kingpengvin writes:
Few people realize that Vulcans are descended from creatures similar to earthly chickens…
At least “Spock’s Brain” has some entertainment value. It has possibly McCoy’s best “bug-eyed” look ever (after he’s been through the brain boost), not to mention great WTF lines (from “Brain and brain…” to “I knew I should never have reconnected his mouth!”). This is more than I can say for some of the aforementioned abominations.
Miri --More “bonk bonk” please–especially the writers!
The Way to Eden
Who Mourns For Adonis?
Bread and Circuses
Spectre of the Gun
I would include The Gamesters of Triskelion , but Angelique Pettyjohn was a guest at the very first Trek convention I attended, so I sorta have an affinity for that episode.
I also kinda like The Omega Glory just from a campy standpoint.
That being said, the all-time abomination will always be And the Children Shall Lead . At what point did the producers say, “You know who’d be great for the “friendly angel” character? Attorney Melvin Belli!” The worst acting, worst writing, worst everything times 10!
I’d second “Plato’s Stepchildren” if it weren’t for one thing. It was the perfect episode to slip in TV’s first inter-racial kiss. I don’t think it would have worked in a more serious episode or a different TV series. People accepted Kirk and Uhura kissing because it wasn’t in the context of the mid 20th century, but takes place 300 years in the future. And I’m sure there were a lot of red-blooded males thinking, “You wouldn’t have to force me to kiss Nichelle Nichols.” So having Kirk and Uhura being forced to kiss worked for that. It softened people up for the next inter-racial interaction in a more contemporary and familiar setting.
Hey
What 11-year-old kid doesn’t want a “teacher”!
No more teachers, no more books, no more teacher’s dirty looks!
And a remote control Spock!
Kicks ass compared to that Robbie the Robot with the wired control!!
As well as the lesson on women
the bringers of pleasure and pain!
I think it was “pain and delight”, but no matter.
I kinda liked Spectre of the Gun, and apparently so did the Red Dwarf guys because they rather shamelessly stole from it for their award-winning Gunmen of the Apocalypse episode.
I disagree.
I believe it has something to do with Pon Farr.
I think the badness of “Spock’s Brain” is just a result of the risk-taking that early SF series were willing to do. The same willingness to go out on a limb that produced ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ also produced “Spock’s Brain.” By the same token, the same willingness to go out on a limb that produced “Demon With A Glass Hand” on The Outer Limits also produced “Cry of Silence” (about a couple stranded on a remote desert road menaced by alien tumbleweeds – you could just hear the producer crying, 'You mean our special effects budget will consist solely of string to tie around tumbleweeds so we can drag them around? Sweet!")
So they take their chances – sometimes they win big, sometimes they Spock’s Brain.
What makes SB truly horrible is Bjo Trimble’s (sp) efforts at getting Trek renewed for a third season. We may have had the first seven year run if they’d produced another City on the Edge of Forever or Amok Time.
But no, they had Spock’s Brain and were canceled.
BTW, the thinking cap is lifted from The Forbidden PLanet which I would have remade for the Enterprise pilot.
It was remade into the NX-01 by the addition of grape bubble gum and fire ants.
And now you know … the REST of the story.
Bonk bonk! On the head!
It is the quintessential Trek episode.
Link
A Star Cruiser is sent to remove the colonists on Altair IV; the only survivors are Dr. Morbius and his daughter. They don’t want to leave.
The protagonists are the ship’s commander, J.J. Adams, his XO and the ship’s doctor played BTW by Warren Stephens who played Rojan in the TOS episode By Any Other Name.
Fire ants?
Lots of talk of bad episodes and some discussion upthread of sexism and no mention of “Turnabout Intruder”?
Talk of Spectre of the gun and The Alternative Factor remind me of how when all else fails, Trek episodes can always win me back with those barren alien landscapes. Those that are always against a dark purple sky, with a cold wind blowing and that spangly wind noise, especially with that eerie background music TOS did so well.
Not that I dislike these episodes, I like SOTG and AF is alright (probbaly because I’ve not really seen it that often)
I laugh at Eden, Charles Napier as a hippy? Funny how that’s never mentioned in any articles about his hard man image in the movies and TV 
I thought “The Trouble with Tribbles” was pathetic.
Load of coloured oversized dust bunnies 
This episode features one of my favorite “lack of series continuity” items: they discover that if you inject yourself with a chemical common enough to be in a standard Federation medikit, you’ll gain the power of telekinesis, apparently with no ill effects. Never mentioned again.
I can see you’ve all managed to repress The Conscience of the King. What could be worse than a Shakespearean acting troup travelling at warp speed?
Have you heard about the latest Star Trek movie? It’s about the attempts of the increasingly-aging crew of the Enterprise to stay regular on a synthetic space diet, in order to “boldly go.”
It’s called Spock’s Bran.
I can’t remember the exact explanation, but the drug injected worked as a catalyst to something in the food and air. It did not give TK on its own.
Jim
That was a good episode. 
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winnuh! Don’t forget that it encourages animal cruelty. Instead of spaying/neutering 'em and giving 'em to orphans or something, they just beam them on to the Klingon ship.
So you’re saying that Klingons are just animals? Kinda harsh, don’t you think?