Day of the Dove by: Jerome Bixby and directed by: Marvin Chomsky

 

“Day of the Dove” is written by: Jerome Bixby and is directed by: Marvin Chomsky.  It was filmed under production code 66, was the 7^th episode of Star Trek Season 3, the 62^nd episode of Star Trek, and was broadcast on November 1, 1968.

 

As Star Trek’s third season is well underway, it’s been quite interesting to note the shift in quality.  While there have been largely two episodes that I would call bad with “Spock’s Brain” and “And the Children Shall Lead”, there have also been three episodes that have been downright good and interesting, something that genuinely was not expected from the show at this point.  Largely this is because as the third season progresses, the production team for the show as a whole will shift into largely new writers.  “Day of the Dove” is one of the few episodes from a returning writer, and a returning writer who had written one of the best episodes of the previous season.  Jerome Bixby returns to the series for his third episode and like “Mirror, Mirror”, “Day of the Dove” is interested in exploring the darker aspects of the main cast by putting them in a situation made to test them.  This is another episode with a godlike alien in control of our main characters, putting them up against the Klingons in a situation where the Enterprise itself is under siege and the goal is to completely overtake our heroes.  The high pressure of the situation also brings an interesting aspect of unreality: ordinary items are transformed into medieval weapons as well as the phasers following suit, the power is slowly being drained, and the crew are being dragged into insanity with the dark, unconscious thoughts being brought to the surface.  There is already the hatred of the Klingons as enemies of the Federation, but as the episode progresses this becomes towards other members of the crew including outright bigotry.

 

“Day of the Dove” can be applauded for not shying away from attempting to show bigotry and portray the human characters at their individually lowest: seeing the crew attack each other is always going to feel off and once a female Klingon prisoner, Mara played by Susan Howard, is captured she is seen being assaulted.  Now this assault is difficult to watch and while not particularly portrayed well, it’s still an assault done for shock value showing how the usually good characters have gone bad and Mara doesn’t get nearly as much agency, it adds to the madness and uniqueness of the episode which is essentially mashing “The Naked Time” and “Arena” together.  Bixby’s script is odd, however, in the way that it ramps up tension and insanity among the crew.  The early scenes of the episode actually take place on a planet with the Enterprise crew and the Klingons each receiving a distress call and a Federation settlement being disintegrated along with a Klingon ship.  This should be enough to hang the episode’s plot on, but the tensions immediately rise with the insanity of Chekov having an imaginary brother that is portrayed on-screen with hilarity because William Shatner’s performance as Kirk can do nothing but go over the top for these moments.  Shatner’s over the top performance is something the entire episode builds to, the climax sees Kirk and the Klingon commander Kang, played by Michael Ansara, throw down their weapons and laugh with each other so the godlike alien just goes away, the resolution being the final shot of the episode.

 

Jerome Bixby is clearly interested in writing a Cold War allegory, the Klingons since “Errand of Mercy” are a stand in for the Soviet Union and “Day of the Dove” is another aspect interested in exploring if the Cold War went hot.  These are themes Star Trek have tackled before and certainly will tackle again whenever the Klingons appear, but this being an episode that ends with the Klingons and humans shaking hands means for an interesting view from Bixby of how the war may progress, both sides coming together in aid for the greater good.  The greater good for this one is sadly a godlike alien entity of energy that’s causing the tensions in the first place.  Bixby doesn’t really capitalize on this aspect in any real way, just focusing on the damage the entity causes.  “Day of the Dove” also redesigns the Klingons, for the worse.  While before this they were already portrayed by white men in yellowface with specific orientalist features, “Day of the Dove” becomes incredibly difficult to watch because the redesign darkens the makeup to brownface, with black paint being used for the actors’ hands, at least for the male Klingons while the females are largely left in the yellowface tones.  While Michael Ansara as Kang and Susan Howard as Mara aren’t putting on accents, and indeed are still ruthless villains, the racism makes “Day of the Dove” all the more difficult to watch, especially since half the guest cast are Klingons and in the makeup.  Marvin Chomsky’s direction is also insistent on framing the Klingons front and center so they are on-screen far more than you might expect (though Chomsky has improved since “And the Children Shall Lead”).

 

Overall, “Day of the Dove” just nearly gets by on how ridiculous the premise and execution of the idea are instead of being particularly good.  Once again this is a third season episode whose best moments are in the regular supporting cast, both Nichelle Nichols and James Doohan have moments and Walter Koenig’s insanity with Chekov’s non-existent dead brother is something that has to be seen to be believed.  The ideas that author Jerome Bixby sets down, however, are quite half-baked and part of that may be because of Gene L. Coon had completely left the show at this point.  This is compounded with the Klingon designs being at their most bigoted, it undercuts an episode that really wants to be anti-racist and is already not thinking through those themes to their fullest extent leading to a very mixed experience.  5/10.