Star Trek Retrospective: Episode 56 Spock’s Brain
In all things there is a low point. The bottom level, the dregs, the rock bottom, the nadir, the Phantom Menace. Being alive is about making relative value judgements and as soon as you start doing that there always ends up a low man on the totem pole. For Star Trek that low point will always be Spock’s Brain.
Where to start? The bad direction, the misogamy, the slavery, the line “Brain and brain, what is brain?”. Ironic that this would be the first episode of the dreaded third season. Talk about setting a tone. The great Leonard Nimoy put it best “Frankly during the entire shooting of that episode, I was embarrassed.” We fans are embarrassed with you.
The image of McCoy getting his brain reprogrammed comes from our Star Trek t-shirt category BTW.
The weird thing is as a kid I thought it was pretty cool. I mean, I was smart enough to recognize “Balance of Terror” and “City on the Edge of Forever” as the zenith of sci fi entertainment, but being a preteen watching this in the mid ’70s it didn’t seem so off. The idea that women were beautiful dummies who stole from men and controlled them with pain seemed a reasonable premise to me (thanks for that, Dad, and I guess I just had a major revelation as to the difficulties I face in my current dating life). If nothing else I like to think that my changed attitude towards this episode is a microcosm of my own evolution into the open minded, balanced supporter of feminism and equality you see before you.
I’ll have to remember that line when I’m telling my future (and very hypothetical) girlfriend to run out the kitchen and make me a sandwich. Of course when speaking of future and hypothetical girlfriends the terms “cyborg”, “virtual”, “android”, and “elfin” tend to creep into my thought process. God I’m a nerd.
Anyway, bad episode but the good news is I am now done with season 3 and can move on to the much better season 2. What was the last episode from season 2 for me to cast my fond memories over? Assignment Earth??? Why God why???
Dave
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