The Enemy

[TrekToday]

Plot Summary: A distress signal summons the Enterprise to Galorndon Core, where Riker's away team discovers a downed Romulan vessel and its pilot, Patahk. The team can only beam out when the planet's deadly electrical storms abate, and LaForge falls into a pit that prevents him from returning to the ship to the others. Patakh is dying not from his crash but from neurological damage caused by the planet's magnetic storms. Crusher determines that she can save him with a transfusion from Worf, but because Romulans slaughtered his parents, Worf refuses to give consent to the procedure. Meanwhile, a Romulan warship contacts the Enterprise from the Neutral Zone, claiming that the ship on Galorndon Core suffered a navigational error and demanding the right to enter Federation territory on a rescue mission. The Romulan captain, Tomalak, says that only one man was in the damaged ship, but on the planet, LaForge is attacked by a second Romulan survivor named Bochra. When Wesley rigs a neutrino beam as a homing beacon for LaForge's visor, LaForge picks up the signal and convinces Bochra to help him reach it so that they may both be rescued. Despite the risk of war over Patakh's treatment, Picard is unable to convince Worf to help save the Romulan and must tell Tomalak that Patakh has died. Tomalak prepares to attack the Enterprise in retaliation, but when Picard discovers the second Romulan on the surface, he convinces Tomalak to avert a Federation-Romulan war and beams LaForge and Bochra aboard the Enterprise. Both recover from their injuries and Bochra returns to the Romulans.

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To read the full reviews, please click here.

[Temis the Vorta]

I don't like a whole lot of TNG episodes but this one I definitely do.

[The Laughing Vulcan]

A bit of inconsistency with Patakh/Balakh's name there...

I like this episode except for one moment...

Crusher: "His life is coming to an end"

Horrible line, terribly delivered makes me go blech each time.

[DorkBoy [TM]]

Patakh isn't his name. It is the klingon swear word Worf uses to describe him.

Great episode. S3 was droolworthy trek.

[DorkBoy [TM]]

Odd. You are right, Meg did call him that in her review. Maybe she just got confused, I am pretty sure Worf busted out the P word on him. Maybe she thought it was his name.

[Sisko_is_my_captain]

It is this episode that made Worf's line in Nemesis, "The Romulans fought with honor," extraordinarily poignant to me. It truely showed that Worf had progressed and matured over the years.

[Terra Pryme]

Although this episode did effectively explore the topics of survival and personal ethics, my main problem with this episode was the fact that only WORF had the blood to save a Romulan?!? This really made no sense since he's Klingon, who are in now way related to any Romulan. Although Vulcans weren't seen among the regular cast on TNG, they were seen among the E-D's background crew and civilians onboard the ship. It would have been much more logical for Picard and Crusher to ask for a volunteer among them. Of course, this would have easily solved the problem easily in typical TNG fashion and reduce the dramatic impact. Perhaps it should have been better if instead of Romulans, they could have used a warrior race similar to Klingons, but hated by them that the Federation also had a dispute with, but aren't as well known as the Rommies.

[Unicron]

Yeah, that's been my one minor complaint. It's clearly a plot device, and one that doesn't make much sense. The only thing I could think of is that it was something more generic in Worf's cells that was useful, but that's a stretch. This ep also established that the Romulans are biologically distinct from Vulcans, even though they share many genetic traits. They are separate species, and the Vulcan techniques Crusher tried didn't work.

[The Laughing Vulcan]

The Romulan brow ridges came from cross-vreeding with Klingons between Tos and TNG

[stonester1]

Great episode. Great season. That's when TNG had fully found it's own voice.

[Ohappydagger]

Sigh, these reviews are making me nostalgic. S3 was such a freekin great year.

[Harvey]

The Laughing Vulcan wrote:

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The Romulan brow ridges came from cross-vreeding with Klingons between Tos and TNG

If only those pesky Enterprise episodes with the ridged Romulans hadn't happened.

[DWF]

David Kemper's best Star Trek ep. IMO and I thought it worked out rather well and it was the start of a trilogy of eps. with Andreas Katsulas as Tomalak along with season four's Legacy and The Defector.