McCoy in TOS

[Kaelef]

My memories of watching TOS as a kid and a re-watch or two later as young adult include Kirk, Spock and McCoy forming the unshakable foundation of the series - the Trek Triumvirate that made the series what it was.

But in my current rewatch, I'm very surprised to find how little McCoy has to do or say outside of a handful of stand-out moments here and there. On top of that, he's frequently outright antagonistic to Spock, unreasonably blaming him for things that aren't his fault, and not even in a friendly, toying sort of way.

I think my vision of who McCoy is and how important he is really comes from his role in the movies and from a couple of key episodes (Miri and City on the Edge of Forever immediately come to mind).

 

[Maurice]

McCoy was originally written to be a second tier character, but it was Kelly's performance which had the producers bump him up to third lead in the second season. But despite that, it was always the Kirk and Spock show. The writers often fell into the trap of playing angry Bones flaring up a Spock. But all you have to do is look at McCoy in "Balance of Terror", "The Immunity Syndrome" or "The Ultimate Computer" to see how he was best used.

 

[Commishsleer]

I agree that McCoy sometimes outrageously attacks Spock when the cause is not justified. I'm trying to think of the episodes - The Tholian Web, The Galileo 7 and Requiem for Methuselah. There must be more but there are a lot of episodes where McCoy and Spock back each other up - Miri, Wink of an Eye, Doomsday Machine, Mark of Gideon, Operation Anihilate!, Charlie X, Obsession, The Empath, Plato, Turnabout Intruder, Friday's Child, Amok Time. There others were they don't even debate much - Shore Leave, the Halloween episode, Corbomite Maneuver. McCoy even defends Spock (wrongly) in The Menagerie.

 

[Ssosmcin]

McCoy even defends Spock (wrongly) in The Menagerie.

This is my favorite scene in the episode. Bones is passionate about defending Spock. He makes 100% solid points and is still completely wrong! I love that whole scene.

 

[Vger23]

I think it's pretty clear that McCoy and Spock are like brothers who fight all the time (and sometimes those fights can be nasty), but, at the end of the day, each really loves each other and knows the other would 100% have his back, no matter what.

Most of McCoy's frustrations with Spock that manifest like ugly insults are borne out of that "brotherly" love.

We're really sensitive these days to hurtful words, etc...but ultimately I think the writers intent for the characters is pretty clear. It's why I love some of the stuff in Star Trek III and in Star Trek Beyond that hit these points.

Bones is probably one of my top 3 characters in all of Star Trek.

 

[shapeshifter]

One of my favorite McCoy/Spock scenes.

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[Neopeius]

One of my favorite McCoy/Spock scenes.

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Slash advisedly and appropriately used. Perhaps the hottest scene in TOS.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I agree that McCoy sometimes outrageously attacks Spock when the cause is not justified. I'm trying to think of the episodes - The Tholian Web, The Galileo 7 and Requiem for Methuselah.

There's nothing "outrageous" about his reaction to Spock's inability to divorce himself from leading by pure "logic" in "The Galileo Seven". McCoy was 100% correct in dressing down Spock utter failure to consider that the Taurus II creatures would not "respect" the superior Phaser attacks, since respect is a rational process--clearly no primitive, bestial species--as depicted--would ever possess as a trait.

In "The Tholian Web", McCoy's perceptions / behavior were influenced by the effect of being in Tholian space--just as it was having negative effects on the Enterprise crew, and in its tragic extreme, the Defiant's crew.

"Requiem for Methuselah" had no scene of McCoy "outrageously" attacking Spock. Just the opposite, particularly in the coda, where he calmly and sympathetically explains why Spock cannot understand Kirk's behavior of love (fighting for it) and loss due to his adherence to his Vulcan philosophy & upbringing regarding emotion:

McCoy: "Considering his opponent's longevity, truly an eternal triangle. You wouldn't understand that, would you, Spock? You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know simply because the word love isn't written into your book. Goodnight, Spock."

His feeling for Spock--a genuine, sympathetic observation on what Spock separates himself from, that--despite the pain love and/or the pursuit of it can occasionally cause, its the heart of what drives people--what drives (among many things) their best friend, yet Spock will not allow that most human of experiences to ever touch him (in a non-Ponn Farr way).

 

[drt]

There's nothing "outrageous" about his reaction to Spock's inability to divorce himself from leading by pure "logic" in "The Galileo Seven". McCoy was 100% correct in dressing down Spock utter failure to consider that the Taurus II creatures would not "respect" the superior Phaser attacks, since respect is a rational process--clearly no primitive, bestial species--as depicted--would ever possess as a trait.

I think Spock’s plan would have worked if they’d done something scarier with the phasers than essentially flashing lights into the air. They didn’t have to kill anyone, but I bet if they blew some shit up the humanoids would have given the shuttle and its crew a wider berth.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

I think Spock’s plan would have worked if they’d done something scarier with the phasers than essentially flashing lights into the air. They didn’t have to kill anyone, but I bet if they blew some shit up the humanoids would have given the shuttle and its crew a wider berth.

Spock fired at one of the creatures (blocked by a shield), and instructed Boma and Gaetano fire into their direction, but even that did not frighten the creatures for long. I doubt blowing things up would have made a difference.

 

[Commishsleer]

There's nothing "outrageous" about his reaction to Spock's inability to divorce himself from leading by pure "logic" in "The Galileo Seven". McCoy was 100% correct in dressing down Spock utter failure to consider that the Taurus II creatures would not "respect" the superior Phaser attacks, since respect is a rational process--clearly no primitive, bestial species--as depicted--would ever possess as a trait.

In "The Tholian Web", McCoy's perceptions / behavior were influenced by the effect of being in Tholian space--just as it was having negative effects on the Enterprise crew, and in its tragic extreme, the Defiant's crew.

"Requiem for Methuselah" had no scene of McCoy "outrageously" attacking Spock. Just the opposite, particularly in the coda, where he calmly and sympathetically explains why Spock cannot understand Kirk's behavior of love (fighting for it) and loss due to his adherence to his Vulcan philosophy & upbringing regarding emotion:

McCoy: "Considering his opponent's longevity, truly an eternal triangle. You wouldn't understand that, would you, Spock? You see, I feel sorrier for you than I do for him because you'll never know the things that love can drive a man to. The ecstasies, the miseries, the broken rules, the desperate chances, the glorious failures, the glorious victories. All of these things you'll never know simply because the word love isn't written into your book. Goodnight, Spock."

His feeling for Spock--a genuine, sympathetic observation on what Spock separates himself from, that--despite the pain love and/or the pursuit of it can occasionally cause, its the heart of what drives people--what drives (among many things) their best friend, yet Spock will not allow that most human of experiences to ever touch him (in a non-Ponn Farr way).

If McCoy has a genuine problem with Spock's order and not Spock himself he shouldn't be discussing it front of the crew. And its not McCoy's call on what action to take. He's not the Team's Leader. If he wanted to be he should have joined Command. And he knew it was Spock's first command so why did he think it was OK to undermine Spock. It is not 100% OK for any junior officer to dress down a senior officer whether they are right or wrong. Otherwise why have the chain of command at all.
I thought McCoy was being cruel in Requiem. Yes Spock I pity you - you're pathetic. You should be like Jim Kirk here and risk the lives of everyone aboard ship because you were in love with a girl you met 4 hours ago. So Spock tried to stop Kirk seeing that Rayna was an android and compassionate human McCoy stopped that and tried to say that Spock knew nothing of love. In the end Spock demonstrated that he and Rayna were the only ones who knew anything about love.
Yes McCoy was under the area's influence in the Tholian Web but you know when he was rational he was attacking and digging at Spock. Saying Spock wanted Kirk's command. That Kirk was a hero in all senses of the word - unlike (implied) Spock. The writing was a bit stupid. As if McCoy would insist on abandoning Kirk.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Well, not for anything, but that sort of discipline was always a little loose where Bones was concerned. He challenged Kirk on the bridge in his very first episode. There was a lot in play in "The Tholian Web." The effects of that region of space, the stress to find a cure and the loss of Kirk all mounted up. I feel like McCoy gets a pass for that one because the situation justified it. Even Spock understood and forgave him. That's good enough for me.

"Requiem..." that's tougher. A few of McCoy's words do come across as unnecessarily pitying but taken together, I do think he feels sorry for Spock that he will never truly understand what Jim was going through and won't be able to experience love in the same way - which obviously goes against continuity since Spock has felt love on the series already. But that's 60's TV for you. McCoy wasn't defending Kirk's actions, just his feelings.

Also, Spock and McCoy didn't back each other up in "The Doomsday Machine." They had one substantial scene together and it was McCoy angry at Spock for allowing Decker to take over regardless of regulations.

Sometimes the writers don't have a good handle on McCoy and Spock, sometimes it's perfect. "Gamesters" made McCoy particularly obnoxious for little reason, to the point where Spock had to ask McCoy and Scotty if they planned to mutiny.

Kirk set the tone. The bridge could be more familiar than you would expect, but Kirk also didn't tolerate endless bullshit. McCoy was "Doc" from Gunsmoke: he spoke his mind and had the ear of the boss (Kirk/Matt Dillon). He was cranky. He was in conflict with the town oddball (Spock/Festus) but still loved him - but never really admitted it. McCoy also felt more like a doctor who happened to work in Starfleet. He wasn't military. He knew who was in charge and he knew he couldn't be a total schmuck and maintain morale. But I really feel like if he got kicked out of the service, he'd just open a practice somewhere. Hell, TMP showed he'd had enough of the service by that time. I wish they kept that angle in later movies instead of him happily signing back up.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

If McCoy has a genuine problem with Spock's order and not Spock himself he shouldn't be discussing it front of the crew. And its not McCoy's call on what action to take.

If you're referring to "The Galileo Seven", McCoy had every right to question Spock--when the lives of the shuttle crew were threatened. Spock's arrogance--his thinking his Vulcanized brand of logic trumped all other forms of leadership and command--directly led to the deaths to Latimer and Gaetano. When two of your seven-person crew have been brutally killed due to the leader's bull-headed views, you should expect others to address and confront him about it. Command is not a dictatorship where people only speak when the leader speaks to you.

I thought McCoy was being cruel in Requiem. Yes Spock I pity you - you're pathetic. You should be like Jim Kirk here and risk the lives of everyone aboard ship because you were in love with a girl you met 4 hours ago. So Spock tried to stop Kirk seeing that Rayna was an android and compassionate human McCoy stopped that and tried to say that Spock knew nothing of love. In the end Spock demonstrated that he and Rayna were the only ones who knew anything about love.

Spock trying to prevent Kirk from discovering Rayna's secret is not his understanding of how love works within and motivates the human heart and the decisions that come with it. McCoy pointedly, yet sympathetically explained the reason why Kirk could be brokenhearted / depressed, and his actions on Flint's world. In other words, you have to be there--knowing what the immersion in and embracing of love is in order to understand Kirk's pain. I will note that up to that moment (in-universe) the only other times Spock expressed that emotion was under the influence of Ponn-Farr, and after being exposed to the spores in "This Side of Paradise", so in each case, he was not in his natural state or "right mind," so McCoy's comments still ring true about Spock's inability to understand.

Even in a mission which followed "Requiem for Methuselah", Spock's feelings for Zarabeth (in "All Our Yesterdays") was the result of his being in that named, "unprepared" regressive state, not being open to the emotional and psychological influence of romance.

Yes McCoy was under the area's influence in the Tholian Web but you know when he was rational he was attacking and digging at Spock. Saying Spock wanted Kirk's command.

Again, if the influence of the Tholian's space could lead to the total, murderous disaster aboard the Defiant, I see McCoy's reactions as understandable, but mild.

 

[MAGolding]

There's nothing "outrageous" about his reaction to Spock's inability to divorce himself from leading by pure "logic" in "The Galileo Seven". McCoy was 100% correct in dressing down Spock utter failure to consider that the Taurus II creatures would not "respect" the superior Phaser attacks, since respect is a rational process--clearly no primitive, bestial species--as depicted--would ever possess as a trait....
.

So you are saying that the Taurus II natives were too primitaive for a rational process like respect?

This reminds me of a story about a national park in Africa which imported some young and small elephants - the largest which could be moved with the techniques of the time. Years later, they discovered that rare rhinos in the park were being killed by the teenage bull elephants. But there were now techniques to move large elephants, so a few large adult bull elephants wereomoved to the park, and the teenage elephants became much calmer and stoped killing small critters like rhinos, apparently out of respect for the adult bull elephants.

I rmemeber seeing a video of an elephant knocking down a tree. It tried gentle pushes from several different directions, thought for a while, and then pushed the tree over in one smooth motion. It certainly seemed like there was rational thought involved.

And there is a story about an Indonesian farmer show shot an elephant with a shotgun to drive it out of his fields. Instead the elephant chased him. Teh farmer climbed up a tree to sescape out of reach. The elephant couldn't push the tree over. Tracks showed what the elephant did. The elephant went back and forth from the tree to a creek, sucking up watr in its trunk and soaking the ground around the tree roots. Eventually the ground around the tree roots was wet and loose, and the elephant pushed the tree over and killed the farmer. That seems like an example of ratinal thought.

Rspect for superior power is found in many types of beings which are far less intellectually advanced than elephants.

And just what type of slightly manlike apes would the natives of Taurus II resemble?

They make shields. Shields were used since prehistoric eras and I haven't found out when the first known ones were made.

SPOCK: (pulling the bloody spear from Latimer's body and examining it) Folsom Point.
BOMA: Sir?
SPOCK: There's a remarkable resemblance to the Folsom Point discovered in 1925, old world calendar, New Mexico, North America. A bit more crude about the shaft, I believe. Not very efficient.

Folsom points are projectile points associated with the Folsom tradition of North America. The style of tool-making was named after the Folsom site located in Folsom, New Mexico, where the first sample was found by George McJunkin within the bone structure of a bison, an animal hunted by the Folsom people in New Mexico, in 1908.[1] The Folsom point was identified as a unique style of projectile point in 1926.[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folsom_point

The Folsom Complex is a Paleo-Indian archaeological culture that occupied much of central North America from c. 8500 BCE to c. 4000 BCE. The term was first used in 1927 by Jesse Dade Figgins, director of the Colorado Museum of Natural History.[1]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folsom_tradition

The Paleo-Indnan members of the Folsom Complex were member sof Homo sapiens, a species which had existed for at least 200,000 years before the Folsom Complex, and so should not be considered to be particularly old fashioned or primitive for hunter-gatherers. The information in the episode does not idpict the Taurus II natives as "a primitive< bestial species" , but one which might be as advanced as Earth humans at about 5 percent of the time span back to the beginning of of the rational species Homo sapiens.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folsom_point

That article needs an "In Popular Culture" section so The Galileo Seven can be cited. It is by far the best-known public mention of the Folsom point, ever.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

So you are saying that the Taurus II natives were too primitaive for a rational process like respect?

Did they exhibit any sign indicating that they used /were aware of the process of respect? Their wild, predatory, unstoppable attacks proved that they did not possess Spock's mistaken belief that the creatures would show respect for the superiority of the Phaser, a belief which McCoy was more than justified in dismantling. Spock completely disregarded the reality that the creatures would act on emotion, not sit around considering the risk of facing off against invaders with superior weapons, and as a result, Gaetano was killed.

SPOCK: "Strange. Step by step, I have made the correct and logical decisions. And yet two men have died."

...and moments later...

McCOY: "And you've brought our furry friends down on us."

SPOCK: "I do seem to have miscalculated regarding them..."

And just what type of slightly manlike apes would the natives of Taurus II resemble?

It does not matter what or who they resembled; their behavior and actions consistently proved that they were not going to respond to Phaser attacks in the way Spock assumed. They continued to kill after Spock's version of "shock and awe", with one making its way to the shuttlecraft, eventually only moments away from crushing part of the hull, and finishing the job.

Again: SPOCK: "I do seem to have miscalculated regarding them..."

 

[Commishsleer]

There's no proof a massacre would have worked any better. Its a technique I thought we'd stop using in the future when invading someone else's territory.

 

[Ssosmcin]

There's no proof a massacre would have worked any better. Its a technique I thought we'd stop using in the future when invading someone else's territory.

Well they would have had fewer to deal with instead of a tribe of no-longer-scared creatures.

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Leaving out the bit in which Bones jerks Spock's chair so wildly Spock nearly falls out of it.

Was it violent when Spock yanked a recovering McCoy up on his feet, then shoved him back down, or was beginning to strangle McCoy over his demanding answers out of Zarabeth in "All Our Yesterdays""? If the answer is in the neighborhood of "Well, he was not 'prepared' to exist in that world's past, so he was regressing to his violent ancestors' tendencies", then I will remind you that McCoy was just as under the influence of the Tholian's space, which--again--was so psychologically damaging that it led to the Defiant crew killing each other...but McCoy's actions in the episode were nowhere near that level-- mild, and Spock did not nearly fall out of the captain's chair.

 

[Phaser Two]

Leaving out the bit in which Bones jerks Spock's chair so wildly Spock nearly falls out of it.

Enh, it's not really that wild. Spock remains completely composed. A wonderful bit of acting by Nimoy.