This is a surprisingly decent episode of Star Trek in an otherwise quickly declining third season. There is nothing glaringly wrong or annoying with this episode, but also nothing especially new or suspenseful. The Enterprise stumbles on two alien humanoids locked in eternal battle; both from the same species but with a slight skin difference that has created the prejudice behind the battle they are carrying out which is representative of the battle being carried out between their races back on their home planet. Despite the plot being well-worn and predictable, this episode is surprisingly watchable due to decent acting and musical scoring. The problems I see that this episode has:
1) The black/white makeup for the aliens is just awful. That's not skin. That's cheap paint applied clumsily. It would have looked at lot more real if they had gotten two white actors and sun-tanned half of the face.
2) Upon rescuing the first black/white alien, Kirk and McCoy go on and on about how alien he really is, how he must have come from some unknown star system and be a mutant. But then this alien gains consciousness and immediately speaks perfect American English. This was very jarring and made the whole wow-he's-so-alien bit look silly. I know this happens in almost every episode, but it was especially bad in this scene. At the very least the actor could have faked an exotic accent like in other episodes.
3) As soon as you see the aliens have their first contentious exchange you just know that the message is going to be that prejudice is bad and symmetrical war just leads to mutual destruction. Despite being predictable and forced, this message still has value.
4) Kirk and the crew really didn't do much this episode. They just watched the two aliens lock horns and waited for them to self-destruct.
1) The black/white makeup for the aliens is just awful. That's not skin. That's cheap paint applied clumsily. It would have looked at lot more real if they had gotten two white actors and sun-tanned half of the face.
2) Upon rescuing the first black/white alien, Kirk and McCoy go on and on about how alien he really is, how he must have come from some unknown star system and be a mutant. But then this alien gains consciousness and immediately speaks perfect American English. This was very jarring and made the whole wow-he's-so-alien bit look silly. I know this happens in almost every episode, but it was especially bad in this scene. At the very least the actor could have faked an exotic accent like in other episodes.
3) As soon as you see the aliens have their first contentious exchange you just know that the message is going to be that prejudice is bad and symmetrical war just leads to mutual destruction. Despite being predictable and forced, this message still has value.
4) Kirk and the crew really didn't do much this episode. They just watched the two aliens lock horns and waited for them to self-destruct.