The Enterprise Incident

[Wingsley]

This one fascinated me as a kid, and still gets my attention as an adult. Today, though, it seems overwrought and not written properly.

I don't have a problem with Kirk and Spock playing "Hogan's Heroes" and going out on a spy mission to thwart the Romulans. I can't see them risking an entire top-of-the-line starship, with the entire crew aboard no less, just to steal a cloaking device. Granted, the Romulans are up to something with a new cloaking device and it needs attention. But the show's makers really screwed up by trivializing the Cold War nature of this story by making it as a one-parter. This should've been a at least a two-parter, if not a story arc.

Consider all we learn in this story:

1: The Romulans switched to Klingon design for their starships
2: The Romulans are using a new version of their cloak which cannot be tracked.
3: The Romulans are patrolling their side of the Neutral Zone in their new ships, with their new cloaking device, in threes.
4: The Federation discovers all this is going on, and is nervous about it
5: Kirk notes that this deadly new ship/cloak combo leaves Federation ships, bases (and inhabited worlds!) flat-footed.
6: It is obvious there is something going on behind-the-scenes between the Romulans and the Vulcans, and
7: Spock is used as bait, because the UFP expects the female Romulan commander to have the hots for a Vulcan


Now, I do think the Klingon design thing was really unnecessary. It was just plain cheap. If you look at "Balance of Terror", there's nothing to indicate the Romulans want an alliance with anyone, or to buy anyone else's designs off the black market.

It would've been much more effective to see a frontier station (or a neutral planet) attacked by the Romulans, show Kirk and Spock investigating it, and then follow-up with Kirk and Spock taking a scout ship into Romulan space to infiltrate before stealing the device. It would really have been interesting if Commodore Wesley or Admiral Komack had taken command of the Enterprise while Kirk was away, a la TNG's "Chain of Command" two-parter.

That would've made a much more sensible story, but, alas, it was probably too ambitious for 1960's television.

 

[Unicron]

Personally, I prefer FASA's take on the design. It's definitely a D7 hull, but significantly modified by the Romulans. There are a few other small designs that were traded between the two powers.

 

[pookha]

keepontrekking you presented an interesting scenario.

some of the problems..
that they acted at first like the cloak was new to them.
and that they would just go and steal it and then later it is never used.

i think a way to fix this would be that this is what it appears to be .
a new cloak much more powerful then the earlier on.
that it is revealed that after balance of terror the federation contacted the romulans about the treaty.
it may even be they allowed the romulans to keep the cloack (remember eneterprise tracked the ship pretty easily and the power drain and the ship having to appear to fire act as limitations.)

so the new cloak becomes a treaty violation.

even though enterprise not being able to detech it is
indication of this they might new the cloak to proof it.

so instead of just stealing the cloak it now becomes something a little different.

 

[GreenBlood]

What made this episode a favorite for me was Spock being in the 'ladies man' seat rather than Kirk. I liked watching Spock manuver himself into a trusting relationship with the Romulan leader, knowing he wud eventually betray her. Despite all the flaws mentioned by others, I found this particular episode entertaining and memorable.

 

[Saxman1]

Where's Joe with the tush shot? The Romulan Commander was smokin' hawt! Nuff said!

Oh yeah, I enjoyed this ep - lot of fun! :thumbsup:

 

[blakbyrd]

Saxman1 said:
Where's Joe with the tush shot? The Romulan Commander was smokin' hawt! Nuff said!

Agreed!

 

[Timo]

...there's nothing to indicate the Romulans want an alliance with anyone, or to buy anyone else's designs off the black market.

Then again, the Klingons need not have parted willingly with those battle cruisers.

The original Romulan vessel looked so much like a Starfleet ship that I wonder if that one wasn't stolen, too. Or built on experience gained on tearing down a captured Starfleet ship.

Contrary to Wingsley, I see "Incident" as a good "arc" episode. It's one of the very few in TOS to reference past events, and "Balance of Terror" certainly counts as the sort of a threat that Starfleet would want to react to. And "Incident" is their reaction.

I never had a problem with the good guys going bad. They had been bad before: they wanted to fight a war in "Errand of Mercy", to support one in "A Private Little War", and to make the natives bow to their will in every fourth episode or so. Why would they worry about pulling a Gary Powers, when they had plenty of reason to think that the Romulans would tolerate this (just like the Soviets tolerated Gary Powers, essentially doing nothing but blowing hot air around)?

Timo Saloniemi

 

[Neopeius]

Timo said:


The original Romulan vessel looked so much like a Starfleet ship that I wonder if that one wasn't stolen, too. Or built on experience gained on tearing down a captured Starfleet ship.

I'm not sure where this assessment comes from. Other than being painted white and having two nacelles, how does a Romulan ship look like the Enterprise?

If it looked enough like a Federation ship, you think it would have been mentioned in dialogue, just as Scotty noted that the new Romulan ships looked like Klingon ships.

As for Gary Powers, imagine if Gary had been flying a B-52.

Or if the Soviets had flown a Backfire bomber into American airpsace.

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

I just liked Kirk's madness, "I'll kill you, I'll KILL you!", almost as good as McCoy's COTF "MURDERERS! ASSASSINS!"

 

[Timo]

I'm not sure where this assessment comes from. Other than being painted white and having two nacelles, how does a Romulan ship look like the Enterprise?

Well, even in TOS-R, it remains the only two-nacelled, saucer-hulled ship in the show that is not a Federation vessel. And even the spinoff shows have only featured one design that uses those elements but doesn't belong to Starfleet: the other Romulan starship in ENT "Minefield".

If it looked enough like a Federation ship, you think it would have been mentioned in dialogue, just as Scotty noted that the new Romulan ships looked like Klingon ships.

I guess we all have heard by now that the penultimate version of the "Balance of Terror" script had that exact dialogue... And that Wah Chang must have built the ship with that dialogue in mind. But of course, that's neither here nor there as regards the canon Star Trek universe.

As for Gary Powers, imagine if Gary had been flying a B-52.

What about it? B-47s flew regularly into Soviet airspace in the 1950s. Dozens of B-52s were sent there deliberately to goad the Soviets into launching a nuclear war as part of Curtis LeMay's doomsday campaign. It's just that the Soviets didn't take - and the USAF and the CIA knew this when launching the U-2 missions, and when persisting with those missions even though all intelligence indicated that the Soviets now had the means to shoot down the jet gliders with ease. Powers was part of a program of manageable risks that apparently paid off militarily without inflicting much of a political toll.

And I'd argue the same with Kirk's theft of the cloak, considering that Kirk had by then fired on one Romulan ship, crippled her and prompted her to blow up; and, furthermore, had flown into the Romulan Neutral Zone once, been fired upon, and returned unhurt to a Federation not at war with the Romulan Star Empire.

Or if the Soviets had flown a Backfire bomber into American airspace.

I'd expect pretty much the same response: "That was naughty. Now we'll imprison your surviving pilots for a while and call you names. And if you fly another bomber into our airspace, we'll again imprison your surviving pilots and call you more names. And if you dare fly yet another bomber here, by golly, we'll again take prisoners and call you so many names you will remember it for two weeks! Take that, you evildoers!"

It would of course be completely different with Romulans. After all, they don't take prisoners. So they'd simply have to let Kirk go.

Timo Saloniemi

 

[blakbyrd]

Timo said:

Or if the Soviets had flown a Backfire bomber into American airspace.

I'd expect pretty much the same response: "That was naughty. Now we'll imprison your surviving pilots for a while and call you names. And if you fly another bomber into our airspace, we'll again imprison your surviving pilots and call you more names. And if you dare fly yet another bomber here, by golly, we'll again take prisoners and call you so many names you will remember it for two weeks! Take that, you evildoers!"

A slap on the wrists.

 

[Mysterion]

Timo said:
The original Romulan vessel looked so much like a Starfleet ship that I wonder if that one wasn't stolen, too. Or built on experience gained on tearing down a captured Starfleet ship.

Well, had never thought about that before, but now that you bring it up, it seems almost obvious to me.

There are a couple of interesting fan-produced ships designs for Starfleet that take the pendulum back the other way.

Peregrine:
http://www.inpayne.com/models/kitbash/trekpage_peregrine.html

Qapla' Class: http://www.shipschematics.net/startrek/images/federation/battlecruiser_khaitam.jpg

The second is a Fed-Klingon hybrid design, which sort of ties back into the whole romulans buying Klingon stuff thoughtline. There was a pretty nifty tech manual produced for the Khai Tam as well.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

Some of the points brought up here are covered in my reviews of the scripts. I reviewed the first draft of "The Enterprise Incident," as well as a draft of "Balance of Terror" that did include dialogue leading the outpost commander to believe the Roms had stolen Star Fleet technology.

Click on the first link and you will find a synopsis of each script (they're in season order, then the story outlines are in date completed order)

Sir Rhosis

 

[The Squire of Gothos]

Timo said:B-47s flew regularly into Soviet airspace in the 1950s. Dozens of B-52s were sent there deliberately to goad the Soviets into launching a nuclear war as part of Curtis LeMay's doomsday campaign

Had to wikipedia that before I believed it, what a nut