3x15 Let That Be Your Last Battlefield

[5.7/10] Sometimes the cultural disconnect from being half a century away from something is just too much. Sitting here in 2017 (where, admittedly, we still have plenty of issues of prejudice and civil unrest), “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” feels unbearably preachy and heavy-handed in its “hate is pointless and will lead you nowhere” message. One of the best features of science fiction is the way it allows creators to examine current social or political issues at a remove in ways that can help the viewer to look at the real world in a different way. But when you make the metaphor so thin an obvious as to what you’re getting at, the power of that technique grows muted, and the whole thing can feel kind of annoying.

But the other side of the coin is that a pair of aliens angry over race relations plays very differently to someone right now than it likely would for someone watching it less than a year after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. It’s easy to sit here in a time where racism is far from gone in the United States, but where great strides have been made, and look on an episode like “Battlefield” with eye-rolls and sighs over how bluntly it makes its point. But maybe in 1969, that message needed to be made loud and clear to cut through a din at a time when there were marches and protests and great hopes and greater fears about whether the social fabric of this country were unraveling.

Still, it’s hard to watch “Battlefield” and not think to oneself, “You know, Alan Crawford, you might have been better served by just writing an essay on the problems with prejudice.” Crawford (who also wrote “The Galileo Seven”) pens a script that wears its heart and its message on its sleeve, with seemingly obvious parallels to the real life political and social snarls taking place around that time.

Lokai, whose face is half pitch black and half bright white, arrives on the Enterprise in a stolen shuttlecraft, claiming that he is fleeing from injustice on his home planet Cheron. Commissioner Bele, another Cheronian who seemingly shares Lokai’s pigmentation, also arrives, and claims that Lokai is a dangerous murderer and a fugitive from justice. The two fall into a familiar “He is an oppressor, and I am fighting for justice and change!”/”He is a renegade and outlaw who is plotting the downfall of society!” dynamic. It would be hard to miss the kind of disputes that the argument between Lokai and Bele are a stand-in for.

But one thing I like about the episode from a story perspective is that Kirk tries to stay neutral and level-headed here. Lost in the hamfisted metaphor of the plot is the fact that (a.) Kirk has a mission and (b.) has no way of knowing who’s telling the truth. Rather than, as is typical of Kirk, acting rashly and taking sides, he is determined to follow the procedures, treat each man with dignity, and take them to the proper authorities to sort things out. It’s some uncharacteristic sticking with procedure from Kirk, and it makes him seem measured in command.

His commitment to his mission (saving billions of lives on the loosely-exposition’d planet Ariannus by decontaminating it) leads to the peak of “Battlefield” -- a standoff between Kirk and Bele over control of the ship. When Bele uses his advanced technology to take over the ship and turn it toward Cheron, Kirk threatens to initiate the Enterprise’s self-destruct rather than go along with this plan. (Incidentally, why is it that most of the alien species the crew encounters are either vastly more powerful or incredibly primitive? Beyond Klingons and Romulans, it’s rare the Enterprise encounters a species that’s roughly in line with its capabilities.)

The ensuing sequence is memorable, and one of the show’s best. While there’s something that could be a little bit tedious about each member of the command trio having to give their codes to start the self-destruct sequence (and there’s something pretty cheesy about the cut to commercial in the middle of it), “Battlefield” holds the tension of that moment well. Kirk and Bele are testing one another, seeing who’s bluffing, and at the same time it’s palpable how the rest of the crew is worried about whether this is something the captain would really go through with. It helps that this sequence basically exists apart from the big metaphor of the episode, and works well as a simple but very effective piece of television.

It’s also helped by the unique cinematography and directorial choices in the episode. Director Jud Taylor gives us close-ups of the crew’s faces as they hear these code-words being rattled off, on the commanders’ lips as they say those words, and on the eyes of Kirk and Bele as they test one another’s mettle in this moment. While Taylor’s choice to zoom in and out on the alarms during red alerts is kind of weird, he brings a different flair to how “Battlefield” is shot that makes it visually notable even as the episode’s script is a bit too much. Even the last sequence, where Spock acts as though he’s announcing the world’s dullest relay race, has an interesting visual element as Lokai and Bele run through the corridors while visions of their devastated planet are superimposed.

The final sequence doesn’t really work for me, in so small part because it seems to lay things on a little too thick, but that’s just the spirit of “Battlefield” being realized via the show’s visual toolbox, so it’s hard to blame Taylor for that. Indeed, the last stretch of “Battlefield” is the worst part, where even the destruction of their planet won’t stop Lokai and Bele from setting aside their differences and dropping this now surely pointless pursuit, while Kirk gives his fiftieth overblown speech that delivers the moral of the episode. Oh why can’t we just learn not to hate? If only the world were as simple as episode-closing remarks from hammy T.V. starship captains.

Now full disclosure -- this is one of the few episodes of Star Trek I’d seen before I started this grand watch. (Thanks, eighth grade science teacher!) That meant I knew the twist that Bele and Lokai view one another as being of different races given the way their paint-jobs are mirrored. Maybe, without that foreknowledge, the reveal that they seem so much the same when they see themselves as inherently different would have more impact and the surprise would drive more of the episode’s themes home in a more satisfying fashion.

But I don’t think so. The dialogue in the episode is still very direct and loud in the points and parallels it’s trying to draw, and while the point of “Battlefield” is admirable, it’s delivered in such a way that you wish the writers would have just written an op-ed rather than shoehorning one into a story. Still, as much as I value subtlety, and as much as the issues raised by “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield” are still relevant today, maybe the episode needed to be louder, more direct, more forceful and less subtle in what it was trying to say, to get through to a society that was confronting the awful legacy of segregation head on in a big way.

Quite a decent story. Execution is mediocre, but it's sort of classic Star Trek with later iterations in TNG or DS9. The crew encounters an allen who is first to be believed a common thief or criminal. Turns out he's some sort of asylum seeker asking the crew for help. Prosecutors are relentlessly after him. The law system of the aliens seems to be archaic but widely incomprehensible by Federation standards. Allegedly, he's somehow responsible for mass murder but regards himself to flee from participating a war, that eventually erased their civilization - not sure if I get this right.The Captain needs to make a decision on how to deal with this issue. He even pulls of one of the most Trek-ish white rabbits from the hat: activating auto sequence. I'm amazed he resorts to such elaborated means. I expected him to punch the guy. The story also discusses issues of racial discrimination. This part comes across a bit pontificating and Kirk's race theory is mostly based on genetics - and seems therefore a bit odd (not to say racist) 50 years later. But I guess he wanted to say the right thing. I guess that was a bold move in 60s TV. There's also a glimpse into Vulcan history - that's always fascinating.

The conclusion is a bit odd - too much on the nose. But as I said, overall it's a classic story, that still works today.