Script: Robert Hamner and Gene L. Coon
Story: Robert Hamner
Director: Joseph Pevney
Producer: Gene L. Coon
This is one of my all time favourite Trek episodes, especially in this final stretch of season one, which is really one home run after another.
Kirk's been put on a mission to ferry a Federation ambassador to Eminiar VII, to open diplomatic relations. This is a reprise of the same character type from "The Galileo Seven", a pushy bureaucrat with authority to impose his will on Kirk and seemingly no care or understanding of situations outside his precise mission parameters. But I'd say it works better in this installment because when the time comes, Ambassador Robert Fox does eventually see the light, as it were.
Eminiar VII warns the Enterprise to stay away, but Fox insists on a party beaming down. Kirk insists on going first (with Spock, some redshirts, and a yeoman of course) because he needs to ensure the Ambassador's safety. The party is promptly put into custody, and the entire starship Enterprise is declared a war casualty in Eminiar's incredible war with neighbouring planet Vendikar.
It turns out that 500 years ago, the planets signed a treaty whereby their long war would no longer be fought with destructive weapons that devastate the planet but instead by computer simulation. Computers calculate the attacks, their effectiveness, and the casualties, and as per the treaty the calculated casualties then report to disintegration chambers to be killed. The people die, but the world, civilization, and culture live on. Kirk is aghast immediately at this, he can't believe a population would be so cavalier as to report to "suicide boxes" voluntarily. But no one on Eminiar sees it that way. This is the way their society works. They're not happy about dying, but no one is looking to change things.
Meanwhile, the chief councilman on Eminiar, Anan 7, is trying every trick in the book to convince the crew to beam down so they can be forced to their deaths -- as a failure of the crew to report would indicate a breaking of the treaty, leading to Vendikar retaliating with real weapons. A stand out moment of the hour is when Ambassador Fox orders Scotty, left in command, to lower the ship's shields so he can beam down, and Scotty outright refuses until he learns what happened to the Captain. Scotty emerges as a real badass in this episode.
Eventually, Kirk maneuvers everyone exactly where he wants them. As we learned from "The Corbomite Maneuver", you don't dare play poker with Kirk because he'll outbluff you every time. Kirk plays to win, ordering Scotty to fire on the planet and burn it to the ground unless the hostages are released. The shiteating grin on Kirk's face when Anan, aghast at the Captain's barbarism, is priceless.
Kirk and Spock blow up Eminiar's war computers, thus forcing a real war between the two worlds. It's either war with the Federation or war with Vendikar, and Anan can't understand Kirk. So he explains it to him. In a triumphant speech Kirk explains that war is meant to be messy, it's meant to be devastating, that's what makes it a thing to be avoided. Eminiar has made war clean and tidy, and that's why they've had it for 500 years. Now they can face obiliteration... or make peace. And for the first time in centuries, peace talks begin. Ambassador Fox offers his services.
It's a brilliant episode, a great showcase for James Doohan as Scotty, but the hour belongs to Shatner, who shows us so many facets of Kirk, a man who will do anything to win. And the sci-fi premise is brilliant, speaking to Gene Coon's vision of Star Trek where man is imperfect, a barbarian with murderous instincts, but all it takes to change and be better is to say you're not going to kill... today. Decide to change and be better than you were yesterday.
Also, bonus points for the fact that Eminiar is one of the few worlds that the Enterprise goes to that's actually futuristic and doesn't have some bullshit reason to be a world of cheap backlot sets and old costumes.
Rating: 4 out 4
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