Star Trek: What Is Brain?

[andraste]

Since I am, like much of fandom, in acute Star Trek: Discovery withdrawal, I have been treating the symptoms with the original series. (I've already seen the good seasons of TNG, all of DS9 and all the Voyager and Enterprise I care for, so I may end up with only the animated series for comfort before long.)

Since I have not watched the show in any organised way before, this has lead to many glorious moments, like the one where Kirk has a boring conversation with some aliens and then teleports back to the ship and SPOCK HAS A GOATEE OMG. This is almost as good if you don't bother reading episode titles as it must have been for people who didn't know what was going to happen in the rest of the episode.

This week I reached another milestone: Spock's Brain. It's notorious for being the worst episode of Trek ever made. I don't think I actually agree with that assessment, if only because The Omega Glory and Code of Honor and Threshold and The Q and the Gray are all things that exist. However, I do think it's the BEST bad episode of Star Trek I have ever seen, by a lot. It's like a perfect storm of everything that has ever gone wrong with a Trek episode!

The script is awful, the sets and effects and costumes are, um, special and there's all the background radiation of sexism and dumb racist assumptions about how civilisations develop that you find in sixties Trek. (And later Trek, alas, but usually with less frequency.) But I was too busy laughing to actually be bothered by any of that. Everyone being VERY SERIOUS while McCoy operates Spock's body with a remote control may be the single funniest thing in this Star Trek series or any other.

I spontaneously invented a drinking game while watching: sip every time someone says the title in a portentous voice, drink every time William Shatner pretends to writhe in agony, and drain the glass when the famous quote in the title of this post is spoken. The episode will still be terrible, but at least you will be making good use of it.

Comments

[lizvogel]

Goatees: The universal sign of evilness. ;-)

It's notorious for being the worst episode of Trek ever made. I don't think I actually agree with that assessment

Same here. "Spock's Brain" is merely very, very cheesy. "Omega Glory" is both stupid and boring. (AFAIR, anyway; it's been quite a while since I've tested that.) And really, if you can look past, well, pretty much everything about how it was done, the basic concept of using a brain to run a society's environmental controls & etc. isn't without merit. And of course, you'd want the best brain you could get, so....

[andraste]

Goatees: The universal sign of evilness. ;-)

I've been seeing the echoes of that moment in pop culture my whole life, so it was kind of amazing to finally see the original!

Yes, having watched The Omega Glory for the first time just recently, I thought it was much worse - some interesting ideas, but it tries to throw in way too many concepts at once and the ending is just ludicrous and not in a good and entertaining way.

Really, if they'd just kidnapped Spock and tried to put him in charge, Spock's Brain would have made more sense and been much less ridiculous. And probably way less entertaining.

[lizvogel]

Really, if they'd just kidnapped Spock and tried to put him in charge, Spock's Brain would have made more sense and been much less ridiculous.

Now that would have been interesting -- I can just see Spock, torn between his obvious duty to escape and wanting to stick around to study this fascinating devolved culture. And by the time Kirk & co. showed up to rescue him, he'd probably have reorganized the whole society (whilst somehow simultaneously managing not to violate the Prime Directive) and have them all studying logic and environmental engineering and such.

Oh, of course: it wouldn't be a Prime Directive violation because their culture already involved bringing in a superior brain to manage their society, so obviously having that superior brain direct them into being a more logical society was in fact inherent in the tenets of their culture.... (Yes, this is the kind of rationalization-logic that becomes second nature when one grows up on classic Trek.)

[andraste]

Kirk and McCoy would just have to drag him away!

What is and isn't a violation of the Prime Directive is slightly bewildering in all Trek, but especially TOS. (I mean, the end of The Omega Glory alone. Or all of The Paradise Syndrome. Or McCoy apparently not getting court-martialed for leaving his tricorder behind in A Piece of the Action.)

[lizvogel]

The Prime Directive was one of those high-minded ideals that interfered with a whole lot of potentially entertaining storytelling, so it got bent to a pretzel on a regular basis. The loopholes are that you can't interfere with the development (if it ain't developing, the rule doesn't apply) of a viable (if it is, or might be, headed for extinction, the rule doesn't apply) culture. And development and viability are so very much in the eye of the beholder....

I may have the wording off a little at this late date, but I believe Kirk himself makes that argument on more than one occasion. Usually right before talking some poor computer into blowing itself up. ;-)

[thawrecka]

Spock's Brain is definitely my favourite bad episode of Star Trek. I think I laughed so hard I cried the first time I saw it.

[andraste]

The remote control was definitely the part where I completely lost it. I hope I didn't disturb my upstairs neighbours too much.

[feldman]

Having literally teethed on this show, I really love hearing the reactions of people discovering its weird sixties glory for the first time.

[andraste]

I've seen isolated episodes before, but watching the whole thing in order is definitely a different kind of trip!

[labingi]

Ah, you make me want to watch OST again. I don't think I've seen "Spock's Brain" since I was a kid or maybe early teens. I barely remember it. I should go back and enjoy.

[andraste]

You should! I imagine going back after many years is a whole different experiece to seeing it for the first time. But it's probably still funny.