“Day of the Dove” begins with the Enterprise responding to a distress all from a Federation colony, which says they are under attack by an unknown starship. A landing party beams down and finds no colonists, and no evidence of there ever having been a colony at all. Meanwhile, in orbit, a Klingon vessel approaches, but it is already disabled. Commander Kang and some of his crew beam down to confront Kirk, showing the complete ineffectiveness of the Enterprise landing party’s security guards as they disarm and capture Kirk’s team without a fight. Kang accuses Kirk of having attacked his ship and killed 400 Klingons. The Klingons apply an agony device to Chekov to force Kirk to beam them up to the Enterprise, which Kang will take over. In the background we see a sinister lurking alien energy being…

Kirk plays a trick and captures the Klingons in the transporter room, but of course they soon escape and run riot over the ship. An accident seals most of the Enterprise crew in lower decks, resulting in exactly balanced numbers of Klingons and Enterprise crew battling it out for control of the ship. Strangely, all the phasers disappear and are replaced by swords! The Klingons and humans engage in running sword fights, involving lots of Flynning. The humans are surprisingly good, despite swordsmanship probably never being on the Starfleet Academy training program (contrast the previous episode, “Spectre of the Gun“, in which Kirk decides to not even bother trying to use six-shooters because of unfamiliarity with such primitive weapons). Oddly enough, the only person on the Enterprise who we know can handle a sword – Sulu – is shown using karate against Klingon sword wielders, and never once wielding a sword! McCoy reports that wounded crew are miraculously recovering and going off to fight more. And in the background, the energy being has snuck on board the Enterprise…

Chekov goes wild, rampaging against the Klingon bastards who killed his brother Piotr, and ignoring orders from Kirk. Sulu is puzzled, since he knows Chekov is an only child. Sulu helps Scotty take down a bunch of Klingons near engineering, but then for some reason they leave the unconscious Klingons without tying them up or anything. Kang turns off power and life support to the bridge. Apparently turning off power to the bridge means the lights dim, but all the consoles keep working, flashing their blinking lights. Kang tells Kirk his crew will die in “the icy cold of space“, foreshadowing a more famous line by Khan in The Wrath of Khan. In response to the crisis of running out of air, Kirk records a log entry detailing the situation, and then tells Sulu to go below decks and fix the life support system. Sulu goes to fix it, but life support comes back on mysteriously by itself. Meanwhile, the energy being lurks unseen, giving a very good impression of chuckling…

Spock and Kirk figure out that there is an alien intruder on board, and that it must be causing everyone to behave violently because it feeds off violence. It is also causing the Enterprise to speed out of the Galaxy (again) at warp 9. Kirk convinces Kang’s wife Mara that the alien is the real threat. Things approach a climax as Kirk and Kang are thrown into mortal sword combat, with Kirk arguing passionately that they need to settle their differences to defeat the energy being. A battle of overacting ensues, with Mara watching completely silently in the background. Spock reports that the engines are draining the dilithium crystals and the ship only has 7.9 seconds of power left. Kirk appeals to Kang, pointing out that if they keep fighting the energy being will keep healing them and making them fight for all eternity. Kang drops his weapon, stating that Klingons fight for their own purposes, not for others. Spock says to get rid of the energy being they need to show positive emotions, so Kirk starts laughing. Kang joins in, and the energy being leaves the ship. And that’s where the episode ends abruptly, leaving us to wonder how they resolve the situation of 38 Klingons on board the Enterprise.

A tough episode to rate. The plot itself is decent and could have been the basis of something really compelling, but the way it’s executed is so cheesy and hammy that it descends almost into farce. Not great, but there are definitely worse episodes.

Tropes: Agony Beam, Russian Guy Suffers Most, Energy Beings, Sword Fight, Flynning, Forgot About His Powers, Roaring Rampage Of Revenge,Something They Would Never Say, Space Is Cold, Hate Plague, Emotion Eater, Ham-to-Ham Combat, Neutral Female, Ludicrous Precision, Enemy Mine, Hell Is War, Weaksauce Weakness, Everybody Laughs Ending, Easily Thwarted Alien Invasion.
Body count: 100 Federation colonists (probably not real), 400 Klingon starship crew.

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