Royalty, Real and Imagined

Hi,

So there’s an episode of Star Trek called “Spock’s Brain,” in which aliens, shockingly enough, steal Spock’s brain. (It’d be pretty cool if it was about aliens trying to steal Spock’s liver.)

Many believe it’s the worst episode of the entire series, but that’s not important right now. Neither are most of the details. All that matters is the scene where Dr. McCoy puts on a special helmet that fills his cabeza with so much medical knowledge, he can actually put Spock’s brain back in. When his cranial tank is filled to overflowing, McCoy declares, “A child could do it,” the procedure seems so simple. But like the battery in an old laptop, the genius juice starts to leak very quickly, and by the end of the procedure he starts to panic. “What am I supposed to do? I can’t remember … it’s like trying to thread a needle with a sledgehammer.”

Just in case you’re worried, given that Spock was a very bankable piece of intellectual property—spoiler alert—McCoy figures out how to put Spock’s brain back.