The TOS footage in the episode "If Memory Serves"

[Ssosmcin]

"Amok Time" is not early installment. Second season.

Right. One episode.

The rest were still early and them figuring Spock out. I feel the point is still valid.

And Spock wasn't "unable to smile." Once the character was cemented, he just normally didn't. He was embracing his Vulcan side, this was a key point of his character - even his mother made an issue out of it.

If it did smile, it was an extreme situation (Kirk alive and his career saved and whatever in that episode) or some kind of manipulation (again, once he was figured out). This is why it's such a big deal when he does. As he was fond of blabbing every week - and is in his starfleet file seen in The Menagerie - is IS half human.

 

[David cgc]

"Amok Time" is not early installment. Second season.

Though, to be fair, a big part of the lore remembered as being from that episode (Pon Farr happening more than once, and on a seven-year cycle) wasn’t established until the third season. They didn’t even consistently call them “mind melds” until the movies.

In a sixty-year-old franchise, even TMP could be considered “early,” never mind the second season.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The original question asked was literally whether "The Cage" was "the only time" that Spock smiled "without it feeling or looking forced or out of character". I stand by what I've said, all the way.

 

[Cap'n Calhoun]

Mixed feelings about the goofy execution of the montage, but I love the fact that they had one, and I love the transition from Pike to Pike. The sound effect that marks the transition was well-chosen too.

 

[Tuskin38]

When my father first watched the episode, he though he put the wrong show on lmao

 

[Dukhat]

I get what they were trying to do, but I felt the transition was very jarring. Basically going from clips of The Cage to Anson Mount's Pike worrying about Section 31, a stupid plot point created during Berman Trek and getting consistently worse throughout the rest of modern Trek. Maybe if they used The Cage transition shots during the actual return to Talos IV, it would have worked better.