Air Date: 9/27/1968
Written by Dorothy C.
Fontana
Directed by John
Meredyth Lucas
Cast: William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk Leonard Nimoy as 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 Eddie Paskey as Lieutenant Leslie Roger Holloway as Lieutenant Lemli Walter Koenig as Ensign Pavel Chekov Majel Barrett as Nurse Christine Chapel Robert Gentile as unnamed Crewman Richard Compton as unnamed Crewman Joanne Linville as Romulan Fleet Commander Jack Donner as Subcommander Tal Mike Howden as unnamed Romulan Guard Gordon Coffey as unnamed Romulan
Ships: USS
Enterprise NCC-1701, two unnamed Romulan D-7R class ships, one unnamed Romulan
Bird of Prey
Planets: none
My Spoiler filled summary and review: The episode opens in a unique way, instead of a Captain’s Log entry from Kirk explaining their mission we hear from Dr. McCoy’s Medical Log. What McCoy is complaining about is Captain Kirk himself. Kirk is acting like quite the jerk lately. He is unnecessarily critical of poor Mr. Chekov, and apparently he has been snapping at most crew members in the same way.
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| Kirk being mean! |
Kirk orders Sulu to do a course correction. Sulu is horrified when Captain Kirk tells him coordinates that will take them past the Romulan Neutral Zone and into Romulan space. They haven’t seen orders that crazy since a wacky commodore did that trying to save time heading to his command. Kirk saved them that time but now Kirk is the one giving the wacky order. Sulu obeys and the Enterprise heads into Romulan space. The Enterprise is quickly surrounded by three Romulan warships. Two D7-Rs and one Bird-of-Prey make up the Romulan fleet. The fleet was on top of them without any warning from their ship’s sensors. It becomes apparent that the Romulans have developed a more efficient cloaking device.
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| The Enterprise is surrounded! |
The Romulans establish contact with the Enterprise and Kirk comes face to face with Subcommander Tal; he claims to represent his Commander. He apparently knows quite a bit about Starfleet as he is able to identify the ship as the Enterprise and knew the name of the Captain. He demands they surrender or be destroyed. Kirk states that he will sooner destroy his own ship than surrender it. Tal, being extremely generous, gives Kirk and his crew an hour to consider their fates.
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| Subcommander Tal |
Kirk summons a meeting with his senior officers. They go over the scenario and they conclude the only reason the Romulans haven’t destroyed them already is they have something that the Romulans want. Scotty concludes that this is the Enterprise herself. If the Romulans could get their hands on the ship they would know all of Starfleet’s technical secrets. Kirk then points out how they have been caught in such surprise. The only way the Romulans could do that is if they have developed a more advanced cloaking device. This could alter the balance of power therefore capturing it will be even more important than survival. Spock also takes time to point out that they would not have been in this situation if Kirk had not deliberately flown their ship straight into Romulan space.
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| The Romulan Fleet Commander |
The Romulans make contact with the Enterprise again before Kirk can respond to Spock’s challenge. The Romulans now want Kirk and Spock to come aboard their ship to negotiate with their Commander. At first they refuse but the Romulans offer up two hostages in their place. This is agreed and the two parties beam over to the other ship at the same time. Although the Romulan hostages had their weapons they found themselves quickly surrounded by Enterprise security.
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| The Commander has an interest in Mr. Spock |
Kirk and Spock are brought in to see the Commander of the Romulan Fleet. The Commander it turns out happens to be a very attractive woman. In this situation Kirk would turn on his seductive powers but it is clear from the start that the Commander has the hots for Mr. Spock. The audience notices this the moment the Commander becomes aware that Spock is a Vulcan. She even goes so far to apologize to him when she insists that she must speak to Captain Kirk alone.
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| Spock hearing the Commander's pitch |
When alone with Kirk she demands to know what they entered Romulan space to which Kirk responds by explaining it was a technical failure with his ship’s navigation equipment that they didn’t notice until they were already across the Neutral Zone. The Commander has a hard time believing this story and calls in Spock to verify it. She is operating under the common myth that Vulcans never lie. The first thing Spock does is lie when he confirms to her that the myth is true. When she asks him to confirm Kirk’s story Spock refuses to say anything. This is enough to convince her that Kirk is lying. She announces that Kirk will undergo enhanced Romulan interrogation techniques. Kirk will not survive but they will discover the truth. With that threat made Spock agrees to talk, he states that over the last few months the Captain’s mental state has been in sharp decline and he is becoming irrational. Spock says that Captain Kirk entered Romulan space with no orders from Starfleet but instead was recklessly seeking his own glory. Kirk is enraged with Spock’s confession and the Commander is satisfied.
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| The Vulcan Death Grip |
With this new information the Romulan Commander contacts the Enterprise to let them know she has the information from Commander Spock about Kirk’s crime and demands they surrender at once. Scotty tells the Romulan Commander to go pound sand. Fortunately for the crew of the Enterprise the Commander is no rush to crush them as she is more interested in having a date with Mr. Spock. On their way to dinner Spock even gets information on the whereabouts of the cloaking device itself as they come to an area that is forbidden to all but loyal Romulans.
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| Spock finds love! |
While Spock is having dinner and discussing his future with the Romulan Commander, Kirk decides to make an escape attempt. It is a rather dumb one, almost as dumb as move into Romulan space. He throws himself up against the force field of his cell injuring himself in the process. Dr. McCoy is then brought over from the Enterprise to treat him. Spock and the Romulan Commander go to see how McCoy is progressing. When they arrive Kirk, who is still enraged by Spock’s betrayal, attacks him. In defending himself Spock uses instinctively the Vulcan Death Grip and kills his captain. McCoy with a few choice words to Spock leaves the Romulan flag ship with the Captain’s body.
In sickbay Nurse Chapel is given a shock when the dead Captain Kirk wakes up! The whole thing has been a ruse. There is no such thing as a Vulcan Death Grip. Kirk and Spock are playing a dangerous game in order so Starfleet can get its hands on the new Romulan Cloaking Device. Scotty, who has been having just the worst time of his life, is somewhat surprise when McCoy calls him away from the bridge and into sickbay. However trusting in McCoy’s character he heads down there. As soon as he sees Captain Kirk all his troubles seem to go away. Kirk has now been surgically altered to look like a Romulan. They take the uniform of one of their Romulan hostages, who Scotty threw in the brig after the arrest of Captain Kirk, and gives it to the Captain.
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| Kirk discovers some Romulans aren't smart! |
Kirk beams over to the Romulan ship and explains to the first person he sees that he is the Centurion who was sent over as a hostage and he has escaped. Spock’s date is getting intimate and the Romulan Commander heads to another room to get changed so she can be sexier for Spock. Spock uses this time to communicate to the Captain and informs him of the cloaking device’s location. Spock then resumes his date with the Commander.
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| Kirk stealing the device! |
Kirk finds his way to where the cloaking device is located. He encounters resistance along the way, but as the greatest fighter this side of the galaxy, Kirk makes short work of them. Fighting with such speed and grace his Romulan opponents are left totally befuddled. Also using some impressive engineering skills he manages to detach the cloaking device—which oddly enough looks almost exactly like Nomad—without damaging it and gets it back to the Enterprise.
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| Kirk showing off his new look to his crew! |
On the Romulan Bridge Subcommander Tal is informed of unauthorized transmission coming from the Commander’s quarters. They go down with a security team and Spock confesses on their arrival. This probably is the worst date the Romulan Commander has ever been on. They quickly discover the cloaking device has been stolen. Spock invokes the Romulan Right of Statement to make his confession. This gives the crew of the Enterprise more time. With that time Scotty starts to install the cloaking device onto the Enterprise, which is quite a feat considering it is alien technology. They beam over Mr. Spock and because Spock was too sexy to let go the Romulan Commander latches on and Kirk gets two for the price of one!
The Enterprise then hightails it out of there at the very dangerous warp 9! The Romulans give chase, Kirk tries to use the Romulan Commander to get them to fall back but she just orders them to fire. As they get into weapons range Scotty gets the cloaking device working and the Enterprise disappears from Romulan sensors. With that and some great zig-zagging the Enterprise escapes. Big win for Starfleet they have the enemy cloaking device and they have a high-ranking commander. Spock and the Romulan Commander have one last moment together as one heads back to his duty and she her POW status.
Additional thoughts: After
it was revealed that Kirk’s jerk act was just part of a ruse it caused me to
wonder about what its purpose was. I can
understand why Kirk was acting that way in front of the Romulan Commander but
why was it necessary for him to act like that with members of his own
crew? However after I thought about it
for a little bit I figured out the reason.
If at some point the Enterprise
was captured and the crew taken prisoner they would be able to answer honestly
in interrogation that Kirk was reckless and acting without Starfleet authority.
This episode is also a reminder of
the supremacy of production order for the Original Series. If you watch it in that order in the previous
two episodes Kirk was involuntarily drug addicted to the Dolhman of Elas, then
he suffered from amnesia and spent two months in the arms of Miramanee before losing her tragically. It would make
some sense to have the Captain lose control of himself seeing as how his mind
had already been messed with.
Although we saw the Romulans again
in The Deadly Years that episode wasn’t truly about them. This episode however gives us the true sequel
to the classic first season episode The Balance of Terror. Two of the themes that were introduced in “Balance”
are brought up in this episode. The
continuing threat of the cloaking device now deadly than ever, where before
they could tract a cloaked ship’s movements but I could not get a visual or
pinpoint its location. They knew
something was out there. Now they
Romulans can get the jump on them whenever they want and had Kirk’s prior
opponent had that advantage the battle might have gone the other way. Considering how much the Romulans were
clamoring for war with their first cloaking device armed with the improved one
war may become inevitable. The second
“Balance” theme revisited is the kinship between Vulcans and Romulans. The discovery that the Federation’s oldest
enemy is the same species as the Vulcans with the only difference being their
political philosophy, certainly presents a wild card. In “Balance” we only saw how the Enterprise crew reacted to this. As far as we knew the Romulans never knew
about their kinship with the Vulcans.
How did they find out? Did the
Federation tell them? Regardless it
leads to a strong Romulan interest in Spock.
The Romulans seemed rather well
informed about a number of things. For
example not only were they able to correctly identified the Enterprise but they knew that the
captain is Kirk. How do they know
this? And if they know this do they also
know that it was Kirk commanding the Enterprise
that resulted in the destruction of the Praetor’s Flagship? Do you know that it was this ship that flew
into the Neutral Zone, and out again thumbing their nose at the Romulan
ships? If they do then capturing the Enterprise would have one more added
benefit of soothing the Romulan ego.
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| Old style |
I normally don’t comment on about graphics on my reviews. I did for The Doomsday Machine because how could I not. The Doomsday Machine was always great but I did note how much I loved the new remastered edition. In this episode I also felt that the new remasters created a great improvement, particularly in terms of series continuity. When the Romulans first appear the crew is shocked to see a traditional Klingon designed ship in front of them. The director, John Meredyth Lucas, did this because the model for the Romulan Bird of Prey had been lost. The appearance of a Klingon-ship being used by the Romulans is where production order once again shows its superiority as if you were watching the classic special effects the audience had not even scene a Klingon ship yet, as one did not appear into Elaan of Troyius. The audience who watched this episode when it premiered must have been awfully confused. The remasters make this better by adding the Klingon ships to episodes such as Errand of Mercy, Friday’s Child, and The Trouble with Tribbles. This way regardless of what order you view it, a new audience should be able to identity what they see as a Klingon ship at the same time Scotty does. The remasters also place in this episode the classic Bird of Prey design from The Balance of Terror. It wasn’t possible that week in 1968 but having it in there draws a connection to the Romulans’ first appearance.
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| New Style |
I did feel bad for the poor Romulan
Commander, sure falling for the enemy first officer probably wasn’t the best
choice but you can’t choose who you fall in love with. To be fair while Spock was exploiting her
feelings and their newly established relationship for the good of the Enterprise she herself was trying to
manipulate Spock into reveling critical information about the ship and its
crew. At this point she had good reason to assume
she was being successful with this as Spock had already turned on Captain Kirk.
Her strategy is one that Captain Kirk has done many times in the past a good
example is with Lenore Karidian in The Conscience of the King. There both Kirk and Lenore were generally
interested in each other while at the same time both had ulterior motives. Kirk was trying to bring her father to
justice, while Lenore was trying to eliminate anyone who could bring that
about. Kirk is lucky the show is called
“Star Trek starring William Shatner” so he can always win, where our poor
Romulan Commander is not in a show called “Star Empire starring Joanne Linville”
meaning she is going to lose.
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| This romance is not working out! |
On a short note I was wondering a
little into some Romulan titles. In The Balance of Terror the Romulan leader played by Mark Lenard is known simply as
“The Commander” that is also Linville’s character’s title. However she commands far more shouldn’t she
be a fleet commander or something. Tal’s
rank is subcommander is he second-in-command of a single ship or the whole
fleet. If it is the later shouldn’t he
also have a higher title?
On the subject of Tal I really like
his character. A true officer who is all
business he reminds me a little of both Mark Lenard’s commander and Decius who
often annoyed his commander. I
especially like how when the Enterprise goes
to cloak he doesn’t let that stop him from trying to catch them. Too often later in this series people will
treat cloaking like it makes their opponents completely undetectable and
intangible, giving up the chase the moment the cloak field turns on. However Tal orders his bridge to calculate
where the Enterprise would be at the
speed it was traveling the moment it disappeared. Kirk however anticipates this and alters the
ship’s course the moment the cloak is fully on.
Tal might have won if he wasn’t facing Captain Kirk.
FINAL GRADE 5 of 5
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