When Balance Of Terror first begins, Captain Kirk is about to perform one of the happiest of duties for any ship's captain: a wedding. However, before the bride and groom can even say 'I do', a red alert sounds throughout the Enterprise. An unknown force has wiped out several Earth outposts along the Romulan Neutral Zone. Yet everyone aboard the Enterprise knows whom the prime suspect in these attacks is: the Romulans. Not having any contact with them since the end of a devastating war over a century ago--a war in which neither side had ever seen the other's face--the Romulans now appear to be on the prowl once more in a brand new, more advanced vessel of formidable power.

As the Enterprise engages the Romulan vessel in a nail-biting game of cat and mouse, they discover that their adversary is armed with a cloaking device that renders their ship invisible. And when the face of the enemy is finally revealed, the Enterprise crew is stunned when the Romulans bear a striking resemblance to Vulcans. This revelation causes Mr. Spock to become the target of bigotry from Mr. Stiles, the ship's navigator, who was raised with a hatred of Romulans due to the fact that he lost family members in the Romulan/Earth war. Mark Lenard, who would later become better known as Spock's father, plays the commander of the Romulan vessel with the weary dignity of a warrior who had been numbed by one too many campaigns. Yet despite his misgivings at his government's lust for war and conquest, Lenard's Commander still proves to be a wily opponent who manages to give Kirk a run for his money. The crew of the Enterprise tries to avert another interstellar war by stopping the Romulan ship before it can return to safety on the other side of the Neutral Zone.

"Balance Of Terror" is Star Trek at its most gripping. It introduces a major player in the Star Trek universe--the cunning and ruthless Romulans--while never losing sight of telling a spellbinding yarn about a battle on two fronts: a battle of ships, between the Enterprise and the Romulan Warbird, and the battle of wits between the Romulan Commander and Captain Kirk. Each Captain tries to outguess the other's ingenuous strategy as they mercilessly stalk each other across the vast black arena of space. I have always been a fan of the Romulans, and it was when I first saw "Balance Of Terror" as a boy in the 1970s that was the reason for this. They always appeared more of a menace to me than the Klingons, who were nothing more than simple bullies. The Klingons in "ST: The Next Generation" have really gotten on my nerves even more so than in the Classic Series. The "Next Gen" Klingons, with their incessant bravado, always appeared to me like shrill prima donnas, while the Romulans, who quietly manipulated people and events from behind the scenes, still had the military might to back up their cold, pitiless intellect. The Romulans were wise warriors who didn't throw away their troops and materiel on idiotic ideas of valor, and that was what truly made them far more dangerous. And the threat of the Romulan Star Empire would all begin here, with a clash of gallant space commanders and their grand starships.