Daniels famous that the primary draft of the “Spock’s Mind” teleplay left Spock on the Enterprise whereas the opposite characters positioned his lacking mind. Daniels was the one who determined to show Spock right into a mechanical zombie who got here alongside. “Then the priority was whether or not or not he would seem like a zombie strolling round. Fortunately Leonard was in a position to pull it off.” And, sure, Nimoy wasn’t a stiff-armed zombie, though he did nonetheless look just a little foolish.
And, in accordance with Gerrold, the silliness may need been the purpose. Gerrold suspected that the episode’s author, Gene L. Coon (credited as Lee Cronin) was attempting to confront Gene Roddenberry’s tendency to take “Star Trek” significantly to the purpose of it being no enjoyable. Gerrold posited:
“I think […] that ‘Spock’s Mind’ was Gene L. Coon’s method of thumbing his nostril at Roddenberry or one thing. If not Roddenberry, he was thumbing his nostril at how significantly the present was taking itself. I think what had occurred is that they have been just a little panic-stricken as a result of there weren’t numerous scripts to shoot. The historical past of ‘Star Trek’ is administration by disaster. I feel someone referred to as up Gene L. Coon and stated, ‘We want a script in a rush, are you able to do it?’ And he did it underneath a pen identify, and I do not suppose he intentionally got down to write that present significantly.”
As such, Gerrold laid out what he suspected was Coon’s thought course of: “I do not suppose there’s any method you possibly can take that episode significantly. You have to take it as a joke. What is the stupidest science fiction thought to do? What if someone stole Spock’s mind?” This was a premise that might have been cribbed from a low-budget sci-fi horror thriller from 1953.