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The Enterprise is making star maps of territory new to the Federation when it encounters a cubical space probe. The probe effectively blocks their path by matching any change in course that they make. Kirk nicely demonstrates non-violent methods of countering the probe, such as trying to make course changes around it and then eventually ordering the Enterprise to back away. However the probe pursues the Enterprise as it retreats and begins emitting increasing amounts of deadly radiation. Eventually, Kirk has no choice but to order the probe destroyed with the ship's phasers.
In a short time, an enormous ship arrives to block their course. They receive a communication from the ship: the ship is the Fesarius and the captain's name is Balok. He says that the Enterprise has demonstrated its hostile intent by destroying the warning buoy. The alien uses powerful sensors to read the Enterprise's memory banks and records. Balok announces that he will destroy the Enterprise in ten minutes. Kirk tries to communicate with Balok to explain the situation, but communication is refused.
With the ten-minute countdown to destruction, the tension on the bridge of the Enterprise is palpable. Spock manages to locate the source of the Fesarius's transmission and puts an image of Balok on the screen: he is certainly alien-looking and intimidating. Lieutenant Bailey, who is still relatively inexperienced, has a meltdown and Kirk relieves him of duty and sends him to his quarters, escorted by McCoy.
Kirk and Spock confer, but Spock has no further suggestions, comparing their situation to checkmate in chess. Kirk isn't pleased with Spock's lack of advice, and Spock nearly apologizes before stopping himself. These scenes and the characters' demeanors clearly show how on-edge everyone is - deservedly so.
But Kirk always thinks best under pressure, and he realizes that he shouldn't think of the situation in terms of chess, but in terms of poker: he creates a bluff. He signals Balok that the Enterprise has a material in its structure called "corbomite" and if the Enterprise is attacked, the corbomite will cause an equally strong reverse reaction on the attacker, so that if the Enterprise is destroyed, the Fesarius will be, too.
As the last of the ten minutes count down, Bailey returns to the bridge, much chastened, and asks to return to his post. The countdown ends and the Fesarius does not attack. Balok communicates and asks for proof of the corbomite; the reaction of Scotty, McCoy and the rest of the bridge crew is amusing as they realize that Balok has fallen for the bluff and they have a reprieve. Kirk refuses to give any evidence of the corbomite.
Shortly thereafter, Balok announces that a smaller ship, that leaves from the Fesarius will tow them to a planet where the humans may disembark and be held captive and the Enterprise will be destroyed safely. The small ship takes them in tow with a tractor beam, and the Fesarius leaves.
Kirk realizes that they have better odds of escaping from a smaller and presumably less-powerful ship. After some time, he orders an escape course at warp speed. They can't seem to escape from the tractor beam, even with the warp engines near overload until Kirk orders the addition of impulse power. The Enterprise breaks out of the tractor beam, and this apparently disables the small towing ship.
As soon as Kirk ascertains that the Enterprise is OK, he orders them to intercept the damaged towing ship. The double-take on the part of the bridge crew, including Spock, is great. As Kirk reminds them all, their mission is to make contact with alien life, and that includes whoever is on the towing vessel. He leads a boarding party that includes himself and Bailey.
When they beam over to the small ship, they first discover that "Balok" was a puppet rather than a real being. The true Balok is a small person (played by a child actor). Balok reveals that their interactions so far have been a test to ensure that they are truly peaceful and exploratory. We can see the puzzle pieces click together immediately for Kirk and somewhat slower for Bailey. Balok says that he runs the small ship and the huge Fesarius by himself, and he is lonely. He proposes that one of Kirk's crewmen remain for some time for a cultural exchange. At Kirk's suggestion, Bailey volunteers.
This episode is tense and gripping, even though it's almost a "bottle" show, as nearly all scenes take place on the Enterprise. During Balok's ten-minute countdown, you can nearly cut the tension with a knife, as characters who are good friends snap at each other, and lower-ranking crewmen sweat and wring their hands. The fact that most of the crew acts completely professional, following orders without question or hesitation despite their obvious fear, is underlined by Bailey's outburst.
The sub-plot of Bailey's inexperience was a bit overdone, in my opinion, but certainly it's a nice touch to see Kirk and McCoy mentoring and showing concern for up-and-coming officers. In a related note, I appreciated the idea of the crew running attack readiness drills.
We see a lot of evidence of the close relationships between Kirk and Spock and Kirk and McCoy. In Kirk's quarters early in the episode, McCoy is clearly going to trot out arguments and discussions that they've had before, which Kirk is not shy reminding him about - these are two old friends and colleagues who may disagree about some things, but clearly support each other in the most important aspects of their lives. Later, Kirk is not afraid to apologize to McCoy for snapping at him. I also appreciated the early detail of Kirk getting a salad for dinner after McCoy did his physical - a nice real life touch. The "green leaves" outraged comment from Kirk and how he starts eating the "leaves" piece by piece is rather funny.
On a more philosophical level, this episode does a great job of showing the Federation's exploratory and peaceful intentions. Kirk calmly and deliberately tried several courses of action to avoid shooting the probe until there was no other recourse. In fact, he presumably exercised quite a bit of patience, as we had the early scene with all of the department heads brainstorming in the conference room apparently for long enough that they were worn out and going through multiple cups of coffee. It's gratifying to see Federation captains acting in such a considered manner. This is something that falls more by the wayside in later seasons of the show, but this early episode establishes the baseline.
Balok and his "First Federation" were an interesting adversary of sorts. Is Balok from a race that together constitute the First Federation, or was the First Federation another facade that Balok used in his test of Kirk and the Enterprise? One wonders why, if Balok is lonely, he doesn't seek out people of his own race to interact with. Is he the last one? And how did they develop such technology? I suppose that these are questions that Bailey would find out the answers to during his time with Balok.
The fact that Balok also turned out to be a very small and not at all intimidating being was a clever lesson in not being deceived by appearances. He was right that the Enterprise's crew probably wouldn't have been frightened by his true appearance, even though they should have been because he was still the one calling the shots due to his powerful technology.
I most recently watched this episode in a "remastered" edition, and I appreciated the interesting and unusual special effects representing first the cubical probe, then the Fesarius and the smaller towing ship. These were definitely spaceships that were very alien in appearance. If an alien designed a spaceship so different from what a human might envision, then how differently does it think compared to a human?
This episode is what I think of as classic TOS, with the exploration of the unknown and first contact with a being that initially seems harmful but in the end is benevolent.
avondale@astro.umd.edu