A Private Little War
The primitive peoples of Neural have never known violence against each other, but flintlocks have started A Private Little War (Memory Alpha; SD Video). The Enterprise is here on a scientific mission, and Kirk is saddened to see the world he surveyed thirteen year ago falling from the pacifist heights it had attained. Saddened and suspicious: did the village people invent the flintlocks, or did the Klingons provide them?
This episode has a great idea at its center, but it suffers from the same old problem of not enough going on, and it fills the space with crap. The basic dynamic of discovering if the Klingons are involved and the slow-motion ethical conundrum over what to do if they are is sound, and well done. But the episode flails about badly in the surrounding story of Kirk being attacked by a rubber suit monster and his healing by Nona, a hill people witch who wants weapons for her people, too.
Nona is not a bad character, but her costume and makeup make her look like a trailer queen and she’s terribly acted. But the really problem is that she is given such an important role while her husband Tyree, who resists the escalation, is given no real lines about his resistance or why he does so, and is left with just angst. This cripples the major story, which is a what-should-be-done about providing these people with weapons to defend themselves.
And what’s really interesting about the episode is this escalation conflict, which is a pretty obvious commentary on Vietnam. The Federation and the Klingons are the Cold War powers, and they are pushing arms into this poor little backwater to wage a proxy war with each other. McCoy is vocally against this strategy, but Kirk thinks it’s the only thing that will possibly keep both sides alive; mutually assured destruction for the black powder set. The end of the episode leaves the actual outcome uncertain, most likely because Kirk’s solution is the only real way out that can be shown onscreen, barring a silly deus ex machina. That the writers didn’t think of giving each side some nonmilitary technology that would foster trade (or somesuch diplomatic solution) is kind of sad.
Also, that rubber suit monster is really lame, as all rubber suit monsters are.
However, the above is a pretty negative view of the episode, and I actually rather enjoyed it. The central idea is sound, the writing is good, and the pacing hits at the right times, even if some of those hits are the lame surrounding story. This episode even has a C-plot involving Spock healing up in the Enterprise after getting shot in the cold open. It’s interesting even though it is in no way related to the main action, even on a thematic level. But this episode is saying something about the world it lived in, which was a brave and smart thing to do, even if they only point out a problem and don’t even offer a hint of a solution, or a direction in which a solution could be found.
Bottom line: a good episode, but it could have been great.
Grade
B-
