The Balance of Terror
Captain Kirk is preparing to officiate at a wedding on board the Enterprise when the crew of the Enterprise is forced to postpone the ceremony and rush to the aid of Earth bases. Two bases along the neutral zone separating Earth space from the Romulan Empire have been attacked and destroyed.
The Enterprise approaches a third base in time to talk to the commander. The third base was similarly attacked. It is destroyed before the Enterprise can get within range to help defend the base.
The Enterprise catches sight of the attacking Romulan ship momentarily and pursues it as it heads towards the neutral zone. This begins a deadly game of cat and mouse as first the Enterprise and then the Romulan vessel chase and fire upon one another.
Kirk and the Romulan commander both anticipate one another's moves. Both ships are damaged. The Romulan commander receives unsolicited advice from his crew about how to handle the situation. Stiles, the Enterprise's navigator (some of whose ancestors were killed in the last war with Romulans) offers his unsolicited advice about how to deal with the Romulan vessel.
Stiles makes some racist remarks about Mr. Spock when he sees how similar the Romulans look to Vulcans. Spock later saves Stiles life at great risk to his own life.
The Enterprise is ultimately victorious. The Romulan vessel is critically damaged. Kirk reaches out to the Romulan commander and offers to take him aboard the Enterprise but the Romulan commander chooses instead to blow up his ship, while he is still aboard, as is the Romulan custom.
The wedding ceremony does not resume once the Romulan vessel is gone because the groom was killed during the attack. Kirk consoles the grieving bride as the episode ends.
Thoughts
I have seen this episode at least a few times in the past. I didn't remember all the details but I knew that it was one that I liked. I even bought a copy of it via iTunes more than 15 years ago.
Mark Lenard played the part of the Romulan commander. He is best know to Star Trek fans for playing Sarek, Spock's father, but this was his first appearance in an episode of Star Trek.
Yeoman Rand makes her final appearance (in the original series) in this episode. According to Memory Alpha she also appeared in three Star Trek movies and an episode of Star Trek: Discovery.
They speak, in this episode, of the Earth-Romulan War without any mention of Starfleet. Other terms were used for most of the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series. According to my research it wasn't until 1.20 (Court Martial) that Starfleet became the common term for the organization from which the Enterprise and its crew hailed.
Stiles expresses surprise when he learns that it was Mr. Spock who saved him but he doesn't apologize to Spock for what he said earlier in the episode.
I didn't recall that one of the crew persons who was supposed to get married at the beginning of the episode was killed during the episode but it wasn't too surprising when that did happen.
The special effects used for the Enterprise's phasers in this episode looked very much like the effects used for photon torpedoes in later episodes.
I really enjoyed watching this episode again. It is up there among my favorite episodes of this series and this season.
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