3 best Spock themed Star Trek episodes to watch to celebrate Leonard Nimoy

3 best Spock episodes from Star Trek to watch on Leonard Nimoy’s birthday.

Today would’ve been Leonard Nimoy’s 91st Birthday. The Star Trek icon, most known for his time as Spock on the original series and then two different versions of the film franchise, passed away in 2015, a year before Star Trek: Beyond was due to release.

Nimoy’s time with Trek was and is a standard for the franchise. He, alongside William Shatner (who just turned 91 a few weeks ago), helped make Trek into the brand that it is now. They helped guide the franchise through four different decades, and nearly 30 years. From live-action to animation, to films, and even, into the sequel film franchises. (TNG for Shatner, the reboots for Spock).

When we talk about the most iconic members of Trek, Nimoy and Shatner will always be the first two names many speak about for their contributions and foundation laying they did throughout their stint with the franchise.

So today, we honor Nimoy by looking at three episodes (more than three, as some are two-parters) where his Spock really showed brightest.

Three Spock episodes to watch on Leonard Nimoy’s birthday.

The Original Series – Season 1, Episodes 11 and 12 – “The Menagerie Parts 1 and 2”

The two-parter called “The Menagerie” was actually the original pilot of Star Trek, called “The Cage”. It took the footage from the pilot, which featured a different captain, and edited to tell a prequel story about Spock’s time on the USS Enterprise before James T. Kirk took over the captains’ chair. The episode sees Spock get court-martialed for his actions pertaining to the former captain, Christopher Pike. It’s a wild episode, with twists and turns abound. You’d be doing yourself a disservice to not watch this landmark in Trek.

The Original Series – Season 2, Episode 5- “Amok Time”

This might be the episode most non-Star Trek fans know the most, mostly due to the parody fight scene in The Cable Guy. Spock has to return to his home planet of Vulcan and ends up engaging in a duel with James Kirk over the affection of his betrothed, T’Pring. She wasn’t having any of that so she made Spock and Kirk fight. Vulcans, can’t live with them, can’t randomly show up to their planet and not get thrown into a fight to the death.

The Next Generation -Season 5, Episodes 7 and 8 – “Unification Parts 1 and 2”

We’re leaving the Original Series for The Next Generation. Just about every Original Series actor showed up on The Next Generation, or in Generations the film, and this was Nimoy’s arrival to the sequel series. It began airing during the height of the Star Trek film franchise’s popularity and saw Spock on Romulus, leading many to believe he had defected to join his “cousin-species”.  That’s obviously not the case, but instead, Spock is trying to heal the divide between Romulans and Vulcans. Too bad he didn’t seem to worry about the Remans.

Bonus: The Original Series -Season 3, Episode 1 – “Spock’s Brain”

Spock loses his brain in this ‘brand new’ Scooby-Doo Mystery. A premise so silly it could only really be seen as a cartoon, but not in this case. Nope. Not even in the slightest. There’s no Saturday Morning Cartoon that can capture this episode so perfectly. It’s the worst Trek has to offer. It’s so bad and so good at the same time. Nimoy does next to nothing but stands around. However, hearing a full-grown woman scream “BRAIN, AND BRAIN; WHAT IS BRAIN!?” over and over is high-comedy.