Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 48 A Private Little War
Some Star Trek episodes are more subtle than others. This is not one of those. This episode was so clearly an allegory about Vietnam that they might as well called the villagers the Viet Cong and the Klingons the Chinese (although in truth the Viet Cong was getting a lot more help from the Russians than the Chinese).
This episode was also an example of the thin veil of racism that Star Trek labored under in spite of Gene Roddenberry’s best intentions. It really, really wasn’t his intension but when writing and casting this episode it just made sense to the producers that the villagers be Asian and the friendly Hill People be white. In this day and age such a thing would probably not go by unremarked but back in 1968 it seemed so obvious that no one even questioned it.
All that aside this is a great episode for one simple reason: mugato. Yes, the furry poisoned fanged spike backed white super gorilla. Awesome. It also showed more accurately what alien exploration is probably going to be like. You see, for every intelligent creature you might encounter out there there are probably millions of dangerous animals who would think nothing of tearing your face off. If aliens had landed on Earth a few hundred years ago tried running around North America odds are they would get chomped on by a grizzly or bitten by a rattlesnake long before running into a Native American tribe. If you want to see what I’m talking about check out the book Expendable by James Alan Gardener. In it the guys who hit dirt assume every creature in sight wants to kill them and for the most part they are correct.
Dave
Episode image courtesy of the Star Trek T Shirt category, BTW.
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