Quote of the Day (Gene Roddenberry, With Hand Firmly on the ‘Star Trek’ Helm)

“Toss these pages in the air if you like, stomp off and be angry, it doesn’t mean that much since you’ve driven me to the edge of not giving a damn. No, William, I’m not really writing this to Leonard and just including you as a matter of psychology. I’m talking to you directly and with an angry honesty you haven’t heard before. And Leonard, you’d be very wrong if you think I’m really teeing off at Shatner and only pretending to include you. The same letter to both; you’ve pretty well divided up the market on selfishness and egocentricity.”—Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, in an Aug. 17, 1967 letter to stars William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, quoted in Edward Gross and Mark A. Altman, “An Oral History of ‘Star Trek,’” Smithsonian Magazine, May 2016

Yeah, Wise Guy, I know I had a post five years ago about the premiere of Star Trek. I even had a second post related to the series, on “The Trouble With Tribbles” episode. So what’s it to you? Listen: If I do nothing to commemorate the debut of the show on NBC 50 years ago today, I’m going to have more than a few readers ready to send me to the transporter room, about to be launched where no man has gone before.

But anyway, I have an excuse for writing about it again: the great oral history article from which today’s quote comes. Particularly eye-opening was Roddenberry’s scalding shape-up-or-ship-out screed to Shatner and Nimoy, as they competed for lines, screen time, and fan attention.

The tough love worked. The unlikely friendship between impetuous Captain Kirk and cerebral Vulcan Mr. Spock became not only one of the most deeply valued aspects of this pioneering sci-fi series, but also of the film franchise that relaunched the Enterprise a decade after NBC yanked the show off the air.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Big Bang Theory,’ As Spock Visits Sheldon Unexpectedly)

Mr. Spock [played by Leonard Nimoy, uncredited]: “Dr. Cooper! Dr. Cooper!”

Sheldon Cooper [played by Jim Parsons]:  “Is someone there?”

Spock: “Down here, on your desk.”

Sheldon: “Spock?”

Spock: “I need to speak with you.”

Sheldon: “Fascinating! The only logical explanation is that this is a dream.”

Spock: “It is not the only logical explanation. For example, you could be hallucinating after being hit on the head by, say, a coconut.”

Sheldon: “Was I hit on the head by a coconut?”

Spock: “I'm not going to dignify that with a response. Now, to the matter at hand, you need to play with the transporter toy.”

Sheldon: “Yes, but it's mint in box.”

Spock:  “Yes, and to open it would destroy its value. But remember like me, you also have a human-half.”

Sheldon: “Well I'm not going to dignify that with a response.”

Spock: “Consider this. What is the purpose of a toy?”

Sheldon: “To be played with.”

Spock: “Therefore, to not play with it would be...?”

Sheldon: “Illogical. Oh, damnit Spock, you’re right! I'll do it!”

Spock: “Sheldon, wait. You have to wake up first.”

Sheldon: “Oh, of course. Set phasers to dumb, right?”— The Big Bang Theory, Season 5, Episode 20, “The Transporter Malfunction,” original air date Mar. 29, 2012,  teleplay by Steven Molaro, Jim Reynolds and Steve Holland, directed by Mark Cendrowski

Eighty-five years ago today, actor Leonard Nimoy was born in Boston, Mass. Though in middle age he wrote a memoir whose title bluntly disclaimed any connection with his most famous character (I Am Not Spock), he had, within another decade, embraced the role several times on the big screen. By the time he came to this delightful episode of The Big Bang Theory, he had grown comfortable enough to send up his role in a way that assured what would have enormously surprised TV viewers when they first glimpsed the pointy-eared Vulcan 50 years ago on Star Trek: immortality for the character.

Though Mr. Spock is immortal, Nimoy, sadly, was not. His death a little more than a year ago surprised and saddened fans who—perhaps not as fanatically as Dr. Cooper—had taken him to heart.

TV Quote of the Day (‘The Big Bang Theory,’ Showing the Full Dimensions of Spock Worship)

Leonard Hofstadter (played by Johnny Galecki): “Hey, where you been?”

Sheldon Cooper (played by Jim Parsons): “I'll tell you where I've been. You boys may have had gelato with Stan Lee and gotten autographed comics, but I saw the inside of his house and got an autographed application for a restraining order.”

Howard Wolowitz (played by Simon Helberg): [sarcastically] “Sweet.”

Sheldon: “Plus, I get to hang out with him again... at the hearing. This is going to look great, hanging next to my restraining order from Leonard Nimoy.”— The Big Bang Theory, “The Excelsior Acquisition,” Season 3, Episode 16, original air date March 1, 2010, teleplay by Bill Prady, Steve Holland and Maria Ferrari, directed by Peter Chakos

I imagine that there were many real-life cases of insane hero-worship that must have bedeviled Leonard Nimoy enough to make him title his first attempt at an autobiography I Am Not Spock. With the passage of time, however, the actor who created Mr. Spock of Star Trek could look at the role not as a spur to crazy fans or as a creative straitjacket but as an assurance that he would remain a part of popular culture. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, he wrote a sequel: I Am Spock.

Fond memories of Nimoy—who died in Bel Air yesterday at age 83—that came from all corners of the globe, were not something that he or anyone else could have expected when Star Trek (marketed to network brass as, in effect, a space western) premiered on NBC nearly 50 years ago. (See my prior post on the 45^th anniversary of the premiere.) Nor was the idea believable at that point that a friendship would not only blossom between Capt. James T. Kirk and his cerebral chief science officer aboard the Enterprise, but also between William Shatner and Nimoy—a fact especially unusual since, as an aghast Shatner himself confessed in Star Trek Movie Memories, other cast  members regarded him as a jerk.

Fans of the series relished the scenes when Dr. McCoy spluttered in rage over his fellow ship officer's stone-cold logic. It’s appropriate, then, that the contours of Sheldon in The Big Bang Theory are modeled, in a sense, after his hero, Mr. Spock. Sheldon can seem every bit as infuriatingly logical as the Vulcan—even more so than his friends, only somewhat less socially awkward fellow Caltech geniuses Leonard, Howard and Raj (let alone than Penny, the blonde they gravitate toward).

Yet Sheldon, like the alien born of a human mother, has an emotional side that comes out when he least expects it—a circumstance that endears him, as it did Mr. Spock and Nimoy himself, to audiences.