We’re back baby! Season 2 of Star Trek had declining ratings which is really a shame as that is what gave us season 3. More on that when we get there. Much of the cast thought it wouldn’t last past season 2 but a letter writing campaign gave it one more season. We should probably be grateful for that because syndication usually required 3 seasons and if we didn’t get season 3, we wouldn’t have gotten the re-runs and then finally the Trek juggernaut it is today.
But season 2 wasn’t the nail in the coffin, in fact it has some genuinely great episodes. We’ll get started here with a great one right out of the chute with…
Title: Amok Time
Airdate: 9/15/1967
Plot Summary
Spock is afflicted with Pon Farr or the seven-year hornies. The Enterprise must disobey orders to get Spock to Vulcan to save his life and get married. But will this ceremony turn deadly for Kirk?
Risk Is Our Business
Kirk basically sacrifices himself for Spock and to impress the T’Pau, who is apparently a big deal. It’s ok, he got better. His bigger sacrifice was to disobey orders and take Spock to Vulcan, though it turned out ok.
Logical
Spock is all kinds of nuts in this episode thanks to Pon Farr. This really helps us understand how different Vulcans are from humans and Nimoy does a fantastic job of portraying a normally controlled Vulcan losing control.
He’s Dead Jim
Bones saves the day by making it seem like Kirk had been killed. He also is a bit of a twit to Nurse Chapel when she tries to bring Spock some soup, though that’s immediately overshadowed by Spock hurling the soup against the wall.
DeForest Kelly has also been added to the opening credits, rounding out the big three as he became a breakout character.
Helm Sluggish Captain
Sulu muses over the constant change of orders to Chekov.
Nuclear Wessels
This is the introduction of Pavel Chekov, though it’s not clear on how long he has been on the Enterprise. This is where canon pedants say Wrath Of Khan makes a mistake that Khan recognized Chekov even though he wasn’t there. There’s nothing to say that Chekov wasn’t already assigned to the ship and only recently was promoted to the navigation station, occasionally taking over Spock’s science station when Spock wasn’t there.
Walter Koenig immediately makes a great impression, his presence there shows that the USSR and the USA have long put away their differences. This was to continue Roddenberry’s idea that the future would be much better than now. He would become the seventh member of the main cast, and a staple in the movies as well.
Hailing Frequencies Open, Sugar
Uhura can’t help but remark that T’Pring is beautiful.
Canon Maker
This brings into canon Pon Farr. It also shows that Vulcan is a desert planet, and that Vulcans have arranged marriages, with some caveats. It also shows that some Vulcans are not altogether honorable as T’Pring is a right nasty woman.
At this point, Spock is apparently quite a legend on Vulcan. Given later we find that his father still doesn’t approve of his choice to join Starfleet, this adds a layer to his character over time.
T’Pau was quite old in Kirk’s time, so when Enterprise came around which was set over a hundred before TOS, it was assumed that Jolene Blalock’s T’Pol was her. As it turned out, there’s all sorts of royalty checks that have to be paid out if they did that so instead she became a different character. Later in Enterprise however, they did bring T’Pau into a story to somewhat explain her importance to Star Trek.
Canon Breaker
This establishes a ton of canon so I couldn’t find much to be broken as it sets the mold. However, I always found it odd that Spock’s parents weren’t at the ceremony. Of course, the real reason is that they hadn’t really been established yet, except in passing.
Man It Feels Bad To Be a Red Shirt
No one dies! Well Kirk does but as I said, he got better.
Technobabble
Bones has a drug that can simulate death.
I Know That Guy:
Lawrence Montaigne returns from his small part in Balance Of Terror to play Stonn. Byron Morrow plays Admiral Komack.
Celia Lovsky plays T’Pau brilliantly. Her line “The air, is the air. What is to be done?” is priceless. She played in various TV shows and movies, most known for playing the aging daughter of an actress in The Twilight Zone as well as turns in Airport and Soylent Green.
Finally Arlene Martel plays the acid T’Pring. Seriously, that woman is conniving. She had not much else but some parts in The Twilight Zone and The Monkees. She mostly parleyed her turn in Trek into some income on the convention circuit.
What It Means To Be Human – Review
This is a great episode. While there is some things in here that get parodied most notably the fight and the fight music that ran through Trek, it’s on its own a great episode. We get to find out what Vulcan is like, and how Spock may be an alien to us humans. There is a case to be made that he is a bit of an alien to his own people, perhaps owing to his half-human heritage. As much as he seems to disdain humans, he does indeed choose a life to be among them.
After this episode, you can possibly see why. With all the smug arrogance of Vulcans with their logic, their unwillingness to lie, etc., we find that they are not above using whatever means necessary for their own ends. It really shows that logic and morality are not the same thing. T’Pring’s logic is flawless but also self-serving and bit cruel, manipulating two men to get what she wants. Instead of making Vulcans all as awesome as Spock, we see a darker side of Vulcan culture and makes their race all the more… fascinating (to coin a term) for it.
The set is great. Everyone talks about how cheap Star Trek looks, but this particular set for the Kirk/Spock fight looks like they put a lot of effort into it. I’ll grade a bit on a curve given that it’s 1967 but there were some sets in Next Gen that didn’t look this good, at least in the first season.
My only gripe is when they select Kirk and he agrees, they kinda forget to tell him it’s to the death. Cue Adam Sandler’s “INFORMATION I COULD’VE USED YESTERDAY!!” That’s a pretty big oversight, near used car salesman tactics.
But we do get the great moment at the end when Spock reacts with pure unadulterated joy at seeing Kirk alive, if only for a moment. Given such a display was never seen again, it really resonates to this day.
On a side note, in 2006 or so TOS was given the special edition treatment, replaced special effects, remastered in hi-def, etc. In this episode, there are some great establishing shots of Vulcan. I haven’t made much mention of these but this is one of the rare cases where the enhanced effects and clean-up were done right, across the entire series. It never loses or changes what was on the screen back in 1967, just makes it as good as it might have been given what they had to work with. As such, none of the enhancements ever feel out of place.
Great job all around.
