The Enterprise is on an asteroid mapping mission when they run into three Romulan ships. Kirk demands the Romulans cease fire, but they reply that the Enterprise is in their territory. The Enterprise is outgunned, but s strange energy field gives Kirk a place to hide the ship. They make it through the field, and then stop for repairs.
The senior officers are then in the mess hall, and find their glasses have become dribble glasses. Then, their silverware becomes rubber. More incidents occur--Spock gets the "black eye from the viewer" bit, Scotty gets a pie in the face, and Kirk gets "Kirk is a Jerk" on the back of his uniform. They hear a laugh--from the ship's computer? Then a fog appears, and the ship's floor turns into ice. More laughing from the computer, and Spock figures it out--the computer is causing all of this. Kirk calls for a general alert and review of ship's systems.
Just as he does this, McCoy, Sulu, and Uhura go into the "Rec Room"--which is clearly a holodeck. Sulu brings up a beach, but McCoy calls for a walk in the woods. More laughing--they're in trouble! A trap is laid for them, and they fall for it. Spock tries to use the computer to find them, but it's no good. Kirk orders Scotty to shut it down. The Rec Room turns into a snowstorm. Scotty tries to stop the computer, and it responds by reversing gravity. Scotty leaves the computer room, and the gravity is back to normal. Spock determines that the energy cloud affected the ship's computer.
Uhura suggests they find a wall of the Rec Room, so they can get to the exit. Kirk tries to order a team to cut the door open, but the computer floods the ship with laughing gas. Spock switches over to the emergency air supply, but then collapses (apparently, laughing gas knocks out Vulcans). Energy-based weapons are knocked out, so Scotty and his team are using crowbars on the Rec Room doors. Meanwhile, the snowstorm has turned into a maze. The crowbars finally work, and the team gets out of the Rec Room. The ship goes on a new course back to the Neutral Zone--they have no control over it. The ship throws a huge balloon out of the shuttle bay--a huge version of the Enterprise, which the Romulans attack. They are ashamed and angry. Kirk pulls the "Brer Rabbit and the Briar Patch" trick on the computer, getting it to send the Enterprise back into the energy field and fixing the computer. The Romulans aren't so lucky, and we get the standard Filmation wacky music to play us off.
Some things to look for:
- This is the first appearance by what would later be called the Holodeck on TNG. In fact, the story here is quite similar to the TNG episode "Emergence", which involves a malfunctioning ships' computer.
- The voices of the Romulans are Filmation co-founders Lou Scheimer and Norm Prescott. Scheimer portrayed a number of Filmation characters including Bat-Mite on the Batman series and Orko on He-Man, but Prescott rarely did so.
- Why does the Enterprise stop for repairs? Couldn't the Romulans just go around the energy field? It couldn't be that big.
- Apparently the ship's food synthesizers can create lots of fresh fruit, if the senior officer's table is any indication
- Speaking of that, do senior officers drink from glasses or large vases?
- Uhura turns into Chapel at the start of the rec room sequence--oh, Uhura's back again
- How exactly did the ship's computer create a huge Enterprise balloon? Even using the ship's synthesizers, it wouldn't have enough raw material.
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