Culture Shock 03.05.15: We are all Spock

In a season 5 episode of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine," "Trials and Tribble-ations," the crew of Deep Space Nine travels back in time to the events depicted in one of the original series' most beloved episodes, "The Trouble with Tribbles."

Seeing Capt. Kirk and Mr. Spock walking down an Enterprise corridor, DS9's Dax (Terry Farrell) says, "I had no idea. ... He's so much more handsome in person. Those eyes!"

Avery Brooks' Capt. Sisko says, "Kirk had quite the reputation as a ladies' man."

To which Dax replies, "Not him. Spock!"

Three decades after the fact, "Star Trek" acknowledged what fans had long known: Kirk may have been the "ladies' man," but Leonard Nimoy's Spock was "Star Trek's" real sex symbol.

Nimoy died last week of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease at age 83. The emotional outpouring that followed from fans worldwide was swift and overwhelming. No doubt Mr. Spock would have found the reaction fascinating but also logical.

Like most of his "Star Trek" co-stars, Nimoy was a working actor, paying the bills by taking guest roles in some of the 1960s' most popular TV shows before "Star Trek" came along. Mr. Spock was both a regular paycheck — every working actor's dream — and just another character role.

By the decade's end, Spock was on his way to becoming a cultural icon.

For a certain audience, Mr. Spock made being a geek cool decades before being a geek actually became cool. William Shatner's Kirk was for many of us a fantasy, the guy we'd like to be but knew we never could. He wasn't just a ladies' man. Kirk could go toe-to-claw with a Gorn and still trick a computer into self-destruction. The rest of the Enterprise crew were a multicultural collection of aspirational role models. Yet it was Spock — half-Vulcan, half-human — who most spoke to viewers.

Spock was aspirational, too. He was the smartest member of the Enterprise crew, famously logical, meticulous and curious. Yet he was also an outsider. He was the lone Vulcan on a ship crewed by Earthlings, but as half-human, he was also an outsider even on his home planet. His relationship with his father was strained, his love life was complicated and while he claimed to be in control of his emotions, it's more accurate to say Spock was emotionally repressed by choice.

Spock went beyond being a role model for aspiring science nerds. Here was an adult who embodied all of the fears and insecurities of adolescence, no matter how well he hid them.

It was a role Nimoy embraced. Google "Nimoy fan letter" and you'll find his response to a fan letter he received in 1968 from a biracial girl who couldn't fit in among either whites or blacks. Nimoy speaks for his fictional character, but he could easily be drawing on some of his own experiences, growing up the Jewish kid in an Irish Catholic neighborhood.

He titled his 1975 memoir "I Am Not Spock" in part to show the distance between himself and the character he and many talented writers, especially D.C. Fontana and Theodore Sturgeon, had worked over three seasons to create. But Nimoy and Spock proved inseparable.

Nimoy returned to play Spock in eight movies (counting the two J.J. Abrams-directed reboot films) and in a couple of episodes of "Star Trek: The Next Generation." Even killing off Spock in "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" didn't last. Nimoy also directed two Trek movies as well as the comedy "Three Men and a Baby." He took up writing and photography, and he took on other roles, from Paris in "Mission: Impossible" to, most recently, the enigmatic William Bell in "Fringe." He eventually wrote a second volume of memoirs, this time titled, "I Am Spock."

On Twitter, he invited us to think of him as our grandfather and dispensed grandfatherly advice, always concluding with Spock's Vulcan salutation, "LLAP" — "live long and prosper."

In the end, there is perhaps no better epitaph for Nimoy than the one Kirk provided Nimoy's alter ego in "Star Trek II": "Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most — human."

Culture Shock 03.14.13: In search of 'In Search of...'

"This series presents information based in part on theory and conjecture. The producer's purpose is to suggest some possible explanations, but not necessarily the only ones to the mysteries we will examine."

From 1977 to 1982, that was your weekly warning to take the next half hour of television with a heaping spoonful of salt. It was the disclaimer that introduced each episode of "In Search of... ."

Hosted by Leonard Nimoy, "In Search of..." ran for six 24-episode seasons, and by the time it was done, it had become, in a bizarre way, a record of America's fears and obsessions in the years following Vietnam and Watergate. Before "The X-Files" spelled it out for us, here was a show that dealt in alleged conspiracies and cover-ups, while in search of a truth that was certainly "out there."

Now, for the first time, "In Search of..." is available on home video: a mammoth 21-disc DVD box set containing all six seasons of the original series, all eight episodes of the 2002 Sci-Fi Channel revival hosted by Mitch Pileggi of "The X-Files" and the two pilot episodes hosted by Rod Serling.

Before "Ghost Adventures" and "Ghost Hunters," "Ancient Aliens" and "Finding Bigfoot," even before Art Bell first took to the overnight airwaves with "Coast to Coast A.M.," "In Search of..." brought ghosts, UFOs, the Loch Ness Monster and other paranormal phenomena into homes across America. It caught the zeitgeist of the era, when interest in strange phenomena and the boundaries of science, pseudoscience and fantasy seemed to reach a peak, spurred on by the publication in 1968 of Erich von Däniken's best-selling hodgepodge of mythology and UFO lore, "Chariots of the Gods."

Casting Nimoy as host was a stroke of genius. Then as now associated with his role as the sober-minded and logical Mr. Spock, who better was there to get viewers to take seriously notions like "animal ESP" and the lost civilization of Atlantis?

Almost as important was the show's music, by disco producers Laurin Rinder and W. Michael Lewis, which gave the proceedings an appropriately creepy atmosphere. (That's a soundtrack, issued on vinyl in 1977, begging to be re-released.)

If you believe in the paranormal, this DVD set is like Christmas. Yet even if you are a skeptic — as I am — it is a fascinating, if frustrating, look at persistent myths in earlier stages of their evolution. While Mr. Nimoy's fashions are dated, most of the subjects the show investigates are still fodder for basic cable. They still haven't found bigfoot.

But some "In Search of..." topics are one with their time. If you were born after 1980, you probably don't remember when Americans were terrified of killer bees making their way to the U.S. from South America. Nor do you remember when looming climate change wasn't global warming but "The Coming Ice Age." "In Search of..." tackles both, and makes them seem truly terrifying.

Then there's the Bermuda Triangle. Almost no one talks about it anymore, but the area defined by Miami, the island of Bermuda and San Juan, Puerto Rico, was once known for strange goings on and vanished boats and aircraft. Now, with hindsight and better record keeping, we know this heavily traveled area of the Atlantic doesn't even have an unusually high number of disappearances.

Yet unlike most of the paranormal and conspiracy-theory shows now on the air, "In Search of..." can still surprise you. An episode about the disappearance of Amelia Earhart flirts with the outlandish before settling on a more prosaic explanation. And an episode about the Trojan War is actually too skeptical. The latest archaeological evidence indicates the conflict remembered in Homer's epic poem probably did happen, in some form.

In retrospect, "In Search of..." does give us important insights, just not the ones its producers imagined. It's a slice of life from America at its most paranoid and neurotic.

Culture Shock 02.04.10: Surviving the '70s with the 'Star Trek' cast

The last of three drive-in movies William Shatner starred in during the 1970s has finally made its way to DVD.

"Kingdom of the Spiders" finds the former "Star Trek" captain trying to save a rural Arizona town from being overrun by angry arachnids.

After farmers eradicate the spiders' natural food supply, the spiders turn to the only food sources left to them — livestock and people. It then falls to veterinarian Robert "Rack" Hansen (Shatner) and entomologist Diane Ashley (Tiffany Bolling) to try to stop the ravenous tarantulas before they cocoon the entire town.

Nature-strikes-back movies were a staple of 1970s creature features, and "Kingdom of the Spiders" is one of the better examples. (It certainly has "Frogs" beat.) Still, "Kingdom" owes its cult status mostly to Shatner, who is in full Shatner mode throughout.

Shout! Factory's "special edition" DVD includes behind-the-scenes footage, an audio commentary and interviews. Now that he has two Emmys on his mantelpiece, Shatner is a good sport when it comes to talking about some of his lesser projects. He gamely reminisces about his experiences on the set, including filming the iconic scene in which he crawls up a staircase while covered in live tarantulas.

Apart from "Kingdom of the Spiders," Shatner also appeared in the cult favorites "The Devil's Rain" and "Big Bad Mama," both previously released on DVD. "The Devil's Rain" (1975) also features John Travolta in one of his earliest roles, while "Big Bad Mama" (1974) is infamous for its sex scene between Shatner and Angie Dickinson.

While I'm sure Shatner would have preferred better roles in the 1970s — not that there is anything wrong with a sex scene with Angie Dickinson — he fared pretty well compared to most of his "Star Trek" co-stars.

Only Leonard Nimoy did as well as Shatner. He starred in two seasons of "Mission: Impossible," taking over the "master of disguise" role from Martin Landau.

Between 1969, when the last episode of "Star Trek" aired, and 1979, when "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" revived the franchise, DeForest Kelley's best-known part was in one of those nature-strikes-back movies, 1972's "Night of the Lepus." But instead of spiders or even frogs, Kelley had to worry about man-eating bunny rabbits the size of Volkswagens.

Nichelle Nichols had a supporting role in the Isaac Hayes action film "Truck Turner" (1974), and Hayes' title song is better known than the movie. Walter Koenig, meanwhile, appeared in two episodes of the Canadian sci-fi series "The Starlost" (1973), which had special effects that make the original "Star Trek" look like "Avatar."

James Doohan appeared in Roger Vadim's 1971 film "Pretty Maids All in a Row," for which "Star Trek" creator Gene Roddenberry wrote the screenplay. Doohan then got a promotion of sorts, playing the commander on the CBS Saturday-morning sci-fi series "Jason of Star Command."

And lastly, George Takei starred in the 1972 hippie exploitation flick "Josie's Castle," which is available on DVD under the title "Teenage Divorcee," even though none of the characters are teens.

Looking back, it's a crime that the "Star Trek" cast had so much trouble landing decent roles during the '70s. But during those fallow years before "Star Trek" became a successful film franchise, the once and future crew of the Enterprise did give fans of B-movies and forgotten TV shows a lot of material for our late-night viewing pleasure.