[Nate the Great]

September 27th, 1968, "The Enterprise Incident"

PART ONE

Fiver (by IJD GAF)
Transcript
Memory Alpha

Prelude: I hate saying "Female Romulan Commander", so I'll be calling her "Liviana Charvanek", even if it's noncanon. Props for Vulcan's Heart and the Vulcan's Soul trilogy, by the way.

The Episode

Key points:
* If McCoy wasn't in on the plan and Kirk was acting irrationally for weeks, Bones should've ordered a mental evaluation by now.
* The level of Romulan knowledge of Starfleet ships and crews varies throughout the episode. This irks me.
* Dialogue indicates that the Romulans have recently developed a better cloak. If the indication is that it gets rid of the motion-sensor weakness from "Balance of Terror", they could've made that clearer and not ignore the previous episode entirely.
* Multiple uses of "starship" as an equivalent for "Constitution-class cruiser." Grrr...
* Charvanek goes gaga over Spock a little too easily, especially if she's supposed to be the Romulan Kirk, the best captain in the fleet.

SCOTT: That's a Klingon ship! But it couldn't be, not in this area.
SPOCK: Intelligence reports Romulans now using Klingon design.

Fanon holds that during this temporary Klingon-Romulan alliance the Klingons traded their ship designs for Romulan cloaking devices. I'm not sure this was an even exchange. You can't help but feel that the Klingons got the better part of this bargain.

TAL [on viewscreen]: The subspace message will take three weeks to reach Starfleet.

Cue old handwringing about varying subspace speeds. It annoys me every time, especially when "three weeks" isn't necessary. Three days would be adequate to ensure that no rescue will come in time.

KIRK: We were not spying, Commander.

Actually, he wasn't! The Enterprise was barely in Romulan space when they got caught, and Kirk never even had the chance to order sensor scans of anything!

SPOCK: You're being clever, Commander. That is unworthy of a Romulan.

This sounds like '60s values bleeding in again. Is that crack supposed to be anti-Russian or anti-Chinese?

COMMANDER: There are Romulan methods completely effective against humans and human weaknesses.
SPOCK: You would not resort to them, Commander. They would prove ineffective against the captain.

So the Klingon mind-sifter is BETTER than the Romulan equivalent? I find that hard to believe...

COMMANDER: You are a superior being. Why do you not command?
SPOCK: I do not desire a ship of my own.
COMMANDER: Or is it that no one has offered you, a Vulcan, that opportunity?

Has Spock been offered a command? I get that this is part of the ruse, and he's probably lying as part of the mission, but think about it. We must also spare a moment for Charvanek's implied accusation of racism against Starfleet (cue Azetbur quote!).