Fix the episode: "Spock's Brain"

[T'Girl]

Not a rocket, but an ion powered warp drive.

If Scotty had said steam-powered, you'd still defend it?

If they were operating a warp drive with hot water vapor that would be impressive.

And if the shuttles have "ion-powered warp drive,"

Starbase: "Starship Enterprise, Commodore. It's warping out of orbit."
Spock: "Lock on to sensors. Measure object now following the Enterprise."
Computer: "Object is a Class F shuttlecraft ... ion engine power"

It's not a matter of "if."

(and it was in The Menagerie, not Court Martial)

why would Scotty be flipping out over the alien ship?

Because it was different than what they had, which is why Scotty said they could learn from the ship's makers.

... why did the alien women need the pain belts to control the men? The one who attacked the Enterprise was able to take out the entire crew with the push of a button.

The pain was to control and manipulate the men, which you can't do if you abilities stop with simply putting the men to sleep repeatedly.

 

[Warped9]

It's probably as simple as no one around in creative to remember that ion power had already been referenced two seasons earlier.

 

[Kemaiku]

The craft could simply have had some form of heavy ion fusion reactor system Scotty was not familiar with, was smaller and more effecient than anything he'd seen before, or put out an ion propellent in a fashion that implied an even more exotic reaction system.

The same as Balance of Terror's implication the bird of prey was using nothing but Impulse reactors to power everything including the warp drive, explaining why it was burning through it's deuterium supply so fast. (well the ship is rather small in some ways, maybe it's tanks weren't big to begin with).

Starfleet always do seem to be geniuely shocked that everyone else isn't using M/AM reactors in practically all of the series.

 

[Melakon]

It would have more interesting if they took McCoy's brain. Think about how emotionally he would control things. Dammit I'm a Doctor, not some mechanized control computer.

"Bones' Brain"

 

[SiddFinch1]

Losing Zombie Spock body and making the women average intelligence would help a lot. Throw in a more plausible reason Spock chosen..ie they were already on planet investigating something and its much better..

No...brain and brain what is brain

 

[Metryq]

Starfleet always do seem to be geniuely shocked that everyone else isn't using M/AM reactors in practically all of the series.

Matter-antimatter reactors are simply a high density power supply which tells us nothing about how the engines work. We could manufacture antimatter today (at very great expense) and use it to power spacecraft engines, but that doesn't mean those ships would get anywhere near lightspeed.

The craft could simply have had some form of heavy ion fusion reactor system

"Heavy ion fusion"? What the heck does that mean? There's a difference between techo-babble (fake jargon for technologies that do not exist) and misuse of existing terminology—which is why "lithium crystals" of early episodes was changed to "dilithium crystals" and phasers were not lasers.

The "turbo incabulator" routine is a perfect example of both—techno-babble and misuse of terminology. And it sounds more impressive than "ion power." (Ooh! Ah!)

[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ac7G7xOG2Ag[/yt]​

"Modial interaction of magneto-reluctance and capacitive duractance"—god, I love it.

 

[Kemaiku]

Lighten up, besides, I've seen your posting history in SciTech

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

Here's how I'd fix it: Have the Eymorgs not literally steal Spock's actual brain, just make an electronic copy of it. Have the 'virtual Spock' be the one who runs their systems, and even have it still be sentient and wish to continue 'living'.

 

[Kemaiku]

Here's how I'd fix it: Have the Eymorgs not literally steal Spock's actual brain, just make an electronic copy of it. Have the 'virtual Spock' be the one who runs their systems, and even have it still be sentient and wish to continue 'living'.

The problem with that is...there's no story after that. If Spock is fine, there's nothing for them to go fix.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Then have Spock somehow be injured by the Eymorgs' attempts to copy him. Maybe he gets some kind of neural shock which endangers his life, and only Eymorg technology can save him.

 

[Melakon]

Here's how I'd fix it: Have the Eymorgs not literally steal Spock's actual brain, just make an electronic copy of it. Have the 'virtual Spock' be the one who runs their systems, and even have it still be sentient and wish to continue 'living'.

If that's all they do, no one from the ship is in danger. Space girl comes on board, knocks out the crew, zip drives Spock's brain, crew wakes up, nobody's hurt, nobody's missing, Kirk orders new course, show's over 2 minutes into the first act.

Ninja'd by Chemahkuu

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

^ Like I said, have the Eymorgs' "zip drive" somehow injure Spock so badly that he needs immediate treatment. Like it shocks him into a coma or something.

 

[Warped9]

I'm reminded of something Kor said about the mind-sifter device. He claimed that it could get the information they wanted and that what would be left would be essentially a vegetable. Using this approach could work, but it must also mean that you have to rationalize a way to put the information back.

This is also eally little different than what Roger Korby did in making a copy of himself, Brown and Kirk. But as was said above: where's the jeopardy and drama?

Without the original's permission this is essentially theft or even a form of assault similar to what Roger Korby did to Kirk.

Going from that one could rewrite the story in Spock being kidnapped for the Eyemorg's purpose and Kirk then sets out to retrive him. You could even have a basically upbeat ending where we learn what the Eyemorgs want with no harm to Spock. It would be somewhat similar to what happened in TNG's Binar story. At the heart of it what the Binars wanted wasn't bad, but they were so afraid of being told "no" that they took matters into their own hands.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Is it wrong that I think this episode could have been improved by including Dr. Hfuhruhurr's method of "cranial screw-top" brain surgery?

 

[HarryM]

Ditch the silly "brain theft" angle. Just have them kidnap Spock and hard-wire him into their control center, requires surgery to remove him. Our heroes would try just as hard to recover Spock as they would his brain. The only thing the zombie Spock does for the story is remove the pain belts, sure a way could be found to do that some other way.

 

[Melakon]

They could have simply kidnapped Spock, hooked him up to yet another variation of the neural neutralizer chair, and Leonard would have had something more interesting to do besides shuffling around and dubbing all his lines.

Some of those closeups of his mindless stares must have been him seething at being reduced to a prop.

 

[Kemaiku]

Hmm, having Spock outright kidnapped and hooked up Matrix style to the device (which partially 'reads' his brain, sifting through it constantly) would be a good alternative.

And still need some surgical know-how as to attach and detach him from the controller.

I'd still raise the general intelligence of the locals and make them more aware of the consequences of what they're doing. Acting out of desparation to save their race but left with few real options.

Seeing some remorse on the part of the Eymorg's rather than just making them the original Pakled's would greatly improve the tone of the episode as others have said.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Losing Zombie Spock body and making the women average intelligence would help a lot. Throw in a more plausible reason Spock chosen..ie they were already on planet investigating something and its much better..

No...brain and brain what is brain

Any version that doesn't inclued "Brain and brain! What is brain?" simply isn't worth it.

 

[Kemaiku]

Any version that doesn't inclued "Brain and brain! What is brain?" simply isn't worth it.

What is WRONG with you?

 

[Maurice]

The point of the story was a play on things like heart transplants, so wiring a whole Spock into a computer is a different story. Maybe a brain swap.

The basic premise is fine. It's the particulars which are problematic.