Day of the Dove (unresolved ending)

Come on, this is the typical ending of a TOS episode. After sixty-two episodes, you're supposed to be more than familiar with that pattern.

I mean, I watched enough of CSI and House to know at which moment the mystery will be resolved, so I don't dislike seeing an episode with a different structure.

"This is fantasy!" - Nyota Uhura

 

There was no resolution between the Federation and the Klingons in this episode, while the two crews did very very briefly join forces to drive off the being who was manipulating them both, in the end nothing changed. It not like they suddenly became actual friends.

 

Several folks seem to think above t that the "real person" is the rapist-with-opportunity or
the bigot who surfaces under influence of *.

One of the BIG themes of TOS is our underlying barbarity that we suppress for higher purposes. But is also there lurking, so we need to be mindful. Kirk speaks to this several times in the series: "I won't kill today," etc.

Which is the "real me"? The lust and in-group v. out-group instincts I inherited because they passed on genes well? Or the controlled, cooperative person I choose to try to be, having been raised well and indoctrinated by a village that saw the merits of Spock's way as quoted above? "Enemy Within," which I show my psych classes, answers, "Both."

 

Thank you, T'Girl, for using the word that was the fulcrum of "Day of the Dove": manipulating.

The "*" alien did not place murderous violent intent in the minds of the characters by mind-control per se, but, like the Talosians, it used a combination of tricks (maybe some transmutation, maybe some illusion) to manipulate everyone into fighting.

I agree that the ending was loose, but not entirely open. We don't know what happened to the bulkheads, but we assume that the trapped Enterprise crew were freed quickly. (Even if the bulkhead metal didn't change back to normal, at least someone was able to pry the doors open.)

Kras, the Klingon agent in "Friday's Child" was not necessarily a starship officer; more of an intelligence agent. He was therefore easy to cast as sneaky and dishonorable. Kor, Koloth and Kang were clearly starship commanders, and therefore bound by the honorable "maritime rules". (See "The Enemy Below" from 1957, starring Kurt Jurgens and Robert Mitchum to see this illustrated clearly.)

When Kang and Mara finally realized the true threat was the "*" alien, they behaved in a maritime fashion, working with Kirk to save the ship. While the ending is a bit cheesy and left to the imagination, it made sense.

 

The TOS crew's race hatred isn't totally invented by the *, just amplified. This is made evident in TUC. (Also somewhat in TVH with, e.g., McCoy's grumbling that the Klingon ship smells like Klingons.)

 

Ooof, I thought Kras looked awful.

Seriously looked like a regular dude.

Totally miscast. Amplified wen he would grit his teeth. They should've stuck him in Spock's Brain.

 

You know, between Rejak and the *, Kirk has got to spend some time wondering why he never gets assigned to a planet being haunted by one of those energy-beings that feeds on love. Of course, you couldn't get that past Broadcast Standards, I suppose …

 

Good point. Not as good for "action-adventure" '60s TV as a hate-sucker. Better for TAS or novel. "Metamorphosis" maybe?

 

Comparing Kras with Krel or the one in Elaan of Troyius is almost like comparing Lieutenant Kyle and Lieutenant Hadley. Kras had a full episode and the two others had two minutes on screen.

 

Sounds like it was part of the script which was cut for running-time. Does anyone know for sure?

 

Maybe we could set Kirk up with the energy being who lived in Nana Howard's candle.

 

I actually found that quite amusing.

 

Blish, I've noticed, was very much a 'stick to the script' kind of novelizer. In the rare occasions when he did add something of his own, it was to clarify character motivation or pave over a plot hole. Except for the (obvious) cases when he was working from an earlier pre-shooting version of the script, my general gut feeling is if it's in his story and not in the episode itself, it's a deleted scene.

 

Absolutely awful.
If there'd been time for what? Never mind.

Thank goodness we never saw Kirk's thoughts, ever.

 

In my personal canon I consider this stardate-less episode to be the conclusion of TOS because it has an optimistic outlook for Klingon-Federation relations.

After they had driven * out, their first job was to stop the engines from draining the dilithium crystals to the point of no return and no power. There was nothing to gain for the Klingons by taking over a ship not capable to return to their empire.

However, I can't help wondering how many crew members were wounded (or worse) in the final brawl just outside the engine room. With * gone, any injuries had to be treated in a traditional manner.

Bob

 

Not to mention Chekov's "guess who's coming to dinner?" in The Undiscovered Country. His racism against Klingons is permanent.

 

As is our general underlying us-better-than-them heirarchical thinking tendency witnessed in Iraq, Syria, and Ukraine lately. Former neighbors who for whatever reason lived in relative peace revert to tribalism and barbarity. Maybe the fragility of our veneer of cooperation and peace is THE big theme of Star Trek. (That and "Get my ship out of danger"!)