The first episode of the second season is notable for a couple of reasons.\u00a0 It\u2019s the first appearance of Ensign Chekov.\u00a0 He is a young man with a really bad Russian accent and a Beatles haircut which differed from the rest of the crew with a more military cut.\u00a0 The other distinction is that this episode features the first details of Vulcan.\u00a0 Mr. Spock is going through a Vulcan physiological syndrome that requires him to return to Vulcan to perform an ancient mating ritual or else die from the suppression of the metabolic process involved.\u00a0 The visible manifestations of this syndrome include clear irritability and tremors in his hands.\u00a0 When the always annoying Nurse Chapel brings him a bowl of Vulcan soup Spock scream at her and throws the bowl out of his cabin into the corridor.\u00a0 When the video screen on the desk in his cabin interrupts him he smashes it flat with his bare hand.<\/p>\n
Kirk has been ordered to proceed in all haste to a diplomatic occasion on another planet but in order to save Spock from dying he disobeys his orders and brings Spock to Vulcan. \u00a0When they arrive Kirk and McCoy agree to act as Spock\u2019s entourage during the ceremony.\u00a0 There we meet the prospective bride, T’Pring.\u00a0 She\u2019s decently good looking.\u00a0 We also meet the leader of Spock\u2019s tribe, T’Pau.\u00a0 She on the other hand is an old battle axe.\u00a0 Now we find out that a Vulcan marriage has the potential to involve a battle to the death for the bride\u2019s hand.\u00a0 And that\u2019s what T\u2019Pring demands.\u00a0 And as is her right she selects the challenger.\u00a0 But instead of selecting her real choice, a doofus named Stonn, she picks Kirk.\u00a0 Kirk is afraid that if he refuses that Stonn will kill the weakened Spock in the combat.\u00a0 So, he agrees to battle Spock, unaware, at first, that it is to the death.\u00a0 The first round involves a weapon that has a large semicircular razor on one side of a pole with a cudgel on the other side.\u00a0 Spock immediately slices through Kirk\u2019s shirt and chest with it and Kirk barely manages to avoid death.\u00a0 In the next round the weapon is a combination bolo and garroting band.\u00a0 Before they get going McCoy gets permission to inject Kirk with a medicine that will allow Kirk to breath better in the low air pressure on Vulcan.<\/p>\n
This time the contest does not go well and Spock chokes Kirk to death.\u00a0 McCoy returns to the ship with Kirk\u2019s body.\u00a0 Spock questions T\u2019Pring as to her motive in choosing Kirk.\u00a0 She explains that she was unwilling to be the wife of an absentee legendary husband and so she reasoned that if Kirk won, he would not want her and if Spock won, he would also reject her for her betrayal.\u00a0 Spock commends her on her logic and warns Stonn that winning T\u2019Pring might not be as good a deal as he currently thinks it to be.<\/p>\n
The payoff for the show comes as Spock takes his leave of T\u2019Pau.\u00a0 They flash their Vulcan gang sign with the space between the third and fourth digits and Spock gives her the \u201clive long and prosper\u201d line.\u00a0 She repeats it to him but his comeback is, \u201cI shall do neither, for I have killed my captain and my friend.\u201d\u00a0 Upon meeting Dr. McCoy, Spock informs him that he intends to hand over his command to Scotty but behind Spock a visibly living James Kirk replies, \u201cDon’t you think you better check with me first?\u201d \u00a0Spock in surprise and then delight breaks into a broad smile and grabs Kirk by the arms and exclaims \u201cCaptain! Jim!\u201d \u00a0McCoy explains that what he injected into Kirk was a drug that would temporarily simulate death.\u00a0 When McCoy questions Spock about his apparent emotional outburst on seeing Kirk alive Spock goes into a song and dance about how it was merely logical relief to see that he had not killed Kirk. \u00a0McCoy says it is all very logical but as Kirk and Spock are leaving, he says in a loud voice, \u201cin a pig\u2019s eye.\u201d<\/p>\n
And as the final straightening out of the plot we hear that Starfleet Command retroactively agrees to a request from T\u2019Pau to allow the Enterprise to stop over at Vulcan.\u00a0 Apparently, she is indeed a very heavy hitter in the galaxy.\u00a0 So, Kirk is off the hook.<\/p>\n
Interestingly this episode was written by Theodore Sturgeon who was a very talented but erratic science fiction writer at the time.\u00a0 As a tv show it has a lot going for it.\u00a0 We get to watch Kirk and Spock dance around the uncomfortable dynamic of their friendship and Spock\u2019s discomfort with addressing his Human\/Vulcan emotional baggage.\u00a0 I especially enjoyed Spock screaming at Nurse Chapel.\u00a0 I\u2019ve always despised the character and the chance to see her abused by Spock whom she obviously pines for was vey funny.\u00a0 What can I say, I\u2019m a monster.<\/p>\n
There is also an enormous amount of hokey ritual on Vulcan with gongs, bells on some kind of shaking rack that looks really stupid.\u00a0 There are funny weapons.\u00a0 T\u2019Pau is carried around on a litter by two attendants.\u00a0 They\u2019ve got all the funny words they use for the various parts of the ritual.\u00a0 There are the silly names T\u2019Pring and T\u2019Pau.\u00a0 It\u2019s so much fun.\u00a0 And the friendship between Kirk and Spock is actually well done.\u00a0 When Spock answers T\u2019Pau about his bleak future it hits just the right chord.\u00a0 The scene where Spock realizes that Kirk isn\u2019t dead works to great effect with Kirk\u2019s line coming off as very comical and effective.\u00a0 I give this episode a 9.<\/p>\n
As for Shatner mockery points, what more could you ask for.\u00a0 There is the sliced shirt, the rolling around and the minor tumbling moves.\u00a0 Plus, Kirk gets to be strangled and play dead.\u00a0 It\u2019s great.\u00a0 This is a 9 \/\/ 7.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first episode of the second season is notable for a couple of reasons.\u00a0 It\u2019s the first appearance of Ensign Chekov.\u00a0 He is a young<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[237,4,244,2149,240],"tags":[2458,2150,2281,38,1355,44,309,265,1691,293,1404,154,1692,2459,837],"class_list":["post-10704","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","category-sff","category-sff-tv-reviews","category-star-trek","category-tv-reviews","tag-amok-time","tag-gene-roddenberry","tag-mr-spock","tag-review","tag-reviews","tag-sci-fi","tag-sci-fi-tv-review","tag-science-fiction","tag-sff-tv-show-reviews","tag-star-trek","tag-theodore-sturgeon","tag-tv-review","tag-tv-reviews","tag-vulcan","tag-william-shatner"],"yoast_head":"\n