Episode 62 – TOS 3×07: “Day of the Dove”

So just to get this out of the way before we start: oh god, later Klingons are so much better than TOS-era Klingons. Not just in terms of, you know, a vastly more fleshed-out and consistent culture and general coolness factor, but also because of the wow, really terrible (both in terms of, you know, just being brownface and also because of the impossibly bad quality) brownface makeup. It is somehow most noticeable on Kang’s science officer, wife and one of only two Klingon ladies in the original series, Mara.

(A heads-up at this point that this episode does include a scene with a sexual assault.)

We’re not sure what the goal here was, since earlier TOS Klingons didn’t… really… have this? So we’re not sure what makeup and wardrobe were smoking that day, but.

This week’s episode also purports to deliver a subtle message of not letting yourself be riled up by bullshit, hate-mongering propaganda to hate and fight things that actually have nothing to do with your own life (we try, guys; we try) that could conceivably be relevant to today’s mediasphere, but actually just brings us a torturously drawn-out metaphor for how we should all just hug it out.

Here’s the rundown: the Enterprise and a Klingon ship under the command of one of our favourite Klingons, Kang, are tricked into a rendezvous. The planet supposedly had a Federation colony on it, but it`s mysteriously gone, with no sign on their instruments that it ever existed. The Klingon ship, on the other hand, suffers a catastrophic malfunction that (possibly) kills 400 of their crew. Tragedy on both sides! How terrible! And then the Enterprise beams the survivors aboard, leaving them with equal numbers of Klingons and Federation crew, and suddenly shit gets weird.

The takeway is that the whole thing is a hoax perpetrated by a glowy disco-ball alien that feeds on negative emotions like hatred, specifically “race hatred,” because while Star Trek has never been a subtle beast when it comes to its messaging, TOS is somehow even less subtle than its descendants. The disco ball wanted to keep them fighting so it could suck up all those delicious, delicious bigotry feelings, even going so far as to revive fallen fighters when they’ve been killed by the other side.

…yeah.

Like I said, Trek is not subtle. On the other hand, we mostly don’t mind.

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