The Enterprise Incident

***** (5 stars out of 5)

"The Enterprise Incident", you may have guessed, is an incident involving the Enterprise. You may also have guessed by the stars that I'm a big fan.

Captain Kirk is inexplicably a Grouchy Pants and he orders his ship into the Romulan Neutral Zone. As often happens when one does this, one is surrounded by Romulans. But just this once, they're all in Klingon ships. In-story reason: a temporary Klingon-Romulan alliance. Real world reason: money. (The CGI version puts in a Romulan Warbird for added awesomeness.)

Who secretly wants a cloaking device? The Federation, apparently. Have the Romulans got one they're not watching?

Kirk and Spock beam aboard in a hostage exchange to meet the Man in Charge.

The Romulan Commander... is a lady.

She's very impressive. For one thing: she's speaking English. For another: she actually is more in the right here than Kirk and Spock.

They are playing a game of deceits and espionage in order to steal a cloaking device. She, at least, is a brutally honest loyal soldier of the Romulan death machine.

Spock first swears Kirk is off his rocker, then pretends to kill his Captain. She offers Spock a place in her Empire if he makes good on his overtures of defection.

Spock starts a seduction to distract and manipulate this woman. The Romulan Commander is cunning, logical, and emotional. And, like many before and after her, she's got Vulcan fever.

McCoy surgically alters Kirk to pass for Romulan so he can beam back there and steal the new cloaking device.

The Romulan Comander whispers her secret name to Spock, and dresses to impress him in the boudoir. They engage in some heavy "finger kissing". But her underling Subcommander Tal bursts in before the good stuff- they detected Spock's covert communicator signal.

The Commander seems genuinely betrayed, slaps Spock, and sentences him to an unpleasant execution. Spock claims the Right of Statement: he filibusters for 15-20 minutes. Long enough for Chekov to scan for the only Vulcan aboard. They beam Spock out and get a two-for-one deal when they also snag the Commander.

I'm starting to think the Romulans don't even HAVE shields!

Scotty adapts the stolen cloak in time to turn invisible and skulk away.

Rather than the brig, Spock escorts her to quarters on Deck Two. (By way of every other deck, I guess, it's quite a long, emotional turbolift ride to travel down one floor.)

They will set her free at the nearest Federation Outpost.

Joanne Linville is a delight as the Commander. No wonder she turns up so much in Trek fiction.