One of my friends is a bigger Star Trek fan than me. She watched the original series when she was a kid. However, she made of point of getting me to watch it later on. Despite the old graphics and dated style of filming, the original series drew me in. It was so...hopeful. Sure, there was a bit of inane drama, but the laughs I had while watching Star Trek were heartfelt. I don't regret watching the show, not even when this giant meatball monster made Kirk, Spock, Surak, and Abraham Lincoln fight against a group of historical villains.
Speaking of Spock, he is by far the most iconic character of the series. Everyone knows who Spock is even if they haven't watched the show. His Vulcan salute is mimicked around the world. To say "Live long and prosper" has the same emotional impact as saying "May the Force be with you." Spock was the science officer aboard the Starship Enterprise. He was calm and logical where Kirk was emotional and irascible. As the only Vulcan on the Enterprise, he often served as a deus ex machina, solving problems with his vast knowledge or innate alien super powers.
Despite his popularity, Spock does not always remain in the realm of rationality. There are times when he does not make a lick of sense. Admittedly, Star Trek is about a crew of space explorers who meet wondrous and fantastical cosmic entities, so a single character acting nonsensically is nothing to cry home about. Still, read on if you want to share a few laughs at Spock's expense.
25 His Name Isn't Spock
It might surprise you to learn that "Spock" is not Spock's entire name. In the episode, "This Side of Paradise," Spock mentions that his real name would be too difficult for a human to pronounce.
So I guess we just have to content ourselves with calling him Spock since his full name would probably make us sound like babbling idiots if we attempted to speak it. Since Vulcans are so similar to humans, I wonder why Spock's name would be unintelligible from our lips, but understandable from his.
24 A Distant Relation
Sometimes, Spock just drops the most insane information as if he were casually mentioning the weather. Spock once heavily implied that Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was an ancestor of his.
That would mean somewhere on his human mother's side, the famed writer of Sherlock Holmes would reside. It is nice to know that deductive reasoning came from both Spock's Vulcan ancestry and from his human forebears as well. Seriously, though, is that logical?
23 A Day Without A Brain
Star Trek definitely went off the rails in the episode "Spock's Brain." In the episode, Spock has his entire brain stolen from him. It was replaced with a strange device around his head that kept him alive.
This is where science fiction leaned more heavily on the side of fiction than science. No person could ever hope to survive being without their brain. And I'm pretty certain that once Spock got his brain back, at least some damage would have occurred to his neural functions.
22 The Mind Meld Does More Than Melding
Spock's Mind Meld is one of his most iconic tricks. He places his fingers against the forehead of a living being, and he is then able to feel what the creature is feeling and to share some kind of telepathic link with it.
On occasion, Spock has done the Mind Meld with a crew member. One time, after Kirk had lost a lady love, Spock performed the Mind Meld on him and took away his memories of the time he spent with the woman. I had no idea the Mind Meld could work like a vacuum cleaner!
21 Somebody Save Me
A Vulcan childhood sounds like a fairly unpleasant experience. When Spock was a kid, he had to go through this rite of passage that saw him in the wilderness alone with no one but his pet dog.
When he runs into danger, a strange, older Vulcan who calls himself his cousin saves him. Turns out that was not Spock's cousin. Spock traveled back in time to save his younger self. This created an infinite time loop that ensured young Spock would always be saved and old Spock would be there to save him.
20 Old Pointy Ears
Spock's ears are one of his most distinctive physical features. All Vulcans have pointier ears than a human. It makes them look like Elves from The Lord of the Rings.
What purpose do these oddly-shaped ears serve though?
Everything about Vulcans screams efficiency and purpose. Their culture is truly utilitarian except for a few exceptions. Then why are their ears pointy? Supposedly, their ears were formed that way so they could better catch sound on their planet, but then wouldn't their ears simply be larger?
19 Different Blood
Vulcans notoriously have copper-based blood instead of iron-based blood like a human. This affects the coloring of their blood. If a human were to bleed, it appears red.
If a Vulcan were to bleed, it appears green.
Funnily enough, this does not explain why all Vulcans have normal, human-looking lips. If copper truly ran through their blood, then the thin skin at the lips would show a greenish hue because of how close blood capillaries are to the skin's surface.
18 What Prime Directive?
Star Trek starship crews are notorious for disregarding the Prime Directive as if it were an annoying fly. The Prime Directive is a rule for Federation crews to not interfere with the growth of a civilization.
I'm not sure if you've noticed, but a starship crew interfering with the growth of a civilization is basically the plot for every Star Trek episode ever. You would think Spock the nitpicker would berate Kirk every time he breaks the Prime Directive, but more often than not, Spock is breaking it alongside him.
17 Peaceful Fighting
The planet Vulcan is inhabited by a people who have learned to rein in their emotions. They are the perfect example of a society living at peace amongst themselves and with other races.
However, despite being paragons of diplomatic solutions, those Vulcans sure know how to fight. Spock has demonstrated on multiple occasions how well he knows how to handle himself in a brawl. I'm pretty sure he learned those skills while still a child on Vulcan.
16 Time For A Promotion
When a problem presents itself to Kirk, he usually tries to solve it by punching it in the face. If you ask me, that's not great captain material. When Spock encounters a problem, he usually spends some time pondering upon the most efficient solution.
Don't you think that Spock might make the better captain?
And yet, despite the obvious inequality in calm rationality between the two, the Star Trek series has always hammered it home that Kirk's gut-instinct captaining is preferable to Spock's reasoning.
15 Nothing Says I Love You Like A Tracker
In Star Trek Beyond, Spock gifts his girlfriend, Uhura, a necklace that used to belong to his mother. The necklace contained a mineral that was unique to Vulcan and emitted a singular radiation.
This radiation ended up coming in handy later on when Uhura and Spock were separated. Spock was able to locate her by tracking down the radiation's source. I sided with Dr. McCoy when he commented on the fact that Spock had given his girlfriend a tracking device as a present.
14 Machines Are Alive
Spock's Mind Meld typically works with living creatures. The Mind Meld is a telepathic link that connects Spock's mind with another's. So it stands to reason that this process only works if the other creature has a mind of its own to connect to.
Spock exceeds all expectations though. At one point, he performed the Mind Meld with a machine, connecting with it in order to view events that it had monitored. Next thing you know, Spock will be Mind Melding with a rock.
13 Making A Hybrid
Despite outward similarities, there are many internal differences between humans and Vulcans. As I mentioned earlier, humans have iron-based blood and Vulcans have copper-based blood. Vulcans also have their hearts where a human's liver is located.
With that many internal differences, how is it possible that Spock's human mother and Vulcan father could have ever conceived him? It should not have been biologically possible for Spock to exist in the first place.
12 Live Forever And Prosper
Spock's sacrifice to save the rest of the crew of the Enterprise was the most moving moment in Star Trek history. (I will stand by those words.) His passing was a noteworthy moment for the series, and I feel it was illogically cheapened by bringing him back in the sequel to The Wrath of Khan.
Not only was Spock's resurrection cheap, it was also nonsensical.
Spock left his soul's essence in McCoy, and his body was randomly jettisoned to a planet where it could be revived.
11 Hidden Half-Siblings
In order to contain a surprise, Star Trek V: The Final Frontier would have us believe that Spock kept his half-sibling, Sybok, a secret from the rest of his friends. That way, when it's revealed to us as the audience, we can all gasp in shock. Phooey on that, I say.
There is no way Spock should have kept this insane half-sibling hidden from his friends without it coming to light sooner rather than later. Sybok definitely should have been mentioned in the original series at least.
10 Putting The Command Crew At Risk
Landing parties in Star Trek were always illogically comprised by a majority of the crew's officers. That was unwise, especially considering how often the landing parties ran into trouble. I understand Kirk allowing this to happen, but Spock should have put a stop to this behavior immediately.
At the very least, he should have absent himself from the landing party if Kirk was participating. That way the Enterprise would always have some form of command of available should the worst happen.
9 Robbed Of His Natural Life Span
Spock led a very long and fruitful life. A Vulcan's lifespan is longer than your average human's. On average, a Vulcan can live for 220 years. Because he was half human, Spock missed out on having as long a life as his fellow Vulcans.
He was around 160-years old when he passed away.
I consider this to be unfair given how Vulcan his features and anatomy were. If he lived with so many Vulcan aspects internally, his life span should have corresponded more fully with his Vulcan side.
8 From Boyfriend To Superior
The reboot Star Trek film introduced us to the idea of Spock and Uhura being in a relationship. It was an interesting addition. It gets complicated once you think about the fact that Spock was clearly Uhura's superior, seeing as she was still in school when the events of the movie took place.
Uhura is definitely a very qualified individual, but it kind of puts into a new light Spock's preferential treatment of her. Then again, I think Spock is one of the last persons you would expect to be biased.
7 More Mind Meld, No Problem
The Mind Meld has made its appearance in other entries on this list. Spock's usage of it has been fairly inconsistent in terms of the rules governing how it works. Another thing wrong with the Mind Meld is how infrequently it is used to solve issues.
If Spock was able to telepathically commune with dissenters or foes, comprehension of problems and understanding of solutions could come as quickly as the snap of my fingers. Instead, Spock strolls around as if he doesn't have the power of telepathy at his disposal.
6 Simple Words
2009's Star Trek handled incorporating the original series' Spock with a new one wonderfully. The two of them met only once at the end, but the existence of Old Spock in the alternate timeline allowed Spock to do the work he needed to do in two places at once.
To say that Old Spock influenced the events of the alternate timeline would be an understatement. And yet, when New Spock asked Old Spock about the war criminal Khan, Old Spock was inexplicably tight-lipped. Did he need to be if he had already affected the timeline in such a huge way?