Star Trek Re-Watch: “Spock’s Brain”

Spock’s Brain
Written by Lee Cronin
Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 3, Episode 1
Production episode: 3×06
Original air date: September 20, 1968
Star date: 5431.4


Mission summary

Enterprise is at red alert, everyone watching the viewscreen as a silver rocket approaches. No one answers their hails, and the technology and design is wholly alien. Engineer Scott is excited though: “I’ve never seen anything like her. And ion propulsion at that. They could teach us a thing or two.” But Captain Kirk is more interested in the woman beaming directly onto the Bridge, who seems to have left most of her outfit behind.

Kirk introduces himself but she just smiles vapidly. When security red shirts rush in from the turbolift, she presses a button on her armband. The lights flicker and dim while everyone on the Bridge collapses. She presses more buttons, systematically knocking out the rest of the crew on all decks—grinning all the while. She strolls across the Bridge to fondle Spock’s shiny bowl cut.

The lights come up and the Bridge crew awakens, disoriented. Kirk notices that Spock is missing and Dr. McCoy calls him to Sickbay with some bad news: the science officer is dead. No, he’s “worse than dead”!

MCCOY: His brain is gone.
KIRK: His what?
MCCOY: It’s been removed surgically.
KIRK: How could he survive?
MCCOY: It’s the greatest technical job I’ve ever seen. Every nerve ending in the brain must’ve been neatly sealed. Nothing ripped, nothing torn, no bleeding. It’s a medical miracle.

No one can quite believe this perfectly plausible scenario. Kirk takes a wild guess: the woman who arranged their impromptu naptime might be responsible. The Vulcan’s genes can keep his mindless body alive for another twenty-four hours, but McCoy’s dubious that they can track down the thief in time: “In this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock’s brain? How are you going to find it?” And even if they can recover it, he doesn’t know how to put it back! But Kirk can’t be bothered with details right now.

Sulu manages to follow the ion trail of the woman’s ship, but they lose it at the Sigma Draconis system. There are three Class M planets there that can support life. Chekov pulls up a Powerpoint presentation and they all discuss the merits of each option. But with only eight hours and thirty-five minutes left to locate Spock’s brain, Kirk can’t afford to guess incorrectly. Though none of the planets seems technologically advanced enough to build a spaceship, one of them displays some anomalous energy readings: Sigma Draconis VI, a primitive planet experiencing an ice age. What the hell, that’s never steered them wrong yet. Kirk decides to beam down to the tropical zone on the sixth planet.

CHEKOV: What if you guess wrong, Captain?
KIRK: If I guess wrong, Mr. Spock is dead. Spock will die.

Everyone clear on that? It’s hard to keep up with the many twists in this high-concept plot.

Anyway, a landing party explores the chilly surface of the planet. “Life-form readings, Mr. Spock?” Oops. Scotty gives him a Look. “Mr. Scott,” he corrects himself. The cavemen-like natives soon find them though, literally attacking them with sticks and stones—which are no match for a phaser beam set on wide dispersal. The primitives flee, leaving behind their leader. Kirk attempts to engage him in friendly conversation.

KIRK: We mean you no harm. We’re not your enemies, we’re your friends. We only wish to talk to you.
MORG: You are not the Others?
KIRK: No. We come from a far place. We are men.
MORG: Men?
KIRK: Like yourselves.
MORG: You are small, like the Others.
KIRK: Who are the Others?
MORG: Givers of pain and delight.

The conversation breaks down from there: this poor man has no concept of “female” or “mate” or “companion.” He becomes agitated when Kirk asks him to bring them to the Others. (Perhaps he’s a fan of Lost.) He freaks out and runs off when Chekov discovers evidence of an underground compound. Not to be outdone, Scott finds a cave filled with food and weapons. But it turns out to be a trap with a laser tripwire in front of the stockpile. Kirk calls McCoy and tells him to beam down with Spock.

Spock arrives in hideous brown coveralls and metal headgear. McCoy shows them a neat trick: he’s rigged the Vulcan up to respond to a remote control. He walks him into the cave slowly, ticking with each step. Kirk trips the light sensor and a metal door slams shut. Then the room descends—the four of them are trapped in an elevator (and one of them looks like the devil). They’re swiftly approaching the source of the unusual power source they detected previously.

The elevator stops and the doors open into a corridor, revealing another scantily-clad woman waiting for them. Kirk phasers her before she can reach for her armband. When McCoy revives her, she identifies herself as Luma but is too simple-minded to tell them anything useful.

KIRK: Who’s in charge? I wish to speak to him.
LUMA: Him? What is him?
KIRK: What have you done with Spock’s brain? Where’ve you taken it?
LUMA: You are not Morg or Eymorg. I know nothing about a brain.

That’s fairly obvious. But Scott has picked up a strange signal on his communicator: Spock’s disembodied voice! Unfortunately he doesn’t know where or what he is. They head down a corridor in search of him and run into the woman from Enterprise who knocks them out with a boinging sound effect from her armband.

They wake up in chairs with spiffy new belts with giant green buckles, facing off the woman who captured them (Kara) and three other women. She doesn’t even recall coming to their ship and stealing Spock’s brain. Frustrated, Kirk asks to speak to someone in charge.

KARA: I am leader. There is no other.
SCOTT: That’s impossible. Who built the machines?
MCCOY: Who are the doctors? Who operates?
KIRK: Who controls this complex?
KARA: Control? Controller?
KIRK: Yes, the Controller. The Controller. Who controls? I would like to meet, to see him.
KARA: No. It is not permitted. Never! Controller is alone, apart. We serve Controller. No other is permitted near.
KIRK: We intend no harm.
KARA: You have come to destroy us.
KIRK: No, no, no. I promise you.
MCCOY: We just want to talk to somebody about Spock’s brain. That’s all.
KARA: Brain and brain! What is brain? It is Controller, is it not?

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. The Controller—they’d like to see that. Kara refuses, activates their belts, and leaves Kirk, Scott, and McCoy in agony on the floor while she leaves with her little clique.

Kirk and his men easily overpower their Morg guards (who are also kept in line with green belts of their own) and recover their equipment. They resume contact with Spock’s brain through a communicator and he sends them a signal to lead them to him. They wander slowly—so slowly—through the corridors at the pace of a brainless R/C Vulcan until they reach a large chamber. Kara is already there, in distress about something. She turns when they enter and activates their belts. They fall to the floor, but Spock takes a licking and keeps on ticking—no brain, no pain.

Kirk reaches for his remote control and maneuvers the Vulcan’s body over to Kara. It grabs her by the wrists and presses the button that releases the men’s belts. Kara pleads with them not to take away the Controller, which it turns out is Spock’s brain. He’s been controlling the life support systems of the underground facility, as though he were regulating his own bodily functions.

Kirk demands that she put Spock’s brain back where it belongs, but she doesn’t know how to. The only way to gain it is through the Teacher, a spiky helmet that draws on a massive database to bestow temporary knowledge on a person. They force Kara into it and she becomes instantly intelligent and calculating. She turns one of their own phasers against them—set to kill. Scott distracts her with a brilliant strategy of his own: he pretends to faint. Kirk recovers the phaser from her, but she still refuses to help them.

McCoy offers to try the Teacher, driven by the desire to help his friend and to bring advanced medical techniques to the Federation. The incompatibility with his mind is painful, but it works:

Of course. Of course. A child could do it. A child could do it.

With his new knowledge, the doctor operates at breakneck pace on Spock while Kara complains.

KARA: You will have him back and we will be destroyed.
KIRK: No. You won’t be destroyed. You’ll be without your Controller for the first time, but you’ll be much better off, I think.
KARA: We will die.
KIRK: No, you’ll live and develop as you should have. All this shouldn’t have been done for you. Now the women here below and the men here above will control together.
KARA: They will not help us without the pain.
KIRK: There are other ways. You’ll discover them. You must move to the surface, you understand.
KARA: We will die above in the cold.
KIRK: No, you won’t. You’ll learn to build houses, to keep warm, to work. We’ll help you for a while. Humans have survived under worse conditions. It’s a matter of evolution. You’ll be fine.

The effects of the Teacher’s instruction begin to wear off and McCoy falters, forgets, and loses confidence in his abilities. Before he loses it entirely, he manages to reconnect Spock’s vocal chords… so Spock can talk him through the rest of the brain surgery.

The operation is a success and Spock sits up, not even a single hair out of place. McCoy must have triggered the expositional center of the brain, because Spock begins explaining the back story for those who couldn’t figure it out.

SPOCK: A remarkable example of a retrograde civilisation. At the peak, advanced beyond any of our capabilities and now operating at this primitive level which you saw. And it all began thousands of years ago when a glacial age reoccurred. This underground complex was developed for the women. The men remained above, and a male-female schism took place. A fascinating cultural development of a kind which never—
MCCOY: I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it.
KIRK: What’s that?
MCCOY: I should have never reconnected his mouth.


Analysis

Here it is at last, one of the most infamous episodes of Star Trek. This is almost universally denounced by even the most hardcore fans, but even I have defended it in the past as being funny if not intelligent. No more.

To be sure, this episode does offer its share of delight, but it delivers far more pain. For all its sins, its worst quality is that it’s simply boring. From the opening scene on the Bridge, what should be a tense moment becomes a prolonged series of reaction shots. Every conversation seems to drag in this and they even had to pull out a chart to fill the time. (Granted, there probably is a good amount of waiting around for things to happen on real ships, but this is television!) There’s something very wrong when most of the episode shows them walking through corridors as if they were on a slow trek through Mordor. This is a prime example of a ticking clock story (with the actual sound provided by the mechanized Spock, however inexplicable the source). But rather than add tension, the deadline only makes the episode seem to plod that much more; most viewers (especially those who have to watch this in order to review them) will be checking the time just as often as Kirk.

The normally talented cast can barely keep a straight face, hamming their way through ridiculous lines like, “In search of his brain, Doctor.” Leonard Nimoy literally phones it in, though he actually delivers a nuanced performance even in his limited role.

There are so many failures in this episode, from the bizarre outfits Kara and the other “Eymorg” sport (extra-mini-skirts and thigh-high boots) to the simplistic plot and laughable premise. The basic idea of a mind controlling a machine is, well, fascinating—certainly more so than the haphazard division of genders and Kirk’s continuing efforts to radically disrupt other people’s way of life. Once again we have an underground power source, and an advanced race with offspring who have forgotten how to use their technology. You know, the usual. It’s hardly worth pointing out all the plot holes, but there are a lot of them.

The third Star Trek film, “The Search for Spock,” is an interesting counterpart to this episode, in which they have Spock’s mind (preserved within Dr. McCoy’s) but must recover his body to put things right. It was a little bit silly (it was an odd-numbered film, after all), but somehow the mystical aspect of the Vulcan katra is easier to buy into than pseudo-science. “Spock’s Brain” is a parody of Star Trek that just isn’t very funny.

Fire away: what do you think are the best and worst aspects of “Spock’s Brain”?

Eugene’s Rating: Impulse (on a scale of Warp 1-6)

Torie Atkinson: By the time this episode was over I had forgotten how to eat an artichoke, how to multiply fractions, and any memories of my 16th birthday. “Spock’s Brain” is such a cute name for what is truly an assault on the psyche. It’s like the song that never ends–you’re sure you’re going to die any moment now, and yet you continue to exist, soullessly…

I couldn’t possibly explain what happened here. Can anyone? Gene L. Coon gave us “Errand of Mercy,” “Court Martial,” “A Taste of Armageddon” … Even his mediocre episodes (“Miri,” “Operation: Annihilate!”, “Bread and Circuses”) were interesting, focused, well-paced, and premised on reasonably meritorious science fictional ideas. And Marc Daniels! The absolutely brilliant television director we’ve seen craft masterpieces like in “The Menagerie,” “Space Seed,” and “Mirror, Mirror” is entirely obscured by a ham-handed, half-assed, sloppy shadow of himself.

As Eugene pointed out, the biggest sin of “Spock’s Brain” is how tediously boring it is. The pregnant….pauses… and long… looks… down… the… corridors… make Antiques Roadshow seem like a Jerry Bruckheimer movie. The idea itself isn’t terrible–what if a human (or Vulcan) brain really could power a complex machine? What if you could upload your personality, grant yourself immortality and a kind of godhood over worshipful, ignorant children? What would you lose by doing so? I love these kinds of questions. One of my favorite parts of First Contact is the way that the Borg Queen tempts (well, seduces, really) Data into becoming human. It’s what he’s always wanted, what he’s been working toward for seven seasons of TNG. And yet, in the end, he realizes that becoming human would mean losing what makes him Data. To give that up would mean denying the worth of the person he already is. It’s a great science-fictional dilemma: what makes you you? Are you still you if you’re a machine? If you’re in a different body? I would have loved to see Spock wrestle with these identity issues. But no. No, instead, BRAIN WHAT IS BRAIN BRAIN BRAIN BRAIN BBBBBBBBBBBB–

Sorry. Shorted a circuit there for a minute.

There’s exactly one thing I liked about this episode, and that was when Kirk said to Spock: “You say you’re breathing, pumping blood, maintaining temperature? Is it possible that you’re re-circulating air, running heating plants, purifying water?” That was legitimately clever and I was impressed! And then I became unspeakably sad that a single metaphor had given me the greatest joy I had felt in forty minutes.

Maybe Antiques Roadshow is on….

Torie’s Rating: Warp engines offline! Quarter impulse power.

Best Line: (And Worst Line) KARA: “Brain and brain! What is brain?”

Syndication Edits: (For the first time, this might be the better version of this episode.) Many reaction shots as Kara’s ship approaches; an establishing shot of Enteprise following the ion trail; most of Chekov’s first report on Sigma Draconis VI, which eliminates a plot mistake: his claim that there are no energy readings; portions of the fight with the natives and the interrogation of the Morg; Luna introducing herself; Sulu’s log entry, where he refers to the planet as Sigma Draconis VII; Scott’s misogynistic comment, “Those women could never have set up anything as complex as this has to be;” Spock tells Kirk not to look for him; most of Kara’s absorption of knowledge from the Teacher; Kara threatening to kill Kirk; Kara declining to restore Spock’s brain, with “I would not” instead cutting directly to “No!”

Trivia: Lee Cronin’s (the alter ego of producer Gene L. Coon) original outline had some key differences from the final draft. A male alien named “Ehr Von” from the planet Nefel takes Spock’s brain while he explores an asteroid with Kirk and McCoy. Spock has to practice Vulcan mental techniques (slon porra) to retain his sanity. Spock had to be ordered to stop controlling the functions of the planet, and there was no Teacher—just good old-fashioned country medicine, with the help of some advanced medical textbooks and some alien surgeons. After the operation, Spock announced that the doctor had mixed up some of his ganglia, but no malpractice suit was necessary, because he could compensate with his superior control of his mind.

We can thank co-producer Robert Justman for the brilliant idea of having Spock direct his own brain surgery.

This is the only Star Trek episode to use a character’s name in the title.

In his autobiography Up Till Now, William Shatner jokes that this episode is a tribute to the NBC executives who cut the budget and moved the slow to a poor time slot in its final season.

The original score for this episode by Fred Steiner was recycled in “The Tholian Web” and “Day of the Dove.”

This is the only episode where Sulu records a log entry, good practice for his later stint as commander of the Excelsior, though the shot of him in the hot seat was reused from “The Omega Glory.”

The Teacher’s computer console is another instance where the M5 unit from “The Ultimate Computer” is repurposed.

This is the first episode where characters walk in front of the viewscreen while it shows a moving starfield.

This was the last episode directed by veteran director Marc Daniels, and it shows.

Other notes: Footage from this episode appears in the 1981 film Taps, entertaining young cadets at the Valley Forge Military Academy.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes changes in the production team, notably the introduction of Fred Freiberger, the show underwent a striking change on the screen: the title and credits for the third season are blue instead of yellow.


Previous episode: Season 2, Episode 26 – “Assignment: Earth

Next episode: Season 3, Episode 2 – “The Enterprise Incident.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.

Spock’s Brain”

Written by Lee Cronin

Directed by Marc Daniels

Season 3, Episode 1

Production episode: 3×06

Original air date: September 20, 1968

Star date: 5431.4

Mission summary

Enterprise is at red alert, everyone watching the viewscreen as a silver rocket approaches. No one answers their hails, and the technology and design is wholly alien. Engineer Scott is excited though: “I’ve never seen anything like her. And ion propulsion at that. They could teach us a thing or two.” But Captain Kirk is more interested in the woman who beams directly onto the Bridge, who seems to have left most of her outfit behind.

Kirk introduces himself but she just smiles vapidly at him. When security red shirts rush in from the turbolift, she presses a button on her armband. The lights flicker and dim while everyone on the Bridge collapses. She presses more buttons, systematically knocking out the rest of the crew on all decks—grinning all the while. She strolls across the Bridge to fondle Spock’s shiny bowl cut.

The lights come up and the Bridge crew awakens, disoriented. Kirk notices that Spock is missing and Dr. McCoy calls him to Sickbay with some bad news: the science officer is dead. No, he’s “worse than dead”!

MCCOY: His brain is gone.
KIRK: His what?
MCCOY: It’s been removed surgically.
KIRK: How could he survive?
MCCOY: It’s the greatest technical job I’ve ever seen. Every nerve ending in the brain must’ve been neatly sealed. Nothing ripped, nothing torn, no bleeding. It’s a medical miracle.

No one can quite believe this perfectly plausible scenario. Kirk takes a wild guess: the woman who arranged their impromptu naptime might be responsible. The Vulcan’s genes can keep his mindless body alive for another twenty-four hours, but McCoy’s dubious that they can track down the thief in time: “In this whole galaxy, where are you going to look for Spock’s brain? How are you going to find it?” And even if they can recover it, he doesn’t know how to put it back! But Kirk can’t be bothered with details right now.

Sulu manages to follow the ion trail of the woman’s ship, but they lose it at the Sigma Draconis system. There are three Class M planets there that can support life. Chekov pulls up a Powerpoint presentation and they all discuss the merits of each option. But with only eight hours and thirty-five minutes left to locate Spock’s brain, Kirk can’t afford to guess incorrectly. Though none of the planets seems technologically advanced enough to build a spaceship, one of them displays some anomalous energy readings: Sigma Draconis VI, a primitive planet experiencing an ice age. What the hell, that’s never steered them wrong yet. Kirk decides to beam down to the tropical zone on the sixth planet.

CHEKOV: What if you guess wrong, Captain?
KIRK: If I guess wrong, Mr. Spock is dead. Spock will die.

Everyone clear on that? It’s hard to keep up with the many twists in this high-concept plot.

Anyway, a landing party explores the chilly surface of the planet. “Life-form readings, Mr. Spock?” Oops. Scotty gives him a Look. “Mr. Scott,” he corrects himself. The cavemen-like natives soon find them though, literally attacking them with sticks and stones—which are no match for a phaser beam set on wide dispersal. The primitives flee, leaving behind their leader. Kirk attempts to engage him in friendly conversation.

KIRK: We mean you no harm. We’re not your enemies, we’re your friends. We only wish to talk to you.
MORG: You are not the Others?
KIRK: No. We come from a far place. We are men.
MORG: Men?
KIRK: Like yourselves.
MORG: You are small, like the Others.
KIRK: Who are the Others?
MORG: Givers of pain and delight.

The conversation breaks down from there: this poor man has no concept of “female” or “mate” or “companion.” He becomes agitated when Kirk asks him to bring them to the Others. (Perhaps he’s a fan of Lost.) He freaks out and runs off when Chekov discovers evidence of an underground compound. Not to be outdone, Scott finds a cave filled with food and weapons. But it turns out to be a trap with a laser tripwire in front of the stockpile. Kirk calls McCoy and tells him to beam down with Spock.

Spock arrives in hideous brown coveralls and metal headgear. McCoy shows them a neat trick: he’s rigged the Vulcan up to respond to a remote control. He walks him into the cave slowly, ticking with each step. Kirk trips the light sensor and a metal door slams shut. Then the room descends—the four of them are trapped in an elevator (and one of them looks like the devil). They’re swiftly approaching the source of the unusual power source they detected previously.

The elevator stops and the doors open into a corridor, revealing another scantily-clad woman waiting for them. Kirk phasers her before she can reach for her armband. When McCoy revives her, she identifies herself as Luma but is too simple-minded to tell them anything useful.

KIRK: Who’s in charge? I wish to speak to him.
LUMA: Him? What is him?
KIRK: What have you done with Spock’s brain? Where’ve you taken it?
LUMA: You are not Morg or Eymorg. I know nothing about a brain.

That’s fairly obvious. But Scott has picked up a strange signal on his communicator: Spock’s disembodied voice! Unfortunately he doesn’t know where or what he is. They head down a corridor in search of him and run into the woman from Enterprise who knocks them out with a boinging sound effect from her armband.

They wake up in chairs with spiffy new belts with giant green buckles, facing off the woman who captured them (Kara) and three other women. She doesn’t even recall coming to their ship and stealing Spock’s brain. Frustrated, Kirk asks to speak to someone in charge.

KARA: I am leader. There is no other.
SCOTT: That’s impossible. Who built the machines?
MCCOY: Who are the doctors? Who operates?
KIRK: Who controls this complex?
KARA: Control? Controller?
KIRK: Yes, the Controller. The Controller. Who controls? I would like to meet, to see him.
KARA: No. It is not permitted. Never! Controller is alone, apart. We serve Controller. No other is permitted near.
KIRK: We intend no harm.
KARA: You have come to destroy us.
KIRK: No, no, no. I promise you.
MCCOY: We just want to talk to somebody about Spock’s brain. That’s all.
KARA: Brain and brain! What is brain? It is Controller, is it not?

Ah, now we’re getting somewhere. The Controller—they’d like to see that. Kara refuses, activates their belts, and leaves Kirk, Scott, and McCoy in agony on the floor while she leaves with her little clique.

Kirk and his men easily overpower their Morg guards (who are also kept in line with green belts of their own) and recover their equipment. They resume contact with Spock’s brain through a communicator and he sends them a signal to lead them to him. They wander slowly—so slowly—through the corridors at the pace of a brainless R/C Vulcan until they reach a large chamber. Kara is already there, in distress about something. She turns when they enter and activates their belts. They fall to the floor, but Spock takes a licking and keeps on ticking—no brain, no pain.

Kirk reaches for his remote control and maneuvers the Vulcan’s body over to Kara. It grabs her by the wrists and presses the button that releases the men’s belts. Kara pleads with them not to take away the Controller, which it turns out is Spock’s brain. He’s been controlling the life support systems of the underground facility, as though he were regulating his own bodily functions.

Kirk demands that she put Spock’s brain back where it belongs, but she doesn’t know how to. The only way to gain it is through the Teacher, a spiky helmet that draws on a massive database to bestow temporary knowledge on a person. They force Kara into it and she becomes instantly intelligent and calculating. She turns one of their own phasers against them—set to kill. Scott distracts her with a brilliant strategy of his own: he pretends to faint. Kirk recovers the phaser from her, but she still refuses to help them.

McCoy, offers to try the Teacher, driven by the desire to help his friend and to bring advanced medical techniques to the Federation. The incompatibility with his mind is painful, but it works:

Of course. Of course. A child could do it. A child could do it.

With his new knowledge, the doctor operates at breakneck pace on Spock while Kara complains.

KARA: You will have him back and we will be destroyed.
KIRK: No. You won’t be destroyed. You’ll be without your Controller for the first time, but you’ll be much better off, I think.
KARA: We will die.
KIRK: No, you’ll live and develop as you should have. All this shouldn’t have been done for you. Now the women here below and the men here above will control together.
KARA: They will not help us without the pain.
KIRK: There are other ways. You’ll discover them. You must move to the surface, you understand.
KARA: We will die above in the cold.
KIRK: No, you won’t. You’ll learn to build houses, to keep warm, to work. We’ll help you for a while. Humans have survived under worse conditions. It’s a matter of evolution. You’ll be fine.

The effects of the Teacher’s instruction begin to wear off and McCoy falters, forgets, and loses confidence in his abilities. Before he loses it entirely, he manages to reconnect Spock’s vocal chords… so Spock can talk him through the rest of the brain surgery.

The operation is a success and Spock sits up, not even a single hair out of place. McCoy must have triggered the expositional center of the brain, because Spock begins explaining the back story for those who couldn’t figure it out.

SPOCK: A remarkable example of a retrograde civilisation. At the peak, advanced beyond any of our capabilities and now operating at this primitive level which you saw. And it all began thousands of years ago when a glacial age reoccurred. This underground complex was developed for the women. The men remained above, and a male-female schism took place. A fascinating cultural development of a kind which never—
MCCOY: I knew it was wrong. I shouldn’t have done it.
KIRK: What’s that?
MCCOY: I should have never reconnected his mouth.

Analysis

Here it is at last, one of the most infamous episodes of Star Trek. This is almost universally denounced by even the most hardcore fans, but even I have defended it in the past as being funny if not intelligent. No more.

To be sure, this episode does offer its share of delight, but it delivers far more pain. For all its sins, its worst quality is that it’s simply boring. From the opening scene on the Bridge, what should be a tense moment becomes a prolonged series of reaction shots. Every conversation seems to drag in this and they even had to pull out a chart to fill the time. (Granted, there probably is a good amount of waiting around for things to happen on real ships, but this is television!) There’s something very wrong when most of the episode shows them walking through corridors as if they were on a slow trek through Mordor. This is a prime example of a ticking clock story (with the actual sound provided by the mechanized Spock, however inexplicable the source). But rather than add tension, the deadline only makes the episode seem to plod that much more; most viewers (especially those who have to watch this in order to review them) will be checking the time just as often as Kirk.

The normally talented cast can barely keep a straight face, hamming their way through ridiculous lines like, “In search of his brain, Doctor.” Leonard Nimoy literally phones in his performance, though he actually delivers a nuanced performance even in his limited role.

There are so many failures in this episode, from the bizarre outfits Kara and the other “Eymorg” sport (extra-mini-skirts and thigh-high boots) to the simplistic plot and laughable premise. The basic idea of a mind controlling a machine is, well, fascinating—certainly more so than the haphazard division of genders and Kirk’s continuing efforts to radically disrupt other people’s way of life. Once again we have an underground power source, and an advanced race with offspring who have forgotten how to use their technology. You know, the usual. It’s hardly worth pointing out all the plot holes, but there are a lot of them.

The third Star Trek film, “The Search for Spock,” is an interesting counterpart to this episode, in which they have Spock’s mind (preserved within Dr. McCoy’s) but must recover his body to put things right. It was a little bit silly (it was an odd-numbered film, after all), but somehow the mystical aspect of the Vulcan katra is easier to buy into than pseudo-science. “Spock’s Brain” is a parody of Star Trek that just isn’t very funny.

Fire away: what do you think are the best and worst aspects of “Spock’s Brain”?

Eugene’s Rating: Warp 0 (on a scale of 1-6)

Torie Atkinson:

Torie’s Rating:

Best Line: (And Worst Line) KARA: “Brain and brain! What is brain?”

Syndication Edits: (For the first time, this might be the better version of this episode.) Many reaction shots as Kara’s ship approaches; an establishing shot of Enteprise following the ion trail; most of Chekov’s first report on Sigma Draconis VI, which eliminates a plot mistake: his claim that there are no energy readings; portions of the fight with the natives and the interrogation of the Morg; Luna introducing herself; Sulu‘s log entry, where he refers to the planet as Sigma Draconis VII; Scott’s misogynistic comment, “Those women could never have set up anything as complex as this has to be;” Spock tells Kirk not to look for him; most of Kara’s absorption of knowledge from the Teacher; Kara threatening to kill Kirk; Kara declining to restore Spock’s brain, with “I would not” instead cutting directly to “No!”

Trivia: Lee Cronin’s (the alter ego of producer Gene L. Coon) original outline had some key differences from the final draft. A male alien named “Ehr Von” from the planet Nefel takes Spock’s brain while he explores an asteroid with Kirk and McCoy. Spock has to practice Vulcan mental techniques (slon porra) to retain his sanity. Spock had to be ordered to stop controlling the functions of the planet, and there was no Teacher—just good old-fashioned country medicine, with the help of some advanced medical textbooks and some alien surgeons. After the operation, Spock announced that the doctor had mixed up some of his ganglia, but no malpractice suit was necessary, because he could compensate with his superior control of his mind.

We can thank co-producer Robert Justman for the brilliant idea of having Spock direct his own brain surgery.

This is the only Star Trek episode to use a character’s name in the title.

In his autobiography Up Till Now, William Shatner jokes that this episode is a tribute to the NBC executives who cut the budget and moved the slow to a poor time slot in its final season.

The original score for this episode by Fred Steiner was recycled in “The Tholian Web” and “Day of the Dove.”

This is the only episode where Sulu records a log entry, good practice for his later stint as commander of the Excelsior, though the shot of him in the hot seat was reused from “The Omega Glory.”

The Teacher’s computer console is another instance where the M5 unit from “The Ultimate Computer” is repurposed.

This was the last episode directed by veteran director Marc Daniels, and it shows.

This is the first episode where characters walk in front of the viewscreen while it shows a moving starfield.

Other notes: Footage from this episode appears in the 1981 film Taps, entertaining young cadets at the Valley Forge Military Academy.

In addition to the behind-the-scenes changes in the production team, notably the introduction of Fred Freiberger, the show underwent a striking change on the screen: the title and credits for the third season are blue instead of yellow.

Next episode: Season 3, Episode 2-“The Enterprise Incident.” US residents can watch it for free at the CBS website.

About Eugene Myers & Torie Atkinson

EUGENE MYERS has published short fiction in a variety of print and online zines as E.C. Myers. He is a graduate of the Clarion West Writers Workshop and a member of the writing group Altered Fluid. When he isn’t watching Star Trek, he reads and writes young fiction. His first novel, Fair Coin, is forthcoming from Pyr. TORIE ATKINSON is a NYC-based law student (with a focus on civil rights and economic justice), proofreader, sometime lighting designer, and former Tor.com blog editor/moderator. She watches too many movies and plays too many games but never, ever reads enough books.