How do you feel about this episode?

Dr McCoy missed his chance to slap the hell out of Spock. I know he's been wanting to do that for a long time!🤣

You were right, there was not resolution, nor is there in principle. This was a story about a proxy war. They're not good. They're tragic. The debate between Kirk and McCoy was the centerpiece of this screenplay. It posed the questions. It was hoped that it would provoke the viewers to think about the problem. Yes, the Klingon's were in violation. They were betting on The Federation being reluctant to respond for fear of open war (on a much larger scale than this tiny planet). That's how proxy wars work. Do we stand by? Do we intervene and risk escalation? What are *our* interests? If we do nothing, will we encourage bolder violations? And any time "balance of power" is mentioned, these are some of the dynamics we're dealing with. Nona was on neither side; she was on Nona's side. She was not loyal, she wanted to dominate. Political ambition is depicted here as dark magic.

This was Roddenberry’s way of seriously documenting current events using Sci Fi. Absolutely NO ONE else on TV was doing this at the time. This episode, unfortunately, represented exactly what was going on at the time. It was not a simple solution. The bush wars Kirk spoke of was Viet Nam. If you had mixed feelings, that is a good thing. The Beauty of Star Trek, it makes you think.

This episode aired in the heart of the darkest days of the Vietnam war. The us was at a point at which it felt it couldn’t win, no way to end it but also didn’t feel like we could just leave. The episode ends in that dark manner with no clear solution because that was what the American audience was facing in reality.

"I feel bad about that. I feel dirty." You got the point. The episode is an allegory for the proxy wars between the US and the USSR, and it has no resolution because the point is that our proxy wars had no solution.

People mock this one for the weird gorilla thing, but this episode is chock full of drama, tension, jealousy, rage and a truly heartbreaking ending. This is what great science fiction looks like.

the reaSON George Takei (sulu) hasn't been in recent episodes, is because he's was doing The Green Berets with John Wayne.

The wife was an opportunist looking for the highest bidder. There are plenty of people like that in any war.

I had a close friend at an old job of mine, he's passed now, but he was a member of MACV-SOG in the early 1960s, just a few years before this episode aired. (To any Millennials who may be reading this, MACV-SOG stands for "Military Advisory Command Vietnam-Studies and Observations Group." But I digress...) Anyway, when his commanders were trying to persuade him to volunteer to go to Vietnam, they described it as "a private little war," like it was the military equivalent of a cozy cabin on a lake or something. More like a fun little camping or hunting trip than a military mission. He said, of course, it was anything but. Regardless, that's where the title of the episode comes from, as that expression was widely used at the time.

I was impressed by Booker Bradshaw, who played Dr. M'Benga. His performance was so smooth, he could have easily become a full-time member of the cast. The young Bradshaw quit working at his father's insurance company and went to Harvard (English, acting, three languages). He was a 3-time winner on the popular "The Original Amateur Hour". Graduated from Harvard in 1962 then got a full scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London. International manager for Motown Records. Managed the European tours of The Supremes and The Temptations. He acted in Star Trek, The Mod Squad, Bracken's World, and The F.B.I. TV series. He wrote material for TV shows such as Planet of the Apes, Get Christie Love! and Columbo. The man could do it all! 👍👍

TRIVIA! Stuntman and actor Janos Prohaska played the Mugato as well as the Horta in "Devil In The Dark". He also created the costumes for the creatures. He played many animals and monsters in TV shows such as "The Outer Limits", "Lost in Space" and "Gilligan's Island".

Rough episode Spock shot, Kirk bitten, poisoned, and drugged, McCoy shot. The boys were taking it on the chin

DeForest Kelley was from Georgia, and had a natural Southern accent, which he would exaggerate from time to time.

Don't EVER worry about the Enterprise when Scotty's in charge.

Bunny, note that Kirk cited "the twentieth century brush warS." He was referring to both the Korean War and the Vietnam War. (And what you learned about the Vietnam War largely applied to the Korean War as well.)

According to memory-alpha fandom site, the story writer Don Ingalls (a friend of Roddenberry since they met as fellow officers in the LAPD) original script contained many more overt Vietnam analogies than what finally appeared. Roddenberry rewrote the script to make the episode more subtle in it's direct Vietnam war similarities while still trying to convey the message. One of Star Trek's endearing legacies is it's ability to not be afraid to take on challenging stories that effect us all. Sometimes even challenging the censors of the time. Being science fiction helps the series camouflage plotlines that normally wouldn't make it on TV. Especially for the time.

Nancy Kovack was a hot presence in movies and TV.

Hi Bunny. I first saw this episode as a kid. The power of it hit me even then. Here we see how easy it is to corrupt the good. We see how power corrupts and how a single bad actor (The Klingon) can corrupt a whole group of people. We see those who are dedicated to peace can be driven to kill in Tyree, and how his wife (while correct in her frustration of how her people are getting murdered) was ultimately able to abandon her good man for the lure of a more powerful and "better" man. And finally, even our heroes cannot fix the corruption in the end. All they can do is help to mitigate it. Many powerful, and very real-world lessons, even for today.

"Serpents for the Garden of Eden", a superb summary of Kirk's dilemma........ No winners, only losers..... If you think of the leaders "wife" as a metaphor for casualties of war then the episode makes sense in the context of conflicts. It's always the innocents who suffer.

And, of course, always great to see another episode shot in my backyard, aka Vasquez Rocks, Agua Dulce, California. It never ceases to amaze me how they're always able to make it look like some far-off distant planet on the ass-end of the universe when they're never out of sight of the Antelope Valley Freeway...

You'll get a billion comments to this effect. This was commentary on 1960's political views to proxy wars during the Cold War in places like Vietnam. Both Side fought each other through proxies. This episode came down on the idea they were necessary pressure relief valves against a much more devastating direct war between super powers, US & the Soviet Union.

This episode is about proxy wars. Very similar to what happened in Vietnam and the middle east. Russia gave their side weapons, we gave similar weapons to our side. Hence, the cold war.

Episode was produced during the Vietnam conflict.

Your observations on Vietnam at the end were spot on. At the time this aired, the War had been ever-expanding for years with no end in sight. I didn't turn 18 until after that war was over, but my mom was terrified of me getting drafted and being sent overseas to die. (She lived through WWII as a little girl and saw a lot of that.) When this first aired, the anti-war protests were starting to get pretty big. The two big arguments were "Lose if we gave to, but bring the boys home so no more die" and "What are we doing there? If we are going to send our boys, just go in big and win this thing now!" Nobody liked the "keep it balanced and stalemated so nobody wins and nobody loses and it goes on forever." I feel this episode was an attempt to justify that strategy, and Nona's death was a warning that if you try to upset the balance, people will needlessly die. I always saw this as a "the US government knows what it is doing" propaganda or justification episode. I did not believe that message then, and am even more convinced now of the futility and waste of that war. Your confusion, frustration, sadness and anger perfectly reflects common emotions ftom nearly 60 years ago. So I guess the episode does serve that purpose well, even if that was not its original intent.

Ben Stiller is a massive Star Trek fan, Mugatu in Zoolander is named for the creature in this episode.

The "other guy slapping Spock" is Dr. M'Benga. If I recall, he was to have recently completed his medical residency on Vulcans, treating Vulcans and humans. Now on a tour aboard ship, he's gaining experience as a Starfleet doctor. Naturally, he is assigned to a ship with a Vulcan on it.

Thank you so much for your epilogue about the Vietnam war. I know you don’t want to get too political, but media is created in the context of it’s time, and much is Star Trek was about reflecting the world events of it’s time. You are handling this subject matter with respect, compassion and insight. So grateful for you!!

Interesting bit of trivia... Nancy Kovak (Nona), quit acting and is married in real life, to Zubin Mehta, the World Famous Conductor.

Definitely a powerful, and challenging episode. And surprisingly even-handed, since it's Kirk, our hero, who is essentially taking the "pro-war" position, while McCoy argues for peace. I suspect the reason they took Spock out of the action early on is so that he couldn't settle the debate with his flawless logic -- leaving it up to the viewer to decide whether Kirk was taking the right course of action.

The ending dialogue is the best part of the episode with McCoy and Spock banter.

‘Proxy Wars’ (which is what I think this episode is about) between the USA and Soviets and/or China during the Cold War cost many millions of lives world wide from Asia to Africa to South America in the 1960’s & 70’s.

This isn't one of my favorite episodes, but I appreciate that TOS is grittier than TNG, where poverty and racism and disease, etc, has been cured or fixed for the most part. This reflects the human condition better than that sanitized future that doesn't reflect reality.

2:21 That was McCoy for "If you would stop bothering me, I have a better chance of success."

“Tomorrow… in the palm of her hand.” That has always gotten to me even as a kid. The scene where Nona was almost raped and then killed was so disturbing and sad. Even though she was betraying the Hill People, she didn’t deserve that. She stole the phaser, but she had no idea how to use it.

Spock gets shot in the back in this episode and gets stung in the back by the flying omelettes in Operation-Annihilate.

Your end comments were very insightful; good on you for your curiosity. Great reaction Bunny!

7:30, Dr. M'Benga is a character on the Star Trek prequel show Strange New Worlds. He has quite an interesting background beyond just medicine. Won't say more.

The Klingons gave weapons to the North Vietnamese, so the Federation had to arm the South Vietnamese. The Organian Peace Treaty technically wasn't violated, because the Federation and the Klingons weren't fighting. The episode wasn't resolved because when the show was broadcast, we seemed mired in a war with no resolution.

I always saw this episode as your classic 20th-century commentary on the insanity of conflict: we know how to make it worse, but not how to make it better, and any progress only makes you feel worse. In 1967, the showrunners had no idea how to fix Vietnam, but they knew how it was going to get worse, but that was the only way in any direction that anybody could see. They weren't condoning it, they were merely illustrating it. The abrupt ending and lack of resolution prevents any maudlin or romantic comfort we might get from another episode.

Nothing ever beats McCoy's face at that hand slash! Lol!

What an interesting reaction. Bunny did not like the ending of the episode, without realizing that it was a metaphor for the ongoing war in Indochina. Which means the episode did exactly what it set out to do. The truthful episode is often not the beautiful episode.

LOVED that you came back to tell us about your updated thoughts. Thanks for being so invested in what you're doing.

When I was a little kid....60 now...this was the "wiggling turd" episode....when Nona pulls that root out.....🤣..............Peace!

Your reactions are so amazing! It is usually the highlight of my Saturday. It impressed me so much that you research into the Vietnam war, because of this episode, so that you could have more insight into the allegory of this episode. I happily come back every week. Thank you!

Nancy Kovack. A very beautiful lady. She has quite an acting resume. As I write this she is still with us at 89 years old.! Always liked this episode. Sometimes no matter how hard you try, the only solution is the winner. As we say in Texas; y'all be safe.

One thing to remember about these episodes is that they are almost all self-contained stories. This story was not intended to be drawn out to some future conclusion. It is not a happy ending, but sometimes that in itself can be sobering.

I would have loved to see more of Nurse Chapel and Spock in this episode.

The last scene where Kirk stops Tyree from continuing to pound the dead Hill person and they exchange a long stare of despair and pain is so moving and poignant and is great cinematography.

I think Nona was just on Nona's side. She got fed up with Tyree's refusal to fight so she went over to the side she thought would win. I think you made a good analysis of what people went through during the Vietnam war. People had very strong opinions on both sides, as we saw in this episode. You probably didn't notice, unless you read the credits really closely, that the Mugato was listed as Gumato in the closing credits. This is poked fun at in an episode of Lower Decks. I've heard that DeForest Kelley kept misprnouncing Gumato as Mugato, so they just changed it, but the credits still show the original word.

Finally reached the Vietnam themed episode. I like the doctor on the Enterprise during this episode.

The episode is incomplete. There are many minutes that will answer most of your questions. Your frustration is contagious and you don't know there is much more to this episode to be seen. So I am a 67 year old man who at 9 yrs old saw the Enterprise zoom across our TV screen and I became a Star Trek fan and buff until now.

Fun fact: Ben Stiller is a huge Star Trek TOS fan! He used the name Mugato for Will Ferrell's character in Zoolander, and in Zoolander 2, he used the name Atoz from a season 3 episode. He also called his production company Red Hour, based on the "crazy time" in the episode Return of the return of the Archons. Rumor has it, he has an original Gorn head from the Arena episode. And like everyone else has been saying, this was an allegory for the Vietnam war. So the revulsion you felt at the end of the episode means they did their job right. There was no good solution.

Hi, Bunny. 👋 I really love your post-reaction wrap-up here. In particular I love the way you went and refreshed your memory regarding the war in Vietnam. It really touched my heart to hear about your emotional reaction to the video you watched about the war. You are such a lovely, kind, warm-hearted, caring woman, Bunny; and I think you really got the point about the message Roddenberry was trying to send with this episode! Lots of love to you from me, your biggest fan!!! ❤️✌️❤️

This episode was pretty much a social commentary on the Vietnam War and indirectly the ugliness of conflicts and how it affects people in general. It ended abruptly because - like real life conflict - there is no good solution or happy ending. Nona was pretty much only out for Nona. She wanted to switch sides because she felt that side would be the winning side. Then those men turned on her and we got a little PG rated view of abuse that goes hand in hand with war (more social commentary). In the 60's, when Science Fiction & Fantasy Authors felt strongly on a subject that goes against government propaganda, they always had an outlet. They could write something to express their personal views in a parallel world. If there was any "mainstream public objection" over what they wrote, the author could always claim "Hey, it's just a Science Fiction / Fantasy story". Times are changing and it has become more difficult for sci fi / fantasy authors to make their viewpoints against the propaganda.

It's a metaphor about Vietnam. Soviet Union supplied arms to North Vietnam, while the United States supplied weapons to South Vietnam before the U.S. finally sent in troops.

I don’t know what the writer intended, but it’s possible they made an allegory on Vietnam here, which had been dubbed a “proxy war” by historians and others. The war was, indeed, similar to this episode’s plot: The USSR was arming North Vietnam, and the U.S. and other allies were arming South Vietnam, eventually sending troops. Thus, just as the natives were proxies for the Federation and Klingons, the Vietnamese were proxies for the two global superpowers of the ‘60s. It’s probably no accident that they cast Nancy Kovack, who’s no stranger at playing a witch who stirs up domestic and societal turbulence. In the classic film “Jason and the Argonauts,” which came out a few years before this, she played a witch who helps Jason’s crew win the day against her own people. The movie ends there, but according to the Greek myth, he then brings her back to Greece and marries her, and they live happily ever, well---Jason turns out to be trash as a husband and soon cheats on her, early and often, so she slays their sons and escapes in a chariot drawn by flying dragons (or so the myth goes---about as trippy as that freaky sexy-time slug drug).

"...catnip?" 😄

Gene Rodenberry liked to show stories about contemporary issues of the day. People were watching news reports every day about the war in Vietnam. I wasn't alive then, but I remember my uncle talking about it. What we experienced later in the Iraq war was very similar. This episode posts some deep questions that are very difficult to answer.

The public living in middle of the Vietnam war understood this episode intimately, and the way the episode abruptly ended and dumped the viewer like a bag of dirt at the end signaled "this is where you are too". The same ick feeling on both sides of the screen.

There are other episodes that end abruptly, as this one did. City on the Edge of Forever, for one.

I read this sentence once: "In war it is not who's right, but who's left."

I know she was Nancy Kovack, great actress, she was born in Flint Michigan, probably good she didn't stay there. You know, the water contamination.

Fascinating! Bigger guns, advanced and improved guns. (Tanks, fighter jets, bombs) Despite the reference to Vietnam, Bones said he didn't have a solution to the problem and apparently, neither do we. I think that's the message in this episode.

We have just witness what CPR for vulcans is like and it seems like slaping him like's no tomorrow.

The Spock slapping incident reminds me of the scene in the movie Airplane. LOL

08:32 "She's climaxing-she's done." 🤣🤣🤣

It's not a feelngood episode. It's an allegory for the Vietnam War The brush wars he spoke about was us, and the Russians were arming Asian countries in a proxy war.

This episode is an example to show the devastating effects of Proxy war.

If you look closely at the 'flintlock' while Tyree is aiming at Kirk, you can see it's a 1873 Trapdoor Springfield, fabbed to look like a flintlock. This was common practice in Hollywood back in the day so they could use blank cartridges. John Wayne's Alamo is full of such guns. Just some info for you.

I think the reason Nona tried to hand the phaser to the village people was that she wanted to be with a man of power, whoever he may be.

This was the second Vietnam inspired episode, the first being, "A Taste of Armageddon". That was the episode where two waring planets were fighting a war with computers and victims of an attack had to die in a disintegration chamber. Our culture stayed the same but our sons and daughters disappeared in a war on the other side of the world. It was brought to Gene Rodenberry's attention, in that episode Kirk ended the war. In "A Private Little War" Kirk made sure both sides were armed equally.. Gene said, "I'm a true Jeffersonian. Give the people both sides of an argument and they will pick what's right."

Hahahaha thanks for the laugh 🤣 “I had the strangest dream……… that you were being violated?!”

Delightful chaos. This episode really moves. Loved Nona and the magic plus the Mogatu.

Now that you have seen it - one of "Star Trek"s best metaphor episodes for what was going on in the real world in the 1960s. - The Music Loving Klingon

Do they ever say why the Klingons were arming the villagers with flintlocks? Usually, the Klingons get involved in a planet's economics or politics if valuable resources are available or the planet is strategically located. I don't recall anything like that this time, but I haven't rewatched the episode in about a year.

He's five foot two, and he's six feet four, He fights with missiles and with spears. He's all of 31, and he's only 17, He's been a soldier for a thousand years. He's a Catholic, a Hindu, an Atheist, a Jain, A Buddhist, and a Baptist, and a Jew. And he knows he shouldn't kill, And he knows he always will: Kill you for me, my friend, and me for you. And he's fighting for Canada, He's fighting for France, He's fighting for the U.S.A. And he's fighting for the Russians, And he's fighting for Japan, And he thinks we'll put an end to war this way. And he's fighting for Democracy, He's fighting for the Reds, He says it's for the peace of all. He's the one who must decide Who's to live and who's to die, And he never sees the writing on the wall. But without him how would Hitler have condemned them at Dachau? Without him Caesar would have stood alone. He's the one who gives his body as a weapon of the war, And without him all this killing can't go on. He's the Universal Soldier and he really is to blame, His orders come from far away no more. They come from here and there and you and me, And brothers, can't you see? This is not the way we put an end to war. ["The Universal Soldier", Buffy Sainte-Marie, 1964]

"We're all on the same side." That's the wisest comment I ever heard from you.

20:50 And THAT is the closest Kirk ever got to saying "Beam me up, Scotty." during the original series. He got a bit closer to saying it in one of the films.

The conversation with Kirk and Bones. Kirk finally asked him, "You don't like my solution, so what do YOU suggest we do?" And all Bones could say was, "I don't know." It reminds me of some of the conversations I have with some people these days. They have a big heart and they want things to change. They want society to change but they have no idea how to go about it. I get the feeling that people had these same conversations two thousand years ago.

I think that you felt exactly how people who knew what was going on in Vietnam when this episode was aired felt. You understood perfectly.

I always took this episode as an allegory on the nuclear arms race which was huge when this episode was made and on everyone's mind

I was probably around six years old when I first saw this episode, so I certainly did not understand the deeper story being told. I loved the Mugato (I thought it was super scary) and the Nona character, and the rest went right over my little head. It wasn't until I was much older that I came to understand that the episode was a commentary on proxy wars and the ethics surrounding them, which was very topical when it first aired during the height of the Viet Nam War.

If you've ever seen the movie "Zoolander", Will Ferrell's character is named Mugatu, which was the name of the white, spiky-gorilla monsters from this episode. Ben Stiller is a huge Star Trek fan, and he always includes Star Trek references in his films. So there's a little bit of trivia for you. :P

Love the Mugato as a good crazy creature. And the thing that summarizes this at the end for me is 'we're all very tired.' Kirk doesn't like this either, he also feels dirty, but he doesn't know what else to do. Because if only one side has the technology and is willing to fight it will be a massacre. All you can do is get rid of the Klingons and minimize the damage.

thank you for the WHOA reaction to the Mugato...priceless

Gene Roddenberry was good at using current world affairs to create storylines for star trek. A perfect example of 1960s world events the U.S. pushback against communism by arming and assisting other country's to try to maintain a balance of power. I've always enjoyed this episode. Tyree's wife although wicked she is super Hot! So glad to see that blue trek uniform again WOW!!

yeah, this episode defines the Prime Directive

This episode was a commentary to the cold war where the US and USSR both armed areas like southeast asia with weapons designed to keep the other from dominating. The balanced of power reached a point of MAD mutal assured destruction where the weapons of both sides would guarantee there would victory would be impossible but total destruction of both sides would be guaranteed. Episodes like this I find especially interesting seeing how you a child of the post cold war views an episode about the cold war.

i love the way language has changed since I watched this as a kid. "is that a horny plant?" yes. yes it was.

Glad you got the implied background. Back then there were a lot of protests against the war (like today), with superpowers pulling strings from behind. Tyree's wife was from another group (Kahn-ut-tu) of Witch People, with special abilities, wich unfortunately (for most men) included the seductive "Catnip".

I was six years old when this first aired, so I don't have a vivid memory of this particular episode. But what I can remember very vividly is every night on the evening news they posted how many wounded and dead there were in Vietnam that day. So the "proxy war" by the U.S. vs. the Communists in Vietnam was very much in the public mind at the time.

Honestly i don't recall this one very well. I remember the Mugatu and the wiggly jiggly plant for healing, but I will have to go back and rewatch this one all the way through.

The feeling you got is exactly how you’re supposed to feel to this episode. This is Star Trek’s take on mutually assured destruction, which the US and the Soviet Union were involved in at the time. Like you said in your post reaction addition to the video, there are direct parallels to the Vietnam war with two superpowers arming each side with better weapons, but also a bigger picture of escalation leading to escalation, and where does it end? Both the US and Soviet Union (now Russia) have enough weapons powerful enough to destroy the whole world multiple times over. Theirs nothing to feel good about that. The only thing that’s kept either side from doing anything is knowing they’d never survive a counter attack. At the same time, when Kirk asks McCoy, do you have a better alternative? …there is so simple alternative. It’s definitely a more heavy episode than just a woman with horny weeds and a poison horny gorilla.

Great reaction! This is not really a science fiction episode, except for the fact that the events occur in space. It's actually a philosophical and political story about proxy war. Although I tend to prefer the more hard sci-fi episodes, we have to remember that Roddenberry intended Star Trek to be a vehicle for discussing current events (in this case the Vietnam War) in an oblique way--otherwise it wouldn't be possible to air the episode. The choices for Kirk are: (1) do nothing which results in the Hill People being exterminated or enslaved, (2) attack the Klingons and start an interplanetary way which kills billions, or (3) arm the Hill People and attempt to maintain a balance of power which results in deaths but each group may survive, and possibly realize that the killing is pointless (although if humans are any example, knowing that more killing is fundamentally pointless doesn't seem to be a strong disincentive because people only remember that someone they loved was killed and they seek vengeance). No option is good, which is one of the themes of the story--in the end you have to choose the least bad option, and it's never going to be satisfying. I suppose option (4) is to be as powerful as the Organians and simply make the weapons disappear, and keep doing that as long as necessary. Unfortunately, Kirk doesn't have god-like powers. It's unclear if the Organian Peace Treaty applies here--a treaty is mentioned and we should probably assume that it is the Organian Peace Treaty (but we can't be 100% sure), but then why aren't the Organians enforcing the treaty? The inter-episode continuity isn't very strong in TOS, so sometimes we just have to take the episodes on their own (and as an allegory on human conflicts the Organians aren't relevant--our gods, if they exist, seem to value free will over preventing us from killing ourselves). Option (5) is to have peace talks, but when one side has significantly more power than the other there is little incentive to talk, especially since the villagers seem to enjoy killing. Tyree's arc is truly sad, a pacifist morphed into a killer. Nona initially wants Tyree to fight, and seems disgusted that he is a pacifist (or simply concerned that she is on the losing side and eventually be killed). When she gets a phaser she doesn't take it to Tyree, knowing that he won't use it, so she tries to bargain with the villagers. What does she think she can get from the villagers? Power, I suppose, but she has to know that with phasers the villagers will wipe out the Hill People, so she has completely turned her back on them--if she was ever on their side in the first place (was the choice for her to have black hair an indication that she was not originally one of the Hill People?). Perhaps she was only on her own side all along, and if Tyree wasn't going to fight then she would rather switch to the winning side. Still, it seems ill-considered because they would just take the phaser away from her and then she would be of no use since all she had to bargain with was that one phaser. In the end, she was probably more of a plot device than anything else. On seeing the title, I wasn't super excited to watch this one but I think it may be one of the best episodes of the second season. It's quirky and perhaps not the most entertaining episode in terms of science fiction, but it does explore the issue of proxy wars--one of which is going on in Ukraine right now. The United States has similar choices as Kirk, other than #4, and neither Ukraine nor Russia is interested in #5 since their goals are completely opposed. So it goes...

Can't say as a kid, the concept and reality of proxy wars were learned or remembered from this episode, but I can say I do remember the scene where Tyree recalls ... The Night of Madness! (whatever that meant?) ... Could there somehow be a tie-in to proxy wars? Hmm? ... Another great reaction bunnytails. :)

I liked this episode and your reaction, especially the added ending. Good insights. On a lighter note, I was a kid about when this came out and like it and could see the comparison I'm sure, but not anywhere near as clearly as once an adult. Back then my enjoyment was in great part thanks to that white ape creature; even wanted the Mego toy (but boy did it look different in bright green and red clothes).

Not all stories are meant to have happy endings and neat solutions. This one has quite a bit of reality in it, in this case the harsh reality of the various vicarious wars that major governments (Vietnam to be most to the point) often tend to sponsor around the world, where no good can come from it, despite best intentions. Once in a while, some situation must test our ability and even show us up and remind us that we are not invincible nor all powerful nor all brilliant. That is why the music is serious, sober, and thoughtful, instead of triumphant, when the enterprise is flying away at the end as the credits begin to roll. This one is meant to make one think rather than to feel good, and has for that reason long been one of my favorites from the original series.

I know this is a serious episode and the comments have been great. When i was younger my buddy & I would go to bars. After I was served my first beer, I would look at my friend and say: I want more many more! True story

Sometimes there is no happy little resolution.