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A classic Star Trek episode where Kirk and Kang, a Klingon commander, must work together to defeat a creature that feeds on hatred. IMDb provides cast and crew information, user and critic reviews, trivia, goofs, quotes, and more.
- (3.4K)
- Action, Adventure, Sci-Fi
- Marvin J. Chomsky
- 1968-11-01
"Day of the Dove" is the seventh episode of the third season of the American science fiction television series Star Trek. Written by Jerome Bixby and directed by Marvin Chomsky, it was first broadcast November 1, 1968. In the episode, an alien forces the crew of the Enterprise into a brutal conflict with the Klingons.
- Overview
- Summary
- Log entries
- Memorable quotes
- Background information
- Links and references
- GeneratedCaptionsTabForHeroSec
An extremely powerful non-corporeal being brings the Enterprise and a Klingon ship in direct conflict with one another.
Teaser
Responding to a distress call from Beta XII-A, a landing party from the USS Enterprise beams down to the planet. The team consists of Captain Kirk, Doctor McCoy, Ensign Chekov, and Lieutenant Johnson, a security officer. They find no trace that there ever was a human colony on the planet, nor any indication of any attack. Dr. McCoy reminds Kirk that whoever sent the distress call claimed they were under attack by an unidentified starship. From the bridge of the orbiting Enterprise, Spock hails the captain and reports that a Klingon battle cruiser is approaching. Although Kirk authorizes the Vulcan to defend the Starfleet ship, Lieutenant Sulu determines that the Klingon vessel is totally disabled, but the Enterprise never fired upon it. A team of Klingons beams to the planet and approaches the Starfleet officers. Commander Kang, the leader of the team, believes that Kirk is responsible for the damage to his ship and for killing four hundred members of his crew. He smacks Kirk in the face with his disruptor, knocking Kirk to the ground. As a result, the Klingon claims the Enterprise as his own and takes the Enterprise crew as prisoners of the Klingons. Both men are unaware of a strange ball of light nearby, which is in fact a non-corporeal lifeform.
Act One
Kang tells Kirk that the Klingons have honored a peace treaty "to the letter" with the Federation for the past three years, and that Kirk appears to have tested a new weapon against his ship, killing his crew. Kirk rebuts that the Federation colony on the planet was destroyed. But Kang scoffs at this, saying there is no evidence of bodies or ruins. Kirk says this is because it was a new Klingon weapon that leaves no traces, and that the Federation does not conduct sneak attacks. Kang threatens to torture one of the Starfleet prisoners, but has difficulty deciding which officer will suffer – until Chekov angrily cries out that the Klingons killed his brother, Piotr Chekov, on a Federation research outpost on Archanis IV. One of the Klingons uses an agonizer to inflict pain on Chekov. After much debating with Kang, Kirk authorizes Spock to beam the Klingon and Starfleet officers aboard the Enterprise; however, while giving the order Kirk also presses a distress key on his communicator, causing an amber light to blink on the command chair. Seeing the signal, Spock orders that the landing party be beamed into the ship's transporter room, but he also has the Klingons suspended in the pattern buffer and they are arrested by Enterprise security when they are rematerialized. As the Klingon battle cruiser is emitting an excessive amount of harmful radiation, Kirk intends to destroy the alien craft. Klingon survivors are beamed aboard, including Mara – Kang's wife and science officer. Mara fears that she will be tortured for their scientific and military information, but Kirk assures her and her husband that the Klingons will not be harmed. The captain orders Lieutenant Johnson to secure the Klingon prisoners in the crew lounge and to program the food synthesizer for Klingon cuisine. Spock explains that when the Enterprise received the distress call, the Klingons were too far away to have been the attackers. McCoy argues that they know the Klingons did attack, and that the log tapes will prove the innocence of the Enterprise. The Enterprise is unable to contact Starfleet Command, as all subspace frequencies are being blocked. The Enterprise destroys the Klingon craft with its forward phasers in orbit of the planet, but communication with Starfleet is still unobtainable. In the crew lounge, Kang plans Kirk's death, vowing to hang Kirk's head on a wall in his quarters. Mara fears that the Starfleet crew will overpower the Klingons, while another Klingon officer eagerly advises Kang that they should strike quickly. Kang tells the officer to be patient and opines that the Starfleet crew will make a mistake soon and they will seize upon it. Meanwhile, the crew loses control of the Enterprise and several malfunctions result in the ship pursuing a new course out of the the galaxy. Scott explains that controls have gone crazy, and engines have gone to warp 9 by themselves. Nearly four hundred crewmen are trapped by emergency bulkheads on the vessel's lower decks. Assuming that the Klingons are responsible, Kirk questions Kang in the crew lounge. Kang denies any responsibility. Kirk tells Kang that before he puts him in the brig, there is something he "owes him" and punches Kang for having struck him earlier on Beta XII-A. Suddenly, several inanimate objects in the room, including a three-dimensional chess set, transform into swords. Kirk orders his men to draw phasers, which also mysteriously transform into swords.
Act Two
The Starfleet officers and the Klingons fight, using these primitive weapons of their ancestors. Two more security officers join the battle against the Klingons and Johnson is injured in the fight. The crew members luckily escape in a turbolift that takes Johnson and the other security personnel to sickbay. With the Klingons free to roam the ship, Kirk stays in the turbolift and heads to the bridge. There, he informs the senior staff of the situation. The captain contacts Scott in engineering and tells him that he must free the trapped crewmen at all costs so they may help to fight the Klingons. The engineer reports that he has been unable to regain control of the ship's velocity and is amazed that the vessel has not yet torn itself apart. Spock deduces that the Klingons could not have caused the swords to appear, as the instantaneous transmutation of matter that caused their creation is beyond the capabilities of Klingon technology. Furthermore, Spock reasons, if the Klingons had this power, they would have created more effective weapons than just swords – and only for themselves. When Kirk orders Sulu to take control of engineering and the auxiliary control center, Chekov insists that he join the helmsman. He and Kirk raise swords against each other. Despite Kirk's direct order to return to his post, Chekov explains that he must avenge the murder of his brother and dives into the turbolift aft of the bridge. With a puzzled expression, Sulu tells Kirk that Chekov is an only child and never had any such brother. In sickbay, McCoy grows furious with the Klingons, calling them "filthy butchers" as he treats an injured crew member with a numanol capsule. A group of Klingons enters the auxiliary control center and accesses the Enterprise's specifications. When Mara notifies Kang that there are as many Starfleet officers as there are Klingons aboard the ship, Kang decides to make an attempt at commandeering the vessel and plans to take control of engineering first. In the armory, Scott uses a communicator to contact the bridge and reports to Kirk that the phaser torches have proven useless against the metal bulkheads that have trapped the crewmen, as something has happened to the metal. The armory itself now contains only antique weaponry. Scott marvels at the beauty of a claymore sword, and refuses Kirk's orders to return to engineering. Scott and the Starfleet personnel in engineering are attacked by Klingon soldiers, who drive them out, and seize control of the engine room. On the bridge, Spock detects a single alien life force – the ball of light from Beta XII-A. Spock consults the ship's computer, which reveals that the entity is composed of pure energy, has intelligence and is acting toward an unknown purpose. When Spock points out that if Chekov's memory was manipulated to create an imaginary brother then so could theirs have been, Kirk realizes that the alien force is also responsible for the distress call from a colony that also never existed, as well as the creation of the antique weapons aboard the ship. He proposes to form a truce with Kang, but Spock reminds the captain that the Klingons are infamous for refusing to agree to a truce once blood is drawn. When McCoy enters the bridge, he is overly outraged by the fact that the senior officers are considering a truce with the fiendish Klingons, who would force them into "slave labor, death planets, experiments" Spock informs the doctor of the alien's presence and Kirk adds that the alien is their real enemy, but McCoy believes that they must obliterate the Klingons in what he calls a "fight to the death." After the doctor angrily exits the room, Kang hails the bridge. The Klingon notifies Kirk that his soldiers have captured the engineering section of the ship. Kang is now in control of the Enterprise's power and life support systems. The Klingon warns Kirk that he will "die of suffocation in the icy cold of space." The bridge lights darken.
•Captain's log, USS Enterprise (NCC-1701), 2268
"I don't propose to spend the rest of my life on this ball of dust arguing your fantasies! The Enterprise is mine!! Instruct your transporter room to beam us aboard."
"Go to the devil."
"We have no devil, Kirk. But we understand the habits of yours. I shall torture you to death, one by one, until your noble Captain cries, 'Enough'. Who will be first?"
Kang and James T. Kirk, after Kang claims Kirk's crew as his prisoners – Listen to this quote file info
"Cossacks! Filthy Klingon murderers!! You killed my brother, Piotr! The Archanis IV research outpost! A hundred peaceful people massacred!! Just like you did here! My brother! You killed my brother!"
"And you volunteer to join him. That is loyalty."
Title, story, and production
•This episode had the working title "For They Shall Inherit". •John Colicos was originally going to return as Commander Kor for this episode. A feature film commitment (most probably Anne of a Thousand Days, starring Geneviève Bujold) made this impossible. Had the episode featured Kor, it would've been essentially a reversal of their conflict in "Errand of Mercy". In that episode, the two sides fought of their own accord and were stopped (rather than pushed to fight further) by non-corporeal beings. •Jerome Bixby's original story featured the Enterprise receiving a false distress call from a Federation colony, while en route to celebrate "Peace Day" (anniversary of the day the nations of Earth finally made peace with each other). Arriving to the planet, the crew, along with the crew of a Klingon vessel, also lured there with a fake distress signal, are captured by an alien race and forced to compete against each other in bloody duels. The aliens, appearing to be humanoid, turn out to be, in reality, energy beings consisting of "a blob of light", feeding off the aggression of the two enemy crews. Finally, Kirk and the Klingon commander realize they need to work together and make peace with each other, so the aliens won't get violence to feed on. Eventually, the Klingons and the Enterprise crew sing songs and have a peace march together. (These Are the Voyages: TOS Season Three) •The production staff convinced Bixby that such exaggeration as the "peace march" was not necessary to understand the message of the episode. •This story bore a resemblance to several earlier produced episodes: the Enterprise crew captured by powerful aliens on the surface of a planet ("Catspaw", "By Any Other Name", "The Empath"), humanoid aliens turning out to be "blobs of light" ("Errand of Mercy"), crewmembers forced to take part in deadly gladiatorial combat ("Amok Time", "Bread and Circuses", "The Gamesters of Triskelion"), and even featured Kirk trying to seduce a member of the alien race (appearing to be a beautiful woman) as an escape tactic (similarly to "Catspaw"). Another (possible) reference to a previous episode might be "Wolf in the Fold", which also had an antagonistic, non-corproreal, alien which fed on strong emotion (in that case, fear) •Marvin Chomsky filmed this episode in five and a half days, making him the only director besides Marc Daniels (who shot "The Menagerie" in five and a half days, and "The Doomsday Machine" in five days) to finish an episode in less time than the usually alloted six production days. (Joseph Pevney also finished "Arena", which was expected to stretch to seven days, in only six.)
Continuity
•Michael Ansara reprised his role as Kang in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath" and the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Flashback". •This episode marks the only appearance in the original series of female Klingons. •Although intraship beaming is routine in later incarnations of 'Star Trek' (often in the form of "site-to-site transport"), this is the first and only time it is done in the original series. •The Klingon who says, "Stand and fight, you cowards!" is Pete Kellett, who previously appeared in "Mirror, Mirror" as Farrell, Kirk's henchman, but was uncredited for his role in Day of the Dove despite having dialogue. •This is the only time Sulu is seen in engineering or working in a Jefferies tube. •This episode affords a third and final glimpse of the "working" communicator's central spinning moiré disc, which was controlled by an inner stopwatch mechanism. Its first appearance was in "Friday's Child", and its second appearance was in "Patterns of Force". •The Klingon agonizer used on Chekov is the same one seen in "Mirror, Mirror". •When the entity exits the Enterprise at the end of the episode, it is seen leaving through the front center of the secondary hull, therefore canonizing the location of main engineering in a Constitution-class starship for the first time. •Footage of the Klingon ship is reused from "Elaan of Troyius" which originally aired after this episode. •The footage of engineering, with the hovering entity, was recycled from "The Tholian Web", which featured a floating Kirk in place of the entity. •It is established that Kang's cruiser carried a crew of 400+ when he says "four hundred of my crew dead". The actual complement may be closer to 440 because Mara says there were "forty [Klingon survivors] against four hundred of them [Enterprise crew]". •The officers' quarters are apparently in the saucer section, possibly Deck 6, as seen when the entity moves through circular corridors and passes a sign that says "Officers' Quarters 6F-38". Kang and his shipmates also seem to be detained on this deck because Kirk orders them to be held not in the brig but in the officer's lounge. Also, if the turbolift "deck indicator" can be believed, there were about six decks between the bridge and this floor, with sickbay being in-between at around deck 5 or 4. All of the action in the episode seems to happen at no lower than deck 7, which is squarely in the primary saucer hull, and this includes engineering, auxiliary control, and the armory. •Spock says the Klingons control deck 6 and starboard deck 7, while they control everything above. At the time, the Enterprise's crew controlled engineering, which means engineering must be on either port deck 7 or anywhere from deck 5 and up. However, in the next scene, Scott comes up a ladder shaft and walks through the nearby doors into the "Engineering Section" which is clearly marked by a sign on the wall. This means engineering cannot be on "port deck 7" but anywhere from deck 5 and up, again placing engineering squarely in the saucer. •There is also a room or area called "emergency manual control" which seems to be the famous "Jefferies tube", because Kirk orders Sulu to go down there and we next see Sulu standing in it fiddling with switches. •The "main life support couplings" are on deck 6, as Mara says, and this is where she goes when she is confronted by Chekov. •Spock says "reactor number three" is near engineering, and both are next to a curved corridor, again indicating saucer location for engineering. The entity moves from this curved corridor into engineering, and in the next scene emerges again into the curved corridor, which seems to be deck 6 because Mara has come to fiddle with the "main life support couplings". Mara and her escort seem to have slipped out of the red door to their left, which seems to be the door to engineering, which they just left Kang in. All of this points to a deck 6 location for engineering. It should be noted that the room itself is so tall it occupies two decks, so the upper part could be in the "hump" of the upper part of the saucer, which is deck 5. •Kang states that the Federation and the Klingon Empire had been at peace for three years prior to this episode, evidently referring to the Treaty of Organia from "Errand of Mercy". However, based on the widely accepted chronology for the original series, this treaty would have just been signed the previous year. He could have meant the amount of time in Klingon years. •Kirk and Kang already seem to know one another. Kang uses the captain's name in the teaser, while Kirk uses the Klingon commander's name at the beginning of Act One. This may have been due to Kor's part having originally been written as the Klingon commander for this episode. However, it is possible that Kirk and Kang may have encountered each other before in an unseen adventure involving the Klingons. •This is the first time it is mentioned that Klingons still use bladed weapons, as why Kirk believes that they are behind the appearance of the swords; in all other series, this becomes a universal fact about them. •Uhura is seen talking to Kirk while holding a "Sgian-dubh" (Scottish knife) •The swords are designed to the ethnic background of the users: •Kirk uses an 18th century Navy cutlass. •Chekov uses a Cossack broadsword •Scott uses a Scottish claymore •Sulu uses a Japanese katana •The Klingons and the Enterprise crewmen use Roman gladius with a least one mace, a medieval broadsword, and a scimitar. •This is the only time in the original version of the original series that a Klingon warship is destroyed on screen. In the remastered version, it is also seen in the beginning of "Errand of Mercy". •The Enterprise's turbolifts are given an unusual treatment in the scene in which Chekov flees the bridge. We see him run into the turbolift at speed and bear left; the effect is of him exiting down a corridor (otherwise he'd instantly run into the wall of the turbolift car). A few moments later, after pointing out that Chekov has no brother, Sulu enters the same turbolift chamber, but bears right, again giving the impression of exiting via a corridor rather than a turbolift car. In the next scene we see Chekov's turbolift arrive at its destination, indicating that a second car had arrived to ferry Sulu.
Reception
•Tor.com gave this episode a "warp 4" rating out 6. •Reviewer Dayton Ward of tor.com called the Chekov attempt-at-rape scene "arguably one of the more disturbing scenes from all of the original series." •Reviewer William B from "Jammer's Review" had a much more positive outlook on the episode. He argued that the episode is a metaphor for man's aggression as the default. He wrote that this episode "represents the human aggressive impulse as a rule. When people get enraged, and when they get trained to fight, eventually fighting and the hatred of one's enemy becomes habitual. Its reason for existing is pretty clear – as animals, competing for resources, fighting was a matter of survival, and emotional/instinctual charge to fight and continue fighting would help survive. But taken out of its proper context, this can "take over" otherwise rational people entirely, as happens here with the human and Klingon crews, unless they can correctly identify and fight against this impulse. People are responsible for their actions – but the things carried out by fighters in the frenzy of war are so often so far from what those same people do in peacetime, that it is clear that it is sometimes difficult to keep perspective when in the emotional thrall of combat mentality. The way the creature ramps up aggressive and vengeful impulses, to the point of having Chekov nearly rape the Klingon science officer (!!!), represents this well."
Starring
•William Shatner as Kirk
Also starring
•Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock And •DeForest Kelley as Dr. McCoy
Guest star
•Michael Ansara as Kang
A non-corporeal being manipulates the Enterprise and a Klingon ship into a violent conflict on a planet. Kirk and Kang face each other in a duel, while the crew tries to regain control of the ship and escape the alien influence.
A classic episode where Kirk and Kang face an alien entity that feeds on hatred and turns the Enterprise into a battlefield. See how they overcome the mind control and the Klingon prejudice with humor and diplomacy.
Find out who directed, wrote, produced, and starred in the Star Trek episode Day of the Dove, where Kirk and Spock encounter a Klingon ship. See the full list of cast and crew members, including special effects, makeup, and visual effects artists.
A formless alien entity manipulates humans and Klingons into fighting each other on the Enterprise, feeding on their hatred. Kirk and Kang must work together to stop the creature and restore peace.
Jul 27, 2016 · Stardate: Armageddon. Production #: 60043-66. Overview. While investigating the sudden disappearance of a colony on Beta XII-A, the Enteprise crew encounters the Klingon captain Kang (Michael Ansara) and his wife Mara (Susan Howard).
