Reception and influence
The episode is generally regarded by most fans, and those who took part in its production, as the worst episode of the series.
[1] William Shatner called this one of the series' worst episodes, calling the episode's plot a "tribute" to NBC executives who slashed the show's budget and placed it in a bad time slot.
Leonard Nimoy wrote: "Frankly during the entire shooting of that episode, I was embarrassed - a feeling that overcame me many times during the final season of
Star Trek."
Zack Handlen of
The A.V. Club gave the episode a "D" rating, describing the writing as bad and repetitive and the direction as weak. He added that it had its funny moments and some parts had "a lumpy B-movie charm".
[5] Despite the episode's negative reputation, it was included in iTunes' "Best Of Star Trek" compilation.[
citation needed]
In his book
What Were They Thinking? The 100 Dumbest Events in Television History, author David Hofstede ranked the episode at #71 on the list.
A device similar to that used to remotely operate Spock's brainless body is used in the episode
The Magnificent Ferengi of
Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
The hand prop used to represent that remote control device was held by Spock himself in the later episode
That Which Survives, although the Spock character uses it as though it has the function of a data entry terminal rather than a remote control.
The rock band
Phish performs a song entitled "Spock's Brain".
A stage production of the episode, adapted and directed by Mike Carano, was produced in 2004 for a limited run in
Irvine, California at the Irvine Improv. The play used the original script for the episode.
The episode was referenced in
Modern Principles: Microeconomics by Tyler Cowen and Alex Tabarrok of
George Mason University as an example of how it is virtually impossible to have a
command economy; in that not even Spock's brain could run an economy.
[9]
Production
The episode was written by former
Star Trek producer
Gene L. Coon under the pen name "Lee Cronin".
Star Trek co-producer
Robert H. Justman ruefully recalled in the book
Inside Star Trek The Real Story, that he was the person who suggested that Spock's brain, after being rescued by the Enterprise crew, actually "takes over during surgery and instructs Dr. McCoy exactly how to go back reinserting it back where it came from - inside Spock's skull".
