I’m not exactly sure when, but
I think it was sometime during my 2nd or 3rd grade year that I noticed a show
by the name of Star Trek being shown
on the local Utah ABC station. If memory
serves (a dubious proposition at best J), the
show would come on at either 3:30 or 4 o’clock (I may have said 3 earlier, but
I think the bus dropped me home after 3 and I was always able to watch the
entire show). With the moon landings, space
exploration had already captured my young imagination. Now I had a TV show in which to invest that
newfound love! Within this historical
context, I guess I was primed from an imagination standpoint, to have these
episodes thrust into my consciousness. I
have no recall of what episode first captured my attention. I’d like to think it was one of the great
episodes that I mentioned in my two Top 10 episode posts that I wrote last year
(see here and here if you’re interested), but it could have been
any of the 79 produced shows. Whichever
episode it might have been, as I started to watch the series in earnest, I
became (for lack of a better word) fascinated by the character of Spock.
What was not to like about
him? The alien crewmember who relied
upon cold, hard logic to solve the problems presented to him. His “otherness” was physically represented by
the pointed ears, the upturned eyebrows, and the green blood, but his
unemotional approach to life really set him apart. The more I watched this character, the more I
liked him. Sure, Captain Kirk was the
action hero and ladies’ man and Dr. McCoy the crusty yet compassionate country
doctor, but there was something about the Vulcan character that spoke to me. When my friends also began watching the show
and we would gather together to play Star
Trek, many of the boys wanted to play Captain Kirk; I wanted to be Mr.
Spock. I started emulating his
mannerisms. I taught myself to do the
Vulcan salute (with both hands). When I
realized Mr. Spock had a tendency to raise his eyebrow during certain
situations, I went into the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror as I
tried to learn how to do the same—eventually, it finally clicked. I also tried to take on Spock’s unemotional
demeanor (not an easy thing for an emotional human to do), sometimes it worked;
other times I failed miserably. Even so
there was a part of me that wanted to become a Vulcan.
Yesterday, I needed to run a
quick errand during my morning 15 minute break while I was at work. As I returned from accomplishing this minor
task, the radio talk show host I was listening to announced the death of
Leonard Nimoy. I was stunned. Intellectually, I’ve known the original cast
members who remain are now in their late 70’s and early 80’s and an
announcement such as this could come at any time. But Leonard Nimoy? Spock really dead? For a moment, the thought was difficult to
process. I’ve never met Leonard Nimoy;
never attended a Star Trek convention
(although there’s always been a small part of me that has wanted to), nor do I
have his autograph (unless you count his sign-off at the end of The Undiscovered Country). But after the initial shock wore off, I felt
as though I’d lost a friend.
As a grade school kid, I was immediately
captured by Spock’s physical otherness, but as I grew older and continued to
watch those 79 episodes, I began to understand that Leonard Nimoy, the actor,
had infused his Vulcan character with much more than a logical demeanor and an
occasional raised eyebrow. There was
nuance and depth to the character. Spock
struggled not just as a logical Vulcan surrounded by illogical humans, he also
had to battle his own human emotions in every single episode. For the most part, the Vulcan side won the
continuous battle, but every once in a while, his human side would get in a few
sucker punches.
The reason it was so
interesting to watch most of the episodes where Spock’s human side would break
through hinged on the great performance of Leonard Nimoy to offer those
insights to us. I touched on a few of those
moments in my top 10 list: Spock’s confrontation with his mother in "Journey
to Babel;" his love story in "This Side of Paradise;" the near
apology to Kirk in "The Corbomite Maneuver;" his final comment to
T’Pring and Stonn and his relief at finding Kirk to be alive in "Amok Time." An episode that didn’t make the top 10 cut,
but would be in the 11 to 20 list is "The Naked Time." In a 2003 interview, Leonard Nimoy explained
that he completed the conference room scene in one take. That moment went a long way to helping
viewers understand the constant battle Spock waged with his human side. In fact, after discussing that scene, Nimoy
went on to say that the letters he received from fans increased dramatically
after the episode aired.
If at times after Star Trek took on a life of its own that
no one expected, Leonard Nimoy had ambivalent feelings toward the alien
character he embodied, an interesting moment was offered in Star Trek: The Next Generation when Spock and Data had a conversation. Data,
the android who aspired to be human, asked Spock, the half-Vulcan who had lived
his whole life striving to suppress his humanity, about the merits of that
choice. “I have no regrets,” Spock
replied. When Data realized the
implication of that answer, he countered, “No regrets. That is a human expression.”
“Yes,” Spock said in a musing tone, “fascinating.” Now an adult when I watched that episode, I
noted the duality of that line. It
seemed to speak for Spock, the character, but also for Leonard Nimoy, the
actor. While there may have been times
when Nimoy was tired of being constantly identified as Spock, I had the feeling
that by this time in his life, he had reached a point where he was comfortable
with himself as a person and the character that had taken on such a huge role
in his life.
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