Story: Jud Crucis (aka Don Ingalls)
Screenplay: Gene Roddenberrry
Director: Marc Daniels
Producer: Gene L. Coon
In some ways, this episode is an utterly typical installment of Star Trek. It uses an alien planet to serve as an allegory for (then) contemporary issues. It features primitive peoples for whom the Prime Directive is a concern (and for whom sets and costumes are cheap). It has the Klingons interfering with the people and our heroes have to stop them. It has a sexy native alien woman on the planet for Kirk to get involved with. It features debates on morality and ethics. It has Janos Prohaska in a monster costume.
But in other ways, it is utterly atypical. Outside of "City on the Edge of Forever" I cannot think of another entry with such a downbeat ending for one. This is a problem that Kirk could not solve. He couldn't win, he could only stalemate. Perhaps because one third of the Trinity is missing -- Spock gets taken out of the episode early, rushed back to the ship dying, leaving Kirk and Bones alone on the planet.
The situation is that on this primitive world, the Klingons are supplying weapons to one faction of the native population -- primitive flintlocks but still more advanced than the culture should have -- and so Kirk finds himself forced to provide weapons to the other side as well, to preserve the balance of power. McCoy insists he's dooming the planet to a proxy war that will never end, but Kirk sees it as the only solution that preserves both sides.
It's a difficult ethical question, and it's also an obvious commentary on the Vietnam War, a topic which was still taboo for dramatic television to address at this time. In fact, there was such concern over getting this commentary past the censors, that the episode deliberately spends its time on a whole lot of other bullshit, primarily the "witch woman" Natira.
Basically, Kirk gets taken out by a mugatu (y'know, the villain from Zoolander) and is poisoned, and this extremely sexual medicine woman is the only one who can save him, and only by doing erotic dance magic around him. It's all very over the top, and eventually she ends up trying to betray the peaceful Hill People to the Klingon aligned Villagers because Sexual Women Are Bad, but basically it's all in there so you're too distracted by her midriff and cleavage and bell bottoms to notice the political commentary going on.
Ultimately what one takes away from this episode though, is the ending. In which a wearied Kirk resigns himself to beaming down "serpents for the garden of Eden" - committing himself to going down this dark path (although the scene is ambiguous enough that my wife interprets it that Kirk actually does not follow through on his decision, which might be actually worse?).
"A Private Little War" is a great example of what Roddenberry wanted Star Trek to be -- a way to talk about taboo issues by dressing them up in sex, violence, and aliens. It would, however, be the last episode of the series under the auspices of underrated showrunner Gene Coon, who would leave the series citing burnout after several arguments with Roddenberry over the series' tone.
Rating: 3.5 out of 4
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