Enterprising Individuals

Grab your remote control and get ready for pain and delight as we go looking for "Spock's Brain"!Novelist William Leisner returns to the show this week to discuss an episode of Star Trek: The Original Series that has become emblematic of the low points of TOS. When a lady in go-go boots puts the whammy on the Enterprise, the crew wakes up to find Spock's cranium empty. Now, Kirk must take a cave elevator ride to the center of a cold world ruled by even colder women to rescue the cerebrum of his first officer and friend!The third season of TOS was met with budget cuts, a creative brain drain, and the defection to greener pastures of the show's creator, Gene Roddenberry. But it's perhaps the absence of former showrunner and head writer Gene L. Coon that was the biggest blow to Star Trek's credibility. Coon was a gifted and versatile writer and he knew that Star Trek needed the occasional comedic touch to counteract its often leaden didacticism. Unfortunately, Coon had left the show by the start of Trek's wobbly