SUMMARY: RUNNING TIME: 51:00 Min.
First airing on NBC-TV on October 25, 1968, Vincent McEveety directed this episode penned by Gene L. Coon (per his pseudonym, Lee Cronin). Disregarding Melkotian insistence not to beam down, Captain Kirk leads an U.S.S. Enterprise landing party down to their misty world to intrude and stubbornly push Federation diplomacy.
As fitting retaliation, the offended Melkots transplant Kirk’s team into a partial replica inspired by Earth’s deadly history: October 26, 1881, at Tombstone, Arizona. Hence, the Enterprise’s stranded landing party are forced into the roles of the hapless Clanton/McLaury gang awaiting the showdown vs. the coldly belligerent Earp Brothers and “Doc” Holliday at the ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral.’
With time running on their destined ‘fate,’ Kirk’s team must uncover a means to alter established ‘history.’ In essence, their alien captors intend to pit the crew’s sense of virtue against humanity’s worst impulses resorting to lethal violence.
Captain James T. Kirk (Ike Clanton): William Shatner
Commander Spock (Frank McLaury): Leonard Nimoy
Dr. Leonard H. McCoy (Tom McLaury): DeForest Kelley
Commander Montgomery Scott (Billy Clanton): James Doohan
Ensign Pavel Chekov (Billy Claiborne): Walter Keonig
Sylvia: Bonnie Beecher
Wyatt Earp: Ron Soble
Morgan Earp: Rex Holman
Virgil Earp: Charles Maxwell
“Doc” Holliday: Sam Gilliman
Melkotian (voice): Abraham Sofaer
Tombstone barber: Ed McCready
Ed: Charles Seel
Cowboys: Paul Baxley & Richard Anthony
Lt. Hadley: Bill Blackburn
Note: Kelley had previously portrayed Morgan Earp in 1957’s Gunfight at the O.K. Corral co-starring Burt Lancaster & Kirk Douglas. Holman would later play a supporting role as one of Sybok’s recruits in 1989’s Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
REVIEW:
Though the premise isn’t half-bad, suffice to say, Trek’s first Western doesn’t age well. Given the production’s glaring budgetary limitations, at least a plausible excuse is conjured up justifying the flimsy Tombstone set (i.e. the aliens possess an incomplete knowledge of Old West historical detail). Still, the episode itself invariably looks and feels cheap.
Distorting even rudimentary historical facts, this Trek, unfortunately, conveys that the Clantons and McLaurys weren’t sleazy outlaws facing frontier justice they deserved. Ironically, by replacing their historical criminality with the heroism of Kirk, Spock, etc., the Clanton/McLaury faction is sympathetically depicted as being bullied and gunned down by the vindictive, trigger-happy Earps.
As crudely produced as this episode is, “Spectre of the Gun” is still more re-watchable than some of the viewer-insulting dreck Season 3 dubiously peddled (“Spock’s Brain,” anyone?).
Note: A 1987 Real Ghostbusters animated episode (“Ghost Fight at the O.K. Corral”) recycles this same concept and actually does a much better job.
BRIAN’S ODD MOON RATING: 4 Stars
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