The ceremony is for the purpose of shielding the logical mind from something that is so primal and bestial like and the realization that even your vaunted highly evolved logical mind and body is not immune to or beyond.
It makes more sense once you've watched Enterprise. T'Pau was a friend to captain Archer, combat veteran, major force of change in a corrupt government, leader of a religious movement, and touched the katra of Surak. In other words, meeting T'Pau was the equivalent of meeting George Washington who had had a moment with Jesus.
@@margotrosendorn6371 Oh for sure, and I did watch that show too. It's just a really neat little 'human' moment they gave Kirk in this episode, where he lets down his tough guy act for a moment and just enjoys having the chance to see someone he respects deeply
It was a tactic by T'Pring. She wanted Stonn. If Kirk won then he would reject her and she would have Stonn. If Spock won, then he would leave and face justice for killing Kirk, then T'Pring would still have Stonn.
@@ensignmjs7058 Also because she could only divorse Spock by challaging him according to Vulcan laws and customs. When asked, she explained, and Spock said, Logical, flawlessly logical. She replied, I am honered. Stonn, she is yours. After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
Please note: When the ax man put his ax between TPring and Stonn, look at McCoy. You will see Leonard Nimoy standing with his hands in the back of him. Also same situation when he was in the Plac Tow, the blood feaver. Just a little trivial goof for all you folks out there. When Leonard realizes the cameras were rolling hurried back to the blood feavor mode.
T'Pau must've surmised McCoy's shenanigans. That's why she called into Starfleet command to explain the detour to Vulcan (thereby saving Kirk's command). If she had believed their ruse, there would be no need for such a call. Now, that's truly gangsta on a whole 'nother level!
Wonder why Sarek and his wife didn't attend the ceremony?🤔 Oops! Forgot! Sarek was still miffed at Spock joining Starfleet Academy years ago instead of following in his footsteps.
"What can you expect from a simpering devil-eared freak, whose father was a computer and his mother an encyclopedia." "My mother was a teacher; my father, an ambassador." "Your father was a computer, like his son! An ambassador from a planet of traitors. The Vulcan never lived who had an ounce of integrity." "Captain, please don't." "You're a traitor from a race of traitors; disloyal to the core, rotten like the rest of your subhuman race, and you've got the gall to make love to that girl." "That's enough." "Does she know what she's getting, Spock? A carcass full of memory banks who should be squatting on a mushroom... instead of passing himself off as a man? You belong in a circus, Spock, not a starship, right next to the dog-faced boy." Spock then attacks Kirk, in the 1st-season episode "This Side of Paradise."
This is the T'Pau that was born in 2122 and helped Captain Archer find the Kir'shara in 2154. This ceremony is happening in 2267. That makes her 145 years old at this time.
@@johnturrentine749 T'Pau died of an illness in 2276, but lives long enough to pass her katra to Amanda Grayson, so that was 154 years, but by comparison Sarek was 203 years old when he died so some Vulcans have longer life spans than others. memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Sarek
@@ArgonTheAware Some Vulcans outliving other Vulcans isn't surprising considering humans have different life spans too, some make it past 100 while others only 80.
@@Shanethefilmmaker : when I first watched this episode back in the 1960s when it aired, I was like “What!!!!, they leave out such a very important detail!!” Geesh! Edit: of course then it wouldn’t have had the same results.........at least I don’t think it wouldn’t of.
I Like when She said it is the Vulcan way, I substitute, it is the Jewish way, the ancient practices since Moses and Abraham. Enrico Carruso sings Rachel, and he makes the Vulcan hand sign, Caruso studied in for that part.
She was willing to force two close friends to fight to the death in order to get herself out of an inconvenient arranged marriage. Even for a Vulcan, that is COLD.
@@WhiteCamry I don’t feel much sympathy for Stonn. He’s seen firsthand what she is capable of, and he doesn’t have the good sense to run like hell. Spock even tries to warn him at the end of the episode. He says: "After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true." Which is as close as a Vulcan ever gets to saying: “Dude, you have NO IDEA what you are getting yourself into.”
I believe if she had still been alive then, T'Pau would also have been the officiating priestess at Spock's "rejoining". But she wasn't, so we got Juliet Anderson. Lovsky's accent in this role may actually be real, she's of Austrian or Czech descent as far as I know. The accent was also a reason why she did not get so many roles in Hollywood. Lovsky was actually married to actor Peter Lorre, of Mr. Moto fame.
I wonder what Celia Lovsky thought about playing T'Pau, which had to have been the most unusual acting role of her career. Between the pointed ears, alien wardrobe, and make-up Vulcan words, she could be forgiven for thinking "What have I gotten myself into?" But the dignity and gravitas she brought to the role is as undeniable as it was unforgettable.
@@radicalross7700 Hard to say. Some of Trek’s guest stars really respected what the show was going for while others saw it as a silly-but-fun gig, like doing an episode of “Batman.” Lovsky also had a small role in the movie “Soylent Green,” so she obviously didn’t consider herself above genre work.
@@Shanethefilmmaker Actually, she knew both of them. She helped Archer deliver the Kir'Shara to the Vulcan High Command and helped T'Pol recover from a neural disease.
@@Shanethefilmmaker T'Pol is not the same person as T'Pau. Fun fact: A 1980's pop group named itself T'Pau in honor of the Star Trek character. ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-SwrYMWoqg5w.html
I still say that T'Pau was wrong to not tell Kirk that the fight was "to the death". That was an extremely important fact to know before making a decision to accept or decline the challenge.
👍👍 yes, I certainly agree with that! My dad and I watched this when it first aired in the 1960s and he said that they should have mentioned that, as it was a life or death issue. He liked ‘Star Trek’ a lot as it portrayed a future Earth that no longer had people that warned against each other. After all the horrors that he had experienced in WWII in the Pacific, he was ready for a brighter future!
I don't like this episode, but to make it palatable I decided both T'Pring and T'Pau detest aliens that wear their emotions on their sleeve, the latter refusing a Federation Council position to not be around them. The former didn't want to marry a half-human, but couldn't get out of it by normal means because Spock's family was the elite so planned to see him killed in combat. But at the last minute suffered fear that Spock being a Starfleet officer would defeat Ston in combat, so chose Kirk as her champion whom she wouldn't mind seeing killed either. T'Pau went along with the challenge to make Spock prove he was Vulcan ("I burn"), but didn't care if either or both died.
I love Spock's comment at the end of the episode. "having is not nearly so fine a thing as wanting." Think about that. Spock knows how to deliver an insult. It means, "yeah, T'Pring I had you and it was not as great as the anticipation warranted." SNW is right. They had been intimate before.
I don’t think so. I believe it was more of a “You want to be together that badly? Fine by me. See how much you love each other when you’re actually a couple.”
T'Pau challenged Spock because--in her own words--"I did not wish to be the consort of a legend." What she really meant is that she knew being his mate meant she herself had to take a backseat to him, whether he was there or not. She didn't want Stonn out of any attraction to him; she wanted Stonn because she knew she could wrap him around her little finger, because he was so besotted with her to begin with. She wanted control, not just of her own life, but of all others around her. When Spock says to Stonn, "After a time, you may come to find that having is not nearly so pleasing a thing as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true," what he's really saying is. "She's a manipulative little ball-busting bitch and she's going to drain you of everything you are and everything you have. You deserve her, asshat!"
That's what she said, but I think Vulcans are racists against aliens who show their emotions. Like other children he knew growing up, she likely felt Spock "wasn't a true Vulcan" as his mother recounted, and didn't want to marry a half-human. But because Spock's family was the elite, she couldn't get out of the wedding without great shame, so turned a ceremony into a challenge. T'Pau didn't want to be around aliens on the Federation Council (I think) so turned it down and went along with the violent challenge to end Spock. But T'Pring got cold feet that Stonn would be killed by a servicemember, so pointed to Kirk. "The women on your planet are logical," said Kirk once. Does he still believe that?
@@sandal_thong8631 What an interesting theory! I've always felt that Vulcans, on average, had a hint of xenophobia in their mindset. I remember how the Romulans were always upfront about their xenophobia. It was always clear to me that they considered themselves the "Master Race."
There is an editing error in this part of the episode. As Spock is walking up to hammer the gong, T'Pring has already started to walk up behind him. Then the scene changes to show her walking up from the start and rewalking the same path to reach the gong. Minor quibble that 99.99% of the watchers have missed, but it was an error none the less. More or less Trek trivia.
99.99%? You pulled that straight out of your ass, you have no data, and nothing to base that off of, literally just because you happened to not notice anyone mention it you assume that you're the only one? That's pretty dumb...
Yes, it's actually the women calling the shots in this ritual - for all the talk about T'Pring becoming the property of the one who wins the kalifee (as far as I am concerned, this is a relic from former times). After all, the women are not affected by the pon farr, so they have logic, while the men do not.
@@christianealshut1123 : In the ‘Star Trek Enterprise’ episode, ‘Bounty’, T’Pol goes through an artificially induced Pon Farr. This episode was not considered to be a very tactful and was considered to be rather ‘cheesy’. I watched it when it first aired, and at times it was rather unsettling.
There has to be some price to pay for risking the spilling of Vulcan (Kirk's blood). She loses all legal rights as property. Since she challenged and did not get released into Vulcan society by Spock and later Stonn, she is by Vulcan.standards a barbarian. As property she loses ALL rights.to challenge again.
The point of T'Pau's speech was to explain that what they were about to see was not logical. It was something from the time of the beginning, long before the sundering. A Tradition that to Vulcans, defines them as a people. The Vulcan Heart, the Vulcan Way. They know it's not logical. But it is also who they are.
@@3Rayfire You have a point, but still ... property? Chattel?? I wish we'd seen more of Vulcan society in the show and/or the movies, to see whether this was taken literally, or whether it was just traditional ceremonial language.
@@mnirwin5112 This was written in the 1960s; things were different than they are today - women on spaceships still wore miniskirts! They thought perhaps that since the bride could choose whose property she would become, there was a certain degree of freedom in the matter. I also think the fact that the woman had the freedom to choose was based on the fact that at least one of the male parties in such a scenario would be in pon farr, and therefore not fit to make the choice as he would not have logic. I think that the Vulcan woman will be aware of the process in her prospective mate, but not overwhelmed in the way he is, or perhaps the very fact that she is woman gives her the wherewithal to cope with the systems better than the male.
Captain Kirk: Original primetime horndog and poster boy for the #MeToo movement. Countless workplace lawsuits have been filed, the Federation has had to pay out trillions in settlements and child support. Where no man has gone before... indeed Captain.
This episode is a fantastic way of showing ongoing Vulcan bigotry to humans. McCoy took advantage of their arrogance by making Kirk look so weak that he would need a hypo just to keep up. T'Pau amplified that arrogance by saying "the air is the air". They picked on Spock for his being born half human and bringing "out worlders" to a personal Vulcan activity. T'Pau mocks Spock for making a claim on his Vulcan heritage. Telling Kirk the rules don't apply to him without saying it was to the death was T'Pau's way of punishing humans for getting involved in a private Vulcan matter. And then telling Admiral Komack the same thing. This episode is so rich in backstory.
“Spock never said his family was this important” Spock, for the record, had not told Kirk and McCoy jack sh** about his family by this point in TOS. They don’t even know Sarek is his father, or that his mother is a human, or that he even has siblings
I think Vulcan logic also has one drawback - people started thinking too little about mating, and there was the danger of too few children being born. That's why evolution came up with the idea of pon farr - an instinct so strong in males that it could not be overridden (practically a "mate or die" situation). As far as I can remember from the series and the movies, this was meant to occur every seven years. So since Spock is not really married to T'Pring yet, more like betrothed - I would assume he is relatively young by Vulcan standards and this is his first.
@@katherine1304 If you want to equate the ages of the actors with those of their characters...But this whole pon farr business seems to be structured around the number 7 - Spock and T'Pring were betrothed when they were 7, and a Vulcan male undergoes pon farr every 7 years (according to Saavik in The Search for Spock). So I always assumed Spock would have had his first pon farr at an age divisible by 7, i.e. most likely at 35 (though this creates a continuity error with The Search for Spock where the reborn Spock looks clearly younger when undergoing it for the first time), and this would then also be the date at which the marriage with the intended partner as such would be formalized (as we see in Amok Time). And it's quite clear in this episode that Spock and T'Pring are not yet married, otherwise she would not be able to challenge the bond. It would be reasonable to assume that Vulcans reach their sexual maturity at a later point in their lives as they also have longer lifespans.
Totally awesome right up to the point where we see Kirk standing there slouching with his arms crossed and that WTF? look on his face. SO disrespectful! LOL!
Half of all Vulcan wars started because of the Pon Farr. Amazing with their technology they couldn't just tweak their hormones a wee bit during that time. The vulcan going after a half human half klingon, Torres, on Voyager was amusing.
They probably would have, but they are also very enamored with tradition. Logic would suggest that they also give their women the right to break off engagements or do away with arranged marriages entirely. The only way T'Pring can be freed of her bond with Spock is if he breaks off their engagement. This is the only way she could be free to choose her own mate.
I want to see how a Half Vulcan Half Klingon would be. I imagine they'd probably have a harder time suppressing their emotions, but eventually would, but their Pon Farr would be brutal.
@@BrotherDerrick3X According to Memory Alpha, he was considered a possible replacement if Nimoy left in the 2nd season, not before the series started. He also played Decius, a Romulan in "Balance of Terror."
Every time I see this it gets more ridiculous. The questions and implausibilities are too numerous to list. It's the genius of Roddenberry to make total lunacy appear not only normal but engaging.
Also Decious in the first season episode Balance Of Terror, and was chosen as a Spock replacement if Leonard Nimoy chose to leave the show, which he was going to do, but changed his mind.
Not to mention, black panther names are obviously based on pan-African and Arabic names that are older than both of these properties. Obviously, that was a joke, but it quickly falls apart on a couple levels 😅
@@Geerladenlad Wrong. Black Panther first appeared in Marvel Comics in July 1966. This episode of Star Trek did not air until September 1967. Marvel was first by more than a year.
Prior to Strange New Worlds, it was established that T’Pring had no desire to be bound to Spock because he is half human. Yet this new Pike series is trying to paint her as the wronged woman, ignored by her overworked husband. I’m not to fond of the retcon.
Ah T'Pau.... writters may have made it otherwise but I will forever believe this is actually T'Pol from enterprise, which overall makes far more sense.
I just watched the recreation of this scene in the Brave New World series. The gong and the chimes were so familiar ... it was the fight that brought it back... and I'll be damned if there isn't a quote in a drum and bass track
I say we have a dating game show set up like the Vulcan Pon Farr. Gal of the week (GotW) will have three suitors. GotW gets to pick her champion who will either physically wrestle, intellectually duel (like The Chase), or compete in mechanical aptitude (change a flat tire, respool a weed whacker, replace a vacuum cleaner belt). IF there's a finalist he will either determine the GotW was worth it or not. IF not, the GotW will return for next week with 3 new suitors. [Edit]: Forgot to add, the host will be an old babe like Helen Mirren or Jane Seymour or Jane Badler who will be carried out, just like T'Pau, onto the set by a team of 4 super buff studs. For parity, we could have a dude of the week (DotW) with the same arrangement. 3 ladies will compete. In this case, DotW gets to pick his champions and one of three categories of challenges will take place: 1) A battle of wits/intellect; 2) a battle of mechanical prowess; and 3) a competitive demonstrate of physical skill. If anyone makes it to through the final tier, she will have an option to say worth it or not. The host will be old dudes like Anthony Hopkins, Samuel L Jackson, Edward James Olmos, maybe Gene Hackman, or Gary Oldman escorted out by extremely lovely ladies.
Ok folks, fun facts here. Look closely, you'll see TPring runs twice towards Spock when he was ready to hit the gong there, number one. Number two, notice that Leonard Nimoy is standing off to the side and against a beam of some sort when he was suppose to be in the blood feaver mode. Watch it very closely as he was behind McCoy, and also when the Captain helps TPow off of her chair she was sitting in when she got up. Leonard, then realized that the cameras were rolling hurried back to the blood feaver role, after the shots of him standing upright against the beam. Also, actor Lawarance Montague was Decious in the first season episode, Balance Of Terror, and little is known about this fact, that Leonard Nimoy thought seriously about leaving the series after season one, and Lawarance Montague was chosen as a Spock replacement as the actor possesses an uncanny resemblance to Leonard Nimoy.
So Janet Jackson gets to choose Spock or Captain Kirk? Beam us up Scotty, including Spock. Spock took an oath to Starfleet. Some pop star chick doesn't come before that. Lol!
3:30 what is the bells? Are they to chastise? Or are they to celebrate? Or were they extras and the director just said “shake these bells when you feel like it”? So confused
@@hamhockbeans Marshak and Culbreath: "There's a great deal of writing in the Star Trek movement now which compares the relationship between Alexander and Hephaistion to the relationship between Kirk and Spock -- focusing on the closeness of the friendship, the feeling that they would die for one another --" Roddenberry: "Yes, there's certainly some of that, certainly with love overtones. Deep love. The only difference being, the Greek ideal... we never suggested in the series... physical love between the two. But it's the... we certainly had the feeling that the affection was sufficient for that, if that were the particular style of the 23rd century."
To consider that in Enterprize writers wanted T'Pol to be a young T'Pau but it woundn't make sence because in OS she refused a seat in Starfleet command . If she was on Starfleet it would be ilogical to refuse.
