Spock's Brain

** (2 stars out of 5)

A massive letter writing campaign saved 'Star Trek' from cancellation. Nice work, fans!

Of course, letters don't stop budget cuts. The first result of this was "Spock's Brain", and I think everyone's suffered enough.

The thing is, 'Spock's Brain'; while undeniably, embarrassingly bad, is quotably, enjoyably bad. Watch it with friends and shout back at it!

A brunette in go-go boots from a spaceship Scotty apparently wants to ask out (the ship, I mean, not the woman) knocks everyone unconscious and walks off with Spock's mightiest organ.

Horrified McCoy explains, "He was worse than dead... his BRAIN is gone!"

Bones continues. "Where are you going to look... in this whole galaxy? Where are you going to look for Spock's Brain?"

"I'll find it." Kirk assures him.

True to his word, 16 hours later, they take a gamble on Sigma Draconis VI. The landing party is set apon by howling bearded barbarians wielding what appear to be big, brown sausages.

Stunned, one male tells them he's never heard of "women", but he's scared of the "others", the small ones that give pain and delight. You know the ones. Women. Am I right, guys?

Bones beams down with Remote Control Spock. He's slapped on a headband and is walking Spock around like a lumbering, clicking zombie. Clicking?

The underground city is populated by, you guessed it, women. They are less informed, if possible, than the surface dwellers.

"What is this place?" asks Kirk.

"This place is here." says Luma the Eymorg, who is not a Morg and knows the spacemen are not Eymorg and not Morg. For all the good that does anybody.

Spock's disembodied voice leads them by communicator. They are captured and given snazzy pain belts by the Eymorg leader Mistress Kara. She was the brain thief, but has never heard of a brain. She stomps her foot petulantly. "Brain and brain- what is brain?"

These simpletons have put the brain in charge of air conditioning and heating. Their own brains are atrophied unless they use the teacher tapes. McCoy uses the risky teacher machine to boost his skills and restore Spock's brain. The knowledge wears off when Bones is only half finished, but Spock talks him through the rest.

It doesn't seem to work on any level. Not as metaphor for the gender divide, or mind over matter, or whatever. It's not action, comedy, drama, dromedary, fantasy, romance, or horrorstraganza. It's a mess, like a haphazardly re-inserted alien brain. But, worryingly, it's not the worst episode of the year.