So people make fun of the Kirk shirt rip in Shore Leave because it is so blatantly independent of the fight with Finnegan
See:
then:
But what most people fail to acknowledge is that the Shore Leave planet is there to suddenly create things you are thinking about, rather than obey the laws of reality.
Which means that Kirk was thinking about fighting Finnegan, so he appeared:
Which also means, in the middle of the fight, Kirk must have thought: “Man, it would be so cool if my shirt ripped off right now,” leading to the inevitable:
So since we’re fairly certain now exactly what Kirk thinks about during fights, we can continue to laugh at his shirt rip in Shore Leave, but make sure it’s for the right reasons: not so much continuity error, more actually being Exactly In Character.
I really hope most people are aware of why Amok Time was made in the first place
I should start off by saying that Star Trek was made with a female audience in mind. It’s why Captain Kirk’s shirt rips and why he’s shirtless a lot, since the makers of the show were expecting to draw in a female audience with the good looks of William Shatner. Star Trek was even considered fake sci fi for girls by most male sci fi fans.
I have to mention that first because the show was banking on the female audience to fawn over Captain Kirk, and many of the women watching did, but they soon realized that even more women were fawning over Spock. When the show got renewed for a second season, they wanted to make sure they could retain the same female audience, most importantly the Spock fangirls, so they decided to treat their female audience with Amok Time.
Every single decision involved in the plot of the episode was made with “how do we give these ladies what they want without hurting his likability?”. Pon Farr was made up so Spock would have a reason to act super horny while still being the same alien everyone knew and love, T’Pring leaving Spock while Spock was planning on being loyal to her to show off how loyal he is to romantic partners, and his Pon Farr being cured without actually having sex was to keep him single.
TL;DR Amok Time was made for straight girl wank bank but instead they created the K/S community
I don’t think it was inadvertent at all – Theodore Sturgeon, the writer of Amok Time, was openly gay and was known for constantly trying to slip gay shit past the censors. He also wrote the backrub scene and lots of other k/s moments. Lgbt people in the 60s wanted to see themselves represented in media just as much as we do, but because of censorship laws it all had to be subtextual.
Spock, the first officer whose advice was always effectual, possessed a strength of understanding, and coolness of judgement, which qualified him to be the counselor of the ship’s captain, and enabled him frequently to counteract, to the advantage of them all, that eagerness of mind in Captain Kirk which must generally have lead to imprudence. Spock had an excellent heart, positioned somewhere near his kidneys; his feelings were strong, but he knew how to govern them: it was a knowledge which his captain had yet to learn, and which one of his fellow crew members had resolved never to learn.
Dr. Leonard McCoy’s abilities were, in many respects, equal to Spock’s. He was sensible and clever; but eager in every thing; his sorrows, his joys, could have no moderation. He was generous, amiably cynical, interesting: he was everything but logical.
A man in possession of a hybrid biology must be in want of a doctor.
Loki is the Philosopher King 