These Are The Voyages-Star Trek TOS Remastered and Reconsidered

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715

Agree that Arnold Moss as Karidian is outstanding in every scene. The perfect mix of repressed guilt and world-weariness.

Not sure I agree that Barbara Anderson as Lenore is not good. And she really comes alive at the end.

This is one of my favorite episodes, which tells a human story without a lot of unnecessary window dressing. It’s true that the backstory could have been more credible, but I don’t think that harms it much, because the backstory is just the precipitator of the emotions and motivations we see in the story we’re actually watching.

Also, too: Alas, poor Riley. I knew him, Horatio.

716

A new week, a new episode - and this time around it’s “Balance of Terror” which has always been my favorite TOS episode and, by extension, my favorite episode of Trek. Watching it again, I wondered if it would still hold up for me. Though I’ve seen it many times, it’s been a while since my last viewing. Does it still have the magic?

I’m happy to say that for the most part, it does. It’s still a bang-up episode, tense with action and mystery. It’s our first meeting with the Romulans, and as the episode tell us the war between the Federation and Romulus ended over a hundred years ago with no parties involved ever actually meeting in person, all battles were fought in space in primitive vessels that couldn’t even communicate - so nobody even knows what a Romulan looks like! Imagine viewers’ surprise when they turn out to look just like Vulcans. It’s hard to put yourself into the mindset of an original viewer, and kind of hard to purge all the knowledge of Romulans to come in the future. And I’ll admit, the whole Roman theme they follow (why? Did a book of Roman history get dropped through a wormhole to Romulus sometime in the past?) is a little cheesy. But they have a warlike nature, and are provoking another war. So the Enterprise must step in and deal with things. Also, you just know the whole wedding thing has doomed Tomlinson and Martine by the end of the episode.

But enough about that, let’s talk about the awesome. I absolutely love the cat and mouse between Kirk and his Romulan counterpart. I also love that, while the Romulan ship has new technology that seems crazy overpowered, it’s offset by weaknesses that makes the battle between the two much more even - the Romulans can’t use their invisibility indefinitely due to power consumption, and they have to decloak to fire weapons. Now it may seem a little silly how obviously this is just a repurposed submarine thriller, but it works - even when the two captains are whispering while floating in space, and Spock’s silly mistake to set off the alarm exists just to break the stalemate. But I also love that the two captains respect each others’ abilities and intelligence, and there’s no real malice. More trepidation really, Kirk is filled with doubt over what may end up being his role in starting a new intergalactic war.

I’m also intrigued in the way that Kirk openly tolerates dissenting opinions from his crew, but comes down hard only when disobedience starts to rear its head. And he verbally slaps down Stiles once the Romulans are revealed as physically similar to Vulcans. “Leave your bigotry in your quarters - there’s no place for it on the bridge.” Damn, that one must have left a mark.

So yeah, I still love this episode but I’m surprised that I can’t say I love it more than “The Corbomite Maneuver”, both seem equally strong to me on review but for different reasons. Curious if others enjoyed this episode as much as I did, or if it just seemed too cliché to get into.

717

I found this episode pretty boring. I love submarine movies, but when Star Trek tries to do submarine type battles in space, like here and in Wrath of Khan, I get pretty bored. I think it’s just the things they have to do to stretch the rules of the battle and make it fit into that mold that seem weird. Like firing phasors at empty space is apparently like firing of area of effect depth charges now? Only for this episode?

718

You’ve got a point about the phasers, that would have made more sense if they used photon torpedoes but I guess they didn’t exist in the lore yet?

719

Balance of Terror was my favorite Balance of Terror until I saw The Enemy Below. At which point Balance of Terror became my second favorite Enemy Below.

Well, it makes sense to me.

720

I thought the Romulans invented photon torpedoes; the Federation encounters them in this episode and adopts them as an alternate weapon system?

I liked the Romulan commander so much in this episode. It seemed like temperamentally he was more suited to being a Starfleet commander than a servant of the Romulan Empire.

721

The Romulans use a Plasma weapon.

The other plot you describe…doesn’t occur.

722

You may be right about the photon torpedoes, I don’t know exactly how or when they turn up in Starfleet armaments. I too really liked the way they handled the Romulan captain, and how you get a feel for the politics involved. Once he believes he’s knocked out the Enterprise with a nuclear device, he wants to get back home to Romulus, but he’s goaded into taking out the Enterprise by his ambitious underling. The whole thing plays out really well.

723

First Appearance was “Arena”. Nothing in lore about stealing tech from Romulans. The cloaking device was stolen in a Season 3 episode.

724

I had to cut my last post short since I suddenly got busy at work. Where was I?

Oh yes, the Romulans. I really found the episode interesting from just a general Trek lore point of view. I had no idea from watching TNG/DS9/Voyager that the humans (or is it the Federation? Was there a Federation yet, a hundred years before Kirk? Is that closer to the Captain Archer time period?) were at war with the Romulans, and they fought the war without ever finding out what the Romulans looked like.

Another reason I found this episode cool is that the internal behavior of the Romulan ship crew was actually very similar to their behavior in one of my favorite TNG episodes, in which Counselor Troi becomes a Romulan and has to realistically portray herself as such. I love seeing that kind of consistency across multiple Star Trek series, especially considering that this episode is where the Romulans were basically invented.

725

I was living overseas when TOS was first broadcast. As a result I saw most of the show years later, in syndication, and out of order. I have a very strong memory of seeing Balance of Terror for the first time and being shocked to discover that the ship attacking the Enterprise was commanded by Spock’s father. So the whole reaction of the crew really worked for me — I thought they were shocked to see Sarek too.

It’s a good episode. The dialog and relationship between the Romulan captain and the Centurion is very well done — every scene between those two is top-notch. To me, the weakest part of the story is that Kirk is way too easy on Stiles.

726

This is really funny! I don’t know why I didn’t think the same thing. I had the same viewing pattern and saw them at like 6 or 7 for the first time.

727

Shore Leave

Spoilers for Shore Leave follow.

Yeoman Barrow! Yowzer! Giving the Captain a back massage right on the bridge! Spock raises an eyebrow! Captain you horny dog! No wait, he says the Captain needs shore leave.

Dr McCoy is down on the planet, checking things out, and he put on way too much mascara when getting ready for this away mission. But to be fair, it’s not often the Doctor gets to go on away missions. He deserves this mascara. Work it, Doctor!

So when the Dr. mentions Alice in Wonderland, and the rabbit and Alice show up, the audience figures out that something is going on. Somehow what he was thinking about became… real? An illusion materialized? We’re not sure yet. What’s amazing about this episode is it’s near the end of the episode after Mr. Spock beams down that he finally puts up this hypothesis: their thoughts are becoming real.

Meanwhile, the episode itself is fairly charming for the most part. The light banter between these characters remains a highlight. When Spock traps the Captain into realizing that he needs shore leave, it’s pretty mellow and a very endearing moment for both characters.

Overall the episode takes too long in moving forward with its premise, and takes too long in silly scenes, making me really impatient at times. Their sense of timing is really off in this episode, even if I like certain scenes, and enjoyed the premise. It’s just not well executed overall.

It’s frustrating to me that the show started off so fantastic out of the gate with several fantastic episodes, and now continues into sort of drab execution since then. Last week’s boring episode with the Romulans when the premise was so interesting, and now this. Before that, Kodos was pretty great, but the pacing was kind of annoying in that episode too. 3 Episodes in a row now where I’m pretty disappointed. I really hope they can tighten up these episodes next week and not have to have to have so much filler where I’m left anxious for them to get on with it.

728

So here we are again, and as the Rock says, this week we will talk about Shore Leave. This is another one that, like the dummy from The Corbomite Maneuver, kind of traumatized me as a child, because I really thought McCoy was dead. But yeah, you’d have to be a child not to see through that one.

I’ll level with you guys, I don’t like this episode. I would summarize it as some stuff happens, then a guy shows up and says whoops, clerical error, it was supposed to be fun! Ha ha. There are a couple good moments, like Kirk thinking Spock is giving him a back rub and then when Spock jujitsu’s Kirk into going down on shore leave. But all the other stuff is just perfunctory, to me. It’s made clear early on that they’re not hallucinations, so we’re just spinning our wheels until we find out who’s behind it all. And it’s just some guy. Yay.

Anyway, I’d be interested to hear differing opinions. I didn’t hate the episode, the interactions between the crew members was solid as always. I guess this was just a budget-saving episode, they took the cameras to a local park and spitballed. Oh no wait, I forgot to mention, the episode was written by Theodore Sturgeon! Which just goes to show you that not even Theodore Sturgeon is exempt from Sturgeon’s Law.

729

Wikipedia says:

Sturgeon’s revelation (as originally expounded by Theodore Sturgeon), commonly referred to as Sturgeon’s law , is an adage commonly cited as “ninety percent of everything is crap”.

The phrase was derived from Sturgeon’s observation that while science fiction was often derided for its low quality by critics, the majority of examples of works in other fields could equally be seen to be of low quality, and that science fiction was thus no different in that regard from other art forms.

730

Yes, sorry, I assumed everyone was familiar with Sturgeon’s Law at this point.

731

No comment on McCoy’s mascara? He got all gussied up for Yeoman Barrow. I wonder if he’s in love?

732

There’s so much eyeliner and such going on in this show that I didn’t even notice. I did find it a bit strange, whatever was going on between McCoy and Yeoman Barrow, awful lot of fraternization on the Enterprise. And have we seen the last of Yeoman Rand? Until she pops back up in the Motion Picture anyway?

734

Hey, I’m disappointed too. I love that kind of thing in Das Boot, the Hunt for Red October, and so on. I love me some tense submarine combat. But yeah, I don’t know quite why it doesn’t work for me with Kirk and the Enterprise. For some reason I just don’t feel engaged with it, and when you’re not feeling engaged, there’s no tension, and then those scenes just become boring. In most submarine movies, I feel really engaged, so every move is heart-stoppingly tense in the right scene. Neither Balance of Terror nor Wrath of Khan in the nebula fight really made me feel real danger.

735

Aw man, I totally forgot to talk about that damned fistfight! Jesus, that was nearly as long as the one in They Live, and equally as pointless.