Star Trek 101’s “Spock’s Brain Award” is handy info for newcomers
Star Trek 101: A Practical Guide to Who, What, Where, and Why is an absolutely indispensable reference guide to all things Star Trek (up until 2008 when it was published.) One of the best, and funniest sections of the book is the “Spock’s Brain Award,” given to the worst episode of each series.
For a franchise as massive and old as Star Trek, I find it impressive that it’s not completely impenetrable to newcomers. Back in the days of episodic TV, you could drop someone with no prior knowledge of the series into the middle of a season, and they’d be able to follow it just fine. But an encyclopedic knowledge of the franchise does make the viewing experience richer, and that’s where books like Star Trek 101 come in.
Not only do such resources provide background information on the show’s lore, but they also provide critical assessments that fill you in on what episodes are and are not essential. This too is invaluable to newcomers. Before the modern era of shorter seasons, even the best TV shows had massive amounts of filler and worse.
As a Star Trek fan, I believe everyone would benefit from adopting this fandom. But I know that life is short. If you want to become fluent in the language of a franchise with over 800 episodes, it would be handy to know what lessons you can skip.
This is why, for all the issues that it’s caused, shorter seasons have been a good thing. It’s much easier to produce ten top-notch episodes in a year than it is to produce 26. The “Spock’s Brain Award” would be very difficult to apply to the modern Trek shows
Star Trek: The Next Generation – “Genesis”
Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"““Genesis” is the most…ahem… curious episode of The Next Generation. When the Enterprise crew gets the flu, the cure proves worse than the illness, causing them to “devolve” into a variety of primeval creatures. The lovely Deanna, for instance, turns into a gilled amphibian, while Riker becomes an unfriendly apeman. The cure for the cure has something to do with a litter of kittens. Seriously.”"
There seems to be an unwritten rule that when discussing the worst episodes of TNG, we do not discuss the first two seasons; I suppose, because that would be a little like shooting fish in a barrel. How else do we explain the Spock’s Brain Award not going to “Code of Honor,” “Angel One,” “Justice,” or “Up The Long Ladder?”
But I suppose if we’re cutting out seasons one and two, then “Genesis” could be a candidate for the worst episode (though I’d vote for “Masks.”)
Granted I was eight when “Genesis” first aired, but I found it terrifying. It still sends a chill down my spine. The Klingon proto humanoid monster that Worf turned into is a truly scary horror monster. The problem with “Genesis” is that it’s dumb, and makes no sense, but for visceral scares, “Genesis” is pretty effective. In this regard, “Genesis” is influential in laying out a template for 90s Trek’s horror episodes, such as Deep Space Nine’s “Empok Nor,” and Voyager’s “Macrocosm.”
It’s also nice to see Lieutenant Reg Barclay in manic weirdo mode, rather than than in pitiable creep mode. 90s Trek didn’t have a great track record with comic relief episodes, which made Barclay, an actually funny and charming comic relief character, a lot of fun…, that is when they weren’t writing him as a complete creep.
Star Trek: The Original Series – “Spock’s Brain”
Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"““Spock’s Brain” ranks as one of Star Trek’s most memorable episodes—but not in a good way. An alien woman steals Spock’s brain to replace the out-of-warranty controller for her planet’s complex environmental system. Kirk races against time to find the missing organ before Spock’s brainless body dies. Although ostensibly a “serious” episode, the script is rife with lines that seem lifted from a hokey B-movie.”"
The original series’ third season was famously compromised by network shenanigans, shrinking budgets, and an exodus of writers and creatives. “Spock’s Brain” was the first episode of the third season, and according to William Shatner, “Spock’s Brain” was a “tribute” to the suits who’d sabotaged the show.
It’s hard to say what he meant by this, as I can’t find the actual quote. The simplest explanation is that he was saying that the badness of the episode was a direct consequence of their meddling. But I’d like to believe that he meant that the plot was a sly dig at how they were rendering the show brainless.
Star Trek 101 wasn’t the first publication to liken “Spock’s Brain” to a B-movie. But I’d say it’s more of a schlocky B-movie charm. “Spock’s Brain” is thoroughly camp in its silliness. Yes, the dialogue is especially silly, but would serious dialogue really make sense with a plot this silly? Besides, without that B-movie dialogue, we wouldn’t have “brain and brain and brain and what is brain?” the most perfect piece of television dialogue ever broadcast.
Just try to be sad while saying that line.
“Spock’s Brain” has one thing going for it that even its critics would agree with, it’s memorable. As the third season wore on, there were too many episodes that just weren’t. It’s difficult to define the difference between so bad it’s good, and just plain bad, but there’s something to be said for anything that sticks in your mind the way “Spock’s Brain” does.
Star Trek: Voyager – “Threshold”
“Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"““Threshold” is the Voyager episode most likely to give Darwin a migraine. Here we learn that one unfortunate result of a human achieving warp 10 (Star Trek’s starships typically can’t reach this tantalizing threshold) is that the human mutates into a big salamander thingy.”"
I’m not going to defend “Threshold,” I’m not going to argue that it’s actually a good episode. But too many Voyager episodes, especially from season two, were simply forgettable, while “Threshold” was memorably bad. There’s something to be said for that.
It seems the worst thing a Star Trek episode can do is make no sense. All of “Threshold’s” problems come down to it not making sense. Star Trek 101’s blurb up there pretty much sums it up. In the Star Trek universe, warp 10 is infinite velocity, an impossible speed. When Tom Paris breaks the warp speed barrier, the consequence is that he turns into a giant salamander. He kidnaps Captain Janeway, who also turns into a giant salamander, and they’re found on a nearby planet with baby salamanders, implying they mated. While I maintain that there are worse episodes of Voyager, there are none that make this little sense. For this, it thoroughly deserves the “Spock’s Brain Award.”
Producer Brannon Braga did extensive rewriting on the script during the editing stage and later said he regretted taking out what he believed would’ve explained it all. The concept was that evolution is not necessarily progressive and that under the right circumstances, evolution might make a species primitive. Honestly, I can’t see this explanation making any difference. It would be a little like an episode in which the entire crew turns into pierogis, with the explanation that in an infinite universe, all possible outcomes eventually happen.
You can say one thing in its defense, though; “Threshold” does have Voyager’s most intentionally funny moment.
Star Trek: The Animated Series – “The Lorelei Signal”
“Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"“The beautiful sirens of Taurus II aren’t a lot brighter than the females of “Spock’s Brain” who conspired to steal Spock’s brain. The Taurean women have the technology to transmit a signal powerful enough to lure male victims to their world. But do they ever think of using that signal to summon help? Or to ask a passing starship to take them to a less deadly world?”"
Speaking of shooting fish in a barrel… Picking “The Lorelei Signal” as the “Spock’s Brain Award Recipient” seems like a bit of a random choice because any episode of TAS could be the worst. TAS had its moments, and it’s an important part of Star Trek history, but it wasn’t known for its quality.
Again, I suspect that “The Lorelei Signal” was chosen for being particularly nonsensical. The titular signal has an intoxicating effect on all the men in the crew, luring them to a planet populated by women who steal their life force. In the end, the women explain that they fled to this planet when their home planet became uninhabitable; the planet’s radiation killed their men, but the women developed a mutation that made them immortal, provided they drained victims’ life forces regularly.
As with all good Star Trek episodes, peace with the villains is the answer, and when the women are offered assistance to leave the planet, they’re grateful. But as Star Trek 101 pointed out, they have technology that can broadcast their signal 20 light years, so why did they not simply ask for help? With Star Trek being such a smart show, plot holes like this can sink an episode.
If it weren’t for TAS’s inherent flaws, I’d have put “The Lorelei Signal” higher on this list for one reason, Uhura saving the day. Having gotten used to the Uhura of the Kelvin universe, and of Strange New Worlds, it’s easy to forget that the original Uhura was given criminally little to do. But in “The Lorelei Signal,” with all the men of the crew intoxicated or captured, Uhura takes command with an all-female skeleton crew. She doesn’t just do so as a competent officer but as a leader and hero. That bit is still thrilling.
Imagine seeing that in live-action!
Star Trek: Enterprise – “These Are The Voyages”
“Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"““These Are the Voyages”…is the Enterprise episode that most alienated its audience. How? By relegating the familiar crew to second-banana status in their own series finale.”"
What is there to say about ”These Are The Voyages” that hasn’t already been said? And how on earth did Star Trek 101 only identify one complaint out of the many problems with the infamous Enterprise finale?
Enterprise may not be the most fondly remembered Star Trek show, but it had its fans, and it had spent four years at that point throwing everything at the wall to make us care about its characters. So yes, it’s a pretty big problem that it reduced those characters to guest stars in their own show for the finale.
If felt like the producers had given up on Enterprise. As Star Trek fans, we like to try and see the good in all things Star Trek, so it’s frustrating when the producers won’t even see the good in it, and they give up on their own show. Go ahead, and cancel it if that’s what the free market demands, but it’s just plain depressing to act like no one liked it in the first place.
When Enterprise was abruptly canceled, they tacked on a quickly thrown-together finale that revealed the story was taking place in the holodeck of the Enterprise-D about 200 years later.
At least that means that it may not be an entirely accurate historical account and that we can choose to believe it’s not canon.
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – “Profit and Lace”
“Why does it deserve the “Spock’s Brain Award”?
"““Profit and Lace” generated the most heat from viewers (and we’re not talking ardent affection). Why? Quark gives his mother a heart attack and then he has a sex change. ’Nuff said.”"
Nope, not “’nuff said”. There is plenty more to be said about this episode, none of it good. My admiration for Deep Space Nine knows no bounds, but it’s my sincere opinion that in over 800 episodes of the Star Trek franchise, “Profit and Lace” is the absolute worst episode.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions, but so little good ends up on screen that good intentions count for nothing. The intention was to show the feminist revolution led by Quark’s mom, Ishka, on the Ferengi homeworld, come to fruition, and have Quark learn the error of his misogynist ways. When the Grand Nagus Zek enacts equal rights for women on Ferenginar, chaos ensues and he’s deposed. Zek and Ishka decamp to Deep Space Nine, set up a government in exile with Quark, Rom, and Nog, and try to rally allies. But when Ishka has a heart attack after an argument with Quark, Quark has to have a sex change operation to take her place.
Confused? It’s not worth trying to understand.
You know how when Bugs Bunny would dress as a Bobby Soxer or an antebellum gentlewoman to fool Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam, they’d always immediately fall for him? Well “Profit and Lace” works at the same level of sophistication, except where Bugs’ gender fluidity made him a queer icon, here it’s just deeply problematic. Y’see the potential political ally that Quark has to meet with attempts to molest him, and it’s played for laughs.
Something positive may have been salvaged from this if any lessons were learned. After all, the episode starts with Quark going full Harvey Weinstein on an employee. The sexual predator becoming a woman for a day sounds like a set-up for an epiphany, right? Well, Quark briefly acts like a better person, before learning that the employee liked being Harvey Weinsteined.
Who wrote this?!
Previous episodes like “Little Green Men” and “The Magnificent Ferengi” proved that Deep Space Nine could do the impossible, fill an episode with Ferengi shenanigans without being really really annoying. But with nothing at all to redeem “Profit and Lace,” being really really annoying is the awful cherry on top.