I assume you mean The Gamesters of Triskelion and Plato's Stepchildren. But what older man are you talking about?
Did Spock and nurse Chapel flirt a lot in the original series and in the animated series?
- Thread starter Kristine
- Start date
I assume you mean The Gamesters of Triskelion and Plato's Stepchildren. But what older man are you talking about?
Spock never expressed any romantic interest in Chapel while in his normal state of mind, so even if one wanted to references his calling her "Christine" in "Amok Time", he was under physical stress and simply being kind to someone who was in the process of having her feelings hurt for the umpteenth time by a man who was never going to see her in a romantic sense.
Well, he certainly had no trouble answering her very personal questions about Vulcan sexuality and was quite pleased with her company--something he never did with Chapel. Further, he did express feelings for the Romulan Commander from "The Enterprise Incident"....but again, this level of clear romantic interest never existed between Spock and Chapel.
I mean, clearly Spock found Droxine attractive, but Spock's flirting with Droxine struck me as a bit of an OOC moment. Especially when he starts talking about Pon Farr with her (...something he was so secretive and embarrassed about in Amok Time that he'd almost rather die than discuss it...!)
I'm all for a Spock romance if written well but outside the influence of drugs/alien mind control/whatever he is very much not the type to be willing to jump into bed with a woman he's just met. I think the Droxine moment was mostly just part of the wider trend of season three's obsession with giving the male characters romantic subplots every other episode.
I don't totally hate the subplot- Droxine is clearly cultured and intelligent and its that as much as her beauty which draws Spock to her (which seems in character)- I just wish it had been written more convincingly.
Last edited:
Yes that's right. It did feel out of character. Spock didn't express any interest in any woman except Droxine while in his right state of mind. He had feelings for Leila but suppressed them. He found the Romulan comander compelling but suppressed those feelings for duty. So while I agree that as originally written Spock expressed nothing more than sympathy for Chapel, the SNW context implies more that he had forewsorn love by TOS.
After TMP, that's potentially a whole different story. The cut scene with Sarek in STIV could take on a whole new meaning!
Scotty!
Chapel was delusional. First she joined Starfleet to chase after Roger Corby (who couldn't get far enough away from her), When that fizzled out (pun intended, given Corby had become an android of sorts), she went for another unattainable suitor, a Vulcan. Little girls develop crushes on unattainable suitors because it's safe. It's not normal for a middle aged woman to do so. That's all I think it was.
OTOH, Spock and Uhura teased a lot. I wouldn't call it flirting, per se, because I think Uhura was no more serious about her flirting with Spock, than he was with her. Still they had fun with it, him playing for her in the rec room (Where she sang songs about devil eared and eyed Vulcans who'll rip your heart from female astronauts) and he responded as straight man to her pretend advances (Vulcan has no moon Miss Uhura). I think they liked and respected each other, and maybe in another reality, they might have hooked up. But not in TOS
OTOH, Spock and Uhura teased a lot. I wouldn't call it flirting, per se, because I think Uhura was no more serious about her flirting with Spock, than he was with her. Still they had fun with it, him playing for her in the rec room (Where she sang songs about devil eared and eyed Vulcans who'll rip your heart from female astronauts) and he responded as straight man to her pretend advances (Vulcan has no moon Miss Uhura). I think they liked and respected each other, and maybe in another reality, they might have hooked up. But not in TOS
Chapel did it because her boyfriend was in charge: he had to give her something to do, but didn't want her on-screen love affairs to go anywhere. And there was no danger Majel would have kissing scenes with Nimoy. Shatner did enough for both of them.
In my head canon of The Enterprise Incident, Spock realizes the Romulan commander is attracted to him and deliberately pushes that along so she will be distracted in order to facilitate Kirk's theft of the device. Spock is not expressing his true feelings for the commander, if any.
That's not just head canon, it was the writer's intention. Kirk did it to women in Miri, The Conscience of the King, Catspaw, The Gamesters of Triskelion, By Any Other Name, Is There in Truth No Beauty, and Wink of an Eye.
Women did it to Kirk in A Private Little War and Elaan of Troyius, but their charm was never going to be enough, so they had to roofie him. F'n bitches.
Yes, and there's lots of OOC moments for most of the crew in S3. Most likely because so many BTS creatives like Coon, Justman, Fontana, and others had left the show by that point.
Yeah, that works for me. I just can't buy that Spock was genuinely attracted to TEI's Romulan Commander at any point. She's easily fooled throughout the entire episode, and intelligence should be requirement #1 for a Spock love interest. There's just no way he's going to fall for someone that stupid.
I wonder if another part of Roddenberry's reasoning was he realized Chapel's scenes would be less likely to be cut if she was consistently sharing the screen with Mr. Spock. TOS Chapel was a pretty disposable character, but if she was sharing scenes with the breakout star of the show, that keeps Majel happy and out of Roddenberry's hair.
Last edited:
Would Spock lie to her after the need for deception was over? I don't think that's in character for him. The "I hoped you and I shared something more permanent" seems to imply he may not have wanted the relationship when he walked in, that he only wanted (as he said) the cloaking device. But he implied he came out with something more. I don't have any dog in this hunt. I liked the episode and the glimpse of Romulans. And who knows the whole thing could have been a setup on the Romulans' side. Or we could blame bad writing for Spock implying pretty strongly that he hoped they shared something "permanent" in their dalliance. The whole exchange was deliberately ambiguous and never brought up again. But the words are there and it would be out of character for Spock to deceive if he had no need to. After all, he was pretty blunt with Leila.
Sound to me like Spock was putting on a good act. Surprisingly good for someone who had never flirted with anyone before.
He flirted with Uhura. But that was with understanding on both sides IMHO that it was nothing serious. But I can't see him lying to the Romulan Commander. He did lie when duty required it. But to lie to her? For what? To feed her a line? That's not worth blackening his ethics. Unless he was doing it to save her face, but I don't think he needed to use those particular words (permanent). I wonder what the writer intended. OTOH, the episode had some idiotic points - why would she grab onto him as he was transporting - Oh, by the way that is an example of two people sharing a pad or beam, which we had a discussion about elsewhere. Unless she wanted to end up on the Enterprise, as a spy. Or perhaps she was fleeing dishonor and disgrace because she lost the cloaking device. Or it could have been the whole "sacrificing military tech for some other reason" might have been in the Romulans' plans all along.
I'm not saying it didn't happen. I'm saying I didn't buy it.
Which is exactly what I do.
Truthfully, I don't get the point of having that last exchange in the episode at all, or why it passed. Even if the third season producer and director were clueless, usually Nimoy had been pretty careful about protecting his character from the idiocy of writers. Maybe it was just meant to be controversial, but again, this was back in the 60s, and while there was fandom and even fanzines back then (I bought those fledging zines) writers and show producers didn't have the same immediate response as current productions do, to putting in lines or scenarios meant to cause churn in the fandom.
He was genuinely attracted to her, as revealed in the turbolift, and why wouldn't he find her attractive? The plot mirrors real world experiences of wartime agents falling for a woman serving an enemy government for whatever reasons. No one said Spock was immune to the charms of the Romulan Commander because he was on the job, or simply could not find himself attracted to her. He--like Kirk--did not know a woman commanded the Romulan ships, so his reaction to her appeared to be genuine, instead of purely playing an angle to distract her. Again, the 1701 turbolift scene is quite clear that he did develop his brand of feelings for her.
Moreover, she was written and portrayed as very intelligent, (which explains how any Romulan would rise to command a number of ships), calculating and wry--all combined to make a compelling character that anyone--including Spock--would find appealing. Add the racial connection Spock obviously found intriguing, and one can conclude his feelings were genuine.
Again, I'm not arguing that the episode shows Spock is not attracted to the Romulan Commander of TEI. That's clearly the intent. I'm saying the episode utterly fails to convince me of it.
I really disagree with this. She's easily fooled throughout the episode. At no point does she even come close to realizing that Kirk and Spock are playing her. She's portrayed as so gullible that I honestly wonder how she came to command a ship.
She commanding three ships that surrounded the Enterprise, and the Enterprise STILL got away WITH the cloaking device? Someone's going to be taking the fall for that and if she stuck around it would have been her. Gone, she can leave the impression that she was kidnapped or something.
Similar threads
