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To me, that was always the heart of the episode. The great theme of Theodore Sturgeon's writings was love, and Amok Time showed a true love (friendship) in conflict with the tradition-bound relationship between Spock and T'Pring.

Because of their friendship, Kirk let himself be drawn into a situation which almost killed him and would have virtually killed Spock, regardless of the official verdict.

The Spock/Kirk relationship was primary; the Spock/T'Pring relationship was the catalyst which provoked the combat. In my opinion.

T'Pring may or may not have had some affection for Stonn. I rather doubt that she had much capacity for affection given her cold demeanor and callous disregard for life.

That said, I do have sympathy for T'Pring. If I had been left twisting in the wind for so many years, with no option but to wait for Spock to come back, I would have been spitting nails.

Oh I don't know. In my mind it was neither T-Pring or Spock's fault. There parents betrothed at the ripe old age of seven. How are a pair of children no matter how smart or advanced supposedto know who they are going to fall in love with when they turn eighteen or for that matter sixteen. I blame this entire situation on Sarek and Amanda as well as T-Pring's parents. Serek was not betrothed and freely choose Amanda a human why couldn't Spock be given the same opportunity.

Well, this episode raises a lot more questions than it answers. If it's traditional to bond young people for marriage, how come Stonn was available for T'Pring? If Spock and T'Pring's minds were touched together at age seven so that they would later be drawn together, why was T'Pring not drawn to Spock? And, although Sarek and Amanda were not mentioned in this episode, why no arranged marriage for Sarek? This question may have been answered later, but I'm not clear on that.

Anyway, I think these issues are all peripheral to the Spock/Kirk drama. It's been a long time since I've been much interested in science fiction literature, but at one time I must have read everything Sturegon ever wrote. I loved him.

Serak didn't get betrothed because his parents didn't belive in the tradion because they had found themselves later in life. Amada was against it but she had agreed when she married Sarek to raise Spock as a Vulcan and betrothing at the age of seven was tradition. Although it was a tradion that was falling out of favor with current generation. Amanda didn't trust T-Pring from the start. She said that there was something dishonorable about her even at seven years old.

BTW my favorite scene is still when Spock throws his plate into the hallway. In a true human temper tantrum.

All that may be true, but it wasn't addressed in this episode, or any other episode or movie that I know of. I just meant that this episode raises a lot of interesting questions.

Throwing the plate was a nice touch. The only other time I recollect Spock losing his cool was in The Naked Time.

And I meant "Sturgeon," not "Sturegon," of course. Mind slippage.

And, although Sarek and Amanda were not mentioned in this episode, why no arranged marriage for Sarek?

I'm not sure that it's explicitly stated, but I thought that Sarek's marriage to Sybok's mother was his arranged marriage and that her death left him free to marry Amanda.

(Contrariwise, according to Memory Alpha the episode "Sarek" establishes Sarek's first wife as from Earth.)

The only other time I recollect Spock losing his cool was in "The Naked Time."
What about "All Our Yesterdays," when he threatened Dr. McCoy? Twice. Or, in "This Side Of Paradise", when Spock came close to pummelling Kirk in the Transporter Room? Or, in Star Trek VI - The Undiscovered Country, when he lost it in Sickbay over Valeris' actions?

You're right I had forgotten all about Sybok, well to be honest I try to completely forget about "Star Trek V" and just skip right over to "Star Trek IV"

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How could I have forgotten about that "This Side of Paradise" incident? I love that scene. And you can't attribute his rage to some strange physiological influence. True, he was under the influence of the spores, but they acted to calm him, not to enrage him. What Kirk had to do to get under that Vulcan skin, my goodness!

In "All Our Yesterdays," did Spock actually lose his cool, or was he just being his natural 5000-year-ago self? I'm undecided on that one. Loved the episode, though.

In "Undiscovered Country," that mind-meld torture thing was very disturbing to me, and so unlike Spock. It didn't seem to me that he actually lost control so much as that he was just willing to go any extreme to get the truth. He didn't seem to regret it at all, or be embarrassed by it. Neither did anyone else appear to be surprised by Spock's action.

The closest Star Trek comparison I can think of
is in "Mirror, Mirror" where Bearded Spock used the agonizer on Mr. Kyle.

Bob Justman said in the book Inside Star Trek that one of his jobs was choosing the still shots to be used under the end credits. It was he who chose the Balok still from "Corbomite Maneuver" for the second season (starting with this episode) as an in-joke directed toward Desilu exec (and Inside Star Trek co-author) Herb Solow.

Odd that Mr.Spock does not wear some form of Vulcan ceremonial attire instead of his standard Star Fleet uniform.

Enhanced version has a nice shot of the ceremonial location on top of Mt. Selhaya.

vulcan clothes won't rip as easily. you gotta wear your starfleet ones so that your manly chest will show if you get hit.

As mentioned, the main new effect is a great aerial shot of the ceremonial area, with the city of Shi’Khar (from the TAS episode Yesteryear) in the background. This actually replaces some live-action footage of the trio hiking to the arena.

Other than that, there are a few orbital shots of Vulcan.

Oops, posted too soon. There's also an extreme closeup of an Enterprise flyby, and the photo of young T'Pring now has a background. Vulcan has visible city lights on its night side.

Kirk mentions that he owes Spock his life a dozen times over so I went through the first season episodes to see if that was true.
Here's my list;
1. The Man Trap; Spock intervened and pulled 'Nancy' away from Kirk when McCoy wouldn't.
2. Where No Man Has Gone Before; Without that phaser rifle that Spock ordered, Kirk wouldn't have survived his fight against the mutated Mitchell.
3. The Naked Time; Spock's time formula imploded the engines and threw it away from a certain burn up over Psi 2000.
4. The Enemy Within; Spock's neck pinch on the Evil Kirk jerked the twin's phaser aim off, hitting the transporter circuits, instead.
5. Miri; Spock (admittedly with McCoy's help) found a cure to the disease.
6. Balance Of Terror; Spock fired the ship's phasers after Stiles passed out, a second or two before the Romulan ship would surely have used their plasma weapon on the Enterprise again.
7. Tomorrow Is Yesterday; Spock's time computations enabled the ship to return to the 23rd century. It's not really saving Kirk's life, as in existence, but it returned his life as he knew it in the 23rd century, back to him and everyone else.
8. The Squire Of Gothos; Spock sent the landing party to find Kirk and Sulu, and then beamed them up blind shortly thereafter, before Trelane could have injured or killed him.
9. The Devil In The Dark; Kirk and Spock's combined phasers drove off the Horta. Would it have charged him if he'd been alone? Maybe, maybe not.
10. Court Martial; Spock's chess game experiments routed out Finney's computer sabotage, saving Kirk's Starfleet career (life).

Anybody else like to add to the list where Spock was primarily responsible for saving Kirk and/or the Enterprise?

Dunno what the significance of this is, but "Lirpa" is "April" spelled backwards.

A fine begining to a fine season.

The two biggest nits are where were Spocks parents, and how is it that Spock in in command after having just killed the captain?

Love Spocks brief emotional outburst upon seeing that Kirk is still alive!

And I don't think there is any significance to "Lirpa" being "April" backwards.

Spock can be in command because Starfleet can't blame him for obeying Vulcan custom regarding challenges. Spock, however, feels it ethically proper to resign his commission.

11.He made Kirk forget Rayna in Reqeuim,

12.Spock saved Kirk in Enterprise Incident.

13.Losira's triplets in That which Survive..

14.Doomsday machine Chief Kyle did save Kirk though.

15.Spock saved Kirk in Journey to Babel.

16 Cpt.Spock saves Kirk in Tholien Web.

It's been a while since I've been here.
I was wathing Enterprise when T'Pol (Sub-Commander) accidentally goes through Pon-Far because of an infection and and something occured to me.
Are Vulcans incapable of ... well you know ... pleasuring themselves to make it through Pon-Far?

Hey I saw Scotty in A spock tme, he was mosying down th corridor!

usually its badly edited!, and sometimes Chapel's visit in Spock's quarters is gone.

Haven't seen this for years until last night. They got the second year off to a fine start with some of the best acting in the series to date:

1) The "confession" scene in Spock's quarters features uncommon restraint and subtletly on Shatner's part. For somebody who came in for criticism of being a "scene hog" Shatner really gives a lot to Nimoy here and refrains from any mugging or overacting. Great scene!

2) Shatner's sidelong glance at Spock when he says "She is my wife" on the bridge is classic! And again, nice subtlety.

3) People should make more to-do about Celia Lovsky's performance. She's just about perfect. Think about it. Portraying a legendary Vulcan woman who is all powerful. She pulls this off without ever making a rapid gesture or raising her voice to the max. It's very, very solid.

4) Another nice little moment is D. Kelly announcing that Kirk is dead. He walks a very fine line saying it so that we can buy it's believable to the Vulcans, but we know he's done something to make Kirk OK.

A lot has been made over the past ten years about the scene where you can see Nimoy hanging out in the background, instead of being deep in the plok tow. I'll go one further that I haven't seen anybody mention. T'Pol tells Kirk Spock is deep in plok tow and then there's a quick cut away to Spock. It then takes a split second before Spock makes with the plok-tow-eyes. Editor could have done a better job, methinks.

What was going on in the scene when Chappelle goes to Spock's quarters? He just seems so sinsister when he calls her back. I really thought he was going to assault her or something. Does he get that under control and then ask for soup to cover it up? Maybe I'm just looking at a naive scene from the 60s with 2009 eyes.

Can't remember his name but we get another voice over from that Outer Limits guy as the voice of Vulcan Space Central. "Do not attempt to change your heading or speed. We are in control....!!!"

Vic Perrin was the Outer Limits voice-over guy, aka the Control Voice.

Live long and prosper.

Vic Perrin was the Control Voice, but he was not the voice of Vulcan Space Central. According to Memory Alpha, it was Walker Edmiston.

The remastered "Amok Time" airs next weekend, with "Balance of Terror" the following week.

Hey, Alan? What channel are we talking about? Is this national (e.g. SciFi), or local?

This is local. TOS:R is distributed through syndication, so any of your local channels might be airing it.

a spock time enhanced - was blanked out until the admiral was giving orders to Kirk and the powers that be cut off Majel in Spock's quarters...

they did add
the long long shot of Kirk SPock and bones walkin

g to the Arena...
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my station also cut off the end titles
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I may have to buy the enhanced dvds, with my Obama stimulas package.

The flip side of Spock killing Kirk is that he didn't actually do it. Since nobody really died, doesn't this mean that under Vulcan law the fight is still on (because it was to the death)? Or because Spock failed to kill T'Pring's choice, Kirk, does this mean she's married to Kirk? I wonder if any of the novels explored this. T'Pau doesn't strike me as someone that would let this slide.

In the "Vulcan Academy Murders" (one of my favorite TOS novels), Kirk has a meeting wiht T'Pau. She very angry at the deception, but considers the fight over.

Kirk had a very disrespectful posture at the moment T'Pring selected him. It was a casual slouch, and I think T'Pau should have considered it offensive, even though Vulcans would not take offence. She would not be offended, but she would consider Kirk's attitude to be disrespectful.

Now, I could accept Kirk in a contemplative stance, a hand to his chin, trying to puzzle out what's going on, then dropping his hand and his jaw dropping when T'Pring points and says "This one!"

As Kirk is demanding answers from Spock, the first officer extends a hand and lets some sort of dark blade drop down on his desk. An angered Kirk grabs his wrist to get his attention and the shot switches to a close up of the hand, which is now holding the blade that it had dropped a moment ago.

There is a gong in the center of the ceremonial arena that Spock rings a couple of times. It has a characteristic deep resonating tone. During the fight with the lirpa, Spock hits and breaks that gong, which makes the same sound as he does. However, the broken gong should have made a totally different sound.

In the earliest scene between Kirk and Spock in Spock's quarters, with the camera facing inwards towards the door, we see a computer on the bannister next to Spock's desk. However, it seems to be turned backwards towards the wall, with the buttons facing the wall (the camera).

Everyone notices that Spock's parents are not at the wedding (thanks to their appearance later in the season in 'Journey to Babel'), but look who else is missing from the wedding party.
We have T'Pring, T'Pau, Stonn, a scary guy with a weapon who 'acts only if cowardice is displayed') and a group of silver-clad wedding officials/bell-clangers.
So who's missing besides Sarek and Amanda? T'Pring's parents! So I'm throwing two possibilities out there; they, like Spock's parents are off-world for whatever reason, or maybe it's a Vulcan custom for the parents to NOT attend their child's wedding! We're applying human rules here-- maybe they're not under any obligation at all to attend, or could even be forbidden by ancient law.

That had not occured to me, it's a very good point. However, if it is a Vulcan tradition for the parents to not attend their children's wedding, Amanda must have been fuming mad when she was told about it.

Perhaps Sarek was off world on a diplomatic assignment (perhaps the final negotiations for the Organian Peace Treaty)and Amanda went with him. And they couldn't get back in time for this.

As for T'Pring's parents, your guess is as good as mine. Maybe they're dead.

Watch T'Pring's reaction after Spock tells Stonn that 'having is not always so pleasing a thing as wanting'; She steps forward and watches Spock walk over to T'Pau.
I think she does this for two reasons. One is she's thinking "What the--?! What's THAT supposed to mean?!', and secondly, he didn't say good-bye or live long and prosper.
Nice snub, Spock!

I think Spock was rightfully upset. He was tricked into a fight to the death with Capt. Kirk.

Spock sure dodged a phaser blast here, when he didn't end up with that be-octh

In the novel "Spock's World", there's a good follow-up on T'Pring and Stonn. Stonn is dead. McCoy does some research and discovers T'Pring has been engaged in property speculation, building up funds which she has used to support several organizations that favour secession from the Federation.

If secession goes through, all the property now held by off-worlders and by the Federation and Starfleet will revert to Vulcan control. The Vulcan government will have no use for most of it, and therefore will put it up for sale, and T'Pring is counting on benefiting financially from that.

T'Pring hates the Federation; she wants Vulcan for Vulcans. There might already be a rift between T'Pring and her family, who perhaps value Federation ties while she either was "burned" at some point before "Amok Time", or her resentment at Spock has extended to a resentment of off-worlders' "contamination" of the planet. Maybe they don't like the fact that she's been interested in Stonn instead of her betrothed.

Not canon, doesn't count.

This is not me talking, this was Paramount's policy in regard to the novels (with one or two exceptions).

That's why there are two separate Trek wikis, Memory Alpha, for the shows and movies, and Memory Beta, for the novels and comics.

I wonder what would Kirk have done if he had been told that the combat was to the death before he was asked to either accept of refuse it. He could not have let Spock fight Stonn because he would easily have dispatched the weakened Spock. Nor could he have accepted the challenge, because it would have meant either his or Spock's death. Now that would have been a fascinating dilemma to introduce in the story.

"Ensign Redshirt, take my place!" ;-)

LOL!