Spock’s Brain is the best-bad Star Trek episode of all time

Today is the 54th anniversary of Star Trek: The Original Series’s iconic “Spocks Brain”.

When we talk about the worst Star Trek episodes of all time, the absolute worst, we often think of episodes like Threshold or Spock’s Brain, but we really shouldn’t. The worst anything can be in entertainment is boring. Being boring is the death nail in storytelling. Being absurd, and dumb can often be every bit of entertaining as something being good.

Star Trek’s “Spock’s Brain” is among the best episodes ever, simply because of how dumb and silly it is. It’s not a “good” story. It features a race of very dumb aliens, getting a mental boost every so often, so they can be smart enough to harvest a brain.

How dumb are these aliens? They don’t even know what a brain is most of the time. This lack of intelligence has led to some of the best/worst dialogue ever written.

"“Brain and brain. What is brain?”"

It is the staple for all things “so bad, it’s good.” And today it is officially 54 years old.

Spock’s Brain is Star Trek at its most B-moviest

Spock’s Brain is a bad episode of Star Trek but a hilarious episode for those who love campy, B-movie science fiction stories and horror flicks. The defining trait of any type of B-Movie is the true campiness of it.

A show or movie so bad that you can’t help but find enjoyment. Think of films like The Room or Manos: The Hands of Fate, both of whom fall into that trap of being so bad it’s entertaining. It isn’t supposed to be hilarious but it is.

Spock’s Brain is high comedy in that regard. The entire script just oozes hilarity and no one, not a single soul, should ever take away anything from this episode other than side-splitting humor. Whatever message it was trying to go for failed, and we thank the writing staff for basically phoning it in.

Spock’s Brain is Star Trek’s B-moviest episode ever and we’re very happy about it.