearful, o ye of little faith? Little faith in themselves, in the absence of Kirk. Called to their better selves through Kirk’s message, they ultimately do him proud (as he expected) and indeed rescue him. But even there, Kirk is the unifying field, his faith in Spock and in McCoy as individuals, his choosing of them as his friends and confidants are all the recommendation either finally needs for the other.
Adam McGovern says:

August 30, 2012 at 10:04 am

Kirk knows that his duties as an archetype require him to be a composite, and Spock and McCoy are the best components a guy could ask for. Kirk as “unifying field” counter to the Tholians’ simple binding grid, brilliant, Esoth. The contrast of watching vigilantly in “Arena” (essay’d today elsewhere) and standing by helplessly (or maybe with a different kind of power) in this ep is instructive…
Joe Alterio says:

September 4, 2012 at 4:58 pm

So, so good, Matt.

Comments are closed.

Kirk Your Enthusiasm (23)

Categories

Tags

What do you think?