Review

An exciting episode packed with intrigue and several layers of deception. Throughout the story you're left wondering who is playing who and only midway through the episode do we finally learn that Kirk's confusing array of behaviors were all part of an act designed to deceive the Romulans and that only Kirk, Spock, and McCoy had foreknowledge of the details of the mission. And what a bold mission indeed! The Federation ordered them to steal technology from the enemy. This is only the second time we've seen Romulan characters on screen and it's been two years since their first appearance. Since then, much has changed in the political landscape. The Romulans' shared ancestry with the Vulcans has been unmasked and since the cat is out of the bag the Romulans make no attempt to avoid visual contact any further. In fact, the Romulan commander openly discussed her shared ancestry with Spock, referring to his people as "distant brothers." That leaves me wondering which planet the two species evolved on. Vulcan? Romulus? Or somewhere else?

One curious oddity was the brief mention that the Romulans are now using Klingon ship designs. This hints at a possible alliance between the two empires, but there is no mention of that and outside of that quick one liner the concept isn't explored at all. Other oddities included the mention that English is a difficult language for Romulans to learn which seems strange seeing as how the universal translator would seem to mitigate the need for the Romulans to learn English in the first place. Also it seems unlikely that Kirk could walk around the Romulan ship and especially interact with the crew without being recognized as Kirk, despite his altered appearance. Likewise it seemed rather convenient that the Romulan ship's shields just so happened to be down, allowing Kirk and Spock to be beamed off the ship at just the right moment. Finally I found it a bit strange that the cloaking device could be so easily plugged into the Enterprise, despite Scotty's whining about its alien oddness.

On top of that, the whole idea of a hostage exchange seemed like a poor thing for the Romulans to agree to given that they had the Enterprise completely surrounded and quite frankly held all the cards by that point. But in any case, Kirk and Spock's time aboard the Romulan vessel was the centerpiece of the story. It's a bit annoying that the Romulan commander falls in love with Spock so quickly and easily without much of a substantiation, but despite the strangeness of her obsession with winning him over, the whole plot point is well played. I was intrigued by how well the story played on Spock's half human and half Vulcan nature, as the fact that Spock's human ancestry makes him more like a Romulan than a Vulcan is distinctly ironic. The Enterprise Incident is a fine piece of storytelling overall with only minor flaws. More episodes of Star Trek should be like this one!