ST Recap: Balance of Terror
You may have picked up by now that Bill and I are not newbies to the world of Star Trek. We're not insane about it (says the woman who dressed her 2-year-old as Lieutenant Worf for Halloween), but we do know our stuff. This is because we were both raised by fathers who are, without a doubt, Trekkers. Bill's father even signs his emails "LLAP".
For today's episode, I was lucky enough to have Bill's father in town, and he agreed to watch along with me. He rewatched all the TOS episodes himself about a year ago, so he was somewhat familiar with them already. Even better, "Balance of Terror" is a Vulcan-centric episode, more or less, and the Vulcans are my father-in-laws favorite aliens in Trek.
Summary: The Enterprise is forced into a deadly game of "cat and mouse" when a Romulan bird of prey is spotted close to Federation territory. Kirk must outwit the highly intelligent Romulan Commander if he is to stand any chance of saving his crew.
Ooo, a Romulan captain! I wonder who that could be!
Note to those Planning their Weddings...
You know, there's a lot of superstitions about wedding days. Old, new, borrowed, blue, it's good luck if it rains, it's bad luck to see the bride...
What's it mean when an alert goes off during your wedding? Not good, methinks.
Later on, of course, we have the following conversation between Bride and Groom:
ROBERT: (the groom) Happy wedding day, almost.
ANGELA: (the bride) You won't get off my hook this easily. I'm going to marry you, Mister, battle or phaser weapons notwithstanding.
Me: Well, that's going to be at least one more yellow shirt for the body count, I guess.....
And sure enough....
The Groom is Toast.
Is it crass of me to point out that this is doubly sucky for Angela, since as Robert died before the wedding could be finalized, she doesn't even get widow's benefits, assuming Starfleet offers such a thing?
Also, I did not realize, but Kirk is apparently huggable.
Hey, Don't I Know You From Somewhere?
Romulans....
OR ARE THEY????
(That's Sarek, Spock's dad on the left.....................................................................And Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life on the right, in case you don't recognize them.)
Three Things That Make No Sense
1. Spock doesn't know his own history. According to Star Trek lore, the Romulans are an off-shoot of the Vulcans, from a time before the Vulcans learned to take control of the emotions. They look alike, and for all practical purposes are genetically similar, but Romulans tend to be aggressive and emotional, whereas Vulcans are logical and calm.
So why doesn't Spock seem to know this? I mean, heck, Vulcan kids are doing frickin' calculus as ten-year-olds, and they don't bother to study their own history?
Come on, you can't throw a little history in here?
Bill points out that the Vulcans had a tendency to keep information from humans in the early days of space exploration - most of the show Enterprise was about that secrecy. Except I'm not getting the feeling that Spock is withholding information from the captain; I get the idea that he's just as clueless about the Romulans as the rest of them, and just as surprised as they are when the Romulans show their faces.
Shocked Vulcan? Or Secretive Vulcan? You decide.
Now, maybe Spock is trying to keep the Romulan connection a secret, or maybe that part of Vulcan history is so far in the past that it's all but been forgotten until this point. Nimoy's too good of an actor for me to buy the first, but I'd believe the second, assuming I can blame the discrepancy on the writers not figuring out the world just yet. (Which leads to the question: when did those writers start to realize that they had to start keeping their story straight about when things happened and who had what middle initial?)
Before we move past Spock, however, my father-in-law had one other observation to make:
Spock is wearing way too much pink lipstick in this episode.
2. 23rd Century building techniques are very interesting.
Apparently, your base can be destroyed but the cameras still work.
Also, starships can be made out of concrete. (Which explains all the concrete dust when they're hit.)
3. Why does it take 15 people to fire a phaser? I mean, it makes some degree of sense that it takes several people to fire a cannon, or a torpedo, or a trebuchet, because these things have to be loaded. But what the heck do you load a phaser with? A plug? A lightbulb? Isn't all of that automated?
When the Lights Come On Again...
Really, it started off with Bill pointing out the weird lighting on Kirk's eyes (which occurred pretty much throughout the show):
I mean, his whole face is dark, except for the eyes. I cannot for the life of me figure out a good symbolic reason for this.
But as I was going through the screencaps, it occurred to me that I think the lighting crew on the show was finally getting into the swing of things. Not only do we have opposing lighting styles for the Enterprise and the Romulan ships:
But we're starting to see a lot more colored backlighting, creating some beautiful scenes in otherwise boring corridors and rooms. I've posted a few above (I really like that one of Kirk and Angela in the chapel, as well as the colors in the Romulan ship), but here's a few more:
So I finally get the feeling that Star Trek is hitting its stride, minor issues like concrete and Romulans notwithstanding. Either that or Bill and I are getting steadily punchier as we watch. Both are possibilities.
Anyway, tune in next week when we watch "Shore Leave", in which we have bunnies, samurai warriors, and showgirls. No, really, I'm serious, all of those in one episode.
Summary and Screencaps from TrekCore.
For today's episode, I was lucky enough to have Bill's father in town, and he agreed to watch along with me. He rewatched all the TOS episodes himself about a year ago, so he was somewhat familiar with them already. Even better, "Balance of Terror" is a Vulcan-centric episode, more or less, and the Vulcans are my father-in-laws favorite aliens in Trek.
Summary: The Enterprise is forced into a deadly game of "cat and mouse" when a Romulan bird of prey is spotted close to Federation territory. Kirk must outwit the highly intelligent Romulan Commander if he is to stand any chance of saving his crew.
Ooo, a Romulan captain! I wonder who that could be!
Note to those Planning their Weddings...
You know, there's a lot of superstitions about wedding days. Old, new, borrowed, blue, it's good luck if it rains, it's bad luck to see the bride...
What's it mean when an alert goes off during your wedding? Not good, methinks.
Later on, of course, we have the following conversation between Bride and Groom:
ROBERT: (the groom) Happy wedding day, almost.
ANGELA: (the bride) You won't get off my hook this easily. I'm going to marry you, Mister, battle or phaser weapons notwithstanding.
Me: Well, that's going to be at least one more yellow shirt for the body count, I guess.....
And sure enough....
The Groom is Toast.
Is it crass of me to point out that this is doubly sucky for Angela, since as Robert died before the wedding could be finalized, she doesn't even get widow's benefits, assuming Starfleet offers such a thing?
Also, I did not realize, but Kirk is apparently huggable.
Hey, Don't I Know You From Somewhere?
Romulans....
OR ARE THEY????
(That's Sarek, Spock's dad on the left.....................................................................And Clarence from It's a Wonderful Life on the right, in case you don't recognize them.)
Three Things That Make No Sense
1. Spock doesn't know his own history. According to Star Trek lore, the Romulans are an off-shoot of the Vulcans, from a time before the Vulcans learned to take control of the emotions. They look alike, and for all practical purposes are genetically similar, but Romulans tend to be aggressive and emotional, whereas Vulcans are logical and calm.
So why doesn't Spock seem to know this? I mean, heck, Vulcan kids are doing frickin' calculus as ten-year-olds, and they don't bother to study their own history?
Come on, you can't throw a little history in here?
Bill points out that the Vulcans had a tendency to keep information from humans in the early days of space exploration - most of the show Enterprise was about that secrecy. Except I'm not getting the feeling that Spock is withholding information from the captain; I get the idea that he's just as clueless about the Romulans as the rest of them, and just as surprised as they are when the Romulans show their faces.
Shocked Vulcan? Or Secretive Vulcan? You decide.
Now, maybe Spock is trying to keep the Romulan connection a secret, or maybe that part of Vulcan history is so far in the past that it's all but been forgotten until this point. Nimoy's too good of an actor for me to buy the first, but I'd believe the second, assuming I can blame the discrepancy on the writers not figuring out the world just yet. (Which leads to the question: when did those writers start to realize that they had to start keeping their story straight about when things happened and who had what middle initial?)
Before we move past Spock, however, my father-in-law had one other observation to make:
Spock is wearing way too much pink lipstick in this episode.
2. 23rd Century building techniques are very interesting.
Apparently, your base can be destroyed but the cameras still work.
Also, starships can be made out of concrete. (Which explains all the concrete dust when they're hit.)
3. Why does it take 15 people to fire a phaser? I mean, it makes some degree of sense that it takes several people to fire a cannon, or a torpedo, or a trebuchet, because these things have to be loaded. But what the heck do you load a phaser with? A plug? A lightbulb? Isn't all of that automated?
When the Lights Come On Again...
Really, it started off with Bill pointing out the weird lighting on Kirk's eyes (which occurred pretty much throughout the show):
I mean, his whole face is dark, except for the eyes. I cannot for the life of me figure out a good symbolic reason for this.
But as I was going through the screencaps, it occurred to me that I think the lighting crew on the show was finally getting into the swing of things. Not only do we have opposing lighting styles for the Enterprise and the Romulan ships:
But we're starting to see a lot more colored backlighting, creating some beautiful scenes in otherwise boring corridors and rooms. I've posted a few above (I really like that one of Kirk and Angela in the chapel, as well as the colors in the Romulan ship), but here's a few more:
So I finally get the feeling that Star Trek is hitting its stride, minor issues like concrete and Romulans notwithstanding. Either that or Bill and I are getting steadily punchier as we watch. Both are possibilities.
Anyway, tune in next week when we watch "Shore Leave", in which we have bunnies, samurai warriors, and showgirls. No, really, I'm serious, all of those in one episode.
Summary and Screencaps from TrekCore.