A Controversial Star Trek Episode That's Hard To Watch Today Changed The Klingons Forever

The Star Trek franchise is still going strong on Paramount+, and the current season of Strange New Worlds takes viewers back to around the era of Star Trek: The Original Series. The modern show does avoid some of the most controversial elements from the original show, but one classic episode is so important to the overall Star Trek world that controversy isn't enough to rank it among episodes of The Original Series that can be skipped. "Day of the Dove," which aired back in 1968, is hard to watch in 2026, but remains invaluable for enhancing the lore about Klingons.

"Day of the Dove" was the seventh episode of Star Trek: The Original Series' third season. The plot kicks off when Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley), and Ensign Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) investigate a distress call from a human colony, but all they find is a party of Klingons. The group, led by Commander Kang (Michael Ansara), believe that the crew of the Enterprise fired on their ship. Unbeknownst to all of them, an unseen alien force was pulling the strings, and both groups were on the verge of war on board the Enterprise in practically no time.

The stage was set for yet another round of conflict between the Klingons and the humans of the Enterprise, and Commander Kang's crew didn't seem much more sympathetic than all the other Klingon groups from earlier episodes of The Original Series. Fortunately, the groups came together just enough to oust the alien before it could do more damage. In the process, "Day of the Dove" made an important point about Klingons, while also including some elements that certainly haven't aged well.

"Day Of The Dove" Started Moving Away From The Klingons As Villains

Long before Worf (Michael Dorn) became a Klingon member of Star Trek: The Next Generation's new Enterprise crew in the late '80s, The Original Series leaned into the idea that the Klingons and the Federation were doomed to always conflict with each other. The characters were the villains when compared to the heroes of the classic Enterprise, and the Klingons are arguably the best-known alien species of the entire franchise in modern day. That all goes back to the three-season show that ran in the late '60s, despite Klingons appearing in a relatively small number of episodes.

"Day of the Dove" subverted expectations by introducing a third party, which was composed of pure energy and had unique abilities to alter the memories and perceptions of all the people on board. Once a party of Klingons was on board the Enterprise, the entity used its abilities to encourage aggression between all the parties, so that it could feed off of the anger. Commander Kang didn't trust the word of Kirk or Spock after they connected the dots, and the entity might have defeated both sides if not for Mara (Susan Howard), Kang's wife and science officer, stepping up.

By the end, Klingons and humans (and Spock) united to defeat the entity by turning their aggression into laughter, forcing it out of the Enterprise. The episode ended without revealing the aftermath for Kang, Mara, and the rest of the Klingons who were on board the ship, but "Day of the Dove" made an important point: Klingons weren't just mindless warriors bent on destruction. In fact, Kirk learned from Mara that the Klingons based a lot of their beliefs about humans on baseless propaganda.

None of this is to say that every Klingon character after "Day of the Dove" aired in 1968 was suddenly a friend and ally to the Federation, but Star Trek showing another side to the species set the stage for what they would become in future series. Kang himself would return several more times in the franchise, with appearances in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. This episode is also the installment of The Original Series that featured female Klingons, and Mara certainly wasn't just a background character or the Klingon equivalent of a disposable Federation redshirt.

Star Trek's "Day Of The Dove" Still Isn't An Easy Watch In 2026

"Day of the Dove" is certainly controversial by modern standards, but not in the same sense as storylines that led to Star Trek episodes getting banned. Despite the ease of streaming The Original Series on Paramount+ nowadays, this season 3 installment just isn't easy to watch, because the alien entity did a lot more than just replace phasers with swords for the Klingons and humans to use on each other.

Chekov, who was affected by the entity from the very beginning, attempted to rape Mara. Kirk and Spock arrived to pull the ensign off of her, and the plot quickly moved on, but Susan Howard's performance when Mara realized that Chekov intended to do to her is hard to forget. It was also unnecessary, since there was already plenty of violence being expressed in other ways between the men. The only episode of Star Trek: The Original Series to feature a female Klingon immediately put her in a position to be sexually assaulted.

Additionally, "Day of the Dove" continued The Original Series' trend of featuring actors in blackface to portray Klingons. The episode was arguably one of the most egregious examples of how TOS portrayed the species, which is a shame, considering that Michael Ansara and Susan Howard delivered excellent performances as Kang and Mara. "Day of the Dove" won't go down as one of the best episodes of Star Trek for valid reasons.

Entertaining elements of the episode, like the characters battling each other with swords and Spock using his trusty Vulcan nerve pinch, aren't enough to redeem the most distasteful parts. Still, the legacy of the episode is important to Star Trek: The Original Series and beyond in the franchise.