Kirk and crew are playing taxi to Elaan from Elas and an ambassador from Troyius. Their mission: get everyone safely from point A to point B. Sounds easy, right? Now add in Elaan’s near-barbarism, a bit of sabotage, and a hostile Klingon ship. Can Kirk civilize Elaan, evade the Klingons and keep the Enterprise from blowing up? Find out as we put Elaan of Troyius in the Mission Log.
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One thing that might well’ve influenced the actors in the episode is that in 1958, late-teenaged Nuyen and Shatner (9 years older) were on Broadway together in THE WORLD OF SUZIE WONG; the 6 October 1958 LIFE magazine has a cover story displaying Nuyen, and the cover story includes the datum that Shatner “needs”/needed Nuyen to give him a massage before every performance, to Help him along, something she breezily accepts, as the article is written. I don’t know if Nuyen’s marriage with Culp was already on the rocks by the time this ST episode was in production, but old flames might well’ve been sparked, nostalgia ruling OK.
Sadly, when you asked, “Do you think France Nuyen eats like that?”, my first thought, casting my memory back to her work in the 1970s particularly when she seemed to have caught H’wood Never Too Thin mindset rather dangerously, was how much she was eating at all by then…
Her role on ST. ELSEWHERE was a highlight (and her husband on that series was John Astin, and it was fine to see both these folks with decent scripts to work with), and it’s impressive that she’s managed to do good work as a counselor, as well (not Counselor Troyus, happily).
In terms of production value, I give big props to the musical score of this episode. This applies more to the original (un-remastered) version, which added a lot of visual effects to the battle between the Enterprise and the Klingon ship.
In the original broadcast, the visuals were most stock shots and slow moving. The music added a tension to the scene that wasn’t supported by the visuals. I remember being on the edge of my seat during that battle, imagining the visuals of fast maneuvering starships, that simply weren’t on screen, thanks to the score of Fred Steiner.
His score for this episode is not considered as *iconic* as, say the fight in “Amok Time,” but it is for me.