Season 3, Episode 66 "Day of the Dove"

"Day of the Dove"

Production Order: 66
Air Order: 62
Stardate: Unknown
Original Air Date: November 1, 1968

Roomie, Rumor, and I were recently watching "Guardians of the Galaxy" with our friend, DM. We got to the part where the Nova Corps fighter jets all link up to make a net over the ship of the bad guy.
"Like Star Trek," said DM. "You know, like the Tholian Web."
Say fucking what? No. The Nova Corp jets connected to one another (actually physically connected) to make a net that draped across the front of the ship. The Tholian Web connected to nothing and didn't actually appear to do anything.
That shit is not the same.
I think he was high. Or I certainly hope that he was, making that kind of comparison.

*******

We jump right in this week when we beam down to a planet's surface with Kirk, Bones, Chekov and some random Red. It's a desert planet, with these weird plants made from pink feathers. Not little feathers, though. Vegas showgirl hat feathers. Remains of a flamingo massacre. Oh, the humanity.

Apparently, our boys have gone surface-side because they got a distress call from a colony here, saying the planet was under attack. When they look around and take scans, they find nothing. No evidence of people, or buildings or any kind of activity. Kirk is frustrated, because there were 100 people down here. He doesn't notice that everything on this planet gives off the enticing aroma of "trap." 

Spock calls to let them know that there's a Klingon ship nearby. Kirk tells him to go to red alert and defend themselves if necessary, but now Sulu is reporting that the cruiser is dead in the water and showing signs of damage.

"The fuck?" says Spock. "That wasn't us."

Kirk is convinced that the Klingons destroyed the colony. Yes, Kirk. The invisible colony, that was then completely obliviated, as your scanners are picking up no residual traces. As long as we're continuing on this thread of a conspiracy theory, the Klingons have also jammed your scanners so they send back false information.

So here come the Klingons, beaming down and angry as hell. The commander strides onto the set and just fucking punches Kirk, who goes down like a sack of potatoes. This guy broke the law of No One in the Known Universe Can Fight. Good job, dude. He yells at Kirk that the E crippled his ship and killed 400 crewmen. As punishment, he's claiming the E for himself, and will let everyone know that the Enterprise committed an act of war against them. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

So there's this light ball floating around the planet, and we're only kind of supposed to be paying attention to it, but when the Klingon busts Kirk's jaw it glows red.

Kang the Klingon starts talking about the uneasy peace treaty between the empire and the Federation. Kirk yells back that the Klingons destroyed the colony. Kang asks him what the fuck he's talking about, as there was clearly never any colony here, and they never destroyed anything, and that Kirk is guilty of crippling the Klingon ship. Kirk wants to know how the hell they managed to do that, seeing as how they only detected the Klingon ship like five seconds ago, but he accuses them of having some new fancy weapon that allows them to disintegrate everything. Somehow, it comes around that they both received distress calls. Kang demands that Kirk have Spock beam up the Klingon party so he can take charge of the E.

"Go to the devil," replies Kirk. 

Seriously, dude. Who are you, Scarlett O'Hara? I mean, I know the censors would have gotten their case if they had made Kirk say something harsher than that, but what are the odds that the Klingons even know what he's talking about? Pretty good, as Kang has heard of this term, but he also points out that the Klingons have no such person in their mythology, so it was kind of a weak insult. (Technically, they do have someone in their mythology who fits a similar description, but he doesn't come up until TNG, so at this point in the canon, Kirk is still an idiot.)

"Gonna torture your guys now," says Kang. "Who should go first?"

By Star Trek law, it should be that Red. But no, he's just eye candy, I guess.

Chekov screams at Kang, calling them Cossacks. Because the Klingons are supposed to know what the hell Cossacks are. He then yells that they're murders, and that they killed his brother, Piotr and 100 others on a research colony.

Kang has one of his henchmen put this device on Chekov's cheek which electrifies and leaves Chekov screaming. Kirk agrees to beam up the Klingons to keep them from continuing the torture, and Kang tells them that he will kill 100 hostages if Kirk is screwing with him. Okay, what's with this hundred people thing? Did the person who wrote this just really like that number?

"Ha! You're a pussy!" says Kang. "Klingons would never agree to turn their ships over."

Kirk calls Spock and tells him to beam up everyone, but then we see that he pushes an extra button so that a light on a panel on the captain's chair flashes. We get a Spock eyebrow raise. "Okay, cool," he says.

Everyone shimmers during beam-up, but only our guys appear on the pad. Scotty has them suspended mid-transport. Two more Reds join that Red from the landing party. Chekov recommends leaving the Klingons in suspended transport, but Kirk gives Scotty the go-ahead, and when the Klingons appear, the Reds rush forward to snatch their weapons.

"Ha! Now you're my prisoner, bitch!" Kirk crows at Kang.

Scotty reports that the Klingon ship is becoming a hazard, leaking radiation everywhere, so Kirk agrees to transport the rest of the Klingons onto the E. It's only 6 people, and one woman gets off the transporter pad and goes to Kang.

"This is my wife, Mara. She is the science officer also," he says grudgingly. It's a weird, awkward introduction, and there really isn't a reason for Kirk to need that information, but I guess there wasn't an easier way to let the audience and Kirk know that was deal, so it'll have to do.

Kirk tells Kang and his wife that they'll be well-treated and will be staying in a rec-room, where the replicators will be programmed to serve Klingon food. A Red takes them away.

Kirk, Spock, Bones and Chekov hop in the lift. Spock logically reminds everyone that the Klingons could not have destroyed the non-existent colony because they were coming from too far away when the distress signal went out.

"Bullshit!" says Chekov. "It was totally them!"

"Klingons are nasty motherfuckers," agrees Bones. "They just wanna start a war."

Kirk gives him a weird look and Bones gets off at sick bay.

Everyone else hops off at the bridge, where Spock confirms that the Klingon cruiser is vacated, then they blow it up. Uhura reports in that she can't raise Starfleet.

Down in the lower decks, that ball of light has come on board and is taking a leisurely stroll through the corridors We go into the red room, where the Klingons are being kept. They make loose plans to take over the E, even though they have relatively small numbers right now, in comparison to the E's crew.

Back on the bridge, the light ball has made its way up and has glowed red. Uhura loses her cool and yells in frustration at Kirk that all of the channels are open, but Starfleet isn't responding. The ship rocks. Sulu reports that the controls are dead, but that they've changed course and are rushing off on a heading that will take them out of the galaxy. Scotty tells Kirk that they've gone to warp 9 and there's not a damn thing he can do about it. We're about 13 minutes in, and they've already Disabled the Ship. Even more than that, Uhura lets Kirk know that emergency bulkheads on lower decks have closed, trapping about 400 guys.

Kirk is convinced that Kang is responsible, so he goes to accuse him.

"Dipshit," laughs Kang. "How were we supposed to commit this sabotage locked in your rec room?"

"Dunno," says Kirk. "But I'm gonna have my guys check other decks to see if extra Klingons beamed on board." 

Brilliant, Kirk. The Klingons maimed their own people, damaged their own ship, got a small number of themselves beamed aboard, and were also able to figure out how your transporter works and beamed others onboard... remotely. Sounds legit. 

Then he says he "owes" Kang, and he decks him. Kang stumbles backward, and when he puts his hand on a table to steady himself, there's a boi-oi-oing noise, and a board game turns into a broadsword. More boi-oi-oings occur, and potted plants and other objects turn into swords. The Klingons quickly arm themselves. Kirk and a Red whip out their phasers, but the same sound effect turns their guns into swords as well. Dramatic music! Commercial break!

Let's use the commercial break to chat, shall we? I want to talk about color. Specifically, I want to talk about people. Now, in Star Trek, the humans come in an array of colors, though it's usually pink-ish. Frequently, one is demarcated as an alien because one is a different color, most notably a marigold color, a bright bubble gum, and dusky blue, or a kelly green. Now, I understand that one may select a pink-ish actor because maybe it is easier to make a pink-ish person a dusky blue. I don't know a lot about stage make-up, so I can't be sure. But here's the thing: the Klingons are brown-ish people. Humans also come in brown-ish, yet pink-ish actors are frequently cast in Star Trek to play brown-ish people. Now, I would understand if no quality brown-ish actors existed, but we know that's not true. Plenty of quality brown-ish actors exist, and sometimes they are actually cast on Star Trek. "Hey, Lady Archon - maybe Gene Rod didn't want to always cast brown-ish people in the roles of Klingons because he didn't want brown-ish people to be seen as villains."

Yes reader, that is a possibility. However, as far as I can tell from research, no brown-ish people have played brown-ish Klingons in TOS. They were all pink-ish actors in brown make-up until we hit TNG, when they were portrayed by a wide variety of actors. TNG Klingons were often brown-ish, yet there were some exceptions. My favorite Klingons, the Duras sisters Lursa and B'etor, were both played by pink-ish actors. So why couldn't we have the same on TOS? A mixture of quality pink-ish and brown-ish actors, where less make-up is required? (Also, technically, Klingons were not the enemies of the Federation. There's usually some kind of uneasy truce in place, and Klingons are understood to think differently than Terrans.)    

tl;dr: why the fuck are we spending so much time and money painting pink-ish actors brown?

*hops off soapbox, goes back to story*

So we're hurtling through space, and everyone has a sword. Kirk and the three security Reds from the rec room are backed onto the lift, and two Reds take the wounded third to sick bay while Kirk returns to the bridge. He announces that the Klingons are loose on the ship, then he calls Scotty and gives him a freaking to-do list:

- get the ship slowed down and stopped;

- secure engineering and the surrounding areas;

- check the armory;

- cut through the bulkheads to free those trapped crew members;

- cure cancer;

- develop a plan for galaxy-wide peace;

- if the answer is 42, then what is the question?

- safely divide by zero;

- write the Great American novel.

"That'll take about three hours longer than you think it will," replies Scotty.

"Logic time," announces Spock. "The Klingons don't have the power to change matter from one thing to another. Also, wouldn't they have given themselves better weapons than this if they could do it? Also, why the hell would they bother giving us weapons?"

Kirk pauses, trying to think of an argument as to why it must still be the fault of the Klingons.

"Shut up, that's why," he answers.

Kirk sends Sulu down to engineering.

"I'm going too," says Chekov. When Kirk tells him to get back to navigation, Sulu brandishes his sword and barks that he has a vendetta to settle with the Klingons over his brother Piotr. He backs onto the lift and disappears.

"Who the hell is Piotr?" asks Sulu.

Kirk explains about Chekov's brother, killed by Klingons.

"Um, Chekov is an only child," Sulu replies before leaving for engineering.

Did you catch that? Kirk, who is captain and must know tiny bits of information about each of his crew members, relayed an explanation back to others about Chekov; but Sulu, who is probably the person that Chekov spends the most time with, would know better than most that Chekov is an only child. Golf clap to you, writer of this episode, for knowing how shit works on a ship.

Uhura asks Kirk why Chekov believes that he has a non-existent brother that he has to avenge.

"Dunno," says Kirk. He's still trying to figure out how the Klingons are doing this.

We see Chekov sneaking around the ship, sword in hand, being followed by that ball of light. Then we see Bones in sick bay, tending to wounded crewmen, and muttering vehemently to himself about how awful Klingons are.

Next, we switch over to Mara and Kang, who have snuck into some room with Enterprise specs on the monitors. They are pleased to see that with the crew members sealed off below decks, the numbers are evenly matched.

Now we flip back to Scotty, who isn't able to cut through the bulkheads to get at those crew members. He makes his way to the armory, where he finds that all of the weapons have been replaced by swords. He's excited to find a claymore, a large broadsword with a fancy-pants hand guard. He swaps out his sword for the fancy claymore, which effectively hides Jimmy Doohan's missing finger. The new sword also kind of speaks to Scotty's love of the flashy. Two birds with one stone. Good on ya, Star Trek.

Back on the bridge, Spock reports that they are equally matched for numbers with the Klingons, and that there actually appear to be more life-forms onboard the ship than there are crew members and Klingons.

"Maybe more Klingons have beamed aboard," says Kirk. "Also, have you seen my baseball bat? I'd like to beat a dead horse with it."

The ball of light makes its way down to engineering, as do the Klingons. They jump from the upper level onto the red shirts below, and sword fights break out. Sulu actually fucking karate chops someone in the corridor. But the Klingons have taken engineering.

Spock has figured out that the alien life-form is a ball of energy and is capable of controlling mind, matter, and the ship.

"It's taking us out of the galaxy," says Kirk. "We both got distress calls that turned out to be not true. The Klingon ship was damaged, and supposedly a colony was destroyed. Do you see a pattern here?"

YES, KIRK. EVERYBODY HAS SEEN THIS PATTERN BUT YOU. WELCOME TO THE FUCKING PARTY.

"Hey, wanna point out that this thing has probably been screwing with our minds," says Spock.

"Yeah, we should maybe kiss and make up with Kang," suggests Kirk.

Bones comes onto the bridge and overhears Kirk and Spock planning to form a truce with the Klingons. He starts yelling at them about how he has wounded dudes in sick bay that were put there by the Klingons. Uhura alerts him to the fact that there are more wounded coming into sick bay as he speaks. He stomps off the bridge.

"That was weird," remarks Kirk.

A call comes onto the bridge. "What up, bitches. It's Kang. I've taken engineering, so I control the ship. I turned off all the life support and power to everywhere but here. Sucks to be you. No, literally. You're gonna suffocate."

Kirk makes a captain's log on a tricorder and gives it to Uhura to upload to Starfleet, then he sends Sulu down to see if he can switch on auxiliary power. The lift doors open, and Scotty comes in with his claymore, ranting about how they should have left the Klingons in the transporter grid. He yells that Kirk has allowed them access to Federation technology, and that he fucked up all the shit in the process. Spock steps up to Scotty and tries to calm him, but Scotty turns on him and calls him a half-breed and a freak. Spock grabs Scotty.

"Keep your fulking hands off me!" yells Scotty.

No, that's what he said, seriously. The script said "Vulcan hands", and the writer convinced Jimmy to replace it with "fulking" in the hopes that the fake Scottish accent would hide the fact that Scotty kind of said "fucking." Heh. Sneaky.

Spock starts to put the beat down on Scotty, but Kirk stops him. Then they all stand and stare at each other.

"So that sucked," says Kirk.

Kirk hamlets for a minute, complete with crazy Lady Macbeth hand-washing motions. Then he yells that the alien life-form is staging a war for them, pre-packaged with weapons and race hatred.

The power comes back on, but Sulu comms them to say that he didn't do it. The power just came back on by itself.

Kang, down in engineering, is annoyed. Mara cannot fix the situation and switch life support back off. He tells her to cut off power at the main life support couplings, and she takes a flunky with her to deck six to do so.

Spock, with the power back on, is able to locate the light ball down in engineering. He and Kirk decide to go down to investigate. Kirk still has his sword. Maybe he plans to chop in the general direction of the ball of pure energy, or...?

But here comes Chekov down the hall. Don't know where he's been, just wandering around the ship with a sword, I guess. He encounters Mara and her flunky in the hall, and takes the flunky out by slapping him on the back with the flat side of the sword. This has never happened to me, so I can't be sure, but is it really possible to knock someone out by bitch-slapping them in the back with a sword?

Chekov grabs Mara. It gets... creepy. Her tells her that she's pretty for a Klingon, and he rips her shirt and covers her mouth to keep her from screaming. Kirk and Spock run into the corridor just then and catch Chekov creeping on Mara.

Kirk rips Chekov away. He starts to be the crap out of the ensign, but Spock reminds him that Chekov is not in his right mind. Chekov slumps down the wall.

And what do we see on the wall, kids? Brown Klingon paint schmeer. This is what happens when you paint a dozen pink-ish people brown.

Kirk goes to Mara, who has just been standing in the corridor this whole time.

"Take me to Kang!" he insists. "There's an alien on board that is forcing us to fight, and we need to call a truce!"

She just stares at him, so he hands her off to Spock and he picks up Chekov and carries him to sick bay.

In sick bay, Bones scans the unconscious Chekov and says his brainwaves show a paranoid mania. Then he says they have another weird problem: everybody in sick bay is making a miraculous recovery, very quickly, even those with fatal injuries.

"We're being kept alive for battle!" says Kirk, who is enraged. He goes on a rant about how they're in a coliseum and the alien is keeping them alive for slaughter.

"Sooo, feeling shitty about how I behaved earlier," says Bones. "Sorry."

"We're gonna go find the thing," Kirk announces. "We have to prove to Mara that the alien exists and is causing this so she'll take us to Kang."

Kirk, Spock and Mara go on an alien hunt in the corridors. They find it, and it glows red. Just then, Lt Johnson, a Red, creeps up behind Kirk and announces that he is reporting for duty.

"Weren't you in sick bay five minutes ago?" asks Kirk.

"Yeah, but now I'm fit and ready to kill Klingons, so I released myself," Johnson answers.

"Go back to sick bay," replies Kirk.

Johnson gets angry and starts a sword fight with Kirk, but Spock steps forward and drops him with a pinch.

"I was watching the alien," says Spock. "It was glowing red and gaining energy when Johnson was angry, but then when he lost consciousness, the light ball lost energy."

"It feeds off hostility," says Kirk. "It balanced our numbers, provided weapons, and forced us into feeling hatred for one another so that it can feed itself. And it has control of the ship so we have no way of changing the situation."

Mara hasn't said one freaking word since she left her husband in engineering. Now she's just staring at the back of Kirk's head while she listens to him and Spock talk about the situation. Sometimes we get close-ups of her face while she's listening. Crimony, did they pay this actor by the line or something? "Let's give her five lines at the beginning of the episode and five at the end, but we'll force her to hang out in that shitty over-baked-Kim-Kardasian-bronzer-plus-tan-booth make-up all day."

Kirk goes to one of the wall-mounted comm devices and calls Kang.

Mara rushes forward and yells to Kang that it's a trick. Kirk covers her mouth, but ultimately decides that she screwed the pooch. He turns the comm off. Scotty calls to tell Kirk that they have twelve minutes left before the engines blow. How convenient. There are twelve minutes left in this episode.

Kirk's Log, stardate... Armageddon. No, seriously. That dramatic asshole labels the stardate as Armageddon. "Flying through space, with an alien controlling the ship, and forcing us to fight bloody battles that we heal from instantly so we can fight some more."

Down to ten minutes now, and they're back on the bridge. 

"We have Kang's wife as our hostage, maybe he'll listen based on that," suggests Spock. 

Scotty backs up this idea, so Kirk keys the comm to engineering. "Hey, Kang. Got your wife. We talk truce or she dies."

"Fuck her," says Kang. "That's how it goes with war. She gets it."

Kirk flips off the comm. "Well, shit. He called my bluff."

Mara is shocked that he didn't kill her.

"Lady, this is the Federation," he says. "We don't kill hostages. Only space buffalo. And crazy sentient computers. And guys in red shirts."

"Okay, cool. I'll help you," says Mara. "I'll take you to Kang."

"We can't get through the Klingon defense," says Kirk. "Not in ten minutes. Hey, Spock, can you do intership beaming?"

"Yeah," says Spock. "But it could suck. I could beam you into a wall."

I would be okay with that. Spock, can you fix it so that we get some kind of carbonite effect?

Spock and Scotty agree to try it, and Kirk and Mara go down to the transporter room. Kirk deliberately leaves his sword on the transporter panel and sets it to beam them into the room with Kang, while Spock and Scotty reset the controls from the bridge.

Kirk and Mara beam into engineering. Kang is surprised to see Mara alive, but thinks she has brought him the gift of a dumbass  Kirk.

Mara attempts to tell Kang about the alien and the truce, but then Kang notices her ripped shirt and that she now seems to be playing for the wrong team, so he hands her off to a pair of his Klingon underlings. I have no idea where she got it, but Mara tosses Kirk a sword, and Kirk and Kang start a fight.

Sometimes you pause the episode to take a screencapture and find that
you've caught Kirk making the "We've got a bad ass over here" face.

Spock, Bones, and several armed Reds come running up the corridor and a skirmish breaks out between them and a bunch of Klingons. Kirk and Kang keep going until Kirk realizes that they are being bathed in the red light of the alien energy ball. He throws his sword away and yells at Kang that the alien is causing the hostility, and that it doesn't matter how much they hack each other to bits, because they will keep healing so they can fight again. Kang realizes that he is being played for a chump, and he throws down his sword as well. They get on the ship's PA and announce the truce. Fighting in the corridor stops. Spock says that the ceasing of hostilities has weakened the energy ball, and suggests that "good spirits" could do it in. Kirk starts by yelling at the alien to get off his ship. Then he makes fun of it. 

Kang joins in by saying that he doesn't need help to hate humans, which of course is just another way to say that he'll hate humans on his own terms, thanks. They all laugh at the alien, which turns white and pouty and floats away.

You know, I really feel like what they needed to add at the end was Kirk and Kang agreeing that they jumped to hate on each other too quickly, and admitting that that the alien selected them because they were more likely to go along with the fighting willingly, and that honoring the truce, even a shaky one, was in their best interests. Instead, we are given a shot of the energy ball as it moves away from the ship, then a shot of the ship as it moves through space. 

Close enough, I guess.

We need to talk about Mara separately, because oh, my God, what in gay hell? First, let's talk about her outfit. I don't mind the top, with its multiple patterns, or the fact that she's got some kind of yellow insignia pins (probably denoting ship) and purple insignia (probably denoting science officer). The pins are a cool addition. The belt is fine, and that gold X that separates one patterned fabric from another would maybe work more as just a V. I'm okay with the fact that it has bell sleeves. But.... it's a romper. A shorts romper. A shorts romper with sky-high thigh-high black leather boots. BARF. As far as costumes go, I'm filing her away with Lenore Karidian and Shahna.

Her hair, I hate almost as much as Rand's. I know Star Trek is fond of chignons, but this is ridiculous.

It's got a tiny curly ponytail, for fuck's sake!

Her eye make-up is an atrocity in winged black and white, and only exacerbates the awful quality of her brown-ish make-up. Every Klingon in this episode looks like they fell asleep inside the tanning booth, and someone in charge forgot to wake them up. Their eyes, in comparison, remind me of Ross Gellar's teeth-whitening experiment.

Death Toll:

Red deaths this episode: 0
Red deaths this season: 3
Gold deaths this episode: 0
Gold deaths this season: 0
Blue deaths this episode: 0
Blue deaths this season: 0
Total crew deaths this season: 3
Total crew deaths thus far: 45

Nobody died this week because the alien made them immortal or some crap. Still disappointed that they didn't opt to torture that red in the first scene, though. I mean, what good is it to have Reds if you're not going to use them?

This episode wasn't actually terrible. Some parts needed work, but the story was interesting, and not a clear rip-off of another episode. My biggest issue was with the alien make-up, which was distracting, but the other parts of this episode were enough to drag the whole thing into "okay" status.

*******

So I developed a canker sore in my mouth this week. You probably know these. Science has yet to figure out why we get them, but once you have one, it stings like hell anytime you eat something more acidic/spicy/salty than fucking bread. I went looking for some homeopathic remedies online (read: I don't want to buy something for this - what do I have at home that will fix this problem?). I finally located one that said that holding a wet bag of chamomile tea to the sore will "speed up the healing process" and "ease the pain." I searched through the cupboard, knowing that we wouldn't have a full box, but locating instead one lone packet in a Ziplock bag of random teas and snacks. Rather than just waste the bag, I brewed a cup. It kind of works. The sore feels better while you're actually drinking the tea, though it comes screaming back later. I guess my diet will consist of chamomile tea for the next week.

http://www.twiningsusa.com/templates/product.aspx?ProductGuid=F06338&GroupGuid=74

Also, there are apparently two spellings of the word chamomile. Both are correct. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chamomile

Camouflage!