A Private Little War (TOS)

[J!!]

Opinionated Star Trek Episode Guide deals with Klingons, the Cold War, and a terrifying monster silly even by Lost in Space standards.


finally a legitimate medical excuse to slap the shit out of spock, and poor bones is nowhere to be seen.


the interesting thing though, is that In The Heat Of The Night premiered exactly six months before this episode aired, featuring this controversial scene:


youtu.be/aixV4KmAsb4

so a movie comes out in which a white racist asshole slaps a black detective unprovoked, and audiences got angry that said detective responded in kind. half a year later star trek airs an episode featuring a black doctor slapping the everliving shit out of one of the white leads for his own good. i can't help but think the two things might be somehow related.

[Maximara]

There is a hint that the Prime Directive is very young in this episode as Kirk states his planetary survey caused him to recomments not the interfere with the world's development. If the Prime Directive had existed back then they Kirk woldn't have had to make such a recommendation.

[CrypticMirror]

This is the one that TNG did a sort of sequel with in Season One's Too Short a Season, showing that arming both sides in a tribal to keep up the balance of power just caused an even bloodier conflict. Being season one TNG though, it was shit. They created a new planet and a new character to have done it and then, instead of examining the actual issue, they jammed in a fountain of youth plot, an insane admiral plot, and did none of them very well at all.

[J!!]

what, would you rather have them do something interesting, like show long-term consequences for kirk's actions?

no no no, much better to do a sequel to the episode where everybody gets drunk

[CrypticMirror]

Ugh, don't remind me. I'll say this for Too Short A Season, for all its faults at least it didn't have a Wesley saves the ship plot too.

[Dindu]

I did a rewrite of TSAS. I rather strongly suspect it was intended to be Kirk, until they realised Shatner wouldn't..

A: Be affordable.
B: Warm to being in ancient make-up (hence the fountain of youth change).
C: Not have some fisticuffs.
D: Die.

And since Mike Witney (Tyree) had gone and got himself deceased a lot of the nostaglia stuff wouldn't have worked anyway, but as they were tremendously short of episodes rewriting this to what it became was a much better option than dropping it in the bin.

In my headspace rewrite all I really did was change some wonky dialogue and swap the potion for a transporter gizmo, because, as written, it's actually pretty good.
It's an anus grinding thing to watch, but it's nothing like as badly written as most S1 episodes. IMHO.

The thing I liked about APLW is it does present a situation where the best available option is shitty; do nothing and walk away from genocide. Do something and walk away from total war. No win situations like that are why ST became the cultural milestone it was.

[Maximara]

This is the one that TNG did a sort of sequel with in Season One's Too Short a Season, showing that arming both sides in a tribal to keep up the balance of power just caused an even bloodier conflict. Being season one TNG though, it was shit. They created a new planet and a new character to have done it and then, instead of examining the actual issue, they jammed in a fountain of youth plot, an insane admiral plot, and did none of them very well at all.

I wouldn't call Too "Short a Season" any kind of sequel to "A Private Little War". Yes, they had similar elements but there were several critical differences.

[Durandal_1707]

This is the one that TNG did a sort of sequel with in Season One's Too Short a Season, showing that arming both sides in a tribal to keep up the balance of power just caused an even bloodier conflict. Being season one TNG though, it was shit. They created a new planet and a new character to have done it and then, instead of examining the actual issue, they jammed in a fountain of youth plot, an insane admiral plot, and did none of them very well at all.

I wouldn't call Too "Short a Season" any kind of sequel to "A Private Little War". Yes, they had similar elements but there were several critical differences.

If nothing else, its name was a lie. That season was looooooooong.

[StrangeDevice]

[url=http://sfdebris.com/videos/startrek/s045.php]so a movie comes out in which a white racist asshole slaps a black detective unprovoked, and audiences got angry that said detective responded in kind. half a year later star trek airs an episode featuring a black doctor slapping the everliving shit out of one of the white leads for his own good. i can't help but think the two things might be somehow related.

It's interesting how Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? was released only a couple months prior. There's a very interesting juxtaposition between how differing aspects of society -- high society and the working class -- are handling the equal rights movement that's gaining momentum at the time. I suspect that it's a little bit of contemporary commentary bleeding over amongst everything else the episode is trying to remark upon at the time. Tellingly, Scotty stops Chapel from striking Spock, but not him.

what, would you rather have them do something interesting, like show long-term consequences for kirk's actions?

no no no, much better to do a sequel to the episode where everybody gets drunk

Could've been worse... They could've attempted a sequel to "Patterns of Force". There's a terrifying image. Although, if they had decided to go down that route, I'd like to have seen the ultimate fate of the cloud-city on Stratos from "The Cloud Minders". Probably not with the writing mettle of Season 1 TNG, but it would have been interesting nonetheless.

[Durandal_1707]

no no no, much better to do a sequel to the episode where everybody gets drunk

Could've been worse... They could've attempted a sequel to "Patterns of Force". There's a terrifying image. Although, if they had decided to go down that route, I'd like to have seen the ultimate fate of the cloud-city on Stratos from "The Cloud Minders". Probably not with the writing mettle of Season 1 TNG, but it would have been interesting nonetheless.

Clearly, what we needed to see was the return of the Friendly Angel.

Hail, hail, fire and snow...