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(More customer reviews)The crew of the Enterprise visits an idyllic, pre-industrialized world inhabited by the docile hill-people and the greedy villagers. Not incorporated into the Federation of Planets, this pre-techno world is supposed to be free of any interference by either the Federation or the Klingon empire. Nevertheless, on a routine survey, the villagers attack the hill people with crude rifles - though that requires technology beyond them. With Mr. Spock severely injured, Kirk stays behind looking for evidence that the Klingons are illegally supplying technology that will allow the villagers to conquer the planet and rule it for the Klingons. Reuniting with the Hill People, among whom Kirk once lived, Kirk hooks up with their leader, Tyree and his wife, the bewitching Nona. Sneaking into the Villagers' stronghold, Kirk finds evidence of non-indigenous technology (carbon-free metal tools are a big tip-off). Though implicating the Klingons, Kirk now faces an even bigger quandry - allow the rapacious villagers to conquer the planet, or give the hill-people the means to fight back. Either alternative gurantees bloodshed, with the decision coming down to ensuring either the genocide of the hill people or a ceaseless and bloody war with the villagers. Dr. McCoy, who stayed planetside with Kirk, provides the perfect moral foil for Kirk who is defiantly pro-defense.
I must have seen this episode a hundred times as a kid, never knowing that it was obviously a take on the war in Vietnam which had already escalated by then. The weird part is how this film makes as the enemies, the urbanized and technologically advanced villagers, which is more analogous to the Southern Vietnamese regime. Like the very best sci-fi, when it must be topical, the script is dignified enough to explore both sides. It's a weak episode of Trek, suffering because the comedy team of Bones and Spock spends much of the time apart (with Spock stuck on the Enterprise, recuperating from the attack in the beginning of the episode). The script tries juicing things up with the wicked-hot Nona and an attack by the "Mugato", a sort of white, horned gorilla with poison fangs, that both seem to distract from the message of the show (which may have been the biggest reason for putting them there - the guys who write for Trek were brave, but to a fault). A flawed but still important episode.
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