Kirk & Spock--In the beginning

[KeepOnTrekking]

In the beginning, there was an episode called "Where No Man Has Gone Before." In the prologue of the unaired version of this show (see YouTube), Kirk made a comment about previous missions which seemed to imply that "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was part of the 5-year mission and not the first adventure.

Spock's status in "The Enemy Within" as a Second Officer seems to imply that Gary Mitchell was originally Kirk's First officer until Mitchell's death.

Just who is James T. Kirk? Robert Justman had an interesting observation:

"Captain Kirk was Hamlet, the flawed hero. Gene told me that, early on. He modeled him on Captain Horatio Hornblower and he had the characteristics of Hamlet, who knows what he has to do, but agonizes over it, feels as Hornblower felt that he had to put on a brave front for the sake of his crew, even though he felt that he really didn't have the requisite stuff, that he wasn't the sort of leader he felt he ought to be. He wasn't strong enough, and yet he had to be strong, because otherwise they would have no one to protect them." [Gene Roddenberry: The Last Conversation by Yvonne Fern]

Not quite the first image that comes to mind but it really was there in the beginning (Kirk's talk with McCoy in "Balance of Terror") and later on if you knew to look for it (another Kirk/McCoy talk in "The Ultimate Computer"). Eventually Kirk grew confident with successfully track record using Spock and McCoy as sounding boards, but he really was Hamlet in the beginning. Later on he was too overconfident sometimes, judging from yet another Kirk/McCoy talk in STTMP.

There was no McCoy to confide in during "Where No Man." Mitchell was turning into the enemy. Piper seemed distance and aloof as the CMO. Kirk's friendship with Spock was still in its infant stages playing over a chess table. Kirk was alone with no confidant while trying to put on the brave front for the crew while he was torn up inside over Mitchell's predicament.

During the conference meeting, Spock urges Kirk to kill Mitchell while he still can. Kirk explodes at the sterile logical advice and admonishes Spock to dare to feel for Mitchell as a fellow crewman. Spock softens his approach by acknowledging that the Valiant's captain probably felt the same way but waited too long to make his decision and they were destroyed.

Leonard Nimoy put it best when he said that "accepting the fact that Kirk is human, then Spock would tend to admire the fact that he struggles, that Spock sees that internal struggle, which plays back on that first thing I was talking about, that scene from "Where No Man Has Gone Before"--to have respect for that human struggle to do the right thing. What is right." [Shatner: Where No Man... by Shatner/Marshak/Culbreath] Kirk sets aside his feelings for Mitchell and does what's right for his crew.

After Kirk is forced to kill Mitchell, we have the tag at the end where Spock as acting first officer tries to offer consolation for the difficult decision that Kirk had to make. Those few words "I felt for him, too," are a big concession for Spock to make to Kirk.

"This Spock/Kirk relationship...is the fuel which sustains moral courage, the kind of courage that can drive a mere physical body beyond explainable limits. Each of them triumphs alone. But then from the lonely pinnacles of success across the deep gorge that separates them, they exchange brief smiles..."Yes, I see you. I know what you've done, and I know what it cost. And I know it was worth it." This is psychological visibility of the rarest and most precious sort. It is the meaning of a friend who is worth the price of one's life." [Star Trek Lives!, pp100-101]

Kirk sacrificed the life of his friend to protect the ship. Spock saw and respect Kirk's internal struggle and his final choice and answered Kirk's earlier question by admitted that he felt for him, too. Kirk and Spock share that brief exchange of glances before looking away again and quietly acknowledge that understanding of each other's sacrifices that day. Which prompts Kirk to comment "There may be hope for you after all, Mr. Spock."

Spock is trapped behind the barrier of being the logical Vulcan. Kirk is trapped behind the barrier of being the ship's captain and putting on the brave front for the sake of the crew. The two would still have stumbling blocks to overcome in their budding friendship. Fortunately, Dr. McCoy was to come aboard and help sand off the edges of their friendship by being that confidant that Kirk so desperately needs at the lonely top of the chain of command. McCoy was also the gadfly that Spock needed to remind him of the value of his humanity even though Spock would deny it until STTMP.

 

[Plum]

Wow, well put. Nicely done.

Note, I'm one of those guys who sees WNMHGB as one of Treks best eps.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

This is excellent psychological insight. I hope the writers of the new Trek movie make use of similar ideas.

I've never really known exactly how well Kirk and Spock knew each other in WNMHGB, but it makes sense that they were fairly new acquaintances and this episode was "supposed" to be the first one rather than the third.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Thanks, Plum , for the kind words! I've always liked WNM but I've grown to appreciate it a lot more recently. Spock's always been my favorite character and I've been taking a closer look at him throughout Trek from The Cage to Unification . I'm seeing a lot of patterns that I took for granted or never noticed before.

If I get a lot of positive response, I'll take the time to share more but my threads are usually too wordy and not well received. I've been seeing Spock's life as being divided into 3 periods. Being the logical Vulcan during the 1st 5-year mission. Accepting the value of his emotions after STTMP and growing comfortable with them during a 2nd 5-year mission. Then finally the life-death-life experience of the movie trilogy as being the catalyst of a spiritual phase of his life. I'm not saying Spock is spiritual after those movies but I do believe that he is actively asking more questions about it before he either accepts or rejects it. Coming across Sybok and his search for Sha-Ka-ree is very ironic timing after his death experience on Genesis. Food for thought.

Anyways, after looking at Where No Man Has Gone Before and seeing a nice trilogy there with The Corbomite Maneuver and a nice fan story ("The Beginning") tying the 2 together over at Orion Press. I began to see another trilogy of the growing Kirk/Spock friendship in The Enemy Within, The Naked Time, & Balance of Terror . Lots of things to talk about but they take forever to type up!! I'm a slow typer so I actually have to type it up offline on Wordpad or something and copy and paste it onto my post or else I timeout all the time on posting my reply if it's too longwinded. So it's something I don't tend to do often!!

I agree with you Temis about hoping the writers of the next movie are thinking in similar terms for their story. You can take the same beloved characters and be true to the canon yet present a new insight to the beginning and the building process of their friendships. Quirky but necessary building blocks to what was to eventually come. :thumbsup:

 

[Plum]

^^^
I think your insights to the characters are pretty spot on. Not even really as a retcon. And Orion Press? that rings a bell... where's Therin of Andor when you need him?

I especially think what you see in the early eps, Spock and his progression so early in the show, just seems to ring right. I tend to watch those early eps and appreciate their drive towards a more dramatic and, for the time, naturalistic approach.

My goodness, I think we have a writer amongst us.

 

[Mallory]

Plum said:
Note, I'm one of those guys who sees WNMHGB as one of Treks best eps.

You and me both. You may have noticed my votes in the recent polls.

Plum said:
And Orion Press? that rings a bell...

I miss Randy

 

[Therin of Andor]

Plum said:
And Orion Press? that rings a bell... where's Therin of Andor when you need him?

You rang?

I don't read much fanfic, and haven't written any since about 1991, but I know Orion Press is a notable group for fanfic.

Orion Press link, if that's what you're looking for.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

We've seen that Spock respects the internal struggle that Kirk makes to do the right thing. But we get to see this process literally in The Enemy Within . Spock gets to see first hand how Kirk's good and evil sides interact and what qualities they possess. It's also a lesson in learning more about himself. Spock ends up guiding the good Kirk along to the best of his own experience. Spock can use his dual nature to an advantage.

As for Kirk, he gets to experience first hand the inner struggle Spock has to deal with because of his dual heritage. I believe he gains a new respect for who Spock is. As Kirk says at the end, "I've seen a part of myself that no man should see."

Next in The Naked Time , the virus brings to the surface inner drives and fears that each person has. For Kirk it's the dedication to his ship and the lonely that command brings with it. For Spock, it's his shame of being human and the problems that his emotions cause him to feel. He finally admits his friendship for Kirk to him...and the shame he feels for it. Spock sees his human side as a disadvantage. Both see in the other man what they have already suspected all along.

Finally in Balance of Terror , we learn that the Romulans are related to the Vulcans and the prejudice that Stiles feels towards Spock. Poor Spock is running away from his human side and burying himself in his Vulcan side only to now have his Vulcan side now fall under scrutiny because of the Romulan connection. I can only imagine that he feels trapped between two worlds in this episode. Or as Amanda put it in Journey to Babel "Neither human or Vulcan. At home nowhere but Starfleet." Spock sees his Vulcan nature as a disadvantage and strives to differentiate it as not the same as the more emotional Romulans. This was very apparent when he explained to Stiles at the end why he rescued him.

After seeing Spock's personal struggle from the Psi 200 virus and hearing his admission of friendship, we see Kirk defending Spock from Stiles a little more strongly than if Spock were just another crewperson. It's like Kirk can sense Spock's uneasiness throughout the episode. But Kirk gives Spock the space to be himself because it's of no difference to Kirk and never addresses the issue with Spock because of that. Spock has nothing to prove to Kirk in Kirk's eyes. Spock is neither human, Vulcan (or Romulan) to him. Spock is Spock.

 

[Doomsday]

Geesh.

Some of the most thoughtful commentary I've read on this site in a while!

Thanks, KOT!

 

[EnsignHarper]

Now lets throw McCoy into the mix -last,of course, as the character was introduced last.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Throwing McCoy into the mix, I think we have to look at ST V: The Final Frontier. McCoy's inner drive seems to be his inability to come up with a cure to save his father. I believe this to have happened BEFORE the 5-year mission because that drive is in him throughout the series.

McCoy comes on board with a drive to do his job to the best of his ability with a refreshing honesty that doesn't allow anything to get in his way. Much to the Captain's dismay at times. That's why I like "The Beginning" over at Orion Press. The Doctor comes aboard with a head full of steam. Determined to find out why Kirk's blaming himself for Mitchell's death, carrying a bigger workload on his shoulders than he needs to instead of delegating some of it to his acting first officer Spock. Like in STTMP when McCoy comes aboard to an obsessed Kirk and an aloof Spock, the Doctor is trying to help both Kirk and Spock regain their balance and he tries to draw out the best from them. He's blunt and a charmer all at the same time. We see this attitude quite clearly in The Corbomite Maneuver where McCoy's been riding Kirk over his health, his diet, and his decisions to promote Bailey too far too fast. He's waking the Captain up to some of his shortcomings that some might consider on the border of insubordination. He's not being too hard on the captain, it's because he cares about the captain.

Kirk may be the middle ground of ambition on a scale between Spock's logic and McCoy's emotion. But McCoy is the one who keeps the 2 of them in balance when it comes to 2 of them falling off that scale altogether into the drink below because of their obsessive pursuits of their career (Kirk) and lifestyle (Spock). No one person in this Triad is more important than the other.

Spock is the intellect who sees things as a game of chess...trying to checkmate the opponent whereas Kirk and McCoy use their emotion to outwit their opponent through bluffing as the strategy (Kirk with corbomite in Corbomite Maneuver, Deadly Years and McCoy with the tri-ox shot in Amok Time or certifying Kirk as fit in Journey to Babel ).

We see Kirk's and Spock's inner fears revealed in The Naked Time . McCoy doesn't seem to be affected at all. Or is he? As we said in The Final Frontier , his drive was to find a cure for his father's illness. Here, we see him searching relentlessly for a cure to the Psi 2000 virus. We're not specifically told this but we see it in the Doctor's actions. (Just as Scotty's striving to get into the engine room to save his darling ship from spiraling down to destruction. ) The only time we see McCoy start to lose it was in the lab after curing Sulu and yelling at the lab tech over the intercom. He's found the cure but to save the ship he needs more of it made and gets irritated when the others are slacking off because of the virus. He storms off to the lab himself because he's racing against time again just like with his father's case. McCoy is just as driven as Kirk and Spock but in his own way.

I particularly like the scene in Sickbay from The Enemy Within where the good Kirk is just sitting in a chair in the background with Spock and McCoy on each side analyzing the Captain's guts. The Spock/McCoy feuding is also a good way to get the internal debating inside Kirk's head out into the open for the audience to see without resorting to a voiceover monolgue by Kirk (like Spock did in The Cloud Minders .

McCoy is also the "Everyday" man with the same questions and feelings that we might have if we were living in the 23rd century. Whenever Kirk or Spock get too lofty in their own idealisms, it's usually McCoy that keeps them grounded with a dose of healthy realism. Again, no one person in this Triad is more important than the others but they're all equally driven in their own ways.

 

[A beaker full of death]

Something you have to remember about McCoy - he's NOT a military man. So what drove him into the military? His divorce? Estrangement from his daughter? Disillusionment with...?

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Hopefully, McCoy's past will be touched upon someday if ST XI is a success. But getting back to the subject of the thread after a long break.

Spock, being part Vulcan and part human, does not know firsthand to the extent how much Vulcans really do have emotions. Any stories about history and Vulcans savage side is rationalized away as "controlled" or "suppressed" by logic and Kohlinahr. Emotions are just another body function of the mind to be used as logic and reason dictates like an arm, leg or eye. Spock attributes his emotions to his human side.

Spock is ashamed of feeling friendship for Kirk in The Naked Time. He denies having an emotional response at the end of The Galileo Seven and claims that he reasoned his way to such an action. He's very tightlipped about anything that breaks this façade, such as pon farr in Amok Time . He does not want to be seen as emotional.

In essence, he is trying to "outVulcan" the Vulcans, as he does with his father in Journey to Babel where sarek shows his emotions a bit through the finger touching with his wife, Amanda.

In All Our Yesterdays we see Spock not realizing his emotional state while in Sarpeidon's past ("What is wrong with me??"). I don't believe he understood it anymore in the future than he did the past. He denies his emotional existence. Vulcans may have a telepathic connection with others of their race, and maybe that is what is influencing Spock's emotional state. While Kirk and McCoy are not affected by the time travel, Spock is. Spock has time traveled before ( The Naked Time, Tomorrow Is Yesterday, Assignment: Earth), but this is his first time that far back into the past (5,000 years) when Vulcans are still savage. This is Spock's first firsthand experience that Vulcans did, and still do, have emotional experiences to such an extent.

In Yesteryear Spock admits to his younger self that Vulcans DO have emotions. This is a major admission for Spock as he begins to understand the emotional nuances of being a Vulcan towards the end of the 5-year mission. We see this in The Cloud Minders as he discusses pon farr with Droxine, a relative stranger, whereas he did not even want to talk about it with Kirk in Amok Time .

The Vulcans have devoted themselves to logic to help control them. Spock probably sees Kohlinahr as a way to control or suppress his. He now realizes their true existence in Vulcans but not yet their value until his mind meld with V'Ger. He still wants to suppress them until that moment.

Spock has an idealized conception of what it means to be a Vulcan at the beginning of the 5-year mission--a logical calm where emotions are logic-controlled from the get go and not emotions that are running free waiting to be controlled by logic. By All Our Yesterdays he begins to realize that their existence is not only from his human side but his Vulcan side as well. Finally in Star Trek: The Motion Picture he realizes their value. By the time of STTMP, Spock finally realized the nuances of being a Vulcan. Afterwards, he begins to realize what it is to be a human.

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Anybody else get the same flashback vibes in City on the Edge of Forever when Spock tells Kirk that Edith Keeler must die. It felt very reminscient of Where No Man Has Gone Before where Spock was telling Kirk the same thing about Mitchell in the briefing room except that Kirk didn't protest as much this time around. Did Kirk trust Spock that much more by this time? And, how badly did Kirk feel that trust "betrayed" in the beginning of The Menagerie when he commandeered the Enterprise to go to Talos IV?

 

[KeepOnTrekking]

Vulcan seems to be broken down into 3 types: 1)overly logical like the Kohlinahr types; 2) overly emotional like the Romulans or Sybok; and 3) the middle of the roaders who embrace IDIC like Sarek and Surak.

I try to see it as the "IDIC" group trying to bring enlightenment to the "Kohlinahr" group that seems to be in control of the majority of the planet's government and society.

But in the beginning there was one obstacle for Spock, he was raised in an environment where emotions were looked down upon. In Yesteryear we see Sarek claim that young Spock constantly displayed his emotion in the streets. The other Vulcan boys criticized him for it and for having human blood in him. He was a young Vulcan boy who didn't understand what it meant to be a Vulcan. He tried to deny his emotions instead of control them in order to fit in with what he thought was the Vulcan ideal. His human side caused those emotions to be more pronounced than the already strong Vulcan emotions were.

I think by his meek demeanor of "Yes, Father" around Sarek was a strong indication that he was trying to please his father and mother with appropriate Vulcan behavior but he let his emotional side out while "out on the streets" or around his pet sehlat, I-Chaya. I-Chaya was definitely his version of "man's best friend" as so many of us had a confidante in our dogs when we were growing up.

At the age of 7, we see in Yesteryear that Spock had to make the choice between following Vulcan ways or human ways. His "trial run" Kahs-wan enables him to decide to choose Vulcan. Since he has not yet chosen between Vulcan and Earth customs at this time, he obviously has to go through the "trial run" Kahs-wan and choose Vulcan ways before undergoing the Vulcan ritual of being bonded to T'Pring as he told us in Amok Time.

We can assume the Kahs-wan is the first major ritual in a Vulcan male's life; otherwise, Spock would have had to commit to the Vulcan way of life already.

A month later he undergoes the real Kahs-wan test and passes. The Kahs-wan is the test of adulthood (according to Yesteryear ). Upon entering adulthood, Spock is bonded to T'Pring (according to Amok Time ) and the pon farr cycle is begun and occurs every 7th year (according to The Search for Spock ).

Spock is raised during this time in an environment where it is considered bad taste to display your emotions to the point where he never told his mother that he loved her (according to The Naked Time ). He had a half-brother, Sybok, who was born of 2 full-blooded Vulcan parents. This brother committed the sacrilegious act of pursuing his emotions like the Romulans had done centuries before. Spock had the idea of emotions being considered a bad thing constantly reinforced throughout his life. But yet his father had married a human!! Sybok was of the same cloth as the emotional Romulans. Sarek was embracing his logic but celebrated IDIC as was evidenced by marrying Amanda. Spock was having a problem reconciling the concepts of IDIC with Kohlinahr and his human side was exasperating the problem from within. It's no wonder that he left Vulcan and entered Starfleet to find peace for himself where he could be accepted for the unique person that he was.

Spock downplayed his past. His mother was referred to as "one of my ancestors married a human female" in Where No Man Has Gone Before. He never told Kirk that his parents were Ambassador Sarek and Amanda before Journey to Babel. Spock was definitely running away from who he was. It had caused him pain when all that he wanted was peace and acceptance like his father's IDIC principles proclaimed. But Spock didn't find such acceptance in his father's ideals. He retreated from his father's ways and his desire to follow in his footsteps as an ambassador and hid in the world of Starfleet science and pursued the concept of Kohlinahr...in an attempt to extinguish those pesky emotions.

Kirk knew enough to approach Spock on an intellectual level as far back as Where No Man Has Gone Before. They played intellectual games of chess in their spare time. Eventually, Kirk raised the stakes and introduced Spock to the concept of poker in The Corbomite Maneuver. Where he combined the mathematical calculations of the playing cards and the odds with the human concept of bluffing.

Spock was the logical side of the soul and McCoy was the human side of the soul, then Kirk was the ambition or will that was the balance between the two sides. It's no surprise that Spock would bond with Kirk first since he was a closer match to Spock's point of view and they shared that intellectual capacity needed for being in command.

McCoy, on the other hand, would take a little longer to warm up to. They were opposites. They constantly bickered during the first year. McCoy was constantly trying to get Spock to let his guard down and accept the value of human emotions. Eventually, McCoy ended up giving Spock the kind of therapeutic release for his emotions as his pet I-Chaya had done earlier in his childhood. Spock eventually acknowledged his friendship with both in Amok Time when he invited both of them down to his wedding ceremony.