NEURAL NEUTRALIZER REALLY THAT BAD?

Episode Title:  Dagger of the Mind

Air Date: 11/3/1966

Written by Shimon Wincelberg (under the pen name "S. Bar-David")

Directed by Vincent McEveety

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”             Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura             Marianna Hill as Dr. Helen Noel    Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie              Frank da Vinci as Lieutenant Brent        Larry Anthony as Transportation Man              John Arndt  as  Frist Crewman             James Gregory as Dr. Tristan Adams          Morgan Woodward  as Dr. Simon Van Gelder         Larry Anthony as Mr. Berkley                       Susanne Wasson as Lethe              Ed McCready as Inmate        Eliezer Behar as Therapist          Walt Davis as Tantalus message

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Tantalus V

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  The Enterprise is dropping off supplies to and picking up official records from the colony Tantalus V.  The transporter crew almost fails in this simple assignment until Captain Kirk reminds them that they can’t beam through shields.  Turns out that they picked up something more than records, a man sneaks out of the box and shows the transporter crew that they’re just as bad at fighting as they are at transporting through shields.

                Kirk when speaking to Mr. Spock and Dr. McCoy goes on to explain how he admires Dr. Tristan Evans, the chief medical director at Tantalus V.  Dr. Evans has turned prisons into hospitals where sick minds can be treated as opposed to simply imprisoned.  McCoy has his suspicions, while Mr. Spock seems to agree.  They get emergency call from the planet explaining that they have had a prisoner escape.  When Kirk confirms that the prisoner is aboard a ship wide manhunt begins.  However the prisoner makes his way to the bridge the phaser.  He demands asylum from Captain Kirk to protect him from his tormentors on the planet, Kirk can’t promise anything at phaser-point and Spock disables him a Vulcan nerve pinch. 

Captain Kirk doesn't make for a good hostage.

When the prisoner wakes up in sick bay he says some wild things to Dr. McCoy.  He says his name is Dr. Simon Van Geller and he is the assistant of Dr. Adams.  He claims that Adams was torturing him using a device called a neural neutralizer.  This is why he appears so messed up.  The problem however is that these accusations that he makes are also made in the company of other random statements that he utters in between his claims.  It’s hard to tell if what any he says is actually real.

When Kirk confronts Dr. Adams over the ship’s communication system, Adams, speaking from his asylum on the surface, has all the right answers.  He identifies who Dr. Van Gelder is and claims that he was doing some experiments and he tested them on himself.  They went wrong and this is why he went mad.

Kirk seems satisfied with this explanation, but Dr. McCoy doesn’t buy it.  He tells Kirk he would note his doubts in in his medical log which requires Captain Kirk to write a response.  Kirk decides to investigate the matter and asked Dr. McCoy to assign him someone from his staff with a background in psychology.   He assigns Dr. Helen Noel, who has the required background not only in her field but may have had a minor fling with Captain Kirk.

Dr. Helen Noel has a history with Captain Kirk

The two beam down to the facility on the planet and they get a tour from Dr. Tristan Adams himself.  Dr. Adams seems friendly and cooperative but as he shows them the facility Captain Kirk starts to have doubts about the nature of it, although Dr. Noel finds the facility even more to her approval as she sees it.   Eventually they are taken to the room with the neural neutralizer; Dr. Adams reminds them that is what damaged Van Geller.  Adams calls it a failed idea that they only use sparingly to help the most dangerous of inmates.  Kirk communicates with Spock to let him know that he will be spending a few days there.  This destabilizes and already upset Van Geller who claims they are in danger.

Adams explaining his operation to his guests.

Later that evening Kirk is still not satisfied with Adams’s explanation of the neural neutralizer.  If it was a failure why do they still use it at all?  He decides that he and Noel will have a look at it in private.  When they get to the room with the neural neutralizer Kirk decides to test it on himself with Noel on the controls.  When she successfully erases his memory of the first test and implants a feeling of hunger in him.  Kirk is really impressed with the efficiency of a machine that Adams had labeled a failure.

Kirk and Noel decided on another test and Noel chooses to plant a romantic evening with the two of them as a memory from the Christmas party last year.  Before she can finish however Dr. Adams and his assistants arrive, capture Noel, and Adams begins to use the device to torture Captain Kirk.  He has Kirk give up his phaser and communicator and he convinces Kirk that he is madly in love with Noel and that he can’t live without her.  Then he tortures him by occasionally referring to her as being gone.

Kirk under Adams's torture

Kirk and Noel are confined to his arranged quarters at the facility.  At first Kirk tries to embrace her but she tells him that it was all a trick of the machine that Dr. Adams had done to him.  Kirk comes up with a plan he has Noel go through the ventilation shaft so she get to the engineering room where she can cut the power.

Going through the ventilation system years before Die Hard made it cool.

Onboard the Enterprise, Mr. Spock decides to take a risk.  Vulcans have the power to mind meld which means they can with touch establish a telepathic connection with whom they are touching.  Spock gets permission from Van Geller to use this technique on him.  It is a risk because Mr. Spock has never performed a mind meld with a non-Vulcan before.  Using the mind meld he’s able to get the truth about Dr. Adams and also repair Dr. Van Geller for the damage that was inflicted on him by mad scientist.

Mind Meld

Adams and his assistants take Captain Kirk back to the neural neutralizer for more torture.  For some reason they don't seem to notice that Noel is gone, Adams must have had an obsession with Kirk.  Adams is positively gleeful in his torture of Captain Kirk, he points out how much stronger Kirk is then Van Geller.  How he can resist longer and how Van Geller was already begging him for relief at this point.  Fortunately for Captain Kirk at this very moment Noel reaches the engineering room and is able to cut the power.  Adams and his men rush in to the neural neutralizer room to restrain Kirk but it is at this moment where Captain Kirk unleashes upon them his fierce fighting skills unparalleled anywhere this side of the galaxy.  He dispatches Adams and his assistant with ease leaving Adams wounded in the room with a torture device.

Some of facility's security try to get the power back on but it turns out Noel also has great fighting abilities as well and is able to shove one of them into the control panel electrocuting him.  Mr. Spock beams down ahead of his security team to help get control of the situation.  When power is restored Kirk realizes Adams is in the room with the neural neutralizer.  They go to it's location, shut the machine off, and enter the room but they find the Adams has died of loneliness.  Kirk explains how the machine empties you out and that by being alone in there without even a tormentor for company is itself a fatal mix.

He's dead, Jim.

Back on the Enterprise, the crew receives word that the recovered Dr. Van Geller has been able to disassemble the machine and get the facility back on track.  Dr. McCoy has a hard time believing that someone could die of loneliness and Kirk just lets him know that he had to have been in that room to understand.

Additional thoughts: It is interesting to note that when the script was originally written it was Yeoman Janice Rand who is going to be accompanying Captain Kirk down to the asylum.   This was rewritten because even though the idea of Yeoman Rand having a crush on Kirk has already been a little explored at this point, another member of the crew might have a crush on the Captain isn’t entirely out of bounds. Creating the character of Dr. Helen Noel was a much better direction.  She is much more qualified than Yeoman Rand to inspect an asylum and it’s also nice to see people who work in the departments on the Enterprise who are not the head of that department.  We get to meet a doctor who isn’t Dr. McCoy.  Also we saw helmsman who wasn't Mr. Sulu, apparently it Mr. Sulu didn't have a shift on this adventure.

Kirk and Noel

What I also thought was interesting about this episode was how it really didn’t need to be a Star Trek episode.   You could’ve taken the same script change some of the characters around and made an episode of The Adventures of Superman, Man from U.N.C.L.E, or even Get Smart and it would’ve worked.

As for Dr. Adams he wasn’t a very impressive villain.  He was just creepy good off on torture he kind of reminds me of Ramsey Bolton from Game of Thrones but without the blood.  I mean when he had Captain Kirk under his control all he had to do was tell Kirk forget all the bad things he saw and make him give a glowing report on his Captain’s Log.  Then do the same with Dr. Helen Noel.  But no, like Ramsey, he had to play his games. If he planned this right every time a Federation official stopped by he could turn them into one of his mind slaves in overtime take control of the entire Federation.  But no, you like to play torture games. 

I feel bad for all the people at Starfleet Medical; Dr. Adams was one of their foremost researchers in the field of corrective medicine.  Then it turns out that he is himself a mentally disturbed person who gets off on torture.  Now they have to go over all his research in painstaking detail to determine at what point he flipped and what part of his research is still useful or maybe it might all have to be thrown out. Remember how Kirk so admired him in the beginning?  I bet medical students are studying this case well into the 24^th century.

In the end of the day is the neural neutralizer really that bad of an idea?  I mean yes it can get abused but that doesn’t mean it cannot have any legitimate function.  Many things that have legitimate functions can be abused and one abused the result can be horrible.  Look at phasers, 20^th century ovens, and drugs in general.  Those are legitimate things that can be horribly abused.

We saw when Captain Kirk and Dr. Noel were experimenting with the neural neutralizer it seemed to work fine in a limited capacity to which it was designed for.  Couldn’t they use it to fix all the damage that Dr. Adams caused?  Did Mr. Spock give everyone in the asylum of mind meld?  It doesn’t seem very practical.  Think of all the good you could do with one of these things under your control.

Just imagine yourself with this device and a truly evil and despicable person like a real life Ramsey Bolton under the devices power.

Evil person: “Ah, what is this?”
You: “Murder is wrong.  When you think about murdering you become very sad and you want to go home without hurting anyone at all.”
Evil person: “Murder is wrong.”
You: “Maiming is wrong.  When you think about maiming a person you become very sad and you want to go home without hurting anyone at all
Evil person: “Maiming is wrong.”
You: “Rape is wrong.  When you think about raping a person you become very sad and you want to go home without hurting anyone at all.”
From this point you continue on getting the truly disturbed individual to stop the physical assault, theft, and damage to embrace decency. 

Oh well sometimes neither the good guys nor the bad guys have any imagination.

FINAL GRADE: 3 of 5

ANDROIDS UNDERNETH THE ICE AND THE ORIGIN OF NURSE CHAPEL

Episode Title:  What Are Little Girls Made Of?

Air Date: 10/20/1966

Written by Robert Bloch

Directed by James Goldstone

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock             Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura             Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie             Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel             Vince Deadrick Sr. as Crewman Matthews               Budd Albright as Crewman Rayburn            Michael Strong as Dr. Roger Korby         Sherry Jackson as Andrea      Ted Cassidy as Ruk    Harry Basch as Dr. Brown 

   

Ships: USS Enterprise NCC-1701

Planets:  Exo-III

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  *Special Notice in addition to Star Trek spoilers this review will also contain spoilers for the film The Sixth Sense (1999)* The Enterprise is heading towards the planet Exo-III an ice world whose star has been going dim. If history is any guide that will mean trouble.  They are trying to find a Dr. Roger Korby a famous scientist whose expertise is researching planets that are home to dead civilizations and discovering their medical knowledge for use in the Federation.  Dr. Korby hasn’t been heard from in the five years since he went to this planet.  Nurse Chapel had been engaged to Dr. Korby before he left on his mission and his disappearance is part of the reason she joined Star Fleet.

                The Enterprise gets a surprise communication from Dr. Korby, they are all happy to hear he is alive but surprised by his request.  He asks that Captain Kirk beam down alone because there is sensitive material that must not be shared with just anyone.  Korby relents however when he learns that Chapel is aboard the Enterprise and allows her to come down as well.

Enterprise crew happy to hear Dr. Korby is alive.

                When Kirk and Chapel beam down however they find no one to great them, Kirk tells Chapel not to be too concerned but he nevertheless calls up to the ship and orders two security personnel to come down.  Two red shirts beam down as we Star Trek fans know that means we have to get two coffins ready.  Kirk has one of the men stay behind and has the other come with him and Nurse Chapel exploring the underground tunnel, which has a steep and dangerous cliff. 

Kirk loses one of his red shirts!

They then run into Dr. Brown, Dr. Korby’s assistant, who for some reason doesn’t recognize Chapel.  He accepts who she is when they tell him but Chapel still feels there is something odd about him that she cannot quite figure out.  As one of the security officers falls down the cliff. Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel run up to the ledge looking over to see if perhaps it there was a lower ledge that he could’ve fallen on.  Brown insists that the security man who fell over the ledge is now dead.  What Kirk and Chapel don’t realize at this point is that the man did not fall he was pushed by a rather strange looking fellow.  Kirk communicates with his remaining security personnel and tells him to contact the Enterprise routinely.  After they go off communicator however the same strange man kills that member of Kirk’s security team.

Ruk, red shirt hunter!

The two officers finally meet with Korby and Nurse Chapel embraces her lost fiancé.  Korby is very energetic and friendly he is generally excited to see them and of course very excited to see Nurse Chapel.   Korby also introduces them to an assistant of his name Andrea, a beautiful and scantily clad woman.  Kirk insists he needs to get in contact with his security man and reestablish contact with his ship; however Korby is unwilling to let Kirk do that.  He explains that he has work here that cannot be seen by just anyone.  With that Brown pulls his phaser on Captain Kirk.  Kirk grabs his phaser and takes Andrea as a hostage as he tries to escape.  Brown moves in on him and Kirk fires blasting Brown both killing him revealing him to be an android. Ruk arrives and subdues Kirk.  

Korby explains that Ruk is a sophisticated alien android built by the world’s original inhabitants.  He found Ruk and has now programmed the android to protect his work at all costs.  It was then that Korby had to explain to Kirk that with that mandate he had killed both of Kirk’s security officers.  In addition to Ruk, Korby also built other androids to use as his assistants.  One of these was Brown, a copy of a real assistant he once had, and the other is Andrea.  Korby goes in length explain how wonderful Andrea is showing that her skin is soft and that she is warm even has a pulse. 

Isn't my creation so sexy!?!

Nurse Chapel was not too happy to hear Korby go on about Andrea’s traits.  It made her think that he had designed himself a lover robot while he was down here the caverns.  Korby understanding her distress decides to demonstrate something, he has Andrea kiss Captain Kirk and then he orders her to strike him both of which she does.  He then turns to Chapel and says, “You see Christine she doesn’t have any emotion she just obeys orders.”  The funny thing is he is not denying that he had sex with her; he is just insisting that it’s okay because Andrea doesn’t feel anything.

Korby showing Andrea's skills on Captain Kirk for Nurse Chapel

Later Korby decides to show Nurse Chapel how they make androids by making a duplicate of Captain Kirk.  He brings Chapel into the android making room and we see Kirk strapped into the device completely naked with the exception of his bounds covering his private areas.  This makes one wonder how exactly they got Kirk into this contraption I am assuming that Ruk put him in their off-camera, which is to be had probably would’ve been hilarious to watch.  As he’s being duplicated Kirk focuses his mind on an insult targeting Mr. Spock.  When the process is complete there is a duplicate Captain Kirk.

Android making time!

To show his android’s effectiveness Korby uses the duplicate of Captain Kirk to have a conversation with Christine Chapel, when Chapel asked the android, thinking he is Captain Kirk, not to ask her to betray Korby the android Kirk reveals himself by pointing out that androids do not eat.  Then Korby enters with the real Captain Kirk so that Kirk can both see the uselessness of trying to get Chapel to join him and how effective the android is.  It is clear now what Korby’s long-term plan is he plans to go to a small Federation colony and eventually use androids to replace all leaders with duplicates loyal to him and allowing the government to run according to his vision.  He thinks if he is running everything he has better priorities and will make the universe a better place.

Kirk pulling up a plate engages with his android duplicate.  Kirk, having already dealt with a double of himself, doesn’t seem the least bit phased by the presence of his doppelgänger.    In fact it was probably something of a relief to see a duplicate of himself who was not made out of parts of his actual being that pulled out of him by transporter.  This time Kirk faces a duplicate while in full command of his own facilities and mind.  During the conversation it is clear that the android does possess his memory.  The android can recall details of his life, journey, and even recall details of Captain Kirk’s brother.  The details he recalls on Kirk’s brother include his full name, how many children he has, and his present work assignment.  The conversation did to have about a brief spat about food that was interesting, but I also think could’ve been a tad bit funnier.

Kirk: Unlike androids I do need to eat.

Android Kirk: You’re weakness sir, not mine.

Kirk: Food is one of life’s pleasures.  It is a shame you’ll never enjoy it, sir.

Android Kirk: Ah, but I will never starve, sir.  More importantly I will never have to waste my time pooping.

Kirk: To drop a big load can be both an immense relief and another one of life’s great pleasures.

Android Kirk: Yes sir, but I will never be stuck on a broken turbo lift with a case of diarrhea. 

Kirk: Okay that’s a good point.  But I would argue that you may have the better body but I do better mind.

Android Kirk: Do you have any idea how many calculations I can make it a single second?

Kirk: Can you calculate how quickly I’m going to talk you and your friends in the killing each other?  For you have forgotten that I, Captain Kirk, am the bane of all artificial intelligence as you will soon see.

"I have faced off against me before!"

Korby uses the android Kirk to go aboard the Enterprise and gather information on the planet they can use.  While there the artificial Kirk encounters Mr. Spock.  Fake Kirk insults Mr. Spock with Kirk’s last thought before duplication.  This is enough to trigger Mr. Spock to realize that this is not the real Captain Kirk, and he orders the formation of a security team to go down to the planet.

The Bane of All AI, begins his work on Ruk! 

The scene with android Kirk and Mr. Spock helps emphasize how the crew the Enterprise is not both competent but also would’ve been a foil for Korby and his androids if they had actually made it that far. Fortunately they are unnecessary because Kirk unleashes his plan to destroy the androids before Mr. Spock and company can get down.

After his encounter with his own duplicate Kirk notices the androids are not as unemotional as Korby seems to think.  He notices that Ruk is not pleased with Korby’s way of doing things.  Kirk speaks with him long enough to get him to realize that he had once betrayed his original makers in the he can do the same thing again with Korby.  This sets Ruk against Korby and Korby has to vaporize Ruk with the phaser.   Kirk then manages to seduce the love robot Andrea.  This leads her to approach the android Kirk with the same intention and when she is rejected she vaporizes him just like Korby did with Ruk.  With that two of the androids have been destroyed.

Kirk goes to confront Korby during the scuffle Korby is damaged it is revealed that he himself is an android.  He tries explained that although he is an android body he is in fact the real Korby, and tries to prove it but realize every time he tries to answer a question he processes it in the way that android would think.  As he tries to tell Christine Chapel that he still the same person and not an android, Andrea shows up and kisses him and uses her phaser to vaporize them both simultaneously.

The not real Dr. Korby 

The episode ends with Mr. Spock and his security team to the rescue where they find Captain Kirk and Nurse Chapel.  When Mr. Spock asked about Dr. Korby Kirk responds with a statement “Korby was never here.”

Additional thoughts:  In 1999 I was in a movie theater with my father and two sisters watching the film The Sixth Sense.  At the scene where Oliva Williams drops Bruce Willis’s wedding ring my father yelled out in the middle of the theater, “He’s dead! He’s been dead this whole #$%%$# time!”  The funny thing was no one else in the theater objected they just nodded their heads in agreement.  The whole theater was equally shocked and my father was voicing the collective opinion of the audience.  In the words of President Theodore Roosevelt he was saying what everyone was thinking and he was saying of the loudest.

                What makes a good twist? To me it has to be something that most people won’t see coming but when you watch it again it seems so obvious that you feel like a fool for not having seen it.  So what about this twist in the revelation of Korby?  When viewing these episodes for this blog I tried my best to clear my head of all my vast Star Trek knowledge.  I tried to consider each of these episodes fresh as if I were watching them for the first time and not to take any element from later in the series or franchise into the review.  (I do allow myself to take previous episodes already reviewed and apply the knowledge of them to the episode being reviewed.)  Now this doesn’t always work in the end of the day I’m a diehard Star Trek fan who has these episodes many times.  For example when this episode starts and Nurse Chapel asked Mr. Spock if he’s ever been engaged I want to raise an eyebrow with Mr. Spock seeing as I already know the answer to that question.  Or when reviewing The Corobmite Maneuver I couldn’t help but wonder where the First Federation had gone to in the Star Trek franchise.  However, I think the Korby reveal was an excellent plot twist.

                When the viewer first meets Korby the character is animate.  He is very lively, smiles a lot, and he can be very charming.  These characteristics are stark contrast to the characters we introduced to and who we know are androids such as Ruk, Brown, Andrea, and ultimately the android Kirk.  There are also some great red herrings to throw us off.  When we first meet the character of Brown he’s introduced to us as somebody who Christine Chapel knows from her past but immediately she realizes something wrong with him.  When it’s android status is revealed we now have an android based on a real human who as a consequence of it being an android can’t fully imitate its human model.  In addition to that when the android Kirk is created we see an android that has a completely different identity of the person it was created from.  Android Kirk is aware he’s not the real Kirk and only pretends to be to fool the crew.  Korby always acts as the real Korby.  Then there is how Korby’s always describes the androids as not having willpower, emotions, or any thought of their own.

                However as one continues to watch the episode there are some cracks that start to show that after the reveal you feel silly for not picking up on.  The major clue is how Korby’s wrong about the androids.  He speaks of them having no minds and emotions.  He often talks about how they have no choice but to obey him.  Yet we see this is not true.  Rok clearly feels frustration at the direction of Korby’s leadership and annoyance at his mercy; Andrea the lover bot android is clearly hurt by Korby's now rejection of her in his embrace of Nurse Christine Chapel; and finally there is android Kirk who feels “at home” on the Enterprise.  The android Kirk also develops some of the mannerisms of the man he’s based on, unlike Brown. 

                Even though it’s not directly stated it becomes clear to the viewer what happened to the real Korby.  After losing his assistant he did manage to survive and find the underground cavern with the android making facility.  He was able to reawaken Rok and re-program the android to help him activate the machines.  In order to continue his legacy Korby arranges to make his android duplicate but dies during the duplication process.  When the android Korby awakes he comes to the conclusion that his mind had just entered a new body.  He thinks he is the real Korby with an android body and he continues to think himself as a separate thing from the androids he creates.  His assistant Brown was already dead during the duplication process so there was no mind for that android to copy.  Since there was a still living Captain Kirk during his duplication process his android always knew he was a copy and never presumed he was the genuine article.  Korby learning he was fake was an incredible dramatic moment.

                The best part the episode for me is this was the first episode where they introduce one of my favorite traits of Captain James T Kirk: the bane of all artificial intelligence.  Right now I’m violating my rule of clearing my head of what I know of the franchise but this is something we will see again from the good Captain.  When encountering forms of artificial intelligence Kirk will simply outsmart them by playing divide and conquer as he does here or simply talk the artificial intelligence into committing suicide.  This is an actual trait of Captain Kirk has as much as slow speaking lines, making out/having sex with beautiful and sometimes alien women, or rule breaking.  Except the difference between this and those other things is this is not an exaggeration this is an actual demonstrated trait that he will use again and again.  What is amazing is not only that Kirk does it but he will often do it easily.  In this particular episode was almost like he had a tolerance of how much he would let the androids annoy him and them he decided to let loose and turn them against each other destroying all of them.

                When I first began this blog I looked ahead at some of the episodes that I would see in the first season and got excited when it came to seeing some of my favorites.  For example I really enjoyed writing the last review and I had looked forward to viewing that episode for the review.  This episode and the next two coming up were on the list of episodes that did not really excite me too much, however I found myself really enjoying this episode as I watched it and that was a great and pleasant surprise.  I am hoping that trend will continue.

FINAL GRADE 4 of 5

INTRODUCING THE ROMULANS: THE ENEMY BELOW OF SPACE!

Episode Title:  Balance of Terror

Air Date: 12/15/1966

Written by Paul Schneider

Directed by Vincent McEveety

Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk    Leonard Nimoy as Lieutenant Commander Spock             DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard H. McCoy AKA “Bones”             James Doohan  as Lieutenant Commander Montgomery Scott AKA “Scotty”   George Takei  as Lieutenant  Hikaru Sulu    Nichelle Nichols as Lieutenant Nyota Uhura             Paul Comi as Lieutenant Stiles               Stephen Mines as Lieutenant Robert Tomlinson    Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie              Bill Blackburn as Lieutenant Hadley             Barbara Baldavin as Ensign Angela Martine          Grace Lee Whitney as Yeoman First Class Janice Rand            Frank da Vinci as unnamed Crewman        Sean Morgan as Crewman Brenner          Jeannie Malone as unnamed Yeoman        Anthony Larry Paul as unnamed Crewman              Ron Veto as  unnamed Crewman           Garry Walberg  as Commander Hanson of Earth Outpost  4              Mark Lenard as the Romulan Commander            John Warburton as the Romulan Centurion                       Lawrence Montaigne as Romulan Lieutenant Decius                 Robert Chadwick as Romulan Scanner Operator              Walt Davis as unnamed Romulan Crewman            Vince Deadrick Sr. as unnamed Romulan Crewman

Ships and Space Stations: USS Enterprise NCC-1701, The Praetor’s Flagship, Earth Outpost 4

Planets:  None

My Spoiler filled summary and review:  *special notice there are also MAJOR spoilers for the movie The Enemy Below (1957).* The episode begins with a rather joyous occasion there is a wedding ceremony about to take place on the ship.  Lt. Robert Tomlinson and Ensign Angela Martine are getting married and Captain Kirk is performing the ceremony.  Right from the go things seem to be a little odd as the Captain is receiving messages of Earth Stations going silent.  Since this is a wedding you would think everyone would be dressed up for it.  You know put on the old dress uniforms instead of their regular duty uniforms.  Poor Ensign Martine doesn’t even get to wear a nice dress to her own wedding just a some white lace in her hair while wearing her regular uniform skirt.

  

The should have put the Ensign in a red uniform it would make for sense for Scotty to be Father of the Bride!

Kirk starts the service by reminding everyone that since the days of wooden ships all captains have had the privilege of uniting happy couples in matrimony, and this is completely wrong.  It just goes to show you that Captain Kirk may be an incredible starship commander but there are just some subjects that he might not be strong on.   This leads me to wonder when exactly Star Fleet adopted the policy of allowing their captains to marry people.  It must’ve been early on so that through all Captain Kirk’s life he has thought the right as being ancient.

Kirk performing an "ancient" tradition 

The ceremonies are interrupted to the sound of a red alert, so I guess it’s a good thing they did didn’t all wear their dress uniforms.   It would’ve been a funny sight to see Lt. Tomlinson and Ensign Martine running around their phaser room in a tux and wedding gown. 

One the bridge we get an update of what’s going on.  From dialogue we in the audience learn that the job these Earth Stations is to monitor the Romulan Neutral Zone.  At this point we all get history lesson for Mr. Spock about the relationship between the United Federation of Planets and the Romulan Star Empire.  Apparently over hundred years before the time this episode takes place the two powers got into a massive military conflict a war that raged on for years.  During that time ships were very primitive compared to modern 23^rd century technology.  The war was fought with atomic weapons and no ship to ship visual communication.  This means no member the Federation nor did a member of the Romulan Star Empire has ever seen the other one.  We also learn that our new Chief Navigator, Lt. Stiles, had ancestors up on that war who were all killed.  But not before reproducing so they could give us our current Lt. Stiles.

The face of a victim of Romulan aggression

As the Enterprise speeds towards the Earth bases in peril they get in contact with Cmdr. Hanson of Earth Outpost 4.  He describes the attackers as coming from nowhere having weapons of great power.  The crew of the Enterprise watches helplessly as they see Henson and his outpost destroyed by this Romulan Bird of Prey.  Spock points out that they can still get traces of the enemy ship on their sensors leading him to conclude that the Romulan ship doesn’t disappear and reappear it simply turns invisible.  He notes to Kirk that invisibility is theoretically possible and the Federation has even looked into this but the power cost of making a ship invisible is enormous but the Romulans appeared to solve this problem.

On the attack!

Lt. Uhura picks up a coded message and being the talented decoder that she is she is able to pick up a visual image of the interior of their enemy vessel.  To everyone’s shock and amazement it turns out the Romulans are in fact really angry Vulcans.  To see that Mr. Spock so resembles the enemies that killed his great-great-great grandfather, his great-great-grandfather, and all his great-great-grand uncles; fills Lt. Stiles with anger and bigotry that Earth had long since eradicated.  It is probably best for everyone involved that Mr. Spock did not exasperate the situation by proclaiming with innocent curiosity, “What is my dad doing all that ship? It looks like he’s leading an attack against us.  I always knew my dad could be kind of a jerk but I never expected him to do something like this.”

Kirk telling Stiles not to be a bigot!

At this point the viewer is transported to the Romulan ship and we get to meet their crew.  All of those who have seen and enjoyed the film The Enemy Below would be pleased to see that the crew of the German submarine is back reincarnated as the crew of the Praetor’s Flagship.  Captain von Stolberg has been reborn as the Romulan Commander, and his loyal First Officer Heinie Schwaffer is now the Centurion.  Unfortunately for the Romulan Commander the Führer-loving Von Hole is now the Praetor- loving Decius.  In addition, like in his old life, he is not to particularly happy with the regime the he is serving.   He also disadvantaged in that he won’t be facing off against Captain Murrell, for this time he is facing James T. Kirk who unlike the sea captain won’t for settle tie.  (How do you like that double spoiler?)

The Romulans!

We learn from his conversations with the Centurion that the two of them are veterans of many campaigns, I’m assuming that since there was this imposed neutral zone the Romulans went conquering in the other direction and that is where these two seasoned warriors get most their experience from.  The Romulan Commander doesn’t want there to be another war and almost wishes for their destruction before they get back.  However he assures his friend that he is bound by duty, which the Commander has already shown when he overrode his tactical officers and told him that the so-called “sensor mirage” was not a mirage at all but an enemy starship copying their movements.

At the emergency meeting of the senior officers, Mr. Spock shocked the now Romulan plus Vulcan hating Lt. Stiles when he agreed with him they given the similarities that Romulans have with Vulcans, and more to the point similarities with ancient Vulcans, it is imperative that they stop this ship from returning home.  For if they return with what they perceive as the weakness of the Federation it will mean all-out war.  With that the game is on and it is now Captain Kirk versus the Romulan Commander!

In the same meeting the senior officers also perform an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of each ship. They determine that the Romulan ship has both superior firepower and the invisibility cloak but they have advantage when it comes to speed.  Scotty goes so far to say that the Romulan ship only has impulse power, which is actually absurd there is no way that they would be able to get from star system to star system much less all the way past the neutral zone if they only had impulse power.  I’m assuming Scotty must be speaking in some form of euphemism. 

Kirk and Spock going over strategy. 

The first part of this battle took place around a comet. The Romulan Commander wanted to use to fool his opponent’s sensors, while Captain Kirk wants to use the comet to force an invisible ship to become momentarily visible.  When the Romulan Commander sees the blip on his sensor screen disappear he realizes what his opponent is attempting to do and compensates by moving his ship away from the comet.  Kirk figures out what the Romulans are doing so he strafes apparent empty space to find the Romulan ship with phaser fire to the point of burning his phasers out.  This would be sort of like a surface ship dropping depth charges onto a submarine, and it has the same effect.  

Getting desperate 

   

With the phaser barrage stopped the Romulan Commander dumps some debris and the body of the Centurion to distract the Enterprise.  He then relocates his ship before decloaking and attacks with a plasma torpedo.  The Enterprise needs to hit its top speed to get away but the plasma torpedo can follow it into warp.  Without phasers they can’t blow it out of the sky before it reaches them and I am going to assume that a photon torpedo hitting a plasma one would be a disaster with the forces of both impacting the Enterprise.  As it starts to catch up the plasma torpedo begins to break apart.  It still hits but with only a fraction of its power.  Both ships back down on each other and silently work on repairs as a long waiting game beings.    

The two ships sit in silence for nearly nine hours until Spock accidentally turns one of the computers on while making repairs.  This Lt. Stiles uses as one more excuse to justify his bigotry.  The whole ‘need for silence’ really doesn’t make sense to me seeing that there is no noise in space so it shouldn’t be a big deal.  It is almost like Paul Schneider was so big on basing this episode on a sea battle he forgot it was a space battle.  I’ll say it was the vibrations.  That is it!  The enemy ship’s scanners can pick out vibrations so we have to be quiet.  Considering this is supposed to be The Enemy Below in space I guess we can count ourselves lucky that Schneider didn’t have the Romulans start singing.  

Even through Spock making noise doesn’t make a lick of sense and shouldn’t endanger them at all, Kirk decides to go on the offensive and blankets space with phasers.  This has some success as Bird of Prey is knocked around like a submarine being depth charged.  Praetor-loving Decius is now in a state of depression, with the Praetor’s Flagship about to be beaten.  Then in my favorite line of the episode the Romulan Commander declares he will save the Praetor’s pride for him.  They do another debris dump this time with one of their atomic weapons normal reserved for self-destruction with enough casing to make the Enterprise’s sensors think that it was their ship.  Kirk falls for it and they blast it causing a nuclear explosion to go off near the Enterprise damaging the vessel but the shields absorbing most the force.

With the Enterprise reeling the Romulan Commander wants to retreat but faces pressure from his men to finish her off.   The Commander is uncertain he doesn’t really think the Enterprise is helpless and is afraid this might be a trick; he gives into his officers demands and moves against the Enterprise.  He should have listened to and trusted himself because Kirk does exactly what he fears.  Far from being helpless Kirk has the phasers ready and waiting for the Romulans.  

Although each may have a specialty, every officer must be able to preform at every station! 

Because of damage to the ship the phasers can only be fired from the phaser control room itself not the bridge.  So the bigoted Lt. Stiles joins Lt. Tomlinson to make sure they go off.  Mr. Spock goes to check up on them only to get the cold shoulder but it turns out it is a good thing he is there because as he leaves a type of gas leak is detected and it knocks the two weapons control officers out.  Romulan ship de-cloaks and Kirk orders them to fire, but nothing happens.  Hearing Kirk’s calls to the phaser room Mr. Spock returns to it fires the weapons and pulls the men out.

With that the Romulans are defeated, Captain Kirk hails the Romulan Commander and offers to take survivors, to which the Commander refuses the Captain’s offer for it is not they’re way.  He tells Kirk that he wishes he could have known him under different circumstances and then he destroys his ship.  He has a much different fate than the earlier incarnation of this character. 

Final Farewell! 

In the aftermath of the battle Lt. Stiles, having his life saved by Mr. Spock, now realizes that a content of a person’s character is more important than the shape of their ears.  So this what we would call from my early childhood in the 1980s “A Very Special Episode.”  Spock lets Stiles know that doesn’t care about his opinions he was just trying to logically save a fully trained navigator.  Lt. Tomlinson wasn’t as lucky as the Enterprise’s only fatality.  Kirk finishes the episode comforting the would-be bride.

Additional thoughts: Well that was nothing short of a masterpiece.  Although Star Trek doesn’t have space battles as a dominant theme they are nevertheless an essential part of the franchise and can often create some of the most exciting moments.  What a great adversary—I can’t bring myself to call him a villain—the Romulan Commander was for Captain Kirk.  At this point Kirk had faced his best friend mutated into a god, an alien with so muchtechnical power it dwarfed the Enterprise, a pimp, a broken transporter, a Salt Vampire, a space virus, and boy god.  This was the first time he faced someone so much like himself—even more than when he was split in two—it was lot of fun watching their space chess match.

                Some interesting trivia the line that the Romulan Commander says to Kirk when tells they are two of the same kind, “In a different reality I may have called you friend.” In the major Superman comic book revamp The Man of Steel (1986) writer John Byrne—who also wrote Star Trek comics—recycles that line as a thought Batman has about Superman in issue #3.  The difference was in the aftermath of Crisis on Infinite Earths Superman and Batman had their histories altered.  Where Batman did once call Superman “friend” in another reality, the Pre-Crisis universe, in the Post-Crisis universe the two were more like professional acquaintances. 

                I wish all Star Trek writers had to watch this episode before writing anything about cloaking.  Often writers seem to forget that invisible does not mean intangible.  I love how the Enterprise responds to their invisibility by just firing randomly into space like they are playing the board game Battleship. “Well they are out here somewhere!”  Too often in modern Star Trek we’ll see the crew be like “Oh, they disappeared.  I guess they got away.”

                The episode was a great way to introduce these classic Star Trek villains: The Romulans.  A society of Vulcans based on the values of the Roman Empire as opposed to the values of Suark.  This episode would pave the way for many more great appearances of these adversaries.  No Romulan character that follows however matches the Romulan Commander from this episode and if I were to cite this episode an error it is in not giving him a name.

FINAL GRADE  5 of 5