I don’t like that timeline. I think they deliberately gave Amok Time a stardate before TSOP in order to avoid the implication that Spock was cheating on T’Pring with Leila.
Hey, I never noticed that before....
- Thread starter Warped9
- Start date
In "Amok Time" the idea is for Vulcans to breed to, I guess, keep the species and their society going. You are joined as kids (or later) and if you don't do the rest of it and start the family, you're literally forced back by the mind meld you underwent as children.
SPOCK: I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control to return home and take a wife. Or die.
and
KIRK: Marriage party? You said T'Pring was your wife.
SPOCK: By our parents' arrangement. A ceremony while we were but seven years of age. Less than a marriage but more than a betrothal. One touches the other in order to feel each other's thoughts. In this way our minds were locked together, so that at the proper time, we would both be drawn to Koon-ut-kal-if-fee.
Nothing at all about doing it every seven years and that only males deal with it: "we would both be drawn." Nor is it about "having sex every seven years." It was about fulfilling your contract and then consummating in order to breed. It only becomes a combat situation when a challenge is made, as when T'Pring decided on another guy and Spock had to fight for her. When he shook off the blood fever, he was released from his bond and off he went, Stonn was then given the job as mate.
In fact, you can argue that only "paired" Vulcans need to do this based on this episode.
Honestly, I find all of this much more interesting than the pat "every 7 years you need to have sex" that it somehow became. Spock can diddle all he wants, he just needed to finish what he started as a 7 year old. Now that's it's done, he needn't give it another thought. He could even marry like any average being.
If not for this...
DROXINE: You only take a mate once every seven years?
SPOCK: The seven-year cycle is biologically inherent in all Vulcan's. At that time, the mating drive outweighs all other motivations.
...we'd probably never have had all this confusion.
I don't think they gave the stardate any thought at all. A few episodes were placed in earlier seasons when ordered by stardate.
SPOCK: I'd hoped I would be spared this, but the ancient drives are too strong. Eventually, they catch up with us, and we are driven by forces we cannot control to return home and take a wife. Or die.
and
KIRK: Marriage party? You said T'Pring was your wife.
SPOCK: By our parents' arrangement. A ceremony while we were but seven years of age. Less than a marriage but more than a betrothal. One touches the other in order to feel each other's thoughts. In this way our minds were locked together, so that at the proper time, we would both be drawn to Koon-ut-kal-if-fee.
Nothing at all about doing it every seven years and that only males deal with it: "we would both be drawn." Nor is it about "having sex every seven years." It was about fulfilling your contract and then consummating in order to breed. It only becomes a combat situation when a challenge is made, as when T'Pring decided on another guy and Spock had to fight for her. When he shook off the blood fever, he was released from his bond and off he went, Stonn was then given the job as mate.
In fact, you can argue that only "paired" Vulcans need to do this based on this episode.
Honestly, I find all of this much more interesting than the pat "every 7 years you need to have sex" that it somehow became. Spock can diddle all he wants, he just needed to finish what he started as a 7 year old. Now that's it's done, he needn't give it another thought. He could even marry like any average being.
If not for this...
DROXINE: You only take a mate once every seven years?
SPOCK: The seven-year cycle is biologically inherent in all Vulcan's. At that time, the mating drive outweighs all other motivations.
...we'd probably never have had all this confusion.
I don't think they gave the stardate any thought at all. A few episodes were placed in earlier seasons when ordered by stardate.
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I don't think the makers of TOS ever put that much thought into Stardates, outside of having them roughly move up sequentially over the course of the series. And considering the production timelines of "This Side of Paradise" and "Amok Time," I'm sure they weren't even considering T'Pring when they were working on TSOP.
Besides, you have to actually DO something with somebody for it to be considered cheating. TSOP is pretty clear that Mr. Spock never returned Leila's affections until he was under the influence of the spores.
Behind the scenes, stardates were kept vague, so writers wouldn't be beholden to an exact chronology. You will only find sure consistency within a single episode as the digit at the end of the stardate increases, e.g. "Captain's Log, stardate 322X.Y," and the Y goes up over the course of 50 minutes or so, and the X might increase if the story spans a couple of days.
Per the original Trek writer's guide, stardates would account for relativistic travel, physical position within the galaxy, etc., etc. So stuff that happened "later" from the point of view of our heroes, or from our point of view watching the episodes in production order, could end up being logged with a lower star date than what happened in a previous episode last week or the week before. Or even a whole season before, as you point out. Or different episodes have overlapping stardates even though it's obvious that the events didn't occur at the same time.
Edit: This is the exact description in the 1967 writer's guide:
Kor
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Because snorkin' another woman when you're drunk doesn't count as cheating. Or, well, at least that's what I say when I'm drunk.
I’m sure they weren’t, but when they made AT they recognized the unfortunate implication that Spock had been in “more than a betrothal” at the time of TSOP, so they backdated it.
It’s possible that it was mere coincidence, but placing AT right before TSOP makes so much sense that I suspect it was intentional.
What's your source on that?
"Amok Time" taking place before "This Side of Paradise" doesn't work for me at all. I can't see Kirk and McCoy being so startled by Spock acting emotional in TSOP if they'd just seen him acting emotional during his Pon Farr a short time before. Production order puts eight episodes between those two adventures. Plenty of time for Kirk and McCoy to get used to Spock being his normal self again.
Stuff like that is why I'm a big advocate of production order for TOS. You don't have to explain stuff from a character standpoint or a set design standpoint if you just assume the evolution of the series and the character relationships was similar to what was happening offscreen.
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On my timeline, the years of the 5YM don't precisely conform to the seasons of Star Trek the TV series, so the only significance "Catspaw" has is that it's the adventure that takes place between "Operation: Annihilate!" and "Metamorphosis."And Catspaw kicking off the second season? Yikes.
I did place it in late October 2267, because it worked with the rough placement, and because I figure there has to be a reason that Kirk makes a "trick or treat" reference early on in the episode.
I love this thread!
Was watching Bread and Circuses and the scene at the end where Kirk and co are in their cell and the Roman dude says go to swords only because of crossfire then why do the Enterprise men drop their guns and go to swords as well? Is there some gentelemen's agreement here or are they out of bullets because if I was Kirk I'd just shoot these guys down and then the head guy and then beam out of there.
Didn't they drop their guns when ordered? Granted, after that they should've picked them back up again instead of grabbing swords, so good catch.
Star Trek wasn't dark and gritty enough for Kirk to machine-gun a bunch of guys who were not, right then, shooting at Kirk. In real life, someone coming at you with a sword legally justifies shooting him, but Hollywood Hero ethics of the period were a very different proposition. A regular with plot armor was held to a preposterous standard of personal risk for others' benefit.
In the Blish adaptation Kirk warns the Proconsul he can still use his gun when the guards draw swords, but when Kirk pulls the trigger the magazine is empty. I don’t know if that part was in the original script, but it might have been awkward to film. Unless Kirk did pull the trigger, the magazine was empty, yet we never saw that and Kirk threw the empty gun down.
Was watching "That Which Survives" and have already noticed Spock being a tool to Dr Mbenga, Rhada, Uhura, Scotty. They mentioned Dr Sanchez so the Enterprise sometimes has 3 doctors on board. I think thats a bit excessive but maybe not with the Enterprise's redshirt record
Presumably they have one doctor for each shift plus specialists like Helen Noel. They have a pathology department too.
With 430 people aboard, three doctors is excessive?
McCoy is the Chief Medical Officer and Senior Ship's surgeon. Can't be chief or senior without subordinates. So he's got two more doctors below him to go with the army of nurses and techs.
I guess it depends on expectations. In the late '60s a US Navy Leahy or Belknap class DLG, 400-450 crew complement, would put to sea with three or so hospital corpsmen, zero doctors. A lot of the time they would be in a task force where patients could be transported to a carrier which had plenty of doctors, but not all the time.
Agreed. Also "The Man Trap": "Medical department alert. Doctors and medics acknowledge."
I'd say that it would be unrealistic to call for a hospital ship in deep space. Also, with medical technology being more advanced several centuries hence, having a few doctors on board would just be the more sensible option. I would imagine there are more than one medical section on the Enterprise since they didn't do site to site transports yet. That way if a crewman is injured on the hanger deck, they would have to haul him all the way to McCoy's main area. Dr. Sanchez would work on him in the closer sick bay. If Bones were really needed, he'd trot on down there.
