Spocks Brain would have been a passable episode if they had changed two things

[WildManWizard]

1. Nobody thinking of putting on the helmet to finish McCoy's work after the knowledge wore off

2. Having Spock assist in his own surgery should have been scrubbed.

 

[johnnybear]

I found it odd that Spock could tell McCoy how to finish the operation as well, unless he too had retained some superior knowledge from his time as The Controller?
JB

 

[Phaser Two]

1. Nobody thinking of putting on the helmet to finish McCoy's work after the knowledge wore off

2. Having Spock assist in his own surgery should have been scrubbed.

I can see #2 although I think it led to some funny comic relief to close the hour. But with #1 I think the implication was that since Kirk and Scott weren't surgeons to begin with, the Teacher wouldn't have helped them in the same way it did McCoy.

 

[Grendelsbayne]

I think the episode was doomed right around the time of "Brain and brain! What is brain?"

 

[Push The Button]

I can see #2 although I think it led to some funny comic relief to close the hour. But with #1 I think the implication was that since Kirk and Scott weren't surgeons to begin with, the Teacher wouldn't have helped them in the same way it did McCoy.

Scotty is an engineer, he would have figured it out. Nerves, arteries, wires, fiber optic lines, its all the same.

 

[BK613]

Is it savable? The concept of a biological brain being needed to run HVAC is pretty silly on it's own. The idea that said biological brain could last 10,000 years is icing on the silliness cake. And can you imagine being the consciousness in that disembodied brain for those 10,000 years?

 

[johnnybear]

I should imagine you get free heating and plenty of fish n' chips!!!
JB

 

[Methuselah Flint]

The major one that bugged me, is that Nimoy never wore a baldcap, or even the gold cap he wore at the beginning, to be worn throughout. Spock's hair should, and would have been shaven off for the surgery.

 

[johnnybear]

Obviously the technology the people of Sigma Draconis had once possessed was far beyond the medical knowledge we have now or in the twenty third century!
JB

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Obviously the technology the people of Sigma Draconis had once possessed was far beyond the medical knowledge we have now or in the twenty third century!
JB

Yeah...all silly moments aside, viewers should remember that their technology (The Controller ability, potential, etc.) was centuries beyond anything of Federation member species of the TOS era, and very likely beyond TNG-VOY as well.

 

[Henoch]

Yeah...all silly moments aside, viewers should remember that their technology (The Controller ability, potential, etc.) was centuries beyond anything of Federation member species of the TOS era, and very likely beyond TNG-VOY as well.

So, when do they start carving out Vulcan brains to install into Starships?

 

[Maurice]

I can see #2 although I think it led to some funny comic relief to close the hour. But with #1 I think the implication was that since Kirk and Scott weren't surgeons to begin with, the Teacher wouldn't have helped them in the same way it did McCoy.

Worked on Kara who clearly had no surgical knowledge.

 

[Delta Vega]

I'm sorry, but there are absolutely no circumstances or conditions that would have made "Spock's Brain" passable, or saveable
It's as bad as bad Trek gets

 

[CorporalCaptain]

The Two Things They Needed To Have Done Differently, To Have Made A Passable Episode:

1. Don't make "Spock's Brain."

2. Make a passable episode instead.

So many problems in SB, yet so simple a solution.

That said, attempting to fix the problems easily could have created a worse episode overall, because as it stands it plays as a sort of celebration of the totally awful. Eliminate what's distinctive about it, and what do you have? Probably just another lackluster entry in the third season.

 

[Tenacity]

change two things

1) Depict the women as having average intelligence, and possessing knowledge consistent with living in a technological society. The "teacher" would give more still.

2) Have only part of Spock's brain taken, this would explain how he was still alive and later able to move around with the assistance of the device on the outside of his head. When putting Spock's brain back in McCoy was working on the top of Spock's head and not the where the brain joins the spine.

 

[Push The Button]

The actual brain removal and installation part - including the previously mentioned lack of damage to Spock’s haircut, post-operation - has to be the biggest problem for me. Had the entirety of Spock instead been inside a tank and wired up to the planet’s systems, the episode would have been moderately more plausible.

 

[Ssosmcin]

I'm sorry, but there are absolutely no circumstances or conditions that would have made "Spock's Brain" passable, or saveable
It's as bad as bad Trek gets

Nah, it had worse.

 

[BK613]

I'm sorry, but there are absolutely no circumstances or conditions that would have made "Spock's Brain" passable, or saveable
It's as bad as bad Trek gets

Could have been worse: could have had fewer or no women in the episode (which is the one reason the teenage version of me even watched it twice back in the day.)

 

[The Old Mixer]

It's as bad as bad Trek gets

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[Marsden]

The thing that bothered me the most was SSpck.....Mustdie within 24 hrs but they're able to wire him up with a Nintendo controller and march him around with only 12 buttons. They mentioned things like cryogenics before, they couldn't save him in hibernation? They had to bring his body down while searching rather than after finding the..... missing part. (don't want to upset @grendelsbayne)

The talking during brain surgery in of itself isn't that bad because they actually do some with the person awake, it was Spock's combination condescending and jejune attitude that made it look ridiculous. They could have had a light-hearted close but kept that at least a little more tense.
I mean, no one ever for a second would have thought Spock wouldn't be saved, right? He's the breakout star of the show! What would Star Trek have been without Leonard Nimoy! I shudder at the thought.