re: Star Trek: TOS Watchers - Season 1 Wrapup *Page 25*

I think a few of them could happen. Even without, say, Gary Mitchell, WNMHGB could happen since the Enterprise might still get the nod to hit the Galactic Barrier and some other high ESP dude could get powered up from it.

But yeah, I keep the timelines separate in my head (and heart) but just noting that one of the central themes of this episode (we've never seen Romulans in over a century and it turns out they're kind of Vulcanish) is now not possible. Cat's out of the bag on that one in Pine and Quinto's Star Trek.

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I'm not going to be a Nazi about it, but from my perspective the "rebooted" timeline does not exist. In the universe created by the events in the 2009 film, none of the TOS episodes would actually happen - couldn't happen, because there were simply too many changes - even The Cage couldn't have happened.

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Very true.

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I always felt TNG did a better job using the Romulans

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They did a better job with most things, but with TOS they were just the beginnings of ideas. You have to appreciate an ep like this and what it did for the entire landscape of the franchise.

Still funny that Spock's dad is the main character here, haha!

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William Campbell in The Squire of Gothos

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He was great in this. We will get to that ep sooner than later too.

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just watched it. forgot how good that really was.

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I know how widely The City on the Edge of Forever is praised (and I really do like it a lot - the best Kirk and Spock scenes, perhaps up until the end of TWOK, plus, McCoy has some of his best moments) - but I always come back to Balance of Terror - it is just one of the very best episodes in all of Star Trek and, therefore, in all of television history.

This is why I don't mind the CGI enhancements. The scripts and actors I liked but at times the special effects was cheesy. It was cool seeing the Enterprise attack the other starships in the M5 episode.

Question about the Romulan ship. Since the cloaking device screwed up their sensors and the Enterprise probably couldn'tn handle several hits of that weapon, why didn't they just come in after decloaking instead of taking long shots? Shields would've worked if de-cloaked.

Balance of Terror

Might just be me but that groom at the beginning looked a bit like a fancy lad.

I think this is another one of those episodes I probably skipped over repeats because it didn't have monsters in it.

Just checked continuity with the Romulan War taking place 100 years before Kirk. It checks out.

Once again we have a new person at the helm. That sure seems to be the wrong spot to work in the first season. The whole red shirt thing hasn't panned out in season 1 but helm has been pretty darn dangerous.

Think they made the weapon a bit too strong. It can destroy an outpost 1 mile below the surface of solid rock? Seems like that would easily be able to wipe out the Enterprise.

Back to helm.... Kirk continues to stick surly asshats to man the controls.

Don't get Bones being so pissy. The Romulans already started what should be a new war. They destroyed several outposts with no provocation. They are pretty much already in a state of war for the violation of the treaty.

I get that they wanted an anti-war voice, but the war has already started.

Er..... it will take 2 minutes for the weapon to hit.... can't they er.... head left or right and watch the thing fly past them? It is an energy beam not a guided missile or torpedo.

Given the large amounts of the roof collapsing in the Romulan ship, I am surprised their cloak is still working. 100S of years later, whenever the Federation used a cloak the damn thing would short out anytime someone tried to make some toast or used their water pick.

Romulans were a bit wishy washy. One second confident of victory, then shamed by defeat, then for no real reason confident again, then dead.

Had a feeling the poor groom wasn't going to make it. Knew there had to be a reason for that wedding. They should have killed the racist, not the fancy lad. Today, the racist would die and the fancy lad would run off with Sulu to the gym leaving the bride at the altar.

Decent episode but not remotely as good as you guys seem to think. Enough flaws that I don't love it.

Never really felt a sense of danger. Why attack all of the outposts then run away and if they knew their weapon and ship weren't up for the fight then why start a war by destroying 9 outposts?

Also a bit cheesy with Sarek wanting to be BFF with Kirk. That was forced.

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which largely succeeded until Enterprise appeared.

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So it was unsuccessful and should have started a war.

Plus, seems unrealistic to think the bases wouldn't be able to send out distress calls or even video of the attacks linking the Romulans.

Also silly to attack every base directly on the border with the neutral zone. I mean who else would it be attacking other than the Romulans. If they truly wanted to be stealthy, they would have cloaked deep into Federation space, and then hit a base far from the neutral zone.

I stand by every flaw I mentioned. Seems implausible they would get away with destroying 9 bases fairly close to each other without any knowledge of the attack linking the Romulans getting back to Starfleet.

Still say the weapon was a joke. Too strong and with the huge flaw of being slow and once again, all kirk had to do was ask helm to head right or left and it would have harmlessly missed.

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Plus, seems unrealistic to think the bases wouldn't be able to send out distress calls or even video of the attacks linking the Romulans.

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They did send out a distress call which summoned the Enterprise.

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Seems implausible they would get away with destroying 9 bases fairly close to each other without any knowledge of the attack linking the Romulans getting back to Starfleet.

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They didn't care if we knew - in fact, they were trying to send a message. They just wanted there to be some uncertainty - they wanted to review the effectiveness of the weapon before they launched a mass sortie.

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Seems implausible they would get away with destroying 9 bases fairly close to each other without any knowledge of the attack linking the Romulans getting back to Starfleet.

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We don't know what the plan was - they were starting to get low on fuel, so maybe they were going to just get the 4 bases they could and leave. That would also have left a gap in Federation surveillance coverage.

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Still say the weapon was a joke. Too strong and with the huge flaw of being slow and once again, all kirk had to do was ask helm to head right or left and it would have harmlessly missed.

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Well, the flaw in your logic is that it was a torpedo - we don't know how much tracking it could have done, but the Enterprise was barely able to get out of its maximum distance. (Also, recall this story was an adaptation of a submarine battle). It was also experimental. The whole point of it being super powerful, but slow, was to make it a unique challenge. It was also energy intensive. It was mated with a ship that was designed to be cloaked, and relied on that for much of its defensive capabilities. However, it couldn't cloak and fire the plasma torpedo at the same time. These limitations also made it a challenge for the Romulans to employ.