Balance of Terror

So, yeah. It's been a few weeks. How about we just jump right in then with another of my TOS favorites?

"Balance of Terror" is a remake of the WWII film The Enemy Below, starring Robert Mitchum and future-Bond villain Curt Jurgens. The basic plot is that an American destroyer is engaged in a deadly battle of wits with a German U-boat, something that happened all too often during the war. As Star Trek is something that uses real life events in its storytelling, a submarine story is not all that out of possibility. After all, space is an ocean (3D, not 2D) and the show does have a fairly strong naval emphasis (well, depends on whether or not Gene was writing that week).

As neither of you are wearing red uniforms,
may I wish you a long and happy life together.

The episode opens with Kirk and company in the ship's chapel. It's long before Gene decided that humanity becomes a race of atheists. Personally, I think all the major religions of today survive, but as a way of instilling a form of moral conduct. After all, the existence of aliens would more or less disprove the notion of the Judeo-Christian God, but why not keep those parts of the Torah, the Bible, and the Qur'an that teach tolerance and love, especially when you're trying to have humanity not be complete pricks anymore? Back from my ramblings, Kirk, as the ship's master and commander, is officiating a wedding between two of his crewmen. One of them is hinted to be Catholic, as she genuflected before the altar. This goes back to Gene's vision of an idealized future where black women, Asian, and now even Catholics (minorities who were not that popular with 1960s America) would work together on Earth's flagship.


Just before the wedding, Kirk gets a message from Spock that two Starfleet outposts on the Neutral Zone have gone silent. In the middle of the ceremony, red alert is sounded and all hands go to battlestations. Another outpost is under attack. Time for all crew to actually run to their stations and not jog lightly!

Damn, the viewscreen is in window mode!

The next scene mostly serves as exposition, and I'd like to say it's handled well, but Spock's line "As you know from your history books..." kind of ruins it. Anyway, he recounts the history of the Romulan hostilities with Earth (it's still before TOS established the existence of the Federation). The way he paints the Earth-Romulan War is...fairly graphic. He says that the ships of those days were "primitive space vessels with primitive atomic weapons" and had "no ship-to-ship visual communications" that allowed no quarter. Considering "no quarter" is outlawed by the Hague conventions, this war must have been brutal. Of course, Enterprise more or less ruined all of this by having the NX-01 appear more advanced that the NCC-1701, armed with photon torpedoes and not nuclear missiles, and equipped with a viewscreen that the Romulans "clearly" did not yet invent. Seriously, the Romulans on Enterprise had warp drive, but couldn't come up with two-way visual communications?


Kirk declares that, for the sake of preserving the treaty and the Neutral Zone, the ship and crew are expendable. Not just the redshirts, mind you. All of them. Even Kirk himself, one of Starfleet's best. Anyway, the navigator, Lieutenant Stiles, tells Kirk that because the Romulans have clearly violated the Neutral Zone and should be destroyed while they're still on the Federation side. Kirk follows-up and learns Stiles' family history, particularly that he had nearly a dozen ancestors who fought and died during the Romulan War. He concludes with a sign of his awesomeness, by reminding Stiles that it was their war. Meanwhile, Spock scans the outpost asteroids that went silent, finding them to have been pulverized. They catch up to the nearest intact outpost, which is quickly attacked again by the Romulan ship and destroyed.


Remember what I said about the introduction of the Cardassians? Well, I must say that the Romulans also get a grand introduction. Sure, they use modern Earth ranks (and even a Roman one), but still we do get a sense that they are a force to be reckoned with. The Earth outposts are described as being so heavily defended, yet a single burst can obliterate them. After destroying it, the Romulans leisurely head back to their space and after some Red Scare-paranoia from Stiles, we get our first look at them, with a shocking twist: the Romulans are nearly identical to Vulcans!


Fun fact: the Romulans were initially slated to be the primary foe of the Federation, Gene's equivalent to the Soviet Union. Oddly, it turned out their make-up was too much, so they went with the easier Klingons later. Who would have thought that twenty years later, the Klingons would have the most extensive make-up job? Back to the episode.

It's a long way to Tipperary...

Naturally, Stiles becomes paranoid of Spock, giving the non-subtle hint that Spock might be a Romulan spy. You know, if Earth had no idea what Romulans look like, then Spock would have no idea they were an off-shoot of Vulcans. The look of surprise on his face is quite priceless. Anyway, following a beautiful underbelly shot of the ship, we get our first look at the new villains. The Commander, played by Mark Leonard (who will play Spock's father), is cynical about the mission and wishes destruction upon the ship before they return home, as he knows returning with proof of Earth's weaknesses will just bring about a new war. Yes, it's nearly twenty years before it was made, but he is very much like Jurgen Prochnow's captain in Das Boot.


On the Enterprise, Spock inspects the "hardest substance known to science" (I wish I had a nickel for every time they say it's the hardest substance...). Kirk discusses the matter with his officers, asking if they can engage with a reasonable shot at victory. Scotty says that it's probable, as the Romulans are at impulse. I must applaud this line, as it goes back to the U-boat story. For those who don't know, a U-boat's top speed while surfaced was about 20 knots. When submerged, their top speed was a mere fraction of that. Of course, the Romulans would have warp drive in order to cross the vast interstellar distances. But while cloaked, it won't work.


They come across a comet, and of course, in deep space far from any stars, a comet has a stunning tail. The Romulans head into it with the intent of turning back on the Enterprise while Kirk goes to the far side of its tail to trap the intruder. However, neither plan truly works and Kirk is forced to blindly shoot at the Romulans, killing the ship's Centurion. Then...possibly the only flaw of the episode. The Romulans get a plasma shot off at the Enterprise and Kirk orders full reverse...at warp speed. Even though we never again see them reversing at warp (except maybe in some more TOS), Kirk does not alter course to dodge the plasma! When a destroyer captain saw a torpedo coming towards him, his first impulse was to turn away from it, not go full reverse and hope it would run out of power to its motor! Though, even WWII torpedoes weren't as reliable at times...


So, the Romulan commander tries to jettison debris, including the dead body of the Centurion, in an attempt to fool the Enterprise into thinking they're destroyed. Of course, because of his levels of awesomeness, Kirk is not fooled. For several hours, the Enterprise plays dead to lure the Romulans in for attack. The Romulans do the same. In his quarters, Kirk and McCoy play out a scene almost identical to one from the original pilot "The Cage", where Kirk goes on about doubting himself. McCoy seems to have had all his whiskey, but still provides Kirk with advice: in all the universe, there is still only one of each of us. Pretty nice words.

Yeah, don't ask why Uhura's at the nav-console.

Naturally, the episode has to end. We get a pretty intense showdown between Enterprise and the Romulans. Even with all his trickery, the Romulan commander is still out-gunned. He opens visual contact briefly, and there's a nice bit where he and Kirk respect each other. I always love it when enemy commanders are able to salute each other. The Romulan even says that "in a different reality, I may have called you...friend". With that, he blows up his ship. In spite of the attacks, there is only one fatality. No, it's not the bigot. It's the guy who was going to get married! Tell me you didn't see that coming!


Overall, I love this episode. It has a good steady pace, the action is very engaging, and we get some good character moments from Kirk, particularly when he doubts himself. I also loved the bit between him and the Romulan commander, like what would have happened if Montgomery and Rommel ever directly contacted each other (but not Patton, because Patton never commanded directly opposite Rommel). It's one of those few times in which the "recycled plot IN SPACE!!!" works extremely well. I say that having watched "The Enemy Below", and found this episode to be an improvement.


Final Score: 10/10

Update

To those of you who have been wondering, I am currently on vacation with limited internet access. I get back on the 18th and will start up my blog again, with reviews of Judgement, Journey's End, and others.