So we've got a pretty big problem here. This episode has far more Uhura than we've had in recent stretches, but she says almost NOTHING but "Hailing frequencies open," and she says it more than five times. They may as well have just reused the clip of her saying it. Very disappointing.Uhura aside, however, this episode was actually completely awesome. It had most of the things I look for in Star Trek: everyone hanging out, McCoy cracking wise, and Kirk erratically shifting between obnoxious anger at his subordinates and eerie, heroic calm. Just give us more Uhura, already. The people demand it!
So the gang is exploring a previous-unexplored part of the galaxy when they suddenly come upon an enormous screensaver. The navigator, a frustrated dude/humor columnist named Dave Barry, tries to maneuver around the cube, but it keeps following them! It keeps getting closer and closer, and Spock decides he needs Kirk's help with this one. But where is Kirk?
Oh, just being shirtless in another room, whaling on his glutes with McCoy. No, seriously, he's having his physical, and obviously he's in perfect health, except that he could stand to lose a few. But no time for that now, he's gotta go deal with Rubik and his Kube. Also, McCoy cold drops a "I'm a doctor, not a..." bomb, which was exciting. On Kirk's way out, he throws a towel over his towel, which, paging Xzibit.
On the bridge, tensions are running high as Dave Barry is campaigning to be Barry Goldwater's running mate, which is to say, he wants to explode things first, ask questions later. Spock makes Vulcan fun of this brash young paduan, and Sulu cracks up laughing, probably because he just read Dave Barry's column about this experience ("Dave Barry Does Star Trek"). Kirk decides to call a meeting in the War Room.
I don't think we've seen the War Room yet, but I think Thomas Schlamme got here first because we have an awesome tracking shot around a long table with technology and seriousness. Kirk decides to try to evade the QB, which Dave Barry doesn't like, but eventually the kewb begins emitting so much radiation (!) that either Kirk will need to explode it or Erin Brockovich will need to get involved. So they explode it.Spock is like, "Hey Kirk, you think that cube thing is something to worry about?" and Kirk's like "Nah. Fuck it, dude. Let's go bowling."
Kirk is chilling in his quarters, letting McCoy yell at him about how chubby he's getting lately ("At this rate, by the time we get to the movies, you'll be completely bald!"), when we reach another Workplace Inappropriate Situation. Yeoman Rand (Rand is my Norm - when she shows up, you just want to shout her name) walks in and serves Kirk a salad (because of his health). I want you to look at this picture and tell me what you see:
Now, I ABSOLUTELY do not want this to get inappropriate. I promise Rand is not serving Kirk an HJ. It looks like that, and that's funny, but we're here to be serious and talk about Issues. According to Wikipedia, "In the United States Navy and United States Coast Guard, a yeoman is a rating usually with secretarial, clerical, payroll or other administrative duties." The act of serving salad and placing a napkin in the captain's lap (which is what is happening in this picture) does not strike me as secretarial, clerical, payroll, or administrative. Am I wrong here? I'm not saying Rand needs to call Jackie Chiles and file suit against the Federation, but at the very least she should be able to say, "Sorry, Peter Sagal, that's not my job." Right?
Anyway, salad be damned, because now the Enterprise is coming up on a new foreign object - an enormous glowing death star. Looks like Spock was right, AGAIN. 
They try to communicate with whatever this thing is, but Dave Barry is having bluetooth problems, so they finally settle on asking Uhura to do her job (just step back, guys, stop asking Dave Barry to do what you know Uhura can). Finally they get through and get threatened like crazy by Balok, who is kind of upset with them for destroying his Rubik's Cube before he could solve it. Kirk attempts to explain that they didn't know what its deal was, and radiation, but Balok is having none of it and decides to scare them even harder by showing them his most recent Halloween costume.
Seriously, when I saw this, I was like, "Come on, Star Trek, this thing is obviously rubber." This episode has some really stellar effects (see: the cube, and the death star), and I was surprised that they would show us an alien that looked like this. But it does make some sense that in a galaxy where interplanetary travel is common, it would be considered pretty rude to accuse an alien you've never seen before of being a Halloween costume. I get why no one brought it up. But eventually they would wish they had!
Balok tells them that he's gonna kill them in eight minutes. 
Things get extremely tense, no joke. Kirk wastes some time trying to talk Balok out of it, and wastes even more time delivering extemporaneous speeches to his crew on teamwork and responsibility and winning one for the Gipper. 
Eventually Spock mentions chess to Kirk, which gets Kirk thinking about games, then he talks about poker with McCoy, then he thinks about bluffing and decides to give it a shot. He tells Balok that his ship is made of corbomite, which will kill Balok if Balok tries to kill them. A risky move, since everyone knows that corbomite is just a mispronunciation of the material you freeze Han Solos in, but Balok seems to buy it. 
He says they're going to tow the Enterprise to a nearby planet to check out this corbomite situation. Kirk has the Enterprise resist, eventually breaking Balok's ship, meaning it will just sit in outer space until its crew dies. Problem solved, right?WRONG. Kirk decides they need to save the people onboard this hostile ship. Look, we all kid Kirk here, and he's a good sport about it, but this was the most Hawkeye Pierce-ish I've ever seen him. Because you know what? They SHOULD help this crew. Teamwork. Responsibility. Let's win one for the Gipper.
Kirk, Dave Barry, and McCoy beam aboard Balok's ship, and something's fishy. Scotty tells them that based on his readings, they will need to duck a little bit in the transporter. They comply, and look hilarious, and Scotty definitely takes a picture with his cell phone while they're not looking. 
They beam aboard Balok's ship, and pretty much the very first thing they see is Balok -- OR IS IT? It isn't. It's a rubber dummy, just like we suspected all along! When your show occasionally uses fairly low-tech special effects, you can always keep your audience guessing about whether or not what they see is meant to look cheap or not. As it turns out, Balok is not a terrifying green monster at all! 
Balok is actually a small child who looks a little bit like Andy Taylor's son. The idea of Balok being a child is definitely scarier than this cloaked Roger Smith. 
Balok offers the boys a drink, and it turns out this whole thing was kind of a test (hardcore test, dude), and now he wants to initiate a cultural exchange with the Enterprise. "I want to learn how to grow hair on my face, and you want the secret to eternal youth" is not how it is phrased but it is definitely what everyone was thinking. Before Baclintok can even finish the word "exchange" Dave Barry says, "Hey, can I live with you guys forever? I kind of hate Kirk and Spock and want to party with babies forever." You just know he's planning his next hilarious book ("Dave Barry Takes On Adult Alien Babies"), but he doesn't say so. Kirk thinks, "Yeah, maybe I'll replace this guy with a boyish Soviet," and everyone decides it's cool. The end.This is actually a really boss episode. It is tense, and reveals a lot about the characters, and it has a very hopeful end about a world that can work without war. It just needs at least one party to be populated only by babies. And considering the life expectancies in some nations today... (DARKEST JOKE IN THIS BLOG SO FAR). But seriously, we needed MUCH more Uhura, but otherwise I have zero complaints.
