Spock

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Spock, the pointed-eared science officer of the starship Enterprise, once frightened the very actor who played him, in Medford, Oregon, in April 1967. Leonard Nimoy was grand marshal of a parade there, dressed as the Vulcan. Thousands of fans surged toward the bandstand for autographs, and it pressed so hard that the platform began to sway under his feet. Nimoy feared someone would be crushed. Police rescued him, and he later said he made sure never to appear in public in Vulcan guise again.

  Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek franchise, and he first reached audiences in the original series of 1966-69. He served as first officer and science officer of the Enterprise. Alongside Captain James T. Kirk, played by William Shatner, and Dr. Leonard McCoy, played by DeForest Kelley, he was one of three central figures. His mixed human and Vulcan heritage became a driving force in the plots built around him.

  The bond between actor and character ran deep enough to shape Nimoy's writing life. His first autobiography, published in 1975, was titled I Am Not Spock. His second, published in 1995, was titled I Am Spock. Both were written from the standpoint of living alongside the character. How did a character a television network wanted kept in the background draw a crowd like the one in Medford? What did his divided heritage cost him? And why have so many actors, across so many decades, taken up the role?

  48477828

• 2. Casting a Stranger

  ›

  The first known mention of Spock came in a conversation between Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and the actor Gary Lockwood. Lockwood suggested Leonard Nimoy for the part. The three men had already worked together on Roddenberry's series The Lieutenant, in the episode "In the Highest Tradition". Roddenberry liked the idea, but he was required to audition other actors.

  For the first pilot, "The Cage", Roddenberry had his eye on DeForest Kelley for the ship's doctor. NBC executives and director Robert Butler, however, wanted Kelley as Spock. Roddenberry offered the part to Kelley and to Martin Landau, and both said no. Nimoy then accepted, though he was uneasy about a makeup design that had not yet been settled.

  On the 12th of November 2006, during a TV Land marathon marking the show's 40th anniversary, Nimoy named a different first choice. He said Roddenberry had wanted the actor George Lindsey. Nimoy said it so flippantly that some suspect he was joking. Yet Lindsey's close friend Ernest Borgnine wrote in his autobiography, swearing "my hand to God", that Lindsey turned down the role that made Nimoy famous.

  An early version of Spock had a metal plate in his stomach, through which he took in energy. By the original 1964 pitch, he had become a half-Martian with a "slightly reddish complexion and semi-pointed ears". Roddenberry worried that a Mars landing might happen before the series ended, so Spock's home planet was changed.

  Lee Greenway ran the first makeup tests on Nimoy, but after four or five days Fred Phillips took over. Phillips asked John Chambers to build the ears while he searched for the right shade of red for the skin. That red was later swapped for yellow, because of how it would look on black-and-white television.

  Roddenberry made Nimoy a promise about the 13th episode. If Nimoy still hated the ears by then, they would find a way to write them out. NBC executives, for their part, worried that the ears made the character look satanic.

  435909599

• 3. Two Worlds

  ›

  Spock was born in the 23rd century, by human reckoning, to the Vulcan Sarek and the human Amanda Grayson. His mixed parentage made his childhood on Vulcan painful. Pure Vulcan children bullied him again and again, hoping to provoke his human emotions.

  For a time, Spock grew up beside his older half-brother Sybok, until Sybok was cast out of Vulcan for rejecting logic. Spock was promised in childhood to T'Pring. He also has a human adoptive sister, Michael Burnham.

  Sarek encouraged his son's scientific learning and his application to the Vulcan Science Academy. Spock turned down his acceptance, reasoning that the Academy would never fully accept someone who was only half Vulcan. He joined Starfleet instead, and for the next 18 years he did not speak to his father.

  The 2009 film Star Trek revisits that childhood, with Jacob Kogan as the young Spock and Ben Cross and Winona Ryder as his parents. Its scenes show the abuse from other Vulcan children and the boy's bond with his mother and father.

  Suspicion followed him aboard the Enterprise as well. In "Balance of Terror", Lieutenant Stiles, played by Paul Comi, accused Spock of knowing more about the Romulans than he admitted, once their Vulcan-like appearance was revealed. Spock guessed that they were an offshoot of the Vulcan race. He then manned the phaser station and saved both the ship and Stiles.

  The second season opened with "Amok Time", where Spock's two natures collide. He began to suffer pon farr, the Vulcan blood fever, and had eight days to mate or die. Kirk disobeyed Starfleet orders and flew the Enterprise to Vulcan. There Spock met T'Pring, now his wife, who wanted to be with a full-blooded Vulcan named Stonn.

  T'Pring demanded the ritual fight called kal-if-fee and chose Kirk as her champion. Kirk accepted without knowing it was a fight to the death. McCoy persuaded T'Pau, played by Celia Lovsky, to let him hypospray Kirk against Vulcan's thin atmosphere. Spock seemingly killed his captain. T'Pring then told him it had all been a game of logic that would free her whatever the outcome.

  On Omicron Ceti III in "This Side of Paradise", mind-altering spores broke Spock's composure. He met an old acquaintance, Leila Kalomi, played by Jill Ireland, and began a romance with a woman he had once rejected. Only Kirk goading him into anger cured the effect. Free of the spores, Spock then devised a solution that cured the rest of the crew.

  In "The Menagerie", Spock committed mutiny out of loyalty. His former captain, Christopher Pike, played by Sean Kenney, had been promoted to Fleet Captain and then badly burned in an accident. Pike was confined to a wheelchair and could answer only yes or no through a device linked to his brainwaves. Spock steered the ship to Talos IV, a banned planet, and recounted the events of "The Cage" before a tribunal.

  The tribunal's Commodore Jose I. Mendez, played by Malachi Throne, turned out to be a Talosian illusion. The real Mendez signaled from Starfleet that Pike could be transported to the planet, and the charges against Spock were dropped. The episode also noted that Spock had served on the Enterprise for 11 years before Kirk.

  Spock's mind melds show his empathy at work. In "The Devil in the Dark", he joined minds with the Horta, a non-humanoid creature, and relayed its history. That understanding let him broker peace between the Horta and a nearby colony. In "The Changeling", he melded with the Nomad space probe, and Kirk broke the link when he saw Spock's personality starting to change.

  The nerve pinch debuted in "The Enemy Within", when Spock needed to knock out an evil double of Kirk created by a transporter accident. In "The City on the Edge of Forever", Spock and Kirk went back to 1930s New York City. Spock used technology of that period to interface with his tricorder over the weeks they spent there. They then watched Edith Keeler, played by Joan Collins, die.

  1213141720

• 4. Spockmania

  ›

  NBC executives had demanded that Spock stay a background character, and once the show went to series, the tips of his ears were airbrushed out of promotional materials. Nimoy began to grasp the character in early episodes such as "The Corbomite Maneuver" and "The Naked Time". After eight episodes, executives complained to Roddenberry that there was not enough Spock. "Spockmania" had begun, and the character took the lead in "This Side of Paradise" instead of Sulu.

  Nimoy reported that within two weeks of "Amok Time", his mail leapt from a few hundred letters to 10,000 a week. The Boston Globe used the word Spockmania in 1967. Headshots of Spock became popular souvenirs, and the rare ones showing the actor laughing were the most valuable.

  Fans put current events to Nimoy as though the Vulcan scientist could answer. They asked about the Vietnam War and about LSD. One fan even asked him to lay his hands on a friend's eyes to heal them. When a biracial girl wrote about being persecuted as a "half-breed", Nimoy replied that young Vulcans had treated Spock the same way. He urged her to "realize the difference between popularity and true greatness".

  Nimoy had a theory about the appeal to teenagers. In his view, Spock "is not home with earthmen or Vulcan". He could function only in the neatly ordered society of the Enterprise, and there, Nimoy said, "he knows who he is".

  To Nimoy's surprise, Spock also became a sex symbol. Isaac Asimov called the character "a security blanket with sexual overtones". Nimoy said he had never had more female attention on a set, and that everyone wanted to touch the ears. When a young woman asked whether he knew he featured in the erotic dreams of thousands of women, he answered, "May all your dreams come true". Spock is also popular in romantic fan fiction, where he is widely paired with Kirk, which is credited with originating slash fiction.

  In March 1967, Nimoy was guest of honor at the National Space Club dinner and took a long tour of the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, MD. He concluded from the warmth of his reception that astronauts like John Glenn, and engineers, secretaries and shareholders alike, saw Star Trek as a "dramatization of the future of their space program". NASA made Spock an informal mascot.

  An asteroid in the Eos family, discovered on the 16th of August 1971, was named Mr. Spock. Its discoverer, James B. Gibson, named it for his cat, who shared the name and was likewise "imperturbable, logical, intelligent, and had pointed ears". Budding scientists and engineers who met Nimoy often wanted to show him their work as if he were a colleague. His stock reply was "it certainly looks like you're headed in the right direction".

  5253564651

• 5. Fame and Friction

  ›

  Spock's popularity strained the set. Rumors spread that Nimoy would replace Shatner as the series lead, and the attention caused friction between the two actors. At the start of season two, a drawn-out contract renegotiation led Roddenberry to consider replacing both Nimoy and the character. Mark Lenard and Lawrence Montaigne were seriously considered as replacements.

  During the filming of "Amok Time", Nimoy created the Vulcan salute. He based it on a Jewish Kohen he had seen as a child.

  By the end of that season, Nimoy and Roddenberry were communicating only through formal letters. Then producer Gene L. Coon left, and Roddenberry stepped back during the third season. Nimoy felt the writing for Spock deteriorated. He especially disliked the character being made a fool of in "Spock's Brain".

  Spock was nearly part of television's famous interracial kiss in "Plato's Stepchildren". The writers had intended it for Spock and Uhura, but Shatner persuaded them to change it, and it went to Kirk and Uhura.

  Nimoy was nominated for an Emmy Award three times for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series for the role. He is the only Star Trek actor ever nominated for an Emmy. Shatner himself acknowledged that much of the franchise's acting praise and media interest went to Nimoy.

  1612605598

• 6. Death and Return

  ›

  Early in the 1970s, Nimoy agreed to return as Spock for a film attempt called Star Trek: The God Thing. He dropped out after his likeness as Spock was used without permission to advertise Heineken beer. He was later persuaded to return as the lead of a planned film called Planet of the Titans, to be directed by Philip Kaufman.

  That project was killed in favor of a new television series, Star Trek: Phase II. Nimoy was reportedly offered only a recurring part by Roddenberry, so he refused to appear at all. When the pilot script of that series became Star Trek: The Motion Picture, director Robert Wise insisted on Nimoy. It took Jeffrey Katzenberg forcing Paramount to settle the dispute over licensing his image to bring him back.

  In The Motion Picture, released in 1979, Spock has resigned from Starfleet and returned home to pursue the Vulcan discipline of Kolinahr. He cannot complete it after sensing the approach of V'ger, so he rejoins the Enterprise crew. Nimoy, drawing on method acting training, often stayed in character between takes.

  Dissatisfied with that first film, Nimoy was reluctant to return for Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. He was won over by the promise of a dramatic death scene. In the film, Spock is by then a captain commanding the Enterprise. At the end, he transfers his katra, the sum of his memories and experience, to McCoy. He then sacrifices himself to save the ship from Khan Noonien Singh, played by Ricardo Montalban.

  The film had its first public screening at a science-fiction convention in Overland Park, Kansas, on the 8th of May 1982, almost a month before general release. Paramount executives feared fans would turn on the movie over Spock's death. Instead the audience applauded the scene. Co-producer Robert Sallin called the reaction "sensational".

  Critics were split. Roger Ebert wrote that Spock makes a choice "that would be made only by a hero, a fool, or a Vulcan". Gary Arnold of The Washington Post felt the death "feels like an unnecessary twist". Twenty-five years later, the scene ranked second on Total Film's list of 25 greatest Star Trek movie moments, and first on IGN Movie's top 10.

  Nimoy enjoyed the production so much that he wanted a sequel despite his character's on-screen death. The film's success let him negotiate to direct Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, in which he also appeared briefly as a reanimated Spock. Its crew recover Spock's body and learn he was resurrected by the Genesis matrix. At the film's end, his revived body is reunited with his katra.

  The film was successful enough that Nimoy directed again for Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, in 1986. Spock recovers from the after-effects of his resurrection and helps save Earth. His father, who has reconsidered his opinion of Spock's choices, reconciles with him. In the final scene, Spock joins the crew of the newly commissioned USS Enterprise-A under Kirk.

  Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, directed by Shatner, was at first unacceptable to Nimoy. The script had Spock betray Kirk and side with his newly introduced half-brother Sybok. Nimoy felt Spock had already come to terms with his human side, so Sybok could not sway him. He forced a script change before signing on.

  Nimoy then organized Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, choosing the director, writers and producers. In the film, Spock serves as a special envoy to broker peace with the Klingons after a natural disaster devastates their homeworld. Nimoy later turned down the director's chair on Star Trek Generations because he wanted to rework the script. He also refused what was essentially a cameo appearance, and his character's lines went to Scotty.

  6768697066

• 7. Many Spocks

  ›

  For years after the original series, the Star Trek production team avoided mentioning certain aspects of its past. That changed when Spock was mentioned by name in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Sarek", in 1990. Executive producer Michael Piller later called this one act "the breakthrough which allowed us to open the doors, that allowed us to begin to embrace our past".

  Spock then appeared in person in the two-part episode "Unification", in 1991. It is set 75 years after The Undiscovered Country, and shows Ambassador Spock trying to reunite the Romulans with their Vulcan brethren. Filming of The Undiscovered Country overlapped with production, and the episode refers to Spock's role in the film. His campaign fails at first, but he chooses to stay on Romulus in secret to help the movement. Nimoy agreed to appear to hand the franchise over to the new series.

  In 2009, the film Star Trek needed a new Spock. Nimoy was given approval rights over the casting and was asked for his opinion. He highlighted Zachary Quinto, who looked similar and could portray the character's inner thought process. Quinto became the first actor cast. Nimoy agreed to return as the Spock of the original timeline, citing the enthusiasm of director J. J. Abrams and the writers, and feeling appreciated.

  The story runs 19 years after "Unification". Ambassador Spock promises the Romulans he will use Vulcan technology to save them from a rogue supernova. His starship carries red matter, a substance able to create artificial black holes. The mission only partly succeeds. Nero, played by Eric Bana, is a Romulan driven mad by the loss of his homeworld and family, and he pursues Spock into the past.

  In the year 2233, Nero's ship appears and creates an alternate, parallel universe. Twenty-five years later in the new reality, Spock's ship emerges and Nero captures him and the red matter. Stranded, the older Spock helps his younger self, played by Quinto, and Kirk, played by Chris Pine, thwart Nero's attempt to destroy the Federation. The older Spock calls their bond "a friendship that will define them both in ways they cannot yet realize".

  The alternate Spock differs from his counterpart in one big way. He is involved with Uhura, played by Zoe Saldana, his former student. Nero has destroyed Vulcan, so the young Spock stays in Starfleet while his older self remains in the altered universe to aid the surviving Vulcan refugees.

  In Star Trek Into Darkness, in 2013, the older Spock lives on New Vulcan while his younger self struggles with the loss of his home world. The younger Spock nearly dies protecting a planet from an active volcano until Kirk breaks the Prime Directive to save him. Spock Prime warns him that Khan was the greatest threat the Enterprise ever faced, and that victory came at great cost.

  Later in the film, the events of The Wrath of Khan are transposed. Kirk contracts radiation poisoning and dies in front of Spock. Enraged, Spock tries to kill Khan, until Uhura tells him Khan's regenerative blood can revive Kirk. Nearly a year later, Spock is Kirk's chief science officer and executive officer as the Enterprise sets out on its first five-year mission.

  Nimoy made that final appearance as Spock Prime as a favor to Abrams, and it was the last role of his career. He died in 2015, shortly before production began on Star Trek Beyond. In that film, Spock learns that Ambassador Spock has died and tells McCoy he intends to leave Starfleet to continue the ambassador's work. A box of the ambassador's personal effects arrives, including a photograph of the older crew of the original timeline, and Spock chooses to stay.

  In August 2018, Ethan Peck was announced for the second season of Star Trek: Discovery as a Spock younger than both Nimoy's and Quinto's. He is a lieutenant under Captain Christopher Pike, on leave and under psychiatric care after the trauma of visions of the Red Angel. His adopted sister Michael Burnham tries to help him recover.

  In 2019, Peck was announced for two Star Trek: Short Treks, alongside Pike, and he appeared in the episodes "Q&A" and "Ask Not". In May 2020, it was announced he would return in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds with Anson Mount as Pike and Rebecca Romijn as Number One, also called Una.

  Nimoy's Spock also lives on through archival footage. The introduction to the Discovery episode "If Memory Serves" uses footage from the unaired pilot "The Cage". The third-season episode "Unification III" reuses Nimoy's footage from "Unification II", as a holographic recording from the records of Jean-Luc Picard. Burnham watches it in the 31st century, where Romulans and Vulcans remember Ambassador Spock as the cause of their reunification on Ni'Var, the newly renamed Vulcan.

  393813433

• 8. Beyond the Screen

  ›

  The 1976 Solo Keyboard Album by composer and keyboardist George Duke includes two tracks that pay homage to Spock, "Spock Gets Funky" and "Vulcan Mind Probe". Rock guitarist Paul Gilbert wrote a song called "Mr. Spock" on his album Space Ship One. The Swedish synthpop band S.P.O.C.K makes music heavily influenced by the Star Trek universe.

  Nimoy himself recorded novelty songs in character. The first, "Highly Illogical", has Spock pointing out the foibles of human thought, such as relationships, automobiles and greed. A second, "A Visit to a Sad Planet", is darker in tone. It tells of Spock visiting a future Earth ruined by war, violence and environmental irresponsibility.

  According to comic book writer and editor Bob Budiansky, the Transformers character Shockwave was inspired by Spock. Spock's utilitarian line that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" has even been cited in a legal decision by the Texas Supreme Court. Nimoy's second-season costume shirt was expected to sell at auction for more than $75,000.

  In the 1967 episode "Mirror, Mirror", the parallel-universe Spock wears a goatee. That one detail helped spawn the evil twin trope in fiction. The science fiction blog io9 called the beard "the best shorthand ever for evil parallel universe duplicates". It shows up in episode 611 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in Bender's evil twin Flexo on Futurama, and in a 2009 Colbert Report episode where Stephen Colbert and Dan Maffei wore fake goatees. The progressive rock band Spock's Beard takes its name directly from it.

  Since 2004, the online fan production Star Trek: New Voyages has continued the canceled series. Its creators feel Kirk, Spock and McCoy should be treated as classic characters, like Willy Loman, Gandalf or Hamlet, that many actors can interpret. Jeffrey Quinn played Spock in the pilot and first three episodes, Ben Tolpin in episodes 4 and 5, and Brandon Stacy in episodes 6 through 11. Stacy also stood in for Zachary Quinto on the 2009 film.

  The independent fan series Star Trek Continues featured Todd Haberkorn as Spock in three vignettes and eleven full episodes between 2013 and 2017. In scientific illustrator Jenny Parks' 2017 book Star Trek Cats, Spock is drawn as an Oriental Shorthair.

  Critics' lists keep returning to him. In 2004, Bravo ranked Spock number 21 among its 100 Greatest TV Characters. UGO named him one of its 50 greatest in 2008. In 2012, IGN ranked him second among Star Trek characters, behind only Kirk. Nimoy's son Adam released the documentary For the Love of Spock in 2016. Years after the show ended, Nimoy said, "if I had to be someone else, I would be Spock."

  One tribute is distinctly Canadian. Some people alter the portrait of Wilfrid Laurier, prime minister from 1896 to 1911, on Canadian five-dollar notes so he resembles Spock. The practice grew noticeably after Nimoy's death.

  5859618788