What took the Romulan ship so long to fire when they dropped the cloak at the end of the episode? Spock had time to run back down the corridor, ready the phasers and fire before the Romulans did a thing.

So, what WAS it with the phaser sin this episode? Were their any eps before it that had the traditional phaser graphics? The earliest ep I remember with the normal red phasers is Arena.

Which had changed to blue by the time of the Tholian Web, but what the hey.

The ship's phasers in "The Corbomite Maneuver" were red also (before "Arena"). However, they were blue in "The Alternative Factor" (another first season episode).

What's it with Styles & Tomlinson anyway?

They see smoke pouring out of the phasor coolant unit and they just sit there and gawk at it.

I figured they were probably sticking by their duty and trying to fire the phasers as quickly as possible before they had to evacuate or pass out from the fumes. But they ran out of time. It's possible they called for help, but Spock got there first.

From the archived nits:

I made a mistake by saying that Mr. Leslie's final episode was "Elaan of Troyius". It was indeed "Is There In Truth No Beauty?"

CG enhancing: Following up on an idea in the Space: 1999 threads, if Star Trek the Classic Series could be enhanced with CG, these are ideas I have for this episode.


Although it makes a nice visual moment, as soon as the Romulan ship destroys Hanson's outpost, the screen should have gone to snow, rather than showing the bird of prey cloaking itself again. Here's a suggestion:

Spock puts a chart of the sector on the screen, the names of which do not match the dialogue: Spock says "Remus" but the screen image says "Romii". I suggest updating the image to show a single dot as Romulus-Remus, with colour coding to indicate the areas between it and the Federation as partially charted (as a result of first contact), the rest unknown (as a result of the war and the close-off of the border).

The image Spock has been using to show the sector, with the outposts, and the Enterprise's position, is on standby to go on screen. The viewscreen is showing this tactical display (replacing the black screen in the original episode) when Uhura switches Hansen onto the screen. Perhaps the instant the image from Hansen is gone, the computer restores that tactical display, showing the Romulan ship's approximate shape, labeled "Unidentified vessel", then that ship image disappears. (It would be something along the lines of what happened when Klaa's ship cloaked in "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier": everyone's eyes were on "TV a la The One", coming live from the surface of Sha-ka-ree.) New wording appears: "Sensor signal lost" to indicate that the Romulan ship has disappeared.

Scott says the Romulan ship has "simple impulse" as propulsion. Yet the Romulans made it out from their home base, and control a sizeable empire. They also have an energy weapon capable of traveling faster than light. If James Doohan would dub over, instead of "No question, their power is simple impulse", he could say, "No question, classic early warp design" or something to that effect. Yes, the Romulans have warp drive, but not on the magnitude of the Enterprise's capabilities; it's only enough to control a small interstellar group.

Since comets don't have tails except close to a star, perhaps there should be a quick shot of a very bright F-type star whipping across the screen as the Enterprise swings around to catch the Romulan ship. The F-type star might have enough of a solar wind to create the comet tail without the comet being very close.

I don't know if you want to change the photon torpedo effect to phasers. I don't know if you want to change the dialogue to use the term photon torpedoes instead of phasers. Either way, something is lost. Perhaps in this episode, both could be used? It might take creative choice as to whether the lips of the person speaking are indistinct enough (or not visible at all) to dub in "photon torpedoes", and when not possible, phasers are used instead. Phasers might be the best choice if they were going to try to detonate the plasma weapon. I suppose, if you're going to stick with phasers, change the visual effect to very short phaser charges, as though the phasers were set to resemble depth charges.

When Spock hurries back to the weapons room to fire the phasers, some of the red panels in the corridor are not flashing.

Reading these boards reminded me that I have in storage about a dozen first season episodes on video which I purchased back in the 80's. Though I never really expected to watch them again, the musings posted here were interesting and thought-provoking enough to inspire me to want to re-discover them.

Last night, I got about halfway through 'Balance of Terror'. Odd, in the beginning, that Kirk seems to be making efforts to keep the neutral zone issue "under wraps" while in preparation for the wedding. This seems sensible, not wanting to ruin someone's wedding day...but couldn't/shouldn't the wedding have been postponed until the crisis was over? Of course, when the time came, Sulu blurting "Alert! Alert! All hands to battle stations!" across the intercom, priorities took their rightful place.

After seeing the Romulan commander on the screen, Stiles turns and stares at Spock. But what must have been uncomfortable for Spock was, after the commercial break, the whole bridge crew is staring at him. Seemed kind of rude, to me.

I've wondered since childhood what that book was during the briefing. At one point while Spock mentions the comet ahead of them, Kirk says something like, "Comet Icarus 4...properties, Mr. Spock?", and hands the book to Spock, who sort of places it back on the table. The book has gold lettering on the cover. If I had the DVD, I'd attempt to zoom in and find out.

Speaking of the comet, for some reason I love the line where Mark Lenard, looking at (presumably) some scanner device, remarks, "Behold a marvel in the darkness.", or some such. Too often in these shows, spectacular natural phenomena are dismissed as everyday things, with no more sense of wonder than when one turns on a washing machine. But as an amateur astronomer, maybe I'm biased. Maybe I'd be yawning, too, if such things were, in fact, everyday occurences to me.

Why would aiming phasers with sensors be less accurate than visual aim? I'm pretty forgiving (esp. regarding the early treks), but that detail is kind of annoying!

I must admit I stopped watching Star Trek years ago. But reading these boards, I'm discovering, can be almost as much fun as watching the episodes themselves! I'm tempted to get the DVD's soon.

I would like to correct a nit from Mr. Farrand's book "Nitpickers Guide for Classic Trekkers". As well as pick a couple nits. As always I realize these thoughts probably have already been stated by others.

Rumination: 'Balance of Terror’ is my favorite episode of Star Trek. Mark Lenard gives a powerful performance as the war weary Romulan commander sick of losing comrades in endless warfare and tired of shallow patriotism.

Lawrence Montaigne alias: “Decius” is wonderful! His twisted self-serving grin; when he shames the commander into attacking Enterprise for the last time; shows in two seconds, the devious machinations of ambitious men in the Empire.

Now to correct the nit: Mr. Farrand states that during the battle scenes Photon Torpedoes are fired at the Intruder ship, even though Kirk orders phaser fire. Just after the briefing Kirk decides to attack the Intruder ship while it’s in the comet tail of “Karus IV”. He asks for ‘Battle Status’ Sulu replies ‘All station manned' and Styles states ‘All phaser’s energized, set for proximity blast’ This is a mode for phasers I never hear again in Star Trek. I assume the idea was to create large explosions around the enemy vessel’s position hoping to damage or destroy this invisible target, something like depth charges.

My first nit: Styles’ behavior toward the Captain and Mr. Spock. First, Styles yells at Kirk just after Outpost 4 is destroyed, saying that Romulan spies maybe aboard Enterprise. Yells at the captain? On the bridge? During Battle Stations? Then he’s at least insulting to Kirk when stating “Assuming of course we don’t turn back” when Kirk asks for the Enterprise's position relative to the Neutral Zone. Next Mr. Styles continuously insults the first officer of the Enterprise after the discovery that Romulans look like Vulcans. Hey! I’ve checked out Styles tunic, he has one gold braid on his sleeve, that makes him a lieutenant, Spock is referred to throughout the show as Lieutenant Commander Spock. If Starfleet is using United States Naval tradition then Spock out ranks Styles by several grades. Why isn’t this guy relived of duty until he gets over his bigotry?

My Second nit: This is the first time a cloaking device was ever seen on Star Trek. But the device doesn’t seem to be much of an advantage. Throughout the battle Enterprise tracks the movement of the Intruder ship, even to the point of being able to follow the Romulan “move for move”. Only when the Intruder ship is stationary does the Cloaking Device render the ship undetectable. Also, I can’t understand why a visible target is so important? These ships are in space, thousands perhaps millions of miles/kilometers separating them, wouldn’t the ships need to use some kind of long range tracking and targeting system anyway?

The creators seemed to understand this failing, in The Enterprise Incident the Romulans have perfected the Cloaking Device. The Romulan ships surround Enterprise unseen even by sensors.

Re:last comment
with regards to Nit 2, it could be a problem with internal power allocation within the "Bird of Prey", i.e basically the Cloaking Device's is a real "power hog", and in order to use warp drive, plasma bolts etc, it must be switched off....
(The Blish Novelisation implies that said ship is effectively a prototype vessel....)
The Enterprise Incident could be explained by the fact that the ships are effectively Klingon designs, & their power generation systems are therefore capable of much higher output....

I still don't quite get why the Romulans couldn't detect Enterprise until Spock hit that console. My apologies if this was discussed in the Guide, haven't read it, and if it was in an earlier post, read them but may have missed it. I completely see the WWII movie tribute but when the 1701 was "shadowing" the Romulans was that the equivalant of being in their "baffles"? I understand that the Romulans couldn't see them but don't their sensors also include metal detectors? Kirk could track them under cloak with motion sensors, why not something even simpler? I would think that if they have cloaking technology, and that plasma weapon, at least their sensors would also be up to speed.

If the Romulans left the Vulcans before warp was invented, it must've taken them a very long time to get to what is now Romulas/Remus.

Been a while since I saw this ep, but could it be a matter of using a passive detection system rather than an active one?

Active sensors (like sonar) send out somekinda energy to detect things far away which could itself be detected, while a passive system detects energy that strikes the vessel.

Presumably the buttons Spock hit activated something that would send out an energy that the Romulans passive system could detect & pinpoint.

Realistically, of course, the writer was just telling a submarine story in space & he probably didn't realize that running silently in space is quite different from running silent underwater. Makes for a nice tense moment until you think about. ;-)

That makes sense KAM. Many times it was known when they were being scanned, but from a cloaked ship in all of ST not usually. It's probably more complicated than that but I'd buy that answer, thanks.

You'd buy it? Darn! I should have raised the price!

This episode is scheduled to premiere tomorrow (Saturday, September 16, 2006) as the first of the new original Star Trek series with updated CGI special effects- the series has been updated based on fan popularity, this episode apparently achieving first place. Several writers mentioned that they were excited about the new effects for the 'Impact Phasers' that would be replacing the old-style Photon Torpedo effect that always seemed to be a glitch.

The enhanced version's impact phasers reminded me of DS9's Defiant's phaser bursts.

Anybody know what New York-area station carries this? Or what time of day it airs?

According to tvguide.com, the Manhattan area is showing it Monday at 3:35 AM on WNBC 4. I don't know if that works for you or not. I used 10001 for the zip code.

3:35AM?????? What the hell are they putting it THEN for? Sigh. And NBC? That's odd, because when NextGen and DS9 were in first-run syndication, they were on WPIX 11 (Which was the station on which the WB, and now the CW, were broadcast). Thanks, Josh.

I did a side-by-side comparison between the DVD and the updated broadcast verison.

As expected, there are numerous syndication cuts. I didn't catalog them completely, but most notable were:
A bunch of reaction shots after they see Sarek :-) is commanding the Romulan ship.
The firing of phaser 2 (which actually kills the Centurian) after phaser 1.
Scenes of Tomlinson and Martine working together.
Some scenes showing friction between Spock and Stiles.
The same abrupt jump into Kirk's "Why me?" monolog that Phil noted.
A shot of the wounded bird of prey on the screen and Kirk talking about moving in closer.

For the most part, the effects are staged identically or nearly so to the original. There are two shots of the ships that are changed, substituting closeups for medium shots. In one, the Romulan bird of prey flies under the camera, and in the other the camera hovers close to the Enterprise's saucer.

Some shots are similar, but mix it up by adding a little motion to the ship, such as when it's listing after the atomic bomb explosion. In addition to drifting as it was in the original, it's also rotating slightly.

The plasma effect was updated slightly, adding a flaming swirl to it. The bird of prey's invisibility effect is changed slightly. The transition is more of a disolve than a fade.

The "phasers". A notable glitch in BoT was the phasers looked nothing like the phaser effect in other episodes, but looked exactly like the photon torpedo effect. In this case, they've deferred -- they still look like photon torpedos. There's a nice reflection of the glow from them when fired on the saucer.

Unlike the original which reused the same firing shot each time, the revised scenes show the ship from different angles and different patterns of explosions. Of course, there's no longer visible scratches and dirt on the explosions.

Also obviously, optical glitches related to the ship model are all gone. No more differing nacelles and Phil's "clipped nacelle" shot is gone.

One maybe subtle fix. In the original, during the talk between Kirk and the Romulan commander, there was some glitching along the matte line at the top of the screen. This is gone in the revised edition.

The closing credits are idential to the original, including the original effects shots and models, dirt spots and all. We'll see next week if the scpipt supervisor is fixed.

I think I like the update. They haven't gone overboard, with the Enterprise doing acrobatics.

The closing credits are idential to the original, including the original effects shots and models, dirt spots and all. We'll see next week if the scpipt supervisor is fixed. - Alan Hamilton

Just saw it. (It aired on NBC here. ) The "Scpipt Supervisor" clitch was fixed. I made sure to look for it.

Live long and prosper.

Awww... now who will supervise the scpipts? You know what happens when they run around unsupervised!!!!

Us New Yorkers got shafted. WNBC ran this episode about 50 minutes ahead of when it was supposed to; at 2:45 instead of 3:35 a.m. I woke up by dumb luck, tuned in, and I had missed the first ten minutes. I had set my VCR beforehand; those plans were scrapped when the episode was discovered to be in progress. Too bad, as I liked a lot of the new stuff, and I would have liked to check it out further.

Come on now. You don't *really* want to watch Star Trek. You are much more interested in TomKat's baby and in Brangelina.

We know this. We're the Network.

Wnbc=Rene.

I wouldn't make the accusation unless you're sure about that.

Besides, they're poking fun at WNBC, not other posters.

so was I,jm.so was I.sigh.everyone's a critic.

The phaser control room, IMHO, was redressed in season two as Auxiliary Control.

No, WNBC is not Rene. We do know who we are, since we know everything.

And you should all be able to figure out WNBC's real identity.

ScotNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Sorry all...The "Scpipt Supervisor" glitch did not appear in this episode...It's first appearance was in "The Galileo Seven"...therefore there was no "Scpipt Supervisor" glitch to fix in this episode.

See "Favorite Nits pt.2" for a complete list of "Scpipt" episodes

Ouch. I mispelled "glitch". For some reason, I wrote "clitch". I dunno. Maybe I was trying to invent a new word. Anyway, I apologize for the error. (And am surprised no one else caught it.)

Live long and prosper.

ah, the Glitch Supervisor!

Started early? HAH! Here's what happened in Eastern Ohio. The college football game ran long (by about 25 minutes) in the late afternoon so all shows after that were moved back up to Stargate SG-1 at 2am. When SG-1 was over, they dove into BoT IN PROGRESS!!!!

I couldn't believe it! They used Star Trek to get their schedule back in line by not showing the first 25 minutes of the episode!!!!

Boy was I p****d.

Hey P- off, I taped the Star Wars on Abc and I got Betty Boooop!, in the 80s,
on prime time!


G4 is showing the Doomsday machine, at 3pm and tng at the same time..
g4 is also showing tng along with Spike's tng at 5pm local time..

I caught the last 35 minutes of the enhanced broadcast of this ep on Sunday evening. They screened it at the somewhat-less-unearthly hour of 11:00pm in my area. I enjoyed the updated effects. The feel of the original is still there, but the Enterprise and the Romulan vessel had a refreshing depth.

To add to Alan Hamilton's breakdown of the enhancements, it appeared to me that the visual of the comet on the Enterprise viewscreen was an updated shot.

I still crack up when the Enterprise takes enemy fire while powering up, and the bridge crew flies out of their chairs- in different directions!

KNBC-4 has it on at 12:05 AM Monday right after George Michael Sports Machine, the same time that Channel 13 shows Atlantis.
Arrrrrrrrgggggggghhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!

John, I've got three letters and/or one word for you:

Three Letters: VCR
One Word: Tivo

Nit & anti-nit.

Nit: Spock says invisibility is theoretically possible, but the power costs are exorbitant (or something like that, going from memory here) & yet the recent experiments in invisibility show that it's possible without power, or much power.

Anti-nit: In the Star Trek universe they had a Eugenics War in 1993. So maybe that war changed things so the experiments in invisibility never happened.

On Saturdays, my station carrying Andromeda showed football, pro football, baseball and when the time ran long, cancelled or showed in parts of Dylan Hunt.When they showed Enterprise, it was on at 1am or later.

Sometimes my vcr had the dialogue in another language when I wake up in the morning!

Now g4 cancels Tos and puts em on Saturdays, to make room for Tv land Trek...(I suppose), or the ratings wwent down for Tng and Ds9..

and I found out this Am I taped the Comedy channel instead of Tos ..at
6am..Argggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!, John D.

Anyone here purchase the Itunes uncut version? Able to confirm additional effects shots, like the formerly-bird-of-prey-rotating-on-it's-axis shot?

Sturgeon from The Man Trap is alive and well in the phaser room with Tomlinson and Martinez, despite being killed by the Salt Vampire.
I guess it didn't take.

Why did Sulu call battle stations from the helm? Isn't that a job for Uhura and communications?

The repoire (sp?) between the Romulan Commander and the older Centurion reminded me of Pike and Boyce; young starship commander whose best friend is a white haired older man who's always there to offer advice and support.

And speaking of the Centurion, either there's no sickbay on the Romulan ship, because he's left to writhe in pain and die on the bridge, or it might be a Romulan custom that the Commander is observing regarding an honorable death on the bridge. Sounds a little Klingon to me, though.

So Decius, played by Lawrence Montaigne, would go on to play Stonn in Amok Time, an episode that should have seen Sarek, played by Mark Lenard, present. Ironically, if Lenard had, these same two actors from Balance of Terror would have been reunited side by side in Amok Time.

Uhura replaces Stiles at navigation (no other navigators aboard a ship of 430 people?), and she shuts off all communications boards. Not expecting communications, Uhura? No replacement for her station either? And she can access communications from the navigation board?

Granted, my fan-created set of Romulan Bird of Prey blueprints aren't canon, but I found it interesting that the artist rendered the interior so that the plasma weapon was so large that a ship was essentially built around it, rather than a ship housing a weapon system that takes up a small area of the ship.

repoire (sp?)

Rapport.

GREAT ENHANCED MOMENTS

New Romulan Ship

New "Proximity Phasers" on Enterprise and new explosions thereafter.

New Romulan Plasma Weapons

New comet footage

They did not fix the burnt out Red Alert lights in the corridor

No comments for a year? I'm probably wasting my time. (grin)

The title of the episode has never made any sense to me. The "Balance of Terror," as the phrase was coined in the 60s, referred to the mutual deterrence (sp?) during the Cold War. There's a little lip service in the episode to starting a galactic war, but this doesn't play out as a plot point large enough to be worthy of the title. And if the title was created absent knowledge of the cold war reference, there's no terror balancing going on at all. Mystifying.

The entire ST television canon never really comes to grips with space being a 3-dimensional setting. In the guide, Phil correctly points out that Kirk (or Stiles as navigator) had 360 degrees worth of choices to evade the energy weapon, but chose to retreat in a straight line, needlessly risking annihilation.

On the same subject, think about this "border." The only true border in space would have to be a 2 dimensional plane, extending to infinity. So those border colonies or bases are ridiculous, because all the Romulans would have to do is move a million miles or so perpendicular to the axis of the bases and just "cross the border" that way.

I credit the powers that be with at least making one reference in this episode to the War Bird attempting to pass "under" the Enterprise. However most of the space combat in Star Trek is conducted in two dimensions.

....and finally.....

Since seeing this for the first time as a teenager, I was always bothered by Sarek's (grin) moment at the end where he does a turn and has a "oh, hello. Didn't see you there..." moment when he "notices" the Enterprise bridge crew peering at him. What is he looking at anyway? Does the war bird have a view screen that he's heretofore not used? Or, if there's no viewscreen, how does he know where to look to face the "camera" and talk to Kirk?

In the guide, Phil correctly points out that Kirk (or Stiles as navigator) had 360 degrees worth of choices to evade the energy weapon, but chose to retreat in a straight line, needlessly risking annihilation.

Ahh, a chance to nitpick the chief.

In space you do not have 360 degrees worth of direction. You have some 720 degrees in which you can move - 360 degrees in the horizontal plain, 360 degrees in the vertical plain. (Who's being 2 dimensional now? ;) )

Star Trek is really rather good at trying to indicate this - even if they don't show it - by giving helm orders with two sets of coordinates; 097 mark 300 for example. One indicates the angle to move in the horizontal plain, the other in the vertical.

As for this episode Kirk is doing the correct thing just turning around and running in a straight line. The shortest route between two points is a straight line even in space. If you start curving that line by moving off it you have to move through a greater amount of space and therefore will take longer to get to the end point - in effect lowering your speed.
If the Enterprise travels alone an arc the torpedo could just travel in a straight line to the end point and arrive before the ship. Given that the torpedo was able to track and follow the Enterprise it clearly has a guidance system, and in the 23rd century it would be astonishing if such systems couldn't lead a target.

>Since seeing this for the first time as a >teenager, I was always bothered by Sarek's >(grin) moment at the end where he does a turn >and has a "oh, hello. Didn't see you there..." >moment when he "notices" the Enterprise bridge >crew peering at him. What is he looking at >anyway? Does the war bird have a view screen >that he's heretofore not used? Or, if there's >no viewscreen, how does he know where to look >to face the "camera" and talk to Kirk?

I got the impression that Uhura managed to tap into the feed of a survelience camera on the Romulan bridge.

Todd, you noticed what I saw the first time I ever saw this episode.Just what was he viewing at the screen for anyways? Like it was the first time he was eyeballed by the camera?

Actually his name(Sarek)was Romulan Commander.

Cyber:

--- "Who's being 2 dimensional now?"

Okay you got me there.

--- "Kirk is doing the correct thing."

So you're saying when an aircraft or future spacecraft is being pursued by some sort of missile with a guidance system, the standard hollywood defense tactic of jigging-and-jagging all over the place is, in fact, counter-productive? Very interesting. I seem to remember one or several of the Star Trek captains issuing the order, "Evasive Maneuvers, Mr. So-and-So." So if criticism of Kirk's "straight line" retreat is invalid, I'll bet there will be nits to pick for "Evasive Maneuvers!" in other episodes!

Great post, Cyber!

So you're saying when an aircraft or future spacecraft is being pursued by some sort of missile with a guidance system, the standard hollywood defense tactic of jigging-and-jagging all over the place is, in fact, counter-productive?

For guided munitions yes, it is wrong and dangerous to dance all over the sky once a missile is launched at you. Even the most agile of modern fighters can't turn as hard as modern air-to-air missiles, so their only defences involve ECM systems either preventing weapons from locking onto the fighter or leading the missile away from the aircraft.
All dancing around does at any range is to slow you down and make you a better target.

Now unguided weapons, such as phasers, could be avoided by hard sudden unpredictable turns since they can't change direction once fired. In the ST universe random changes of direction would also mean that incoming fire will not be hitting exactly the same location on the shields, preventing the shields from suffering a localised failure. It might not stop you from being hit, but evasive manoeuvres would make it harder to target you and help reduce the damage you would take - a major consideration in a protracted fight or when fighting several ships at once.

Great post, Cyber!

Thank you

However, it looked to me like the plasma burst weapon was unguided.... But we'll never know.

However, it looked to me like the plasma burst weapon was unguided

The torpedo follows the Enterprise when she makes a course change. This would require a guidance system of some sort. - The chief even noted this several times in the guide as the torpedo was seen coming back onto the viewscreen from the wrong side, and he asked exactly where you'd put a guidance system in a ball of plasma.

ScottN and Cyber you should post your first impressions when you first saw your episodes. Good catches.
I was only 10 or so when I caught these episodes in reruns...a nd only once a day or week sometimes.Now I know almost evry line of tos and tng., by heart.

beam me up.
---------------------------------------------
I'm typing this from my wife brother's comp in Xian China,and its very 3rd woorld here lol. His daughter,asked me out....my wife didnt say anything to her..

Cybermortis - The torpedo follows the Enterprise when she makes a course change. This would require a guidance system of some sort.
Maybe the plasma was attracted to large amounts of metal that may have been present in the ship's hull?

Maybe the plasma was attracted to large amounts of metal that may have been present in the ship's hull?

That would still be a guided munition, as it is tracking and following something. Any projectile that is able to react to the motions of its intended target after launch is a guided munition by definition.

By Hes_dead_jim (Hes_dead_jim) on Friday, October 31, 2008 - 6:08 pm:

ScottN and Cyber you should post your first impressions when you first saw your episodes. Good catches.

Thank you

I really can't recall when I first saw any of TOS, it was that long ago and I've seen then so many times since then on re-runs (BBC 2 used to run TOS more or less constantly for almost ten years until they got the rights to air TNG). I must have been very young, since I can recall owning an action figure of Kirk from the Motion Picture and arguing with my mum when she made a model of the Enterprise from the back of a cereal packet and put the engines on the wrong way - evidently I know only knew a lot about ST back then, but was a nit picker from an early age...

I've always thought of this episode as one of the best of the series - in fact apart from one or two weak areas (Mainly Stiles) that can be excused as products of the conventions of the period for TV - I think this is probably one of the best episodes of any of the TV series. Sometimes copied, but somehow they've never quite managed to duplicate some of the tension or moralising seen here. Nor have they since been able to show the Romulans as being quite as 'real' a people as they did here on their first time out. Even on Enterprise, some 40 years after this episode, Romulans were never quite this interesting or believable.

Cyber -I had the Spock with the 3 lizards in Tas model. Someone stole it if course...

Cybermortis, the point I was trying to make (badly) was that if the plasma was attracted to something about the Enterprise, like say the hull via magnetism, the Romulans wouldn't need to put a guidance system into it.

Like lightning being attracted to metal or tall objects.

After all we only see it being used against an asteroid base & a lone ship in open space.

If there were multiple ships or an asteroid thicket, the plasma might have gone to the nearest or largest object around.

The remastered "Balance of Terror" airs next weekend, with "Shore Leave" the following week.

This comes up in a lot of epsiodes -- an explosion in space that's so bright the bridge crew has to shield their eyes. However, the viewscreen isn't a window -- it could be easily designed to have a maximum light output. No sense having the bridge crew seeing spots for a few minutes.

In regards to the above discussion about the plasma weapon, there's no indication that it follows the ship after a course change. The comments by the Chief in his book are about the Zetars in "The Lights of Zetar" -- they were the ones coming off the wrong side of the screen. I think the Chief is still correct, they should have veered off.

I gathered that they tapped into a monitoring camera on the Romulan bridge, but it zooms in dramatically on the Romulan captain after he's revealed.

Anti-nit: The Chief says they indicated it would be three weeks before getting a response (thus it came too quickly), but Uhura actually says it would be three hours.

It's possible that Starfleet captains have the right to perform marriages, but it's not true that it's been that way "since the time of wooden ships."

hey I taped the enhanced episode of balance with
no sound, no closed captionning... Arrrrgh!

Come to think of it, Stiles is awfully similar to Bailey from "The Corbomite Maneuver". Both are emotional and disruptive on the bridge.

Was Stiles rude to Spock prior to the reveal of the Romulans' appearance? He hated the Romulans due to his family history and presumably transferred this to Spock because he looked like them.

I'm wondering why the Federation and the Romulans didn't end up at war with each other after the end of this episode. The Romulans sent a warship across the neutral zone, destroyed 10 Federation outposts, killing thousands of officers and enlisted people. The Enterprise destroys the Romulan ship and that's just the end of it? Wouldn't the Federation send a fleet to hit the Romulans back? What would the USA do if a warship from another nation sailed into the harbor in Miami, Florida, shelled the city and sank a few boats. Even if the military quickly dispatched the ship that did it would you see the USA saying "well that takes care of that" and not go after the nation that sent them on that mission in the first place?

One thing I've always wondered about. The Romulan ship supposedly can only move at sublight speeds (since they only have impulse power) yet when they fire at the Enterprise, Kirk orders full reverse warp (if they were only moving at warp 1 that's lightspeed) and the plasma was STILL overtaking them. How could the ball of plasma move at warp speed if the spacecraft that launched it couldn't?

Weapons are always faster than vehicles -- we had supersonic bullets before we had supersonic aircraft.

In the James Blish book adaptation of Balance of Terror not only does Tomlinson die but so does his aide as well as Stiles.

My feeling on the plasma weapon is that it has some sort of energy pattern that acts like a "memory" or snapshot of the target chosen by the Romulan ship. I suggest that once it began to dissipate, the Enterprise could have sidestepped it and it wouldn't be able to follow the Enterprise.

If the Enterprise could have done a saucer sep (the Constitution class couldn't rejoin), the plasma's target would seem to have "vanished" and the Enterprise could dodge it, then redock.

Saying the Romulan ship only had "simple impulse" makes it impossible for them to make this voyage in anything less than years, possibly a couple of decades. If someone could imitate James Doohan's voice, I'd dub in "classic early warp", implying they can't come anywhere close to the Enterprise in maximum speed. It would enable the Romulan ship to make the raid and return in a matter of months, perhaps even weeks.

I was disappointed that, with no moving actors or extras in sight, the sector chart was not redone, particularly by changing Romii to Remus. It would have been useful to show a small-scale 3D chart that briefly shows Federation, Klingon and Romulan adjacencies, before zooming on the sector they're now in.

Right after Outpost 4 is destroyed, the viewscreen shows the Romulan ship visible then cloaking. Since the Enterprise is too far away, the feed came from Cmdr. Hansen's console. Therefore, since the outpost is destroyed, the image should not be available.

My solution would be to take the black screen showing before Hansen's outpost comes into view, and put a tactical display on, showing the outpost and a "sensor blip" that is marked as "Suspect Hostile", with a positional notation. When Hansen and his outpost are disintegrated, the signal feed goes to "snow" for a fraction of a second before the tactical display reappears.

Ominously, the "Suspect Hostile" fades from view, and the positional notation changes to "Signal lost" with a flashing blip, that then disappears to reveal a widening track (think of the predicted path of a hurricane, widening as the uncertainty increases).

I really like your 'suspect hostile', 'signal lost' ideas, Geoff.

For the new CGI effects, one thing I'd change is the cloaking of the bird of prey, starting from the center of the ship, and radiating outward, instead of the outer hull fading inwards, as was shown. To me it makes sense that the cloaking device, which could be in the center of the ship, would radiate invisibility outwards, which would make it look like a hole in the center of the ship is getting bigger until she evaporates. The way it was shown looks odd to me in that the outer hull (which is furthest away from the cloaking device)disappears first, and then moves inward towards the center of the ship.

Here's some background information on the Romulan Bird of Prey model.

The camera that Scotty set up for the wedding was 1960's style. In other words, big. Especially the lens. Today's cell-phone cameras have lenses smaller than a dime. They're a bit low-definition, but there's always room for improvement.

Here's a 50th anniversary salute to this episode from Star Trek.com

Stiles should have been written up for insubordination.

Yeah, he should have been.

An interesting animated analysis of the battle;

https://youtu.be/cVcgBA70yBI

That was different.

Hansen says that outpost 2, 3 and 8 were destroyed before his outpost, number 4, was attacked. The sector map displayed on Enterprise's screen clearly showed the outposts positioned in numerical sequence. Why did the Romulan ship go all the way to outpost 8 before turning back to attack outpost 4?

It takes hours for the ships to reach the neutral zone after the outposts were destroyed. If those outposts are supposed to monitor the neutral zone, why build them so far away from it?

And speaking of distance, here is a little rumination about the neutral zone and the Romulan empire. Earth first engaged the Romulans in war over a century prior to this episode. At the time, ships did not travel very fast, and Earth had not been exploring the galaxy for very long. Therefore, Romulus must be fairly close to Earth, relatively speaking. Enterprise is often shown communicating in real time with Starfleet Command, yet in this episode, it takes hours for replies to their messages to arrive. That makes little sense, communications with Starfleet should happen in real time given the logically short distance between the Neutral Zone and Earth.

Well, the pilot to Enterprise revealed that it only took five days to travel from Earth to the Klingon Homeworld, when Warp Five was the top speed.

If the Klingon and Romulan Empires were that close, and since both have had space flight much longer than we have, one has to wonder why one or the other didn't conquer Earth long ago. This is not the Whoniverse, after all. Here there is no Doctor to bail Earth out.

If the Klingon and Romulan Empires were that close, and since both have had space flight much longer than we have, one has to wonder why one or the other didn't conquer Earth long ago.

I think the Vulcans were defending their sector of the galaxy before Earth got into the game.

Well, the pilot to Enterprise revealed that it only took five days to travel from Earth to the Klingon Homeworld, when Warp Five was the top speed.

This is a HUMONGOUS nit. In TOS and earlier, it's pretty much a given that actual velocity is the cube of the warp factor.

5 days at warp 5 = 5 days at 125c = 625 light-days.

That's less than 2 light years. That is closer than Proxima Centauri.

I'd make a crack about Berman and Braga (they wrote the Enterprise pilot). However, those men have been vindicated by the lump of turd that is STD).

Only if you're grading on a curve, Tim. ;-)

A bad writer is still a bad writer even if there are worse ones out there.

Compared to the brain dead dittoheads behind STD, Berman and Braga are William Shakespeare and Ernest Hemingway.

A couple of years ago I finally got to see the film that this episode was based on. The Enemy Below starring Robert Mitchum and Kurt Jurgens. I highly recommend it. As I watched, I could see the parallel plot developments in the two stories easily, although there are some major differences as well--such as the ending, but I won't spoil it.
Basically, it's WW2 combat film between a U.S. Battleship and a German sub.

All through this episode, Kirk and Co. are worried about a war starting.

The war has already started. A Romulan ship crossed the Neutral Zone and destroyed several Federation outposts, leaving no survivors. If that isn't an act of war, what is?

Of course, no war starts. Did the Romulan government claim that the Commander was acting under his own authority without official sanction? That is the only way I can see them avoiding an all out war with the Federation.

An odd contradiction; Kirk's order was to 'swing around' the comet as the Romulans entered it, and catch them on the other side of the comet's tail.
The Romulan officer even says 'At last the reflection no longer follows us.", indicating that the Enterprise changed course.
However...
...the viewscreen clearly shows the Enterprise pass through the same comet tail! It never swung around the object, it followed the Romulans straight through it.

Seeing as Manny Coto was such a fan of the series, had 'Star Trek: Enterprise' continued to show us the Romulan War, I don't doubt we would have seen Lt. Stiles's ancestors, also Starfleet officers.

Commander Hansen is a mile deep, inside an asteroid. One mile equals 5,280 feet; or the length of 5 and a half Enterprises placed end to end.
The Enterprise-D was supposed to be (according to a Google search) 2,108 feet long. That makes approximately 2 and a half 1701-D's placed end to end, that the Romulan plasma weapon was able to blast through.

Seeing as Manny Coto was such a fan of the series, had 'Star Trek: Enterprise' continued to show us the Romulan War, I don't doubt we would have seen Lt. Stiles's ancestors, also Starfleet officers.

They showed up in the Enterprise: The Romulan Wars novels. No doubt based on Coto's ideas.

After the Enterprise falls for the Romulan mine trap, McCoy announced that they suffered 22 casualties. But at the end of the episode, he says Tomlinson was the only crew member they lost.

Casualty doesn't mean dead.

What is means is that 22 people were badly hurt. 21 of them pulled through, the unfortunate Tomlinson didn't.

Kirk tells Stiles, "Leave any bigotry you may have in your quarters. There's no room for it on the bridge, do I make myself clear?"
Stiles replies, "You do, sir."
Yet minutes later, in the phaser room, Stiles denies Spock's offer of assistance, with a nasty, "This time we'll handle things without your help, Vulcan." and punctuates this with a sneer and frown behind Spock's back.
I had no idea that Stiles's quarters also doubled as the phaser room! Maybe Kirk's message wasn't clear enopugh!

More like the nasty kid who misbehaves when he thinks mommy and daddy can't see or hear him.

Technically, the phaser room is not the bridge. Kirk never said there was no room for bigotry in the phaser room!

Uh, yeah.

Ah, but he said LEAVE it in your QUARTERS, which means feel free to be a bigot and a racist, but ONLY in your quarters.
(Hopefully, Stiles didn't have a black or Asian roommate!)

One hopes that Stiles learned his lesson.

He apparently did, he was impressed by Spock risking his life to save him (although that was more of a side effect of Spock risking his life to save the whole ship ) and appologized for his bigotted attitude.

Good.