Amok Time

There are so many great things about this episode. One, it shows Spock's vulnerable side, like "The Naked Time." If Spock's facade was impenetrable all the time, he wouldn't be as interesting a character. His extreme discomfort regarding his biological clock is very interesting - it shows us that this calm, intelligent, ultra professional character also has fears and reservations.

Insight into the Vulcan homeworld and its traditions are very interesting. One of the coolest thing about Trek is learning about alien cultures.

The friendship moments between Kirk, Spock, and Bones during this episode are epic. Here we get a wonderful glimpse into the great bond between these three men. And of course, the grin at the end is just too adorable to even put into words.

 

I love this episode it's great I like the trio moments those men are really great together Kirk, Spock and MCCoy also the way the episode goes in depth into what vulcans are like and their society LLAP.

 

Spock likes the ball in the middle of the plate so he can extend his arms and drive the ball.

 

While I love, love, LOVE this episode, I do have to wonder how, biology aside, Vulcans can justify the extreme illogic of the ceremony details, and the fight to the death.

 

It is addressed (in part) in the episode:

 

I loved this ep too. Very nice. The fact that Pon Farr is seen as so emberassing and has to be kept so private that's what really makes it interesting.

 

If anyone watched the current episode of Legend of the Seeker, "Unbroken", there was an Amok Time connection. Zed was casting a spell and I heard him saying "koon-ut kal-if-fee" twice and possibly "katra". Don't think it's a coincidence, since the episode was written by Mike Sussman, who has written for Enterprise and Voyager.

 

That's what bothers me about the episode. Although, as said, it is addressed in the episode, it unfortunately tainted every subsequent appearance on Vuncans on the Vulcan homeworld. Every time we see Vulcans, they act like some kind of mystic cult. It was an interesting idea for an episode -- the idea that Vulcans are still prisoners to their biology for which logic can't apply -- but forever on afterwards they always acted like this. The Star Trek III scenes make me cringe. "Since thou art human..." Oh, God.

 

Definitely - that's the hook...

 

As beautiful as the end reveal scene is, the most moving moment for me is Kirk's "I owe him my career a dozen times over, isn't that worth a career? He's my friend." This coming after its been established that Kirk is so busy and Spock so private that Kirk hadn't noticed anything amiss until the plomik soup incident. This gives us a very interesting look into the dynamic of their friendship: by our standards, it is cold and impersonal, almost entirely business, and yet it is the deepest relationship of any kind either men will ever have with anyone. Slash-style lovers? Hell, the men were barely buddies.

 

Yeah I like that part where Sulu is talking to Chekov he says: First were going Altar than were going to Vulcan than were going to Altar than were going to Vulcan. And Chekov says:I think Im getting space sick..That I think is really funny.

 

And it's not the sex they are ashamed, it's the reversion to their savage, pre-reform, illogical base selves. Talk about a naked time...

 

funny to think about how modern Trek would have handled it. Within a few minutes the whole ship would have known that Spock needed to get laid, there'd be a lot of blather about sexuality and what it means to us (somehow I'm sure Wesley would have been involved), and ultimately Spock would have discovered the joy of pottery while stealing secret glances over at Uhura.

Crikey. Thank the writers that the TOS characters had some dignity.

 

At the same time, we can never lose sight of the fact that this is an allegory for human sexuality--particularly, for that subset of human males who are extremely smart and extremely maladroit with matters of the heart and thus often feel just like Spock, at the mercy of shameful desires and impulses, often for women who do not feel remotely the same way about them and who are not above manipulating and potentially destroying male friendships to get what they want.

I know that episode got me through any number of "let's just be friends" situations, though I've never had a friend one one-hundredth as true as James Kirk or Leonard McCoy, the man who saves both of their lives, the unsung hero of the tale.

 

This is one of Trek's nearly perfect stories.

 

Amen.