ST: Pointy eared monsters

Interesting. This episode seems to start with some sort of religious ceremony being set up. Not sure if it's church, a marriage or a funeral, but something's up and it's going to be broadcast all over the ship.

Ah. A marriage. The classic tune. Two random extras getting hitched by the captain. They wear their regular uniforms; the bride's only nod to the occasion is a small corsage. The marriage is interrupted by a "condition red" as an outpost reports attack by an unknown ship. Spoileration and happy-exciting-fun-times after the jump.

 The first episode with the Romulans? Apparently these outposts are on the border with the Romulan neutral zone.

They say that the planets are Romulus and Remus, but on the map it's Romulus and Romii.

Excellent. They haven't ever even seen the Romulans, so they'll be double-extra surprised when they look like Vulcans.

I gotta say, the map is seriously low-tech. Even for their period FX.

This appears to be the first instance of the cloaking device.

Cloaking appears to be a lot more limited at this point. They can see through it to the degree that they can track the enemy ship, the enemy ship is screened from seeing them and the Enterprise can spy on their bridge by intercepting their transmissions.

I think the actor who plays the Romulan commander is the same guy who later plays Sarek.

Cool, they're going to shoot first. Sorta. The Romulans already violated the treaty and blew up some outposts, but Star Trek almost never shoots until the enemy ship shoots first.

It kinda spoils the effect of the "heavy" debris when it wiggles as soon as someone bumps it.

Awww. Yeoman Rand gets a hug from the captain right before the super-weapon hits them.

It's kinda silly, but this is one of the better episodes.

The Romulan ship is apparently made up of stone and dirt because every time it's hit a lot of dirt and dust falls down off the ceiling.

McCoy apparently gets maudlin when danger is near.

Everyone is trying so hard to be quiet, but why? Sound doesn't transfer through empty space.

Why would you run right through the debris fields?

Interesting, are they going to actually kill all the Romulans? After showing them on screen for most of the episode?

And the guy who was feeling all racist about Vulcans gets his life saved by Spock. But, sadly, the guy was gonna get hitched at the start of the episode is the only one to buy the farm. He must have only had a few months to retirement as well or something.