“A Private Little War”

I love this episode- it has so many great elements:

1. The 'slapping of Spock' scene- hilarious!
2. A great 'Trekkian dilemma' with no 'good choice' at the end.
3. A heartfelt and reasonable explanation of the Price Directive from Kirk.
4. A sexy lady.
5. An awesome alien monster- plus two fight scenes with said monster!
6. The classic fight music and a big brawl.
7. McCoy saying: "She's dead."

I really loved this episode.

Am I the only one that found there would be a second solution?

*totally eliminate the village (and with them remove all knowledge of making guns)

*this needs to be done by cover up, so they use the enterprise to cause a MASSIVE disaster that looks like a natural disaster that wipes out the village.

*the woman needs to die too (her idea of "war and killing" even without the tools to do that, is contamination, she has to be eliminated.

*capture and kill all klingons, near (and if neccecairy go to war over this, but hope they back off)

*place a permament space station in orbit of this planet to monitor it's progress and to quarentine it (nobody will land on it ever again) -> while no issue for the foreseable future their technological progress makes it neccecairy, replace the space station with more stealthed observation methods.

But my line of thinking is clearly not the "cold war era" thinking when this was made.

I agree with Jammer that this episode is interesting but all over the place. The big overriding metaphor (which is one that the series returns to quite often) is that of a Garden of Eden, and so Nona pretty clearly plays Eve -- which is the episode's weakest point. I grant the original series a certain amount of leeway given the restrictions placed on the show by the network (like eliminating the Number One character), but this episode is ridiculous: Nona is a misogynistic caricature, a witch who not only beguiles men with her wiles and is the *real* malevolent force pushing men to violence, but even betrays her side when it becomes slightly inconvenient. Say what you will about the gender dynamics in "Macbeth" -- but Lady M doesn't suddenly decide to throw her lot in with Macduff midway through. It would be one thing if I thought the episode were portraying Nona in a complex light -- showing, perhaps, how difficult her life is, and why she desires advancement so badly -- and in moments it does do this; the war that has started is beginning to have big amounts of sexual violence, with women as trophies (c.f. the scene between the Klingon and village leader), and where even Nona's attempt to betray her side to help the village leads to them attacking her. So there is some indication of what it is that Nona wants to escape through acquisition of power, but it's overall a rough portrayal. It doesn't help that she is also a darker-skinned, dark-haired woman who lures the bleach-blonde innocent, peaceful dudes into violence and depravity.

But I guess "the garden of Eden" is the central parable they wanted, so they went with that. There is some interesting tragedy here. Guns and weaponry are superficially the roles of the snake in the garden, as Kirk says explicitly, but really it's Kirk and the Klingons who play this role in general; Nona/Eve wants to go along with the power, Tyree/Adam really doesn't -- but through Nona/Eve eventually becomes corrupted. The big tragedy for *Tyree* specifically, and Kirk as well, is that Tyree's eventual transformation into a bloodthirsty warrior (at least, as implied by his last scene) happens because he loved a woman who was obsessed with power, who herself ends up being destroyed by it -- that the villagers are too stupid to realize that Nona is trying to give them ultimate power, means that she's got a bit of a tragic fate, too, since her grand (if evil) plans are too big for the villagers to comprehend and even her phaser ends up proving no defense against her. That's maybe the anti-war message amidst all the chaos: when war comes, even the biggest weapons are no actual defense; they are something of a defense, but they're not everything. War poisons everything.

I think it's noteworthy too that the Klingon's cynical, mustache-twirling EVIL manipulation of the villagers into seeing the bright side of killing has some connection to Kirk's presiding over his peaceful friend being extraordinarily blood thirsty at the end. Kirk doesn't *want* Tyree to lose his innocence, but that is kind of the consequence of his line of thinking. And there is the question of whether in helping to make it easier for Tyree to live, he's destroying his soul and goodness in the process.

I think the reason for Nona's magic spell in the episode is to make us really question Kirk's actions and logic. Kirk's concept of the balance of power is something that McCoy objects to on pretty reasonable grounds. Yes, it's wrong for the villagers to massacre the hill people, but is starting an arms race really the solution? What are the alternatives? There is a tiny hint of Col. Kurtz "Heart of Darkness"-esque madness to Kirk becoing embroiled in this conflict, as an outsider to this culture who ends up training people to be a certain kind of warrior, and while this episode never goes as far as Conrad did (or Coppola would, in Apocalypse Now), the idea that Kirk is actually at least a little bit made mad or irrational by the locals suggests, maybe, the impossibility of having actual perspective when effectively "adopting" a culture. There's some colonial guilt in there, or maybe some racism and sexism (again: Kirk is *literally bewitched!*). It's hard to parse this episode, and I will probably leave the more specific political implications to people who aren't me.

Why does Kirk just beam up at the end? Is he going to do anything about the Klingons arming the villagers on the planet? Does the planet have any people on it besides one set of villagers and one roughly equally-sized group of hill people? Is Kirk actually going to beam down those weapons when he just decides to beam up at the end? The episode's failure to resolve even these simple questions makes it all the shakier as an allegory. Still, it has enough interest to be worth watching -- if with some healthy skepticism. Probably 2.5 stars.

Actually, I should add that the episode's ending really does work for me -- well, not Kirk zipping away in such a way as to make it unclear whether he beams the weapons down, but before that -- is that it does walk that balance of showing the destruction that Kirk's choices have wrought without condemning those choices. It's rare to see an effective portrayal of a no-win scenario (one of Kirk's real Kobayashi Maru situations), and the final moment of Tyree going into something like berserker rage demanding more weapons is haunting me a few days after watching the episode. I would go up to 3 stars, but I have a feeling that the episode can only maintain a solid "good" rating while I'm not actually watching it.

Oh yeah, what the heck was with those Mugato? Really pointlessly overloaded episode.

I too found the Mugato ridiculous, but I think it does serve a certain function in the story. The Mugato seems to be the only natural predator of the hill people. In the beginning of the episode, Kirk even says something like "It'd Paradise here, if it were not for the Mugato." But when the villagers are equipped with firearms, they become much bigger threats to the lives of the hill people, even though they are of the same species. So I guess the Mugato's purpose in the story is to remind us of the dangers of nature to man, which are no match to man's own danger to himself when he turns to violence and war.

Abridged synopsis:

On The Planet of Men Wearing Really Bad Wigs, Kirk is bitten and poisoned by a white gorilla wearing a party hat and is subsequently cured by a dog turd.

Unspeakably terrible episode, utter garbage. One of TOS's very worst. We need not speak of the atrociously bad acting or hilarious wigs or Evil Temptress with Fake Nails. The thing I find the most offensive though is the bogus handwringing at the end where Kirk comes to the conclusion, and the episode seems to agree with him, that the only way to save Tyree's people is to enter a proxy arms race with the Klingon-supported viilagers. Evidently, do to nothing would result in the annihilation of the hill people and would presumably deal a blow to Federation interests in the sector.

My main problem with this scenario is that the episode wants to convince us that there are only two solutions: either the total annihilation of one side or the balance of power/proxy war. I call total BS on that. Kirk never for a second considers alternatives. Why not open a dialogue with the Klingons? Whether it works or not, there's nothing lost by trying, right? Or how about quarantining the planet? If the Federation is really about "freedom and democracy and all those nice things" (to quote Colonel Tigh), why not refuse the game outright and prevent Klingons from supplying one side? Or why not try to mediate in some capacity between the warring sides and offer them something more appealing than weapons in exchange for cooperation?

I'm not saying these things would necessarily have worked, but the point is there are legitimate options to consider before condemning the damn planet to ever-escalating war and bloodshed. What we have here is a heavy-handed message on the evils of the Cold War and balance of power. But what's even worse is that the episode is actively saying that war is inevitable and in fact preferable to whataver alternatives there may have been. A strangely cynical and misguided episode, to be sure.

1.5 stars.

All of you don't understand what happens if Nona lived,she would have ordered kirk to kill Tyree ,then made him her husband and went to the ship with him,for life.

Can we just call this episode A Silly Little War instead? There was just too much going on: random attacks from the absurd looking Mugato, the sinister schemings of the Sexy Midriff Witch, dealing with the Klingons, Super Important Cold War Allegories!, Kirk being put under the spell of the Sexy Midriff Witch, Spock and Chapel's BDSM roleplay, and Tyree's inconsistent conversion from pacifism to aggression (but not, unfortunately, from bad acting to good acting). Some of the plot seemed worth exploring, but all the random junk, most of which wasn't needed at all, simply got in the way and made it kind of absurd to watch.

For all the talk about pacifism in Star Trek, the episode was intelligent enough to understand that this is a messy situation. Let's be honest, the Klingons weren't going to back down; if things continued the way they were going, the peaceful villagers were going to be wiped out or conquered. And, as Bones so wisely pointed out, because of Tyree's pacifism he would probably be one of the first to go. A speech wasn't going to solve the problem; the main bad guy even said that his people had started to enjoy the killing. The war was going to continue, whether Kirk liked it or not. I liked the intensity of his conversation with Bones. Bones was absolutely convinced Kirk was making the wrong decision, so Kirk challenged him to come up with a better one. And Bones didn't have an answer to that. It was ugly, and you could see Kirk's ruefulness at the end when he started waxing poetic about the end of the Garden of Eden. This part of the episode had potential; this part was worth exploring. But it just was buried underneath all that other stuff.

It also doesn't help that, for all Kirk's complaints that there is no other solution, the other one is kinda obvious (as others pointed out). Presumably, Kirk's mission was successful in exposing Klingon interference on the planet. We can presume also that, once exposed, the Klingons abandoned their plan (since war didn't break out at this time). The Federation, then, can fire phasers on stun onto the Klingon allies from orbit (as seen in A Piece of the Action), and then beam down a troop of redshirts to confiscate all of the weapons and means of producing them. Maybe even have Kirk or another Starfleet captain make a speech to the leader that worse will happen if he tries to reproduce what he learned. Voila, problem solved. No need to escalate the weapons each side has, and all done with minimal interference. Just fixing the contamination the Klingons made. Kirk's dilemma ends, and everyone goes home happy. But then Kirk can't angst about his decision, so we had to pretend not to notice.

Meanwhile, I have to question Dr. M'Benga's professionalism. So Spock's survival is dependent on being smacked back into reality. Does he explain this to Chapel, despite having adequate time to? Nope, he just gives her vague instructions and leaves, even though he knows its an awkward situation. Obviously it was done for our benefit, not Chapel's. Except the payoff is just dumb and ridiculous anyway, so why bother?

Also, as an aside, the time between the dawn of the iron age and flintlocks was 12 centuries Uhura? The iron age started around 1200 BC, and muskets around 1500. Just a bit more than 12 centuries...

Why do you protect James kirk,Nona had all the men under her power,all Tyree wanted was to be put under spell's, when Tyree said you will not speak of this to other's, Nona said I will not if I am made to understand, when yutan came he told Nona not excuse me he said forgive me,kirk was hers that's why she was waiting for him she wished him there,do a story about Nona had she lived.

Mmmmmm Nona.... usually takes more then T&A of a sexy chick to beguile me, but she would be worth some pain (giving and taking it). Damn I love sexy, determined, manipulative ladies with attitude and ambition! :) Fun to be around, and she'd keep me on my toes.

Refreshing change from all the lovey-doey miniskirt honeycakes on the Enterprise. Now THEY are sexist, in my view. Nona is not. She has her agenda, she thinks for herself, she is ambitions (and genuinely wants to protect her people I believe)... and atop of that, she is drop-dead gorgeous. I'm not surprised all the losers in her village couldn't handle her, including Tyree. For a 1960 american show, I have to say I'm very surprised by her character. Awesome! Wouldn't mind if she did some actual ass-kicking too (she looks athletic enough), but I suppose thats too much to expect from the time-period of the show.

"I have the wrong husband!" damn right you do, babe! You need a right kind of man for you, not a pacifist pussy who would rather die then fight back and protect his people. Thats why she ran over to the opposing tribe, she got fed up by all the passivity. And in the end she was the catalyst that got Tyree to act. Too bad it cost her her life.

Also love the Spock-slapping. Not NEARLY hard enough, but I liked it! I'd have bitch-slapped the jerk so hard he'd be spitting blood by the end hehe.

3 stars. 2 for Nona, 1 for the right message in the end, about the need to maintain the balance of power and respond to violence with violence. One of the few times Trek's pacifist bullshit didnt prevail, but reality did. -1 for Nona getting killed. *cries*

Fodder for Right Wing snowflake Trek fans, of which there are many. Makes them feel like the "cucks" they think they're not while they watch the rapey hill people molest the hot girl they imagine as their wife. I agree with Paul on this one. It's patently ridiculous that Starfleet would arm a bunch of villagers in a proxy war with the Klingons. The logistics alone don't make sense. Not even Section 31 would be that daft. This is the single worst episode of the original 79. Give me Spock's Brain or the stupid hippie episode all day everyday instead of this steaming turd.

There's an awful lot going on in this episode that interferes with the main idea of Kirk establishing a "balance of power" -- essentially starting an arms race as what he thinks needs to be done.

I enjoyed the episode for its many allegories -- Garden of Eden, Vietnam War etc. Good debate between Kirk and McCoy about the "balance of power" and the helpless feeling he has in the end when he asks Scotty to make 100 rifles/snakes. Are there other solutions? Perhaps. But they may take much more time and it's pretty clear that Tyree's people are in grave danger.

Nona is an interesting character -- conniving although we can probably understand her motivations for 1) survival and 2) desire for power. Tyree's transformation can be believable -- from pacifist to warrior because his wife is killed.

As for the Mugato (or Gumato as its referred to in the ending credits), that's one of the added pieces that could be cut out. So it leads Nona to cure Kirk and cast a spell on him -- it ties in a loosely with the overall plot but I think it's extraneous. But I suppose it's good to show alien animal life which doesn't come up too often in TOS.

As for Spock's recovery, I guess it was meant to make this a Kirk/McCoy episode. The Spock recover mainly provided a bit of TOS-style humor which I always appreciate.

"A Private Little War" gets 3 stars -- it's a legit 60s Trek tale about nothing good about war, difficult or impossible decisions, and some good philosophical considerations. The execution was a bit helter-skelter and kind of like "Friday's Child" but definitely a pretty interesting episode.

Rahul, my main problem with this episode stems from the fact that I can't ignore real world politics analyzing it, especially considering its on-the-nose allegory of the Cold War. Frankly, the very same vomit-inducing sentiment is alive and well in this day.

I DESPISE beyond words the fake self-proclaimed liberal and neoliberal human rights and democracy chest-thumping while "crying" about necessary evils of supporting vilest scum and reducing whole regions to ash.

We love life and human dignity so much that we simply must, in order to defend it!, napalm and agentorange everything, arm Pinochet's death squads, support medieval headchoppers in Saudi Arabia and so on and so forth.

This ep wants to cry over evils of war and basically supports it at the same time without stopping for a second to consider alternatives. It's an awful thinly veiled imperialist BS we can see in contemporary geopolitics all the time.

In a season full of lightweight adventure and character pieces up to this point, it's refreshing to have a slight return to the Trekkian pacifist ideals of Season One in "A Private Little War." One of Roddenberry's best writing efforts on the series, this episode fleshes out the Prime Directive more clearly and with greater nuance than any show up to this point, and the haunting ambiguous ending lingers more than most TOS episodes of similar content. I give this one 3 or 3 1/2 stars.

The Vietnam allegory and anti-war message works more strongly here because the payoff isn't easily earned; the idealism here doesn't end in a glib gambit (ala "A Piece of the Action" most recently) but in an anguished decision that Kirk realizes is a compromise of limited potential. Very rare on TOS to see Kirk find something less than the ideal solution, but this episode -- much like "Immunity Syndrome" last week -- presents a Kobayashi Maru no-win scenario that requires some sacrifice.

The kitchen sink approach here makes it a fast and fun episode to watch: We have the Klingon-Federation Cold War wrestling for political influence over a developing planet, much like "Friday's Child" earlier this season but with weightier and stronger plotting, as the Klingons here are actively interfering in the culture's development (rather than merely bargaining for its cooperation) by stoking a proxy war. We have the Mugato, the hill people, and the city dwellers. We have the appealing Tyree and his alluring witch doctor wife. We have Spock's illness with the great Chapel slapping scene, plus the welcome debut of Dr. M'Benga in sickbay. Overall, the stakes feel higher in this one than "Friday's Child," and the moral debate without any obvious solution (Kirk is moved to arm Tyree not merely by affection for his friend: Do we arm the other side or allow them to be slaughtered so the Klingons take over the planet?) lingers in its impact. By the end of the episode, we feel like the whole situation is now a mess, and the crew is powerless to fix it -- the haunting final scene with Tyree hits hard. It's not the best Trek episode ever, but it's quite possibly the most nuanced and thoughtful Prime Directive story on TOS, and combines colorful adventure with anguished moral challenges. Good stuff.

This goes out to Okrad Del Diablo:
What the heck is wrong with you? Did this episode get your rocks off or what? Real creepy.
This goes out to William B:
So if a female is portrayed as the villain, that's misogyny? Get over yourself.

Why didn't they just consult their history archives rather than get involved in an arms race?

"Captain, I have consulted the archives. It transpires that Captain Archer and the crew of the NX-01 faced a similar situation a century ago."
"I don't have time for a history lesson, Spock."
"Indeed. Captain Archer moved an entire encampment a few feet to one side. When the confused Klingons beamed down, the villagers then stood up for themselves, claiming they were no longer afraid of 'bullies'."
"Sounds like a risky plan, Mr Spock. What happened?"
"The Klingons returned in force three days after the NX-01 had departed and bombarded the planet for six hours."
"I saw Archer's statue last time I was on Earth. This explains why he was scultped with his pants around his ankles."

I didn't like it. Confusing mess of a plot and while I don't mind an "up in the air" ending, this one just felt like a cheat. An impossibly huge mess was made, leaving no choice but to simply abandon it.

Below average.

People below the age of 40 or so, both men and women, are sometimes puzzled by what they see as the strident tone of feminists, and they think that feminists of days gone by just didn't know how to stand up for themselves and live their own life. Why did they have to FIGHT about everything?

The people who don't get why feminists had to fight did not grow up in a time when shows like this, that were still new or in their first round of reruns at the time, communicated "obvious" assumption that a woman could not be a leader in her own right, even if she was intelligent, knowledgeable, and strong. She could only act through a man, and she usually did so by means of distasteful manipulative behavior, and was often on the "wrong" side.

There was no standing up for yourself and living your own life. That was for men. Women were supposed to find a man to hitch their lives to, and hope that he was intelligent, knowledgeable, and strong enough to give her a good life.

@ Trish,

It's easy to read sexism in an episode like this. After all, why not? A woman is in it who's told she can't lead because she's a woman. But hold on - it also shows her outrage at this and makes it clear that she's been the one with the power all along, stringing along the men. She is also personally the one who changes the stakes at a certain point. Sure, she may be a 'villain' in a plot-driven sense, but is her wiley way a bad trait, or one forced on her by those who wouldn't give her any other avenue? I think these questions need to be asked. The overt plot is about a proxy war - two sides, Klingon and Federation - with the local population doing the fighting basically on behalf of the greater powers. Those who actually 'do the war' are the weak ones in the schema. Maybe that's just like how the men fight Nona's battle for them. If that comparison is intended between the Klingons/Federation and Nona, who are the ones behind the scenes pulling strings because they don't have permission to engage directly, then Nona is actually portrayed as the powerful one. And that would indeed be a feminist message.

All depends on the interpretation, no?

@Peter G.

The issue I'm pointing out is that in that "universe" (not the Trek universe specifically, but the "real" world view of the time), her lack of "any other avenue" was not being critiqued or challenged by the storyteller, but simply presumed as the way things were.

I remember back in college when we studied Euripides' play Medea, and the professor pointed out to us that her speeches that might seem to us to have justified her actions and made her the heroine would not have been intended that way at the time. She was not supposed to be a heroine you would love, but a villainess you would "love to hate."

Nona, too, is a villainess in the story. Some of us may understand her character's outrage now, and even at some level cheer for her behind-the-scenes machinations, but that is a revisionist approach to the narrative. I'm glad you see it that way NOW, but in its time, the presumptions woven into the episode (which remember was within a series that was very self-consciously modern and progressive from its creator's point of view) were exactly the kind of attitudes that feminists were fighting against, and that would never have simply faded away without a fight. The feminists who seem so strident from today's perspective were in a battle for their lives, that is, for the lives they wanted to live, not the lives the Nonas of their real world had.

It was also a battle for the lives of not only women who would come after them but of men who would come after them as well, lives in which the kind of revisionist reinterpretation of stories like this one would seem natural.

@Trish
Very interesting read.
The scheming women, the gay coded villains.
Heteronormativity... *sigh* Simpler times. ;)

I also like the hopeful spin that you put on it.

Am I the only person annoyed af at Kirk. Every damn woman no matter who they are he gets in their pants. I want to face palm myself so hard.

Also not great to make Nona the main focus. Was rooting for her to die within the few seconds I saw her lol. Would have liked more klingon action than anything.

What even is a prime directive these days....sigh....

Was going to jump into the discussion of Nona's portrayal in this but Trish said it all better than I could so I'll just say I'm glad I'm not the only one who thought Kirk's "cure" looked like dog poop.

Here we have a right good set-up, an interesting analogy, some great moments by the Big 3 and a smart black doctor who the characters don't make odd remarks about. Plus, we even get some Klingon shenanigans and gorgeous Trek girl. This has the framework for a classic TOS episode.

Unfortunately, Nona the Trek girl is just a plastic villain (who I guess serves as an Eve metaphor in the garden of Eden?) without complexity. They could've made Nona interesting in a number of ways like: a) Making it clear she wanted to seize Tyree's power and start some sort of matriarchy; b) make her an agent of the Klingons helping to instigate a doomed fight; or c) she really loved Tyree and wanted him to become the strong leader her people needed.

Of course, I could let the Nona stuff go because the underlying Prime Directive conflict is an interesting one. Unfortunately, Kirk's solution feels oddly on the wrong side of history. I don't know if NBC was unable to show it, but the U.S. policy of containment in Vietnam was not working in 1968. A few months after this episode airs, the Tet offensive will make it clear that maintaining a "balance of power" in Vietnam was an untenable solution. Of course the Trek writers couldn't have known exactly how Vietnam would develop, but they probably should've stayed away from advocating military policies about an escalating conflict.

Another possibility is the episode wasn't about Vietnam at all and the writers were inspired by another proxy war where containment kind of worked... like Korea? Still, pretty spotty.

Anyhow, I can understand why arming peaceful people in a larger conflict might be the right thing to do in certain circumstances. And okay, Kirk is torn up over having to do it. So, although the policy presented appears to be a bad one, at least we know the characters also didn't like it much either.

Considering the good moments and morally difficult dilemma, I guess I will go ahead and maintain the balance of power in my rating award this 2 stars.

@ Chrome,

I hear you on some of these objections. For my part Nona annoyed me as a kid, since she comes off as so antagonistic and manipulative. However looking back I wonder whether there isn't something deeper to be found there. Basically she wants a strong leader, yes, a 'real man', and also one she can manipulate. A man of peace wouldn't have much room for her type of thinking, whereas an emotionally agitated and movable man would. To me this says something about how men of peace might come off to others who are expecting the "strong man". For instance, could a moderate and peaceful person have taken over Saddam's Iraq back in the 90's? Or would that have been rejected by all involved as weak and that person been deposed? It begs the question of not just which approach is enlightened, but which will actually work. No point putting a 'man of the future' in power if in the present they cannot possibly rule successfully. I think Hamlet is all about that. In an less developed society you can't have a peaceful person at the helm. And maybe Nona is our vehicle to that realization, especially as she's the female presence which, reputedly, is more attracted to the alpha type than the 'decent person.' Or at least that is an impression we may get observing the success powerful men and celebrities get in the romance department. My point is that maybe all signs point towards "nice guy can't lead us" in a more primitive society.

Regarding the proxy war aspect, I'm not sure about your conclusion that it should be seen as a failure of a policy. The cold war setting is established by the Organian Treaty, and so Kirk has to choose between letting Tyree's people be run over, or to arm them and give them a chance. Now in the actual Cold War the situation was IMO more like both sides were pillaging the Third World and using the 'war' as a cover. But in our Trek context we know Kirk wouldn't do that, and that he legitimately just wants them to be able to defend themselves. The proxy war in this case isn't necessarily about containment of the Klingons from expanding as an empire, but could be seen as just trying to help these people. Part of our backstory is Kirk's personal friendship with Tyree. Given a choice between watching them die or helping by arming them, I'm not so sure that arming them is illogical. I think maybe the motive matters a lot. Protecting a vulnerable people is really a different objective than using some other people to fight a war for you that you don't want to fight directly, using them as canon fodder.

Don't you think?

@Peter G

Actually, I don’t have any issue with Nona’s character; in fact I rather like her. I just don’t think her motivations were fleshed out very well. Unfortunately, without more information, the episode makes her a shallow harbinger of evil when, as you described, it should be more complex than that.

The problem with saying that Kirk was "just trying to help" is that Kirk on his own accord would not help the Hill people and the episode addresses that. If the Village tribe (why don't these groups have names?) developed guns on their own, then it's implied Kirk would leave the Hill people to their fate and let them die. It's not until Klingon interference is confirmed that Kirk is forced to get involved as a matter of duty. This makes it look like Kirk's interests are in line with Starfleet's and the burden he has to bear is for Starfleet's cause - i.e. winning or maintaining balance against the Klingons.

One thing the episode gets right, as I mentioned, is that it doesn't look like Kirk wanted to get involved in arms escalation in the first place. The episode also removes Spock from the discussion and therefore logic from Kirk's position and implies he's under some sort of drugged influence that impairs his judgment. So, I don't think the episode really wants to make us to believe Kirk was 100% doing the right thing. It's more like Kirk was in the classic JFK position where his liberal ideals to help the little guy and Democracy sound good in theory, but in hindsight we can see that the Nixon/Bones position of not getting involved in a hopeless fight (even for a just cause) was the stronger position.

@ Chrome,

I might have to re-watch for tone, but I don't recall ever getting the impression that we're meant to feel that Kirk made a mistake at the end. I don't think he was happy to have to intervene in this manner, but I don't recall anything indicating any awareness that he was making an error.

"It's not until Klingon interference is confirmed that Kirk is forced to get involved as a matter of duty. This makes it look like Kirk's interests are in line with Starfleet's and the burden he has to bear is for Starfleet's cause - i.e. winning or maintaining balance against the Klingons."

But I think this is a Prime Directive thing. He would have let them kill each other under normal circumstances due to the PD. What changes is that the Klingons interfere on one side. Technically that should not alter the Fed position that intervening is a breach of the PD; I don't think the PD has 'unless' clauses. So I suppose it's my interpretation that Kirk's personal friendship is what pushes him over the edge and makes him feel that it's just unacceptable to follow the letter of the law and let his friend's people die due to Klingon interference. Kirk's solution seems to me like the best he can do to re-establish non-interference. In effect, to try to match and therefore undo the Klingon interference in this culture. But I don't think it's to serve Starfleet's agenda in defeating Klingons; I think it's to fix a PD violation, even though technically it was the Klingons who violated it. I think the spirit of arming both sides is something like recognizing that what happened is not fair, and not representative of letting a culture evolve on its own. He needed to arm Tyree's side to give them a chance to settle their cultural dispute on their own terms. I see it as trying to re-establish normal cultural development there.

Yeah, Peter, I don't think there's any doubt Kirk is unhappy arming the people here. He's despoiling what he used to think of as the "Garden of Eden", after all. He even has to give the order twice to Scott at the end who is confused about why Kirk would be asking for a bunch of weapons. The way Kirk's friendship with Tyree plays into this is that he's able to help Tyree man up and be able to defend himself in war. Kirk says this isn't the best life for Tyree, but at least it's a *chance for life* for him and his people.

The PD doesn't apply here because the Klingons already messed with the natural development of the people. Kirk's solution is supposed to correct that interference. But as the episode discusses, it seems likely to lead to escalation and ramped up interference by Starfleet. Maybe in the Star Trek universe, escalation never happens and the Klingons back down, but in the parallel real world conflict *this episode mentions specifically* that wasn't the case.

@ Chrome,

"The PD doesn't apply here because the Klingons already messed with the natural development of the people. Kirk's solution is supposed to correct that interference."

I'm citing the PD because I think the spirit of the PD is what's in play here - to give them a chance at a normal development, or as close to one as is possible at this point. TOS did more actually than the later series did to not only spell out the PD, but also to spell out that as a law it requires on-the-fly interpretation and that it's never black and white (which on TNG they often make it). A Captain is uniquely in the position to determine the best way to maintain its spirit when the letter of it is no longer possible (see A Piece of the Action for another example of a zany way to try to follow the spirit of the law). I brought it up because this is a viable alternative as a theory for why Kirk helps, as opposed to the more realpolitik interpretation that the Federation was being just like the U.S. in the Cold War.

"But as the episode discusses, it seems likely to lead to escalation and ramped up interference by Starfleet. Maybe in the Star Trek universe, escalation never happens and the Klingons back down, but in the parallel real world conflict *this episode mentions specifically* that wasn't the case."

I agree that the prognosis doesn't look good for paradise on this planet. The bottom line is that the Klingons ruined it, and the only thing left to do is salvage whatever scraps of it remain. The reason I keep mentioning the friendship is that I think it demonstrates that there can be reasons for arming a people other than to manipulate them into your own private conflicts. It might well be possible to do 'cold war type stuff' but in a spirit of friendship, depending on context. The best Kirk could do here to maintain balance was a least of evils choice, no question about that. My only contention is that I don't think it was necessarily an error, nor does it have to be seen as done for the purpose of having a proxy war against the Klingons.

@ Peter G.

Always enjoy your comments/posts......never NOT insightful and thougtful.! For TOS APLW, you recently wrote in part, "It begs the question of not just which approach is enlightened, but which will actually work." A interesting little truth bomb.

BTW, I don't know why the comments from today are not listed here. I saw them in the Comment Stream. I refreshed this page., but nothing. What am I missing?

Never mind. Found them. Doh.

Thanks Jay Marks!

Forgive my puerile adolescent comment but that Nona is a babe, she's so seductive: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rCJ1Fs5YQtE

3/10 The Klingons are providing increasingly advanced weaponry to primitive tribes & Kirk is injured on the planet. The discussion of the Vietnam war and the importance of balance of power were good but this episode didn't have anything else to offer & didn't feel like sci-fi. The whole Spock being injured b-plot was pointless. You could argue this episode is pro 2nd amendment rights because Kirk says both sides should have equal weaponry, however I may be stretching the definition a bit too far there.

A Private Little War

Star Trek season 2 episode 19

"The Cardassians might involve themselves in other people's civil wars, but we don't. The Prime Directive applies, Ben.”

- Admiral Chekote, Starfleet Command, Deep Space Nine’s “The Circle”


2 1/2 stars (out of 4)


Looking back, I gave “The Gamesters Of Triskelion” 2 1/2 stars and called it the inspiration for Discovery; and "The Immunity Syndrome” 2 1/2 stars and called it the inspiration for TNG.

So it seems only fair that I give "A Private Little War” 2 1/2 stars also, and back up my claim that it forms the basis for Deep Space Nine.

The People’s exhibit 1, the quote from The Circle included at the top. To say that Star Fleet was invested in the Bajorans is something of an understatement. The Bajorans were practically the alien-race du jour both towards the end of TNG (including with Ro Laren and Ensign Sato), through all of DS9, and for the first season or two of VOY (before Seska went full Cardi B.).

And yet, when the Cardassians start supplying weapons to one Bajoran faction (through the Kressari, if I recall) precipitating a civil war, Star Fleet orders Sisko not to get involved. Of course, at this point, Sisko is just a Commander. Not a Captain, like Kirk.

That Kirk reaches the opposite conclusion is not surprising. That Captain’s chair is a funny thing. By the time Sisko makes Captain, and is faced with an equally dark dilemma, there seems very little question as to how far he’ll go. Thus “In the Pale Moonlight” - about as murky as Star Trek is likely to get - is the true heir to “A Private Little War”.

Overall, this TOS hour cannot hold candle to that one - one of DS9’s best outings. But A Private Little War did have a few things going for it that DS9 did not.

Nona, for one. Thank you @EventualZen for that link. Nancy Kovack was absolutely dazzling. Her role was incredible. She reminds me of one of the greatest actresses in Europe in that era, Florinda Bolkan, who played a very similar witch-like role in The Last Valley (1971), opposite Michael Caine and Omar Sharif.

https://youtu.be/_EvH7FSigqI?t=395

A six and a five. God, they don’t make movies like that any more!

In that movie too, the Nona-like character ends up dead. But boy-oh-boy did she live. Praise Garak as much as you like, but he’ll never be as sexy as Nona. It is interesting that TPTB chose to include a rape scene for Nona in this episode, so soon after Uhura was raped in “Triskelion”. Then again, the episode is about war, and rape and war go hand in hand.

I agree with everyone who said that Spock and Chapel’s slap-fest was unnecessary. Not unwanted or unappreciated. But maybe this episode could have used a little more focus on the planet, without the cut-backs.

In at least a two Klingon episodes, we were treated to a little more of the Klingon side, notably in "Errand of Mercy” and also, frankly, in "The Trouble with Tribbles”. This episode too could have used a little more focus on the Klingon side of this civil war.

The episode also suffers from some telling-not-showing. Maybe they were running out of money - the whole episode, practically, being shot outdoors. But I would have wanted to see the villagers go on a hunt, and maybe kill their first victim (one of those annoying gorillas?). I would have liked to see what the woman who the Klingon awarded to the man with the highest kill-count felt about her new predicament.

APELLA: A quarrel by my people. A division of some skins and a hill woman taken this morning. It's hard to divide one woman.

KRELL: Give her to the man who killed the most of her people. The others will see the profit in bravery. I'll make a Klingon of you yet.

That scene should have taken place in front of the men. We should have seen how the “hill woman” reacted. That would have put Nona’s rape and murder in a little more perspective when it happens at the end of the hour.

The ending continues to shock us 50 years on, long after the Vietnam war has come to an end. We're now 20 years into the endless war of our era.

We're very tired, Mister Spock. Beam us up home.

Nice to see this situation at least addressed and debated but certainly lacking any deeper reflection.

Generally (making me wonder why everyone celebrates Gene Roddenberry to this day)
- of course the Klingons are the bad guys and catalyst again, motive not required.
- no issue that Kirk har its personal hatred against Klingons as a race.
- of course there must be a female love interest/catalyst but the rest of the relevant cast be men *sigh*

This episode:
1. Kirk messed with the planet before the klingons.
2. Kirk, Spock and Bones messed some more with it accidentally (saving mountain people, letting phasers lie around, getting phasers known, getting mountain people violent etc. THAT is what the prime directive is for: not just not do evil but not to mess around with simplistic societies as no one can tell what will come from it.
3. Who says this world would have remained peaceful if left alone? Is Kirk a trained anthropologist now? Is it sensible to believe that at no point someone on the planet would have seen an advantage in violence and others adapt it? What do the combined historians of the Federation societies think about this? Because if it was inevitable, the question would not be assisting an as race but keeping the klingons from interfering.
4. Resettling those exposed to weapons technology to another M class planet or take them out of the equation otherwise might have been a solution.
5. Giving Bones and finding another solution not a minute of thought and saying there is no other solution. You never were a great brain, Kirk, were you?, but all of Starfleet?

In its serial format this may have been a novel show and it brought on some great episodes and thought feeders over the decades but it also sadly a d unjustly overshadows many good and more deeply thought through but isolated works of science fiction.

A strange little episode to review. There's a quite deep philosophical and political undercurrent to it, forming Roddenberry's anti-Cold War message, most especially the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, with the "Villagers" being the North, and the "Hill People" being the South, while the Klingons represent the Communist East arming the Northerners, and the Federation NATO. Ultimately, just like the real world conflicts, here it remains unresolved, though Kirk's 'Balance of Power' practicality wins out over McCoy's non-aggression anti-war idealism. I think we are meant to sympathise more with McCoy's philosophy than Kirk's (well, I did!), particularly in the character of the Hill People and their reluctance to be drawn into warlike modes of behaviour.

There is also an interesting contrast between Spock's very disciplined Vulcan 'self-healing' technique, and the (portrayed-as-hokum?) 'Witch doctor' healing methods on the planet involving herbs, roots, and incantations... which actually do succeed in curing Kirk's injuries! Interestingly, McCoy's very efficient and effective deputy on board is given an African name - coincidence or deliberate?

Two things severely spoiled this otherwise interesting episode: one was Nancy Kusack's utterly OTT acting particularly when healing Kirk, plus her character's inconsistency (how would a strong medicine woman be so easily overpowered by the rival tribe?). The other... well, need I even say it!? Even allowing for the limited 60s special effects, the 'monster' with the poison fangs was a joke. It would make even a 60s sci-fi producer wince. I could see that on a comedy spoof, but on a Trek episode? Come on!! I could make a better 'monster' from what's lying around in my living room.

@Tidd
Nona was played by Nancy Kovack (Mrs. Zubin Mehta).

@Mal (Dec. 21, 2020)
"Nancy Kovack was absolutely dazzling. Her role was incredible. She reminds me of one of the greatest actresses in Europe in that era, Florinda Bolkan, who played a very similar witch-like role in The Last Valley (1971), opposite Michael Caine and Omar Sharif."

I agree with you about Nancy Kovack's onscreen presence. Always liked her. In an amazing coincidence, I received an ancient book about historical movies (G. M. Fraser Hollywood History of the World) from a friend last week. Yesterday, I opened the book at random to page 108 and learned that Michael Caine was in a movie called The Last Valley in which he played a mercenary during the Thirty Years' War. 8 hours later I chanced upon and read your 2020 post that mentioned that same movie, followed the link and watched the whole thing. You were really on target about Florinda Bolkan and what she exudes in the context of the witch woman ethos, vis-a-vis Nona. Love is a wondrous, but a dangerous thing. h/t

@Sigh2000, that is remarkable Serendipity. I'm glad it led you to watch The Last Valley - a genuine classic!

When I go back and read the last lines of my 2020 review, it sends chills up my spine,

"The ending continues to shock us 50 years on, long after the Vietnam war has come to an end. We're now 20 years into the endless war of our era.

We're very tired, Mister Spock. Beam us up home."

The 20-year endless war is now at an end. But we are still very tired, Mister Spock. Maybe even more so than we have ever been before.

Tyree's turn to the dark side of his nature upon Nona's death is very powerful....we know that his planet is now doomed to fight a ceaseless brush war using those "100 Serpents in the Garden of Eden." A fantastic anti-war statement. Kirk's exhaustion is palpable....his last line "We are very tired Mr. Spock ....beam us up home." is so very memorable.

@Mal: Thanks for sharing your perspectives.
Liked:
"The 20-year endless war is now at an end. But we are still very tired, Mister Spock. Maybe even more so than we have ever been before."

Agree 100%....unnecessary conflict will always be with us. I share Kirk's exhaustion. Just knowing that change in others proceeds at a glacial pace is very tiring.

This one packs in quite a lot. There's easily enough story here for a movie.

The actors playing Tyree and Nona are extremely charismatic and convincing and really lift up the story. Nona may be the most convincing witch doctor woman I've ever seen.

And while she's conniving, she's not at all one dimensional. She makes good arguments. Watching her assault/near rape is very difficult.


I'd give it 3+. Lots of good to offset the problems.

Funny, I didn't see the Eden parallel because it wasn't terribly explicit until the end, while the Vietnam parallel was so overriding. I suppose they did go overboard with some stuff. It's rather a stretch to connect the two themes.

But if you completely miss it until Kirk's line at the end, it's not bad at all.

Nona is the best female character so far. You may see her as an "antagonist", but is she wrong? I don't think so. She is doing what she feels right, to her own best interest. Some people here were bothered by her "witch powers" but I found that most fascinating. I disagree with this episode being "all over the place" critique: for me, the mugato, the witchness, and everything else was a welcome colouring to the plot.

The only thing I really cant understand is how the hell Nona managed to practically get raped while in possession of a phaser.

Now, about the main plot: it seems there where other alternatives, mainly just removing the Klingon contamination, instead of "balanced contamination" of the other side, but I think this sounds doable only because the episode portraited the situation as a fight between, like, 10 guys. But I think it is suposed to be a more complicated scenario then that, such as "just removing the contamination" would not be so easy.

Oh, and it was cool to see a field mission with no support at all from the Enterprise, so we really got somme imersion on the alien culture. Spock being shooted was very surprising, and the first appearance of the mugato is able to provide a decent jump scare. Also, we get Kirk and McCoy alone, for the first time, I think, in the field — but now I got myself thinking: what would be Spock's take on this episode's dilemma?

I watch TOS episodes and occasionally think "Are we sure this is as good a show as we remember it?" Much as I love Trek, it can be ropey to say the least. As a Vietnam War allegory, I suppose this episode works. I'm not sure it works without that context 50 years later.

Yeah, it's totally dated. I mean, a scenario where a federation of great liberal powers starts feeding a weaker nation a steadily increasing supply of weapons to counter a powerful aggressor as part of a much larger political gambit is something a modern audience could NEVER relate to.

Boring. Unworkable conclusion.

1.5/4

@Marlboro : Nice take!

This was a weird one. It can also be added to the list of various revisited themes that span across season 2.

A Private Little War has some in common with The Apple (theme of Eden and pre-knowledge paradise) and also with Friday's Child (theme of rival powers influencing a more primitive society). I don't think this episode quite succeeds in what it's attempting to do. This planet is certainly no paradise (Mugato monsters AND evil witches?). Why exactly are we supposed to think these wigged goofballs are living a golden life?

I also don't really understand the ultimate goal of the Federation and Klingons here. Why do they even care who wins this war? What is there to be gained? It ultimately fails in its Vietnam allegory because the reason (however flawed) the US initially fought the proxy war there before getting directly involved was as a result of the domino theory and the prevention of the spread of communism throughout the world. Simply, the Soviets wanted to spread communism and their influence, while the US wanted stop its spread. Hence: proxy war between northern and southern Vietnamese.

Here, there's no real reason a proxy war needs to be fought. Why would the Federation care in the Klingons wanted some random villagers in a pre-warp society to win a war? At least in Friday's Child, the Klingons and Federation were vying over a valuable resource, which is a more interesting concept. It also forced the Federation to break the Prime Directive in order to compete with the Klingons, which is some much more interesting geopolitical commentary.

I don't think this episode truly works and other episodes do similar themes better, so I'll give it the "skippable" treatment.

@ Bucktown,

It doesn't seem so strange that the Klingons would want supremacy on non-aligned primitive worlds. They would no doubt win mining rights and all the natural resources from that world they want, and additionally supremacy over the area containing that system as they could establish a base uncontested nearby.

@Peter G.,

I agree, it's not strange the Klingons are a superpower seeking hegemony within their cluster of the galaxy.

If the Klingons wanted to mine or conquer territory, why not just take it rather than engage in this small technological escalation on a pre-developed world that could take decades (centuries?) to resolve.

Are the Klingons just not that bad? Only a little bad?

@ Bucktown,

"If the Klingons wanted to mine or conquer territory, why not just take it rather than engage in this small technological escalation on a pre-developed world that could take decades (centuries?) to resolve."

I thought you might ask that, so thought about the answer in the meantime. I think what the Klingons would want is to have an established population do the mining and so forth for them, with their only commitment a small garrison to keep them in line. Maybe this is more efficient, or maybe it just makes them feel more like conquerors and less like foraging miners. After all, they could just as soon have gone after control of uninhabited planets and set up mining and bases there. I think the reason they are here is because of the native population, to subjugate them and put them to work. That the Federation is here opposing them may be a new development, i.e. the Klingons haven't adapted to this reality yet and are still using their old methods even though the mere fact of opposition by the Federation already renders their efforts useless.

@Peter G.,

I think you're rationale makes sense in a traditional colonization way (even it is clumsily and scantly addressed in the episode), but I'm still not sure if we can apply this extraneous calculus to what we know of the crudely war mongering Klingons. (Perhaps though I'm looking at it from the point of view of TNG and beyond's Klingons.) Nevertheless, forming an alliance with a local faction that will benefit that group, while helping exploit the out-group is certainly in the colonizer playbook. In addition, supplying the allied faction with less powerful weapons than one's own ensures that they can't use them effectively against you down the line, so that also tracks.

In any event, the basic theme of the episode is Kirk's realpolitik that in order to combat a foe, equal measures must be taken to prevent your opponent's hegemony, even if it goes against one's (or a institution's) values and principals. It's basically a double defense of the Vietnam War and the larger arms race between the US and Soviets.

I still don't understand though why the Federation would necessarily care about a planet not part of the Federation or in Federation space, unless they had their own non-voluntary expansionist or resource exploitation quests, which would further fly in the face of any notion the Prime Directive to say the least. Or does this all imply that the Federation is worried about being conquered by the Klingons if they get much more powerful?

I think the Federation is only doing this because of the Klingons, to prevent being overrun outright. Don't forget the TOS Klingons are the USSR, not the Vikings.

They might well have visited those worlds anyhow to make peaceful relations or to study them, but not to exploit their resources directly. In Friday's Child the Enterprise does seem to need the alliance with the Capellans, who are pre-warp (no longer allowed by TNG times it would appear) for their resources. But I think they only want voluntary friendship with them.

I think the reason the Klingons are trying to insert themselves in this primitive planet through subterfuge is that they can’t risk open hostilities with the federation. Whether this is due to a balance of power, the organian treaty, the organians themselves, or some combination of those things is unclear. But what is clear is that both the federation and the Klingons are engaged in maneuvers to gain influence over various pre-warp civilizations. If you’re wondering why, perhaps it’s the same reason both the US and Japan gave a crap about midway island during WWII, what might seem ostensibly worthless may be strategically positioned or resource rich.
In Errand of Mercy the Klingons tried straight conquest, but were foiled by a combination of federation combativeness and gods in disguise. With the direct strategy unsuccessful they tried a negotiated path in Friday’s Child, a “hearts and minds” approach. But the Klingons failed again when their agent in charge turned out to be terrible at his job and the Klingons turned out to have a major PR image problem. So, still unable to risk open conflict with the federation they turned to a new strategy in which they’ll secretly arm one group with an overwhelming advantage, wait until that group, “their” group, wipes out or conquers their rivals, and then move in with a monopoly on the planet’s political situation, assuming the villagers are amenable to further alliance with the Klingons. But Kirk gets wise and counters by funneling arms of his own to his ol’ buddy who he met during his study-abroad year, thus foiling the Klingons plan and introducing the concept of perpetual arms escalation all in one afternoon!

Personally I think this episode works reasonably well. The character of Nona is its primary weakness, mainly because it’s hard not to see such a morally dubious female character as problematic when she’s the *only* female character around. If there had been at least one other prominent role for a woman that wasn’t an ethical black hole I think Nona might have been less polarizing. But as she stands, her hyper-manipulative behavior and her willingness to turn on her own when convenient makes her pretty indefensible. And honestly I didn’t feel she really added much to the story at all anyway.

As far as the Cold War allegory goes, it’s fairly poignant, but definitely leaves a bitter taste. I for one didn’t feel like the episode was advocating for any particular position or policy, but was rather just presenting an unadorned, inherently challenging situation and leaving the audience to interpret the solution through the lense of their own particular confirmation bias. In that regard the episode succeeds pretty well.

2.5 venomous albino gorillas.

I just love a good proxy war, don’t you? Proxy wars almost always arise from standard old-fashioned cold wars, and these produce arms races, drive up defensive weaponry production, increase military budgets that keep those sweet government contracts coming, and keep the population glued to the news channels and clicking on scary headlines until they’re assaulted by ads for cereal, little blue pills, Hollywood movies and Gillette shaving cream--and therefore make a bunch of marvelous money for a whole lot of people! (Well, except for the poor backward peons who live in the countries where the aforementioned proxy war is taking place, of course. They can all just kill each other and go to hell.)

The best scene in "A Private Little War" occurs early -- Kirk is waxing rhapsodic about the last time he visited this woebegone planet of peaceful villagers who wouldn't hurt a fly, living harmoniously in their Garden of Eden, when all of a sudden, as if on cue, here come the imposing natives armed to the teeth with guns and preparing an ambush. I'm sorry but I burst out laughing.

Some of the commenters here are confused about why Kirk is involving himself and his crew in the Klingons’ imperialist colonization affairs in the first place, when they’re not threatening Earth in any way. Hello?! It’s about containment, folks. Remember, this was the late 1960’s. Kirk doesn’t want those stinking space commies expanding and conquering all these planets, so his solution is to arm Tyree and the hill-dwelling natives with weapons that can put up a fight against the villagers that the Klingons are arming. Simple. Clearly, “A Private Little War” is a clumsy and obvious allegory about our efforts in Vietnam around the time of the production (and earlier efforts in Korea). @Idh2023 explains the likely motives of both the Klingons and the Federation quite well in the first paragraph of their write-up, but I just think it’s even simpler than that.

For bonus points, “A Private Little War” also has a little something to say about the typical fate of a Strong Independent Woman Activist who lives during such a fiasco. She’s basically eaten alive by circumstances. The voodoo witchcraft struck me as pointless, and it distracted from her *true* superpower, which is her beguiling feminine wiles and Lady Macbeth-like manipulation. But man was she hot--so I give her whole storyline a pass.

"A Private Little War" may have one of the best episode titles (I love irony), but ultimately is just passable.


Speak Freely:
Kirk -- "Research is not the Klingon way."


My Grade: C

That’s right everyone! I’m back. I’ll bet you missed me.

Re watching Star Trek again. Season two had alot of skippable epusodes for me. It really bothered me how badly Chapel was written invthis episode the way M'Benga and Scotty reacted seems out of character for starfleet officers but does seem very American 1966. But maybe this is just me. In my opinion every time Scotty shows up in season two seems like bad writing for me.

When Star Trek is great, it's great, and more than occasionally, it's brilliant. But when it's bad, it's bad.

I've seen this probably 10 times over the years. To me, this is bad.

Recent episodes have been great. I love both "A Piece of the Action" and "The Immunity Syndrome," and was just marveling at the range of writing, acting and character creation that made those two episodes possible, each excellent, within the same series.

But I just had to shut this one off about 10 or 15 minutes into it. It is bad in a way that is really aggravating. The bad wigs. The childlike quality of the "indigenous" people. The sexy shaman lady in an absurd costume writhing orgasmically. "He is Tyree, and I am his woman."

Whoever talked like that, anywhere?

Perhaps there are real examples, but it seems more like a stereotype that is based on wishful thinking.

The writers weren't dummies. This episode has its defenders. (Many here!) I am just not entertained. The story may be interesting (I don't remember), but I can't get past the ridiculous characters.

Always liked this episode
Spock nearly killed,
Kirk nearly killed,
Even McCoy catches a bullet graze!
They are all really in the thick of it.
Tough choices made by Kirk and crew along the way. Some overacting by hottie Nona but not a deal breaker. I love her aggressive agenda among her pacifist allies - quite well done contrast there.
Vicious alien beast (could kick Gorn ass )
Mystical native chick
Klingons
Fight scenes with awesome soundtrack
Spock fighting for his life
Moral dilemma
Bittersweet somewhat tragic ending
3 stars for me

This episode offers the best explanation of what the prime directive is and why the Federation enforces it than any other Star Trek episode. "Our weapons grew faster than our wisdom, and we almost destroyed ourselves." So they made a rule not to contribute to that happening to anyone else. But in this case the Klingons had already interfered, so parity was the only solution Kirk saw. It's a problem with no easy solution, and I like that the episode has a downbeat ending, as it should.

Weird episode. It's clearly trying to tackle the kind of high-concept allegory Star Trek is known for -- Vietnam War, Cold War proxy politics -- but it’s told through the lens of a low-budget Conan the Barbarian knockoff. The message is there, but it's buried under bouffant beach boy wigs, witchy love potions and scattered jungle melodrama.

The infamous Spock slap scene feels like it must've directly inspired the classic "Get a hold of yourself!" moment from Airplane!:

"Nurse Chapel! Get a hold of yourself! I'll handle this from here!" *SLAP*


Also: good to see Dr. M'Benga finally brushed up on his elocution.