Walter Koenig’s Favorite Star Trek Episode Is A Low-Budget Classic

In the “Star Trek” episode “Spectre of the Gun” (October 25, 1968), the U.S.S. Enterprise is ordered to the planet Melkot to make contact with the reclusive, xenophobic species that lives there. The Melkotians are small, floating heads with powerful psychic abilities, and an unhealthy, angry suspicion of outsiders. When Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Chekov (Walter Koenig), and Scotty (James Doohan) beam down to the surface, a Melkotian immediately announces that they are to be executed for their transgression of trespassing. 

The Melkotian, as a means of execution, reaches into Kirk’s brain and psychically creates the town of Tombstone, Arizona, circa 1881, shortly before the infamous Gunfight at the O.K. Corral. They are expected to be shot to death by psychic versions of the Earp brothers. Their phasers magically become 19th-century six-shooters, and everyone refers to them as key players in the notorious gunfight. Kirk is Ike Clanton. Chekov is Billy Claiborne. And so on. The Melkotians are using Earth’s own violent history as an execution tool, proving that humans are still morally bereft. 

In “Star Trek” pacifist fashion, Kirk and co. will have an opportunity to prove that humanity is now more enlightened than in 1881, and that we no longer use violence or guns to solve problems. 

In an interesting design choice, the psychic version of Tombstone is abstract and theatrical. The world has uniform blood-red skies, and, curiously, none of the buildings have walls. There are free-floating doorways and window frames, but one can see straight through to the outdoors. Like Lars Von Trier’s movie “Dogville,” it was constructed to look like an artificial set. This, it turns out, was a budgetary choice. Director Vincent McEveety wasn’t given the money to build an entire Western set, so he had to make it stylized by necessity. 

It seems that the low budget made the episode more interesting to look at. Indeed, Walter Koenig was interviewed by StarTrek.com in 2011, and he noted that “Spectre of the Gun” was one of his favorites.