- Biochemical stuff making a woman irresistible to men? I've seen that sort of thing several times before. It's also date rape.
- Elaan wears no less than four revealing outfits in this episode. Some of the other outfits are typical Trek silly ones.
- Diplomacy is about being nice to people that you utterly despise. Jay Robinson does a great job as Petri in this regard, reminding me of the late Alan Rickman.
- Arranged marriages are inherently dubious. That should have been explored in more depth and would have been today.
- France Nuyen, who plays Elaan here worked with William Shatner four times, including on stage in The World of Suzie Wong in 1958-59, where they both won awards.
- I hadn't noticed this until I saw it discussed on Memory Alpha, but the Dragon Lady stereotype is in full force here - with a mixed heritage actress seemingly using brown make-up to make her skin darker.
- This marks the first appearance of the D7 battle cruiser in Klingon use; it previously featured in "The Enterprise Incident" (filmed after this but aired earlier) in Romulan service.
- Engineering clearly isn't very well guarded. One red shirt, who swiftly ends up with a broken neck.
- We're in full "sneaky Russians" mode with the Klingons here. By having the Enterprise blow up and killing Elaan, they'll trigger a war and be able to take over the ruins.
- William Shatner does a very strong performance here, with subtle emotional performances and a strong commanding moment in the climax.
Conclusion
Some of the action in this is pretty good. Some of the gender and ethnic politics less so.
5/10
