Series: Star Trek (The Original Series)
Episode: 3.02 The Enterprise Incident (9-20-68)
Rating: 5/5
Redshirt Status: 0/0/44
Notable Guest Stars:
Joanne Linville – Romulan Commander. She was a frequent guest star on television, and also founded a acting school in california.
Jack Donnor – Sub-Commander Tal. He would later appear as a Vulcan Priest on Enterprise.
Review:
So this adventure begins with McCoy doing narration while we watch Kirk basically being a pain the butt for all his crew. It must be a Monday. He even yells at Spock. He tells Sulu to go into the Neutral zone.
I appreciate the return of the Romulans who are, perhaps, my favorite of the Trek ‘villains’. However, they took a long time to explain Kirk’s behavior.
Considering how little interaction with the Romulans we had till this point, these Romulans seem to act like its pretty usual. Like they come across Humans regularly. Apparently enough they have techniques designed for humans in their information gathering.
I feel like this is very contrived as far as a spy plan goes. The Federation wants the cloak so Kirk acts like a crazed vacation needing man so Spock could ‘kill him’. Seems a lot of variables at stake here.
Also, one would think that all the senior officers (Ie Scotty and McCoy) should have known about this.
I almost wish that The Commander hadn’t been caught because it would have been interesting to see the Enterprise come up against her in the future.
On a side note – I wonder if his feelings for the Commander -whatever they were – were what inspired Spock’s desire to reunite the Romulans and Vulcans. Its such an important storyline for TNG and The Kelvin timeline. I’ll have to remember to look for Spock’s reasons for uniting the two people whenever I get to his episodes on TNG.
How do we go from having the cloak to not having cloaks??
Interesting Notes:
- Directed by John Meredyth Lucas
- Written by D.C. Fontana
- Inspired by real life events involving the USS Pueblo.
Pros:
- For once Kirk doesn’t have to seduce his way out of a problem. Spock handles those duties this time while Kirk gets to go undercover
- A woman in command of a ship.
- I want the Commander’s casual dress.
- Joanne Linville did an excellent job in this episode.
Cons:
- Why is it that the Romulan Commander doesn’t have a name? The Klingon officer in “A Private Little War” had much less screen time and got an official name.
- While mini dresses look nice, and show off your legs if you have them, I think the Commander’s outfit proved its not very logical as a uniform.
Sokorra Lewis 