Production Order Group Viewing 2018

Day of the Dove

Good one! Who says Season 3 doesn't have good episodes?

Lucky the swirly thing didn't decide to disable the Enterprise instead of the Klingon ship. Was there something about the Enterprise that made it a better stage for the endless war? More room perhaps?

KANG: "You are now prisoners of the Klingon Empire against which you have committed a wanton act of war! " As a kid, I had no idea what "wanton" meant, but it sounded badass.

KANG: "For three years, the Federation and the Klingon Empire have been at peace. A treaty we have honored to the letter." The Organian Treaty I presume?

Wow, the Klingons have an agonizer. Poor Chekov, he always gets agonized. I think it's because Koenig screams so well.

The Klingons beamed up with weapons. Lucky there wasn't a firefight in the transporter room when they materialized.

Random Klingon Guy: "Four thousand throats may be cut in one night by a running man." That is GREAT. These Klingons have awesome sayings.

The ship travels at Warp 9 the whole episode but apparently never actually leaves the galaxy. Well, it is a big galaxy depending on where they started.

It's a good thing Starfleet Academy requires passing such rigorous swordfighting classes. Johnson got a C.

It's interesting the swirly thing altered the constitution of the bulkheads to make them completely resistant to phaser torches. Spock does tell us that the swirly thing can alter matter and energy.

How do the Klingons access the Enterprise's computers to see the ship's layout so easily? My cell phone has better security. Starfleet security sucks.

McCoy's being a dick. Okay, he has a reason this week. And it was a nice apology.

McCoy: "How many more men must die before you two begin to act like military men instead of fools?" Did anyone ever actually die?

That Spock-Scotty confrontation was well-acted and chilling and sad. No, don't fight you guys! I love you both!

Shatner showing off his manly strength by carrying Koenig bridal style. Clearly, Shatner's been working out, although Chekov did helpfully stand up for him despite being unconscious.

How does Mara tell Kang it's a trick when she's seen the swirly thing herself?

Oh, now we have 12 minutes until the dilithium crystals burn out, so we have that long to resolve this issue. I know they impose such deadlines in episodes to build the edge-of-your-seat drama. Oh no! How will they ever solve this in 12 minutes????? And it works, but it can also seem unrealistic. Really? They were able to get to Kang and convince him to stop fighting in 12 minutes?

And much of that 12 minutes was used up by the end of the episode. How much dilithium was left at that point? I assume they made it back to Federation space, but lack of dilithium was a real problem in Mudd's Women.

What if the dilithium did run out? They'd have to call Starfleet and wait a long time for help to arrive with some ill-tempered Klingons on board.

I see McCoy's learned to swordfight since Bread and Circuses. See, he didn't attend Starfleet Academy and so hadn't had the rigorous swordfighting classes there by Bread and Circuses. Nice to see he took the initiative to bone up in the meantime. Never know when you're going to have to swordfight in deep space.

Kang: "Only a fool fights in a burning house." AWESOME Klingon sayings this episode. Something about these sayings plus the general look and actions of the Klingons is giving me an Arabic feel. I believe the Klingon saying we get in WoK, "revenge is a dish best served cold", is of Arabic origin. Klingons are Arabs.

It's not often the badguy is defeated by laughing at it. A classic Star Trek ending. Defeating the badguy without having to kill it.

Kang is a great character. Who would win a battle, Kang or Kor? It's pretty obvious Kang would stomp Koloth into paste.

Hmm, interesting premise. A malicious swirly ball of orange flying around stirring up hate for its own purposes. That seems so familiar. I know! Maybe it's because in real life we have a malicious swirly ball of orange flying around stirring up hate. I will leave this malicious swirly ball of orange unnamed here.

We get such anti-racism and anti-war sentiments this episode. In the 60's with all the war and racial hatred going on, it must have seemed like an evil entity was going around stirring up hate. How little things have changed in 50 years unfortunately. Spock stops McCoy from interfering in Kirk's and Kang's duel. "Those who hate and fight must stop themselves, Doctor. Otherwise, it is not stopped. " Interesting.

Maybe we should administer laughing gas to everyone in the country.

Hey! McCoy could have given everyone the same shot he gave in Wold in the Fold. The swirly thing wouldn't have stuck around with everyone acting so groovy. That's TWO entities that can be thwarted by that shot. Suppose this swirly thing and Redjac are related? One feeding on fear, one feeding on hate?

Good episode!

Alien Watch! We've seen Klingons before, but there's a new swirly thing in town.

Season 1
Talosians
That big ugly Rigellian guy Pike fought in illusion
Vina as an Orion girl in illusion
Glimpse of other aliens captured by Talosians
Ron Howard's brother
That dog from Enemy Within
Salt monster
That hand plant...Gertrude
Spock (duh)
Charlie's parents (Thasians)*
Romulans!
(Ruk)
Miri's planet kids (bonk bonk)
Giant ape creatures of Taurus II
Shore Leave Caretaker guy
Trelaine and his folks*
Gorn
Metrons*
The Lazerii
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Beta 3. (RotA)
The remarkably human-looking aliens of Emineminar VII (AToA)
The Triffids of Omicron Ceti III (TSoP)
The refreshingly non-human-looking Horta
Organians*
Klingons! (Remarkably human looking).
(The Guardian of Forever)
Flying pancakes

Season 2
Sylvia and Korob
The Companion
The remarkably human looking (though tall) Cappellans.
Native Pollux IV-ians (Apollo and his gang)
Full-blooded Vulcans
The remarkably human looking citizens of Argelius II (WitF)
Redjac
The People of Vaal (Gamma Triangulians)
Crew of the ISS Enterprise
The remarkably human-looking** (except for maybe a dot on their forehead) Halkans
Tribbles (not at all human looking)
The remarkably human-looking citizens of...892-VI. Is that what they call this planet? (The Roman one.)
Tall guys, short guys, Andorians, Tellurites, purple lady, Orion made up like an Andorian. (JtB)
The remarkably human-looking people of Neural. (APLW)
The awesome Mugato!
Shahna, Lars, Tamoon, Kloog, Thrallmaster Galt, and the Providers
The Cloud from the Tycho system.
The BIG FREAKIN' AMEBA!!!!!
The remarkably human-looking Iotians. (Gangsters)
Kelvans! Who really look like big, cool squids but choose to look remarkably human.
Sargon and the gang of not-quite-omnipotent aliens.
Remarkably human looking Zeons of Zeon and Ekosians of Ekos. (PoF)
The remarkably human looking Yangs and Coms of Omega IV.
Isis! Who looks remarkably like a cat until she wants to look remarkably human.

Season 3
The decidedly non-human looking Melkotians.
The remarkably human-looking Elasians and not so human looking Troyians.
Lawyer in a muumuu. Remarkably human-looking but maybe that was on purpose.
The remarkably human-looking Morgs and Eymorgs of Sigma Draconis.
Kollos the Medusan
Gem the Empath (remarkably human looking)
Vians (the OTHER bumpy-headed aliens)
Tholians!
The remarkably human-looking Fabrini of Yo Mama.
The malicious swirly ball of hate (DotD)

*Alien Watch sublist: omnipotent aliens!
**By request

 

DAY OF THE DOVE

Yet another (mostly) bottle show that tells a very good tale! Season Three is getting very good at telling these high concept, budget constrained stories (and coming up with ways to dispose of most of the crew).

In many ways this episode is a bookend to the first Klingon episode Errand Of Mercy and can be seen as a culmination of the various Klingon stories in the original series. When these two forces met in EOM they were ready to go to war just for the very act of daring to exist! In this final outing, both sides learn more about each other, their respective motivations and cultures and ultimately join together of their own volition to drive off a common enemy.
The messages also build on one another – in EOT it is established that war is neither a right nor a necessity. In DOTD we see that the desire to avoid conflict must come in good faith and from all parties involved with Lt Johnson representing the solider who gleefully follows orders without thinking.
A final message is that in war neither participant really wins (unless that be a diabolical third party, such as a hate fuelled energy being, or maybe even arms dealers in the real world?)

Other thoughts:

• This is a tight and well paced story. Exciting music, then right into the action and just a hint of a larger mystery
• Nice to see the Klingons again – and their splendid ship. Hard to believe that this is the one and only season it appears in (and that this is its final appearance)
• Kang talk about “3 years of peace” between his people and the Feds. Time is zipping by, it feels like barely 2 have passed since EOM. At this rate the the five year mission will be over before we know it!
• I hadn’t realised how much time Chekov spends screaming in the original series – but it’s a lot!
• Kang and Mara are both excellent characters, well written and performed.
• McCoy blowharding on the bridge isn’t all that different to how he was behaving in The Tholian Web
• Uhura gets a nice little scene but Chapel is nowhere to be seen! Did they tag out?
• Chekov tries to full on rape Mara! Just as with The Enemy Within, TOS doesn’t shy away from the brutality that lurks at the heart of the human condition.
• Kirk beams into engineering to negotiate with Kang in good faith – which is undermined mere moments later when his fellow officers arrive and start fighting with the Klingons! Did Spock not understand what his captain’s plan was? I though the idea was to AVOID further conflict!
• Kang’s final backslap to Kirk (and his reaction) is a subtle but brilliant moment.

NEW TECH
The Klingon transporter beam – a very colourful affair!

THE LOWER DECKS
I’ve had many discussions on this board about how this episode depicts the layout of the ship, the various decks and where on earth the “lower decks” are that trap 91% of the crew yet still allow Kirk and co full access to all the standing sets ;-)
However, I won’t attempt to derail this thread with such talk

THE ALIEN ENTITY
The pinwheel alien is depicted as various sizes and in a multitude of different places and during this rewatch the thought occurred to be that it might be able to divide itself up into smaller components, to better affect the minds of its victims and harvest all that juicy anger. It is evident from the final scene in the Engine Room that it can’t do all that stuff remotely (otherwise it would never have revealed itself to Kang & Kirk), so what better way to absorb as much nutrition as possible?

It also explains some otherwise curious dialogue from Spock:

A “considerable discrepancy” is more than just one. And yet a few minutes later:

And later still

So; one entity, just spread around a lot for maximum effect. One of the smaller segments is seen on the Bridge descending from the ceiling early in the episode (and it really is small!) which is also mere seconds before the engines go out of control (further indicating it can be in 2 places at once)
Spock is eventually able to isolate one of its larger clusters from the background noise of the rest of its essence. At the end of the episode it reforms itself and leaves the ship (which explains its large size in the original FX)
IMHO, of course...

All in all, an excellent outing of Star Trek. I think the only thing that could have made it better would have been if Kirk got his shirt sliced during the final sword fight

 

Nope.
https://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/revenge-is-a-dish-best-served-cold.html

 

Perhaps a colony creature or a fully integrated hive mind?

 

Entirely possible, yes. Perhaps not dissimilar to the entity in Lights Of Zetar (if I could break the rewatch timeline for a moment)

A portion of the entity in DOTD would certainly need to be devoted to stop the ship flying apart at Warp 9

 

During the complete first season prior to Errand of Mercy, we didn't even know the Klingons existed. I presume that Kang is including this period of no conflict in his "3 years of peace". Airdate and Episode Number put the peace prior to the first episode (not including WMNHGB).

I think stardate shines more light on the issue: Stardate is not given, but if you shoe horn the episode between the other episodes for that season, we would put it in the 5600-5700 stardate period (YMMV). Three years is about 3000 stardates, so some sort of conflict occurred before stardates 2600-2700 plus or minus. This puts it before What are Little Girls Made Of?. Please note that there was a rather large stardate gap between The Squire of Gothos (stardate 2124.5) and What are Little Girls Made Of? (stardate 2712.4). Did we miss a flare up with the Klingons that lasted six months during Season 1? It would account for the strained situation on Organia. Also gives credence to Kang's 3 year statement.

 

Well, are we to assume these episodes happen in real time? Like every week something cool happens? And that every episode takes place in a short time? Kirk was Kirok for at least 58 days. They were on Triskelion for a few days, spent 24 hours finding Spock's Brain... Going from planet to planet, spending days on a few of them (like that week they hung around Miri's planet), why couldn't it be at least 3 years since Errand of Mercy? Airdate, production, stardate or just factoring in travel time, it's more than possible.

 

Off topic: Has there been any novels written about this stardate period (circa stardates 2150 through 2650) and the six month Klingon Conflict?

 

https://shmaltzandmenudo.wordpress.com/2016/09/11/famous-sayings-27-revenge-is-a-dish/

"The English proverb, ‘Revenge is a dish best served cold,’ is a direct translation of a Pashto one that was imported into British phraseology in the nineteenth century."

 

Day of the Dove is quite a fun episode. It's nice to see the Klingons as full on antagonists again. It's a shame Mara isn't more of a TNG Klingon; she would have handed Chekov his ass. It's also interesting that Sulu, the sociable guy, knows Chekov while the others have no clue about his family life.

I think this is another episode that, with TNG style storytelling, that could have been great as a two-parter, expanding on the Klingons and making the corruption more subtle.

 

There is a page that states that Day of The Dove has an unofficial stardate of 5630.3!
JB

 

At the end when they agree to a cease-fire, they cut to Mara (Susan Howard) smiling - it's just a fraction of a second - and it's the most wonderful smile from a female character in the whole series. In my opinion.

 

No, "unofficial they" are wrong.

Stardate 5630.3 clashes with Is There In Truth No Beauty? Stardate 5630.7. There are fairly large stardate gaps on both sides of this episode, so, why cram it?

Stardates
2124.5 The Squire of Gothos (arrives at Colony Beta Six after 8 days of travel, "What trouble with the Klingons?")
~2150 - ~2650 Six month gap for Possible Klingon Conflicts (ends ~3 years or ~3000 prior to DOTD)
~2712.4 What Are Little Girls Made Of? (back to normal)

5476.3 For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky
~5600 Day of the Dove (Option 1 - shorter period of conflicts)
5630.7 Is There In Truth No Beauty?
~5660 Day of the Dove (Option 2 - longer period of conflicts)
5693.2 The Tholian Web

To fit with a six month stardate gap ending around mid-to-late 2600 is ideal for the end of a small Klingon Conflict; add Kang's comment on ~3 years or ~3000 stardates gives Stardate 5660 as a much better choice for DOTD. YMMV.

 

As was once well known, Gene Roddenberry (interviewed by Stephen Whitfield in The Making of Star Trek, which I've owned since 1969) said this about star dates and why they don't necessarily progress in sequence from one episode to the next:

In the beginning, I invented the term "star date" simply to keep from tying ourselves down to 2265 A.D., or should it be 2312 A.D.? I wanted us well into the future but without arguing approximately which century this or that would have been invented or superseded. When we began making episodes, we would use a star date such as 2317 one week, and then a week later when we made the next episode we would move the star date up to 2942, and so on. Unfortunately, however, the episodes are not aired in the same order in which we filmed them. So we began to get complaints from the viewers, asking, "How come one week the star date is 2891, the next week it's 2337, and then the week after it's 3414?"

In answering these questions, I came up with the statement that "this time system adjusts for shifts in relative time which occur due to the vessel's speed and space warp capability. It has little relationship to Earth's time as we know it. One hour aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise at different times may equal as little as three Earth hours. The star dates specified in the log entry must be computed against the speed of the vessel, the space warp, and its position within our galaxy, in order to give a meaningful reading." Therefore star date would be one thing at one point in the galaxy and something else again at another point in the galaxy.

I'm not quite sure what I meant by that explanation, but a lot of people have indicated it makes sense. If so, I've been lucky again, and I'd just as soon forget the whole thing before I'm asked any further questions about it.​

 

Gene's BS'ing us in order to make airdates sequential to simple minded fans. Sad.

 

Star dates make more sense if we assume Kirk is not mentioning the first few digits, because they haven't changed. We can say "the 19th" without mentioning the month and year, and everybody gets it.

The computer taking dictation is already putting an automatic timestamp on the file, including the year and down to the minute, so his saying anything about the date is just a formality anyway.

 

For me, when I saw it as a kid, I didn't understand what Chekov was screaming about when he shouted "Cossacks!" at the Klingons. I eventually found out the dictionary meaning of Cossack. But I still don't get it, in the context of the scene. Is the term Cossack suppose to have a different connotation? I wonder if the term might be a pejorative in Russian.

Chekov had a quite a bit of screen time in this episode. We even learned that Chekov has an imaginary brother Piotre.

I suppose when they were sitting side by side for all those years, it was only natural that they would become familiar with one another. In Generations, Chekov was fully aware and up to date about Sulu's daughter Demora.

It was quite a dramatic moment and it was unsettling. I think it was a turning point in the episode where Kirk realized that something was seriously out of kilter.

If it wasn't such a serious scene, I might have thought it was somewhat amusing that Scotty called Spock a "freak".

Strangely, Kirk displayed tenderness towards Chekov. I got the impression that Kirk might have had a soft spot for Chekov.

 

In the context of TOS the character of Chekov is like a "Kirk in training" in many respects. So Kirk's reaction is not unreasonable ... any more than Shatner seizing the opportunity to show off his muscles!

 

Even Kirk and Spock were not immune to the powers of the entity from Beta XII-A!
JB

 

I question Kirk's judgement here. Kirk made Captain at about 32-33 years old. Chekov was never a Captain even after all the movies, and he was what, about 50. Obviously, not Captain material.