Welcome back to Character Insight! This week, we finish up the "Best Of" series for The Original Series characters with a look at Captain James T. Kirk. Here are some of his most memorable quotes and appearances.
https://archive.org/details/CharacterInsightEp192
Captain Kirk has plenty of strong character moments, but perhaps none quite as strong as when he falls in love with Edith Keeler before accepting that she must die in order to reverse changes in the timeline caused by Dr. McCoy after they travel through the Guardian of Forever in the episode The City on the Edge of Forever:
Capt. Kirk: Spock... I believe... I'm in love with Edith Keeler.
Spock: Jim, Edith Keeler must die.
One of Kirk's greatest assets is figuring his way out of impossible situations, like in the episode The Corbomite Maneuver, where Kirk makes up the existence of a destructive material to regain control of the ship from Balok. Even in tough situations, he can find time for a funny quip:
Capt. Kirk: When I get my hands on the headquarters genius that assigned me a female yeoman...
Dr. McCoy: What's the matter, Jim, don't you trust yourself?
Capt. Kirk: [Kirk suppresses a smile] I've already got a female to worry about. Her name's the Enterprise.
Another example of Kirk making things up on the fly came in the episode A Piece of the Action. This time, the Captain must invent rules for a card game on the fly while dealing with Kalo on a planet crafting itself after 1920s America and gangsters:
Capt. Kirk: The name of the game is called, uh... fizzbin.
Kalo: Fizzbin?
Capt. Kirk: Fizzbin. It's, uh... not too difficult.
Kalo: Mm-hmm.
Capt. Kirk: Each player gets six cards, except for the dealer, er, the player on the dealer's right, who, er, gets seven.
Kalo: On the right?
Capt. Kirk: Yes. The second card is turned up, except on Tuesday.
Sounds simpler than some board games I've played. Captain Kirk is a bit like James Bond, in that he has countless scenes wooing women and countless scenes of bravado, highlighted by the Gorn fight in Arena and the Spock fight in Amok Time. However, he's so brash that he's also willing to take on an alleged God with this challenge from the otherwise forgettable movie The Final Frontier:
Kirk: What does God need with a starship?
McCoy: Jim, what are you doing?
Kirk: I'm asking a question.
"God": Who is this creature?
Kirk: Who am I? Don't you know? Aren't you God?
Sybok: He has his doubts.
"God": You doubt me?
Kirk: I seek proof.
McCoy: Jim! You don't ask the Almighty for his ID!
Much like Spock and McCoy, Captain Kirk is such a vital central piece to what made The Original Series work well. It's impossible to cull his contribution down to a few clips, so we may revisit more great moments like we have multiple times with Spock already. Until next time, boldly go like Gene Roddenberry's original vision to celebrate 50 years of Trek.
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