By 
Title: A Private Little War
Airdate: 2/2/1968
Plot Summary
A Private Little War follows Kirk, Spock, and McCoy investigating a planet Kirk had visited years ago. They find that weapons have been given to a tribe that could not have developed them so quickly on their own. Spock gets shot and Bones and Kirk must investigate to see if the Klingons are secretly supplying weapons to one side of the population in defiance of the treaty. On top of that, Kirk gets bitten by a Mugato. To save him, the local witch saves him but did she at the cost of Kirk’s freedom?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk spends a good portion of the episode laid up from a Mugato bite. He has a past history with Tyree who apparently knows all about their technology but has committed to keeping it a secret. That goes out the window when his harpy wife drugs him and then guilts him into telling everything about Kirk. Kirk can’t be too mad as he also succumbs to her herbal witchcraft.
Kirk shows genuine concern over Spock’s well-being but also puts that aside to accomplish the mission, professional that he is.
Logical
Spock spends most of the episode laid up as well after being shot. Vulcans can go into a healing trance and once they are healed need to be slapped silly to come out of it. Either that or Spock just has some weird fetishes he just covers up because humans wouldn’t know any better.
He’s Dead Jim
Bones is helpful as a sounding board for Kirk’s insane decision-making. Quite frankly I agree with him. Bones also mentions Kirk’s obsession with his “Eden” planets, proving apparently Kirk learned nothing from The Apple.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu is largely absent from this episode and has been for a while due to the fact that Takei has been working on a movie.
Nuclear Wessels
Chekov engages in the conversation regarding weapons advances, noting that just because Earth took a long time to get to rifles, doesn’t mean every civilization would.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura also takes part in the conversation before being rudely cut off by Kirk. He does apologize to the bridge crew. She also is unable to contact Starfleet command as it might give away their position to the Klingons. I’m not sure if that counts with ship-to-shore transmissions too but no Klingons seem to find out.
My Wee Bairns
Scotty is able to make guns but is pretty confused about it. I believe he probably was at the transporter controls at the beginning to get the away team out of there in the nick of time.
Canon Maker
The Mugato! This is a big interesting creature with a helluva roar. Poisonous white apes with horns? It’s a sci-fi bonanza of weird.
Doctor M’Benga is introduced and will be seen again in season 3. AND NEVER AGAIN. M’Benga is quite skilled at dealing with Vulcan’s medical problems. He is there to take care of Spock since Bones is needed with Kirk on the surface. For some reason.
So the prime directive is discussed in a bit more detail, even though they never refer to it by name. The idea of non-interference and giving weapons to a society not ready for it is a good one and they explain themselves quite well.
Canon Breaker
HOWEVER, their conclusions are insane. Deciding to give the same weapons to Tyree’s tribe to match the villager’s weapons that are given to them by the Klingons is ludicrous. What they should’ve been doing is exposing the Klingons and putting a stop to all of it.
The mugato is credited as the “Gumato” leading to all sorts of fan speculation throughout the years. Ha, just kidding, no one gave a shit. For some reason, NuTrek thinks we do and made a whole joke of it in Lower Decks.
Man It Feels Bad To Be A Red Shirt
No deaths but it was touch and go there for Spock.
Technobabble
Apparently the Enterprise can manufacture flintlock rifles. This is possibly a precursor of replicators as I can’t imagine any other way Scotty could’ve made them. It’s not like they have a forge.
A tricorder can be used like a video camera. For some reason, it can’t be set to silent mode.
Phasers can be used to heat rocks. This was last done in The Enemy Within but it’s a nice call back.
I Know That Guy:
Nancy Kovak plays Nona in A Private Little War. You might know her best as Medea in Jason And The Argonauts. She worked pretty consistently in guest shots on TV in the 60s and 70s. Interestingly she was caught up in the Whitewater scandal as Susan MacDougal worked as her personal assistant and embezzled from her.
Michael Witney played Tyree. He was a regular on the western series The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters and was married to Twiggy before his death in 1983.
Ned Romero played Krell the Klingon. He was an opera singer and appeared in a ton of musicals before moving into acting. He actually appeared on TNG in the seventh season as a native american colonist and Voyager as Chakotay’s great-grandfather.
Booker Bradshaw plays M’Benga and he would return again to the role in season 3. But his big job was as a record producer for Motown Records.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
I hadn’t seen A Private Little War and ended up liking it more than I expected. Well, that’s not correct. Let’s say I ended up hating it less than I expected. Once again, Kirk not only wipes his ass with the prime directive, he sets it on fire and pisses on its ashes. His affection for the hill people and Tyree in particular creates tortured logic in giving weapons to those people in some half-assed explanation to keep the balance of power.
A Private Little War is a defense of the Vietnam war but it really doesn’t hold up. I look at the difference between planets and countries. We’re all on the same planet and having communism take over Vietnam would’ve given the Russians more land and places to hide nukes. I don’t think this works with planetary war. I know I’m oversimplifying the whole conflict but that’s my point, this episode tries to as well and fails miserably.
Why the hell would the Klingons even bother with this planet? Why get these people updated with flint locks? Just hand them disruptors. I don’t think the Klingons were at all squeamish about that sort of thing like the Federation was. And to what end? What do the Klingons get out of it?
Never mind we already saw the Klingons just simply subjugate a pre-warp civilization on Organia. Sure, they turned out to be gods, but they didn’t know that. So why all this nonsense?
Then Kirk’s answer is to what… give the other side the same weapons? How about exposing the Klingons and removing all the contamination? Sure it would’ve been a bit messy but how is this solution less messy?
It’s all nonsense.
Nona is quite the wife, pushing for more power and wealth as I have no belief that she was doing any of what she was for the good of the tribe. She drugged her husband which he seems totally fine with. He knows that she uses drugs to bewitch men but nearly kills Kirk when he knows Kirk is clearly under the influence. Maybe he wanted to kill her but Kirk’s back was exposed and shielding her so I don’t think that was correct.
The village people (love that) are creeps just finding out about guns and without any qualms realize killing is fun and stuff! Yeesh, not one had any moral qualms? Wonder how they have any sort of functioning society.
Granted, the mugato was fun and I did enjoy the effort in McCoy and Kirk arguing about the solution. M’benga is a nice addition and Spock’s healing trance gave Nimoy a chance to take some time off.
Overall, I found A Private Little War more watchable than I expected but it’s a fairly well-executed acting job of a piss-poor story. Not great.
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