“Balance of Terror” is one of Star Trek‘s best episodes even if it’s just a WWII submarine chase in space with dated special effects. It holds up because the plot and execution were solid.
Recently Viacom has been cleaning up, re-digitizing and “enhancing” the show. They were supposed to appear on CBS or TV Land yet I own the three DVD sets so I can watch any of the 79 I want. The original starship sequences aren’t as impressive by today’s standards but it was cutting edge then and that’s part of its charm. Besides, “enhanced” editions have been awful; everbody makes fun of the guns disappearing in the new versions of ET.
Then I received an iTunes gift card for my birthday which provided me the two bucks to satisfy my curiosity.
Unlike Lucas constantly tampering with Star Wars by re-editing the film to accommodate his modernizing of the effects, the Star Trek people only altered the elements involving the Enterprise and Romulan warbird fighting while leaving the live-action parts alone: the map was still cheesy, the respective bridges are the same, so on. You can see a comparison thanks to this guy’s website. When the Romulan ship cloaks/de-cloaks, moves and fires its plasma canon, it’s more menacing and convincing. Even when there’s a close up, you can see the details on the hull with the individual square plates of steel. The Enterprise receives numerous improvements too; blurring to give the feeling of movement.
Now to wait and see what Hollywood’s flavor-of-the-month (J J Abrams) does to rescue the movie franchise with his prequel, a bad idea nobody out there has figured out yet.