Part of the first regular season episode of Star Trek ever filmed, "The Corbomite Maneuver" was not only good science fiction, but excellent television. The nature of the Kirk/Spock friendship is explored somewhat more deeply, and a new ingredient is added in the guise of Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley, new to the cast), establishing a humanistic, emotional counterpoint to Spock's logic with Kirk at the vertex of the two unique angles. The ship's operations are also explored along with its actual mission, which is distinctly peaceful and humanitarian. None of this would come off as well as it does, however, without the extraordinarily nimble direction of Joseph Sargent. A very busy man in television in those days (who later moved onto feature films such as Colossus: The Forbin Project), Sargent outdid himself in this episode of Star Trek, with extraordinary over-the-shoulder shots as Captain Kirk moves onto the bridge and beautifully paced real-time suspense sequences as the ten-minute deadline in the plot passes. The result is a genuinely complex and tense 51 minutes that never lets the viewer go, and even finds moments of humor to balance the suspense.