Amok Time

DVD, Star Trek S2 (Amok Time)

The first to buck the Season 2 trend of extra-ship-ular activity by largely taking place in the standing sets of the Enterprise, but even in this one we're given a visit to a new alien planet. Not just any alien planet, either, but The Alien Planet, the homeworld of our own First Officer, Mr. Spock. You can see why they chose this to kickstart the season on TV as it gives people exactly what they wanted: more Spock and more knowledge about his kind, kin and culture. By rights this should be one of my favourites of the entire series since Vulcans are my number one race (up until they were spoiled by every production from 'Enterprise' onwards), and it's certainly one of the best known, whether it be the famous fight to the death with lirpas and… that other thing, or the famous fight music, or the famous fight… well, let's just say the combat at the conclusion is the main classic moment. And I do like it, a lot, it's certainly another quality episode from acting to writing to production work, it just doesn't stand out quite as much as some once the novelty of all this new information has worn off. That's not to say it isn't the special showcase episode it is, because it features all the cast (bar Scotty who was probably hiding in his Quarters indulging in whisky, or up to his elbows in his beloved engines after his encounter with Apollo last week!), has some of the strongest scenes of friendship between the characters this side of the end of 'Star Trek II,' and all kinds of little nuggets to enjoy or puzzle over.

Foremost among the nuggets is door etiquette. It's long been an issue in Trek, whether it be doors staying closed when a character approaches because it seems to know that, like Columbo, they have 'just one more thing' to say, or that moment in 'Generations' when Riker heads out of Picard's Ready Room into pitch blackness because they forgot to light the Bridge, they're always a source of interest. This episode throws up another quandary: to enter or not to enter, that is the question. It begins with the kindly Nurse Chapel making her debut for the season by taking the ailing Spock a bowl of Chapel's Best Plomeek Soup (sounds like the subject of an Andy Warhol painting), and we see her use a little buzzer to gain entry. In later series' they'd have a more pleasant chime, but perhaps, like the particular sanserif font Starfleet favoured, seen on the doors in this era, they preferred to program an old-fashioned sound when in reality they could have whatever audio alert they wished. Anyway, she is let in, and you'd think Spock would have ignored the bell if he wanted to be left alone unless the door wasn't actually locked and it was more of a courtesy to ring the bell before entering. And later she enters the same door unbidden, no chime, no nothing. These would make sense except that later in the episode when Kirk first visits Spock he has to press a similar button to exit the Quarters which shows that it must have been locked since otherwise he'd just walk towards it and it would swish open (unless Spock decided to lock the door later in response to the troop of visitors!). Notice when he leaves his own Quarters during McCoy's visit, the door opens automatically, not by button press…

It's possible that sometimes the doors were kept locked and other times they weren't, depending on the mood of the occupant, in which case you'd think Spock would have kept his locked all the time in his present condition. The trouble is, later, when Kirk returns again, he walks right in without any buzzing, knocking or hammering on the door demanding to be let in. It's entirely possible that we've underestimated the level of door intelligence the Enterprise has - perhaps the Captain has entry to any room he deems necessary simply due to his rank, and the computer, knowing it is he, obediently swishes open. It would be pretty awkward if only certain doors opened automatically - there'd be a lot of crewmembers rubbing their noses on a semi-regular basis since there doesn't appear to be any indication from the outside whether a door is locked or not, if we assume they do lock. I don't know the truth of the situation, I'd probably have to go through the entire series and do a study on every door-opening moment to gain enough evidence to form a solid hypothesis (somebody in the world probably already has done!), before I could say for sure, but I did find it interesting. It may even be as simple as doors not responding to motion passing by, sensing when a person is going down the corridor and when one is heading into a room, but whatever algorithm they came up with for those doors it was at least as important a development as Transporters and Phasers, and we can only be grateful it didn't create a cascade reaction and force the whole system to be taken out, just like the holographic comms Kirk's predecessor dispensed with, as it could be uncomfortable to have no doors anywhere as a result!

Concentrating on such minor matters as door mechanics might seem disrespectful to an episode that deals with topics deeply personal and the exploration of a key Federation culture, but that's not to say I was uninterested in all that, just that I can't help noting and speculating on the workings of a starship at this time, despite 'Discovery' so comprehensively ruining the reality of the era so thoroughly. It's very easy to forget other series' set before this point because they were either a long time ago (but not a galaxy far, far away), or made up their own rules entirely. For example, the pre-Federation Enterprise NX-01 travelled to Vulcan and had quite a lot of knowledge on the race, which might seem strange when you consider how little Kirk and McCoy seemed to know about Spock, his people, or their ways, and clearly have no experience of the place, the Doctor noting he now understands the saying 'hot as Vulcan.' You'd think they'd just tap into the library computer to bring up all pertinent information since Starfleet of the past knew so much. We know Vulcans are a very private people and don't tell anyone anything it isn't necessary for them to know, but it would seem to be the most logical course of action to report on their activities in the 'personal' arena (not to mention the personal Arena), when it was a life or death situation. It's for the sake of drama, in reality, and they went for the Vulcan dislike of revealing private information as the excuse in story terms, and it's certainly no fault of 'TOS' that later Treks set earlier didn't think through clearly enough what they could get away with showing or telling without breaking the potency of the parent series.

Again, the motivation for playing with the knowledge we have of the future seen in 'TOS' was too juicy not to mine, and indeed is one of the main reasons to do a prequel since the audience has the foreknowledge and enjoys the inside 'joke.' At the same time it can undermine the original. The fabric of Vulcan culture in Trek, their place and position, have been subtly altered over the years, because in 'TOS' they do come across as quite separate. Spock is a rarity, living and working among humans, but he's also a rarity in the sense that he is a bridging of both cultures, though he prides himself on the Vulcan half and outwardly disdains the human. That's another thing later Trek has done, to make him much more at ease with his human side, even to relish it, confusing his later acceptance in middle to old age, the completion of his life's journey, as the same as his younger self, one of the reasons it's hard to like the Kelvin Timeline or 'DSC,' though the latter was a much better approximation of the character. The greatness of Spock is in his inner struggle, so making it an outer one loses the power. It should be amazing that a TV series from the 1960s should have superior writing to a massive budget modern film or TV series from the 2010s, but it just goes to show that writing is one of those things which money has no bearing on - unlike special effects or the quality of materials used in production, costuming and makeup, writing is a mental process, a creative intellect more powerful than any other contribution to the final product of telling stories.

'DSC' even managed to undermine the uniqueness of Spock by saying he was not the only one of his kind, a half-Vulcan, which while it may be more realistic in some ways, takes away something, and in others makes little sense from what we know of Vulcans being so closed off to outsiders. It helps that their planet is rather inhospitable to non-natives, as Kirk found when he took up the gauntlet of something he thought Spock would benefit from. The fact that no one told Kirk it was a fight to the death before he agreed to it is another of those dramatic conventions - it might not be completely plausible and certainly not acceptable, but of this is great drama made. It's also pretty easy to rationalise this since we see Kirk twice be given permission to back out from the highest authority, T'Pau, and even after he doggedly persists, both from a desire not to be looked down on by Spock's own people, and in the greatest dedication to his friend (saying he owes him his life a dozen times over, isn't that worth a career when he thought it was simply a matter of disobeying Starfleet orders), and is bound to it, Spock pleads, even begs that he will be forbidden from the challenge - this is saying a lot, the most that has ever been said to this point in the series, about how close the two are. That Spock, deep in the destructive Plak-tow, blood fever, should have such strong compulsion to save Kirk even through the mind- and body-altering effects of what he's going through, is impressive, as is Kirk's willingness to do what must be done for his friend. I don't know what he had in mind to get out of this situation, perhaps he planned at the opportune moment to throw down his lirpa and refuse to kill, as he did with the Gorn (actually the image of Kirk and the Gorn fighting with these staff-like bladed weapons is quite fun!), but if so he'd have had to get to the stage of conquest over Spock and that didn't look likely.

Helping to modify the odds a little, though not balance them, is that Spock's condition makes him a slightly less formidable foe than he'd usually be. Rather than a purposeful, logical killing machine of far higher than human strength, he has been weakened by not eating for several days and by the emotional turmoil. He's not thinking or acting calmly as he usually would, and Kirk has fought him like this once before, in 'This Side of Paradise.' True, it seemed likely Spock would have beaten Kirk to a pulp in that episode if the hold of the spores hadn't worn off from his extreme anger, but on the other hand Kirk has a little more space to fight than the trapped confines of the Transporter Room in which he had very little room for manoeuvre. Here he has the Spock family arena. On the other other hand he's not used to the gravity and air here, while to Spock it's home turf. However you look at it, it appeared to be a vain hope for Kirk to survive long enough to refuse to kill his friend, if that was his plan, and even then I suspect the scary executioner Vulcan (Russ Peek, who also had uncredited roles in three other episodes this season, promoted to Sarek's aide in 'Journey To Babel'!), with his pointy black mask and super-sized scimitar blade would have chopped the puny human in two if he didn't follow the rules, so it was for the best that Kirk was going to lose by strangling from the… other thing that wasn't a lirpa.

It's funny how iconic the lirpa is, and yet that other thing (okay, it's called the ahn-woon), is completely forgettable. I was struggling to remember it when I came to write this review: some kind of ratchet strap with a hook on the end. It was beautifully crafted, however - not the design of the thing, but the invention by the writer so Spock had something to strangle Kirk with and make his death apparent to the spectators. If it had been another Vulcan I wouldn't have been surprised if the executioner had gone over to practice some head-chopping just to make sure he really was dead and not shamming, but being an off-worlder it wouldn't have been polite. Maybe Kirk had diplomatic immunity from head severance and other such proofs of death. I do wonder what they all thought when it went through the Federation that Kirk had died, since I imagine T'Pau would have felt obligated to report the incident, especially as she was apparently on speaking terms with Admiral Komack (since it was she who got in touch to request Spock we brought to Vulcan when he'd refused Kirk's request). And then what did the Vulcans think when they heard further exploits of Kirk and realised they'd been duped! I can imagine the executioner showing up out of some dark corner one day, perhaps even on the Enterprise herself, and this time no silver tongue would be enough to save Kirk from his silver-edged scimitar. That was the real reason Kirk flew off the Enterprise-B into the Nexus, he'd been plagued his whole life by this axe-man coming after him and he was fed up with it, so he thought the only escape was to jump in the Nexus. Maybe.

The whole thing was really Dr. McCoy's fault - if he hadn't expressed his opinion that Stonn (a returning Lawrence Montaigne, previously a thorn in the side as the Romulan Decius in 'Balance of Terror' - the actor died in 2017, surviving Nimoy by a couple of years), would probably beat Spock in his condition, the Captain wouldn't have felt obligated to step up to the nomination of T'Pring. At least McCoy was also the saving of the situation when he gave Kirk the dose that would knock him out and simulate death (the same tactic, though by different means, was used by the Grand Nagus when it was convenient for him to 'die'), so he redeemed himself there. It's just fortunate that he had something on him that could achieve that goal! The moment Spock returns to the ship believing he has killed his Captain and his friend (and let's not forget he also broke the family gong, which was almost as bad), and Kirk suddenly walks round the corner behind him, and Spock turns at his voice, and then grabs him and grins in delight, is one of those moments in the series that stuck with me so much even from the first time I ever saw the episode as a child. It's a brilliant moment, not even softened by the emotionalising and demonising of Vulcans in the last twenty years. Whatever else is said after that about T'Pau covering them with the Admiral and the little joke the three of them share is completely overshadowed by that moment, as if you need to recover from such a joyous outburst, and the episode just sort of fades away in a pleasant haze.

Though the story doesn't take place entirely away from the ship like the previous four episodes, it does continue the trend of having Kirk, Spock and McCoy be the central focus. Spock was separated from them in 'Who Mourns For Adonais?,' but he was still the main part of the B-story, but this time they're back to being the three equally important roles. The moment of greatest revelation comes in the Turbolift when Spock requests Kirk beam down to Vulcan with him as it is his right to have his closest friends with him, then he asks McCoy after saying this, much to the doctor's surprise! It must be a turning point in the series where they all know where they stand, even if McCoy would continue to rib Spock or be infuriated by his attitudes, much like Odo and Quark in 'DS9' who continued the tradition of best hates. Though their roles may be small, the Bridge team make their presence felt, especially Chekov and Sulu who really cement the comedic double-act that we came to know them best for. Just as the main three were so clearly defined, this was the start of the two front men being similarly so. It's a shame then that George Takei would be leaving soon to work on a John Wayne film, just when he and Chekov had found their wavelength. It's also nice to see Chapel used, her intentions and embarrassment at having them in the open, adding character - I love how she sees Kirk and McCoy outside Spock's Quarters and quickly swings around to retreat before they catch her in the act of delivering soup! Very real. McCoy's a bit insensitive talking about what she's doing, right in front of her, but it was a funny scene.

It looked like she was almost the solution to Spock's personal problem as when she visits him again later, to bring him the good news that they're on the way to Vulcan, before she does so, he seizes the chance and is about to start romancing her, or so it seems. I like that they had characters that weren't part of the main cast as such, Chapel being one that could, and was, used whenever the need suited, even if her main role was to portray the majority of the female viewership in sighing over the Vulcan. The mystery of Spock, who he was and where he came from, was one of those ongoing developments that later Treks baked into the format every time it was such a success. Though 'TOS' is no serial, it did slowly reveal various details over the course of the series, while remembering what it had told us already - take the Tri-dimensional chess set in Spock's Quarters. It had been used in the very first episode featuring Kirk, the very first scene between the pair, so it's pleasing to see a set in his personal space. I can tell where the 'DSC' people got the idea to paint their version of the room red as he does have red curtains covering one wall. He also has some large sculpture of what could be a bear, but I prefer to imagine is a Sehlat, the big, bearlike creature native to his planet. What is harder to understand are the various weapons hung above his bed, as for a pacifistic culture you wouldn't associate weapons being held in esteem. But as we saw, they do have a martial history and they aren't really pacifist or how else would they survive out in space where personal physical ability has no bearing on confrontation?

Even in his Quarters Spock crushes his computer in rage at Uhura's voice intruding (one in the eye for those that were always looking for excuses why they would have been so close in the Kelvin films!), another memorable moment. It's not that they don't fight, just that they tend to fight more gracefully and with as little effort as they can, hence the nerve pinch - I wonder why Spock never used that on Kirk, then he'd have had him at his mercy. Probably forbidden in the Koon-ut-kal-if-fee, or just illogic. You see how important weapons are in their historical culture, and there was even a suggestion of the shared heritage with the Romulans as some of the background Vulcans wear the same kind of ear-covering helmets. In production terms it would have been to save time and money on creating the ears, as they already had a number of them to make up, usually to terrific effect (though Stonn has unfortunately protruding examples - maybe that's why T'Pring liked him?), including the first female Vulcans we ever saw. T'Pau gained even more legendary status, beyond being the only person ever to have refused a seat on the Federation Council, when she showed up as a young woman in 'Enterprise,' a delightful bit of retconning, though she didn't speak in that foreign accent - must have been an affectation of old age, or something that developed after we saw her. By association, Spock becomes a more notable personage, and even his friends note he never mentioned his family was this important. Again, knowing what we know (and how they portrayed things in 'DSC'), it's strange that it wasn't widely known who his Father was, being such a high-profile figure, yet because of the rift between them, not speaking for years, it does make sense.

Even so, we might have expected some family to show up - it was on the Sarek family land, quite a sizeable place, and it was to be the joining of two Vulcans that had been bonded from childhood. But it may be that once the children have been mind-locked the parents' role is over. I could buy that Sarek and his wife would be off-planet (probably on Earth!), but T'Pring's folks not showing up either makes it harder to believe. Unless they knew her strong-willed mind had been made up and she was going to disgrace them however things turned out. It seems divorce and promiscuity (T'Pring says if Spock won he'd have gone off on his starship and she'd still have had Stonn), is no stranger to Vulcan culture, it's just worked out in a more 'logical' way: I want, therefore I will have. This shows it's not entirely true that Vulcans were blameless, noble and honourable creatures, even before their besmirching through 'Enterprise' onwards, but it could be an anomaly. It is, after all, made clear that Spock is not just any old Vulcan, but has become well known and even a legend among his people. That's T'Pring's excuse for ditching him, though logic dictates that she should be honoured to be paired with him, but then that was merely her justification for preferring Stonn. Why is Spock almost a legend? It may have something to do with his situation of being half-human which is looked down on, so it could also be seen that he's overcome a major handicap to achieve great things - and we know he has this reputation because Kirk says he's been called the best First Officer in the fleet (he doesn't say by who, but we can imagine he didn't mean the ship's cook!), so his place has been well earned.

He had to overcome much stigma, however, as we see that even the great T'Pau digs in sharply when he pleads for her to prevent Kirk entering the challenge - she points out that it's been said his Vulcan blood is thin and questions whether he is Vulcan or human. This could be to enforce the challenge since it was given and accepted and tradition determines it must now go ahead. She's clever enough to manipulate Spock, pressing on his weakest point, the discomfort of not being accepted, and it works. That Spock continues to plead Kirk's ignorance of what he was getting himself into, even after this appeal to his Vulcan nature, shows how strongly he feels for the position his friend has been put in. T'Pau says it comes down from the beginning without change, but the beginning of what? The Awakening? Before that they were apparently much like this all the time, passions ruling their nature and only the discipline of Surak's teachings brought the culture under control. They never really explain that with all this emotion being held in check and pent-up, that this is the release valve every seven years. Perhaps Spock would have gone through it much earlier if he'd been fully Vulcan and only his human side delayed the inevitable - he actually thought he might be spared the debilitating experience of the Pon farr due to his mixed heritage, which shows he'd never had it before. I wonder how they dealt with it all a hundred years ago when mind melds were forbidden, since that seems to be how the children's minds were bonded, unless there's some big distinction.

The rituals and traditions seen in this episode give it so much weight which isn't always so apparent in later Vulcan exploration, perhaps because this was made in the era of the Biblical epics with all the bells and… bells, so they knew how to get that sense of scale and ancient times - they didn't have thousands of extras, but you can imagine this being a scene in 'Ben Hur' or something similar, with a huge crowd and trumpets going up, and the music helps to create that serious and dangerous atmosphere. For a TV episode it really holds the sense of scale, partly due to the brilliant set with its various points of interest in the coffin-shaped gong, the hanging chimes, the sand mixed with shiny ore of some kind, the pit of hot coals, the rocky barrier as if the arena had been hewn from the very top of a mountain! It's a successful bringing to life of such a famous alien planet, and the fact we don't see any buildings or structures meant that that was left open for the more intricate design of future generations (something 'Enterprise' did very well), beginning with 'The Animated Series' and its setting of the Vulcan architectural style that has carried through to this day. Even little pieces of new information are valuable, such as the Enterprise being given permission to beam down from 'Vulcan Space Central' which answers who would be responsible for contact if a ship shows up at the planet.

We also get more of the Enterprise to enjoy, most prominently in McCoy's office which is off to the side of Sickbay, connecting through doors to both that area and the corridor, and filled with fascinating skulls. They must have felt that with McCoy becoming more integral to the stories Sickbay wasn't enough and he needed his own space. It shows they had the budget to keep adding sets, as subsequent Treks have done. Not everything was perfect, though - if you look at the red railing on the Bridge in front of Spock's station, you can see a prominent piece of sticking tape holding the two adjoining parts of the rail together! Whoops. That's not the only nitpick, either, as I noticed (thanks to paying so much attention to the 'DSC' version of the Enterprise), that the back of the nacelles had the grilles in some shots, but the bubbles in others. I don't know if this had been the case through Season 1, if so I must have missed it, though it could be explained away as the bubbles being some kind of mechanical shielding that goes over the grille-work on occasion. The most noticeable gaffe is when Spock breaks the blade on Kirk's lirpa, in an exciting moment, smashing it against the stone pillar, but later when it's picked up at the end of the fight the blade is still intact!

Other things I enjoyed were Kirk starting the episode by climbing up out of a Jeffries Tube via one of those great tri-ladders (it's the future, everything's in threes), which shows he's a very hands-on Captain, not above climbing around in the bowels of his ship if the need arises. This may also be one of the earliest references to Starfleet when Uhura says a message is coming in on that channel. They'd probably already mentioned the organisation, but it's always nice to hear the established norms on the series now they knew what they were. Once again we see that the Starfleet symbol appears to be the side-arrow chevron that can be seen in yellow on the side of the Enterprise - it's used in gold behind the Admiral when he talks on the monitor (Byron Morrow would play a different Admiral in Season 3, and is one of the typical no nonsense, no excuse types here). It was also cool to see Kirk take it in another room, not on the main Viewscreen. There's an indication that the crew can receive personal messages as Kirk asks Spock if there's an illness in the family or something, to explain his behaviour, and how would he know other than being sent a message. His lack of concern when McCoy first brings Spock's lack of eating for three days to his attention shows how different Spock can be that his Captain thinks it's just one of his 'contemplative moods,' adding even more to his mystique. And this must be about the only time he shouts in anger (rather than, "Check the cir-cuit!"), when he flings the soup out. His disgust that Chapel should wait on him may have been the genuine reason, or it may be what he used to cover his true thoughts of anger at being disturbed, it's difficult to say.

I thought Spock's attendance of Sickbay on Kirk's orders might have been a way for him to allow them to find out his problem without him having to talk about it, but that isn't what happened at all, and in fact he's all set to follow the order to the letter, report to Sickbay then leave, only McCoy has his own orders. I wish he'd pulled Doctor's rank and said he's the boss when it comes to health matters, even over the Captain, as that is supposed to be the case, but instead he says he has to follow the Captain's orders too, and that is to examine Spock. It's only after all that that Kirk goes to see him and quickly catches on about the birds and the bees. I can't imagine anything of this sort being put so delicately in modern TV, unfortunately. Now it tends to be 'frank,' which really only means explicit. But the whole subject was treated with tact and delicacy, obviously it had to live up to the censors expectations, but it's also a personal issue for a main character so it's not something you want to see mishandled. And that's the last thing that can be said for this episode, a classic, a lesson in how to create great drama and at the same time explore an alien culture, all while dealing with a character's personal trial. I feel almost bad for not rating it higher, but it is close to being one of the best, even though it's not among my particular favourites.

***