Spock’s Brain
Spock’s Brain (Memory Alpha; HD Video) has a premise as ridiculous as it’s title: a near-naked woman beams aboard the Enterprise from an advanced ship and steals Spock’s brain from out of his head.
Far more important, though, is that this is the first episode of season three, and they switched to blue titles instead of yellow, which is really wigging me out. As if that wasn’t enough, Kirk is thin and Scotty has weird hair.
Back in the fake world, Kirk is setting out to find Spock’s brain within the twenty-four hours Spock’s body can live on its own. They chase the ship to a system with three inhabitable planets that might be hiding the McGuffin. There’s a genuinely neat scene where Kirk, Chekov, Sulu and Uhura all interact as if the rest of the crew matters and it’s not all about Kirk, Spock and Bones. This glimpse of a more inclusive decision-making process reminds me a lot of the Next Generation conference room scenes where all the major characters get together to talk through the problem at hand. Those scenes are a staple of Next Gen but are almost nonexistent in this series.
But then we jump back to Kirk and Bones searching for Spock, with Scotty in tow as a replacement technical wizard. It’s kind of sad that Scotty gets short shrift in so many episodes; Doohan is capable of doing so much with the character, and whenever he’s given the chance we get some great performances, but he just can’t get enough screen time to make it work.
This is another episode that heavily plays on Kirk’s loyalty to his friend, and it treads that already well-trod ground without kicking up any new dust.
But in spite of the ridiculous premise and a bland reveal, this episode is good. Doohan and Shatner perform well, Kelley gets a chance to play his usual love/hate relationship with Spock, and the villainess is neither over the top nor banal.
Best bit of ironic dialog
“I certainly did notice the delightful ass…pects”
Grade
A-
