Who Saw Spock's Brain In It's Original Run on NBC?

[QuasarVM]

I can easily rewatch Spock's Brain even though I find it baaaaaad, but Plato's Stepchildren I skip every time. It's just awful and cringeworthy and I am sure I hated it even when I saw it at the age of 10.

I hated it...but, I will say it has its unintentional comedic moments -- starting with the Kirk slap-a-thon onward...

But, who's kidding who? It's a terrible episode and I resist all efforts to make it seem like a great episode just because it has the "first interracial kiss".

Whenever people bring that up, I always say "Yeah, but it also has Kirk pretending to be a horse with a midget riding his back...and Kirk and Spock dancing around like fairies!".

 

[Gary7]

TOS-S3 had some loser episodes, but some good ones too. IMHO, TNG S1 & S2 were awful... just downright laughable. Whatever transformation happened in TNG S3, it worked beautifully. Maybe it was the collars on the uniforms, masking out the footed pajamas look? But something came together. Perhaps the actors finally hit their stride... it was one of my favorite TNG seasons, with the enormously popular "Best of Both Worlds" season cliffhanger. ENT repeated that fiasco... S1 and S2 were a joke. I COULD NOT BELIEVE that they'd produce such trash. The happy-go-lucky picnic-lunch Captain bounding across the grassy meadows with his doggie in tow on a completely unknown alien world, full of gleeful wonder and lack of military decorum... they should've fallen into a sand pit full of Denobian blood worms and died a horrible death, the naive idiots. Took 'em all the way to S3 before Archer stopped acting like a pushover teenager and started demonstrating a believable attitude of command.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I saw it when it first ran.

I was really, really disappointed. The show had never been that bad, from my POV. Not once.

As I recall, my least favorite before this one had been "Patterns Of Force."

There were only one or two episodes of TNG in its first two years that were as bad as TOS's third year. If it had been otherwise, TNG would never have made it into a third year.

 

[Too Much Fun]

I don't think TNG season 2 was that bad. It had some truly excellent episodes like "Peak Performance", "Time Squared", and "The Measure of a Man", which I believe is one of the best episodes in the whole seven year run. I was surprised when I heard that the original Star Trek only lasted three seasons, thinking it probably deserved better since so many people love it so much now.

Since starting to watch season 3, however, I'm glad it wasn't renewed as I shudder to think how much worse another season would have been after all the crap in there. Those Kirk and Spock scenes Quesar mentioned from "Plato's Stepchildren" are some of the most disgustingly stupid garbage I've ever seen on TV. Stuff like that is Star Trek fans are looked down upon as weirdos who like cheesy nonsense. What a travesty that episode is!

 

[plynch]

Talking about Season 3 opinions, I've been watching the show for the first time and am really disappointed by how poor this season is. I thought "The Enterprise Incident" was okay and thought "Day of the Dove" was a strong episode, but everything else has been really lame or boring, including "Spock's Brain", which kind of set the standard for the awfulness that has followed . I truly hope none of the other remaining episodes reach the lows of "Plato's Stepchildren" - AN ABOMINATION![/quote"

"Plato's" might beat "Spock's Brain" for badness. Are you watching in order? I highly recommend "Is There in Truth No Beauty," "The Empath," and "Requiem for Methuselah." All have good science fiction ideas, and are not merely "Kirk and Spock go to the ____ planet and escape." I personally love "Spectre," (admittedly a widely-hated episode) because of its style, music, and idea about the possibly illusory nature of reality.

I am sensing that although season gets weirder as a whole, it recovers from a rut in season two. Although the truly awful episodes in 3 ARE the worst bad ones of any season, I'll grant you that. Be well!

 

[plynch]

The truly awful year three episodes are "And The Children Shall Lead", "The Way to Eden" and "Plato's Stepchildren" ("first interracial kiss" notwitstanding) -- in my opinion of course.

I too found them quite dull and ridiculous. The ideas could have been developed differently and made for some interesting episodes. But the writing on these was awful. They're part of the Star Trek canon, though, each having their own merits. If I had to pick one of them and discard the rest, I'd take "Eden". I liked the whole "space hippy" interpretation. And certainly seeing Mary-Linda Rapelye in the glory of her stunning youth was worth the price of admission.



And Spock jamming with the band...

Otherwise, for the other two...
"Hail, hail, fire and snow. Awful episodes, you should know. Lousy acting. Lousy writing. These crummy episodes should not be!"

That's great!

Well, of the three, only Eden had a chance. I just wish they had used Dorothy Fontana's "Joanna" script as she wrote it. It would have probably been a much better episode.

I wish they had written in a confrontation with the Romulans once they enter the neutral zone though...that would have made it more interesting too.

I rewatched "Eden" for the first time in years a while back. It was WAY better than I remembered:

A secondary's character actually develops! How'd they let that happen?! But take it when you can get it: Chekov, who of course IS a young, career-starfleet commander-in-training is portrayed as a stick-in-the-mudd herbert. All we'd ever seen him as was green ensign, so we now see him through different eyes. Nice. And, he has to struggle between duty and his old love. And, two of the guests are portrayed as human beings with some depth, Sevrin and Irina. And, it raises (on a tech-oriented show) the issue many hippies were really raising, the stultifying effects of industrial technology. And, it has Spock (thus also the liberal producers?) giving his imprimatur by jamming with them on his harp-that-sounds-like-the-Doors'-psychedelic-organ. In effect, "the kids are alright." And, what they long for turns out to be crummy, a great theme anytime: Be careful what you ask for.

So if you can get past the "space hippies," it has a lot in the script.

 

[QuasarVM]

Since starting to watch season 3, however, I'm glad it wasn't renewed as I shudder to think how much worse another season would have been after all the crap in there. Those Kirk and Spock scenes Quesar mentioned from "Plato's Stepchildren" are some of the most disgustingly stupid garbage I've ever seen on TV. Stuff like that is Star Trek fans are looked down upon as weirdos who like cheesy nonsense. What a travesty that episode is!

Without Roddenberry back at the, ahem...helm...for a fourth season it probably would have descended into Buck Rogers in the 24th Century level garbage!

 

[QuasarVM]

I too found them quite dull and ridiculous. The ideas could have been developed differently and made for some interesting episodes. But the writing on these was awful. They're part of the Star Trek canon, though, each having their own merits. If I had to pick one of them and discard the rest, I'd take "Eden". I liked the whole "space hippy" interpretation. And certainly seeing Mary-Linda Rapelye in the glory of her stunning youth was worth the price of admission.



And Spock jamming with the band...

Otherwise, for the other two...
"Hail, hail, fire and snow. Awful episodes, you should know. Lousy acting. Lousy writing. These crummy episodes should not be!"

That's great!

Well, of the three, only Eden had a chance. I just wish they had used Dorothy Fontana's "Joanna" script as she wrote it. It would have probably been a much better episode.

I wish they had written in a confrontation with the Romulans once they enter the neutral zone though...that would have made it more interesting too.

I rewatched "Eden" for the first time in years a while back. It was WAY better than I remembered:

A secondary's character actually develops! How'd they let that happen?! But take it when you can get it: Chekov, who of course IS a young, career-starfleet commander-in-training is portrayed as a stick-in-the-mudd herbert. All we'd ever seen him as was green ensign, so we now see him through different eyes. Nice. And, he has to struggle between duty and his old love. And, two of the guests are portrayed as human beings with some depth, Sevrin and Irina. And, it raises (on a tech-oriented show) the issue many hippies were really raising, the stultifying effects of industrial technology. And, it has Spock (thus also the liberal producers?) giving his imprimatur by jamming with them on his harp-that-sounds-like-the-Doors'-psychedelic-organ. In effect, "the kids are alright." And, what they long for turns out to be crummy, a great theme anytime: Be careful what you ask for.

So if you can get past the "space hippies," it has a lot in the script.

Oh, I agree...the Chekov plotline was great! I just can't get past "Headin out tooo Eden, Yay Brother!", etc...

I can watch it to laugh at it though...

 

[Too Much Fun]

"Plato's" might beat "Spock's Brain" for badness. Are you watching in order? I highly recommend "Is There in Truth No Beauty," "The Empath," and "Requiem for Methuselah." All have good science fiction ideas, and are not merely "Kirk and Spock go to the ____ planet and escape." I personally love "Spectre," (admittedly a widely-hated episode) because of its style, music, and idea about the possibly illusory nature of reality.

Thank you for the suggestions. Yes, I am watching in order and I have seen "Is There in Truth No Beauty?" and I did like it. It's a relief to see decent episodes like that one amidst all the dreck in the season, but when I see episodes like "Plato's Stepchildren", I just want to quit watching "Star Trek" for good! I'm holding on, though. The last one I saw was "Elaan of Troyus" and that was cool too. Not one of the best episodes, but very funny. I loved the bratty temper tantrums and Kirk's disciplinary yelling.

 

[Neopeius]

I was not alive during the first run, but I did watch it in syndication as a little boy. At the time, I did not realize they weren't still making new episodes, so it felt new.

I totally bought Spock's Brain when I was 6 or so. I thought the scene where McCoy restored it was fascinating.

As for the rest of third season, I recently watched all of Star Trek in stardate order and got a fresh perspective on things. I determined that there are fewer wretched episodes in Season 3 than in Season 1, and fewer great episodes in Season 3 than Season 2. There're a lot of mediocre tales which could have been awesome given the time, money or inclination.

For the World is Hollow and this Title is Too Long, for instance.

Re: Plato's Stepchildren, I dunno. I expected to hate it, and the first act is lousy, and it's hard to watch your favorite characters prance about under the mental thrall of others.

On the other hand, Alexander is way cooler than he has any right to be.

And last comment re: Way to Eden, Deborah Downey is the hottest Trek guest star ever.

 

[miraclefan]

You definitely did the right thing returning ENT-S1! Were you drunk when you bought it though? I mean...sheesh!

NAY! ( I only saw 8 episodes of season one at the time ALL good! )I wish I was drunk when I bought it thou. It MAY have made the remainder of that season WATCHABLE Oh and by the by I was not able to return it due to Wal-mart policy or somesuch they said I could ONLY exchange it for another ENT S-1 box set So I pretty much said screw that I'll just keep as either a doorstop, bookend or give it as a gift to some relative who had no idea about the horrors he?she had received

 

[miraclefan]

I hated it...but, I will say it has its unintentional comedic moments -- starting with the Kirk slap-a-thon onward...

But, who's kidding who? It's a terrible episode and I resist all efforts to make it seem like a great episode just because it has the "first interracial kiss".

Whenever people bring that up, I always say "Yeah, but it also has Kirk pretending to be a horse with a midget riding his back...and Kirk and Spock dancing around like fairies!".

 

[Warped9]

We've touched on this briefly before...but, who saw this third season premiere on NBC -- and even more importantly: what were your impressions of the episode way back on that 1968 evening?

Was the fact that Spock's Brain was stolen shocking in a sort of horror-film kind of way or...did you laugh? Did you think this was the end of quality Star Trek -- an aberration? Or did you love it?

Dig back into the recesses of your memories and let us know what you thought at the time...if you can remember.

I didn't see it in its original airing, but later in syndication when I was about 11 in 1970.

At that age I don't recall being thrown by what I now see as a measure of absurdiity in aspects of its execution. Perhaps that's why as an adult I don't find it as one of the worst of TOS. At its heart "Spock's Brain" has a genuinely good SF story idea that just needed some rewriting and a little extra money to make it shine.

Indeed I can't help but wonder how this might have come off if it had been approached more seriously and/or if it had been produced in either first or second season.

 

[QuasarVM]

We've touched on this briefly before...but, who saw this third season premiere on NBC -- and even more importantly: what were your impressions of the episode way back on that 1968 evening?

Was the fact that Spock's Brain was stolen shocking in a sort of horror-film kind of way or...did you laugh? Did you think this was the end of quality Star Trek -- an aberration? Or did you love it?

Dig back into the recesses of your memories and let us know what you thought at the time...if you can remember.

I didn't see it in its original airing, but later in syndication when I was about 11 in 1970.

At that age I don't recall being thrown by what I now see as a measure of absurdiity in aspects of its execution. Perhaps that's why as an adult I don't find it as one of the worst of TOS. At its heart "Spock's Brain" has a genuinely good SF story idea that just needed some rewriting and a little extra money to make it shine.

Indeed I can't help but wonder how this might have come off if it had been approached more seriously and/or if it had been produced in either first or second season.

The kernel of the idea behind it is solid. I agree with you -- had it been approached more seriously it could have been an officially "Great" episode.

I think were I to have written it, I would have given it more of a horror movie feel. Get rid of the Imorg/Morg thing (which didn't really seem integral to the plot anyway), and maybe have it be more like the Voyager episode "Phage". Not that I am saying Phage was perfect either...but I did like the chase aspect of it.

When I saw Phage, I thought "Ha! They're trying to remake Spock's Brain."

It really could have been called "Neelix' Lungs".

 

[Noname Given]

There were only one or two episodes of TNG in its first two years that were as bad as TOS's third year. If it had been otherwise, TNG would never have made it into a third year.

Are you kidding? Overall TNG's first two seasons make TOS season 3 look like Shakesphere. I can count on one hand the episodes I thought were watcable from TNG seasons 1 and 2. Between Justice and The Royale; I'm amazed TNG did get a 3rd season and beyond.

 

[Warped9]

We've touched on this briefly before...but, who saw this third season premiere on NBC -- and even more importantly: what were your impressions of the episode way back on that 1968 evening?

Was the fact that Spock's Brain was stolen shocking in a sort of horror-film kind of way or...did you laugh? Did you think this was the end of quality Star Trek -- an aberration? Or did you love it?

Dig back into the recesses of your memories and let us know what you thought at the time...if you can remember.

I didn't see it in its original airing, but later in syndication when I was about 11 in 1970.

At that age I don't recall being thrown by what I now see as a measure of absurdiity in aspects of its execution. Perhaps that's why as an adult I don't find it as one of the worst of TOS. At its heart "Spock's Brain" has a genuinely good SF story idea that just needed some rewriting and a little extra money to make it shine.

Indeed I can't help but wonder how this might have come off if it had been approached more seriously and/or if it had been produced in either first or second season.

The kernel of the idea behind it is solid. I agree with you -- had it been approached more seriously it could have been an officially "Great" episode.

I think were I to have written it, I would have given it more of a horror movie feel. Get rid of the Imorg/Morg thing (which didn't really seem integral to the plot anyway), and maybe have it be more like the Voyager episode "Phage". Not that I am saying Phage was perfect either...but I did like the chase aspect of it.

When I saw Phage, I thought "Ha! They're trying to remake Spock's Brain."

It really could have been called "Neelix' Lungs".

Retitle the episode "The Controller" or something a little more TOS like poetic and it's fifty percent better already.

 

[QuasarVM]

There were only one or two episodes of TNG in its first two years that were as bad as TOS's third year. If it had been otherwise, TNG would never have made it into a third year.

Are you kidding? Overall TNG's first two seasons make TOS season 3 look like Shakesphere. I can count on one hand the episodes I thought were watcable from TNG seasons 1 and 2. Between Justice and The Royale; I'm amazed TNG did get a 3rd season and beyond.

The "ugly bags of mostly water episode" and "Code of Honor" were pretty bad too...I agree on the first season (although even with that season there were some standouts), but I liked the 2nd season of TNG.

The Royale and Shades of Gray were the two standout bad episodes of Y2 TNG for me -- otherwise, it improves on Y1.

 

[QuasarVM]

I didn't see it in its original airing, but later in syndication when I was about 11 in 1970.

At that age I don't recall being thrown by what I now see as a measure of absurdiity in aspects of its execution. Perhaps that's why as an adult I don't find it as one of the worst of TOS. At its heart "Spock's Brain" has a genuinely good SF story idea that just needed some rewriting and a little extra money to make it shine.

Indeed I can't help but wonder how this might have come off if it had been approached more seriously and/or if it had been produced in either first or second season.

The kernel of the idea behind it is solid. I agree with you -- had it been approached more seriously it could have been an officially "Great" episode.

I think were I to have written it, I would have given it more of a horror movie feel. Get rid of the Imorg/Morg thing (which didn't really seem integral to the plot anyway), and maybe have it be more like the Voyager episode "Phage". Not that I am saying Phage was perfect either...but I did like the chase aspect of it.

When I saw Phage, I thought "Ha! They're trying to remake Spock's Brain."

It really could have been called "Neelix' Lungs".

Retitle the episode "The Controller" or something a little more TOS like poetic and it's fifty percent better already.

I like that! Yeah...good title! Spock's Brain is too "Donovan's Brain"...

And for my money, it's GOT to be a two-parter (with an integral additional story element that helps resolve the episode by the end of part II) with Spock's life hanging in the balance at the end of part one. Maybe they go to Vulcan at the end of Part II -- kind of like Star Trek III? That would be cool.

 

[Too Much Fun]

Are you kidding? Overall TNG's first two seasons make TOS season 3 look like Shakesphere. I can count on one hand the episodes I thought were watcable from TNG seasons 1 and 2. Between Justice and The Royale; I'm amazed TNG did get a 3rd season and beyond.

I didn't mind "The Royale" so much. Not a very good episode, but I like the ominous teaser of the piece of NASA craft being found and Data had some good funny moments. I agree that the first two seasons were mostly pretty lame, although there are some gems in season 2. Season 1 looks unbelievably cheesy when you compare it to later seasons, but "Datalore" was really solid.

That Shakespeare line is a bit of a stretch. I can't think of anything in TNG that ever approached the level of awfulness of episodes like "And the Children Shall Lead" or "Plato's Stepchildren". The enterprise is taken over by kids shaking their fists like they're doing rock paper scissors? What the hell?

 

[Hofner]

Well, seeing as how we were so totally dumb back in the stone age of course we bought "Spock's Brain" as being totally plausible.

OK, I'm kidding.
Seriously even though I was 8 at the time I remember it very well because it was a weird mixture of total malarkey yet kind of eerie. When McCoy said Spock's brain was gone, I remember it was shocking yet I almost laughed, it bordered on ridiculous.

So when I see Spock walking around with that gizmo on his head, I knew it had definitely crossed that border into ridiculous but still it was strange how it was Spock yet not Spock.

Maybe, maybe I could buy that alien thingy giving McCoy the temporary knowledge to reattach the brain. But when Spock starts directing McCoy and immediately sits up after the operation, I'm going "Oh c'mOOON!!" and throwing things at the TV.

Actually I didn't throw things at the TV, it was a brand new color TV, our first one. My dad had gotten a much better paying job earlier that year and one of the first things he bought was that TV.

But yeah that ep was quite ridiculous but you gotta look at it as a tall tale, a total yarn. They can still be entertaining or not. This ep kind of falls on the entertaining side although by the time Spock is directing the operation and sitting up, my suspension of disbelief was DOA.

Robert