The Omega Glory

This is one of the most confusing episodes in the entire set. And the sad part is that it didn’t have to be.

The plot is simple enough. Investigating a crewless ship hovering above Omega IV, Kirk and company find themselves exposed to a potentially deadly virus. Isolated on the planet, they learn that Captain Tracey (Morgan Woodward) – the sole survivor from the abandoned ship – has been up to some serious violation of the Prime Directive. The planet’s population is divided into two halves: the civilized villagers called the Kohm and their savage barbarian foes the Yangs. And Tracey has been arming the former with Star Fleet weaponry to help them fend off the latter.

So far so good. I’m even okay with the idea that the virus actually grants extra long life to anyone who remains on the planet. We get another good plot twist or two. When our heroes try to shut him down, Tracey has them imprisoned. They’re freed from Kohm jail when the Yangs invade the village and take everyone prisoner, which of course swiftly turns into a case of out-of-the-frying-pan-and-into-the-fire.

Ah, but then it all unravels. Turns out that the Kohms are actually the equivalent of Earth’s Communist Chinese and the Yangs are their counterparts the Yankees. The problem is the question of how this particular social arrangement came about. The first time I saw the episode I must have missed something somewhere, because I was under the impression that things came to be the way they were as a matter of parallel evolution. The planet had been a mirror image of Earth until some point in its history when it took a tumble back down the civilization ladder.

As little sense as that makes, the “official story” isn’t much better. The notion is that these warring peoples are the descendents of colonies from China and the United States. Now, if they both hate each other so much, why would they settle on the same planet with one another? And more to the point, how did they manage to revert to such a savage state in just the two centuries since interstellar travel was invented? Not to mention that some of the villagers claim to be hundreds of years old. The whole thing just seems to be set up to fail.

Honestly, though, the wherefores don’t really matter much. Back at camp, the Yang boss starts reciting some magic words called the “E Plenista” (or spelling to that effect). Kirk recognizes it as the Preamble to the Constitution, but when he joins in the speaking of the words Tracey argues that he knows them because he’s in league with Satan (Spock, by virtue of his pointy ears, being the Devil himself). The matter must be decided by trial by battle, in which Shatner’s stunt double defeats Woodward’s.

As a “message piece” this is ineffective stuff. The message appears to be that important words like the Constitution have to be read and understood, not merely mumbled as meaningless magic spells. That’s a valid point, but here it’s buried under too much bad logic and poor writing. I’m surprised Roddenberry himself came up with an episode this weak.

Episode rating:

Stardate: Unknown

Episode type: Message piece

Written by: Gene Roddenberry

Original air date: March 1, 1968

By Any Other Name / The Ultimate Computer

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