I am now boldly going into the third season which starts with one of the most notorious episodes of TOS, Spock's Brain. This one gets listed pretty often as the worst episode in either all of Trek or at least in all of TOS, so I went in expecting the worst. And while it isn't great, it also is a lot less boring than The Alternative Factor. It has some pretty sexist remarks about insisting the leader of the world must be a man and that the women couldn't have possibly built the building they are in. But at the same time it does have an interesting scifi concept of a formerly advanced civilization surviving with the assistance of a brain powered computer.
The episode opens with the Enterprise encountering a super advanced, "ion powered," space ship. I guess they don't mean the kind of ion drive we use all the time today, but whatever. They detect a life form, and she beams to the bridge and knocks everybody out with a wrist controller and then fondles Spock's head. When they awaken McCoy calls for Kirk to rush to sickbay, upon arriving he explains someone took Spock's brain. But they did such a good job and Vulcan's are so tough they have 24 hours to find it. The ion trail is easy to follow, but the star system it leads to doesn't have any cultures advanced enough to have done it. Only the most primitive one has a strange power source so they beam down to investigate.
On the surface they encounter primitive giants and stun one for interrogation. He talks about others who give pain and pleasure, but is too terrified to help. Despite him seeing phasers in action they let him return to his people because fuck the prime directive, and go looking for the power source. They find a cave with food and metal weapons that is pretty clearly a trap, so while Chekov waits on the surface with two redshirts Kirk, Scotty, McCoy and Spocks mindless body trigger the trap and are taken below. When the door opens a woman is there and Kirk blasts her before she can stun them again. Kirk tries to call Chekov, but instead encounters Spock's disembodied voice. They start looking around but encounter the woman who beamed to the bridge who knocks them out again.
When they awaken they have metal belts on and are before a council of three women. The women demand to know who they are, but Kirk just keeps yelling about needing Spock's brain back. After delivering a debilitating amount of pain through the belts the women leave. Kirk and company manage to overwhelm their guards and get their communicators and tricorders back. Kirk calls Spock again and gets him to send a signal which they follow to a control room of some sort. The woman from the bridge is there and she again disables them, but Kirk manages to get brainless Spock body to grab her arm and release the pain belts. They eventually figure out there is a machine that can impart knowledge into her and use her to get a new brain to run the machines. She refuses to help so McCoy uses the teaching machine to learn how to reinstall Spock's brain. When he is almost done he forgets the knowledge and Spock has to talk him through the rest. They leave the people without their machines and basically totally screwed. Take that prime directive.
Review: This is episode has a lot of trek camp going on. It also manages to keep moving and lacks the terrible filler parts that made Alternative Factor so unwatchable. Also it really feels like the budget is lower this season. Things just all feel a little cheaper.
4 out of 10
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