Star Trek Succeeds With A Political Thriller With "The Enterprise Incident!"

The Good: Decent Plot, Good Acting, Excellent Character Development
The Bad: Minutiae
The Basics: In a tense, clever political episode of Star Trek, Kirk and Spock take on the Romulans to prevent the balance of power in the Quadrant from being radically shifted.


The third season of Star Trek is notoriously rocky, filled with some pretty terrible episodes like "Spock's Brain" and the dismal series finale "Turnabout Intruder," not to mention the space hippie episode "The Way To Eden." The third season is so rocky that often the best episodes of the season are neglected. Arguably the best neglected episode of Star Trek is "The Enterprise Incident."

Captain Kirk, according to Dr. McCoy, has been acting erratically for some time when the Captain orders the U.S.S. Enterprise into the Romulan Neutral Zone. Such a move is an act of war and Kirk barks out the order with uncharacteristic fury, so the Enterprise goes in, where it is promptly surrounded by Klingon battlecruisers. Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise surrender to the Romulans staffing the ships and Kirk and Spock beam over to the lead ship to discuss terms. Aboard the ship, Kirk's irrational behavior leads him to attack Spock in front of the Romulans. Spock, instinctively, uses the Vulcan Death Grip, killing Kirk. As the Enterprise crew mourns the loss, Spock allows the Romulan commander to get attracted to him and offer him a position in the empire, which Spock seems willing to take.

Of course, the viewer knows that Captain Kirk cannot be dead; Star Trek is not that kind of show (Star Trek Deep Space Nine, on the other hand . . .). It's a good thing the Romulans aren't all that familiar with the Vulcans, because they completely buy the idea of the Vulcan Death Grip, something anyone who knows anything about the pacifistic, logical Vulcans would have figured out. As it is, this is the only real problem with the episode; the big picture issues of "The Enterprise Incident."

In Star Trek: The Next Generation ("Unification I"), we learn that the Vulcans and Romulans have a common heritage. In the novels it is fleshed out that the Romulans were basically Vulcans who abandoned the planet when the mainstream Vulcan society turned toward logic and reason. Still, there's a significant movement on Romulus that is interested in reunification. So that the best and brightest Romulan commanders would not know some basics about Vulcans like that they abhor killing seems a bit of a stretch.

The rest of the episode works. This is a political thriller, Star Trek explores espionage. And it work, surprisingly, for the big picture reasons. The Klingons and Romulans have begun some form of exchange program (hence the Romulans appearing in Klingon ships) and that is a very real threat to the Federation. So, it seems natural that StarFleet (the exploratory/military wing of the Federation) would do whatever it could to neutralize the advantage the Klingon-Romulan alliance might have. The plan that is executed in "The Enterprise Incident" is clever and worthwhile.

What sells the episode is the acting. Joanne Linville is wonderful as the Romulan Commander as she tries to seduce Spock. Linville offers a very real foil for Leonard Nimoy's Spock and a nice contrast to the somewhat passionless women Spock has associated with in the past. She and Nimoy have very real on-screen chemistry.

DeForest Kelley does a great job as McCoy and he is used to sell a lot of the plot. Kelley is appropriately emotive, angry and cunning. Kelley is such a professional that the viewer is able to "buy" the alterations his character pulls off, embodying the professionalism of a doctor that makes us believe that there is no surgery beyond his ability.

Similarly, Leonard Nimoy gives one of his better portrayals of Spock in this episode. This is one of those portrayals where Spock is cool, efficient and logical. He is the rumored Vulcan that everyone remembers him as, as opposed to the exception he is about every third episode.

But much of the episode hinges on William Shatner's performance as Captain Kirk. Shatner plays Kirk as crazed and weird and it's a pleasure to see his range in this episode. "The Enterprise Incident" explores his range as it brings him from completely on-the-edge to dead to methodical and commanding and Shatner makes the viewer believe completely in his character.

In the end, this is an especially clever story of political espionage and it works as well today as it did when it first aired. It is entertaining for anyone who likes political dramas, science fiction or Star Trek. Very accessible to all audiences!

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third and final season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

9/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please check out my index page!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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In The Race To The Bottom Of Star Trek, One Must Find "Elaan Of Troyius!"

The Good: Umm . . . Space battle? Dear word, nothing!
The Bad: Terrible acting, Abysmal plot, Ridiculous character/racial traits
The Basics: When the Enterprise has to ferry a bratty planetary ruler, there's a stabbing, sabotage, love-potion tears, and a space battle, which makes "Elaan Of Troyius" sound better than it is!


Being on the cutting edge of anything means that while you might push forth with wonderful and successful experiments, you are equally likely to fall down hard. With Star Trek, which was one of the pioneers of science fiction on television, it had some ruts and in its third season, it had a few complete dogs. The first truly abysmal episode of the final season had to be the second episode produced, "Elaan Of Troyius!"

The U.S.S. Enterprise is charged with ferrying the Dohlman of Elas to the planet Troyius where she will be married to end a war that has been raging. Captain Kirk and his crew, warned by the Troyian Ambassador, Petri, soon discover that Elaan, the Dohlman, is a spoiled, bratty, rotten woman who seems to have no redeeming qualities. Distraught over having to go to Troyius, Elaan begins to throw a tantrum and cry, which releases her mystical tears and seem to entrap Captain Kirk to do her bidding. While Kirk tries to teach Elaan manners, the ship comes under attack by the Klingons and Kirk begins to suspect that the Dohlman, her entourage and the mission is not quite what is seems.

Wow, this episode is flat-out terrible. Indeed, it is so bad, I'm having trouble figuring out where to start my critique! Let's start with the basic plot. Okay, that might not be the worst thing in the world. The plot is very simple: woman comes aboard, is upset about being married off, causes problems. Star Trek: The Next Generation used almost the same plot when it presented the magnificent "The Perfect Mate." The difference is all the difference. Captain Kirk finds himself dealing with a complete brat with Elaan.

Elaan is characterized by nothing but negative character traits and she lives down to the worst of them. She is spoiled, boorish, snotty and violent. When she stabs Petri, the viewer is reminded about the trouble with diplomatic immunity! The character has nothing to make her appealing and she often seems a parody of the worst impressions of a leader.

The Elasian women are given the interesting character trait of having tears that enslave men. Yes, when Elasian women cry, they are supposed to be able to exert control over the men who touch the tears. Kirk, of course, is Elaan's victim d'jour. But here we run into one of the significant problems with the episode. Kirk seems minorly more malleable after Elaan cries, but not truly incapacitated. When McCoy describes the medical effects of the tears, he makes it sound vital that Kirk not touch them. And yet, he is able to shrug off the effects in a way that is not satisfactorily explained. After all, are we supposed to believe that none of the Elasian men have the will to resist a woman, but James Kirk can?!

"Elaan Of Troyius" suffers from the same type of supernatural influx that brought down the otherwise clever and worthwhile "A Private Little War." Unlike that episode, though, which also involved Klingon involvement outside their sphere of influence, "Elaan Of Troyius" lacks a genuinely interesting and enduring theme. This is a cheap excuse to have Captain Kirk scolding a woman and an opportunity to portray women as simple tools who are petty, ignorant and difficult.

The problem with reviewing "Elaan Of Troyius" is that it is a very simple episode. Bratty woman comes aboard, ensorcels Kirk. Okay, that's fifteen minutes, tops. Well, there's a tacked on Klingon subplot. The problem is, there's no mystery to it. One of Elaan's bodyguards - who is in league with the Klingons - sabotages the Enterprise. And that whole plot comes to a quick end, but inspires the pointless end section where the Enterprise is stuck with damaged engines when it comes under attack by the Klingons and Scotty has to try to defuse a bomb and keep the ship protected. It might sound vaguely interesting, but the execution is awful and the characters unique to this episode are uninspired and poorly realized.

What nails the final nail into this particular coffin is the all-around crummy acting. Regular performers Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley are off their game with Nimoy smirking his way through parts of the episode more than Kelley! James Doohan's performance from engineering is one of his most melodramatic.

France Nuyen is particularly atrocious as Elaan. While her accent is real, her role is such an annoying one that it becomes impossible to divorce the character from the actor. Perhaps Nuyen is a phenomenal actor because she so overwhelmingly convinces the viewer that her character is unredeemably bratty that the viewer ends up loathing every minute she is on screen. Indeed, no good comes from her performance and the character is no more vital than she appears on the script page.

The lack of allure or appeal to Elaan is especially problematic as France Nuyen and William Shatner had appeared in a popular play together prior to this episode. That they have utterly no chemistry on screen guts any sense of truth that might exist in the reality of the Elasian physiology. Even "possessed" by her tears, Shatner seems no more connected to Nuyen than prior.

Shatner's acting in "Elaan Of Troyius" seems particularly lackluster and uninspired, as if he is bored with the prospect of kissing yet-another tin foil-clad woman. His performance as influenced by Elaan's tears is significantly less convincing than the performance he gave when Kirk was overcome by mind-controlling spores back in "This Side Of Paradise." But before he even gets to that point in the story, Shatner appears to be operating at less than full steam.

The simple plot, universally unlikable characters and utterly uninspired performances all contribute to a tragically dull episode of Star Trek that is impossible to recommend to anyone. The story is not remotely appealing to fans of drama, comedy, science fiction or anyone who likes television in general.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Third Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the third and final season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

1.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please click here to visit my index page!

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.



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Star Trek: Rise Of The Machines! (Again!) "The Ultimate Computer!"

The Good: Excellent character work, Good pacing, Generally good acting, themes
The Bad: Predictable plot, Theme is pretty well done by this point...
The Basics: When Captain Kirk takes aboard a new computer system, he finds his ship is controlled by an unstable element that will kill others unless he can stop it!


Perhaps the stigma against Star Trek fans would lessen some if those detractors knew the influence the series had on other major popular culture series'. Rewatching Terminator 3: Rise Of The Machines recently, I found myself contemplating how thematic elements from the Terminator series were originally explored in Star Trek, in episodes like "The Ultimate Computer." Perhaps if more people who like Terminator watched that, they would appreciate Star Trek fans more. Okay, probably not, just like it is probably not the intellectualism of Star Trek that keeps the subculture down . . .

The U.S.S. Enterprise is recalled to Federation space to participate in war games being orchestrated to test the new computer by Dr. Richard Daystrom, the man who is responsible for building the Enterprise computers. Ridiculed as obsolete by other captains once the M-5 computer is installed aboard the Enterprise, Dr. Daystrom seems prepared to declare the tests of the device a success. When the war games begin, mock hits by the four opposing starships are met with real lethal force. As the body count rises, Dr. Daystrom suffers a mental breakdown leaving Kirk, powerless, in command of a vessel run by an unstable, homicidal computer that is about to be engaged by three fully armed starships!

This, of course, is an unenviable position to be in, but it follows quite truly in Star Trek's tradition of airing episodes on the evils of technology and the exploration of technology dominating organic life forms. This is also one of the few episodes that features space battles and it sets up the idea that StarFleet is a militaristic organization dependent upon some sense of battle readiness. This is the first of only a handful of episodes in the Star Trek franchise featuring war games scenarios, with only "Peak Performance" from Star Trek: The Next Generation and the early moments of "The Way Of The Warrior" from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine coming right to mind as others. Star Trek was far more about exploration than using a military war machine!

"The Ultimate Computer" uses some pretty tired themes in Star Trek. By this point in the series, there have been at least four episodes where the Enterprise visits an alien culture to find people enslaved or dominated by machines or computers. When the Enterprise arrives, Kirk and Spock usually discuss this, Kirk deplores the situation and he finds a way to free the people of the overbearing offending technology. This is the first time the Enterprise has had to deal with the technological improvement actually having an effect on them!

As a result, "The Ultimate Computer" takes an intriguing tack; it explores downsizing! Dr. Daystrom believes that the M-5 may revolutionize computers to the extent that starship captains will no longer be a necessity for space travel. Exploring the possibility of the crew of a starship becoming more or less obsolete is a wonderful twist and writer D.C. Fontana executes it beautifully.

The reason the episode works so well is that Fontana keeps the story focused on character issues. Captain Kirk, stalwart hero, becomes moody and depressed. Fearing Daystrom's creation might live up to its hype, he comes to worry that he might no longer be needed and initially, it appears he has just cause for concern. This episode features one of the rare moments where Spock actually tries to define and articulate the depth of respect he has for Kirk and that moment, where Spock and McCoy are on the same side trying to save Kirk from the lesser angels that plague him, is a shining scene for the characters and the series.

As well, Fontana and director John Meredyth Lucas give ample time to explore Dr. Richard Daystrom. My only beef with Daystrom is that he is one more in long string of people who in one way or another outshine Kirk and for some reason has to be put in his place. Star Trek has a pathetically monolithic sense of who the heroes in the series are and as a result, anyone who comes aboard who outranks Kirk, is a political liaison or a scientific notable of serious accomplishment will by the end of the episode be reduced to something far more petty, emotionally damaged, ineffectual or dead than Captain Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise. Universally in Star Trek (the original series) people of renown are made lesser than those we see each week, which makes one wonder if in the Star Trek universe, success is just a stepping stone to suicide! In the case of Daystrom, at least some time is spent pumping up his accomplishments and giving the viewer a sense that he is someone who would like to improve the human condition.

This is an episode of Star Trek where the themes seem to contradict with the practices of the series. The starship Enterprise exists pretty much as a military-organized socialist community. Everyone participates, everyone reaps the benefits. There are no pay checks, no worker feuds, opportunity abounds for everyone not in a red shirt to advance. So the idea of a computer handling the day-to-day operations of a starship captain is not necessarily a bad or ignoble idea any more than striving for full employment in the United States by reducing the workweek to 30 hours per week would be. The goal is laudable; more time to do other things and live life instead of living for work.

But even with that minor conflict of interest, "The Ultimate Computer" makes its point well; human life is not disposable and machines will never be able to fully replace the innovation and style that humans possess.

"The Ultimate Computer" contains some of the best performances by William Shatner as Captain Kirk. Shatner is required to play the difficult role of the uncertain leader. Until now in the series, he has been in command, vital and very much the head that directs the ship. Here Shatner plays Kirk with a slouch and a quiet, withdrawn desperation. Shatner takes a very straightforward script and fleshes it out with layers of body language, making the piece a surprising treat for fans.

In addition to Shatner's performance, Leonard Nimoy manages to play a softer Spock without making him seem at all illogical. But it is William Marshall who holds his own best against Shatner's dynamite performance. Marshall portrays Daystrom and opens the episode by playing the character with quiet authority. As the episode progresses, Marshall inserts more nervous body language and when his character has his breakdown, the actor gives a performance that is heartwrenching to watch.

"The Ultimate Computer" holds up for fans of science fiction and Star Trek even now. As well, this is a wonderful drama that most working-class people will be able to appreciate and empathize with. It is entertaining, solidly enjoyable with its character elements and not overly technical, making it easy for those who do not love Star Trek or science fiction to get into it.

[Knowing that VHS is essentially a dead medium, it's worth looking into Star Trek - The Complete Second Season on DVD, which is also a better economical choice than buying the VHS. Read my review of the second season by clicking here!
Thanks!]

7.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please check out my index page for an organized list.

© 2010, 2007 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.


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