Remastered “Spock’s Brain” Airs This Weekend June 9, 2007
by Anthony Pascale , Filed under: TOS Remastered , trackback
The Enterprise is raided by some chick who steals Spock’s brain
After coming back from cancellation, Star Trek kicked off it’s third season with this silly episode…perhaps some wondered if they should have written all those letters. Ironically the CBS-D team have more to work with than in some recent weeks. Expect to see a new ion drive ship, a new matte painting and some expert rotoscoping of Kirk in front of the main viewer showing a data display
Spock’s Brain – The Play
How do you make a gag out of this…well maybe you don’t. 3 years ago "Spock’s Brain" was performed live in a licensed performance at the Improve Theater in Irvine, CA (and once at the Vegas Con). They played it word for word with sound effects and music….no need to parody it all it, it still got the laughs….here are the first 8 minutes
…and here is a news story and more clips from the show
more clips and video at MikeCarano.com
UPDATE: I have been e-mail chatting with Mike Carano (who is respsonsible for the play) and he says that they are thinking of doing other productions if CBS allow. He also sent over an image of his living room including his ‘ipod controlled captain’s chair‘…this guy is a serious fan.
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Greg! Tell me when to watch!
Uhura! Uhur A! Not Uhuru!
> “more clips and video at MikeCarana.com”
Carano! Caran O! Not Carana.
Still marvelling at how the new CBS Digital matte painting of the glacial planet background, inserted into this particular episode, has managed to truly ENHANCE and give cinematic scope to the look of this episode. Even the simple addition of the double moons on “Bread and Circuses” recently was a big improvement to that environment. If only the team were doing a lot MORE of this kind of thing to improve the more basic looking backdrops along the way.
By the way Anthony, I wonder if it would be possible to approach CBS Digital AGAIN sometime,but with a range of questions from the good folk that frequent this site? Perhaps you could include a section or topic thread that invites us to suggest our MOST WANTED QUESTIONS to the team that were NOT asked the first time around (the original questions can still easily be seen in the archived categories on this site). You could pick the best ones out of the incoming suggestions as you see fit. Maybe you could give it some consideration, as the last interview with them was very enlightening, but I have a few niggling “unanswereds” I can think of … Now, if you can also get a hold of J.J. for a few mins. about his little “Trek” thing… ;)
Oh my gosh was that funny! I hope the rest can be posted here in the future.
I didn’t realize how funny this episode could be with some incredibly bad actiing added to the original script.
Great parody!
Mike :o
Frankly, when the news first broke on REMASTERED, stuff like this beam in shot is what I expected.
Unfortunately, they don’t have time to do this for episode where the background is constantly in view, and on effects heavy episodes, like DOOMSDAY MACHINE, the money get alls used up for replacing the SFX shots, which is in theory, why THEY ARE DOING THIS AT ALL!!
That said, it suprises mean that that they carelessly waste time and effort screwing with live action footage that doesn’t need to be touched when they have a light SFX episode instead of saving the money for SFX shots.
Don’t get me wrong, I love this still and imagine I’ll love it in the episode, but if I were these guys boss, I’d tell them to cut it out and stop wasting time of stuff that wasn’t SFX.
Ands as an aside, I seriously thought they may try this when we were supposed to be at the bottom of an ice cliff in ALL OUR YESTERDAYS, which really would have helped with the story, so why not do it there, but do doit in SPOCK’S BRAIN?
Interesting to see that Andy Bray is playing Chekov in this one. Was that a springboard to his playing of Chekov in “To Serve All of My Days”, the Star Trek New Voyages fan film ep?
I was going to say, “Damn, Chekov looks good!”
That explains it.
Huh-huh, huh-huh, he said “remasTERD” for this episode…huh-huh
(note the spelling of the heading of this thread)
Man too good! I am dying and now I need some SPOCKS BRAIN! LOL!
It has been elevated to the funny high arts.;)
What a great episode for the Star Trek Drinking Game!
Is the guy who plays chekov the same actor who is in the ‘New Voyages’ webisodes??
Yes he is. Andy Bray.
Hey Anthony corrected the spelling…
there goes that joke now….
> Hey Anthony corrected the spelling…
> there goes that joke now….
;-)
http://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Atrekmovie.com+remasterd
Does Mike Carano have the big plasma screen to go with his chair?
That’s it, I’m taking my action figures and micromachines out of storage! To hell with wedding vows, she married a Trekkie!
I just wanna know if CBS digital is gonna correct their boo-boo and make the blue flame come out of the asteroid deflector in “The Paradise Syndrome.” The red flame really ignited my disappointment. And they didn’t take out the buzzing fly around Kirk’s head!! It wasn’t even a fake fly, Stanky.
TOS was cancelled twice? I didn’t know that it got cancelled after Season 2.
Cancelled thrice, wasn’t it?
It was cancelled after the first season too?
The ratings for TOS were low during the second season and it was going to be canceled. No wonder, it was moved from its 1st season time slot on Thursdays at 8:30PM to Fridays at 10PM (known as “the graveyard” in network scheduling parlance). Only a letter writing campaign by fans got Star Trek reinstated for a 3rd season.
I know of no cancelation plans after the 1st season.
It was cancelled after the first pilot… Wasn’t it??
It was cancelled after the first pilot… Wasn’t it??
I always thought the writing campaign was initiated to bring back Star Trek after the third season, which in turn brought the movies about. I didn’t know that it was initiated to get a third season of the show.
#22:
I wouldn’t call that a cancellation. The show just didn’t get picked up by the network, so the series never really started to begin with.
# 25 Your absolutely right, I was just making a little joke….”a very small one” ,(Spock -The Trouble with Tribbles). : )
there were letter writing campaigns after both season. Roddenberry actually encouraged them…the inside story from Norman Spinrad
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3_WV-8ex44
What always amazes me about “Spock’s Brain” is that, as bad as it was, it was written by Gene Coon and directed by Marc Daniels, who were responsible for some of TOS’s best episodes.
This episode almost had the same premise as the ENT episode “Dead Stop”, which was much much better, by the way.
#26: A Piece of the Action, actually.
#25 and #30:
In “The Trouble with Tribbles”, it was Chekov that said it.
Sorry, I meant #26 and #30.
# 30 and # 31 …. As I remember in The Trouble With Tribbles Chekov said…”a little joke”, and Spock said…”a very small one”. : )
Classic Trek had such a larger than life feel, which is why I like it. TNG had it the first couple of years, after that Trek started to suck
#33:
You’re right. My memory’s just a little fuzzy.
Steam Trek is far better than this TOS disaster…The new special effects add a lot(Thanks CBS-D!!), but the plot and the script make it almost unwatchable.
Can’t imagine what the folks who had fought the cancellation must have thought on the night this was first broadcast….
With this, And the Children Shall Lead, and A Piece of the Action out of the way, I’m pleased that the rest of the episodes will actually be good from here on out.
Steve wrote:
> it was written by Gene Coon…
Which he disavowed by using the screen name, Lee Cronin.
> and directed by Marc Daniels, who were responsible for some of
> TOS’s best episodes.
And Marc’s direction cannot be faulted — crisply done, good camera angles, good performances from the material.
Fred Freiburger did not yet “know” Trek..and turned it into farse…instead of the outright comedy.. of Coon’s original script.
—
#37 – Not quite. Charlie X is still on the way… (shudder)…
I thought when Gene Coon left the show in the middle of the second season. He continued to contribute scripts for the third season, under the pseudonym “Lee Cronin”, as he was under contract to Universal Studios at the time and was not, technically, supposed to be working for Paramount as well. (from memory with help from Wiki).