DAY OF THE DOVE

'''"Day of the Dove"''' is a third season episode of '', first broadcast November 1, 1968 and repeated June 17, 1969. It is episode #62, production #66, written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Marvin Chomsky.
'Overview:' An alien force drives the crew of the ''Enterprise'' into brutal conflict with the Klingons.

Contents

Plot

Notes

External links

Plot

On stardate 5630.3, the starship USS ''Enterprise'' receives a distress call from a human colony on Beta XII-A. The colony is apparently under attack by an unknown vessel. On arrival, the ''Enterprise'' finds no sign of an enemy ship. Captain Kirk beams down with a landing party to investigate the planet but they find no evidence of a human settlement ever having been there.
Back in space, the ''Enterprise'' goes on alert as a Klingon vessel suddenly pulls into orbit with them. However, as the crew watch, a series of strange explosions occur on the Klingon ship that leave it dead in space. The surviving crew of the Klingon ship, led by Commander Kang, beams down to the planet where they quickly capture Kirk's landing party.
Kang denies attacking any human colony but asserts that his ship was fired upon unprovoked by the ''Enterprise'', and he demands that Kirk surrender his ship. After a struggle, Kirk pretends to agree and surrender quietly, however, he manages to trigger a security alert to Mr. Spock on the bridge just before beaming up. When Kirk's team, along with their captors, returns to the ''Enterprise'', Kang and his crew are "held" in the transporter beam, rematerializing later and finding themselves surrounded by an armed security force. The Klingons surrender.
Unbeknownst to the crew, a strange swirl of energy manages to sneak on board the ''Enterprise'' undetected. The entity interfaces with the ship's main computer and suddenly, the ''Enterprise'' then jumps into warp at maximum speed on an uncontrolled heading to the edge of the galaxy. Fear and anxiety begin to rise as the ship races out of control. Emergency bulkheads begin to close throughout the ship isolating Kirk and some of his men with the Klingons.
At the same time, mysterious racks of bladed weapons appear throughout the ship and the crew's phasers disappear, replaced by swords and knives. Now armed with the primitive weapons, a savage melee breaks out between the Klingons and the ''Enterprise'' crew. Kirk manages to fight his way back to the bridge where Spock reports that he has detected an alien presence that seems to have taken over the ship. Spock begins to work on a way of getting rid of it.
Meanwhile, the Klingons have taken over engineering and begin to shut down life support to the rest of the ship. Oddly, their attempts are futile and life support is restored completely on its own. In fact, severely injured crew who fought during the skirmish find their wounds have rapidly healed, almost as if to keep both sides of the battle on a matched footing. Kirk and Spock surmise that the alien intruder is playing some kind of twisted wargame, but its motives are unknown.
Kirk wants his crew to stop fighting, but they find themselves uncontrollably driven to violence through fearful paranoia. Mr. Chekov even roams the ship seeking revenge for the murder of his nonexistent brother. When he finds the Klingon female Mara, who is Kang's wife and science officer, he threatens to rape and kill her. Mara is rescued by Kirk and Spock who manage to knock Chekov out.
Mara remains wary of Kirk's help. She tells him she has heard that Klingons that are captured are put into Federation concentration camps for later execution or experiments. Kirk tries to calm her down telling her there are no such camps, and that an alien force is behind what is going on. Mara still refuses to believe Kirk, however the alien entity finally makes an appearance just outside sickbay. The being lingers for a moment and then vanishes through a bulkhead. Spock believes the entity may be feeding off everyone's negative emotions, especially fear and anger. He suggests it may have faked the colony distress call and set up this battle between the crew and Klingons so that it has a convenient source of nourishment.
Having seen the alien herself, Mara is finally convinced and leads Kirk to her husband Kang, who remains holed up in engineering. Mara tries to explain what is going on to her husband, but he doesn't believe it and demands a final duel to the death with Kirk. The two ship captains begin their swordfight and soon the entity appears to feed off their anger.
Despite the presence of the being, Kang continues fighting. Kirk however struggles to ask Kang if he would like to spend the next thousand lifetimes satisfying the alien's twisted desires. Kang realizes the fight is pointless and agrees to a truce. To combat the alien, the Klingons and ''Enterprise'' crew begin to show goodwill and positive emotion toward each other. This finally drives the weakened alien from the ship.

Notes

★ The Beta XII-A entity depicted in this episode later appears in Greg Cox's novels about the Q Continuum.

★ Susan Howard's appearance as Mara was the first time a female Klingon was seen on the original series. There was another one among those rescued from Kang's ship, but she did not have a speaking part. Howard herself would later go on to play Donna Culver on ''Dallas''.

★ Originally, the Klingon captain was to have been Kor from "Errand of Mercy". When John Colicos was unable to fit the show into his schedule, the episode was rewritten. Both he and Michael Ansara would later reprise their roles on ''.

★ The use of "intra-ship beaming", here depicted as extremely risky, would become much more common (and presumably safer) in '' and later series.

★ Kang tells Kirk that the Klingons have no devil; this is at odds with the ''Next Generation'' episode "Devil's Due", in which we see Fek'lhr, Guardian of the Underworld (to which the souls of dishonored Klingons are condemned). However, Fek'lhr may simply play a different role in Klingon beliefs. Worf also stated that ancient warriors killed all Klingon gods.

★ Three of the characters have swords to match their "ethnic" backgrounds:

★
★ Captain Kirk has a English Captain's cutlass.

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★ Lt. Com. Scott has a Scottish basket hilted claymore.

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★ Mr. Sulu has a Japanese katana.

★ This is one of many TOS episodes with a dystheistic theme, where a "divine" being with "supernatural" powers seeks to control and enslave living beings, but where Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise fight back to stop this from happening (e.g., "Who Mourns for Adonais?", "Return of the Archons", "The Squire of Gothos").

External links

★ ''Day of the Dove'' at StarTrek.com
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