These Are The Voyages-Star Trek TOS Remastered and Reconsidered

I am enjoying this thread so I would love to see it keep on trucking although if any individual watcher/summarizer is getting burnt out, perhaps others can help with the load?

The next episode in the order of airdate is on my short list of all time favorites. It’s one of the episodes I was thinking of re-watching to see if it holds up.

I can volunteer to watch “Amok Time” and post a summary by next week if you want divedivedive.

Perhaps others can pitch in as well.

I’m ok to keep cranking, I just like to take the temperature from time to time. Is one a week a fair pace? Are we doing ok? I know @Rock8man occasionally falls behind and tries to catch up - and that’s fair, life happens. Just wondering if a pause would help us all get back on the same page?

Edit: I’ve given some thought to @Sharpe’s idea and I kind of like it. If anyone knows an episode is coming along and you’re a big fan or you have something you really want to say, I have no problem if you want to jump in and take the lead. I’m not running the show here, I just try to set the pace.

Yeah, that’s the only reason this episode was interesting to watch. In the end, the matter/anti-matter parallel universes spiel between Spock and Kirk was just so cheesy. And don’t get me started on the horrible security on the Enterprise again. I think my favorite scene in the whole episode is after the Doctor has already let Lazarus loose on the ship once, and said to Kirk how the hell is he supposed to know where he is? It’s a big ship! All while he’s supposed to be a patient of his. Anyway, my favorite scene is when he has charge of Lazarus a second time, and this time he tells Kirk to get rid of the muscleman (the security guy suddenly standing next to him who wasn’t there in any earlier scenes) from his sickbay. Then he assures Kirk that he won’t lose sight of Lazarus this time. Then Kirk leaves. And then McCoy also leaves. But before he leaves, he stops, and contemplates the fact that he just told Kirk he wouldn’t lose sight of Lazarus this time. But he gets a little smile on his face and he LEAVES ANYWAY. That McCoy! He’s such a rebel.

Meanwhile, Kirk and Spock have their big conversation about matter/anti-matter, Lazarus/Anti-Lazarus and how the two can’t meet. You’d think this conversation would result in them going down and making sure Lazarus is safe. But no, when Lazarus starts a fire, and the crew call up to the bridge, Kirk and Spock are no longer in the ready room discussing matter/anti-matter and the fate of the universe. Instead, they’re chilling on the bridge now. Because apparently the conversation they just had didn’t spark any sense of urgency, despite the fact that they were just saying both universes could be destroyed if Lazarus met Lazarus.

Kirk: Alright, enough of this heavy talk about the universe, let’s go hang out on the bridge, I hear the drink ladies are serving pina coladas there.
Spock: But Captain, the fate of the two universii.
Kirk: There’s drink ladies on the bridge right now Spock.

DISCLAIMER: There were no drink ladies shown on the bridge in this episode.

Ok, it’s been many years since I last saw this episode. One thing that’s been a repeated theme during this re-watch is that every single episode has something that kind of bothers me. Most episodes also have something that I like, the better ones leave me with something to contemplate, but finally I have to admit, City on the Edge of Forever is really tight and tells its story well, and has no flaws. It’s the only episode during this first season that we’ve seen that I can say is excellent.

One of the weirder aspects of this story is how Edith Keeler seems to have a sixth sense almost. She can predict the future. And she can see the relationship between Spock and Kirk better than most people. I love the scene in which she calls him Captain after Spock finishes talking. “You can hear it even when he doesn’t say it”.

I just want to take a second and think about what this episode is trying to say. Edith Keeler’s motives were good, she wanted peace, she wanted to help the poor, she was a kind and generous person. And having bad timing, by pushing for peace when we should have been at war, she can cause the death of millions. I like that message. It’s sort of pushing the necessity of fighting wars, but it’s doing so without denigrating the people who want peace. It’s not like that earlier episode which seemed to be unequivocally saying that we can’t become hippies.

No. Never. Stop.

I got kicked in the universicles.

I really enjoyed this episode. It’s been really rare this whole season for an episode to revolve around the three main characters (Kirk, Spock and Bones), but this is one of them, so I really appreciated it for that. Bones comes off really curmudgeonly in this episode. “We’ve been over it and over it Jim, there’s just nothing we can do”.

Most of these episodes that we’ve seen this season feel like I’m watching them all for the first time, with a handful of exceptions, and this is one of the exceptions. There’s just something about these little creatures, it’s very memorable. I didn’t remember the details of the episode, but I did remember the creatures. The little courtyard they created with all the creatures under and on the other side of a wall is a very nice set, because it emphasizes how hard it would be to avoid these creatures in certain situations. The set is very claustrophobic despite being an “outdoor” area. So big props to whoever came up with that set.

I agree that the ending was kind of anticlimatic with Spock having another “inner eyelid” out of nowhere. But still, I don’t think I wanted the rest of the series to have a blind Spock either.

Overall, I think this was a good show to end the season on, what with the core group of Spock, Bones and Kirk featured on here. We got to meet Kirk’s family for the first time. His brother is now dead. We saw his sister-in-law die, and we got to meet his nephew, who presumably survived once they came up with the solution on how to beat these creatures. Strangely, we never got to see his nephew conscious though. I guess the audience does care more about Spock than the nephew we never knew about until this episode, but still, come on, we watched his mom die, there should have been some kind of scene where Kirk consoles him maybe. Or where Kirk tells him his parents are dead and he will now live on the Enterprise.

“Live long and prosper, Spock.”
“I shall do neither, T’Pring. I have killed my captain, and my friend.”

All right folks, let’s roll right on into season two! We begin with episode one, “Amok Time”, in which Spock becomes a teenager for a little while. It gives us additional insight into how weird Vulcan society and physiology really is, and it introduces us to a new crew member: Chekov!

I’ll start off by saying that this episode stands up better than I expected it to. I won’t lie, I always found the concept of pon farr to be a little, well silly I guess? The fact that this highly buttoned up society will occasionally bust loose (if I recall correctly, it’s established elsewhere - maybe The Search for Spock? - that the pon farr afflicts Vulcans every seven years) and get very irritable, jumpy and horny, not necessarily in that order. But if you can roll with that and just accept that it’s how things are, this episode has a lot to offer. It had a lot of little things that amused me, with the awkward ‘birds and bees’ discussion between Kirk and Spock, and the interplay between Sulu and Chekov as the Enterprise keeps diverting course between Vulcan and Altair.

Amok Time was written by Theodore Sturgeon, another legend in the field of science fiction, and I really like that the credits showing the writer’s name are at the front of the episode now rather than the end, as in season one. We also have new theme music, with the addition of the warbly female voice over the existing tune, which I guess is what I’ve always thought of as “the” Star Trek theme.

Well @sharpe, you mentioned this was one of your all-time favorite episodes, so hopefully you and some other folk have plenty of comments about the episode, so let’s go!

One other thing I wanted to point out - if there’s a show I love probably as much as Star Trek, it’s got to be Futurama. That show takes influence from just about every science fiction out there and makes a gumbo out of it, but one episode in particular draws on “Amok Time” directly and fully, and that’s “Why Must I Be a Crustacean in Love?” If you enjoyed Amok Time and haven’t seen much Futurama, this is worth checking out. Heck, if you’ve already seen it go watch it again. It’s one of my favorite episodes - yes, very hard to pick favorites on this show, but it’s got to be in my top ten.

Amok Time is the episode of Star Trek I watched most recently before we started doing the re-watch. @ChristienMurawski told me to show the episode to my wife before taking her to see Star Trek Beyond. Looking over that thread now was amusing. Apparently it backfired and made her not want to see anything Star Trek related.

I also pointed out in the Star Trek Beyond thread that in the other timeline, where Vulcan is destroyed, where do Vulcans feel the biological need to return to do Ponfar? @ChristienMurawski thought it would transfer over to New Vulcan, the planet they are settling. In which case, the biological need is just to mate, not actually to go back to Vulcan necessarily. I guess when rewatch this episode tonight I’ll keep an eye out for that detail.

I’ve never heard of this. What is it?

It’s an alternative timeline thing, no need to worry about it. But you could think of it as just a hypothetical what-if. What if Vulcan was destroyed? Would Vulcans still feel the need to go there during Ponfar?

Yes, it’s a biological imperative. Spock’s own comparisons in Amok Time tell of species that have been destroyed due to lack of the ability to fulfill a location-based mating imperative. The race would probably be destroyed. I’m sure glad a passel of idiots never wrote that plot-line into the Star Trek Universe. I mean, Hollywood would have to be absolutely bankrupt intellectually and artistically if all they did was remake old stuff, right? Thank god all we’ve seen is new Star Trek after TOS.

This was a minor note that amused me about this episode - once Spock had “killed” Kirk, he found he no longer desired T’Pring. So I guess the biological imperative is either fuck something or kill something. I guess men are going to be men no matter what planet they’re from.

Wasn’t McCoy’s character just sparkling in this one? Really well written twist. Kelley was his usual brilliant self.

Yeah, I was happy that it got to be McCoy that saved the day. I also really liked the moment when Spock chose McCoy as well as Kirk to be his support during the pon farr. You could tell that they were touched by the gesture.

The new Season 2 opening theme is hilarious. Overall the show seems … different. For one, the bridge seems to have gotten an upgrade. The light panel behind Uhura is different somehow. The area near Spock has more lights.

After watching all of Season 1, I’ve grown familiar with all the musical cues used on the show. And when Spock reluctantly finally tells the Captain why he needs to return to Vulcan, the musical accompaniment in the scene is a new one that I’ve never heard before.

Kirk’s hair is different. It’s like he discovered conditioner between seasons.

A few other random observations.

The episode felt like it was better constructed than most Season 1 episodes. Each scene had a purpose and was well filmed. They still rely a lot on the shot where they frame the character in the center and light him/her up with a bright light and get a reaction or dialog out of him/her. And the actors really do a good job in these in this episode. I don’t know who shares the credit here, the director or solely the actors, but even just two second reaction shots are perfectly done in this episode. The reactions where McCoy or Kirk are trying to be serious but you can tell they’re trying not to burst out with a smile; that’s a subtle level of acting that’s just perfectly done in these two second shots.

Checkov made a good first impression on me. He’s got a Beatles-like moptop hairstyle.

He was hired to project that image. And to play to the Cold War, of course.

Wasn’t a Davy Jones-resemblance mentioned in his casting, IIRC?