So yesterday I wrote up a bunch of complaints about the Gorn in Strange New Worlds as of the Season 3 opening episode, but I actually want to roll back a bit and talk about the S1 finale, Quality of Mercy, which can be seen as a stealth remake of the classic TOS episode Balance of Terror. In Balance of Terror, the Enterprise sees a Romulan ship decloak (which was the first time ever this happened, both in universe and in real life) and destroy a Federation outpost, then recloak and flee into the neutral zone, an area of space neither they nor the Federation is suppose to be allowed to enter, after a peace treaty of sorts was established between them a hundred years before via subspace communications (i.e., not face to face, humans have never seen a Romulan before). A tense discussion is had whereby Bones advises Kirk to be cautious - the Romulans are an unknown quantity, but we know they are powerful and dangerous and are only not at war with us because we have agreed to this neutral zone, if we violate it, we might start a war that could kill billions or trillions or whatever. Its also revealed at some point that the Romulans look like Vulcans. Someone else on the crew, probably Stiles, a racist who suspects Spock of collaborating with the Romulans because of the similar shapes, thinks we should attack immediately as a show of force, because if we let them get away with the attack, we will be seen as weak and the Romulans might decide that means they can attack with impunity. Spock then pipes up and says, hey, I think racist guy is right, if Romulans really are like Vulcans, when Vulcans were imperialistic and expansionist only a sock to the jaw would stop us from starting a war, so what he says makes sense. Kirk listens to both and ultimately decides that following and destroying the Romulan ship is the right move, but he is clearly uncertain about his choice, and both before it is revealed to have been the right choice, and importantly, AFTER it is revealed to be the right choice, bemoans that he has to make these choices at all. Why should the weight of billions be on his shoulders? Why are we so willing to kill billions of people over issues of appearance and machismo and grievance? At the end of the episode (I think, unless I’ve mixed it up with another), we also learn that although they were too far away from Starfleet to get their permission ahead of time, Starfleet belatedly says that whatever Kirk decides to do, they trust him, meaning up until the end, Kirk might be starting a war and end up court martialed, and its only at the end that war seems averted AND we learn that Kirk will be fine - but its entirely possibly he could have successfully averted the war and still been court martialed for being too aggro OR too wimpy, as well as possible to have started a war and been court martialed for being too aggro OR too wimpy. Just a shit show, basically.
At the same time, we also see whats happening on the Romulan vessel. There, their orders are clear - the higher ups want a war. They are looking for an excuse. But the Captain of the vessel does not. He knows all the lives that will be lost if a war starts. He openly wishes that somehow the Enterprise will destroy them before they can return, because we also learn that indeed, Spock and racist man are right, if Starfleet does not defend itself, the Romulan empire will view it as weak, and will start a war. He follows orders, but he does not want war so much that he hopes he and all his men are killed to avoid it. Ultimately he gets his wish, and he expresses to Kirk that perhaps, in another reality, they could have been friends.
So what happens in the SNW remake? Well, Pike knows that in ten years he’s gonna suffer an awful accident, which will result in Kirk taking over the Enterprise, but he’s like, what if I just don’t show up to my accident and also send an e-mail to all the people who would have died in that accident too, and then we all survive and be happy? Then future Pike comes back and is like, dude, bad idea, let me show you, and we skip to the future, where now Pike is in charge of the Enterprise during the same crisis, except he wants to try to make peace with the Romulans. It doesn’t work, war is beginning, we get signal, all your base are belong to Romulus, move every zig for great justice. And the point of the episode is, take your choice: sometimes tough situations needs tough men who shoot first and ask questions later to preserve the peace, OR Faptain Kirk (I meant Captain but I am leaving that typo cuz… c’mon, Faptain? classic) is an amazing guy chosen by fate to save the Federation, isn’t he so cool, Pike has to be disabled and live in a fantasy to make room for Kirk because Kirk is just so cool. Honestly, that is wrong, there are not two options, the meaning of the episode is the second one. Thats why they wrote this episode, thats what they meant to convey, and to be fair with them, there is some of that in the original episode. The Romulan is constantly like, “This Starfleet captain is a wiley one!” and it ends with him praising Kirk and saying they could be friends, so, yeah I get it. But if we take our masturbatory Kirk worship robes off for a second, we see that the actual thrust of the episode seems to be saying the first one, that diplomacy doesn’t always work and sometimes to preserve the peace, you must prepare for war.
Is that the message of Balance of Terror, though? No, it is not. Kirk, both before and after his actions are revealed to have averted war, questions his actions and his judgement and the necessity that he be the one to make these calls. He thinks it is unjust that this is the case. The Romulan, too, thinks that this state of affairs sucks. He wants to avert war. They both do. But their hands are forced by the circumstances. Kirk has to be tough, because showing weakness can lead to war, and it could also lead to court martial. He correctly judges it as his best option, but it is still a shitty option. It sucks for him he has to risk his life, his career, and his crew to take an action that might start a war on its own just to have any chance of averting the same war, and it sucks for the Romulan that he had to take the same action that might start a war that he personally opposes because his higher ups are gunning for war because the blood mill must be fed blood. The ending makes this clear - both Captains wish they could have met peacefully and been friends, but this conflict between their societies, this slowly, coolly bubbling fight, this COLD WAR if you will, has put them against each other, and that means that the Romulan has to die and Kirk has to kill him just so a war won’t happen. That is the lesson. The lesson is that the Cold War mentality of paranoia and lack of formal diplomacy and the desire of the elites to fight so they can profit off the war while the men in the trenches die, THAT is the problem, and the original episode could hardly have said it clearer. But in the remake, all of that subtlety is washed away in favor of, “But Kirk is a pretty cool guy, right? So tough.”
Like, you got to remember when this was written. It was the sixties. The Cold War was going on. The Romulans represent the Russians. The ships are submarines. It’s not subtle. This is about how the United States and Russia should actually talk to one another and work out their differences, instead of sniping about in the dark, constantly coming to the brink of war over small things instead of actually openly discussing things and coming to terms. It’s a call for everyone to actually act like adults and a reminder that war is awful and everyone should want to avoid it. Washing over that by saying that the real message is Kirk is a badass and that tough situations need tough guys is literally the opposite of the intended takeaway.
Its a bad fucking episode.
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