Star Trek: The Original Series 1-14: Balance of Terror

Episode:

14

|

Writer:

Paul Schneider

|

Director:

Vincent McEveety

|

Air Date:

15-Dec-1966

---

This week on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm watching classic Star Trek: The Original Series episode Balance of Terror, from halfway through season 1. It's maybe a bit of a weird choice, seeing as the last episode I wrote about was the season 2 finale Assignment: Earth, but I have my reasons. Also by pure coincidence, it's the next episode alphabetically. That's the last of the A titles and this is the first of the Bs.

Speaking of titles, this and Encounter at Farpoint must have the two dullest looking title cards in Star Trek. Though I suppose it's thematically appropriate not to see anything. The title itself is also appropriate to the episode as a 'balance of terror' is when two opposing nations have an equal capacity for destruction on a horrifying scale, and a fear of retaliation keeps them from going to war.

I'm going to be watching the remastered version with the new CGI effects and I'll be curious to see how it compares to the other episodes I've written about, as this was the very first one to get the remastering treatment. They got it released on 16th September 2006, just a week late for the show's 40th anniversary.

I'm also going to be writing words under my screencaps and I'm basically going to give SPOILERS for every moment of the story. I may even spoil some things from earlier episodes as well, but nothing released after 15th December 1996. I mean within reason. I may mention a few things about Enterprise.

---

No captain's log at the start of the episode. Instead it starts with Scotty setting up a giant camera in a redress of the briefing room set so that a ceremony can be seen on all viewing screens. Funny how they've never needed anything like this during video chats.

Spock calls Kirk on the intercom to tell him that there's still no reply from Outpost 2 and now Outpost 3 has gone dark as well, so that's a bit of a concern. But he decides to keep that to himself for now. No sense in ruining the mood when a wedding's about to begin! 

We've never seen the happy couple before, none of the regulars are suddenly getting married out of nowhere, but neither of them are wearing redshirts so they may well survive the episode. Actually plenty of gold shirt and blue shirt officers die during the course of the Original Series so... sorry, now I'm the one spoiling the mood.

We get a weird mellow version of 'Here Comes the Bride' and then Kirk announces that since the days of the first wooden vessels all captains have had the privilege of uniting people in the bonds of matrimony. This is apparently bullshit. Some nations like Japan and Romania do give their captains that authority, and there's nothing stopping a captain from getting certified to make some extra money on the side, but it's not an ancient tradition. But hey this is set hundreds of years in the future and their knowledge of history is a bit fuzzy at times due to... reasons, so I'll let them off.

I don't know if Scotty who got the rest of the room set up, but they clearly know their captain well, as they've got a light pointed right at Kirk's eyeline. They've also got an arrangement of candles set up in front of a Christmas tree design covered in shapes, but's hard to tell if there are any religious symbols there. Kirk does mention that they have many beliefs... and then he's interrupted by a red alert.

Turns out that Outpost 4 has reported that they're under attack by a mysterious vessel, so that's really spoiled the mood.

The ship was headed to the outpost already, but now they're at full speed and people are running down the corridors. Seems like Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson chose the wrong Star Trek episode to get married during. That was a good teaser though. A bit different. I liked it.

ACT ONE

Now we get the captain's log, as Kirk explains that the outposts under attack are guarding the Neutral Zone separating the planets Romulus and Remus from the rest of the galaxy. Though the map calls the planets Romulus and Romii for some reason. On the plus side, we get a map! I love maps in things like this as I find it a lot easier to visualise something when they give me a visual representation of it. Now I know what Sector Z-6 looks like.

The two planets are named after the mythological twin brothers who founded the city of Rome. Well one of them did, the other one got killed because he wanted to build it on a different hill (it's called Rome not Reme so you can guess which one won). It's a bit weird that the writer blatantly named these alien planets after figures from our mythology, but then what planets aren't named after mythological figures? Mars, Venus, Jupiter... Vulcan. It works fine as long as we assume that it's just the human name for them (and ignore that episode of Enterprise which says it isn't).

Here's another new character for the episode, Lieutenant Stiles, and he's got all kinds of opinions which he's happy to share. For one thing he thinks it's pretty obvious what the mysterious vessel attacking outposts along the Romulan border is.

Spock gives the crew a bit of a history lesson over the intercom, explaining that the Neutral Zone was established by treaty arranged over subspace radio after the Earth-Romulan War over a century ago. The Federation hadn't quite been established at this point in history (or the point when they wrote the episode) so they're described as Earth outposts, and we learn that they're built into asteroids. The war was fought with primitive atomic weapons and primitive space vessels, which meant that there were no captives or visual communication. That means that neither Earth, nor its allies, ever saw what a Romulan looked like. I have to give Enterprise credit, they did actually manage to stick to this bit of lore... after a fashion.

I like how much history this episode sets up by the way. People say that new shows shouldn't be constrained by stories aired 60 years ago, but new fans are discovering these episodes for the first time right now, watching them because they're the first chapter, and they want to see how things like this were established! Any writer who feels constrained by lore instead of inspired by it probably should be writing something else.

The Neutral Zone is definitely something that's inspired writers, as it still appears in Star Trek episodes to this day. It's a place that neither Federation or Romulan ships are allowed to be caught inside, or else it could lead to war. So the Enterprise is absolutely, positively forbidden to go in there.

Stiles is confident that the Romulan ships will still look the same: painted like a giant bird of prey. It's a subject that he's passionate about as he lost a lot of family in the war... 100 years ago. The dude knows how to hold a grudge. Kirk reminds him that it was their war, not his.

Hey these two are back! Martine and Tomlinson. They're still determined to get married but until then he's still her superior officer. Wait, what does that mean? Does being married mean that she has to quit and get started on cooking his dinner? Are they both going to quit? Or is he joking about her being able to nag him once she's his wife?

Either way we're getting a rare glimpse at what the rest of the crew is doing during a red alert in a part of a ship we've never seen before. They're mostly checking on phaser batteries at moment.

They regain contact with Commander Hansen at Outpost 4 and things don't look great over there. It turns out that the mysterious vessel has hit Outpost 8 as well, which is so far out of the way it wasn't even on that map earlier. I'm surprised Outpost 5 isn't on the phone asking if the Enterprise could maybe drop by before they're destroyed too.

Commander Hansen reports. He communicates in sentence fragments. Informs them that outpost shields were maximum. Hit by unknown weapon of incredible power. Repeats line "Can you see it Enterprise?"

Yep they can definitely see it.

I've read that there was more filmed for this scene, with Hansen telling Kirk that the mysterious ship is probably based on Earth designs stolen by spies and traitors. This is never mentioned or speculated on during the final episode, but there is definitely something familiar about the look of that ship.

I mean move the pieces around a bit, add a secondary hull, and it could be the Enterprise's sister.

Their nemesis ignores their calls and finishes the outpost off with its second shot. No one on the Enterprise bridge is happy to see this. They're even less happy to see that the ship only becomes visible when it's ready to fire, and pretty surprised by this new technology. Spock tells Kirk that this kind of invisibility is theoretically possible by bending light, but it would cost a lot of power. This would be a good moment for Stiles to point out that the Romulans had a cloaking device like this 100 years ago in Enterprise, but he keeps quiet.

The good news is that they can still detect the ship on their motion sensors. Plus it seems like their enemy are having trouble seeing them through their invisibility screen, so this has just become a submarine movie. The bad news is that the ship is heading towards the Neutral Zone, so it's pretty certain at this point that they are Romulan and it won't be long until they've escaped. 

Kirk orders a parallel course, and is exceptionally reasonable when Stiles says "Don't you mean an interception course?" C'mon Stiles, pull it together. You're almost as bad as the guy who had that chair a few episodes back in The Corbomite Maneuver. Kirk explains that the Enterprise is going to match the Romulan ship's moves so if they are detected they'll be mistaken for a sensor echo.

Stiles doesn't know when to shut up, so he reminds the Captain what's happened so far. It seems like he's pulling a Worf and pleading to be allowed to shoot someone, but it turns out he has something else he wants to point out: that there might be Romulan spies on the Enterprise. After 800 episodes of Star Trek that seems like kind of a stretch to me, but this is only episode 14 and Sulu's inclined to agree with his concerns, so Kirk's going to put all decks on security alert. See Stiles, Kirk took Sulu's suggestion seriously because he wasn't a belligerent dick about it.

It's at this point that Uhura picks up a message from the other ship in code. It's not for them, but it doesn't mean they can't figure out how to spy on their video chat and get a look inside their bridge. Spock puts it on screen and...

The Romulans look like Vulcans! Hey how come it's never a dramatic reveal when an alien looks human? And why isn't the Romulan captain saying anything on this message they're transmitting?

Everyone on the bridge gives awkward looks for a while, and then it cuts to commercials.

ACT TWO

They're still waiting for cryptography to decode the message and Stiles mumbles "Give it to Spock" under his breath. So he just implied that his superior officer (and Kirk's best friend) is a traitor. It's like like he's forgotten that this ship has a different person sitting in that seat every episode and any one of them could be called up here to do his job at a moment's notice.

Kirk once again handles it surprisingly calmly though, saying that he assumes he's praising Spock's skills. And when Stiles doesn't confirm that, Kirk tells him to leave his bigotry in his quarters.

They weren't able to decode any of the message before it ended, but that's fine because Uhura "made a tape of it" for them to study later. Plus they could also try lip reading I guess if the visual part of the message is unencrypted.

Suddenly the Bird-of-Prey decloaks! It turns out that Stiles was right and they do still paint a bird on the underside of their ships. It's a nice touch that adds character and makes Romulan vessels stand out from all the other grey spaceships we get to see in Star Trek.

Not that the Original Series had actually shown that many ships by this point, grey or otherwise. Especially not before the series got the CGI-enhanced makeover you're looking at here. The folks who worked on the remastering did a pretty good job of recreating the bird design, especially as in this case the original model didn't survive and couldn't be used as a reference.

The filming miniature was created by Wah Chang, a sculptor who made most of the Original Series' iconic props, though he was uncredited because he was a non-union contractor. I've read that eventually found himself unpaid as well, after the propmakers' union complained to Desilu, and he destroyed the model in response. The design did appear in the series again thanks to stock footage, but by season 3 the Romulans had to share the Klingons' new battle cruiser miniature instead. They just love copying other people's starship designs!

The episode then cuts to show the Romulan's point of view, giving us a good look at this very purple-tinted bridge. In comic books heroes used to get the primary colours like red and blue, while the villains wore green and purple, and we're seeing that here as well. I like the vivid colour, it makes it interesting to look at.

We learn that the Romulans have names like 'Decius' and serve a Praetor, so the episode's really going all-in with making them space Romans. They even talk in a conspicuously poetic way. But the actors are good enough to pull it off so I don't even care. I'm also not bothered by the way that most of them wearing helmets to save the makeup department from having to give them ears. Alien makeup was hard in the 60s!

It turns out that the Romulan commander's having problems with his men like Kirk is. He didn't even want them to decloak, they did themselves as they thought it was using up too much power. Incidentally it never occurred to me until now that the reason it's called a cloaking system instead of something more prosaic like an invisibility or stealth system, is because of theatrical manner in which the Romulans converse in this story. And now it's just become the standard term for an invisibility device.

Oh plus that message the Enterprise picked up was all Decius' fault, as he decided to tell the Praetor how well things things were going. He gets double demoted for being a dumbass and then sent back to his post. The first officer warns the commander that Decius has powerful friends, which gives us a bit of insight into Romulan culture. It's rare that people on a Star Trek ship have to worry about alliances.

The commander lets his friend know that he's pretty sure that the sensor reflection they've picked up is an 'Earth vessel', that it will eventually attack, and that they will destroy it. Which will result in the Praetor getting his war. The commander would prefer that his own ship was destroyed instead to avoid another devastating conflict, but he's too well-trained to lose.

Damn, the briefing room is extremely blue today, even more so than their uniforms. I like it.

The crew have somehow picked up some debris from Outpost 4, even though the Enterprise had started mirroring the Bird-of-Prey's every move immediately. Spock shows off by calling it 'cast rodinium, the hardest substance known to our science', before crushing it with one hand. I wonder how many takes they had to do of that, sweeping all the bits off the table each time.

So they know the Bird-of-Prey is equipped with both an energy plasma weapon that can neutralise their best defences, and an invisibility screen. But Scotty also believes that its power is 'simple impulse', which means the Enterprise can outrun them. The script is just about vague enough that it doesn't rule out the ship having FTL capabilities, which is good because that would make no sense. They wouldn't have been flying between outposts and blowing them up if they didn't have the speed to reach to reach them. There were stars all over that map we saw earlier, the episode doesn't take place within one solar system.

Stiles got an invite to the meeting and he is adamant that they attack the Romulans while they're on this side of the Neutral Zone, even though Sulu points out that they can't see them. Sulu actually gets a lot to say in this scene, it's great.

Kirk told Stiles earlier that there was no room for bigotry on the bridge, but I guess Stiles feels that there's space for it in the briefing room as he's still convinced that Spock is a traitor just because of his genetics. I'm sure George Takei found this all depressingly familiar, as he was one of the 125,000 people of Japanese descent who were incarcerated in American concentration camps after the attack on Pearl Harbor.

Stiles also believes that if they run away from this fight it'll show weakness, which is what the Romulans are testing for. Then Spock actually backs Stiles up! He doesn't know Romulans, but he does know Vulcans and if these guys are an offshoot of his species who still retain the old savage philosophy, then they'll have to win this battle to prevent a war. I like how we're getting a bit of extra lore about the Vulcans here, which later series would build upon.

It seems like the Romulans are just 21 minutes from reaching the Neutral Zone and it'll take three hours before a message reaches them Starfleet, so they've got to make a decision themselves and do it fast.

Spock discovers that there's a comet in their path and the intruder has turned to move towards it for whatever reason. By pure coincidence they just happen to have a book called "Table of Comets: Galaxy Quadrant YX-12-114" sitting on the briefing room table... but Spock declines to take it and instead tells them about the comet's composition from memory. It's a nice character moment, or at least it would've been if I didn't I have to take a screencap from the remastered episode and view it on a computer monitor before I could make out the title.

Anyway if the Romulans go through that comet they'll leave a visible trail, and Kirk decides that this is their chance. They're going to attack!

ACT THREE

Back on the Romulan ship we learn that they're ducking into the comet's tail in order to confuse their pursuer's sensors. The commander is planning to do a 180 once they're inside to surprise the Enterprise, unaware that the ship's not following them anymore. Kirk's using his ship's superior speed to fly around and catch them when the trail makes them visible.

But once the commander learns that their 'sensor echo' has disappeared he immediately changes tactics and gets the hell out. The Enterprise doesn't pick up the trail they were expecting, and Kirk realises he's underestimated his opponent.

Then we get to see the Enterprise cutting loose with her phasers, so it's suddenly Stiles' best day ever. Though they're set to proximity blast so work more like photon torpedoes in this story... or depth charges.

The episode also cuts to the Phaser Control room to show the fire order getting relayed down and carried out, which is something we've never seen before and probably never will again after this episode. It's not really necessary when they can just be wired up to a button on the bridge.

The ship's firing blind, they don't even have them on sensors anymore, but by some miracle they actually score a hit. The Romulan commander's nearly hit by a falling bit of ceiling, but his first officer pushes him out of the way, taking the blow himself.

Suddenly there's a phaser overload on the Enterprise, which causes an actual fire under Spock's science station! Even though we just saw that Phaser Control has its own room and the phaser controls are usually over on the helm console.

So they've just lost phasers, and photon torpedoes won't be mentioned until the episode Arena, so they're all out of firepower. Which is a problem as the Romulan ship just decloaked and fired its plasma weapon at them. One shot might have dissipated the plasma, but without weapons all they can do is run.

Weirdly Kirk orders them to go to warp in reverse, instead of turning the ship around or getting out of the way, but it leads to a tense scene of them staring at a scary blob of death on the viewscreen, so I can't complain too much.

The plasma is faster than they are and it'll hit them in a matter of seconds, with no hope of getting the phasers working in time. Sulu reads out the countdown to impact, 5, 4, 3... and Kirk hugs Yeoman Rand as they wait for what seems like certain death.

Their situation reminds me of a scene described at the very start of the 'Star Trek Writers/Directors Guide'. The idea was that new scriptwriters would read a couple of paragraphs of an outline and then pick what they considered to be the most important error in the text. 

You know, the more I look at that previous screencap, the more I think that the colour grading might be a bit off. Those are some neon green highlights in Yeoman Rand's hair.

Alright the guide goes on to run though the different choices and why they're not the correct answer they're looking for. It explains that inaccurate terminology is certainly an error, but one that's trivial to fix. Scientific accuracy is appreciated, but not the main thing they want writers to focus on. And the concept isn't even an error at all!

The real problem was Kirk hugging the lovely Yeoman, as it would be unbelievable and not the kind of thing they ever want to see in a Star Trek script.

Anyway the Enterprise crew survives the impact and they've discovered something about the Romulans' new super-weapon in the process: the projectile can travel at warp speed but it can't go far without dissipating. Presumably the shields absorbed what was left of the blast so they don't have to worry about the ship's bow being brittle enough for Spock to crumble with his hands, but I think someone should probably check. 

Speaking of Spock, he finally gets the weapons back on line, just a little bit later than the nick of time, and he picks up the intruder's position again. So they're back on its trail, same as before.

Oh, I forgot about this shot. A lot of the new effects in this remastered version have been better than I expected, considering it was the first episode they did, but I've never liked this checkerboard hull panel effect. Romulan starships shouldn't look like a quilt.

It's weird how the wounded first officer is still on the bridge instead of in sickbay. It's also weird how he basically only had the one scene earlier, before being knocked out. I remembered him being a much bigger part of this episode. He even has the proper ear makeup!

The commander wants their cloak back up, even though their fuel is running low at this point. Honestly it's starting to seem that despite being invisible and outgunning them, they are at a massive disadvantage against the Enterprise. It can always find them, always catch them, and it never runs out of power. Its only flaw is that random circuits burst into flame if they fire the phasers too much.

That's not about to stop Kirk though, and the Bird-of-Prey is hit by another lucky shot.

But they're too late, as the Romulans finally reach the edge of the Neutral Zone, where the Enterprise cannot follow. Kirk's orders are precise and inviolable: "no act, no provocation will be considered sufficient reason to violate the zone".

The TOS movies repainted Kirk as a renegade who likes to break the rules, but in the series he's actually very by the book. Most of the time. He tells Uhura to inform Starfleet that they're going to enter the Neutral Zone! To be fair he's acting under the assumption that war will happen if he doesn't act, and it's more effective to ask for forgiveness rather than permission, when permission will come hours too late.

They've been pursuing the Bird-of-Prey at maximum warp, and Kirk orders them to carry on into the Neutral Zone. I guess this confirms that the Bird-of-Prey does have FTL capabilities or else the Enterprise would've have massively overshot them.

Things aren't exactly sunshine and rainbows over on the Romulan ship either, as the Enterprise's phaser fire is relentless and the Romulan commander's friend has died of his injuries.

Decius is wondering why they don't just attack the Enterprise, so the commander explains what Kirk's doing: he's trying to get them to fire their weapon, to make them waste their precious energy. Well, he's half right. Kirk doesn't know that the ship's low on fuel, but he does want them to fire back so they'll become visible. So the commander comes up with an alternative plan. He orders his crew to take all the bits of ceiling that have fallen down and put them into the disposal tubes, along with his friend's body.

The Enterprise loses the motion sensor signal and picks up the debris. Fortunately it's obvious that there's not enough wreckage there and they're not tricked in the slightest. They can only detect the Bird-of-Prey when it's moving however, so there's nothing they can do now but wait. Well, except for firing blindly, which has had a 100% success rate so far. But they're not doing that.

ACT FOUR

It's been 20 full cycles for the Romulans, 9 hours 47 minutes for the Enterprise, and no one's made a move. The Enterprise is sitting there motionless in the Neutral Zone with its systems powered down to hopefully remain undetected by the cloaked Romulan ship. Also they have to be quiet for some reason, which is maybe stretching the submarine metaphor a bit far. They'd have to be pretty damn loud for someone to hear them in a vacuum!

We get a nice scene here between Kirk and McCoy in his quarters. Kirk's been sitting there struggling under the weight of all this responsibility, knowing if he makes a mistake at this point it could be disastrous. McCoy basically replies that Kirk is unique in the whole universe and shouldn't destroy himself, which feels slightly disconnected from what they're talking about. It's a nice line though.

Back on the bridge, Spock's finishes some repairs under his console, and accidentally turns something on while pulling himself up! It's really rare for Spock to mess up like this, but to be fair he has been down there fixing the thing for like 10 hours at this point.

Kirk realises that he knows how the enemy will punish them for this error and they can take advantage of that. They're going to come right at them and try to slip underneath, so he orders them to reverse course and then open fire.

This leads to a great response from the Romulan commander: "He's a sorcerer, that one. He reads the thoughts in my brain." I had to put subtitles on to see what he said though, as he's drowned out by explosions.

Decius is a bit shocked and dismayed that the Prateor's finest flagship has been beaten, but it's not quite over yet. Fortunately they still have some debris left to flush and this time time they're going to throw in a surprise: one of their self-destruct nukes fitted with a proximity trigger.

Kirk figures it out in time, but they're hit hard. Everyone's really throwing themselves around the bridge set.

This time their attack definitely got through the shields, with 22 crewmembers suffering radiation burns, and burnouts all over the ship. They need someone to help Tomlinson out in the forward phaser room (I guess Martine's having a nap) and Stiles volunteers, so we've finally gotten rid of him from the bridge! Uhura comes down to replace him at navigation, which is actually something she's done a few times before. In fact she was in that chair in the very first shot of the bridge in the very first episode.

Kirk decides to have the ship play dead to lure them over to their side of the Neutral Zone and Decius is eager to take the bait. The commander is wise enough to be wary, but Decius reminds him that it's his duty to finish them off, so he has to go after the Enterprise. Even though they know the Enterprise won't follow them into the Neutral Zone and they could just fly away.

Hang on, the Enterprise is already in the Neutral Zone surely? Stiles said they'd reach it in 20 seconds and it took that long for Kirk to inform Command base that they're going in, so they must be inside.

Stiles is down in Phaser Control now but he's still finding opportunities to be a dick to Spock. Also look it's Tomlinson! I remember him from the start of the episode.

It's up to the two of them to fire the phasers when the Bird-of-Prey decloaks or they're all dead, but Stiles doesn't want any of Spock's assistance, so he leaves them to it. Just then the room starts filling up with poisonous purple gas! Purple... the colour of Romulans.

Soon the two of them are lying on the floor, unconscious or dead. Fortunately Spock realises that something's up when Kirk starts yelling Stiles' name over the PA system and does a bit of a goofy run back to Phaser Control.

The Romulan ship has decloaked and is about to fire, so Spock ignores the two officers and rushes to press all the necessary buttons to fire the phasers himself. Fortunate he manages to fire in the nick of time, crippling the enemy ship before they can hit the Enterprise with their plasma weapon. It's lucky for them the Romulans waited a whole 40 seconds to use the plasma weapon after they became visible. Well their ship was damaged to be fair; I suppose it was the best they could do.

I like the lighting right now. They're not looking at anything nearly this bright on the viewscreen, but it looks good so I won't question it.

Kirk asks Uhura to open hailing frequencies, maybe out of habit. Though it turns out that she actually is able to open a channel and put the Romulan commander on screen from the navigation console. She could've done both jobs from the same panel the whole time!

He tells the Romulan commander to prepare to evacuate his ship and we finally get a conversation between the two.

The commander explains that abandoning ship isn't their way. He regrets that they met as enemies, as in a different reality he could've called him friend. It's sad that despite all the alternate realities and branching timelines we've had in Trek over the years, I still haven't seen this happen. I've plenty more Star Trek left to watch though.

He turns a switch on his console and self-destructs his vessel, fulfilling his final duty. I suppose he got what he wanted in the end: the Praetor's mighty flagship was defeated and they have probably averted a war.

Oh, Kirk does get a response from Command base about his decision to drive into the Neutral Zone, just a few hours late. They say: whatever he decides to do, they'll support it. So Kirk could've gone into the Neutral Zone/will face no punishment for going into the Neutral Zone, depending on what actually happened there.

Hey Stiles survived getting a lungful of purple, and it's all thanks to Spock dragging him out of Phaser Control. Stiles seems like he's about to express an epiphany, but Spock cuts him off, explaining that he simple saved a trained navigator so that he could return to duty, and that he's capable of no other feelings. I'm glad they didn't belabour this too much. The guy's finished his arc by learning that at least one Vulcan has his back, we don't need a whole scene about how wrong he was and how much he regrets his actions. Especially as he wasn't the only person in Phaser Control.

It turns out that they only lost person in the whole battle, but it's someone we know: Tomlinson.

Man, they really did put in the work when it came to lighting this episode.

Kirk finds Martine alone in the chapel that we met her in during the teaser. They don't share many words, but she does at least get a hug. Then he walks down the corridor in silence. No joke at the end of this one.

CONCLUSION

---

Star Trek generally isn't about 'hard men making hard decisions' who routinely put morality aside for what they consider to be a greater good. It'd be fair to say it's more about decent people who follow their moral compass as they navigate each sci-fi crisis they end up in. The Corbomite Maneuver is a great example of this, as the Kirk consistently did his best to make the most ethical decisions as he faced off against a mysterious ship. This turned out to be the exact right choice, as he was being tested by a friendly alien to see if he lived up to his stated ideals and he passed. Happy ending! Balance of Terror, on the other hand, has Kirk relentlessly hunting down a mysterious ship with the intent to destroy it. This turned out to be the exact right choice, as he was being tested by an antagonistic alien to see if his people had the strength and will to defend themselves from invasion, and he passed. Happy ending!

One of the hard parts about being a Starfleet captain is deciding what kind of episode you're in. Is it one where you have to demonstrate human compassion? Do you have to learn a lesson about understanding the other side's point of view? Or do you have to kick the enemy's ass? You can't just pretend you're playing Mass Effect and automatically pick the 'paragon' option in any situation without even thinking about what you're doing. Kirk didn't get to see the scenes on the other ship that confirmed his crew's belief that letting them escape would lead to war, in fact he never knows for sure that what he did was necessary, and the episode gets some good drama out of his uncertainty. Everything's at stake and they have very little information to work with. When the ship's resident Romulan expert is convinced that Spock is a spy because a: he has pointed ears like the enemy commander, and b: that's it, you know that intelligence is limited.

The Enterprise seems to have a real problem with navigators. In The Corbomite Maneuver Lt. Bailey was freaking out and insisting that they should blow something up, and here Lt. Stiles is the ship's only racist against Vulcans. Well except for McCoy. A big part of the episode is Stiles being a stopped clock that's right twice a day. His bad attitude and obvious bigotry means it's played as a surprise whenever anyone actually agrees with him, but it says a lot about how dark their situation is that he's actually correct half the time. He was way off about Spock's loyalty, and really they should've pressed him to back up his accusations with any kind of logic, but he knew what the Romulan ship would look like and he knew they had to attack. Also it's kind of weird how emotional he got though about something that happened to his family over 100 years ago. That's Star Trek: Enterprise era. We're not even 100 years past World War II yet. 

Speaking of wars, the episode features the first proper space battle in Star Trek history and it's... alright. There isn't much to look at, they keep reusing the same shot of the Enterprise firing phasers, but I suppose I can't complain considering the distances involved and the fact that one of the ships is invisible. Though I am deducting points for the episode losing track of whether they're in the Neutral Zone or not.

Overall the writing's pretty good, and I like that the writer made an effort to come up with some actual tactics. They really made it seem like Kirk and the Romulan commander were coming up with plans and predicting each other's moves instead of just yelling 'evasive pattern Janeway alpha' and waiting for the shields to fall to 47% before firing back. Though the Romulan ship seems to be at a huge disadvantage compared to the Enterprise. Especially seeing as the Enterprise can keep hitting it just by firing wildly in its general direction. Every encounter ends with Kirk firing blindly and scoring a hit. 

The cinematography's also pretty good. I like the look of the Original Series in general, but this is a nice looking episode, with dramatic lighting and strong colours. I feel like they put the extra effort in on this one. The acting's pretty strong as well, with Mark Lenard playing a space Roman with pointy ears who's isolated in his own classical theatre production, and nailing it. There are no moustache-twirling eccentric villains in this story, just people with duties and convictions, and the Romulan commander is as tragic and sympathetic as any character.

So as an introduction to the Romulans it's fairly good! I can see why they became a recurring antagonist. Having aliens with Roman culture and ranks and calling them Romulans was pretty absurd, they didn't do their viewers' suspension of disbelief any favours with that choice, but they've got a lot going for them as well. They look like the Vulcans and we never learn why, so they've got a mysterious tie to the series' most fascinating alien race. The story of their war with Earth sets up a lot of history and places them firmly in it. Plus the episode introduces the cloaking device and the Neutral Zone; two things writers would keep coming back to.

The episode doesn't entirely mesh with later Star Trek though. The Enterprise is an Earth ship, investigating Earth outposts, there's no photon torpedoes, they're firing proximity burst phasers from a separate Phaser Control room, etc. But it's just a little early instalment weirdness and the story remains a foundational bit of Star Trek. Well okay the crew being surprised by the cloaking device got thoroughly retconned by 21st century Trek because writers couldn't help themselves, but that flaw was bolted onto it 35 years later.

This probably won't come as much of a shock, but I thought this was a great episode that manages to avoid the pacing issues that mar some other classic stories like The Corbomite Maneuver. Not many laughs in this one, it's all about the drama and tension, but it pulls it off. In fact this would make it onto my 'Top 100 Star Trek Stories' list, and seeing as there's currently 881 of them that's high praise.

---

NEXT TIME

Next on Sci-Fi Adventures, I'm writing about the middle four episodes of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 1! Has it won me over yet? Or is it another traditionally rubbish first season of Star Trek? Find out whenever that gets published.

Feel free to share your own thoughts on Balance of Terror by the way. I think it's an episode worth talking about.