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DVDs
Star Trek: The Original Series Season One DVD set
[USA] [Canada] [France] [UK] [Germany]
Episode Title: "BALANCE OF TERROR"
Production Number: 09
Original Air Date: 12-15-66
Stardates: 1709.2, 1709.6

Synopsis: Captain Kirk is preparing to perform the wedding ceremony of Angela Martine and Robert Tomlinson, two crew members under his command, but is interrupted by a distress call from an Earth outpost under attack by an unknown ship.

The Enterprise approaches the outposts guarding the Neutral Zone between planets Romulus and Remus and the rest of the Galaxy. After another outpost is destroyed by a high-energy plasma weapon, the Enterprise detects a cloaked Romulan ship moving away, and follows on a parallel course.

Spock is able to lock on to a visual transmission from the Romulan ship, and the crew sees that Romulans resemble Spock's Vulcan race. The Romulan ship is running at impulse speed, so the Enterprise is able to catch up to it, and outrun its plasma weapon at warp speed.

Kirk is able to anticipate the Romulan Commander's strategy and the Enterprise seriously damages the Romulan ship. The Romulan Commander destroys his ship rather than be captured. The only Enterprise crewman to die in the battle is Tomlinson, who was supposed to get married that morning.

  • Factoid: The Neutral Zone was established by treaty over subspace radio after the Earth-Romulan conflict over a century ago, which was fought with primitive atomic weapons and space vessels that allowed no captives. There was no ship-to-ship visual communication; therefore no human, Romulan, nor ally has ever seen the other.

  • Factoid: The Romulan vessel is the Praetor's finest and proudest flagship.

  • Factoid: Cast rodinium, the hardest substance known to science, was used in the Earth outpost's protective shield.

  • Factoid: The Romulan vessel's power is simple impulse, slower than the Enterprise.



  • Guest Characters: *Angela Martine, *Robert Tomlinson dies, Yeoman Janice Rand, Lt. Leslie
    Alien Races: *Romulans
    Starships:

    KEY: [brackets]=illusions   *star=first appearance

     
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