Tag: Amok Time

★★★★★ September 15, 1967 Season 2 Episode 1

If you want to see where we are…and you missed a few…HERE is a list of the episodes in my index located at the top of my blog. 

This show was written by Theodore Sturgeon and Gene Roddenberry

A 5-Star Classic episode of Star Trek. They don’t get much better than this one. This is a good episode. The series was renewed for another year and began with a very original story. Spock’s physiology demands that every seven years he must mate. Mr. Spock is overcome with desire, and his emotions are raging on fire, must return to Vulcan, the flames he must fan, if he can’t the prognosis is dire.

This requires a trip to Vulcan. When Spock and his crew mates arrive, it becomes obvious that Spock must be a very important figure because he is in the presence of the matriarch ruler, T’Pau. Unfortunately, his trip proves a difficult one in that his soon-to-be bride has decided, according to Vulcan law, to choose a different mate. She also has the privilege of choosing someone to fight for her. Instead of choosing a Vulcan hero, she picks Kirk.

 This is one of the most memorable shows concerning Spock and his home planet of Vulcan. You get to see Spock in a different light completely. The scene between Nurse Chapel and Spock is very good and shocking in some ways. 

I can’t really pick on this episode. It has the chemistry between Kirk, Spock, and Bones and is an excellent episode. This was the first episode in that Walter Koenig appears as Pavel Chekov.

From IMDB:

First appearance of the Vulcan phrases “Peace and long life” and “Live long and prosper”. Also the first ever Star Trek episode to feature any Vulcan characters other than Spock.It’s also the first episode to air since filming began for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).

First appearance of the Vulcan hand salute. Leonard Nimoy improvised this symbol during the production of “Amok Time,” modified from a traditional Jewish religious hand gesture.

Season 2 introduced new opening credits. DeForest Kelley’s name was added to the “starring” cast and the theme music was extended and had the female soprano voice Loulie Jean Norman and percussion added to it.

The prequel series Star Trek: Enterprise (2001) considered having its regular Vulcan character (played by Jolene Blalock) be a younger version of T’Pau. Since that would have required paying a fee to the estate of Theodore Sturgeon the author of Amok Time, this plan was abandoned and the new character was rechristened T’Pol.

Romulan helmets are reused from Star Trek: Balance of Terror (1966), this time worn by Vulcans during the pon farr ritual. In both productions, the helmets were a de facto economy measure as they precluded the need for the actors to wear ear prostheses.

Another innovation of the second season was the further-expanded sickbay that now includes McCoy’s new office.

First time we hear the now-famous “Star Trek fight music” (in 5/4 time), when Kirk and Spock battle. The theme is also played, albeit differently and more slowly, when Spock first informs Kirk of the details of his condition in Spock’s quarters and during the entrance of T’Pau.

When child model Mary Elizabeth Rice posed as seven year-old T’pring (fitted with only one ear prosthetic, since a single still photograph taken from the side was all the script called for), she was ill with chicken pox, replete with fever. She later commented that her sickness had been a plus, as it made her appear more serious.

One of only two times in Star Trek (1966) where Spock shows an emotional reaction without being influenced by something – if only for a few seconds. The other example is the first pilot Star Trek: The Cage (1966), filmed when the rules hadn’t been established for this character.

Summary

Lately, Spock’s behavior has been increasingly and unprecedentedly erratic. When McCoy finds it to be a growing medical risk, Kirk drags the truth out of him: it is the ‘blood fever’, the one time in a Vulcan’s life he regresses to a primitive, hormonal state of mind, setting out to mate for life. He is granted the first request for shore-leave in his entire career to go to Vulcan, asking Kirk and McCoy to join him in his equivalent of a marriage ceremony with his since-age-seven arranged fiancée, T’Pring. But, once on Vulcan, T’Pring halts the matrimony by calling the ancient challenge, whereby a champion of her choice will fight Spock for her. Surprising all, she selects Jim Kirk. He accepts after due consideration only to find, when the first of two dueling weapons are handed out, that the fight is to the death – too late to decline in front of T’Pau, the presiding top official for Spock’s family and the most powerful of all Vulcan dignitaries.

CAST

William Shatner … Captain James Tiberius ‘Jim’ Kirk
Leonard Nimoy … Mister Spock
DeForest Kelley … Doctor Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy
Celia Lovsky … T’Pau
Arlene Martel … T’Pring
Lawrence Montaigne … Stonn
Majel Barrett … Nurse Christine Chapel
George Takei … Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu
Nichelle Nichols … Lieutenant Nyota Uhura
Walter Koenig … Ensign Pavel Chekov
Byron Morrow … Admiral Komack
Bill Blackburn … Lieutenant Hadley (uncredited)
Frank da Vinci … Vulcan Ceremonial Aide (uncredited)
Walker Edmiston … Space Central (voice) (uncredited)
Charles Palmer … Vulcan Litter Bearer (uncredited)
Eddie Paskey … Lieutenant Leslie (uncredited)
Joseph Paz … Vulcan Ceremonial Aide (uncredited)
Russ Peek … Vulcan Executioner (uncredited)
Mary Rice … T’Pring as Child (uncredited)
Mauri Russell … Vulcan Litter Bearer (uncredited)
Gary Wright … Vulcan Litter Bearer (uncredited)