Spock's Brain

[Gorn Captain]

This has long been widely understood to be one of the worst episodes of TOS. I can certainly understand why, having just watched it for the first time in a long time.

I knew that the show by this point was so bereft of ideas that someone thought it would be a good idea to write an episode where Spock's brain is stolen by aliens who want to use it to run their heating and air conditioning unit. Okay, that's bad enough.

What I didn't realize until tonight is that they couldn't even fill up an entire episode! The first minute of the show is dialogue free! Everyone just kind of stands around the bridge grimacing at each other. No doubt they were thinking about the script.

 

[Danny99]

I was happy with the first half of the episode because it gave Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura a lot of lines, something that had never happened before.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Everyone just kind of stands around the bridge grimacing at each other. No doubt they were thinking about the script.

That makes me wonder, what did the cast think of each show as they were shooting it. Could they tell how well/badly it would turn out, or was that always a surprise? Did they know some episodes would be among the best TV ever filmed, and others howlingly bad? Did they really think the racial metaphor in Let That Be Your Last Battlefield was anything other than sledgehammer moralizing? Did they think William Windom was really overdoing it in The Doomday Machine or that his performance would be as fondly remembered as it has been?

 

[T'Girl]

Oh there are a few worst episode than this (children), SB has some interesting content, gives the secondaries something to do, Hooking a living sentient being's brain into a computer is a long standing science fiction concept, something happens to Travis Mayweather in a episode thirty five years later. McCoy basically re-animates a corpse. Presents FTL technology belonging to a primitive society. There's some good stuff here, just have to look for it, stretch your mind a little bit.

How can you dislike a show that says this: "Woman, the givers of pain ... and delight."

 

[ToddPence]

I've read at least one source that suggested Gene Coon deliberately wrote the worst possible episode he could come up with as an F-you to Fred Freiberger.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4fU0Ajo4RM

I wonder how Kelley managed to deliver that line with a straight face.

Shatner's "WTF?" expression is great though. Is he possibly breaking the fourth wall here?

 

[Warped9]

For myself I find this episode is much maligned although not entirely unjustified. There are a lot of good ideas in it.

I find two glaring flaws:
1. the title. A better title and the story is immediately fifty times improved. How about "The Controller" or something along those lines? As is they might as well have called it "For The Mind Is Hollow And I Don't Know Why."
2. the portrayal of the women as total airheads. Fix that and you're way ahead from before.

This is really an obvious example of a little thoughtful rewriting and you'd have a completely different result.

TOS in general sometimes suffers from something not its fault. It's forty years old. Many things that were fresh and new for the time have since been done to death. So when someone says, "Oh, that's been rehashed so often." they're not wrong, but they're forgetting that that wasn't the case when TOS was new.

 

[Sir Rhosis]

I've heard the Coon wrote it badly on purpose meme, but the very serious first story outline does not bear this out. Perhaps later, but it started as a dead serious science fiction driven story.

Sir Rhosis

 

[Warped9]

I've heard the Coon wrote it badly on purpose meme, but the very serious first story outline does not bear this out. Perhaps later, but it started as a dead serious science fiction driven story.

Sir Rhosis

And I can see its potential for being such. But evidently something went dreadfully wrong along the way.

 

[Vonstadt]

I've heard the Coon wrote it badly on purpose meme, but the very serious first story outline does not bear this out. Perhaps later, but it started as a dead serious science fiction driven story.

Sir Rhosis

And I can see its potential for being such. But evidently something went dreadfully wrong along the way.

I agree and this episode has its cringeworthy moments but it was a favorite of mine when I was little and I do enjoy some of the moments still.

I still can't help but smile whenever I see McCoy with a 'remote control vulcan' of his very own....I was remembering this when I watched DS9 later on and we watched Miles ram the holographic Julian over and over again into a support beam for fun when he had the remote control for the hologram.

I couldn't help but think whether or not Bones had a similar wish if Spock hadn't been a patient of his.

I thought of the remote controlled Spock again when Quark and the other 'magnicifent ferengi' were remote controlling the dead vorta too.

Its not the worst epidsode for me and it still holds some charm.

Besides it was parodied nicely in that one Wonder Years episode.


Vons

 

[Sir Rhosis]

http://www.fastcopyinc.com/orionpress/articles/spock.htm

For those interestred, a synopsis of the first story outline.

 

[Warped9]

^^ It could use some work, but it sounds a lot more credible.

 

[LeadHead]

I think this episode gets a worse reputation than other, far more cringe-worthy eps in the season like The Way to Eden, Platos Stepchildren, Requiem for Methuselah, need I go on?

Despite the massive suspension of disbelief, Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and Doohan all give very entertaining performances in this episode.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Spock's Brain is infinitely more interesting than The Alternative Factor. It's kind of lively, a bit camp and as T'Girl said has a classic sci-fi element.

 

[StarryEyed]

I think this episode gets a worse reputation than other, far more cringe-worthy eps in the season like The Way to Eden, Platos Stepchildren, Requiem for Methuselah, need I go on?

Despite the massive suspension of disbelief, Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and Doohan all give very entertaining performances in this episode.

Requiem for Methuselah is the easiest to fix. Take out that one scene of the actual starship getting reduced to an AMT model complete with a window for a viewscreen and little action figures inside and it improves 1000%.

 

[Piper]

Anyone who doesn't think Spock's Brain is a joyful bit of nonsense takes Trek far too seriously.

The real stinkers are those like The Alternative Factor, The Empath or And the Children Shall Lead which don't have any redeeming camp factor to compensate for their shortcomings.

 

[Gov Kodos]

This was from an era that had Zontar the Thing from Venus (A giant carot, more or less) The Planet of Prehistoric Women, which was only one of Rodger Corman's re-editing jobs of a Russian film, Planet Bur (I probably have the transliteration wrong), but kids have sci fi far too easily available today. Spocks Brain is a delightfully silly romp through the Trek universe.

 

[RookieBatman]

Oh there are a few worst episode than this (children), SB has some interesting content, gives the secondaries something to do, Hooking a living sentient being's brain into a computer is a long standing science fiction concept, something happens to Travis Mayweather in a episode thirty five years later. McCoy basically re-animates a corpse. Presents FTL technology belonging to a primitive society. There's some good stuff here, just have to look for it, stretch your mind a little bit.

This is really an obvious example of a little thoughtful rewriting and you'd have a completely different result.

I remember the first time I watched it as an adult, thinking that it could've been quite good with just a rewrite or two (I don't remember why, specifically, but it's been years). I think that was really the main problem with the third season, is that Freiberger just wasn't as good of a rewriter as Roddenberry. Roddenberry apparently wasn't very good at coming up with scripts of his own, but he was excellent at retouching scripts to bring them a little more in line with what Star Trek was supposed to be. And without anybody covering that, the 3rd season scripts just couldn't reach their potential.

But yeah, definitely a lot better than "Children."

 

[Willieck]

Anyone who doesn't think Spock's Brain is a joyful bit of nonsense takes Trek far too seriously.

Brain and brain; what is this brain?

Wonderful nonsense.

 

[Piper]

Anyone who doesn't think Spock's Brain is a joyful bit of nonsense takes Trek far too seriously.

Brain and brain; what is this brain?

Wonderful nonsense.

My point exactly