Hello Redshirt Readers, and welcome back to the final entry in our three-part series about Mr. Spock and how his Vulcan abilities thrilled Star Trek viewers everywhere! We've reached season 3 of The Original Series, which many fans consider to be the series' weakest, but Spock was on hand to reach into his Vulcan bag of tricks, and one of them might have even prevented a galaxy-wide takeover by a Gorgan and his tiny minions!
1. Overcoming other telepathic powers ("And the Children Shall Lead")
When Captain Kirk and a landing party find a group of strange children playing around the bodies of their parents as if nothing is wrong, Kirk decides to take them aboard so he, Dr. McCoy, and Mr. Spock can find out what caused the parents' deaths. They're eerie and seem to have little to no emotions regarding their dead parents, only wanting to play and balk against adult rules.
The telepathic Gorgan (who looks like a cheap lawyer in a shimmering mumu) gives the kids powers that scrambles speech and makes the members of the Enterprise bridge crew hallucinate. So, Spock performs what looks like a self-mind meld, overpowering the Gorgan's abilities.
Spock then takes an anxious Kirk into a turbolift, where he calmly helps the captain get himself back together (one of the most intense moments of season 3, in my opinion), and helps Kirk expel the Gorgan by showing the kids his true form and a video of their parents' dead and discolored bodies so they can grieve. Jeez, Jim, couldn't you have just showed them the tombstones instead?
2. Sharing his consciousness with aliens ("Is There in Truth No Beauty?")
When Kollos, a Medusan ambassador and his blind translator/telepathic companion, Dr. Miranda Jones, come aboard the USS Enterprise, so do thoughts of murder. Jones, beautiful and rather mysterious, is protective of the ambassador, whose appearance is that of a Jackson Pollock painting, which drives humans mad.
Already mad (at least about Miranda wanting to be with Kollos instead of him) is Larry Marvick, an engineer who helped design Enterprise and who is also on board. She's rebuffed his advances several times, including giving no emotional reaction after what Marvick probably thinks is a passionate kiss. Cold, Miranda, cold!
Marvick tries to assassinate Kollos, goes insane, and takes Enterprise into the galactic middle of nowhere, with no way to return because Starfleet navigational technology is useless in that area of space. Marvick declares his love for Dr. Jones before he becomes a guide for a post-mortem chalk outline.
This is where it's obvious that Spock's telepathic abilities are still growing, as he performs the first mind link between a humanoid and a Medusan, as Kollos' people are brilliant navigators. The link is successful and for a few moments, Spock and Kollos are one!
Unfortunately, he forgets to shield his human side with Medusan-viewing glasses and promptly goes insane. Dr. Jones brings Spock back to the sane side of life with her own telepathic abilities, but for those few moments, the Vulcan's mind link was both powerful and sublime.
3. Blocking telepathic influence ("Spectre of the Gun")
When a xenophobic alien species called the Melkots force Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, and Mr. Chekov into a scenario that will ultimately mean their death, it is Spock's logic and abilities that save their lives. The Melkots have placed the landing party in Tombstone, Arizona, on the day of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral, and the townspeople see them as the Clanton gang--the men who ultimately died in a shootout there. It's like murder, only with extra steps.
When Morgan Earp fast draws on Chekov over the attentions of a local girl, his plan to step out of the way of a bullet fails miserably. Chekov stops it with his abdomen instead, taking himself out of the equation. It is then when Spock realizes that these events are happening because the members of the landing party believe that to be so, such as Chekov's death from a pistol shot and a tranquilizer that doesn't function despite being built correctly.
Because the other members of the landing party are human, Spock performs a mind meld with each of them, convincing each that being shot won't harm them, much less kill them. Performing one mind meld, let alone three, gives viewers some idea regarding how much Spock's powers have grown since season 1. My favorite thing about this episode is that Chekov's boyish hormones literally brought him back from the dead.
Thanks for joining us for this three-part series about that venerable Vulcan, Mr. Spock, and how his telepathic abilities and strength made him undeniably fascinating to fans everywhere. Which of Spock's powers are you favorite(s). Share your thoughts and comments with us on the Redshirts Always Die Facebook and X pages. And be sure to check out our other Spock lists (Part 1 and Part 2).