A Private Little War (2)

DVD, Star Trek S2 (A Private Little War) (2) I say Mugato and you say Gumato, let's call the whole mission off. That's sort of what happened thirteen years ago when a 'brash,' in his own words, young Lieutenant Kirk led the team on his first planetary survey, made friends with Tyree, spilled a few friendly beans about men from stars in the sky and went merrily on his way. I'm not sure what the point of that particular mission was if it's only now they're discovering things about the planet, but I suppose McCoy was just confirming what had already been found the first time. Which makes you wonder why they came back if they already knew whatever it is they wanted to know. It's not the strongest rationale for setting up the drama, in line with the hokey blond or dark wigs used respectively to represent the hill people and the villagers, a population that has grown up in the Garden of Eden, never became barred from it, living peacefully as they did. How they managed to live like that for so long with ambitiously shrewd shrews like Tyree's witchy wife Nona (perhaps named because no one says no to her), apparently only interested in stirring up trouble, is anyone's guess, but there's certainly a similar vein being mined to that which we saw in 'The Apple,' as if that innocent people led astray by the Serpent wasn't clear enough in its message: don't interfere with the natural development of a gentle, pleasant people. Or was it 'do interfere to save them from computer gods gone awry'? If it wasn't clear enough then here it's spoken and reiterated over who and what is the Serpent or serpents: the Klingon is the Serpent, upsetting the balance between the two groups - though if they were already violent toward each other with bows and arrows, and rocks, then what's the difference, other than a more efficient method of killing? Or were their weapons previously only used for hunting until the knowledge [of good and evil] was imparted by Klingons wanting to mine the planet. At least I think that was their aim, in keeping with several other encounters this season: destabilise, pretend friendship to a certain faction, then reap the rewards and hopefully poke the Federation in the eye as a bonus. Then again, perhaps the weapons themselves (as Kirk says at the end), are the Serpent, a temptation to power. 'The Apple' was a tidier story and despite the similarities (and that this version boasts two giant alien horned apes with deadly venomous bite), this comes off the worse. It's terrific to hear more personal history of Kirk's career, but at the same time it would have been better if we could have discovered more, like the name of his ship, perhaps some of the people under him, and what was achieved on this planet, why it was left for so long, and why he felt it was suitable to break the Prime Directive and tell Tyree of the wonders of the stars. There's nothing wrong with Kirk's eyesight, his twenty-twenty vision (long before he needed Retinax), able to pick out the detail of the weapons the villagers carry as flintlock rifles, as well as spotting Tyree among his similarly attired and bewigged comrades from an even greater distance! That was another flaw with the episode - no, not Kirk's eyesight, but that everyone seems to have extensive knowledge of ancient Earth weaponry to the extent that on the Bridge of the Enterprise Uhura and Scotty pipe up about it! If it had been Sulu (still absent from his post), it would have made sense because we know he had an interest in such antiques, but would Kirk and his crew really have that much knowledge and understanding off the bat, seemingly without any research? While I'm piling in on the inadequacies, it's also another episode in which we're denied a Klingon ship, which is beginning to be a bit of a bore. I know they somehow evade the Klingons' sensors by keeping the planet between them (how come Starfleet sensors are so much superior to the Klingons'? Even if Kirk does state that research is not the Klingon way, though this could be an example of his general distrust toward the race from experience), and they're careful not to send any signals to Starfleet Command, which would give away their presence, so it does make a kind of sense that they never outright encountered it thus making it unnecessary to show it, but it would have been a good idea to introduce a design, especially as we know they eventually did - it was all a budgetary issue. I say the 'Klingons,' but it was really only one: Krell, in keeping with the predilection for names beginning with K (Kras in 'Friday's Child,' Koloth and Korax in 'The Trouble With Tribbles,' and of course Kor in Season 1's 'Errand of Mercy'). I must say he did look very good, but was also very underused (Ned Romero was one of those crossover actors, returning much later as an Indian in 'Journey's End' for 'TNG' and no less than Chakotay's Grandfather in 'The Fight' on 'Voyager'! It's possible the Klingon of the same name in 'Divergence' on 'Enterprise' was a tribute to him). There's further confusion over the Organian Peace Treaty, though they don't refer to it by name. I thought the whole point was they couldn't fight the Klingons because their weapons would become too hot to handle, the Organians' way of forcibly keeping the peace. Obviously we've seen them fight with fists in the K7 brawl, but perhaps this was the only way they could combat each other as it would be impractical for war in space to rely on fists and boots. Yet Kirk says if the Klingons are breaking the treaty it could lead to interstellar war. How? We're not told, either they're ignoring the special properties of the Organians now (though we haven't yet seen a direct confrontation with starships or hand weapons so it hasn't technically been contradicted), or skirting the issue and hoping the details had been forgotten. I'm not entirely clear why the Klingons chose to arm the villagers - were there minerals in the hill country they wanted and were rebuffed by the peace-loving Tyree and his people when they offered to make trade? That would be in Klingon character to go to the other side and make war, but then why not just kill all the hill people themselves? They are a bit Romulan-esque, apparently enjoying pitting groups against each other and sitting back to let them do all the work, quite in contrast to their later, well established code of warrior ethics where you'd expect them to want to fight! The rule of non-interference is broken by Kirk in response to the Klingons, and this is really the only interesting part of the episode (apart from a certain shaggy white gorilla sporting a rhino's horn), raising the question of what is the right course of action: it was best to leave them be, as Kirk's report recommended from the original survey mission. They were peaceful, they didn't fight amongst themselves, they stayed in their Garden of Eden, an idyllic paradise (except for horned, biting predators, of course!), but now the cat has been let out of the bag, balance of power has been upset, the grizzly Mugato has been let off the leash, metaphorically speaking (though if you could tame one, it would probably make a good guard dog), and can they let one side have the advantage and wipe out the other due the outside interference of the Klingons? Is it right to start an arms race that will develop to who knows what proportions? Kirk thinks it is, but then he is biased, having a friend whom he respects and loves, personal loyalty that requires something of him. Kirk stops short of giving Tyree superior weapons, but he's so sure of Kirk's goodness and experience that he shows himself a man of simple faith, believing Kirk will be able to help them in ways they don't understand, yet without resorting to wiping out their enemies. Tyree is a good man and strong friend who really didn't deserve such a witch of a wife, one who holds him in thrall by the use of intoxicating leaves, abusing her power of herb-lore and roots - there is a suggestion that's how she became his wife, that she genuinely did 'bewitch' him by the use of drugs so that he was put in a stupor and bent to her will. She continually shows herself to be devious and proud, believing herself superior since her kind are sought after. But on this simple world, knowledge really is power and from her perspective why would she allow herself to be put in a position of weakness? Eventually she does exactly that, trusting her enemies to want what's best for them instead of the immediate advantage of a lone woman to savages who have been keeping company with wolves of late and probably developed their manners from them. Her treachery toward husband and hill clan is rewarded with death, which in turn strikes rage and hatred in the heart of Tyree where before he found it hard to drum up sufficient violence to fight. It's a tragedy really, Tyree the victim of manipulation. He will not kill, and it's said he'll have to fight or die, yet when he sees Kirk taken advantage of by Nona and her amorous leaves he goes to shoot him, but his better nature wins out even then and he casts away the rifle and storms off. Nona does what's best for Nona, except she doesn't because she has no true loyalty, and because she doesn't have it for others it rebounds and proves she has none for herself. Maybe that's the best message of the episode? Kirk's excuse in not doing exactly what she wants and giving them Phasers is that their weapons grew faster than their wisdom and they almost destroyed themselves, the Prime Directive in a nutshell: now they're wise enough to know they're wise enough not to interfere and let the people find their own way, make their own mistakes and their own discoveries. That's why it's hard to interfere, yet the Klingons don't have this attitude, they're happy to mess with established nature. And so there's no happy ending, rightfully, anger has been inflamed and the two sides will be left to their increasingly violent wars until they can come to the realisation that they need to stop hating and learn to make compromises. There's an attempt at a little humour when Spock talks from the Bridge and McCoy asks if he's alive, Spock responding as you'd expect, but it's a halfhearted quip, the real feeling you're left with is that for all their intelligence and technology they weren't able to solve this problem and it was one of the rare failures for Kirk and his crew, and that makes for quite a downer. I'm not saying every episode should end with laughter, in fact I prefer it when there's a poignancy to Trek endings, but they didn't often have the foresight to understand that that would make a more satisfying conclusion, preferring the standard belief of the time that you should leave the audience on a high note because then they'll be more likely to return next week, but the series was fighting its own nature in doing that sometimes when thoughtfulness and an open-ended question can be so much more powerful and true. Spock's story is the B-plot of the episode - his sole function appears to be to tell us this is a Class M world, Earth-like (always good to hear the unique Trek terminology which was carried through, well, until the current era largely ditched protocol and procedure, sadly), then to show that even a tough Vulcan hide can't repel bullets (witness the smudge of green blood on his uniform). Mind you, he did present a good target with his bright blue shirt, and with no Redshirts around to be shot at (it's another one of those Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam downs - perhaps, like in 'Bread and Circuses' they were trying to limit personnel on the surface due to Prime Directive concerns), which makes you wonder why they didn't wear native garb as they did later (once again we have the impression they don't have Replicators since Kirk says to inform ship's stores they need native costumes, and he wouldn't be doing that if anyone could just magic up a set of clothing in their Quarters as we saw Michael Burnham do in 'DSC'!). Spock leaves his Phaser behind and I thought this was going to be a precursor to the end of 'A Piece of The Action' where McCoy realises he's left his Communicator behind (later turned into an actual story on 'Enterprise'), but nothing ever came of it, in spite of the fact that a villager could easily have picked it up and the whole dynamic of the story could have changed - what if he decided to set himself up as a new leader and also that he no longer needed Klingon influence and vaporised Krell (just as McCoy did to the unfortunate Mugato, and Kirk did to its mate). That could have made the story a little more developed. Instead we get a sub-story of Spock recovering in Sickbay with the help of Dr. M'Benga, one of the few members of the crew who would appear more than once (though there are exceptions, like Mr. Leslie who appears so often I've stopped mentioning him, though he'd have a more important role in a coming episode, or Mr. Hadley, I think his name is, who's taken Sulu's station), at least characters who were named on screen. He was interesting, a man who interned on a Vulcan ward, the closest they have to a specialist, though considering well established Vulcan secrecy on private matters it seems a stretch to allow they would accept a human around their ill. Really, his role is to tell the audience what Spock's doing, putting himself into some kind of self-induced hypnosis to concentrate all his healing on the damaged organs. And it's all a setup to further the Nurse Chapel ongoing story of fluttering eyelashes and sighs. In reality it doesn't really go anywhere other than giving us a little more insight into Vulcans and making the space for Kirk to have another close friend he must help. If Spock had been there perhaps things would have been easier, who knows? McCoy wasn't going to be the one to give advice on matters of war, he's there to stare boggle-eyed at madam Nona's witchcraft, for that is what it appears to be, and the closest Trek comes to suggesting such occult power is genuine: it's all wrapped up in Nona's abuse of power by putting on a show rather than simply dressing Kirk's Mugato bite with the healing root, but we also see that the skin of his shoulder and the palm of her hand which she bled, are healed, so it's a bit disturbing. We know that she manipulates, using certain herbs to intoxicate men, scratching Tyree's skin to administer it into his bloodstream, and the same with Kirk, so maybe it was all a sham? McCoy never refutes her methods and though it's implied from the way we, the audience are let in on her cunning ways, that she's a dangerous woman, the other characters never learn what she does. She's a thoroughly detestable person, untrue, changeable, caring only for personal power, and though her end is horrible there was some rough justice in it. Though again, this becomes a spark to ignite the powder keg of war to the hilt, so even in death she caused so much damage to a people who had been compassionate and gentle. That, again, makes the episode quite a sad and unhappy story, and as much as I love the design of the Mugato (it remains my favourite ever Trek action figure), and wish they could have found a way to bring that back, much more than the Gorn, it's not enough to hang a good story on. We do see Starfleet technology once again demonstrating its versatility when McCoy heats up rocks with his Phaser, or Kirk instructs him to make records of everything in the smithy on his Tricorder, so that's a positive, as is seeing Scotty actually sitting down in the Captain's Chair when he's left in command, when Spock finally comes to relieve him at the end. I suppose he'd finally got tired of standing around or leaning on the arm, and then he has to hop out of it! But all of this is small comfort in such a downbeat episode. **