calm her; the music is later heard piped into Elaan's cabin. This episode features the first appearance of the D-7 class Klingon battle cruiser designed and built by Star Trek art director Walter M. Jefferies. The footage of the Klingon battle cruiser was re-used in subsequent episodes of the third season. France Nuyen is believed to be the first Vietnamese actor to appear on American television. She had previously starred with William Shatner on Broadway for two years in the title role of The World of Suzie Wong. She would later guest-star along with Shatner, as husband and wife, in the Kung Fu season 3 episode "A Small Beheading". This is the last episode lit by cinematographer Gerald Finnerman who had been with the show since the first episode. This episode is also the final appearance in the original series (as originally broadcast) of Eddie Paskey as Lt. Leslie. This episode has the distinction of being the only episode of the series to have all seven principal characters in the final shot on the Enterprise bridge - Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov - along with an unidentified female Ensign. The episode's title character pays tribute to Helen of Troy from Homer's Iliad, and its plot borrows from William Shakespeare's comedy, The Taming of the Shrew. Trek Navigator Mark A. Altman gave the episode two stars stating "A thinly veiled version of The Taming of the Shrew, the episode is largely carried on the shoulders of William Shatner." The A.V. Club Zack Handlen rates "Elaan of Troyius" as a B, making note of character development and the unexpected ending: "If you'd asked me to predict the rest of the episode after Elaan and Kirk hooked up, I would've guessed it would have something to do with Kirk interfering with the wedding ... [i]nstead, we get a nifty space battle against the Klingons, a traitor in the Elasians, an unexpected source of dilithium crystals, and a curiously muted performance from Shatner that does a good job at conveying his internal struggle between feeling and duty without overselling it." Samuel Walters of [dauntlessmedia.net] rates the episode as a C−, citing a "scattershot approach to the plot" which "leaves too many possibilities unexplored and underdeveloped," and calling the entire episode "flat." Releases This episode was released in Japan on December 21, 1993 as part of the complete season 3 LaserDisc set,