Amok Time is the first show of the second season and it's the first one with Ensign Chekov. It was written by Theodore Sturgeon and it aired on September 15 1967. Dr McCoy and Captain Kirk encounter as obviously disturbed Mr Spock who confides in Kirk that he's suffering from Pon farr and must go home to mate or he will die. Damn, fatal Vulcan blue balls. He's got a prearranged marriage from when he was 7. The Enterprise starts for Spock's home world but Star Fleet orders the ship to Altair VI. Kirk takes Spock to Vulcan anyway and gets caught up in Spock's marriage ceremony. It involves fighting with sharp weapons. To the death! And those Vulcans claim to be so civilized.
The shots of Vulcan are pretty cool, all red and dim, they are new for this edition of the show. Kirk and Spock fight until Kirk is killed. Spock's betrothed turns out to be a cold fish and Spock dumps her. He returns to the ship to face the music for killing the Captain. He's really happy to see Jim alive. A good episode to start the season and I bet a fan favorite.
The second show on the disc is Who Mourns For Adonais? which was broadcast September 23 1967. The Enterprize is surveying Pollux IV when a giant green hand comes out of nowhere and stops the ship. Greek God Apollo welcomes the humans to his planet. He's missed them these last 5000 years and is glad they have come to worship him.
Michael Forest plays Apollo and Leslie Parrish plays the ship specialist in archaeology and anthropology. She falls for Apollo and he for her. He won't let the crew leave and that gets Kirk all riled up. He and Spock speculate that the ancient Greek Gods might have been these space aliens with great powers. The power happens to be in the temple and destroyable. Gone it leaves Apollo helpless and he fades away to join his people. He tells everyone he'll miss them and that he would have been a good god to them. Everyone feels bad for destroying him but that's the way things go in outer space some days. Kind of goofy but they manage to pull it off fairly well. There are only those two episodes on the disc. There are 5 featurettes in the Additional Data section. Bill Blackburn's Treasure Chest: Rare Home Movies and Special Memories Part 2 continues on from the season one segment. There are 19 minutes of on set home movies and clips of Bill playing various characters in the series. "To Boldly Go..." Season 2 has a lot of interviews with the cast and crew. It runs 19 minutes. Designing The Final Frontier is a 22 minute visit with the people who created the sets and props on the show. I really enjoyed their stories about having to create big sets with lots of props for little money. The Jefferies tubes were made from giant cardboard tubes. D C Fontana talks about her days working on the show in the 7 minute interview Writer's Notebook: D C Fontana. Various members of the other Star Trek series talk about their favorite moments on the Original Series in the 17 minute long Star Trek's Favorite Moments. That's 77 minutes of material. Not too shabby.
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