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Star Trek - Balance of Terror
episode 1.14
Raumschiff Enterprise - Spock unter Verdacht
USA 1966
produced by
Gene Roddenberry for Desilu, Norway Corporation/NBC
directed by Vincent McEveety
starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Mark Lenard, Paul Comi, John Warburton, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, Grace Lee Whitney, George Takei, James Doohan, Lawrence Montaigne, Stephen Mines, Barbara Baldavin, Garry Walberg
written by Paul Schneider, created by Gene Roddenberry, music by Fred Steiner, theme by Alexander Courage
TV-series
Star Trek, Classic Star Trek, Star Trek (original crew)
review by
Mike Haberfelner
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For a hundred years, the Federation and the Romulans have had a truce,
tied to the condition that neither enters the other's realm. Now though,
it seems a Romulan spaceship is attacking Federation outposts to provoke a
war, and the problem is that the Romulans are using a deflection shield so
it cannot be seen on screen and only traced by its energy signature. Only
when the ship gets ready to fire it has to become visible for the shortest
time ...
The starship Enterprise happens to be near the outposts though and when
investigating they soon pick up pursuit of the Romulan ship - which cannot
see the Enterprise either due to their deflection shield. Soon the whole
thing becomes a battle of wits between the Romulan Commander (Mark
Leonard) and the Enterprise's Captain Kirk (William Shatner), who both
seem to know every trick in the book and continually do their best to
outsmart each other, not always successfully. It soon becomes clear how
much these two men are alike, despite the fact that the Federation and the
Romulans haven't had any contact at all for the last hundred years.
Ultimately of course, Kirk and the Enterprise manage to blow the
Romulan battleship to Kingdom Come, and when Kirk offers the Romulan
Commander assistance for the survivors, he prefers for them to all go down
with their ship, like any good soldier would (?) ...
A subplot concerns navigator Styles (Paul Comi), whose ancestors were
killed by the Romulans and who now distrusts half-Vulcan Mr Spock (Leonard
Nimoy), because the Romulans and the Vulcans look so much alike - until
that is Spock saves his life and fires the decisive shot against the
Romulan ship. Another subplot concerns two crewmembers (Stephen Mines,
Barbara Baldavin) wanting to get married, but one doesn't survive the
attack ...
Despite this being an episode almost entirely set on the Enterprise
(which are usually the duller episodes of the series) and filled with
special effects that are not really up to the requirements of a space
battle like this (at least from today's point of view), Balance of
Terror is probably one of the best episodes of Star Trek,
presenting a space battle not so much as an endless sequence of special
effects but a battle of wits between two men who in order to win have to
pretty much become their opponent - which if nothing else proves
that good writing can do wonders to a plot that lacks the adequate budget
and technology to bring it to life otherwise. Or course it doesn't hurt
either that William Shatner gives one of his best performances of the
whole series and Mark Leonard proves to be a great opponent.
Recommended.
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