imdb star trek amok time

• Cast & crew
• User reviews
• Episode aired Sep 15, 1967

In the throes of his Pon Farr mating period, Spock must return to Vulcan to meet his intended future wife, betrothed from childhood. In the throes of his Pon Farr mating period, Spock must return to Vulcan to meet his intended future wife, betrothed from childhood. In the throes of his Pon Farr mating period, Spock must return to Vulcan to meet his intended future wife, betrothed from childhood.

• Joseph Pevney
• Gene Roddenberry
• Theodore Sturgeon
• William Shatner
• Leonard Nimoy
• DeForest Kelley
• 37 User reviews
• 14 Critic reviews

• Captain James Tiberius 'Jim' Kirk

• Mister Spock

• T'Pring

• Christine Chapel

• Admiral Komack
• Lieutenant Hadley
• (uncredited)
• Vulcan Ceremonial Aide

• Space Central
• Vulcan Litter Bearer

• Lieutenant Leslie
• Vulcan Executioner
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

Did you know

• Trivia First appearance of the Vulcan phrases "Peace and long life" and "Live long and prosper." Also the first ever Star Trek episode to feature any Vulcan characters other than Spock.
• Goofs After T'Pring chooses Kirk to be her champion, Kirk and McCoy are speaking with T'Pau. If you look in the background, you will see Leonard Nimoy standing against the wall with his hands behind his back, apparently unaware that he is on camera. Spock is supposed to be off in the corner, deep in the blood fever.

Spock : [after T'Pring has explained her actions] Logical. Flawlessly logical.

T'Pring : I am honored.

Spock : Stonn, she is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.

• Alternate versions Special Enhanced version Digitally Remastered with new exterior shots and remade opening theme song. Highlights include a new aerial view of the arena with a city in the distance.
• Connections Featured in William Shatner's Star Trek Memories (1995)
• Soundtracks Theme Music credited to Alexander Courage . Sung by Loulie Jean Norman

User reviews 37

• Feb 23, 2018
• Why wouldn't Spock tell anyone about the Pon Farr?
• September 15, 1967 (United States)
• United States
• Official Facebook
• Desilu Studios - 9336 W. Washington Blvd., Culver City, California, USA
• Desilu Productions
• Norway Corporation
• See more company credits at IMDbPro

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• Runtime 50 minutes

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Published Oct 10, 2023

When Amok Time Became a Mirror

For World Mental Health Day, one fan shares what it was like to watch this pivotal episode for the first time and see their own experiences detailed in an unexpected way.

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I’m friends with a lot of trans and disabled people, so the words “meat sack” get thrown around a lot in my social circles. Meat sack: something raw, dead, destructible. Something that exists only to hold what’s real. I’ve been thinking a lot about Spock’s relationship with his body, and trying to figure out if that’s a framework he’d be into. Currently, I’m leaning against. ‘Meat sack’ may be designed to create distance from the body, but its viscera still implies that the body exists. To entirely dissociate, you have to find some way to believe that your body isn’t real at all, despite all evidence to the contrary.

Of course, Spock would never ignore evidence. But that doesn’t mean he needs to acknowledge it if it’s not directly relevant. Watching Spock is a tremendous comfort. He tells us, again and again, that what he is is logic. He is a concept whose role is to put together other concepts. Sometimes, he has to take physical action to implement those concepts, but that’s a tertiary reality at best. His friends and colleagues may raise their eyebrows at his claim, but he knows who he is. It’s easy, as an audience, to believe him. After all, he’s half Vulcan. Maybe it really is possible for him to not experience his body. And he’s half human, too. If he can do it, maybe so can we.

"Amok Time"

StarTrek.com

We can’t. He can’t, either. If you ignore your body speaking to you for long enough, it will start to yell. In Spock’s case, literally. The first time we see him in “ Amok Time ,” he’s raising his voice at Chapel, cruel in a way we’ve never seen. It all gets medicalized very fast. Bones believes it would be impossible for Spock to do such a thing; therefore, it must be Spock’s body acting on its own, a separate entity from Spock himself. Spock refuses to be examined in any way. He knows that any examination of his physical self would show a biology that revealed him in a way that went beyond the facts of blood and broken bones. He’s trying to believe that if he could just try hard enough, he could contain himself and keep his body and its implications private.

We don’t know much about how brains work. We have some ideas, but explanations of most brain processes end with a shrug. What we know about mental illness is more often based in observation than science. I learned a lot about hypomania when I got my bipolar diagnosis. Sometimes, hypomanic episodes happen because you’re too excited about something, or you’re doing too many things too quickly, or, commonly, when seasons change. But sometimes they happen because you’re dealing with something difficult, and your brain is trying to protect you with a distraction so intense that you can’t possibly think. It is very effective.

I’m working on this, but as things stand, I find hypomanic episodes to be humiliating. I feel like everyone can see what I’m reacting to, and I feel immature and selfish for taking up time and space. I first watched “Amok Time” with some friends relatively soon after my diagnosis. They were extremely excited to show it to me. I had been promised excessive subtext and a bottle of champagne. It quickly became clear to me that I was having a very different experience of the episode than they were. They were seeing sublimated desire, and I was watching Spock’s uncontrollable biology mirror my own. All I wanted was to keep it together, and I was watching Spock fall apart. I managed not to yell like he did, though I did slip and drop the champagne.

Usually, we use the term “birthright” to mean something passed along, often representative of some sort of power. Family heirlooms, surnames, the crown. But pon farr is a birthright, too. Spock can try to abdicate all he wants, but there’s only so far you can run from your own literal blood. I wonder if knowing what was happening comforted him, or horrified him more. Not that they’re mutually exclusive. On one hand, there’s a very clear logic to pon farr . There was something in Spock’s blood that every Vulcan before him had experienced and every Vulcan after will, too. He could list the symptoms, and recognize them when they happened. On the other hand, his body had taken an oath. He knew what was going to happen next. He knew he didn’t want it. He knew he couldn’t stop it.

I self-diagnosed on the second day of my first hypomanic episode. I’d long suspected my decade-old depression was abnormal. My family has a history of vivid and undiagnosed mental illness, including negative reactions to SSRIs, a common anti-depressant that doesn’t work for bipolar people. I have a close friend who is bipolar, and I listen when he talks. I’d been researching symptoms for years. It took me weeks to get official confirmation, but I didn’t need it. Like Spock, I knew exactly what was coming, and all I could do was try to mediate it. He asked to be locked away; I tried to control the excessive spending ‘symptom’ by only buying things that were on sale.

There’s comfort in knowing, but the comfort is impure. It’s mixed with anger and fear and sorrow. If we knew this was possible, why didn’t my family prepare me better? Is there any way I could handle it better than my ancestors? If we had the knowledge and the meds and the healthcare access at the time, would my great-grandmother have gotten help, and would that have changed the most painful parts of my family history?

But there’s something else, too. There’s a promise of where you’ve been. Spock and I did not simply pop into history fully formed. There is a history of family and community and biology. Our bodies are inheritances. When Spock is experiencing blood madness, every Vulcan that has been and will be and currently is are making their way out of the woodwork of his veins. When my head does the thing where my internal monologue is nothing but a scream, I know that some of the screams are mourning Sicilian women whose names I’ll never know. I don’t know that that makes it easier, per se, or more pleasant. It might make it worse. But no matter how alone we are, we’re filled with a history we can’t untangle ourselves from.

About a year after the party, I watched “Amok Time” again. There was a lot I’d missed the first time. There was, in fact, more subtext than I had even begun to parse. There was an outstanding rip in Kirk’s uniform. But there was also something I’d skipped over entirely.

When Spock tells Kirk that he thinks Kirk will find his behavior distasteful, Kirk replies mildly: “Will I? You’ve helped me through a lot.” When Spock is fully in pon farr , or I am fully in an episode, it can be all-consuming. But we exist beyond that consumption. Bones was worried about Spock, and Kirk tried to communicate in ways that Spock would be able to understand. I dropped the champagne, but there were people who’d brought it over in the first place; they would worry, they would communicate. Our bodies are our worlds, but the world is not our bodies.

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This article was originally published on October 9, 2020.

Jamie Beckenstein (they/them) is a tarot reader, oral historian, writer, and community worker based in Queens, New York. Follow them on Twitter @james0ctober and @PopTarotCards.

Star Trek : "Amok Time" / "Who Mourns For Adonais?"

And here we are at Season 2. Take a look around, get acquainted with the place—settle in for the long haul. Seems mostly the same, right? But there are some changes. DeForest Kelley now has a much deserved "Also Starring" credit in the opening titles, and the episode name gets listed along with the writer; which means for the first ep of the season, we know right away we're watching "Amok Time" by Theodore Sturgeon. (Whose name we haven't seen since "Shore Leave," for those keeping track.) There's even a brand new crewmember on the bridge, the horribly wigged Chekov (Walter Koening).

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Apart from that, though, things haven't changed much. It's the blessing and the curse of old school TV; without needing to maintain anything but the most minimum of continuities between episodes (same actors, same sets, same premise, and generally dead people don't come back), there's more of a week-to-week freedom to do whatever the hell you want. Provided you can wrap it up in fifty minutes and change, there aren't any real rules here. We're not building towards anything, we're not trying to tell one cohesive, season-long story. So have Scotty lusting after a random crewmember, or give Sulu a yen for biology—there's no worry about being part of a larger puzzle. The problem is that when you spend this much time with the same characters, you want to know more about them; you've gotta have at least an illusion of a consistent backstory, even if it's not a persistent one. "Amok Time" is a terrific opening to the second season. It's got a great hook, solid acting all around, and some terrific twists. Maybe most important of all, it's also one of the first serious attempts to create a mythology for Spock. We've had bits and pieces of his past before—we know he's half-Vulcan, and that he may or may not have had a love affair with a human back at Starfleet Academy—but that past has never been the main focal point of an episode. Hell, this is the first time in the series where the entire plot is generated by the history of a main character. We've had McCoy and Kirk and even Nurse Chapel interacting with old friends and lovers before, but in those cases, the relationships were just added flavor to a story that would've worked just fine without them. Here, Spock is the main show, and the effect is a powerful one. Spock's alien-ness defines who he is, but before "Time," that definition was restricted to his reliance on logic and his pointy ears. Finally we're given a sense of just how Other he can be, and it's unsettling, because this is somebody we've come to trust. In a very real way, by giving Spock a culture—a smart and well-considered culture—the show is one step closer to what Trek was destined to become. So, Spock's having some issues. It's so bad that even McCoy notices; Pointy-Ears isn't eating, he's "increasingly restive," and when Nurse Chapel brings him some yummy "plomeek soup," Spock freaks and throws the soup and Chapel out of his room. (The "You never give up hoping" to Chapel is pretty dickish, all things considered.) When Kirk confronts him, Spock refuses to explain himself, instead asking that the Enterprise take a quick detour and drop him off on Vulcan. Kirk's willing to help out, but orders come in from Starfleet that the ship has to arrive at its destination a week earlier than scheduled; which means a detour to Vulcan is out of the question. Watching the story build here is a joy. First, we learn that Spock is freaking out, but the reasons are left up in the air. He says he needs to go home, but he won't say why , which puts Kirk (and us) in the uncertain position of wanting to help a friend but not knowing exactly what that help entails. The screws keep tightening: after Starfleet's orders come through, McCoy tells Kirk that getting Spock to Vulcan is absolutely imperative. Massive amounts of adrenaline are being dumped into his body, and something has to be done to stop it, or he'll be dead inside a week. Spock's still on duty, but his problems are affecting his performance—he secretly sets course for Vulcan, and when Kirk confronts him, Spock doesn't deny doing it. He just has no memory of the action. You could say that's a kind of denial in and of itself, but I think Spock is being honest here. Part of what makes his troubles so compelling is that he's sympathetic and frightening both at once. When Kirk finally forces him to confess what's going on, Nimoy does a great job conveying the incredible amount of trust and shame he has to overcome to explain himself; after spending his whole life priding himself on his stoicism and control, he's now stripped betrayed by his own biology. Sure, it's an entirely Vulcan problem, but that doesn't make it any easier to accept. Spock is experiencing Pon farr , the Time Of Mating, and while the idea sounds a little silly—stone-faced Nimoy suddenly turned into a randy thirteen year-old, lusting after nurses and throwing temper tantrums at the slightest provocation—the result is anything but. Once every seven years, all Vulcans must go through this, and the only way to deal with it is to travel back home and follow the usual ceremonies. It seems odd that someone as generally well-prepared as Spock would get caught off guard by the condition, but as he tells Kirk, he had hopes he would've been spared it, given his half-human ancestry. That's out the window now, and as much as Chapel would wish it otherwise, no one on the Enterprise can help him. It makes you wonder, how did Spock's human mother hook up with his dad? Actually being on Vulcan must be the important part here. It's never explicitly explained, but that works to the episode's advantage. We're stuck watching everything through Kirk and McCoy's eyes, so we only know as much as they do—less, really. This specific aspect of Vulcanian culture isn't the sort of thing outsiders would know about (I wonder how many Vulcans work off-world? Must have some kind of "seven-year-itch" clause in their contracts), which means the rules aren't set down for us in stone. One of "Time"'s biggest strengths is taking a familiar face and twisting it into a stranger's, and that's helped by maintaining a certain level of mystery. In the end, Kirk disobeys orders to save his friend (duh), and we find out that not only is Spock overcome with throbbing biological urges, he's also got a wife named T'Pring waiting for him back home. It was an arranged thing, done by their parents, and they haven't seen each other in years; unsurprisingly, she does not appear that happy to see him. (Although she is a Vulcan, so who the hell knows?) Spock asks Kirk and McCoy to accompany him to the ceremony—apparently it's his right to bring his closest pals, which is possibly the first time we see acknowledged that he and McCoy really do like each other. So that's nice. Vulcan is, turns out, very, very hot. (The air is thin, too; both of these come into play later in the story, but it's also neat to have characters noting the different environment. It's something that the original series tended to let go by the wayside, more often then not.) The Pon farr ceremony takes place on ancestral land, inside what looks like a more complete version of Stonehenge. A few minutes after Spock and the others arrive, the marriage party makes it's grand entrance, led by none other than T'Pau, a big important type lady in the planetary government; important enough to have turned down a position in Starfleet multiple times. We get our first Vulcan hand salute between T'Pau and Spock, and she doesn't seem all that fond to see Kirk and McCoy hanging around. But as Spock says, this is his right, and she has no choice but to accept it. T'Pring makes her entrance, along with a stupid looking guy who we keep cutting to for reasons that will become obvious in ten minutes or so (or immediately, if you're clever). Everything seems to be going to plan, but when Spock tries to go through with the ritual, T'Pring stops him. She has chosen "the Challenge," which means there's going to be some fighting; and when it comes time to select her champion, T'Pring picks—Kirk. While Spock probably gets the most attention in "Time," and deservedly so, we're seeing other heroes in new lights as well. It's worth noting that this is one of the few times in the series where Kirk's propensity to keep butting his head into everything actually works to his disadvantage. When T'Pring chooses him to fight against Spock, Kirk decides to accept, reasoning to McCoy that Spock wouldn't stand a chance agains the stupid looking guy (who seems very unhappy that T'Pring didn't pick him). It sounds like a noble attempt to do the right thing, and in a way it is—but it's also pretty damn stupid. Spock is much, much stronger than Kirk, and he's in the grip of an adrenaline blood lust, which generally doesn't make a person weaker. The thin air and heat put Kirk even further at a disadvantage, because he's just not built to handle it. And to top it off, not once does he think to ask about the rules or the nature of the combat. He just assumes that it'll all work out okay if he bluffs his way along. But it won't, though. Because the combat is to the death . The fight between Spock and Kirk that follows is well-choreagraphed, and for once the doubling (what there is of it) isn't screamingly obvious. The best part of the whole thing is that Kirk loses; it's only by McCoy's quick thinking that he walks away in the end. Nimoy does some excellent work here at the end of the fight—with Kirk "dead," he's back to his usual calm self, in control enough to even congratuale T'Pring on her manuevers. (And to get a really excellent "Fuck you" line in to her doltish suitor.) Back on the Enterprise, Spock turns himself in to McCoy for arrest, but it turns out he didn't murder anybody. McCoy managed to inject Kirk with a compound that would simulate his death, finding a way for everybody to get away unscathed. Spock is delighted to hear it; I think the smile he has on his face when he says "Jim!" is the first non-pharmaceutically enhanced one we've seen on his face. As the original series goes, this is really as good as it gets. Which is maybe why "Who Mourns For Adonais?" seems like such a let-down. After expanding our crew's past, we're back to doing a greatest hits package up of some old themes. There's the godlike alien being; there's the attempts to push that godlike being to the limits of his endurance; and there's a female crew-member who becomes enamored of said godlike being, to the point of forgetting her obligations to Kirk and crew. "Adonais" has a clever idea or two, and it's entertaining enough in parts, but the structure is definitely wearing thin. Even the sadness at the end seems more out of obligation than anything earned. One thing the episode does have going for it is what must be one of the goofiest images in Trek history: a giant hand holding the Enterprise frozen in space. It's an almost defensible visual—there is something at least a little creepy in a normal appendage getting blown up a million times bigger than its supposed to be, and the absurdity of that appendage latching onto a starship like a spoiled boy grabbing a Christmas ornament… Well, it could've worked. Maybe. But in practice it's just silly. The Enterprise is out investigating, and Space Thing appears out of nowhere and nabs them. According to Spock, it's not a physical presence but an energy field; whatever it is, they can't break free of it. Which would have to be pretty embarrassing when it came time to send a report back to Starfleet. Things get even weirder when a disembodied head pops up on the view screen. Classic profile, crown of laurel leaves, and the dude is definitely making with the fancy talk. He welcomes Kirk and the crew like he's been waiting for them—for 5,000 years, turns out. In spite of Kirk's best efforts, the guy refuses to give any more answers than that, instead demanding that somebody beam down to the nearby planet surface for a chat. (Anybody but Spock; the dude is only interested in humans.) Should they refuse, the head controls the hand, and the hand can squeeze the ship whenever it wants to. So down to the planet we go: Kirk, McCoy, the irritatingly endearing Chekov (I think if I'd actually watched this when it aired, I probably would be more annoyed with the character, but since he's such a part of the original crew, it's hard to judge him critically), Scotty, and the current object of Scott's affections, Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas. One of "Adonais"'s many flaws is its clumsy attempts at gender politics; there's a bit at the beginning when we find out Scotty's putting the moves on the much-younger-than-him Palamas, and it's hard to know how to take it. McCoy says he's concerned about Scotty's efforts (so I guess he's a doctor and a matchmaker) because he doesn't think the young woman is interested—kind of hard to blame her there. Then he goes and makes things worse by saying, "On the other hand, she's a woman. All woman." So, um. Yeah, I guess. When Kirk et al arrive, they find themselves in a pastoral setting, with a small Greek temple and patio area, and the dude himself, sitting on a throne in a golden toga. He identifies himself as Apollo, and explains that 5,000 years ago, he and the other gods were on Earth, showing everybody all kinds of special cool things, and then they left; in the time since, Apollo's just hung around waiting for humanity to improve and develop to the point where they could meet again. This concept, and the deductions Kirk makes from it, are the strongest part of the episode—the notion that Greek gods were actually incredibly advanced aliens isn't original, but it's solid, and the fact that Kirk and the others now have to deal with one of those "gods" on nearly equal terms could've made for some good drama. It doesn't really go that way. Apollo lectures and yells, Kirk objects and yells back, and on the Enterprise, Spock works double duty to save everybody's ass. Apollo is instantly smitten with Carolyn, and she with him; as she's identified as an expert in ancient civilizations, it all plays out like a much dumber version of the Khan/Marla relationship back in "Space Seed." He transforms her boring old uniform into a pink robe, offering her a chance to show off her midriff where before she'd been showing off her legs, and then wows her by talking about how great he is. The fact that she's delighted by all this speaks poorly for her character; and the fact that Scotty keeps trying to throw himself in the middle to protect her "honor" speaks even worse of him. Curiously, their "relationship" is never resolved, and Scotty's repeated attempts to fight for her don't actually accomplish anything. Well, maybe one thing; Kirk eventually realizes that Apollo, despite being able hold a ship in space and change the planet's weather with a whim, doesn't have inexhaustible resources. He gets tired from time to time, which is something that the Enterprise folks understandably want to take advantage of. Having apparently learned nothing from his earlier encounters with godlike beings, Kirk decides that Apollo must have some kind of energy source on the planet, and if they can destroy that source, everything will work out just fine. Surprisingly, unlike the five billion other times they've tried just such a strategy, this time it actually works. Or does it? With Palamas's help, Kirk and the others manage to distract Apollo just long enough to let the Enterprise fire on the temple (hey, the hand's gone!), laying the place to waste. Once Apollo sees what they've done, he gets all sad and gives a speech addressing the other gods—the ones who used to be his buddies, who left long ago. Then he disappears himself. So maybe the temple was his main power source, or maybe he was just so disappointed that the new humans don't have much interest in worshipping him and decided it was time to move on. It's the sort of ambiguity that could've been powerful, but instead comes off like authorial laziness. "Adonais" isn't a complete waste of time: there's entertainment in that ship-grabbing hand, Apollo makes for a distinctive presence, and some of Kirk's efforts against him, like the four way shouting match, are fun. And though it's a small part of the episode, watching Spock, Uhura, and Mister Kyle work together to try and get a message down to the planet is cool. (Hell, Spock even gives Uhura a compliment.) But it's all undone by lazy scripting and bizarre dialogue—like Kirk's impromptu, "Aw, maybe we shoulda worshipped him" after Apollo leaves. In the end this is one of those far-less-than-the-sum-of-its-parts eps, occasionally memorable, but a bit of a chore to get through. Grades: "Amok Time": A "Who Mourns For Adonais?": C+ Stray Observations:

• T'Pau: "Live long and prosper." Spock: "I shall do neither. I have killed my Captain… and my friend."
• On his first episode in the opening credits, McCoy saves the day. Very cool.
• And yeah, that music cue rocks. (Notice how it gets a brief early in the episode, when Spock tries to explain to Kirk what's happening to him.)
• Next week: "The Changeling" and "Mirror, Mirror." To the Agony Booth!

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Star Trek's New Warp Drive Breaks the Prime Directive in a Way No-One Expected

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Warning: SPOILERS for Star Trek: Strange New Worlds Episode 5 - "Spock Amok"

Spock's (Ethan Peck) dream at the start of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds episode 5 gives new context and explains what happens 8 years later in the Star Trek: The Original Series episode, "Amok Time." Strange New Worlds episode 5, "Spock Amok," is the Paramount+ series' first comedic episode in the vein of Star Trek: The Original Series ' "The Trouble With Tribbles." The main source of hijinks is a mind-meld accident that causes a hilarious body swap between Spock and his Vulcan fiancée, T'Pring (Gia Sandhu).

Unfortunately for Spock and T'Pring, Star Trek canon dictates that they will not marry. T'Pring and Spock were promised to each other as children and, in Strange New Worlds episode 1, they are in love and fully intend to marry. Yet Spock is dedicated to his Starfleet career and he answers the call to join the Enterprise on its new five-year mission. For her part, T'Pring promised that she would not "chase" Spock "around the galaxy" in order to marry him. In TOS ' classic Vulcan episode, "Amok Time," T'Pring (Arlene Martel) was true to her word. When Spock (Leonard Nimoy), who was suffering from pon farr , returned to Vulcan, he found that T'Pring had chosen a different mate, and she engineered events so that Spock fought Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) to the death in the Vulcan ritual of kal-if-fee to free herself of her commitment to Spock. At the end of the kal-if-fee, Spock and T'Pring's relationship was completely over.

Related: Strange New Worlds Hints Pike Can Break Canon And Avoid His TOS Fate

Spock's dream in Strange New Worlds episode 5 was a note-perfect recreation of TOS ' "Amok Time" and how it depicted Vulcan. It even had the unforgettable theme music that played when Spock fought Kirk. The half-Vulcan Science Officer's hidden fear that T'Pring would reject him because he is "too human" manifested itself with Spock, who suddenly appeared fully human, being forced to fight a fully-Vulcan Spock, who T'Pring chose as her mate. However, Spock's dream takes on a different context when "Amok Time" is taken into consideration. Because Spock's dream is so identical to "Amok Time," it becomes a premonition of what would happen 8 years later, although Spock can't know that yet in Strange New Worlds .  But this retcon means Leonard Nimoy's Spock may have recalled the dream he had in 2259 when he arrived on Vulcan and saw T'Pring again in 2267.

"Amok Time" has a built-in explanation for why Spock didn't react to how similar the events of T'Pring's kal-if-fee were to this dream in Strange New Worlds. Spock was in the grip of pon farr- derived madness and he wasn't acting rationally. It was the shock of ritual combat and Spock believing he killed Kirk, his Captain and best friend, that snapped him out of pon farr and returned him to normal. But once Spock regained his wits, he must have silently taken stock that he dreamed virtually this entire scenario almost beat-for-beat in 2259 and his younger self's nightmare came true.

Spock rendered irrational by pon farr in "Amok Time" also sheds new light on how the Vulcan Science Officer reacted to Nurse Christine Chapel (Majel Barrett) in the episode. "Spock Amok" established that Spock and Chapel (Jess Bush) became friends in Strange New Worlds , and he came to Christine for help when his mind was accidentally placed in T'Pring's body. It also means that Chapel knew all about T'Pring years before Captain Kirk took over the Enterprise and they apparently never spoke about Spock's fiancée to others on Kirk's ship. Further, because Spock's dream in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds came true in TOS ' "Amok Time," it makes the disappointment Spock felt about T'Pring's actions even more poignant. Further, Spock and T'Pring's happy ending in "Spock Amok" becomes sadly ominous knowing what the future will bring.

Next: Strange New Worlds' Uhura Retcon Fixes A TOS Mistake

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds streams Thursdays on Paramount+.

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Recap / Star Trek S2 E1 "Amok Time"

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Original air date: September 15, 1967

We start off with McCoy catching Kirk on his rounds to talk about how un-Vulcanlike Spock's been for the past couple of days. Kirk at first dismisses McCoy 's worries as being nothing... until another ill-fated attempt by Nurse Chapel to gain his eye causes Spock to throw a temper tantrum (and a bowl of plomeek soup), catching everyone by surprise. Unfortunately, the green-blooded primadonna refuses to let in on what's causing his behavior, only demanding leave on his home planet.

Nothing doing, though; the Enterprise is on its way to represent the Federation at the crowning ceremony for the new ruler of Altair VI, which has been bumped up by a few days - nowhere near enough time for a detour to Vulcan. Spock, however, won't take "no" for an answer, and defies orders to head to Vulcan, anyway, forcing Kirk to order him to McCoy 's for a checkup to see just what the hell is wrong with him.

It turns out that Spock has hit that time in his life where as a Vulcan, he needs to return home and mate. If he can't, the massively elevated levels of adrenaline and other hormones will kill him within a week. note  As he is half human he had hoped he would be spared from this. It is implied he already has had it delayed. Kirk, sympathetic, tries to talk to Starfleet about a quick detour to Vulcan, but his refusal to go into Vulcan reproductive habits doesn't convince them. Kirk, having made his own assessment of the situation, decides they can do without the Enterprise for a bit and heads to Vulcan anyway.

Once at Vulcan, Spock introduces the crew to T'Pring, his wife-to-be, and offers an invitation to both Kirk and McCoy to the wedding ceremony. Arriving at Spock's ancestral home, they learn that T'Pau, the face of Vulcan, and the only person ever to decline a seat on the Federation council, is overseeing the proceedings. Then T'Pring throws a spanner in the works by invoking a rule allowing her to refuse her husband-to-be unless he proves his worth by fighting a champion of her choice — and she chooses Kirk. Although he is offered an opportunity to decline, since he's not a Vulcan and needn't be bound by Vulcan law, Kirk accepts, intending to either knock Spock out or find a way of taking a dive. It's only after he's accepted that anybody thinks to mention that the fight is — of course — to the death . A protracted fight scene between the two friends ends with Spock seemingly killing Kirk after McCoy gives him something to help fight in the more hostile environment of the planet.

With the shock of killing his best friend acting like a bucket of cold water on the horny Vulcan, Spock orders Kirk's body and McCoy back to the ship while he confronts T'Pring on her choice; turns out, T'Pring hated the idea of marrying for money and fame, and fell in love with a more obscurely-known Vulcan male named Stonn, and arranged everything so that, regardless of the outcome, she'd be able to stay with Stonn . Satisfied, Spock leaves T'Pring to her lover, warning him that wanting may be better than having , and returns to the Enterprise to turn himself in for murder.

But wait! Turns out, Kirk isn't dead! Yes, the substance McCoy gave him during the battle was actually some Applied Phlebotinum which allowed Kirk to simulate death. The episode ends with Spock barely catching himself from having a joygasm over Kirk's survival , and Kirk and McCoy having a good tease over it. Meanwhile, T'Pau covers for Kirk's shenanigans, saving him from another court martial.

Amok Tropes:

• Accidental Hug / The Un-Hug : Overjoyed that Kirk wasn't Killed Off for Real , Spock grabs him by the arms... and quickly attempts to pretend he didn't when he notices that Chapel and McCoy are watching.
• Kirk decides to defy orders regarding an important diplomatic function to save Spock, fully expecting that Starfleet will terminate his captaincy in response. He gets reprieved, of course, thanks to T'Pau. However, he didn't know that would happen when he made the decision.
• In return, Spock humiliates himself in front of T'Pau , the woman Kirk referred to as "all of Vulcan wrapped up in one package", by begging her to keep Kirk out of the kal-i-fee . T'Pau throws it back in his face with a few insults about his humanness, and it still isn't enough to stop him. As much as he fears breaking the taboo against emotions in front of his people, he fears more that Kirk will die if he doesn't attempt to save him. He says "He does not know," meaning Kirk didn't know it was a fight to the death.
• And then there’s McCoy’s decision to stop the fight by giving Kirk a shot, supposedly to help him breathe the thinner air of Vulcan better but really to sedate Kirk in a way that made it seem that Kirk was dead and thus keep Spock from actually killing Kirk. The Power of Friendship comes through in the end!
• Arranged Marriage : Spock and T'Pring were betrothed as children.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other : For all their sparring, McCoy proves that he and Spock truly are Vitriolic Best Buds ; when Spock asks him to accompany him to the pon farr , McCoy calls Spock " sir " and simply states he would be honored, without any attendant snark.
• The Bad Guy Wins : T'Pring isn't a villain per se , but she's nonetheless the instigator of the episode's conflict, and gets exactly what she wants. Though, it is possible that her invoking of an ancient, pre-Surakian custom would have made her a social pariah. Then again, the whole koon-ut-kal-if-fee ceremony is pre-Surakian, which is one reason it's so damned embarrassing. It's also possible that it would end up a hollow victory; maybe Stonn wouldn't be the only one to find that Wanting Is Better Than Having .
• Batman Gambit : T'Pring pulls one on Spock. Rather than choose her actual boyfriend as her champion in a duel to the death to dissolve the engagement, she chooses Kirk, reasoning (correctly) that whoever wins will be too upset about killing his best friend to go through with the wedding. Even when McCoy Takes A Third Option and both Kirk and Spock survive, she still gets her way.
• Battle Bolas : The Vulcan weapon ahn-woon, consisting of a leather strip with weights at each end, is used to entangle the legs of a competitor in a Kal-if-fee battle.
• The "Be Careful!" Speech : McCoy tells Kirk to "be careful" as he enters the second round against Spock. Kirk : Sound medical advice.
• Beyond the Impossible : Vulcans who have entered the blood fever are supposed to have sunk too far into madness to speak. To T'Pau's astonishment, Spock breaks this rule to plead for Kirk's life.
• Big "NO!" : McCoy shouts an utterly terrified "Spock! NO!!!" when a pon farr -riddled Spock comes this close to beheading his captain.
• Bitch in Sheep's Clothing : T'Pring. Granted, being engaged to a guy who you haven't seen in years would be potentially trying, but Vulcans have come to expect it. She is willing to force a fight between two best friends, one of whom is completely ignorant of what she is asking and the other of whom possibly has no more control over the Arranged Marriage than she does.
• Blatant Lies : Spock's reaction at the end of the episode. He was not "on the verge of... an emotional display"; he was simply pleased that Starfleet had not lost one of its finest officers. McCoy lampshades how poorly the Vulcan's lies stand up. However, the doctor is polite enough to wait till Spock is on his way out of the room to complete the sentence, probably deciding that the poor guy has had enough for a day. McCoy : Of course, Mr. Spock, your reaction was quite logical . ... In a pig's eye! note  Theodore Sturgeon revealed that DeForest Kelley had spontaneously spoken those words as McCoy , and they Threw It In. He says several of the actors "spoke their own lines" as they got very into their roles.
• Bottled Heroic Resolve : Subverted. Kirk becomes exhausted while duelling the deranged Spock, and McCoy calls a time-out to inject him with something that will give him a fighting chance. A Techno Babble explanation is provided — it'll help Kirk use the oxygen in his blood more efficiently, since the atmosphere on Vulcan is thin by Earth standards. Of course, McCoy has actually slipped him a mickey, giving him a sedative that will simulate sudden death and make it appear that Spock has won the battle.
• Bowdlerize : The German dub infamously completely changed the plot to remove all sexual references, as over there, they think Star Trek is a kids' show. As a result, the entire episode plays out as if the whole thing was All Just a Dream ( Spock is ill with " Space fever ", and the fight between him and Kirk is a hallucination), which is kind of a screw to the audience if you've ever seen the episode as it was in America. In the 90s, a correct dub of the episode was finally released.
• Comfort Food : For Spock, plomeek (or plomik — script drafts differ) soup. (Nimoy seems to pronounce it "plomag".)
• Kirk reminds Spock that he's been called the best first officer in the fleet .
• Cool Old Lady : T'Pau is an archetype . Few television shows ever have portrayed a woman of such advanced age (according to canon, she's 145, with Celia Lovsky herself being 70 at the time) in such an exalted position of power — aside from Queen Victoria or her descendants . You're looking at the gal who once told the Federation Council what they could do with their invitation, and who with a simple phone call to Starfleet Command saved Kirk from getting busted down to Spaceman Third Class for his hijacking of the Big E to take Spock home. All of Vulcan in one package.
• Death Faked for You : McCoy gives Kirk a neural paralyzer to prevent an actual death.
• Death World : Vulcan is quite inhospitable to humans, to the point that "hot as Vulcan" has become a common saying. McCoy brings this up when arguing for the right to give Kirk something to compensate (though here McCoy’s just trying to save Kirk’s life by giving him a neuroparalyzer to simulate death).
• Deus ex Machina : Kirk brought Spock to Vulcan against Starfleet orders to handle a time sensitive diplomatic event. Kirk mused once they arrived that he had better accompany Spock so he can more fully understand the event he sacrificed his career for. T'Pau is noted on her arrival that she is Famed In-Story as the only person to refuse membership on the Federation Council. At the end it's mentioned that T'Pau pulled some strings claiming she personally requested them, absolving Kirk of the backlash he was facing with for half the episode.
• Did Not See That Coming : T'Pring never mentioned McCoy when explaining her plan to Spock, and Spock invited him as a friend, not as backup. Nonetheless, he's single-handedly responsible for the episode's Happy Ending .
• Don't Make Me Destroy You : Not directed at Kirk himself, but on the verge of losing his sanity Spock practically begs T'Pau not to let the captain go through with the fight, as he does not want to kill his best friend.
• Dutch Angle : Canted camera work appears soon after the three heroes arrive for the wedding, focusing on the Vulcans. It serves to show just how unbalanced Vulcans in pon farr become.
• Easily Forgiven : In spite of Spock's attempt to hijack the ship and then murder him, Kirk is back to their regular relationship by the end of the episode. He's too fair-minded to blame his friend for a madness he fought as long as he could.
• Engagement Challenge : Well, sort of. A Vulcan bride can make her husband-to-be fight a challenger to win her, a remnant of the past when Vulcan men fought each other for mates before the whole process became cloaked in ritual and tradition (and as much logic as possible when pon farr is involved). And it may be that the "property of the victor" clause is a consequence of invoking this ancient and little-used tradition. (This was how Ted Sturgeon had originally meant it; the woman would become chattel, with no other rights or status. That got left out of the final draft script.)
• Exact Words : Spock attempts to use this on McCoy , saying that the Captain told him to "report to Sick Bay", and now that he has done so, he intends to leave . McCoy doesn't buy it, countering that he (obviously) has orders to give Spock a medical checkup.
• On the other hand, when Kirk makes it clear that he and McCoy will stay with Spock to the end, T'Pau says, "Spock chose his friends well."
• Chapel encourages it with Spock, who actually goes with it. Though, to be fair, he is somewhat less than...completely logical at the point.
• Spock calls Kirk by his first name upon seeing that he's Not Quite Dead .
• Forgets to Eat : According to Kirk, one of Spock's habits when in "one of his contemplative phases" is not eating.
• A Friend in Need : Kirk is patient with Spock's antics while in pon farr . Later, he sacrifices his command to save him (and almost sacrifices his life). His reason why? "He's my friend."
• Friendship Moment : Spock's joy at seeing Kirk alive, breaking his usual Vulcan stoicism if even for a moment, shows just how much Jim means to him.
• Half-Breed Discrimination : Of the verbal variety. When Spock begs T'Pau to keep Kirk out of the combat, she responds, "It is said thy Vulcan blood is thin. Art thee Vulcan, or art thee human?"
• Helping Another Save Face : "Amok Time" has Spock in the grip of blood fever during a bout of pon farr . Spock explains the situation to Kirk and McCoy , who both tell him that they'll never tell another soul about the private information he's divulged to them. This is especially poingnant for the Doctor, as he and Spock are Vitriolic Best Buds , and it would be easy for him to mock Spock over it, but he never does.
• Heroic BSoD : Spock breaks after the koon-ut-kalifee , realizing he has killed his Captain. (Nimoy said later that "I shall do neither (live long or prosper). I have killed my Captain — and my friend" was his favorite line in the whole series. He was so overcome with emotion he could barely get the words out. It's a beloved line for fans, and not just among Slash Fic shippers.)
• I Owe You My Life : Kirk says that Spock has saved his life a dozen times over when deciding to disobey orders.
• McCoy improvises a way to keep Kirk and Spock from killing each other pretty much on the spot and with no opportunity to discuss it with anyone else. As an Unspoken Plan, it naturally succeeds .
• T'Pring's is also implied to be one. It seems that the initial plan was for her to choose Stonn, and then Stonn and Spock would fight over her in full accordance with Vulcan tradition. Upon seeing Spock bring two humans with him, one the Captain of Enterprise , she gets a better idea: make Spock and Kirk fight each other, and no matter who wins, neither one will want her, and she is free to be with Stonn at zero risk to him .
• Instant Sedation : Not this time. It takes about two minutes for Bones' neural paralyzer to take effect, which makes sense as it needs to look like Kirk died in combat, not while taking a breather during halftime.
• Karma Houdini : T'Pring. She essentially humiliates Spock by calling for the challenge, forces him to fight his best friend and captain to the death , and leaves Spock genuinely believing he murdered Kirk. And in the end she gets exactly what she wanted from the start.
• Of course, since the entire duel was in accordance with Vulcan tradition and thus perfectly legal, there is a possibility that Spock can't be held responsible for Kirk's death. After all, considering Spock's mental condition at the time, Kirk was the only one of the pair who was legally responsible for his own actions, and he had agreed without coercion - in fact, almost everyone else (including Spock) had asked him not to do it.
• Spock snarls this when Uhura calls his quarters with a message, smashing the computer terminal while doing so.
• Before that, he chases Nurse Chapel out of his quarters, hurling the soup she made for him against the wall. (That soup stain stayed on the bulkhead throughout the rest of the series. You saw it every time someone moved down that corridor.)
• Letting the Air out of the Band : When Spock realises he's smiling and shuts down all expression, the swelling music grinds to a very awkward halt.
• Living Legend : T'Pring uses almost those exact words when she tells Spock that he's too famous for her when explaining her rejection.
• Manipulative Bitch : T'Pring.
• Mate or Die : Bones speculates that this is the price Vulcans pay for keeping their emotions bottled up the rest of the time. Ultimately Subverted , however, as (seemingly) killing Kirk snaps Spock out of it. The dialog reveals that pon farr has a number of effects. Spock explains it in terms of natal homing. On Vulcan, Kirk says koon ut kal-if-fee is "marriage or challenge" because Vulcans once killed to win their mates. McCoy says "They still go mad at this time", indicating the involuntary loss of emotional control, not just a mating drive, is the "price".
• Mating Season Mayhem : The episode shows Spock gradually losing his mind to the madness of pon farr while trying to keep the whole thing from his friends, as Vulcans find the whole experience mortifying. When Kirk finally gets him to confess in private, he invites the captain and McCoy to his wedding, only for it to go off the rails when the bride insists Spock fight to win her hand and picks Kirk as the other fighter. The results leave Spock devastated almost to the point of suicide before he finds out Kirk wasn't really dead.
• Mindlink Mates : Spock had a mindlink (Sturgeon called it a marn tam , and it's different from a mind meld) placed in him as part of an Arranged Marriage when he was a child. This mindlink was suspiciously easily overcome. Ted Sturgeon's idea was that pon farr was related to natal homing and then fully relieved either by having sex or engaging in mortal combat. This would dissolve the mind link because it would no longer be needed. Spock is cured when he believes he has been in and won a fight to the death. In the novel The Vulcan Academy Murders , Spock reveals to his father Sarek that he'd attempted to reach T'Pring via this mindlink in order to try and quell his madness. However, he wasn't able to, and later realized that she'd rejected him so thoroughly that the link was all but gone anyway.
• More Deadly Than the Male : While Stonn would presumably have thrown his all into the kal-if-fee , his girlfriend proves to be the far greater danger.
• Morton's Fork : When Spock confronts T'Pring after killing Kirk, she explained that by selecting Kirk she kept Stonn out of harm's way while hoping Spock would release her from the marriage because she had "dared to challenge". Of the many possible outcomes, her worst case scenario was to still be wed to Spock but as he would be gone on Starfleet duties she would have ample opportunity to remain with Stonn. All other outcomes, including Spock's death and Kirk would naturally reject her, would allow her to safely be with Stonn anyway.
• My God, What Have I Done? : Spock, believing that he has murdered Kirk, loses his will to live. (An earlier script draft has Spock explaining via a Vulcan proverb, ahn een kai larth — without reason to live, there can be no will to live.)
• Not Now, We're Too Busy Crying Over You : Played with when Spock expresses his regret to McCoy for Kirk's (believed) death, and doesn't stop agonising over it until Kirk himself intervenes.
• Not Quite Dead : Kirk.
• Not So Stoic : A famous and happy example; when Spock sees Kirk alive and well, his normal emotionless demeanor drops as he grins and nearly hugs the captain while calling him by name.
• Now You Tell Me : Kirk protests that T'Pau didn't mention the combat was mortal until after he'd agreed to it.
• Obvious Stunt Double : The fight scene features a stunt double that looks nothing like William Shatner fighting an equally non- Leonard Nimoy -ish stuntman.
• Kirk, when he is in Spock's quarters and realizes that Spock has been holding a knife in his trembling hand for their entire conversation.
• When Kirk realizes his fight with Spock is one to the death.
• Spock's reaction when he realizes he's just been emotional in front of Kirk, Christine Chapel, and McCoy . Unlike the others, it's Played for Laughs .
• Only Mostly Dead : Kirk, thanks to McCoy slipping him a mickey.
• Played for laughs at the end of the episode, when Spock discovers that Kirk is still very much alive; he is so beside himself with relief and joy that he calls him "JIM!" and breaks into an ear-to-ear grin for a moment before quickly composing himself and trying to play off his brief emotional outburst. Jim and Bones have some fun teasing Spock about it afterwards.
• Pet the Dog : T'Pau comes across as cold and a touch xenophobic , but she declares that Spock made wise selections with regard to his friends and saves Kirk's career by sending a request to Starfleet for the Enterprise to go to Vulcan.
• Please Spare Him, My Liege! : Spock begs T'Pau to block Kirk from the Kal-if-fee . She throws it back in his face with a few insults about his humanness . "Thee has the power, T'Pau... in the name of my fathers, forbid, forbid! I plead with thee. I beg...."
• Spock would literally rather die than have the problem explained to Starfleet Command. This is apparently true of all Vulcans at this point in history.
• Poor communication also almost killed Kirk in this episode. Would it have hurt T'Pau to tell him that the fight was a death match before he signed up? Maybe she assumed that, since Spock apparently trusts these two enough to bring them with him, they do know the details... Or maybe she just doesn't care either way.
• The apparent lack of communication between Spock and T'Pring also nearly serves to kill Spock and leads to the combat between Spock and Kirk - one has to wonder about the logic of not informing your betrothed you don't wish to marry them until almost literally the last second before he succumbs to the pon farr, which WILL kill him if not consummated. Some of the Expanded Universe works and fanfics have this play out as T'Pring fully intending to murder Spock, for varying reasons.
• Promotion to Opening Titles : Dear old DeForest Kelley as Dr McCoy in this second season opener. At last, the whole Power Trio is in the opening credits.
• Property of Love : How Vulcan marriages seem to work for the wife, as shown when T'Pring invokes the ritual challenge. Though this could be because T'Pring has willingly chosen an older, way more barbaric ritual. T'Pau: Thee are prepared to become the property of the victor? T'Pring: I am prepared.
• Red Sky, Take Warning : Vulcan's sky is scarlet when the Power Trio arrive for the wedding, almost as though foreshadowing what's going to happen. Cinematographer Gerry Finnerman is responsible for that; his use of color to evoke setting and mood on the show was already legendary, and he made sure that the Alien Sky of each planet reflected the nature of the inhabitants or what would happen there.
• Remember the New Guy? : Chekov is introduced as already an established crew member, though there's some odd close-up camerawork and some friendly chitchat between them to make sure we know he's not just another one-off co-pilot for Sulu.
• Reports of My Death Were Greatly Exaggerated : Upon returning to the Enterprise , Spock starts detailing his plans to leave Starfleet when Kirk suddenly walks in.
• Repression Never Ends Well : Vulcans suffer from an intense mating drive, coupled with a total loss of control, every seven years. While this might appear to be just Bizarre Alien Biology , Dr. McCoy theorizes that the race pays for their complete repression the rest of the decade with this madness. Given that Romulans (Vulcans who split off from the planet when emotional repression became the norm) are never mentioned as suffering from pon farr, he may have a point.
• Rhetorical Question Blunder : When McCoy complains about how disadvantaged Kirk is in Vulcan's atmosphere, T'Pau dismissively says "The air is the air. What can be done?" She doesn't seem to expect McCoy to actually have a means to even the odds a bit and give Kirk a fighting chance, but she allows it.
• Runaway Bride : T'Pring, in a way.
• Say My Name : Spock cries "JIM!!!" for one of the only times in the series when he sees Kirk alive.
• Series Continuity Error : T'Pau is shown to speak unaccented English in the prequel series . Kara Zedicker, who played young T'Pau, modeled herself closely on Celia Lovsky and said if they'd wanted her to speak with a similar accent she was ready.
• Slipping a Mickey : McCoy gives Kirk a shot, saying that it would help Kirk breathe the thinner Vulcan air. He really gave Kirk a neural paralyzer that made it look like he was dead.
• Stealth Hi/Bye : As Spock is explaining how he's going to resign his commission and turn himself in for Kirk's murder, Kirk walks up behind him. Dr. McCoy and Nurse Chapel can't keep the grins off their faces.
• The Talk : Spock is forced to explain Vulcan mating habits to Kirk partway through the episode.
• Tantrum Throwing : Spock really doesn't appreciate Chapel's bowl of plomeek soup. Spock: What is this?! (Chapel rushes out of Spock's cabin as the bowl goes flying across the corridor) Poking and prying! If I want anything from you, I'll ask for it ! Everyone else: ("WTF?" faces)
• Thousand-Yard Stare : Spock ends up with a horrified stare (inasmuch as a Vulcan can express it), clearly deep in Heroic BSoD and apparently about to commit suicide after 'killing' Kirk in his madness.
• Through His Stomach : Christine Chapel shows her concern for Spock by bringing him some Vulcan food.
• Too Important to Walk : T'Pau is carried to Spock's wedding in a sedan chair.
• Understatement : After almost giving Kirk the biggest and most joyous Man Hug in the history of Star Trek , Spock quickly restrains himself and simply says "I'm...pleased...to see you, Captain." Really? We would never have guessed.
• Unwanted Spouse : T'Pring really doesn't want to marry Spock, and he doesn't want her either after she sets him and Kirk against each other..
• Wanting Is Better Than Having : Spock’s warning to Stonn: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true."
• Wedding Episode : It's supposed to be an episode about Spock's upcoming wedding, but T'Pring throws it Off the Rails .
• When He Smiles : Spock has the biggest smile ever when he sees that Kirk isn't dead. Not that he'll admit it.
• Woman Scorned : T'Pring and Spock were bonded at seven. They should have been mated at eighteen - that's right, T'Pring has been waiting twenty years for her wedding night - instead Spock humiliates her by putting off their consummation and, according to D.C. Fontana's novel Vulcan's Glory (which considering her Creator status should count at least as Word of Dante ) tries to buy her off by announcing their marriage but paying the "bride price" note  Once a marriage is announced, the groom must make monthly payments to the bride's family. T'Pring has been extracting huge amounts of money from Spock for years — even though her family is also rich and she doesn't need it. until pon farr forces them to go through with it. Is it any wonder she wants him dead? [invoked]
• Worldbuilding : Vulcans were already the most fleshed out alien species on Star Trek beforehand because of Spock, but this episode dives headfirst into their culture, practices and biology.
• Worst Wedding Ever : Spock has to go through with a childhood betrothal to T'Pring. T'Pring does not love Spock, and uses the ancient Rite of Challenge to either kill Spock (so that she could be with her lover Stonn) or have Spock win (in which case he would either reject her and she could be with Stonn, or go through with the marriage and she would still be with Stonn because of Spock's career keeping him off-world). Spock didn't really love her either, but the scheme almost resulted in him killing Kirk, who had been invited along as the best man, leaving him traumatized and devastated.
• Xanatos Gambit : T'Pring is a total chessmaster. Even if Kirk had refused the challenge, or Spock had won but still been willing to go through with marrying her, Spock's Starfleet position would mean that he'd be gone most of the time, leaving T'Pring free to have an affair with Stonn in his absence (of course, it is shown that Spock would probably have killed himself if Kirk had died in the duel, leaving her free to marry again, but she couldn't have known that); at a minimum, she's no worse off than she was to start with. Spock himself acknowledges the logic of her plan, even while personally repelled by it.
• Ye Olde Butchered English : Writer Theodore Sturgeon apparently wanted to show that the Vulcan language, or at least an older form of it, had separate second-person singular and plural forms (as French does with "tu" and "vous"). They showed this by using the archaic second-person familiar pronoun "thee" for "you". But T'Pau and Spock, when they use these formal archaisms, used "thee" even when "thou" would have been the correct word. note  Spock says "Thee has the power, T'Pau" when he means "Thou hast". Even if Vulcan used the same word for both pronouns (as modern English does with "you"), the translator should have been programmed to recognize the difference between subjective and objective pronouns. As it was, formal Vulcan as rendered by Celia Lovsky and Leonard Nimoy sounded more like Quaker 'plain speech'. If thou art the subject of a sentence then the object of the sentence wouldst be thee. It also seems unlikely that "thee/thou" is the correct set of pronouns for the situation anyway - like the French "tu" it would only be used when talking to an inferior, a member of your family or a closer friend, so using it in a ritual like this would probably be highly inappropriate, at least when speaking to T'Pau. (Nowadays we tend to think of thou as the formal option since we only really hear it addressed to God in older hymns, but they're actually using the language of a child talking to their father.)
• You Are in Command Now : A somewhat unusual example. Blood-fever-affected Spock apparently kills the captain. After coming to his senses, Spock finds himself in command, as noted by Dr. McCoy . McCoy : As strange as it may seem, Mister Spock, you're in command now. Any orders? Spock : Yes. I'll follow you up in a few minutes. You will instruct Mister Chekov to plot a course for the nearest Starbase where I must surrender myself to the authorities.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious : Probably the most famous time Spock has ever foregone Kirk's title for his first name. It would be hard to think of a situation that warranted it more. Spock : Captain... Jim!
• Star Trek S1 E29 "Operation: Annihilate!"
• Recap/Star Trek: The Original Series
• Star Trek S2 E2 "Who Mourns for Adonais?"

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Star Trek: The Original Series

“Amok Time”

Air date: 9/16/1967 Written by Theodore Sturgeon Directed by Joseph Pevney

Review by Jamahl Epsicokhan

Review Text

Season two kicks off with an episode that can best be described as, well, fun. Spock finds himself at the mercy of the Pon Farr, the intense Vulcan mating cycle that clouds his logic and causes him to lose control of his emotions, eventually requiring him to return home and take a wife. Failure to do so would cause a chemical imbalance that could kill him. Interestingly, Spock is completely non-forthcoming about this problem—it's such an illogical and shameful dilemma that Vulcans cannot bring themselves to openly discuss.

"Amok Time" is the type of episode that is a success of attitude and character, and came at a time during the series where the characters were well defined. The plot isn't much to speak of, but it serves its purpose—although the rules of Spock's chemical-emotional overload seem a little bit arbitrary. (How could he be distracted by Kirk's death enough to overcome unconditional biological functions?)

A visit to Vulcan, a big fight between Kirk and Spock, and McCoy rigging the game with a clever ploy—it's irresistible stuff. And who could forget the classic moment when Spock finds himself overjoyed to realize that he hadn't actually killed Kirk as he had thought?

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70 comments on this post.

I hated Amok Time. In season 1, we believed that the Vulcans (or Vulcanians) were logical. In Amok Time, we saw a Vulcan society depdndant on the pomp of circumstance and males with a 7 year emotional cycle. How is this logical? And before anyone says it, I know its all make believe, but why create a logical society on the foundation of illogicality? Not one of Sturgeons finest hours. He created the law "99% of anything is crud". I think he underestimated in this episode.

I've heard others question the premise that Spock could just "get over" his terminal hormonal overload because he'd killed Kirk, but it made sense to me that after the battle, the hormones were dissipated. Vulcans allow for either battle or sex at that time, and Spock engaged in a battle, so he didn't need the sex. I liked the earlier scenes in this episode, with the concern and awkwardness between Spock and Kirk, and McCoy's worry over Spock's behavior. I liked that Spock asked both men, not just Kirk, to stand with him. The battle scene was a missed opportunity, though--we could have seen more primal bloodlust from Spock and more don't-make-me-kill-you concern from Kirk. And yay for McCoy being the hero!

As a life long Trekker who is old enough to have seen TOS when it was the ONLY Star Trek, you completely miss that this is one of the most important episodes in the Trek universe. This is Vulcan Culture 101! This is first time we learn about Pon Farr. This is our only visit to the much mentioned but never seen Vulcan. This establishes the character T'Pau. Fun? That is entirely too glib an analysis of one of the most essential episodes to understanding Star Trek. This is a four star episode because of it's importance to everything that we understand about Vulcans in every series and movie 40 years henceforth.

Before someone nitpicks about my previous comments, this is only visit to Vulcan in TOS. Still to dismiss Amok Time as just another episode is like saying Scotty is just another red shirt. You can't understand Vulcans without watching Amok Time period.

Paul, you obviously don't understand Vulcans. The Vulcans are not naturally born logical. They EMBRACED logic as a matter of self preservation. Vulcans are by nature savage and warlike. They embraced logic after their vicious nature nearly destroyed their civilization. The mating drive is the only part of their nature they couldn't tame. Vulcans are disgusted and embarrassed by Pon Farr but just as with human sex drive, they can't rule over their sex drive work just logic. Sex isn't logical. That was the whole point of Amok Time. I'm so sorry you don't get it.

Very fun and clever episode. @Paul - I understand your complaint, but I actually took that as the point of the episode; the Vulcan people pride themselves on their cooly logical exterior, but up close their culture, like their mating drive is actually as messy as everyone else's. Interesting that the p'onn farr is presented as a secret; apparently the Vulcans hide quite a lot they don't want known from other Starfleet races. A sign of vanity or insecurity among the "purely logical" Vulcans, perhaps? Great bit at the end where we see Spock's authentic happiness; one of the few times he's allowed to express emotions not caused by diseases or weird alien influences.

My question about this episode is if it's supposed to be a fight to the death how does Kirk explain his continued existence to the Vulcans? Does that mean that Spock didn't actually have to kill him after all but just defeat him?

I'd give this four stars.

What really struck me on the latest rewatch is how even though Leonard Nimoy wrings a lot of genuine pathos out of Spock's problem in this episode, he also kind of plays Spock as an awkward, horny teenager: all lanky, seeming uncomfortable with his body, uncertain what to do with himself, trying in vain to remember what his normal behaviour is and to mimic it while his mind is elsewhere, and full of shame. One of the things that makes Spock so appealing to a lot of Trek's fanbase is, and I think always has been, that he's a geek icon (I don't mean geek pejoratively here, and count myself among them): like Data later will be, he is a character we are meant to admire who values intellectual pursuits, science, and rationality, and is disinterested in the emotional flights of fancy that everyone else seems to indulge in; but unlike Data, Spock prefers it that way. The world can sometimes seem hostile to people who value logic above emotion, to people who are "cold," and Spock is the repudiation of that, at least in part. Spock's embarrassment that he can't control his mating instinct, and that said instinct is totally irrational, seems to me to be partly directed at science nerds, especially teenage ones, who value logic above all else and yet find with a shock that they are at least partly at the mercy of their biology and hormones, after having made a big deal out of placing emotions low on the list of personal values. I kinda sorta suspect, too, that the pon farr idea is part of the show's general effort to head off the possible negative consequences that one could expect from a hyper-rational perspective on reproduction. "Space Seed" pretty clearly lays out the show's stance on the Eugenics movement. But if there is nothing to reproduction but sensible, logical choices, and if emotion is also further eliminated (which is the assumption that Kirk has going into it), then Vulcans could all choose their mates based not on what is best for them personally but best for the species as a whole, and end up taking the reins of their own evolution and leading it who knows where. Well, or maybe not. If nothing else, the sex drive in *humans* is as powerful as it is because we need to continue propagating the species, and the desire to have sex sometimes is more powerful than the desire to have children in and of itself. The choice to represent the mating instinct in Vulcans as something out of control, which can only be corralled through very extensive rituals, is mostly about the mysteries of love and sexual attraction in our world, which are fuzzy for *us*, and we as a species acknowledge emotions as valuable in a way Vulcans do not, and our emotions are much less extreme than Vulcans' are naturally. According to McCoy, "They still go mad at this time. Perhaps it's the price they pay for having no emotions the rest of the time." This makes sense to me; the pon farr probably becomes not just about mating, but about a ritual release of years of pent up emotions, a necessary catharsis. Back in "This Side of Paradise," Kirk wasn't sure that Spock would be able to restrain his anger against him once Kirk got him going; Vulcans keep a lid on their emotions partly because if they *start* to get carried away by their emotions, they may not stop, and the pon farr period is the time in which they let themselves get carried away. The ritual itself is appropriately weird, involved, and somehow resonant in a hard-to-pin-down way; the T'Pau character was a great touch, lending an air of gravitas to the proceedings. You get the impression that only someone of total self-control can enforce the rituals in a way that is suitable and acceptable to all parties. The scene takes place in the hot Vulcan desert, which connects to the series' various Western motifs ("wagon train to the stars") and also suggests the fragility of civilization and the return to ancient roots, which cannot be excised wholly. This is of course a huge deal for the Kirk/Spock/McCoy triad, focusing in on Spock but also the amount of caring the three of them have for each other in general. This is one of the first times in which it's acknowledged outright that Spock and McCoy have affection for each other underneath the banter, and I think this would be difficult to play out before "The Galileo Seven" (for instance). Spock's eventually coming to confide in Kirk about his secret shame is a breakthrough in their friendship, too, because for the most part Spock maintains his unflappable air as much as possible even with those he is closest to; his trust that Kirk will not use this knowledge against him, or will not lose respect for him, is hard-won and difficult. Spock *begging* everyone not to let Kirk fight him, and Kirk's going in anyway because it might save Spock, works as well. And then there's the big fight scene itself, with the series' single most memorable music cue (not counting the theme song), that intense battle theme music which had been playing as a recurring theme all through the episode, much more slowly and quietly. Talk about your no-win scenarios for Kirk: either he dies or he kills Spock, neither of which he can obviously permit. I don't actually mind that Spock breaks free of his blood fever trance after he "kills" Kirk, for reasons that other commenters have mentioned above. And partly because I do think that it's the catharsis that is needed; the intensity of emotion that leads up to the ponn farr may in fact not be to help spur Vulcans on to mating in and of itself, but to have the strength to kill for their mates, and presumably to then mate as some sort of "prize." (Which is a bit of a gross way of looking at it, of course.) More to the point, in a fundamental way, a part of Spock really did "die" when he apparently killed Kirk -- because, for everything else he is, I do kind of mind the resolution from a plot level only insofar as McCoy's plan could easily have gone so absolutely, terribly wrong -- either Kirk could have passed out when Spock wasn't touching him, thus making McCoy's ploy obvious, or, much more seriously, Spock could just have killed Kirk when he passed out at which point Kirk would have been unable to defend himself. They got lucky, in other words, and it's a kind of lucky that the episode doesn't seem to acknowledge; I get the impression we're supposed to assume McCoy's plan was a good one, rather than an act of absolute desperation. But whatever: what does work about it is McCoy as a kind of trickster figure; Spock's being in the throes of the blood fever means he can't see outside it, and Kirk's absolute devotion to Spock and need to save him keep his vision similarly narrow. Even though McCoy is usually the most emotional of the three, this time he's the one with a cool enough head to figure out a way out of the situation through cunning and trickery, in a way that serves as a reminder of the importance of the trio as a trio rather than just a duo; the instability inherent in any group-of-three has the positive side effect that the third can help the other two out of a situation in which they're stuck. My favourite scenes in the episode are the two major post-fight scenes -- the first between Spock and T'Pring, the second with the Big Three, wherein Spock discovers Kirk is alive. Spock's sad, dejected acceptance of the cold, methodical logic of T'Pring's manipulation and his warning to Stonn -- that having a thing is not so pleasing as wanting, something which at this point he knows very well, having achieved his goal of escaping from the ponn farr's hold on him but at enormous cost -- really work for me. And of course Spock once again *loses emotional control* at the episode's very end, upon seeing Kirk again, which is the positive flipside to his losing emotional control in the fight earlier in the episode. Really, part of this episode is about how, ultimately, Spock's emotional attachment to Kirk (and, indirectly, to Starfleet as a whole) goes beyond the bonds of marriage and romantic love to T'Pring, and even, as it turns out, beyond biology. During the fight itself, biology and tradition won out, but once he saw what he had done, he instantly "sobered up." Kirk is more important to him than T'Pring, and Starfleet is more important than Vulcan. It is perhaps unfortunate that they should be placed in such opposition, but it makes some sense that there is, since Starfleet is still a largely human endeavour. It makes sense, then, that part of the reason T'Pring prefers to rid herself of Spock is because his legendary status, which stems from his attachment to Starfleet, puts her off. This is an episode about the bonds of friendship and chosen life being stronger, when all is said and done, than mere biology, which I think is not so much anti-marriage or anti-relationship (though it *could* be interpreted that way) as a celebration of chosen bonds rather than ones chosen for one, by tradition and biology. Other notes: this episode gives no indication of whether female Vulcans undergo ponn farr too. I find it interesting and a little sad that Spock seems to be coming on to Chapel after it seems that he definitively won't be going back to Vulcan. It must be sad for Chapel to be such an absolute last resort, just marginally above dying -- especially since Chapel is so much more sympathetic a character than T'Pring. I think the seven year cycle is a reference to "The Seven Year Itch." I think this is a 4 star show, and it kicks off season two very well. Season one is probably the best season of the show, with relatively few weak episodes and a huge number of strong ones, including "The City on the Edge of Forever," which is probably the best episode of the series. But season two, while much more uneven, has a greater concentration of absolute top-tier classics, IMO -- I'd probably put "Amok Time," "Mirror, Mirror," "The Doomsday Machine," and "The Trouble with Tribbles" above all but "City."

What spoils the end of this episode for me is that when Spock realises that Kirk is still alive, he gets a look of pure joy on his face. And just as he does, Shatner steps between him and the camera, so we don't see it properly!

Saglam I.K.

I am no expert on Star Trek but isn't there a glaring plot hole in this episode. As far as I know Vulcans are supposed to be like 10X more stronger than humans. So how could Kirk even last a few minutes against Spock? Perhaps the ponn farr takes away the normal physical strength of Vulcans? I am kind of surprised that no one brings this up ever.

I like Jammer's review, this episode is fun. But I also agree with Mike who wrote in 2013 about the seriousness of this episode to Star Trek canon. I was 12 to 15 years old when TOS originally aired. TOS was my favorite show back then. And this episode was one of the best for me. And after having to wait for season two through the whole summer! Great payoff! This episode is 4 star TOS for sure in my opinion. The big three relationship and the love they had for one another is on full display here. Nurse Chapel's care for Spock is really touching. The twist at the end is awesome. And like Jammer said, one of the best TOS moments ever is when Spock finds Kirk is still alive. I also agree that battle or sex would release Spock's hormones back to normal. So battle did it. I didn't find the plot trivial at all. I love this one and think its one of the very best TOS episodes ever.

In answer to Sagiam I.K., perhaps Spock is not 10x stronger than Kirk on Vulcan because Spock is, on Vulcan, subject to the thinner atmosphere and higher gravity which gives a Vulcan his "super strength" when the air volume and gravity are set to human standards. But then again, Kirk would have still been hard pressed to breathe properly while fighting, and lifting those weapons should have been much harder for him. So maybe the Plak Tow (blood fever) does something to weaken the Vulcan in this situation. Or, it's also possible that despite the Plak Tow's influence, Spock was actually trying as hard as he could to restrain his full impulse to fight with all his might, and to instead go easy on Kirk, while making it *seem* like he was going all-out for blood. Being that he's half-human, perhaps the Plak Tow doesn't have *quite* the same hold on his mind as it does for a full-blooded Vulcan. [Given that he only underwent Ponn Farr for apparently the first time in his thirties, after thinking that he "might have been spared" from it, it does seem plausible that the Ponn Farr would affect a half-Human half-Vulcan differently than a typical Vulcan]. --> And yes, the regenerated Spock on the Genesis planet did undergo Ponn Farr as a teenager, but perhaps the Genesis effect didn't just accelerate his growth, but also intensified or ignited that which would have otherwise been largely dormant post-adolescent impulses. Anyway, back to the Amok Time fight: Maybe Kirk was just very effective at evading most of the swipes and jabs and thwacks that came his way, and he didn't need to match Spock's Vulcan-adapted strength to fend him off for most of the fight - well, until the choking happened, which happened to coincide with McCoy's gamble of knock-out medicine. Oh well, in any case, it wouldn't have been as fun a match if Spock had sliced Kirk in two with the Lirpa or beaned him in the noggin with the Ahn'woon right off the bat, would it?

"Dis combat is to de det." --T'Pau Gotta love Vulcans with Viennese accents.

If violence or sex are the only ways for a Vulcan to keep from dying at this time, imagine how rough their love-making must be. (lol) T'Pring didn't seem to be affected by it, do only the males go into rut? I know later series retcon this for the sake of some "fan service" with female Vulcan characters but it seems here, since T'Pring was able to be released from her marriage bond for asking for the challenge (and possibly end up unmarried and alone) that she wasn't bound to the same "mate or die" thing Spock was.

Definitely four stars. This one has stood the test of time, for all the reasons others have posted upthread.

Truly one of the best Trek episodes. So much to admire about this episode including an outstanding soundtrack - classic/iconic fight music but also the music portraying various emotions/scenes (Spock brooding, the processional) - really encourage any serious Trek fans to buy the soundtrack (comes with The Doomsday Machine soundtrack which is excellent too). Loved the moments when Spock tries to explain to Kirk "Vulcan biology" to which the captain responds "...the biology of Vulcans..." and "the birds and the bees are not Vulcans..." Very cool how they showed the aerial view of Vulcan and the place of Spock's ancestors. Chapel's emotional caring for Spock is also touching - how happy she is to make a bowl of soup for him. Really can't find any flaws with this episode. I have a few disagreements with Jammer's review and I wholeheartedly agree with @Mike and @kerry's comments. This is essential Trek and goes far beyond being "fun". It's an easy 4/4 stars for me - as much as "The City on the Edge..." is widely regarded as the best episode of all, for me, I'd rank "Amok Time" ahead of it. Spock the Vulcan is so critical to TOS and this episode really gives a good background to the species which would have been very important for the understanding of the show back when it was made and nobody knew what to make of Vulcans.

So Kirk and McCoy have little knowledge of pon farr here, but the prequel Enterprise kind of blew that up.

and "you are prepared to become the property of the victor" doesn't sound very Federation-y.

Four stars! Inexplicable to me that Jammer gives it only 3 without really justifying why it isn't a half-star or full star higher. This is definitely better than some of Jammer's four-star episodes: Indeed it's one of the most iconic and memorable Star Trek episodes ever. It's the first fully character-driven episode on TOS, giving us our deepest dive (at this point) into Spock's inner workings and culture and relationship to his friends Kirk and Spock. But it's also, of all the thousands of Star Trek episodes, the one that fleshes out an alien culture best. Forget the Klingons, because the Vulcans remain the most fully-developed and believable aliens on Star Trek, and a big part of that starts here with the rituals and hand salute. But the show is just plain fun too, not merely something to watch because a Trek nerd tells you "hey this episode is Really Important to the Made-Up History of This Show." Chapel and all of the regulars, especially the big three, are fully developed here. Going beyond the "crew forced to fight each other" theme that becomes cliche after this episode, we have the added tension of the "Captain is Forced to Fight His Best Friend to the Death" idea, and for once there's actually no obvious cheat! It's really clever how the characters find a way to care for each other here. Their friendship and camaraderie comes across so genuinely here, and the chemistry is undeniably appealing. There are too many cool concepts and touches in this one to list, but the story -- dependent so much on Vulcan culture and yet truly clever in the way it unfolds -- is especially excellent and so organic to the main characters. I love Amok Time!

Debra Petersen

I love this episode, but there is one thing I've wondered about that I don't think I've ever really seen addressed. Maybe it's been missed because people are so taken with T'Pau's presence and impressive air of authority. The fact is that she allows Kirk to make his decision about accepting the challenge KNOWING he doesn't understand that the fight is to be to the death. Spock had broken through a condition that should have made him incapable of speech to tell her so and to plead with her to "forbid", but she dismisses him. Even when that fact comes out and Kirk and McCoy start to object, she basically just cuts them off and tells them to shut up. So what's going on with her? Is it simply that, if someone is going to die, she would rather have it be a human than a Vulcan? That would seem to be an objectionable attitude, and it would make her statement to McCoy that "I grieve with thee" hypocritical. But then there's the fact that she seems to have forced Starfleet to accept the diversion of the Enterprise to Vulcan. And there is never any later indication that Kirk's still being alive is a surprise to anyone on Vulcan. So did she somehow know what McCoy would do, or even influence that in some way? In any case, Spock's reaction on discovering that Kirk isn't dead after all is a truly classic Trek moment.

I love this episode but it raises a lot of continuity problems with other stories (Pon Farr this, Pon Farr that). For one thing, Kirk is an important man... wouldn't T'Pau find out he's alive later? How would she react?

@Debra Petersen - You raise interesting points. There are clear hints that T'Pau aids and abets Kirk and McCoy's plans - helping to get Vulcan out of a diplomatic mess with Starfleet. She probably realised in advance that the bride had brought her lover along so was going to challenge. She would have made the same logical deductions as the bride so would not have been surprised that Kirk was chosen. Presumably she felt that Spock was in no condition to beat lover boy anyway. She stopped the fight and gave McCoy a chance to inject Kirk. She made no attempt to confirm Kirk's "death". And she covered for Kirk by putting in a bogus request for the Enterprise's presence at Vulcan. I would put all this down to T'Pau being an extremely smart cookie.

If either sex or battle could cool Spock’s hormones off, why couldnt he simply have a friendly fist fight onboard Enterprise? This is my 1st run thru TOS so far and the only word it comes to mind is “lame”. I still dont get why trek fans say TOS is better than TNG and VOY, lol.

Spock got over his Pon Farr because he cares about Kirk whether he states it or not. I say the shock of seeing your captain and best friend dead in your hand would shock any guy ready to fornicate, ask any guy what happens if he gets scared. The lovely Arlene Martell / T'Pring also starred in the 1960's Outer Limits: Demon With A Glass Hand. Spock should have tried to be kinder to Nurse Chapel and she did confess to him that she loved him in The Naked Time and Plato's Stepchildren.

First, @Peet I would say that T'Pau would not care that Kirk is still alive, simply because the "fever" was resolved. That raises this point to @Mypro. If I had to violently murder my best friend, I would probably loose any interest in anything. Just a thought.

@mike: definitely @William B: That was a fantastic review. Bravo. @Jammer: I mildly request that you rethink this one as being far deeper than a fun, silly romp. It's the meat and potatoes of of the show, not the dessert, to me. @Saglam: My thinking was that Spock was put in a prolonged state of physiological stress from being unable to find a resolution to his instincts, as Bones had put it, like a human being full of enormous amounts of adrenaline to the point it could kill them or something of that sort, and by the time he was meant to fight to the death, Bones didn't even have any real faith Spock could win a fight with another Vulcan male, he'd been so weakened after this delayed action on his bodily crisis. Yet, even weakened that much, he's still more than dangerous enough to kill Jim (and snap that wutchamawatzit weapon, for that matter). So, I don't think it was a plot hole. I also have no problem with how Spock's situation was resolved in the sense that there's human fight or flight, and, well, in Vulcans at this time, it's fight or...another f-word. As soon as you hit a certain point of intensity, it makes sense that the body calms down, I guess. It reminds me of anxiety attacks and the idea that your fight or flight mechanism gets a bit stuck because once you get anxious, as though you need to fight or escape, there's neither end and you have no resolution to make the switch flip back off. Bones: In a pig's eye. Love it.

Nice to see another comment on this episode which I watched again for the umpteenth time a couple of days ago. I had a smile from ear-to-ear as I watched the entire episode - my level of enjoyment of it is still off the charts. No question a 4-star episode by my criteria. And that doesn't even reflect as mike said long ago how important this episode is to Trek establishing a new culture, world, and new biology. The enhanced version's shots from afar of Spock's family's ceremonial grounds (walking across the bridge etc.) are among the best I've seen in all of Trek. Wholeheartedly agree with JD about William B's comment - wonderful insight into what makes this episode such a classic with all its layers of complexity that might be overlooked. But the thing I realized after my re-watch was that this is perhaps the first best example of a "Big 3" episode. Season 1 didn't really have anything like it where it was basically just the Big 3 and their friendship/interactions/dynamic. I think it would become a greater focus as S2 wore on and in S3 like in "Metamorphosis", "The Immunity Syndrome", "Bread and Circuses". I think the best example of their wonderful dynamic is "The Empath" with the self-sacrifice element. Bottom line is "Amok Time" established something unique and special between the Big 3 that no other Trek comes close to matching, IMHO. The role of doctor in TOS is given far greater weight than in any other Trek, but it's good that other Treks didn't just follow the TOS formula either. I think if there's 1 TOS episode that must be watched for reference in later episodes and series, it's "Amok Time".

Thanks, you guys.

Again I have to go against the other posts and say this is not one of my favorite episodes, i dont even like the title,why not call it the Pon Farr?? what does amok time even mean??

@ hifijohn, Well, your question got me to do a Google search. Aside from the regular meaning of "running amok", amok meaning something like "wildly attacking or killing", there is also apparently an old psychiatric definition of it: "In 1849, amok was officially classified as a psychiatric condition based on numerous reports and case studies that showed the majority of individuals who committed amok were, in some sense, mentally ill.[9] The modern DSM-IV method of classification of mental disorders contains two official types of amok disorder; beramok and amok. Beramok is considered to be the more common of the two and is associated with the depression and sadness resulting from a loss and the subsequent brooding process. Loss includes, but is not limited to, the death of a spouse or loved one, divorce, loss of a job, money, power, etc. Beramok is associated with mental issues of severe depression or other mood disorders. Amok, the rarer form, is believed to stem from rage, insult, or a vendetta against a person, society, or object for a wide variety of reasons. Amok has been more closely associated with psychosis, personality disorders, bipolar disorder, and delusions." In short, I think I've been misreading the emphasis of the title for a long time. "Time" isn't the emphasized word, it's "Amok." Basically the equivalent of saying "it's the murderous time" or "crazy-time". It's crazy-time now! Something like that. Basically the time when Vulcans go amok on each other.

Trekfan, William and Rahul's comments above say it all, really, and say it well. I would add only that this episode is essentially a love story. Spock's overcome with the urge to mate, and his buddies love the guy so much, they do everything in their powers to help him. The bro-love between Spock and the gang is just incredible. Beyond this, it's also a very brave and idiosyncratic choice for a season premiere (assuming it was always intended as one).

Well, at first I found it both funny and remarkable that Spock could overcome his urge to mate by tussling a bit with Kirk. Watching it again, I see that it isn't so much the tussle, as the belief that he had killed Kirk, that seemed to knock the libido right out of Spock. It's still pretty odd, given how crazy-gone he was. Nimoy does a truly great job. He and Shatner are good together as Kirk teases the facts out of Spock. Some funny lines as well as serious, and nicely played. I love that they were all so in awe of T-Pau. Again, despite the rampant sexism in the show, it was still ahead of it's time. They were trying. The whole idea of the Ponn Fahr is kinda nutty, and sort of burdened the series when it came to Vulcan portrayal, but nicely alien. An above average offering, I'd say.

What's interesting here is the Vulcans are depicted as somewhat brutal savages when it comes to social rituals. There's arranged marriages orchestrated by political status rather than romance, and there's battles *to the death* over who gets to mate with who. Are these the same Vulcans we see in "The Search for Spock"? It's almost as if they took this template for Vulcans and applied them to Klingons later because it's hard to believe that Vulcans would be capable of such savagery. Still, none of this later retconning hurts the episode itself. Mostly I can get on board with how well Nimoy guards his emotions yet shows them indirectly to his dear friends, Kirk and Bones. The ending is very predictable in terms of story, but the acting of Nimoy, Shatner, and Kelley makes the screenplay really shine.

@ Chrome, What this episode says to me is that *no one* can contain their emotions forever, not even the superior Vulcans. Even with them there comes a point of explosion where they run amok. The title sort of says it all, even though I never understood it as a kid: there is, and always will be, a time when amok becomes inevitable, and for a Vulcan every seven years is amok time (i.e. the time comes to run amok). The fact that they are hyper-logical means that they regulate and ritualize even their going out of control, so that they can sanitize and control it, so that the seven-year itch becomes a part of their culture rather than an objection to it. Whether that actually works or makes sense is up to the viewer, especially with what a conniving wife Spock was matched with. That's another thing I liked about this one, that subsequent Treks seemed to want to scrub: "logical" doesn't have to mean nice; it means efficient. In this sense they may indeed have something in common with the Romulans. So we have on display both that Vulcans do go out of control, in carefully prescribed ways (which reminds me of Festival in Return of the Archons) and also that their logic also serves as a shield for good old duplicity. The closest we come to an analogy to this veneer vs reality thing is in DS9 with Odo , who's the Spock-character for that show (each show has one). In that one we get a more vivid look at the difference between an outward virtue and the inward forces that drive it. I guess I don't see the Vulcans as retconned later on so much as the focus being on how logical they are. They ended up being more of a caricature of themselves later on, for the most part being 'the logic guys' rather than 'the guys who put up a front of logic.' Episodes like Sarek and even Take Me Out to the Holosuite do bring back this notion of the interior thing being far different from the exterior.

@Peter G. I agree with what you're saying, it's just jarring that they dropped a lot of this stuff later. I think Sarek was more of a "special case" however, because he was subject to a rare illness whereas in most cases Vulcans can keep their minds whole up until their death, as I understand it. The Pon Farr ritual is much more routine for Vulcans, and it seems only Vulcans can really tolerate its savagery as McCoy and Kirk basically cheat their way out of the ritual's outcome. Notably Spock is actually thrilled they cheated the system, perhaps suggesting he's not so enamored with Vulcan tradition either.

I definitely consider this an overrated episode and never one I found particularly entertaining. Yes, the early part is good with Spock's distress and feeling ashamed with his loss of control. I also appreciate the glimpse into Vulcan and its customs. But... that the Vulcans would set up a system where the female can force a battle to death is how can we say .... illogical. Even the idea that the female shouldn't be forced to have sex with her betrothed, presumtively if the betrothed wins, she still has to have sex with him and that is after he has killed they guy she wants! That T'Pring and Stonn would even have an attraction for each other doesn't make sense, as supposedly Stonn wanted to fight as her champion even though he is apparently not under Pon Farr. The show also has Spock and T'Pring betrothed as children, yet from at least "The Menagerie" we know Spock has been a SF officer for well over 7 years, so this would not have been his 1st pon far. It's also overly convenient that Spock gets to bring 2 guest and his plus 2 just happens to be McCoy, which seems like a mechanization to allow McCoy to save the day. Finally (and this is what always bothered me from 1st time I saw this), the happy ending hinges on Spock "killing" Kirk with the poll of his weapon rather than bashing his skull or openning his guts with the business ends. I never bought how the fight turned out. I am dismayed that this episode is held in such regard.

So season 1 started with a visit to one of Bones' old flames who turned out to be a salt-sucking monster, and Kirk almost gets killed. And season 2 starts with a visit to Spock's old lady who turns out to be a cheating whore (Spock: "Logical. Flawlessly logical."), and Kirk almost gets killed. So what can we expect for the start of season 3?!? Don't tell me guys, I have high hopes ;) @Rahul, yes the sound track is particularly impressive - that Processional is incredible! https://youtu.be/onUvPT0NK3s Unreal.

Not just an episode from Classic Trek, but a truly classic Trek episode. Some thoughts this time around: First, I found William B's comments years ago very interesting, especially the suggestion that this keeps people from imagining Vulcans as Space Aryans engaged in selective breeding of their own species. In the James Blish short story collection based on the TOS episodes, there is a line i remember reading but that I do not ever remember having seen when watching the episode. I'm not sure if it was edited out in reruns or if it was cut from the original script. It is the end of Kirk's response to Spock's question about how Kirk supposes Vulcans select their mates. Instead of stopping after saying that he assumed it was done "logically," in Blish's version Kirk adds, "Eugenically, perhaps." I seem to remember hearing that some differences between Blish and the episodes as aired exist because Blish was given early drafts of the scripts before they were shot. I can imagine a long discussion about that one phrase, not unlike William B's observation, but ultimately leading to it being cut as raising too scary of an issue less than two decades after the Third Reich, in connection with a character and a race intended to be more unambiguously admirable than the throwback Khan. Second, I love what this episode does with the murky relationship between Spock and Christine Chapel. In some episodes, Chapel looks like a silly schoolgirl with a crush on a man who is way out of her league because he is not really a "man." Here, however, we see that somewhere VERY deep down, Spock acknowledges that her interest is not entirely unrequited. Their respective "natures" dictate a relationship that can only hover on the edge of eros. I cannot escape the sense that things might have come out differently for them if … well, if things had been different. That is more poignant than a mere one-sided crush. I've always thought that the Abrams reboot should have given Spock a relationship with her, rather than with Uhura. Third, I appreciated the writer's effort to make T'Pau's speech sound formal, traditional, and vaguely religious, but I have always found her repeated use of "thee" as the subject of sentences distracting. Is the Universal Translator calibrated incorrectly to translate her archaic speech? The nominative case is "thou"; "thee" is the objective case. Yeah, I know, professional editors can be SO picky! And fourth, if you haven't read the Trek novel "Mind Meld," I recommend it, if only for the opportunity to see a Vulcan wedding where things go according to plan.

A classic 4 star episode, and a great way to kick off Season 2, despite its flaws. Sturgeon was the right choice of writer and he did a good job even though constrained by the TV restrictions of the time. There were so many things to admire: - the obvious need of a species that has suppressed emotions to have one time when that is released as a “safety valve” - the way McCoy stands up for Spock all the way - the scene between Spock and Chapel - the first use of the Vulcan 🖖 and “live long and prosper”, plus the character of T’Pau Plus we get the introduction of Chekhov and some nice close-ups of the ship, side on. I wasn’t quite so impressed by the Vulcan surface — I would have thought it would be far more technological, and the ceremony less ritualistic. I did like T’Pring’s logic but I was puzzled why she was not suffering from Pon Farr? A final thought: has anyone else noticed how the ship’s decks are constantly full of crew members going from one place to another, as if they had no job to do that kept them somewhere?

love the lirpas and the atmosphere of this episode in general, the foundation for vulcan culture as we see it later on

About Kirk being alive after the "to the death" fight: I think the question is what exactly is the "to the death"-ness of the fight. Kirk being alive (and the vulcans discoverying it later) would be a problem only if the vulcans really WANTED the fight to be to the death. But I think what it really means is that the fight is to the death only because the Vulcan under Pon Farr will not stop his frenzy untill the adversary is dead, and the other vulcans would not interfere on that matter. So, in the event that the Vulcan stops because he THINKS the adversary is dead, well lucky for the loser. If, afterwards, both are cool with the way things played, It's not like the other Vulcans would demand the job to be finished -- to do so, one could even say, it would be most illogical. What really bothered me was the flimsiness of McCoy's solution. Kirk could've passed out in a wrong moment and actually being killed. I mean, it is better for him to have a way to scape trought a fake death then to be left to die for real, ok, but the medicine could easily remove Kirk's chance to neutralize Spock by getting Kirk out in the wrong moment. I thought, and I think it would be a better solution, Kirk had just taken the opportunity and faked a death by asphyxiation. I guess it would be approprietadely in caracter for him to solve the dilemma by being smart like this, and to McCoy, being a clever fella he is, to catch what the captain was doing and roll with it, stating that he was dead.

Pon farr: the Vulcan urge to mate Jamie Farr: the Vulcan urge to wear women's clothing

For me, this is a 4 star episode. I have resisted rewatching until now because when I first saw it (age 12? Maybe? A long time ago?) I was just so in love with Spock, and I was very much afraid it wouldn't live up to my memories. And my memories are weirdly accurate. When they beamed down to the planet and the procession began, my mind said "T'Pau" well before Kirk did! And seriously, I think I last saw this ep in the late 70s. Anyway, it's emotionally resonant, tightly written, and beautifully acted (T'Pau is amazing... and that weird sort of Pennsylvania Dutch idiom approximating old school Vulcan!) . It also, for pretty much the first time, tries to imagine a humanoid culture that isn't based on some sort of weird ur-Americana (Return of the Archons, anyone?), but that has its own rituals and practices. Is it sort of uncomfortably riffing on East Asian societies? Sure. But points for not imagining that all societies are basically WASP.

Also @navamske .... bwahaha! Mid-pandemic I did a deep M*A*S*H* dive. Love Klinger!

Proud Capitalist Pig

Leonard Nimoy was an absolute gem. “Amok Time” showcases his best performance in Star Trek yet, full of competence and nuance. For two episodes in a row, we've got Spock amok (although with a season break in between I suppose). And in both episodes, we can count on the brilliant Nimoy to keep this interesting and reasonably entertaining. It’s the little details of his performance that speak the loudest. Check out Spock’s hand, behind his back, in the early scene where he tells Kirk that he wants to take his shore leave specifically on Vulcan. His hand starts shaking. In the next shot of his back, he’s added his other hand to hold it steady. It’s a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it-detail but speaks to Nimoy’s genius and respect for the material. He *is* Spock throughout these scenes. I love William Shatner’s take on Kirk, but sometimes it’s hard to tell where The Shat ends and Kirk begins. But with Nimoy (and DeForest Kelley here) there’s no question. It’s completely immersive. It’s admirable that “Amok Time” showcases the planet Vulcan itself, and teaches us about our hybrid first officer’s culture and traditions. So it’s a must-see for sure. But a few things don’t make sense to me (I’m nitpicking here; I don’t let nitpicks affect my score): -- Vulcans only get “in heat” once every seven years?! Huh?! Is there any population growth at all on Vulcan? Even if every pregnancy leads to litter of babies, like dogs and cats, that is way too long of a dry spell for an entire civilization. It’s all well and good for Vulcans to be embarrassed and touchy when it comes to their natural sexual drives (compulsions aren’t very “logical”). But only once and only once every seven years? That’s pushing it. -- So T’Pring, who is an absolute smokeshow by the way, turns out to be a very competent cheating whore in full command of her faculties. Really?! Let’s grant that it seems to be only the Vulcan males who experience heat. T’Pring wants to fuck Stann, not Spock. So Stann, who does *not* seem to be in heat, can stand back and watch as T’Pring and T’Pau insist that Spock fight a third man of T’Pring’s choosing (Kirk in this case) to make sure that everything goes according to her plan no matter what the resolution is. Huh?! What is this, The Bachelor? Why do the Vulcans have these traditions in the first place? Why would Spock be drawn *only* to T’Pring (she’s hot, don’t get me wrong, but you’d think he’d have compulsions for any passably-attractive Vulcan female)? What if T’Pring wasn’t anywhere near the Vulcan planet at the time? What if she were dead? Spock would just die too? -- But wait, Spock has a way out. As many commenters above have pointed out, the reason Kirk’s supposed death gets Spock out of his funk is: 1.) because violence (especially in psychopaths) has long been a substitution for sex in certain people because they both come from primal compulsions, and 2.) Spock has some mad bro-love for Kirk, and the loss of his best friend would cause just as intense of an emotional flash as sex with T’Pring would. So damn, all you have to do if you’re a Vulcan in pon farr and your woman is dead, unreachable, or doesn’t want you, is knock your best friend unconscious and have a medical expert inject the friend with a serum that makes him play dead. Solved! In a strange sort of way, although it was really the only way for this story to be resolved, it’s a really ill-conceived cop-out of a contrivance. Spock and Kirk seem really strung along by the plot in “Amok Time,” but it’s an entertaining romp and boasts some fantastic acting. I liked the great use of McCoy here, and many commenters above are absolutely right -- this episode highlights the strength of friendship and the compulsions to bond with other people more than anything else. So it has its merits if you can look past the conveniences. Hats off to the lovely Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel as well. While her role in this situation is rather thankless, it’s obvious that she and Spock care for each other in their own way and there’s some real depth to Chapel’s feelings for Spock, and his for her. It’s not that she has a passing crush on him, it’s that she values his *friendship* first more than anything, and that’s a good start to a meaningful relationship. She’s the Anti-T’Pring in this story. T’Pring is betrothed to Spock by traditional fiat, but she wants nothing to do with him while he is about to die if he can’t bang her. Chapel is the “nice girl” in all the teen movies that is waiting patiently in the background, her love seemingly unrequited. This is why it’s almost tragic that Spock *must* fuck T’Pring for the pon farr to be resolved. Chapel would be perfectly happy to, um, give him an outlet for releasing his tension. I liked @William B’s take on the Vulcan disdain for primal instincts being comparable to awkward adolescent pinings that for many youngsters are as impossible to ignore as they are to resolve. We’ve all been there. And I love @Peter G’s musing that, “Logical doesn’t have to mean nice; it means efficient.” Very true--logic by its nature is often cold. The fight between Kirk and Spock was dynamic and well choreographed. And at the end of the show, Spock’s literal elation at learning that Kirk is still alive was downright heartwarming. But come on--I would much rather have seen Spock bang that smokeshow T’Pring. Best Line: Kirk -- “First Officer Spock seems to be under stress.” My Grade: B

I wonder why they altered the opening theme. Now it sounds like an opera soprano’s ghost is screaming at me. What was wrong with it the first time? I did appreciate one aspect of it, though--nice to see DeForest Kelley getting some billing love.

@ PCP, "Hats off to the lovely Majel Barrett as Nurse Chapel as well. While her role in this situation is rather thankless, it’s obvious that she and Spock care for each other in their own way and there’s some real depth to Chapel’s feelings for Spock, and his for her. It’s not that she has a passing crush on him, it’s that she values his *friendship* first more than anything, and that’s a good start to a meaningful relationship." What I think is nice in Chapel's portrayal here is that it's a follow-up to earlier episodes showing she wants more than friendship with him, and yet at no point is it portrayed as a crush. She seems to appreciate Spock on a level that is closer to admiration than attraction, and even as his behavior here becomes harsh she seems to not be phased by it since I think on some level she knows it's not personal. What's interesting is that Chapel's approach to Spock is not human, but seems to carry the understanding of who Spock is: someone who perhaps does need love on some level, but does not want shows of affection as such. Her advances, or offers, come in a somewhat logical fashion, which makes it look quite a lot like a throwback to her stint at Number One, who the Talosians referred to as the coldly logical one out of the women on the ship. Chapel is not precisely supposed to be identical to that character, but I do see some of her in continuity with that, and it makes sense that this same actress would be the one poised to understand Spock better than most humans would.

I re-watched this one for the first time in years, motivated in part by SNW's recent "Spock Amok". I wanted to see whether my positive feelings for how that episode portrayed the early days of Spock, T'Pring and Chapel would still hold up with the original portrayal of these characters. They do. On the episode itself, it all hinges on one massive suspension of disbelief: that neither Spock nor T'Pau would inform Kirk the challenge was to the death before he accepted it. If you can get over how implausible that is, then every other aspect of it is just excellent. In the original context of TOS, where Spock's past history and Vulcan culture are still completely unexplored, it's a banger from start to finish. The cast are all in fine form and the (rather slight) plot clips along in a way that TOS often didn't. I also noted that long before we all got annoyed with NuTrek's retconning of Spock's family history, this episode also lays down some canon that every depiction of Vulcans thereafter would go on to contradict. Specifically: * Spock implies this is the first time he has undergone Pon Farr. "I hoped I would be spared this," he says, as he explains that he thought being half-human might have stopped it. Well, that doesn't track with TSFS, where teenage Spock is hit by it hard and Saavik has to help him through it. * Spock also says that Vulcans are telepathically bonded at their original betrothal, and this forms part of the urge to return home to mate. This is contradicted by TSFS (Spock and Saavik get busy on Genesis), VOY (neither Vorik nor Tuvok need to return to Vulcan, and Tuvok is able to satisfy himself with a hologram!) and ENT (Mirror T'Pol got it on with Mirror Trip, and probably not on Vulcan). * Yep, Spock is looking at a picture of T'Pring as a child, which some have taken to mean that he hasn't seen her since then. I think that's the implication too, but given what's also said about the original telepathic bonding you could also plausibly argue that he is simply reminiscing about a very potent childhood memory. As to how this tracks with SNW: I actually think they fit together really well. Chapel has, in the seven-year interval between the two shows, pushed her feelings way, way down, but both she and Spock (and it seems the rest of the crew) are well aware of them. Even in the depths of madness, Spock forces himself to be kind to her, his initial outburst notwithstanding, and they're clearly close enough as friends that both of them are comfortable with her entering his quarters uninvited. Spock has also clearly progressed much further along the path of suppressing his human side, a storyline about private self-loathing that SNW depicted vividly with his nightmare about fighting himself, and which will eventually culminate in his failure to complete Kolinahr in TMP. It actually forms quite a neat little arc. I hope SNW doesn't screw it up when they revisit this, which they surely will. SNW has also done well to show how the fractures in Spock and T'Pring's relationship begin early. And Pike's speech to Spock about being "the best of Starfleet" - which, remember, is actually given to T'Pring! - also dovetails very nicely with T'Pring's stated reason to Spock about seeking divorce: "I did not wish to be the consort of a legend". Anyways, enough of all that. Still a great episode of TV and a great performance from Nimoy. He really will never be matched.

"Stonn, she is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." Lines like this are what you get when you have writers like Theodore Sturgeon working on your show. You can listen to Anson Mount reading his brilliant short story "The Man Who Lost the Sea" here: https://escapepod.org/2015/09/04/ep500-the-man-who-lost-the-sea/ Tim C said: "Spock also says that Vulcans are telepathically bonded at their original betrothal, and this forms part of the urge to return home to mate. This is contradicted by TSFS (Spock and Saavik get busy on Genesis), VOY (neither Vorik nor Tuvok need to return to Vulcan, and Tuvok is able to satisfy himself with a hologram!) and ENT (Mirror T'Pol got it on with Mirror Trip, and probably not on Vulcan)." I think later shows just saw the Vulcan mating ritual as an excuse for some gratuitous sex and low brow comedy. Amok Time is a classic and does a great job of fleshing out Vulcan society, imo. Cinnamon said: "The lovely Arlene Martell / T'Pring also starred in the 1960's Outer Limits: Demon With A Glass Hand." I didn't recall that. I do remember that being one of the best episodes of the series however. I remember her best from her appearance on the Twilight Zone. p.s. I was messing around in Photoshop while rewatching Amok Time and I made a composite of T'Pring and one of the more dramatic shots of the episode: https://imgur.com/mgOyYYL I'm not much of an artist but Arlene Martell is always worth a look, right?

@Marlboro: I absolutely agree Amok Time is a classic, and as the very first venture into Vulcan society it's a resounding success for TOS. I was only noting all those contradictions from later shows as an exercise in separating the collective old-school fan irritation with NuTrek's retconning, from whether or not it actually mattered in the long run when the legacy shows and movies did it. I do agree that the post-TOS shows did not treat it with the seriousness that Amok Time did, but I also think that is to be expected. If you want to look at it completely straight-faced, there's just *no way* that Vulcans could remain in Starfleet and the Federation for as long as they have without all the other member species eventually learning about their private rituals, and at least amongst humans, sex humour will forever be universal - especially with how Vulcans present themselves as paragons of control 99% of the time. I think the important part is whether the *Vulcan* characters treat it with the seriousness their culture demands and that Amok Time established - and they have.

Where were Spock's parents during this important event?

Donald Pietruk

While almost everyone is rightfully happy to see Spock's expression of pure joy at seeing his friend alive I'm amazed no one recollects Spock's public admission of his friendship with Kirk. In the scene with T'Pau after the combat is ended and they think Kirk is dead and T'Pau gives him the traditional Vulcan farewell "Live long and prosper" Spock answers "I shall do neither. I have killed my Captain and my friend." Powerful stuff here. Spock acknowledging that his friendship with Kirk is so important that his life will not be the same without it. It even makes sense from that well hidden deep well of Vulcan emotion. They probably don't make friends easily so if they do that friendship runs deep and affects them profoundly. The loss of that must be devastating. This even further to me enhances the ending. Great episode that underlies the bonds of friendship and understanding and accepance.

Even more amazingly, Spock names both McCoy and Kirk as his friends earlier int he episode for all of Vulcan to hear: "They are not outworlders. They are my friends. I am permitted this."

Plenty of character and society development, drama, and excitement. What a fantastic way to open Season 2! The "birds and bees" discussion makes Spock seem too awkward, but it was likely partly a concession to family TV standards of the time. Chekov's debut gets overshadowed by all the happenings. This is a four star, top 10 TOS episode for me. Familiar notes of Amok Time's soundtrack can also be heard in Mission: Impossible episodes scored around the same time.

@Ren C: ))My question about this episode is if it's supposed to be a fight to the death how does Kirk explain his continued existence to the Vulcans? Does that mean that Spock didn't actually have to kill him after all but just defeat him?(( What happens in Pon Farr *stays* in Pon Farr! Vulcan social norms probably require all participants, afterwards, to act as though nothing had ever happened. Like a "bachelor party / stag night," maybe.

@Dave: ))and "you are prepared to become the property of the victor" doesn't sound very Federation-y.(( 1. The Vulcan marriage ritual - the koon-ut-kal-if-fee - is an ANCIENT, pre-Federation ritual-cum-reproductive function which no "Outworlders" had previously witnessed. It included a "Fight to the Death" - also not very Federation-y. 2. This line of dialog is spoken by T'Pau - the only person to ever turn down a seat in the Federation Council, and who refers to humans as "Outworlders" (not very friendly!). 3. Would you agree to a "Fight to the Death" if the object of your desires WOULDN'T then become your "property?" Q.E.D.

@Outsider65: ))T'Pring didn't seem to be affected by it, do only the males go into rut? I know later series retcon this for the sake of some "fan service" with female Vulcan characters but it seems here, since T'Pring was able to be released from her marriage bond for asking for the challenge (and possibly end up unmarried and alone) that she wasn't bound to the same "mate or die" thing Spock was.(( In "Blood Fever" (Star Trek: Voyager), a Vulcan crewman undergoing pon farr even manages to "infect" Torres (a half-human, half-Klingon hybrid with absolutely no Vulcan ancestry) with the "madness."

@Tim C: ))On the episode itself, it all hinges on one massive suspension of disbelief: that neither Spock nor T'Pau would inform Kirk the challenge was to the death before he accepted it.(( Spock explicitly states to T'Pau that Kirk "does not know!" and BEGS her to "forbid it! FORBID IT!" T'Pau, for her part, is a hard-ass! Also, she mentions the "to the death" part so casually, her delivery suggests that she views it as "obvious." (Maybe she thinks that a war-like, emotion-driven species like the humans would gladly engage in a little fight to the death!)

STOP TALKING!! ..and just watch...

So the Star Fleet kerfuffle was resolved by T'Pau contacting Star Fleet. Why didn't T'Pau just do that in the first place? This is like Commodore Mendez and the Talosians at the end of The Menagerie.

+1 on what Outrider said. Great episode.

This episode scores 3 full stars before any consideration of its particulars on the sole basis of that amazing music cue. Anytime I’m watching any movies or tv shows in which two characters start fighting my brain automatically starts playing Bumbum BA BA BA BA BA Bahbah BA BUM. It’s so iconic. The episode itself is pretty much all around great, very little to pick apart. Great character work, cool insights into Vulcan society including the Vulcan salute, effective set designs, a reasonably clever resolution, just great stuff here. My only complaint with this episode isn’t actually about this episode, but is with the treatment of the Pon Farr in later Trek. My interpretation in Amok Time is that Spock is going through this very personal crisis as a result of a bond formed at the time of he and T’Pring’s betrothal, a sort of sexualized mind meld that essentially bound them together and as a quirk of evolution had about a seven year period to be resolved. In this way, the Pon Farr is a *very* personal thing that doesn’t just befall Vulcan dudes every seven years, but requires a telepathic connection to one’s prospective mate that functions like an emotional exposed wire in an otherwise ordered mind. Normally the arranged marriage would be resolved one way or another before things got all fight-to-the-deathy, but in Spock’s case he ran off to space and thus was unable to avert his hormonal overload. I could be wrong of course, but the more I think about this episode the more that all seems to make sense. First, Spock states specifically that he *has* to return to Vulcan and settle things with T’Pring and T’Pring only. If the Pon Farr was a normal seven year cycle, why the specifics? Why not just give in to nurse chapel and work your issues out? Second, it’s stated in the episode that this is Spock’s first Pon Farr. Doesn’t that seem odd? I mean, the guys like fifty or whatever, shouldn’t he have already been down this horny road? He also says that he had hoped he’d be spared this, as in he knew there was a risk of him Pon Farring all over the enterprise but it wasn’t a certainty, implying to me that this is a specific circumstance and not a general biological function. Third, if Vulcan men went through this every seven years it would be extraordinarily disruptive to Vulcan society and impossible to keep secret. At any given time there’d be thousands, possibly millions, of Vulcans losing their shit both on Vulcan and throughout the Federation. How would anything get done? I think the later treatment of the Pon Farr, beginning I suppose in ST:III, dumbed it down into basically “Vulcans in heat” which I think is a creative failure. Amok Time is pretty smart with its material, it’s a shame later Trek writers didn’t pay closer attention to the details. But like I said thats not this episode’s fault and in no way diminishes Amok Time, it’s a good episode and a great kick off the season two. 3.75/4 gong blasts.

@ Idh2023, "In this way, the Pon Farr is a *very* personal thing that doesn’t just befall Vulcan dudes every seven years, but requires a telepathic connection to one’s prospective mate that functions like an emotional exposed wire in an otherwise ordered mind." That is an interesting conception of it. I don't think the episode gives us enough information to form solid conclusions, other than Spock hoped he'd avoid it. It's strange that he did hope for that, since he had always hoped to be completely Vulcan if he could manage it, and yet in this aspect he hopes to fully escape what Vulcans are used to. I imagine because he's half human maybe it just wouldn't happen to him at all, or he could overcome it. If the mind meld were a requirement for Pon Farr, you would think that the Vulcans might just choose to avoid doing this to themselves. Why subject themselves intentionally to the humiliation of exhibiting burning lust? If the idea is to enforce pre-arranged marriages using mindmelds, it would seem to imply that Vulcans are not logical enough to go through with these marriages using their reason, or perhaps that the marriages are not entirely logical. That whole line of reasoning brings in to question why they cling to tradition at all, unless there is a logical reason to do so. To me the question for them always came down to biology: Vulcans are cursed with superior intelligence, superior strength, but worse passions and fury, so that they needed to use their intelligence to suppress their passions. The Pon Farr ends up playing into that drama nicely as a part of their suppressed self too powerful to logic away, and that ends up being channeled through a tradition, governed by logic, that is put into practice like literal clockwork. I do quite like your idea of the mindmeld being relevant, and there was a poster at one point (can't remember the handle immediately) who was fixated on Vulcan mindmelds in a manner that I found quite interesting. But in this case I think the explanation of the Pon Farr as being innately biological strikes me as being in keeping with what Amok Time wrote. The objection regarding Spock's age could be ascribed to Vulcans reaching sexual maturity later than humans do, given their longer lifespans.

@peter g I’ve always thought the rigid adherence to traditions in Vulcan culture was an extension of their perpetual inner struggle against their subdued but still potent emotions. They remain devoted to their pomp precisely because their effort to maintain a logical philosophy of life isn’t just an individual one, but a broader societal struggle as well. Which is also why they usually don’t include “outworlders” in their rituals because the entire spectacle is a sign of vulnerability that the Vulcans prefer not to showcase. You’re right that Amok Time doesn’t give us enough to draw a firm conclusion, but I think the clues laid out imply a much rarer, specified event than a simple biological cycle. Particularly the fact that this is Spock’s first(maybe only?) Pon Farr, and that he has to involve T’Pring in its resolution. If it was just a normal cycle, there are other ways of dealing with it than rushing back to Vulcan. I mean, nurse chapel’s soup making skills are readily available right? To be clear, I’m not saying the Pon Farr in this interpretation *isn't* biological but rather that the telepathic link aspect is what primes the Vulcan mind for the Pon Farr which is some sort of pseudo-vestigial function of their mating bond. If that makes sense.

Rigel hunter

I love Amok Time and it's an essential episode to the development of the whole ST universe. What has always annoyed me about it, however, is the inconsistency with other TOS episodes about Spock's parents. I mean, here's Nurse Chapel madly in love and willing to help. But Spock tells her "you and are of 2 different natures".? That didn't stop Sarek from marrying Amanda when "it seemed at the time, to be the logical thing to do". Why was it logical for Spock's father to grab the Earth woman who loved him, when his time came; but not for Spock to do likewise? Spock must really not have been attracted at all to Christine. Repulsed even. I have not seen any of the NuTrek so I have none of the "new perspectives" as written in the comments above. Just a classic old Trekker here. Thanks for maintaining this years long conversation!

"The, er, impostor had some interesting qualities, wouldn't you say, Yeoman?" This came from Spock, commenting on Yeoman Rand's near rape in 'The Enemy Within'. I've been reading the comments about Amok Time, and I find myself rethinking this episode. Kirk gets split in two by the transporter and the episode takes the view that he has been split into good and evil, and the 'evil' side is the side that wants Rand. Yet for Spock, the same emotions that Kirk expressed when he was split in two are labeled as 'Pon Farr'. There is no good and there is no evil. There's no doubt in my mind that, had Pon Farr occurred on the Enterprise with no chance of returning to Vulcan, Spock would have committed rape in order to overcome the effect. In my opinion, there's no indication he wouldn't have raped T'Pring anyway if his emotions hadn't abated.

Watched this for the first time since I think 1992 when I stayed up until 1AM to watch Star Trek reruns. I am amazed how well this holds up and how sophisticated it is. The amount of world building and character development along side a good story, great music, and even reasonable set design and costumes. Watching it on high def was a treat. I was captivated from beginning to end. There's little waste or dead time, and the plot is tightly scripted. I also have been rewatching with my girlfriend, and it's amazing to see her just as interested. TOS has aged like classic hollywood productions like the Wizard of Oz. What I mean is when you look at the old effects, they have an imaginative charm that can't be replicated with modern computer graphics. I'm glad the updated CGI tries to make it look like the original effects. In an episode like this where everything is done so well, it doesn't matter how old the props look. The story, acting, directing, music sells it. I think an episode like this is where Spock leapt from an interesting character to full blown cultural fascination. Oh these Vulcans aren't just peaceful thoughtful "nice" characters, they are full of primal urges, rage, sexual feelings, that is held together by the strength of their mind. Spock as a character is simply an exaggeration of what the human experience is: We all have the same powerful urges that we have to reign in. I can see why for a long time the character had such a fascination. The Vulcans here come across as intelligent and dangerous all at once. Shatner's charm comes through in this episode as well. And so does' McCoy's. The fight scene was well choreographed. T'Pring's icy manipulation is present throughout the 2nd half. So many lines ring true in this episode. Of course there is I believe the first speaking of the lines "Live long and Prosper" to which Spock replies "I will do neither". The Vulcan salute appears. Spock drops the ultimate burn "Wanting is not the same as having. It's not logical, but it is often true." The joy in Spock seeing Kirk is well earned at the end. This is an absolute classic. Another **** vote here! Other thoughts: I like the Ponn Farr more here than ST3. I like the idea of vulcans impressing their minds on one another early in life, for when the time is right. I enjoyed Chekov and Sulu trading barbs over having to keep changing course. TOS had a real raw edge that future trek rarely captured. Watching an episode like this, Mirror Mirror back to back really emphasizes it. Perhaps its the greater reliance on practical effects. I would have loved to see more of Vulcan over the years.

Ok I just watched it again. 1. Spock's wife is a conniving wench, just as most human females; whom she hurts or even causes to die is of no concern compared to her selfish interests. 2. McCoy asks Nurse Chapel to leave the room, so the three men can have a prurient interest based conversation, in which McCoy asks Spock if he got laid. 3. Spock lies by not answering the question by admitting he was dumped. Instead he asserts the catharsis of having (apparently) killed the Captain caused his horny symptoms to be quelled, just as having gotten laid would have the same result. Which may be true, according to some sources, however it is still a deceptive answer. NBC at least was motivated by ratings to launch season 2 on the right warp speed. They introduced Chekhov as a Beatles-esque interest intended for a younger female audience. And they recognized the character development of Spock was now the driving force of the show, for the geeks anyway. They say TOS episodes were expensive to produce compared to other television shows, although we always hear about how tight the budget was, and how creatively the designers skimped on constuction and props that not only passed muster then, but many eventually became real decades later. For example: Last year WIlliam Shatner really did travel to outer space and talk to people on the planet through a little handheld device.

I agree with the many who gave this a 4 star rating. Would also like to add that the costumes, makeup, and set were all quite good. A step up from Season 1. T’pau’s beautiful and creative hair ornamentation reminded me of Queen Amadala in Star Wars Phantom Menace. Maybe the Star Wars stylists saw Amok Time in their youth and built on the style ideas in this episode :) I also thought that the fight scene was better than the fight scenes in season 1. More believable and interesting to watch. The thin air and heat were palpable, and that slice on Kirk’s chest! Ugh!

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Time Amok (episode)

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When the USS Protostar is fractured in time by an anomaly, Hologram Janeway must synchronize the disjointed crew and save their ship before it destructs.

• 1.1 Act One
• 1.2 Act Two
• 1.3 Act Three
• 2 Log entries
• 3 Memorable quotes
• 4.2 Story and script
• 4.3 Production
• 4.4 Continuity
• 4.5 Production history
• 5.2 Uncredited co-stars
• 5.3 Background characters
• 5.4.1 Console references
• 5.5 External links

Summary [ ]

Act one [ ].

Janeway's team building problem

Since their first unsuccessful attempt at first contact , the crew has become somewhat distant. Worried they are letting their failure get to them, Hologram Janeway gathers them all on the holodeck for a teambuilding exercise. The crew are trying to solve the fox, chicken and grain problem , where they must get a fox , a chicken , and a bag of grain across a river safely using a small rowboat . They cannot take them all at once because the chicken will eat the grain, and the fox will eat the chicken. The crew struggles to figure out the puzzle, as well as work together, though Janeway is encouraged that Zero does start to make sense of it. Eventually, the whole thing turns into chaos. The chicken gets loose from Dal 's grip and chases him, the fox escapes from Rok-Tahk and chases the chicken, Jankom Pog (having suggested eating the fox) starts eating the grain, and the boat floats away with Murf in it. Gwyn asks Rok the " security officer " to get the fox under control, but Rok tells her not to call her that because she doesn't want to be security. Dal ends the program, and in an act of contrition born from frustration, finally admits to Janeway the crew has been lying to her from the beginning about being Starfleet cadets . As the others walk dispiritedly out of the holodeck, Zero stays behind to explain everything to Janeway.

The Protostar heading for a tachyon storm

Back in the Delta Quadrant , The Diviner is contacted by Nandi in response to his broadcast about the offering of a reward for information on the USS Protostar . At first, he's impatient with the possibility of another grifter who knows nothing calling to waste his time but listens when the Ferengi mentions how the ship he's seeking contained chimerium , and she then sends him the coordinates . Drednok points out that the Protostar has jumped too far, and it will take the Rev-12 months to reach them, but The Diviner states that since they now have their location, they have alternative ways to make their presence known. They somehow hack into the Protostar 's vehicle replicator and start replicating another Drednok . Meanwhile, Jankom finds Gwyn to talk to, who is still upset about Dal confessing the truth to Janeway. He complains that they've could have gone to the Federation and had better lives. Gwyn happens to be in the conference suite , watching through the viewports as the ship approaches a tachyon storm . When Gwyn advises Jankom to keep his boots close to the deck as the storm could affect the artificial gravity , he grows alarmed, explaining that gravity is what keeps the proto-drive stable. He rushes to engineering to find the proto-drive destabilizing. Just after Janeway checks in with him, having detected massive power influxes, the light of the proto-drive turns from blue to red and then emits a pulse of energy that spreads throughout the ship, briefly splitting Janeway into five parts. Checking her program, Janeway discovers her temporal settings to be all over the place. When she checks in with the rest of the crew, she discovers Jankom appears to be the only lifeform aboard. Suddenly, there is a rupture, triggering an alarm warning of an upcoming warp core breach . Jankom knows from the alarm that unless they can repair it in ten minutes, the engine will not be able to equalize the gravity shell of the proto-drive, which keeps the power of the proto-core within from exploding. He hurriedly gets to work, but the proto-drive unexpectedly explodes seconds later, destroying the ship.

Janeway finds Rok-Tahk

Janeway suddenly finds herself on the bridge , and the ship is still intact. She wonders how Jankom was correct in how much time was left, yet he only had seconds. Everything appears to be still in order and there is still only one lifeform aboard. Janeway tries to contact Jankom, but instead finds Rok hiding in the bunk room, who asks where everyone else is and why Janeway didn't respond when she called for her. Janeway notices that items Rok has knocked into the air tumble in slow motion, looking more like they're moving in zero gravity , and realizes that time is moving very slowly. Apparently, the ripple that passed through the ship was some kind of time anomaly . Janeway was able to adjust the speed of her settings to be with Rok, but everyone else is stuck in their own temporal phases. Rok doesn't quite understand, so Janeway explains that when they went through the tachyon storm, something unusual happened. While it appeared Rok-Tahk was alone, everyone is still aboard the same ship, but moving through time at different speeds. For Jankom, time was sped up, but fortunately for Rok, time was moving very slowly; for her, ten minutes will seem like an eternity. Janeway tries to talk Rok into taking on the task of fixing the warp core by balancing the warp containment , but when she explains that the proto-drive will otherwise explode and destroy the ship, it is too much for the young girl, who, overwhelmed, panics and shuts the hologram down.

Act Two [ ]

Zero has a plan

Janeway is now in the shuttlebay with Zero , who is already aware of what is happening and deduced a way to repair the core. By constructing a warp matrix , they can reroute power from the primary warp drive directly to the proto-drive. In effect, this will normalize their time component, stabilizing the fractures and saving everyone on board. Janeway is able to give Zero the last bit of info they need to know how much time left they have, that Rok was moving the slowest. With this, Zero realizes that everyone is trapped in what is described as oscillating time, which is working like a damped sine wave. Those closest to the blast are most affected, in alternating patterns, fastest and slowest. Jankom was the closest to the proto-drive, so he was the fastest. Rok was next in line, so she was the slowest. But since Zero was next, they realize that time was moving second fastest for them, and they do not have enough time to build the warp matrix. As the warp core breach alarm begins, Zero hurriedly draws up schematics for Janeway to pass onto the others. As they work, Zero states that none of the crew can do it alone, and even if they are divided by time itself, they can still work together. Wishing they could do more for the others, Janeway watches Zero sadly as they complete the schematics just as the ship blows up once again.

Dal building a warp matrix

After a brief encounter with Murf , Janeway is now with Dal, who is playing a game in the captain's quarters. At first, he does not take Janeway's warning of the situation seriously and pays more attention to his game. But after Janeway turns his game off, he soon listens after realizing he is the only one aboard. Dal comes up with the idea of using the vehicle replicator to build the warp matrix but is dismayed to discover the replicator producing a fatal error, as a giant file has been downloaded into it. Janeway agrees that it's unfortunate as it was an excellent idea, but now Dal will have to do it the old-fashioned way. Dal is not entirely confident he can build a warp matrix by hand and is afraid he will mess up again. As a method of encouragement, Janeway tells him about how the crew of Apollo 13 ran into a similar situation. Their ship didn't have what they needed, but they didn't give up and instead used whatever they did have to get back home, and Dal has a bit of what those astronauts had: ingenuity. Inspired, Dal scavenges the ship for parts and manages to build a crude but working unit in the shuttlebay just before the core breach alarm begins, but when he tries to hook it up to the proto-drive, he discovers that the connectors won't fit as he realizes that it needs a dilithium coupler of the right size. Feeling defeated, Dal believes he messed up again, but Janeway assures him that he added a piece of the puzzle, and the crew is all in it together. Dal asks what happens next: Janeway states to trust in each other and holds his hand as the proto-drive explodes.

In Gwyn's time phase, the vehicle replicator finishes replicating the other Drednok, which springs to life and proceeds to the bridge while Gwyn is searching for a dilithium coupler. Spotting him on one of the consoles, Janeway explains that the Dreknok 'file' was able to be produced since Gwyn's phase is the closest to normal time. She recognizes this doppelganger as the one who invaded the ship and erased her memory years ago. After he enters the bridge, Gwyn tries to fight the duplicate Drednok, but he easily throws her into the bulkheads . When Janeway tries to interfere, he swiftly uses Chakotay 's voice and command codes to delete Janeway's program, to Gwyn's horror. The duplicate declares his intent to return the ship to "its rightful master", but with dark satisfaction, the injured Gwyn informs him how the ship is on the verge of blowing up and that no one will get it. Looking up how a dilithium coupler is needed, the duplicate silently leaves the bridge for the mess hall , removes the cover of one of the replicators and to Gwyn's surprise pulls out the correct-sized coupler. Gwyn wonders if he is going to get rid of her before seizing the ship, but he tells her that would be against The Diviner's wishes. He does, however, think that his master is blind to what Dreadnok believes to be true: that Gwyn was The Diviner's greatest mistake. The duplicate Drednok locks Gwyn out of engineering and prepares to connect Dal's warp matrix to the proto-drive when Gwyn appears on a nearby console, stating that she will not allow the ship to be stolen. She triggers a partial transformation to extend the proto-drive's nacelle , causing explosive decompression as engineering is exposed to space. This succeeds in ejecting the duplicate, but moments later the warp matrix is also lost in the process. Out of time, Gwyn painfully returns to the bridge and resorts to recording a captain's log entry before it's her turn to blow up.

Act Three [ ]

Back in Rok's time phase, Rok tries in vain to call Janeway back, only to be told by the ship's computer her program is gone. As time moves very slowly in this phase, a lonely Rok tries to reconnect to her absent friends by bidding their empty bunks good night when she goes to sleep each 'night' and hugging a small toy representation of Murf. She also watches replays of the teambuilding exercise on the holodeck from the other side of the river, fondly noting how they should have listened to Zero. Her melancholy is interrupted via a transphasic message from Gwyn, apologizing for pressuring her along with the others to play the unwanted part of security officer, telling her she can be much more—and she is going to have to dig deep into this potential to save them all. The schematics for the warp matrix are attached to the message, as well as where to find the dilithium coupler. She sums up that things got 'complicated' in her phase, so it's up to Rok now, but that she knows she can do it and that the crew believes in her, just before the exploding proto-drive takes her. Rok despairs that she can't.

It takes a beat, but after staring down at the Starfleet insignia emblazoned on the deck of the mezzanine, Rok finds her inner cadet and gets to work. Taking advantage of the slow phase, over time she teaches herself quantum science , computer engineering , and a great deal of mathematics , and eventually uses all that she has learnt to build a warp matrix, and then restores Janeway's program. Bringing her back online after tinkering inside one of the mess hall replicators, Rok explains to the astonished Janeway that her memory buffers never got overwritten, so it allowed Rok to rebuild her program. As Janeway notices many, many, scratches made on a mess hall window Rok used to count her attempts, Rok adds that it " only " took her 276 tries. She also needed Janeway for one simple practical fact: no one had told her where the warp matrix was supposed to go.

The Protostar crew reunited

Down in engineering, Rok expresses a moment of doubt that her warp matrix will work, but Janeway assures that whatever happens, she's proud of her. Once the device is connected to the proto-drive, the timeline , and the rest of the crew, are restored, alive and well and recalling they had each died in their individual phases. Rok and Janeway meet up with the others gathered on the bridge and with Rok wiping away tears of happiness receives a group hug from the others, who are proud of her achievements. Janeway looks on with a smile, but then becomes saddened, which Gwyn notices and realizes why; going over to her, she quietly asks the hologram how long the young girl spent alone, to which Janeway sums up as " too long ." As Rok tells the others about her self-education, Gwyn remarks that Rok may not just have found her friends, but also her calling in life. Janeway replies that the kids may not think of themselves as a crew, but they certainly look like one.

However, parts of the duplicate Drednok have also survived and are lying in the shuttlebay . One functioning eye glows red, indicating the duplicate is still active.

Log entries [ ]

• Captain's log, USS Protostar
• Training officer's log, USS Protostar

Memorable quotes [ ]

" It's my duty as captain to listen to my crew. But when they say stuff like that, I'm gonna ignore them. "

" Fatal error? Someone loaded some giant file, and it's all out of whack. " " Seems the temporal anomaly has disabled the vehicle replicator. Too bad, it was a good idea. Clock's ticking. "

" When Humans first went into space, there was a mission aboard a ship called Apollo 13 . Its crew was in a jam, not unlike your own. While their ship wasn't equipped with what they needed, they didn't give up. They used whatever they had onboard to get back home. And you, Dal, have a little something they did have… " " A warp matrix? " " Ingenuity. "

" Look at you, kid. You haven't aged, but you've certainly matured. But if you could make a warp matrix, why did you need me? " " No one told me where it goes. "

" Jankom distinctively remembers not being alive. " " Me too. How is this possible? " " She's how. "

Background information [ ]

• The title was announced by StarTrek.com and Paramount+ on 18 January 2022 . [1]
• The title of this episode invokes the title of TOS : " Amok Time " but with the words turned around. This is the second of three episodes to have the word "amok" in the title, the other being SNW : " Spock Amok ".

Story and script [ ]

• According to Star Trek: Prodigy producer and screenwriter Aaron Waltke , Nikhil Jayaram drew an actual damped sine wave into the script to help the readers understand it and the artists to draw it. The design made its way onto Zero’s monitor, almost exactly as it was. [2]

Production [ ]

Continuity [ ].

• Aside from the flashback sequence in " Kobayashi ", this is the first episode of the series to give a stardate for the events within the narrative of the episode, Stardate 607125.6.
• According to Star Trek: Prodigy producer Aaron Waltke , the stardate's unusual number was the first hint that time was being distorted. Namely, Hologram Janeway 's temporal settings were already being affected by the approaching tachyon storm, something she observes later in the episode. [3]
• This episode is similar to the Star Trek: Voyager episode " Shattered ", in which the USS Voyager was split into several time zones that only Chakotay could move through.
• Throughout the episode, Janeway's fingernails randomly change color from being blue, brown, pink, stone, to normal.

Production history [ ]

• 20 January 2022 : Premiere on Paramount+
• 29 July 2022 : Broadcast premiere on Nickelodeon

Links and references [ ]

• Rylee Alazraqui as Rok-Tahk
• Dee Bradley Baker as Murf
• Brett Gray as Dal
• Angus Imrie as Zero
• Ella Purnell as Gwyn
• Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog
• John Noble as The Diviner
• Kate Mulgrew as Hologram Janeway
• Robert Beltran as Captain Chakotay (voice mimicked by Dred 2)
• Bonnie Gordon as Ship Computer
• Grey Griffin as Nandi

Uncredited co-stars [ ]

• Angus Imrie as Zero (hologram)
• Jason Mantzoukas as Jankom Pog (hologram)

Background characters [ ]

• Gwyn (hologram)
• Hologram Janeway (duplicate)
• Dal R'El (hologram)
• Rok-Tahk (hologram)

References [ ]

Apollo 13 ; augment ; authorization code ; axial misalignment ; bag ; boat ; boot ; Brikar ; bunk bed ; cadet ; captain ; captain's log ; chicken ; chimerium ; computer ; computer console ; computer engineering ; coordinates ; core breach ; core breach alarm ; coupler ; crew ; dilithium coupler ; Drednok ; engineering ; fatal error ; feather ; Federation ; Ferengi ; file ; first contact ; fox ; fox, chicken and grain problem ; friend ; fugitive ; gift ; grain ; gravimetric containment ; gravity ; gravity boot ; gravity shell ; grifter ; ground ; hand ; holodeck ; holographic program ; hug ; Human ; hybrid ; idea ; job title ; laughter ; lie ; lights ; lifeform ; location ; math ; Medusan ; Mellanoid slime worm ; memory ; memory buffers ; minute ; mission ; month ; Mr. Foxy ; Murf ; oscillating time ; physical manifestation ; proto-drive ; protostar ; Protostar , USS ; Protostar -class ; Protostar -type shuttlecraft ; purple ripple ; puzzle ; quantum science ; Rev-12 ; Rev-12 -type ; riddle ; screw ; screwdriver ; schematic ; secret ; security officer ; Shuttle 06 ; simulation ; sine wave ; snake game ; space ; speed ; stardate ; Starfleet ; Starfleet insignia ; Starfleet uniform ; stuffed animal ; supernova ; tachyon settings ; tachyon storm ; Tellarite ; temporal distortion ; temporal phase (aka time phase ); temporal setting ; time ; time anomaly ; timeline ; training officer (aka advisor ); training officer's log ; truth ; Vau N'Akat ; vehicle replicator ; warp containment ; warp core ; warp drive ; warp matrix ; " wouldn't hurt a [fly] "; x-ray ; Zulu

Console references [ ]

active tracking ; adaptive mode ; auto scan ; bridge ; communications ; communicator ; conference suite ; contour mode ; door ; flight controls ; flowchart ; level ; lifeform scan ; lock ; main computer ; particle ; observation lounge ; offset ; operations ; phaser array ; photon torpedo ; planet scan ; planet tracker ; power efficiency monitor ; profile view ; reset ; scan ; shuttlecraft fuel storage ; subspace antenna ; systems diagram ; systems diagnosis ; tactical array ; targeting ; turbo lift ; warp factor ; warp speed power graph ; waypoint ; wireframe ; wireframe mode ; zone

External links [ ]

• " Time Amok " at the Internet Movie Database
• " "Prodigy Time Amok" " at MissionLogPodcast.com , a Roddenberry Star Trek podcast
• 1 Marlys Burdette

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Star Trek The Original Series: Amok Time (Season 2, Episode 1)

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The best 'Star Trek' episode of all time, according to fans—and see if your favorite ranks in the 25 best

Posted: May 20, 2024 | Last updated: May 20, 2024

Best 'Star Trek' episodes

It's hard to think of a more everlasting and impactful science fiction property than "Star Trek." In 1966, what is now known as "Star Trek: The Original Series" premiered on NBC, the brainchild of creator, writer, and executive producer Gene Roddenberry. What made "Star Trek" unique for its time was its devotion to an optimistic vision of society, one where human civilization has moved past war and poverty, boldly going "where no man has gone before."

This utopian future was reflected by a diverse cast, with the crew of the USS Enterprise including a woman of African descent (Nyota Uhura, played by Nichelle Nichols) and an Asian man (Hikaru Sulu, played by George Takei). Starting in Season Two, "Star Trek" added a Russian character (Pavel Chekov, played by Walter Koenig) during a real-life period of tension between the U.S. and the Soviet Union. The cast was headlined by William Shatner as Captain James T. Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as First Officer Spock, and DeForest Kelley as Dr. Leonard McCoy.

Unlike the campier and fantastical sci-fi fare of the 1960s— like "Lost in Space" —"Star Trek" tackled issues not limited to racism, sexism, and nationalism, with episodic stories that served as allegories for present-day issues. One of the most commonly cited groundbreaking moments in "Star Trek" was a kiss between the characters of Kirk and Uhura in Season Three, one of the earliest on-screen interracial kisses .

While the original "Star Trek" was marred with low ratings on NBC, fan mail campaigns kept the show alive until its eventual cancellation in 1969. However, the series found new life in syndication in the 1970s, and the property has since grown into a multimedia franchise that includes 11 television shows and 13 theatrical movies.

To honor the original 79 episodes, Stacker gathered IMDb data for all episodes of the original "Star Trek" series and ranked the top 25 by user rating as of June 2023, with ties broken by the number of votes received. Read on to see if your favorite "Star Trek" episodes made the cut.

#25. Day of the Dove (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 3, Episode 7 - Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

The seventh episode of the third season of "Star Trek" once again pitted the Enterprise crew against the brutal Klingons. A being of pure energy creates confusion between the two factions, inserting false memories and creating conflict—in one instance, Chekov becomes aggressive towards the Klingons for killing a brother of his that never existed in the first place. The Klingon character of Kang, who originated from this episode, would return in the "Deep Space Nine" and "Voyager" shows decades later.

#24. A Piece of the Action (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 2, Episode 17 - Director: James Komack

Sometimes, "Star Trek" likes to incorporate time travel to create period-piece episodes, but in the case of Season Two, Episode 17, Kirk, Spock, and McCoy land on a planet that emulates 1920s Chicago gangster culture. With Tommy guns, fedoras, and pulpy 1920s dialogue, this fun episode goes through many of the classic gangster tropes. It's a memorable episode, particularly to writer-director Quentin Tarantino, who in the late 2010s wanted to direct a rated-R "Star Trek" movie inspired by the episode .

#23. Where No Man Has Gone Before (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 7.7 - Season 1, Episode 3 - Director: James Goldstone

The second pilot of "Star Trek" is titled after the famous mantra of the franchise, though "Where No Man Has Gone Before" was aired as the third episode of the first season. This episode was meant to introduce viewers to the general concepts of "Star Trek," with a standard mission gone awry—as a result, helmsman Gary Mitchell gains psychic and telekinetic powers, proclaiming himself to be god-like. "Above all else, a god needs compassion," Kirk says in one iconic scene when describing Mitchell's violent actions. As pivotal as the episode is, it lacks mainstay characters like McCoy and Uhura .

#22. This Side of Paradise (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Season 1, Episode 24 - Director: Ralph Senensky

Spock is often paired with short-term romantic interests in "Star Trek," and Episode 24 of the first season features one in the character Kalomi. Spock reunites with this botanist from his past on an away mission—he, Kirk, and McCoy beam down to a colony to find that all of its inhabitants are affected by spores that invoke an overly positive and lethargic attitude. For the half-human, half-Vulcan character Spock, it was another opportune time for him to explore his emotions as he found himself under the same influence.

#21. The Naked Time (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 7.8 - Season 1, Episode 4 - Director: Marc Daniels

The fourth episode of the show as a whole let the cast members let loose and act out of character. "The Naked Time" starts with Spock and a lieutenant observing frozen corpses in an abandoned research facility—after which they inadvertently bring some sort of sickness to the Enterprise that makes everyone affected act irrationally. Spock sheds tears and has an intimate moment with Nurse Chapel, but in a sillier (and iconic) scene, a shirtless Sulu runs amok with a sword .

#20. Tomorrow Is Yesterday (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Season 1, Episode 19 - Director: Michael O'Herlihy

The 19th episode of "Star Trek" Season One is a time-travel story, with the Enterprise finding itself above 1960s Earth. A U.S. Air Force pilot named John Christopher flies up to identify the ship, only to be beamed up by the crew. What ensues is a race to scrub all evidence of the Enterprise's visit to the 1960s while containing Christopher, all while trying to return home. In terms of "Star Trek" lore, the Enterprise's method of returning to the future is used again in "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" and referenced in "Star Trek: Picard."

#19. Arena (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 7.9 - Season 1, Episode 18 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Episode 18 of "Star Trek" showcases some of Kirk's physical combat abilities as he is forced to fight a member of the reptile species known as the Gorn. The fight scene between Kirk and the Gorn captain was shot at the Vasquez Rocks , a location used so frequently by the franchise that it is nicknamed the "Star Trek Rocks." Modern audiences have mocked and parodied the fight scene , but its iconic status has never been disputed.

#18. The Tholian Web (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 3, Episode 9 - Directors: Herb Wallerstein, Ralph Senensky

Season Three, Episode 9 of "Star Trek" begins with the Enterprise searching for its sister ship, the Defiant. Unfortunately, the Defiant's crew had perished somehow, and the Enterprise crew find themselves up against interdimensional beings known as the Tholians. As they create an energy web around the entire Enterprise, Kirk is believed lost and the crew members begin to fall to the same madness that led to the Defiant crew's demise. The plotlines of the Defiant and the Tholian Web are followed up in the prequel show "Enterprise," in the 2005 two-part episode "In a Mirror, Darkly."

#17. The Ultimate Computer (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 2, Episode 24 - Director: John Meredyth Lucas

In a premise that still rings true today due to the prevalence of artificial intelligence, Season Two, Episode 24 features a computer named M-5, designed and built to handle all ship functions. Unsurprisingly, M-5 begins to turn malevolent, effectively trying to replace Kirk as the captain and attacking other Federation starships. "Computers make excellent and efficient servants, but I have no wish to serve under them," Spock tells Kirk at one point.

#16. A Taste of Armageddon (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 1, Episode 23 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Episode 23 of Season One features a rather unique sci-fi concept—a planet that fights war through virtual means. Kirk lands on a planet that is in conflict with another planet, and the long war between the two is fought in a simulation; when someone "dies" in the simulation, they are killed in real life. Unfortunately for Kirk, the Enterprise is destroyed in the simulation, but Kirk naturally refuses to destroy his ship and crew. Despite the dire premise, the resolution of the episode has fans believing it to be an overall optimistic story .

#15. The Corbomite Maneuver (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.0 - Season 1, Episode 10 - Director: Joseph Sargent

The 10th overall episode of "Star Trek" was the first to be shot after the pilot episode, and it features a memorable encounter with an alien named Balok (featured in the closing credits of the show). Balok claims that he is all-powerful and will destroy the Enterprise, giving the crew 10 minutes, but Kirk calls Balok's bluff. Summing up the lesson of the episode, Kirk remarks: "You know the greatest danger facing us is ourselves, an irrational fear of the unknown. But there's no such thing as the unknown—only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood."

#14. All Our Yesterdays (1969)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 3, Episode 23 - Director: Marvin J. Chomsky

Season Three, Episode 23 of "Star Trek" features some recurring tropes of the show, such as time travel and Spock having a brush with romance. The main trio of Kirk, Spock, and McCoy each end up in two distant time periods of a planet. Spock and McCoy encounter a woman named Zarabeth, whom McCoy is suspicious of and Spock falls in love with rather quickly. While most time-travel episodes center around Earth, using this narrative device to explore the past of an alien planet was thought to be unique by fans.

#13. Errand of Mercy (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 1, Episode 26 - Director: John Newland

Episode 26 of Season One utilizes the Klingons as the main foes, with "Errand of Mercy" depicting the beginning of a war between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. Kirk and Spock visit a neutral planet near the Klingon Border called Organia and attempt to convince its people to resist Klingon forces in this Cold War allegory episode . While the peaceful Organians appear to be primitive at first, they soon surprise Kirk and Spock as well as the Klingons. The main antagonist, the Klingon named Kor, returns in "Deep Space Nine."

#12. The Menagerie: Part II (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.1 - Season 1, Episode 12 - Directors: Robert Butler, Marc Daniels

Spock is under court martial in Season One, Episode 12, in this conclusion to the previous episode. This second part features the psychic Talosian aliens more heavily, as well as the character of Number One, who is portrayed by Roddenberry's second wife, Majel Barrett. With the previous episode establishing Captain Pike's tragic injuries, this second half provides a happier ending for the former captain of the Enterprise.

#11. The Menagerie: Part I (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.2 - Season 1, Episode 11 - Directors: Marc Daniels, Robert Butler

Season One, Episode 11 revisited events from the unaired pilot episode of "Star Trek," titled "The Cage." That pilot had featured Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) instead of Kirk, but "The Menagerie" clarifies that Pike was the captain of the Enterprise before Kirk. At this point in time, Pike has been horrifically injured, bound to a chair, and only able to communicate through beeps. Pike and Spock once again end up on the planet Talos IV for some unfinished business, and the episode utilizes footage from "The Cage" extensively as flashbacks for budgetary reasons.

#10. The Devil in the Dark (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.3 - Season 1, Episode 25 - Director: Joseph Pevney

"Star Trek" is arguably its most memorable when it teaches viewers about compassion and pacifism, and Episode 25 of the first season very much demonstrates this. Kirk, Spock, and McCoy begin to assist a mining colony dealing with a creature responsible for killing workers. Upon encountering the creature, the main characters begin to understand its nature better, and instead spare it and cure it, facilitating a symbiotic relationship between the creature and the miners.

William Shatner considers the episode one of his favorites, but behind the scenes, Shatner's father passed away during production , necessitating the temporary use of a body double while he attended his father's funeral.

#9. The Enterprise Incident (1968)

- IMDb user rating: 8.4 - Season 3, Episode 2 - Director: John Meredyth Lucas

The writers of "Star Trek" loved to use sudden irrational behavior by the characters as plot devices, and Episode 2 of the third season features Captain Kirk going off the rails. The Enterprise is on a secret mission to steal a Romulan cloaking device, and they encounter a female Romulan commander who eventually takes an interest in Spock. Kirk acts erratically through the episode and is even declared unfit to captain, leading to a dramatic episode overall.

#8. Journey to Babel (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.5 - Season 2, Episode 10 - Director: Joseph Pevney

Some significant characters in "Star Trek" lore make their first appearance in Episode 10 of Season Two, as Spock's parents Sarek and Amanda (the latter being human) feature heavily. Sarek, an ambassador, is wrongly accused of murdering a foreign dignitary, and it's up to Spock to clear his name. While Sarek and Amanda made more appearances in future "Star Trek" media, this episode is their only appearance in the original series.

#7. Amok Time (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.6 - Season 2, Episode 1 - Director: Joseph Pevney

The season premiere of "Star Trek" Season Two introduced concepts that would permeate larger popular culture. Spock's bizarre behavior leads the characters to learn about pon farr, a physiological phenomenon related to Vulcan mating. Viewers meet Spock's betrothed, a Vulcan named T'Pring, and the iconic Vulcan salute is used for the first time in this episode. The events culminate in a fight between Kirk and Spock, with the scene and its incidental music parodied in movies like "The Cable Guy" and shows including "Futurama."

#6. The Doomsday Machine (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.7 - Season 2, Episode 6 - Director: Marc Daniels

Catastrophic destruction is the main threat of Season Two, Episode 6, aptly titled "The Doomsday Machine." The Enterprise finds that one of its sister ships, the Constellation, has been heavily damaged by a machine capable of destroying planets. Matt Decker, one of the ship's survivors, goes on a mad campaign against the machine, jeopardizing the Enterprise in the process. While Decker doesn't make it by the end of the episode, his son Willard Deckard is a main character in 1979's "Star Trek: The Motion Picture."

#5. Space Seed (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.7 - Season 1, Episode 22 - Director: Marc Daniels

Episode 22 of the first season introduced perhaps the most recognizable villain in all "Star Trek" media: Khan Noonien Singh, portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán. A genetically engineered man from the past, Khan attempts to lead his people in overthrowing the Enterprise. While Khan was thwarted and exiled, he would later return in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," widely thought to be the greatest "Star Trek" movie in the franchise .

#4. The Trouble with Tribbles (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 8.8 - Season 2, Episode 15 - Director: Joseph Pevney

"Star Trek" isn't just political allegory and technobabble—there has to be levity sometimes as well. Enter the tribbles, cute little fuzzy creatures that create a problem for the Enterprise, as a tribble found in a space station begins multiplying rapidly. Meanwhile, conflict arises between Enterprise crew members and Klingons, culminating in a brawl in the space station. For the 30th anniversary of "Star Trek," an episode of "Deep Space Nine" titled "Trials and Tribble-ations" revisited the events of this episode, digitally inserting the "Deep Space Nine" cast into the events of the original episode.

#3. Balance of Terror (1966)

- IMDb user rating: 8.8 - Season 1, Episode 14 - Director: Vincent McEveety

Episode 14 of the first season of "Star Trek" is essential viewing, as it introduces the antagonistic Romulan race, a staple of the "Star Trek" universe. The centerpiece of this action-packed episode is a cat-and-mouse game between the Enterprise and a Romulan vessel with cloaking capabilities, leading to exciting and tense encounters. It's an episode full of high emotion that explores the effect and ramifications of war, with Kirk and the Romulan commander speculating that in another life, perhaps they could have been friends.

#2. Mirror, Mirror (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 9.0 - Season 2, Episode 4 - Director: Marc Daniels

Episode 4 of Season Two of "Star Trek" had the first look into another dimension within the lore, often referred to as the Mirror Universe. In this reality, the Federation is instead the Terran Empire, which is aggressive and militaristic in nature. The USS Enterprise is instead the ISS Enterprise, torture in the Agony Booth is the main form of discipline, and Mirror Spock famously fashions a goatee . The Mirror Universe has become a mainstay in most "Star Trek" shows, and the use of a beard to signify an evil doppelganger is an often used and parodied trope .

#1. The City on the Edge of Forever (1967)

- IMDb user rating: 9.2 - Season 1, Episode 28 - Director: Joseph Pevney

In quite possibly the most famous episode in the entire "Star Trek" franchise, Captain Kirk faces an unimaginable moral dilemma. A chase for an unwell McCoy leads to history being changed, and the Enterprise crew members find themselves in Depression-era New York City to repair the damage. Kirk falls in love with a social worker named Edith Keeler, but to his dismay, he discovers that for the timeline to be restored, Edith must be allowed to die. The tragic ending, Shatner's performance, high regard from both the cast and crew of "Star Trek," and multiple awards solidified "City" as the most celebrated "Trek" episode of all time .

Data reporting by Luke Hicks. Copy editing by Tim Bruns. Photo selection by Clarese Moller.

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