One of my favourite “Star Trek: TOS” episodes to rewatch is the 1966
‘Balance of Terror’ (least of all because it features a much-loved, pre-Sarek
Mark Lenard): it’s our very first time to encounter the Romulan and see the
face of the enemy from beyond the neutral curtain, and the chase that ensues is
so unexpected in its pace and distance and mystery, discovering the power of
warring starships and their brilliant commanders, and playing gloriously
suspenseful cat-and-mouse, chess amongst the stars.
If like me, you’ve seen
your fair share of WWII films, the bridge of the Romulan warbird may also
remind you of those classic submarine scenes (the confined, down-below feeling
in the watercolour light always made me think of those black-and-white Pacific
theatre ones). I was later tickled to read that episode director Vincent
McEveety found in retrospect that he’d essentially replicated the plot of
“Enemy Below” (1957, starring Curd Jürgens and Robert Mitchum), but I think
equally fascinating is how in this farflung future, that ‘Other’ shielded by
clouds of space is, for a moment, not entirely the antagonist they had come to
expect, giving it a wonderfully rich ambiguity that befits an otherwise
less-forgiving, fearful Cold War landscape Xo
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