57 – The Enterprise Incident

Grade: A

Summary

Captain Kirk goes nuts and takes the Enterprise directly into the Romulan Neutral Zone. Spock betrays the insane Kirk and turns him over to the Romulans, who are only too happy to take both the Captain and the Enterprise itself.

Commentary

This is the second best episode of the third season, behind All Our Yesterdays. The Romulan Commander (Joanne Linville) is excellent, and the storyline has been written very well. In addition, it’s fun to see Spock and Kirk completely fool everyone on both ships. You have to see Kirk as a Romulan to believe it. Great stuff.

Of Note

This is the first time in Star Trek that we see a female starship commander. It wasn’t a human, but I’m sure the network had something to do with that. In the original Star Trek pilot called The Cage, the Enterprise was under the command of a female as well, and the network didn’t like that. I imagine having an alien commander was about the most that Roddenberry could get away with at the time.