Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

[ancient]

I love this episode. Great acting and dialogue. It's a 'ship' episode that never feels confined or slow. The countdown and hijack scenes are great drama. The theme may seem kind of blatent, but it is completely plausible. Even though it shouldn't be.

What really saves this episode is that there is no "bad guy" per se. Neither Loki nor Bele is an evil person, they are simply flawed and limited in their views. Imo, something only qualifies as "preachy" if it displays a totally boring one-dimensional, and uninformative view of the problem at hand.

It would've been "preachy" if Bele was a totally despicable bastard and Loki was an innocent little harmless angel being beaten on, and the crew was fawning over how good Loki was and what a meanie Bele was. THAT would've been preachy.

But the crew never takes a side, they're fairly passive. Neither Loki nor Bele has a break out "hero" or "bad-guy" moment. Bele is clearly stubborn, but not insane, which I would probably be after a chase that long. He commandeers the ship, but doesn't kill anyone, and backs down to Kirk rather than dying and taking Loki AND the Enterprise with him. (He seems willing to die and take Loki with him, but unwilling to take out the Enterprise crew, which is pretty much your hard-boiled "cop" character)

In the end they are BOTH tragic figures, both left with nothing but eachother - the one thing they wanted destroyed.

 

[M'Sharak]

Agreed. That was the perfect moment of an otherwise preachy episode.

On the scene where Bele explains the difference between him and Loki, it's always amazed me that Spock didn't notice it immediately. After all, he's the science officer and supposed to be pretty bright. Maybe he was just having an off day.

Spock would have noticed the difference earlier if he'd been able to see the star on Bele's belly.

It's reassuring to know I'm not the only one who thought of that.