Star Trek Logo 'Court Martial'

Story by Don M. Mankiewicz
Teleplay by Don M. Mankiewicz
and Stephen W. Carabatsos
Star Trek Cast

When the U.S.S. Enterprise docks at Starbase 11 for repairs sustained during an ion storm, Captain Kirk reports to Commodore Stone to explain the circumstances that led to the recent death of Lieutenant Commander Ben Finney. The captain’s staement claims that Finney entered the ship's ion pod in order to take vital readings; when the storm’s increasing intensity made it necessary to jettison the pod, Kirk called a Yellow Alert and then warned Finney; then, after declaring a Red Alert, the captain was forced to jettison the pod with Finney apparently inside. However, when Lieutenant Commander Spock arrives with a computer visual tape of the bridge during the crisis, the recording shows Kirk pressing the pod-release switch while still at Yellow Alert. Stone has no choice but to bring Kirk to trial for possible court-martial for the death of Finney. Held responsible for the death of her father by Finney's daughter, Jamie, Kirk learns that a former girlfriend, Lieutenant Areel Shaw, has been assigned to prosecute his case - and will try her best to find him guilty. However, the captain’s hopes are raised when he is assigned a eccentric lawyer named Samuel T. Cogley, and together they begin to plan his defense. Meanwhile, Spock becomes suspicious when he beats the ship’s computer at several games of chess; he tells Doctor McCoy that he programmed the computer himself, and the best he could ever hope for is a stalemate. The Vulcan concludes that someone has tampered with the computer, adjusting its memory. Called to the court martial of his captain, Spock admits that the sabotage could only have been carried out by himself, Captain Kirk, or Records Officer Ben Finney. Hearing this, Cogley makes the amazing suggestion that Finney is still alive, and hiding somewhere aboard the Enterprise

William Shatner (Captain James Tiberius Kirk), Leonard Nimoy (First Officer Lieutenant Commander Spock), DeForest Kelley (Doctor Leonard H. ‘Bones’ McCoy), Nichelle Nichols (Lieutenant Nyota Uhura), Reginald Lalsingh (Captain Chandra), Percy Rodriquez (Commodore Stone), Elisha Cook Jr. (Samuel T. Cogley), Alice Rawlings (Jamie Finney), Winston DeLugo (Timothy), Joan Marshall (Lieutenant Areel Shaw), Richard Webb (Lieutenant Commander Benjamin Finney), Hagan Beggs (Lieutenant Hansen), Bart Conrad (Captain Krasnowsky), William Meader (Space Command Representative Lindstrom)

Directed by Marc Daniels

TX:
2nd February, 1967

Notes:
*Featuring Captain James Tiberius Kirk, First Officer Lieutenant Commander Spock, Doctor Leonard H. ‘Bones’ McCoy and Lieutenant Nyota Uhura