The Corbomite Maneuver
10th episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series
"The Corbomite Maneuver" is the tenth episode of the first season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Jerry Sohl and directed by Joseph Sargent, it first aired on November 10, 1966. In the episode, the Enterprise encounters a massive and powerful alien starship and its unusual commander. The episode has been well-received and frequently appears on lists of the best episodes in the series.
Casting
The episode features a then 7-year-old Clint Howard – brother of actor and director Ron Howard – who plays the alien at the end (with an overdubbed voice provided by Walker Edmiston).
This was the first regular episode produced after the two pilots and the first to include DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy, Nichelle Nichols as Lt. Uhura (in a yellow uniform rather than red) and Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman Rand. Because episodes were not aired in production order (a trait throughout the entire run of the original series), audiences had already been introduced to these three nine weeks earlier, in the series' debut episode, "The Man Trap".
Plot
The USS Enterprise, commanded by Captain James T. Kirk, finishes a third day of star mapping when novice navigator Lt.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Corbomite Maneuver” is 10th episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Corbomite, Maneuver and 10th, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “10th episode of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 15, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1187077. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 1 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1966.
The absence of detail may reflect summary conventions rather than a lack of surviving documentation. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “The Corbomite Maneuver” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.