Let That Be Your Final Battlefield

 

In January 1969, the popular science fiction TV series Star Trek aired a bold, though not entirely successful, episode titled "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," in which a pair of bicolored alien beings, mirror images of each other, bring their ages-old feud onto the Enterprise, provoking lots of cogitation among the crew (and viewers) about the nature of tribal animosity and prejudice.

The aliens were played by Frank Gorshin (best known to TV viewers at the time as The Riddler on the Batman series) and character actor Lou Antonio. Gorshin's Bele was an interstellar marshal hunting Antonio's Lokai, a fugitive agitator accused of violent insurrection.

Quite pointedly, the crew members of the Enterprise at first see no difference between the two beings -- Federation civilization having evolved far beyond bias and superficial antagonisms. But the aliens insist the differences are clear -- Bele is white on his left side; Lokai, on his right.

Over the course of the program, the two are shown making appeals to members of the crew -- Bele trying to connect with the senior officers' respect for duty and the rule of law, and Lokai preaching about exploitation and injustice to the lower-ranking crew members. It's a fascinating narrative turn.

The episode does not end happily, as Lokai escapes the ship before he can be delivered back to stand trial for his deeds, and Bele pursues him to their home world. The last image is of them running through the burning streets -- superimposed footage of burning buildings from urban riots in American cities from '67.

Though widely lauded and studied to pieces since its initial airing, Let That Be Your Last Battlefield is reductive in its presentation of the existential dynamic between the two beings, whose differences may have seemed superficial when compared to their similarities but who represented not racial distinctions but imposed constructs of superiority that served one class to the detriment of the other. A powerful analogy for America.

Appeals for both sides to forget the past and press on into a brighter future was no doubt far too simplistic for viewers who had experienced much of Lokai's rage or Bele's frustration, and who may have seen fire as the country's sure future if viable solutions to the race problem were not found.