Synopsis: A female alien comes onboard the Enterprise and takes Mr. Spock’s brain.
While this episode is widely held as one of the least well regarded in Star Trek: The Original Series, it does demonstrate, albeit in very simplistic terms, what happens when psychic life is separated, one side being degraded while another one is favored.
What is particularly unusual in “Spock’s Brain” is that the females of the planet Sigma Draconis VI, the Eymorgs, are the half of society that is favored, and lives in harmony and peace deep inside the planet, while the males of the planet, the Morgs, live a violent life on the surface of an icy world. Another inconsistency is that the Eymorgs do not seem to possess the ability to actually run the underground civilization, that is done by the Controller. The Eymorgs are described as having child-like brains by Dr. Leonard (Bones) McCoy. However, the high priestess, Kara, is able to put on a “Teacher” that extends to her knowledge for a few hours – and this was how she was able to not only come aboard the Enterprise, but to skillfully remove Mr. Spock’s brain leaving his body intact.
The male Morgs on the other hand refer to the female Eymorgs as “the givers of pain and delight.” They are afraid of the Eymorgs, who try to trap them in a warm cave full of food and niceties – the delight, that becomes an elevator that descends down deep to the planet. Once there, the Morgs are required to do the bidding of the Eymorgs – the pain, one imagines. Whether this is a comment on marriage in the American culture of the 1960s will not be addressed here.
As in other episodes, such as “Return of the Archons” and “The Apple,” when Captain James T. Kirk finds that the development of the culture on this planet is not progressing normally, by his or Starfleet standards, he feels impelled to deconstruct it – albeit this time his reason is that the Eymorgs have stolen Spock’s brain to run the female half of the dualistic society. Once Spock’s brain is put back into Spock’s body, the Controller no longer functions and the Eymorgs are facing a broken society. As was the case in the other episodes mentioned above, “Spock’s Brain” ends with Kirk, in his cavalier attitude, telling the Eymorgs that they will grow to like their new life on the icy surface of the planet with the Morgs.
Original post created 8 March 2021
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