This was a pretty good episode overall, I thought. The Romulans are introduced to the Star Trek mythos as one of the major threats to the Federation. Kirk has an interesting 'duel' of sorts with the Romulan commander, played here by Mark Lenard, the same guy who would play Sarek, Spock's father, in later episodes. Kirk ends up preventing a likely war that would have ensued if the Romulan ship had safely returned to Romulan territory, so the stakes were high.
There was at least one major flaw, though, which bothered me a lot even as a kid. The bigoted navigator, Stiles, even says that a "phaser hit" against the cloaked ship, at far range, would be "the wildest stroke of luck", and Kirk says "I'm aware of that". Yet, the Enterprise, again and again, seems to hit the Romulan ship at will with their phasers. The cloaking device seems almost useless under these conditions.
A possible explanation is that the Romulan commander indeed wanted to die, as he directly suggested to the Centurion, in order to prevent an otherwise inevitable war, and so deliberately did things to make his vessel visible to the Enterprise; but that's not what seemed to happen. I never felt like there was a good explanation for the Enterprise's seeming ability to hit the Romulan ship repeatedly despite the supposed cloak. A better script would have come up with some clever maneuvering by Kirk and Spock that somehow defeated the cloaking device; their repeatedly hitting the enemy "by the sheerest stroke of luck", over and over again, seemed quite ludicrous by the end.
The second flaw was the thoroughly unsatisfying ending. Spock has a choice between saving two men's lives-- and he chooses the bigot rather than the young man who was to be married. I guess they were trying to give the bigot his 'moment of realization' while also creating a sense of tragic loss, but it's just too irritating-- why was it just the two of them, and why did Spock pick the jerk? I actually think it would have been more interesting if Spock had shown emotionality and picked the less offensive man to save, since he apparently only had time to save one of them.
There was at least one major flaw, though, which bothered me a lot even as a kid. The bigoted navigator, Stiles, even says that a "phaser hit" against the cloaked ship, at far range, would be "the wildest stroke of luck", and Kirk says "I'm aware of that". Yet, the Enterprise, again and again, seems to hit the Romulan ship at will with their phasers. The cloaking device seems almost useless under these conditions.
A possible explanation is that the Romulan commander indeed wanted to die, as he directly suggested to the Centurion, in order to prevent an otherwise inevitable war, and so deliberately did things to make his vessel visible to the Enterprise; but that's not what seemed to happen. I never felt like there was a good explanation for the Enterprise's seeming ability to hit the Romulan ship repeatedly despite the supposed cloak. A better script would have come up with some clever maneuvering by Kirk and Spock that somehow defeated the cloaking device; their repeatedly hitting the enemy "by the sheerest stroke of luck", over and over again, seemed quite ludicrous by the end.
The second flaw was the thoroughly unsatisfying ending. Spock has a choice between saving two men's lives-- and he chooses the bigot rather than the young man who was to be married. I guess they were trying to give the bigot his 'moment of realization' while also creating a sense of tragic loss, but it's just too irritating-- why was it just the two of them, and why did Spock pick the jerk? I actually think it would have been more interesting if Spock had shown emotionality and picked the less offensive man to save, since he apparently only had time to save one of them.