Star Trek – A Private Little War

★★★1/2 February 2, 1968 Season 2 Episode 19

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Gene Roddenberry and Don Ingalls

This episode gets philosophical at the end and will make you think. 

While conducting a survey on a planet Captain Kirk visited several years earlier he is surprised to discover the primitive yet peaceful people he once knew are now armed with flintlock firearms. Not enough time progressed for them to be that far ahead. 

As the team prepares to leave Spock is shot and seriously injured. While he is being treated a Klingon ship is sighted and Kirk is convinced that they are responsible for arming the people on the planet. Leaving Spock in the capable hands of Dr M’Benga, Kirk and McCoy return to the planet to investigate further.

Soon after landing Kirk is attacked by a creature with a poisonous venom; unable to return to the ship McCoy takes him to the village of his old friend Tyree where he is cured by Tyree’s wife. We learn that there are two main tribes; the peaceful Hill People and the Villagers who are using weapons against them. Tyree’s wife wants him to press Kirk to supply even better weapons and she with the help of a few select plants, can be very persuasive. When it is confirmed that the Klingons have helped the Villagers Kirk has a difficult decision… does he stay uninvolved or does he arm the Hill People to create a balance of power?

This isn’t a classic episode but it is entertaining. Thanks to Spock’s injury we learn more about the Vulcans… in particular how they consciously fight to heal themselves. The story on the planet was interesting too; clearly a metaphor for the various proxy wars of the cold war era where the East and West would arm allies in third-world countries rather than getting involved in direct conflict.

From IMDB:

The Mugato was called The Gumato in the original script. But DeForest Kelley kept mispronouncing it so it was changed. The closing credits still name the creature as The Gumato.

(At around 17 mins) Is the first clear close-up ever of the Sick Bay panel. The vertical scales are, from left to right: Temperature – left scale in °F and right in °C -, Brain – K3 (unknown unit)-, Lungs – no units, but it seems to measure FRC (Functional Residual Capacity) in liters, Cell Rate – no units -, Blood – Q5 (or possibly Qs; perhaps pressure; corrected to %O2 in some mock-ups/merchandise) – and Blood – T2 × 10 (Blood transverse relaxation time – ms ×10). Center symbols: Top Circle “Respiration”, second Circle “Pulse” then two legends: Adjust for Normal, Recorder. The inclusion of both Fahrenheit and Centigrade is odd.

This episode features the last production credit for showrunner Gene L. Coon who resigned halfway through Season 2. His replacement John Meredyth Lucas struggled to come to terms with the show’s unrelenting schedules and the budget cuts that Paramount was insisting on. NBC were also unhappy about the show’s implications about sex, threatening the airing of a show that was already on the borderline of cancellation.

Nancy Kovack’s character (Nona) displays her navel, despite the folklore that broadcast standards censors prohibited showing that part on a woman.

First of two appearances of Booker Bradshaw as Dr. M’Benga, the expert in Vulcan physiology. Second appearance in Star Trek: That Which Survives (1969).

The mugato was designed by Janos Prohaska, who had also created the Horta for Star Trek: The Devil in the Dark (1967).

The Star Trek Universe has been known to tackle societal, political, environmental, and other types of issues throughout the history of the franchise. This one tackled the Vietnam War head-on, not only specifically pointing out the “20th-Century brush wars on the Asian continent”, but also as portraying the Federation and the Klingon Empire as superpowers using an otherwise peaceful world as pawns in their struggle for power (a direct allegory of the Cold War at that time, between NATO and the Red Bloc).

The original writer, Don Ingalls, put the pseudonym Jud Crucis on it after Gene Roddenberry rewrote it. Ingalls’ original contained many more overt Vietnam analogies than what finally appeared. According to Allan Asherman’s ‘The Star Trek Compendium’, this script referred to Apella as a “Ho Chí Minh-type” and the tribesmen as wearing Mongolian clothes. Though friends with Roddenberry since their days as LAPD officers, Ingalls did not like the changes, and the pseudonym was his wordplay on “Jesus Crucified”.

The planet they’re on is named Neural in the script, but this name is never heard in the show itself.

This is the only episode in Season 2 to not have a happy ending music.

Janos Prohaska owned the ape suit, having acquired it from a previous film project.

An obvious reference to the western classic cliché of white and black hats (white hat = good guy, black hat = bad guy), the use of blond hair for the ‘good guys’ and black hair for the ‘bad guys’.

This episode is preceded, both in production and airing order, by Star Trek: Journey to Babel (1967). Given McCoy’s reluctance in that episode to operate on a Vulcan due to his unfamiliarity with Vulcan physiology, it is probable that, between that episode and this, he recruits M’Benga to serve on the Enterprise as a safeguard should anything happen to Spock.

It is stated a flintlock would be the first firearm developed. In fact, it was the match lock then the wheel lock, then the flint lock.

In Don Ingalls’ original story outline, the Klingon antagonist was Kor from Star Trek: Errand of Mercy (1967).

The Mugato is the same suit used as a white gorilla in Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea: Fatal Cargo (1967) and as a Garboona – a cross between a gorilla and a baboon – in Here’s Lucy: Lucy’s Safari (1969). However, it did not have the spikes on its head and back in either of those appearances. All three creatures were played by Janos Prohaska.

This is the only episode in which Spock and Kirk are both incapacitated in two separate incidents, with different causes, for an overlapping time period.

Nona uses the same dagger as seen in Star Trek: Wolf in the Fold (1967).

Krell’s name is never mentioned but is shown in the script.

They shot a scene of Nancy Kovack showering semi-nude (shot from the back) and put it in the final cut presented to NBC. This aim to have Standards and Practices (the NBC censors) lock onto that scene and demand it be removed. This was to distract them from the other more sensual elements of the rest of the story that they might have taken issue with. The showering scene is shown on the blooper reels which can be tracked down on Youtube.

This takes place in 2268.

Ned Romero (Krell) also appeared in Star Trek: The Next Generation: Journey’s End (1994) as Anthwara, and Star Trek: Voyager: The Fight (1999) as Chakotay’s great-grandfather.

Sulu does not appear in this episode.

When McCoy is heating the rocks with pulses from his phaser, a close up shots shows his finger is not even pushing the button on his phaser.

Summary

Kirk gets to return to the planet where, 13 years earlier as a young lieutenant, he conducted his first planetary survey. The natives live a simple Eden-like existence with little or no technology to speak of. Bows and arrows are their main weaponry. When Kirk, Spock and McCoy beam down, they find a rival tribe now has flintlock rifles, centuries ahead of normal development. With Spock almost mortally wounded and taken back to the Enterprise, Kirk and McCoy see if Klingons have been upsetting the planet’s natural development, but Kirk’s soon waylaid by a mugatu (a wild, poisonous primate), and it’s up to the wife (a healer of sorts) of his old friend Tyree to save him. She’s an ambitious, opportunistic “witch” woman who heals Kirk while also ensnaring his soul. Her price: nothing less than Kirk’s violation of the Prime Directive.

Another Age Restricted video

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Dr. McCoy
Nancy Kovack … Nona
Michael Witney … Tyree
James Doohan … Scott
Nichelle Nichols … Uhura
Ned Romero … Krell
Majel Barrett … Nurse Chapel
Walter Koenig … Chekov
Booker Bradshaw … Dr. M’Benga
Arthur Bernard … Apella
Janos Prohaska … The Gumato
Paul Baxley … Patrol Leader
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Roger Holloway … Lt. Lemli (uncredited)
Jeannie Malone … Native Woman (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Roy N. Sickner … Villager (uncredited)