Combine faux fur, what we colloquially call "Chinese fighting stars", a "survival of the fittest" ethic, and a ton of brightly colored fabric and you've got the full complexity of the alien's from a planet Star Fleet hopes to mine. Negotiating with these aliens is sure to be risky, and in fact within the first three minutes of "Friday's Child" a never-before-seen red shirted crew member is hit in the chest with one of those fighting stars. Why? How? The innate racism as represented by relations with the Klingon empire caused the crew member to attempt fire on a Klingon agent that unexpectedly appeared on the planet.
McCoy making contact with his patientEpisode Summary
The episode begins aboard a planet that Star Fleet hopes to mine. However, a less advanced alien species resides upon the planet; a species that tends towards violence, and while quite hospitable towards guests, also prefers to do things on their own way, on their own.
The setting on the planet closely resembles that of typical Hollywood representations of nomadic West-Asian communities from the same time period. The people live in fabric draped wall tents, and follow a leader resembling that of a Khan. But they also wear clothing that closely resembles carpets, and fabric decorated with rick-rack.
Scotty, Chekov, and Sulu have been left in charge of the Enterprise, while Spock, Kirk, and McCoy negotiate with the Khan planetside. On the planet, a fight erupts as one faction wishes to side with the Klingons, and that of the Khan intends to side with Star Fleet. On board the Enterprise a ship is spotted, just as a distress call from what sounds like an earth vessel is also heard. The spotted ship would seem to be a Klingon ship attacking an earth freighter.
On the planet's surface the fight has resulted in the over through of the original Khan. We would expect that the new Khan would turn against Kirk, and also kill the pregnant wife of the former leader. But instead the new leader expresses his new found appreciation for Kirk's boldness. Just as the wife of the former leader would be killed, Kirk steps in to stop her murder. We discover, however, that planet custom states that no man may touch the wife of a leader, lest he be killed. Kirk, then, is threatened to death. The away teams' communicators and weapons have been taken away, and so they are both unable to contact the ship, or receive communication from the Enterprise either.
The Enterprise must respond to the distress call from the freighter, and so leave orbit of the planet, and thereby also leave the landing party. Being held prisoner, along with the wife of the former leader, the away team manages to escape from their security guards with the wife. They tell her they intend to bring her to their ship. She agrees she would rather live than simply follow her people's laws. Our crew has into the mountains, and gathered knives to defend themselves. Escaping into the mountains, the crew convinces the woman to undergo treatment for injuries she sustained in the fight over leadership. During the examination McCoy realizes that the woman could go into labor at any time. The woman realizes she appreciates physical contact in a way she couldn't have known before, she the laws forebade anyone touching her before.
While McCoy makes contact with the wife of the former leader, Kirk and Spock investigate the surrounding area for possibility of escape, and defense. The soldiers of the local area approach. Spock realizes he can produce a sound vibration to cause a rock slide on top of them, which of course he does. In the slide many of the local men, including the new leader are caught by collapsing rocks. The Klingon manages to leap out of the way, and then kills one of the local men stealing some sort of communicator, and also a weapon in the process. The rock slide succeeds at slowing the men down from finding our runaway crew, but they simply continue along a different route. Kirk knows they will find them eventually, and the woman is sure to give birth eventually. The woman needs help, but she allows only McCoy to touch her. They manage to bring her to a cave where she could more safely give birth.
Meantime, on board the Enterprise, the freighter has disappeared. It would seem the distress call was a ploy to get our ship away from its captain. Scotty realizes he must quickly return to help their captain.
Getting into the cave, the woman almost immediately begins to go into labor. She allows McCoy to touch her, while Spock and Kirk go out to try and find both weapons and water. In trying to help the woman give birth McCoy discovers that the woman does not want her child. She explains though it is because in her culture the child belongs to the husband. McCoy attempts to convince her that the child belongs to her, and that they will bring her to the Enterprise for help. She refuses, however, and instead promises the child to McCoy. McCoy attempts to convince her otherwise, while Kirk and Spock create bow and arrows from nearby trees. The child is born. The woman announces the baby is theirs--hers and McCoys.
The Enterprise rushes back to the planet in attempt to help our away team. Inside the cave, McCoy falls asleep, and the woman knocks him out with a rock then runs away. Woman's liberation? McCoy awakes to discover her gone with the child left behind. Now our crew expects that the woman will return to the warriors to warn them of the location of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy. Afterall, released of the former leader's baby, she is no longer any threat to the new leader. Kirk and Spock go after her, just as the Enterprise is intercepted by a Klingon warship.
The warriors approach the location of Kirk and Spock, but before intercepting "the Earth men" they are found by the woman who tells them that both the child and the Earth men are dead. As the wife of a leader she is allowed to demand the warriors to return. The warriors are going to return in honor of her word, but the Klingon runs ahead after Kirk and Spock so that Kirk must fire his arrow on him. The leader of the tribes, however, gives the woman back her life, rather than taking it as the law would demand. In doing so, he must give up his life. He does so so that the Klingon will attack him, thereby giving his people the chance to kill the Klingon. His plan succeeds. Both the Klingon and the leader are killed.
Scotty and his security detail arrive. McCoy returns the baby to the woman. Her baby is the new leader of the ten tribes. The woman, then, acts as the representative of the new leader, and the Enterprise crew succeeds at securing mining rights to the planet.
The episode ends with us discovering that the new leader (baby) of the tribes of the planet has been named Leonard James Ak-ma-Ar (after McCoy and Kirk).
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