"I am Kirok! I have come! I AM KIROK!!!"
I find myself enjoying writing about bad writing on shows than good writing, and not just those mid-tier writing that's kinda stale either, but horrendously bad writing that everyone shits on. It's kinda challenging to write about a show where all the good things about it, someone else has said it better than you. The same can be said for a bad show, but the difference is that there's just so much more fun mocking it even if everyone else has made the same mockery.
As a Singaporean Chinese myself, the white savior trope has not nearly irritated me as it has for members of other minority groups, it seems, probably because I don't really see people purely as skin color the way our modern society loves to. This episode is hilariously on-brand though when it comes to a whole landmine of problematic tropes, merely three episodes into season 3 (going by production and VHS order):
- White savior? Kirk, as always, this time literally being a god to the Native Americans.
- Blackface? Sabrina Scharf as Miramanee and Rudy Solari as Salish, possibly more.
- Noble Savage? Definitely. Kirk compares discovering the Native tribes as discovering "Atlantis or Shangri-La."
The trinity of problematic tropes in a racist episode, ladies and gents. Not a great way to begin your production of the season, and the problem is further confounded by Shatner's hammy acting, grinning like an idiot when Kirk proclaimed his discovery of peace and happiness, or his shouting at the clouds that he's Kirok in front of the alien obelisk to somehow stop the imminent asteroid impact, a performance merely topped by his "I'M CAPTAIN KIRK!" performance from way back in season 1, "The Enemy Within".
But let's step back a little bit and talk about that third of the problematic trope, the Noble Savage. What was Gene Roddenberry and his crew thinking, exactly? Why over-compensate a native people to the degree of making them look like mystical and sacred but utterly moronic primitives? The most likely answer? White guilt. DUN DUN DUN! Oh no, we did an inhumane act against their people centuries ago; let's amend that by making their people look good on a nerdy cult sci-fi TV, because that's how you make amends!
The whole notion might seem absurd on the surface, but in 2025, it's actually a pretty normalized behavior, just with a different coat of paint and a different label, the label basement-dwelling conservative trolls like to call... "woke." DUN DUN DUN! That's right, folks, performative and insincere portrayal of a minority group, obviously an accusation conjured up by delusional bigots who hate women and black people (because it's always about black people, rarely the white-adjacent Chinese). Probably.
"They will never know what you sacrificed for them" probably didn't mean that Wanda Maximoff was an innocent savage who did the best she could have out of noble intentions and frustrating circumstances, even if it sure seems problematic on the surface.
And let's talk about that blackface for a minute too. What was the intent behind that, exactly? Was it because the industry during the '60s meant that Roddenberry had trouble normalizing the hiring of non-white actors/actresses and had to do the best with what he had on hand with actors that could actor (as opposed to just hiring Native Americans and hope they can do the best with the English-written script on camera), or was it the more likely reason that Roddenberry... hates colored people? DUN DUN DUN! Where's the diverse casting on this?! Sure, you have the token Uhura, but where's the Native Americans?! I call bigotry!
But seriously, folks, it's pretty easy to just jump on the bandwagon and call "RACIST!" on a "dated" show like this; it's another thing entirely to peel back the layers and examine why these "problematic" tropes came about and what they actually say about people in general when it comes to performative activism and tokenized minority groups that aren't portrayed as realistic and flawed people.
The majority of the episode's plot itself, even if you put the racist tropes aside, is pretty generic and cheesy, with Kirk going on a "Dancing with Wolves" soap opera where he had his memory wiped and falls in love with one of the natives, even having a rival in love to boot. It's on the level of "so bad it's good" so I could hardly complain because this was an entertainment goldmine full of hilariously hammy moments, partially due to Shatner's usual over-the-top performance. The fact that Kirk literally stumbled his way into amnesia is such pure comedy you'd expect a laugh track to chime in. If every episode of season 3 is going to be this bad, at least make it as funny as this one.
On the Spock side of things, it's a little more melancholic, but in a more black comedy kind of way in that Spock is working his way into exhaustion to stop the imminent asteroid while Kirk's frolicking with Miramanee around the trees like it's a Bollywood film. Bones is also being his usually insufferable and sanctimonious shrew, so he's no fun either. Where's Kirk to tame this shrew when you need him like in "Elaan of Troyius"?
Overall, a pretty fun episode, albeit for all the wrong reasons, but just don't take this too seriously; it's Star Trek, not The Wire.
