I struggle when reviewing TOS episodes. TOS is not "my" Trek, as it came way before my time. Don't get me wrong, I love TOS and especially the original characters. But I find it difficult to call any episode of the original series fantastic when there are always such huge problems. Even though I know that these problems are mostly just a product of the era, I can't just ignore or even forgive them. In "A Private Little War" we have the glaring problems of bad wardrobes, horrible wigs, a goofy monster for no reason, and the fact that the only female in the show is a manipulative witch doctor that uses men and has no loyalties. These cannot be forgiven. Yet, there are merits to this episode as well.
Kirk returns to a primitive planet where he studied some years ago. The crew is supposed to be rounding up some medicinal roots or something, but about two seconds after beaming down Spock is shot dead. It's a striking scene, and the stunt double sells the fall very well. They beam back up, and of course Spock can be saved thanks to a new doctor that specializes in Vulcan medicine. Nurse Chapel is particularly distraught over the injured Spock, and is tasked with slapping him back to consciousness in an unusual scene that works to remind us that although Spock may just look like a guy with pointy ears, he is actual quite ALIEN.
Meanwhile Kirk and McCoy beam back down, and exactly two seconds later Kirk is attacked by a guy in a puffy white gorilla suit with spikes. He is bitten, and is in bad shape due to the poison that the creature apparently emits. This thing is dumb and goofy looking, and giant creatures don't have poisonous bites, they just eat you. Anyway this necessitates that Kirk's old friend's girlfriend do some silly witch doctor ritual on Kirk. She ends up figuring out that Kirk and McCoy are not from around here, and possess powerful weapons, which she steals after seducing Kirk, and tries to ....sell (?) to the Hill People's enemies. It's all dumb, and she ends up dead over it.
Now that we've gotten the idiotic stuff out of the way, we can talk about the meat of the episode, which is that the Klingons are interfering with the two factions on the planet by supplying firearms to the Hill People's (the ones with blonde wigs) enemies (the ones with brown wigs) and teaching them how to make more. Kirk obtains one of these flintlock guns and gives it to his friend, who struggles with whether or not he should even be using it. Kirk interprets the Prime Directive to mean that giving the Hill People guns is the right thing to do because it evens out the wrong that the Klingons have already done to the balance of power on the planet. McCoy disagrees, but Kirk orders 100 guns to be replicated and sent down anyway. He draws a direct parallel to the Vietnam war, with the Klingons as Big Communism and the Federation as America, both supplying local fighters with weapons in which to kill each other. This must have been bold back when this was first aired in 1968. What's odd to me is that even though Kirk points out that we were making a mistake back then, he goes ahead and makes the same mistake on this planet.
Putting all this together, I think that "A Private Little War" is an important episode of Trek, but only Adequate when it comes to an hour of television. The episode would be much more powerful if the witch doctor character didn't exist at all. She does nothing to further the storyline of the Klingon's meddling, and clearly is only there to sex things up for Kirk and demonstrate how women are sluts and ruin everything. The goofy monster is a large distraction as well. I know we're in space and on an alien planet so we get to explore new and strange things, but really a snake would have done the job just fine here. If there was less of this fluff, and more of a deeper dive into the moral dilemma and how Kirk came to his conclusion to supply arms to the Hill People, it would be a much better episode.Published October 12, 2018
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