“In the throes of his Pon Farr mating period, Spock must return to Vulcan to meet his intended wife, betrothed from childhood”
In this episode, Spock is horny.
***
McCoy finds Kirk in a corridor and asks if he’s noticed anything odd about Spock. Turns out he’s acting anxious and hasn’t eaten in three days. Kirk dismissed it as a mood. Then Nurse Chapel comes by with a tray of food - it’s homemade plomeek soup for Spock. They tease her a little about her crush on Spock and she goes on her way.
They discuss Spock’s mood while Chapel brings him the soup, but are interrupted when Spock starts yelling at Chapel and throws the bowl of soup. He then requests a leave of absence to Vulcan. When Kirk asks what this is about, he says he just needs a yes or no, then does the Star Trek equivalent of slamming his door. And we go to the intro, which has DeForest Kelley added to the opening credits.
***
Kirk is asking Spock for an explanation. Spock says it’s “undignified for a woman to play servant to a man that isn’t hers.” Kirk presses on, but Spock keeps interrupting until Kirk very firmly points out that Spock has never requested leave before, and has always refused when offered, so he wants to know what’s different now.
Spock continued to dodge the question, and is holding a stylus tightly behind his back. After some discussion, Kirk contacts the bridge and orders them to change course to Vulcan, noticing Spock’s hands behind his back in the process. He points out that Vulcans aren’t indestructible, and after he leaves, Spock agrees.
On the bridge, they receive orders from Starfleet Command to arrive at Altair 6 one week earlier than planned. We are then introduced to Chekov and his terrible, terrible wig. There will be no time to go to Vulcan if they’re going to get to Altair 6 in time. Kirk apologizes to Spock, who is visibly upset but controlling himself.
Later, in his quarters, Kirk changes his mind and contacts Chekov to see if they can stop off at Vulcan and increase warp to get to Altair 6. Chekov is confused - Spock has already ordered them to go to Vulcan.
Kirk returns to the bridge to confront Spock. Spock appears to have no memory of ordering a change in course, and asks to be locked up. Kirk sends him to sick bay instead for a complete examination.
Spock reports to sick bay as ordered, then attempts to immediately return to his quarters. McCoy will have none of that. Spock agrees to the examination.
On the bridge, Sulu asks Chekov what he thinks of changing course over and over. Chekov says he thinks he’ll get space sick. I think they’re making Walter Koenig work hard for his money by making him so prominent yet pointless in his first episode.
McCoy reports to Kirk that if they don’t get Spock to Vulcan within a week, he’ll die. McCoy doesn’t know why, and Spock won’t tell him, but if Spock doesn’t get to Vulcan the physical and emotional pressures will kill him.
Kirk confronts Spock again in his quarters. Eventually, he manages to get Spock to talk about it - it’s a form of madness where they lose their ability to be logical and have to participate in a mating ritual. Kirk promises to keep the conversation private and to get Spock to Vulcan as soon as possible.
Kirk attempts to convince Starfleet to let them detour to Vulcan, but without being able to explain Spock’s predicament, permission is denied. Kirk then decides that Spock is more important than the Altair mission, which was primarily symbolic, and orders Chekov to set course to Vulcan at maximum warp.
Meanwhile, Nurse Chapel checks on Spock in his quarters. He tells her he had a dream that she was trying to tell him something but he couldn’t hear her, then asks her to make him some of her plomeek soup. She happily runs off to do that.
***
Spock asks Kirk to beam down to Vulcan with him for the Pon Farr ceremony. He explains that he is permitted to bring his closest friends. He also asks that McCoy come too.
On the bridge, they receive a message from Vulcan from a woman T’Pring. Uhura asks who she is. Spock declares her to be his wife, much to Nurse Chapel’s dismay.
They beam down to the ceremonial location and wait for T’Pring. We get exposition from Kirk and Spock about the heat and thin air.
The Vulcan wedding party arrives. The officiant is T’Pau, the only person to ever turn down a seat on the Federation council. She questions Spock about why he brought outworlders, but Spock declares it to be his right.
The ceremony begins, but when Spock goes to strike the gong again, T’Pring stops him. She has chosen the challenge, and Spock will have to fight to marry her. She chooses Kirk as her champion, much to everyone’s surprise.
Spock begs T’Pau to forbid the challenge, but she refuses. She tells Kirk he can refuse, but another champion will be chosen.
McCoy tries to talk Kirk out of fighting, but he refuses. If he wins, he won’t seriously harm Spock, but if he loses, Spock’s honor is satisfied.
T’Pau orders the combat to begin with the lirpa, a weapon with a curved blade at one end and a weight at the other. If they both survive the lirpa, they continue the fight with the ahn’woon, a weighted rope-like weapon. Kirk asks what she means by that, and she reveals the fight is to the death. Welp.
They fight. Spock manages to slice Kirk across the chest and break a bunch of stuff before breaking his lirpa.
T’Pau stops the fight, and McCoy gets permission to dose Kirk with triox to help him breathe. Then T’Pau has the guards bring out the ahn’woon and the fight continues.
Spock trips Kirk with the ahn’woon. They wrestle for a while, but Spock gets the ahn’woon around Kirk’s neck and strangles him. McCoy declares him to be dead.
McCoy tells Spock he’s in command now. He says to beam back to the ship and have Chekov plot a course to the nearest starbase, where he intends to turn himself in.
T’Pring explains that she didn’t want to marry Spock. She wanted to marry Stonn, and he wanted to marry her. If Kirk had won the challenge, he wouldn’t have married her, and she would be with Stonn. If Spock had won, he might have freed her for challenging the marriage, and she could have been with Stonn. If Spock didn’t release her from the marriage, he would be gone aboard the Enterprise, but she would have his name and property, and Stonn would still be there. So choosing Kirk was the most logical option. Spock agrees that her plan was logical and tells Stonn that T’Pring is his, but that having may not be as good a thing as wanting. Oh snap.
***
Back aboard the Enterprise, Spock goes to sick bay to tell McCoy to put Scotty in command, as he must immediately resign his commission. McCoy keeps trying to interrupt, but Spock won’t hear it. Kirk, however, manages to get his attention.
Spock s unable to control his happiness at seeing Kirk alive and well, which is goofily adorable. Turns out McCoy gave him a neuroparalyzer to simulate death.
They receive a message from Starfleet Command - T’Pau’s request to divert the Enterprise to Vulcan has been granted. That loose end is tied up nicely.
More jokey banter teasing Spock for his emotional response to seeing Kirk alive, and we go to credits.
***
Another fun Spock performance, and a glimpse into Vulcan culture. Not thrilled with how they toyed with Nurse Chapel’s emotions, but overall it was a very entertaining episode.
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