Review

Despite what the episode's title may imply, this story is anything but cerebral. On the contrary it's pretty goofy but in ways that are entirely intentional and the comedy is quite effective. The central amusement of the story is how well Spock takes being disembodied. He spends the whole episode reveling in the novelty of the experience and even objects to his own rescue at one point on the grounds that the odds for success are too low and pose too great a risk to the landing party. Unfortunately the episode's rather simplistic tone is its greatest weakness as well, as a deeper exploration of the cost-benefit analysis of whether or not to attempt a rescue of Spock could have made for some interesting drama.

For instance, throughout much of the episode McCoy objects to the rescue attempt in a sort of half-hearted way on the grounds that he lacked the surgical knowledge to restore Spock's brain to his body. Kirk simply barrels on ahead assuming that the people who did this to Spock could undo it, which was by no means certain, and that in addition he could also somehow convince them to undo the brain theft even after all the painstaking work they went through to perform that surgical strike in the first place. A better episode would have forced Kirk to truly wrestle with the possibility that Spock's best chance for survival was to remain disembodied rather than have Kirk never lose faith in his own abilities to coerce surgical magic out of the aliens of the week.

There are a whole host of other smaller flaws as well. It's never quite explained why the aliens of the week took such great care to extract Spock's brain without doing irreparable damage to his body, which turned out to be rather convenient! Likewise, when they follow the ion trail to the Sigma Draconis system they conclude rather hastily that none of the remarkably three M class planets in the planetary system are capable of launching an interstellar flight despite obvious evidence to the contrary. Then another awkward line emerges when it's claimed that the crew lacks the time to search three different M class planets in the same planetary system. Why not send three landing parties?

And then there's Kirk's silly requirement that they tote around Spock's zombie body with them wherever they go. Why not locate the brain first and then beam down Spock later if he needs to be down there for some reason? It's also stated that the Federation lacks ion propulsion, which seems unlikely as the technology was already beginning to mature in the real world by the time this episode was produced. Granted, the exact term used was "advanced ion propulsion" so maybe the fact that it's "advanced" should connote something more stunning. Also McCoy at one point injects a stimulant into a humanoid alien on the planet. Is it really safe to use human drugs on an unknown alien? I guess that looking exactly like humans thing sometimes goes further than just skin deep!

Setting aside the smaller flaws, there was one other larger issue with the story. At the end the motives of the aliens of the week are finally established. It's stated that they periodically go hunting for presumably highly evolved alien brains to power their Controller computer. This leads to a moral dilemma nearly as interesting but just as poorly explored as the risk analysis of whether or not to rescue Spock. Is the need for a Controller for the aliens greater than Spock's need for his freedom? The obvious answer is that Spock's freedom should not be subverted against his will for the benefit of any group of people, no matter how large. But the episode barely explores this question at all and Kirk's solution is needlessly cold.

At the end of the story Kirk simply condemns the aliens of the week to living in the harsh conditions of the planet's surface with little more than a pat on the ass and an insistence that natural selection will take care of the rest. Given how painfully stupid the aliens were, what with choice lines like, "Brain and brain! What is brain!" I have my doubts that Kirk's faith in their survival is terribly justified, especially seeing as how it's established that a biological atrophy of their mental faculties has taken place due to generations of non-use. That, and the males who were already inexplicably condemned to the surface didn't seem much smarter.

However, while this story certainly had themes with the potential for greater depth, despite that missed opportunity the episode is funny and entertaining largely because it doesn't take itself too seriously. Watching Spock comment on his disembodiment is highly amusing and none of the flaws of the story add up to the sorts of show stopping technical problems that a few noteworthy episodes from the previous two seasons have delivered so what we get in the end comes off merely as slightly below average.