Star date: 1709.2
Summary: Just as Kirk is about to perform a wedding ceremony on the ship, word arrives that Earth Outpost 4 along the neutral zone with the Romulan Empire is under attack. Communication with Earth Outposts 2 and 3 has been lost as well. These outposts, as well as a "neutral zone" between the outposts and the planets of the Romulan Empire, were established over a century ago at the conclusion of a previous war between Earth and the Romulan Empire. Due to the relatively primitive technology in use during the war, neither side knows anything about the other, including what they look like. And neither side is supposed to enter the neutral zone.
The Romulans are now clearly in violation of this agreement. Furthermore, the Enterprise quickly learns that the Romulans have invented two new technologies in the past century: A cloaking device, which makes their ships invisible (though still detectable by non-visual means), and a plasma weapon of great power, which has been used to destroy outposts 2, 3, 4 and 8.
The episode unfolds as a battle of wits between Kirk and the Romulan captain, playing hide-and-seek along the neutral zone. In the end, the Romulan ship is left crippled and unable to return home. The Romulan captain refuses Kirk's offer to take the surviving Romulans captive aboard the Enterprise, opting instead to destroy his ship. The Enterprise suffers only a single casualty: the man who was about to be married at the start of the episode.
We also learn that Romulans bear a striking resemblance to Vulcans, which engenders bigotry and suspicion toward Spock from at least one crew member of the Enterprise.
This is my second favorite episode of those I've seen so far, behind "The Corbomite Maneuver". That episode had better dialog, and although this episode didn't have nearly as many script problems as many of them do, it still had a couple. But before we get into those ---
There are a number of smaller themes running through this episode, but the central theme, and by far the most interesting one, is the chess match between Kirk and the Romulan warbird commander. Kirk quickly surmises that the warbird's cloaking device works both ways: you can't see them, but they can't see you, either. He also quickly guesses that the warbird must decloak in order to fire. After making these two educated guesses, he orders his crew to "mirror" the warbird's course and position --- so that if the warbird notices the Enterprise using the same non-visual sensors the Enterprise is using to track it, the warbird will think it's just a "shadow" of their own ship. There's also an interesting (if somewhat puzzling) game played with a passing comet --- some nice visual effects on that, by the way. And finally, all of this plays out in the context of the neutral zone, which the warbird has already clearly violated, but which the Enterprise is under strict orders to observe (but then, we all know Kirk makes his own rules sometimes, don't we?).
I won't bother to detail all of the cat-and-mouse here, but it's really enjoyable.
The main sub-plot is that of bigotry. When the crew of the Enterprise learns that Romulans share the physical characteristics of Vulcans, a navigator named Stiles struggles to conceal antagonism toward Spock. At first, I thought the show might really delve into this issue a la interment of Japanese Americans during WWII, but the issue is only lightly addressed until the end of the show, when Spock saves Stiles' life shortly after Stiles is quite rude to him.
More subtly (I doubt whether the writers did this on purpose), Stiles' bigotry is really stupid, considering Spock's record of service with Starfleet. But perhaps that's the whole point the writers were trying to make: that bigotry is stupid.
Going back to the main story, there's a subplot there which has to do with attitudes toward war. For the first time, we see McCoy aggressively championing a pacifist position, with Stiles and (ironically) Spock both urging war, and for the same reason. Many of Stiles forebears fought in the first Romulan war, so he believes the Romulans to be a warlike race who view pacifism as weakness. Spock believes the Romulans to be a warlike race because they seem to be an offshoot of his own Vulcan heritage --- and apparently the Vulcans have a very bloody past, despite being a peaceful race today.
Of course, to really understand the Romulan attitude toward war, we need to consider the perspective of a Romulan --- and we get one from the Romulan warbird commander. His initial instinct --- to return to Romulan territory, and hope the Enterprise follows --- is the correct one. But he cannot follow through on this instinct because his cultural heritage demands that failing to attack the enemy for any reason is a sign of weakness. This cultural demand, reinforced by his second in command, causes him to keep attacking the Enterprise even after his ship is almost totally helpless and without enough fuel to get home. In the end, this Romulan notion of "duty" in battle contributes more to the warbird's destruction than anything the Enterprise does.
The show doesn't end with the destruction of the Romulan ship, however. It ends with Kirk consoling the fiancee of the Enterprise's lone casualty. This marks a stark contrast to the beginning of the show, as Kirk was preparing to wed this woman and her now-deceased husband-to-be. Although at first this ending struck me as unnecessarily sad, I realized it makes an important point. You can be the "good guys" and fight the good fight, and stand up for your principles, and you can even win --- but that doesn't change the fact that war changes the people on all sides of it, often in quite terrible ways.
Other observations about this episode:
There is a gaffe early in the show, when the Enterprise is viewing real-time video of the Romulan warbird sent by Outpost 4. We see the warbird fire on the outpost and destroy it, and then the Enterprise screen shows the warbird vanishing as it recloaks. In reality this couldn't happen, because once Outpost 4 is destroyed, it would no longer be sending the warbird's image to the Enterprise.
In an effort to out-think Kirk, the Romulan commander steers his ship into the trail of a passing comet. The debris from the comet blocks the Enterprise motion sensors from detecting the cloaked warbird --- but it also makes the Romulan ship visible. A bit difficult to believe the Romulan would make this mistake.
There are only two really implausible aspects to this episode, and they're both fairly minor. One is that, despite the fact that the Romulan warbird is invisible for nearly the entire show, the Enterprise phasers appear to hit it every time they shoot at it, even when they're so far away that a hit would be "the wildest stroke of luck". The other is that the Enterprise survives a nuclear blast less than 100 meters away. I'm guessing 22nd-century nuclear weapons would effectively vaporize anything within a 100 meter radius, or even a 1,000 meter radius. 100 KILOMETERS away, then yeah, maybe the Enterprise takes minimal damage.
We first see Kirk and Rand openly express intimacy toward one another --- on the bridge no less --- as they put their arms around one another seconds before the Enterprise is hit by the Romulan plasma blast.
Since this series is strictly episodic, I'm sure we'll never see "what happens next", but it's interesting to think about. No doubt Earth sends reinforcements to the neutral zone, but what then? Does Earth retaliate against the Romulans, re-starting the war? I'm guessing not, but I'm curious.
The Moral of the Story: If your duty is to destroy your enemy or die trying, some of the time you end up dead.
The Other Moral of the Story: Win or lose, war is hell.
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