Star Trek at 50: Errand of Mercy

Season 1

Episode 27: Errand of Mercy
Filmed:  January/February 1967

First Air Date: March 23, 1967

Karen: Klingons! It's hard to imagine Trek without the Federation's main enemies, but they didn't appear until nearly the end of the first season. And considering that this episode, and the two that followed, were late orders by the network, who knows, in a parallel universe, Star Trek fans might never have heard of Klingons at all!

Karen: When NBC picked up Star Trek, the original order for episodes was 26. The production staff was on pins and needles around the time they were filming "Return of the Archons," waiting to hear from the network if they would get an order for additional episodes to round out the season. The network had given them a small sum of money and authorized the writing of four more episodes, but not the actual production. By December 9, the word was given: three more shows were to be made. Harlan Ellison had been slowly grinding away on "City on the Edge of Forever," and they hoped to produce that soon, and they had another story outline that would become "Operation:Annihilate." But one more was needed, so again, producer Gene Coon dashed off a script and we got "Errand of Mercy," a terrific episode that is a Cold War parallel, with a small planet (country) caught in the middle of two super-powers. 

Karen: Kirk has an unusually short fuse in this episode, when dealing with the seemingly simple minded Organians, and the brutal Klingons. Maybe he just needed to go on shore leave. But really, his frustration with the Organians and their apparent inability to comprehend the danger they're in only mirrors the viewer's own. I think while many of us respect pacifism, there's a point where self-preservation must kick in; that seems to be Kirk's issue as well in his struggle with trying to get his point across to the Organians. Of course, as we later discover, the natives are not truly threatened by the Klingons, nor do they need anything the Federation can offer. But the lesson about how two super-powers, no matter what their supposed goals might be, can completely devastate a smaller, poorer nation, is obvious.

Karen: This is a pure action-adventure episode, set mostly off the ship, and this made the network happy -they were always looking for these kinds of shows. In order to cut costs, we have no McCoy and no Scotty this time around. Also, despite the Klingons attacking the ship and beaming down in force, there are few effects -we never see a Klingon ship, and the Klingons beam down off stage. Still, it's likely the viewer will never notice as the story moves along at a nice clip.

Karen: The Klingons themselves are nothing great to look at -a quick, "Genghis Khan" make-up was thrown together - but the leader of the military  force, Commander Kor, is played by John Colicos with great charm. Kor is no thug but a calculating, disciplined  man who knows very well the game they are playing. One can easily envision him as the military governor of Organia, or any number of other planets that the Klingons might bring under their heel. He is more than capable and amenable to carrying out the orders of the Empire. He's a part of the system and he recognizes this -whether he likes it or not seems perhaps irrelevant. Colicos creates a memorable adversary for Kirk. It's unfortunate he was never able to reprise the role, something the showrunners wanted to do, but could never work out (although he did play Kor on Deep Space Nine many years later). Of course, Colicos also played the villainous Baltar in the original Battlestar Galactica.

Karen: The final resolution involves more all-powerful energy beings, telling us how screwed up we are, but offering us some hope. I wonder if the Organians know the Metrons? Anyway, the Organians decided there would be no war between the Feds and the Klingons, and so the Organian Peace Treaty was instituted. This made it impossible for open warfare, but we would see the two sides compete to gain the people and resources of under-developed planets, in episodes like "Friday's Child" and "A Private Little War." In many respects, the peace treaty was a smart move by Coon -all-out war between the two space-faring cultures would have been too expensive for the show's budget. Also, once war was declared, surely all the episodes would have to revolve around it. This way, the Klingons were always a potential threat, hovering in the background.

Karen: It seems to me that as they got more popular (and their heads got bumpy), the Klingons picked up some of the traits of another Trek group, the Romulans. Klingons on the original show were never shown to be honorable. They were sneaky, deceitful, treacherous - basically, your stereotypical villains. But by the time of the Next Generation, we began hearing about 'Klingon honor' and tradition. I felt like this came out of nowhere -or was transplanted from the Romulans, who in the form of Mark Lenard's Romulan Commander, was a very admirable foe. Perhaps it was just the desire to give these aliens more depth and background. Who knows. But I kind of miss the guys with the droopy mustaches, who liked to stab people in the back and call the Enterprise garbage.