re: Star Trek: TOS Watchers - S2 - Return to Tomorrow *Page 14*

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That was ABC

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My brain is getting old. All I remember was after Mannix, the TV went to the FBI at 9

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Was somebody else there to change the channel?

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Yeah, mom and dad

Monday bump.

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Nimoy did a great job.

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Where Nimoy was great was the combination of things he brought to the character - rational, tempered, not necessarily emotionless - although the character himself thought of himself that way. A great balance of body control, facial expressions, tone of voice - make no mistake, it was hard not to look wooden when you share scenes with Shatner (who was often very animated), but Nimoy took that natural contrast and made it work for him.

SO, it makes it all the more impressive when he is able to convincingly get out of character, while still in character as Spock - like the drunk/drugged effect in "The Naked Time", the spores from "This Side of Paradise" or the pon farr as in this episode - a really gifted actor who did as much for Spock and Star Trek, as either of them ever did for him - a great symbiosis.

Since we're talking about Amok Time this week, I believe this episode was also an inspiration for the Klingon revisions, particularly the TNG/DS9 Klingons.

If you look at the ritual, and particularly the ritualistic weapons - thinking back on "Friday's Child", and I argued that the Capellans were likely a source of inspiration for the post-Advent revision of the Klingons for the Star Trek universe - to make them a more "unique" science fiction foe, rather than a proxy for the Cold War Soviets (not too subtle with the Ghengis Khan look, either) - certainly there are elements of Tolkien's Orc race, the aforementioned Capellans, and I can't help but wonder if the wonderful set and melee weapons of the Vulcan koon-ut-kal-if-fee and other rituals surrounding the entire pon farr aspect of Vulan physiology/psychology wasn't at least used as a reference for many of the rituals we saw Worf, Gowron and other Klingons engage in from TNG forward.

And on the casting note, Arlene Martel as T'Pring - the first female Vulcan to appear in the Star Trek universe.



Originally considered for the role of Elizabeth Dreher in the second pilot "Where No Man Has Gone Before" - which ultimately went to Sally Kellerman, and Sylvia in "Catspaw" (which went to Antoinette Bower), she was considered ideal for T'Pring.

Lawrence Montaigne (Stonn) returns to Star Trek - we originally saw him in "Balance of Terror" in Season 1 - putting him in relatively rare company of Star Trek guests returning as different non-crew characters.

As the Romulan Decius in "Balance of Terror":



He was the only actor seriously considered to replace Leonard Nimoy during contract negotiations when it was possible for Nimoy to leave the show and his role as Spock.

As Stonn:

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When I looked further, I found this pretty good site that lists actors returning for the same and different roles, crew and non-crew, and there were many more than I thought:

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I think we may have covered Babcock (certainly the most overall appearances, voice and on-screen, in TOS for non-Starfleet characters) in the first season - interestingly enough - Roger Carmel's Mudd character represents the only non-Starfleet character to make a return appearance, although as your link describes, many, many extra/stunt performers made repeat appearances..

They wanted to have a consistent Klingon captain, but kept having to recast it. When a guest was re-cast, it was typically too different a character to keep continuity. In virtually all the other cases of additional appearance, it was part of the extra/stunt crew getting multiple looks - and normally they play a crewmember or starfleet personnel at least once. Bruce Hyde's Riley was a rare example of the same member of the crew being played by a true guest star (rather than their stock extra/stunt cast) - and they almost messed that up. When re-cast, they had to scramble to change the script because someone remembered he had played Riley in another episode.

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Mark Lenard

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Part of the reason he was recast as Sarek (in addition to his brilliant performance as the first Romulan character to appear in Star Trek) was that the ears were already made.

Montaigne and Lenard both played Romulans before playing Vulcans.

Another continuity issue with "Amok Time" - this ceremony of such importannce, but neither T'Pring nor Spock appear to have close family members present. Probably had too much on the episode's plate to do that. If "Journey to Babel" had happened first, I wonder if efforts would have been made to get Lenard and Wyatt into at least 1 scene.

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Classic episode. One of my favorites.

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As a Spock fan - I particularly enjoyed the episodes where he gets out of his comfort zone (Galileo Seven) or completely thrown off by something (Naked Time, Amok Time, This Side of Paradise, All our Yesteryears) - Nimoy is truly a fine actor - not to say that Shatner (I defend him all the time - his style is generally perfect for the character) and Kelley aren't - but they were allowed to use emotion all the time in Star Trek, like normal human characters. Nimoy had to act as though he were trying to be emotionless, but also betray that he was full of it at times.

Really brilliant, as usual, in this episode.

Saturday bump

*THE DOOMSDAY MACHINE*



The Enterprise stumbles across her sister, NCC-1017, USS Constellation, badly damaged and, apparently, bereft of life in the shattered remains of a solar system. Finding the Constellation's commander, Commodore Matt Decker, alive in his auxiliary control room, Kirk and Spock learn a monstrous machine has been responsible for destroying planets, many of them inhabited, as well as the planet on which the Constellation's crew took refuge.

Can our crew figure out how to defeat this seemingly invincible machine?