LogFAQs > #933777760

- Great Tier -
Great Tier characters are completely necessary for their shows. The shows are built around their presence, and if removed, it would be a completely different experience.

12. Leonard McCoy
Dammit, Jim, hes dead, not alive!

Poor, poor McCoy. Any non-Trekkie knows Kirk and Spock, but how many know McCoy? Probably some. If I asked my sister what she knows about Star Trek, she might say Hes dead, Jim, but shed have no idea who said it.

As the third member of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy trio, McCoy serves a very specific purpose: hes there to always be wrong. In that sense, hes like Worf, whose job is to recommend something Picard can dismiss. When Kirk has to make a decision, Spock says Do the heartless, logical thing, and McCoy says Do the right thing, Kirk obeys McCoy zero percent of the time. He rarely obeys Spock, to be fair, and instead finds a third answer, but the point is that McCoy is supposed to represent the emotional perspective. If you want to bust out your fancy college degree, you could even argue that he represents the id.

It was a genius move to make McCoy an old-fashioned country doctor type in a setting where everyone lives in a sterile spaceship encountering wacky science nonsense. Everyone else either has a thinned-sketched backstory or is Spock, whose race is couched in a lot of weird mysticism. Having a guy whos just a guy was brilliant, especially because it enables him to always argue with Spock.

In fact, McCoy is almost a satellite character to Kirk and Spock, though not quite. He has enough going on as a character on his own to avoid that, but like, I cant think of a lot of McCoy interacts with someone else moments. Remember when Uhura got her mind wiped? Heres what Memory-Alpha says: This assault required Dr. McCoy to use advanced medical and educational techniques to restore her memories. Im like ****, man, Uhura had no memories, and all he did was tell Nurse Chapel to read some books off of a computer until she was normal again, and it worked. Say what you want about your fancy 24th century medicine, but McCoy apparently knows how to handle every situation.

One McCoy moment I really like is when Khan wakes up on a surgery table (they dont know who he is yet), puts a scalpel to his neck, and McCoy is just completely unimpressed and tells him a better way to kill someone. Crusher and Bashir wouldve **** themselves in that situation.

Anyway, everyone wants me to talk about Kirk/Spock/McCoy, so I guess I will. Its the best-written Star Trek friendship, and we all know it. McCoy is constantly racist in a way he would not be if they made the show today, but Spock is so much smarter than him and always gets the last word in, so it still feels like theyre on equal terms. The show desperately needed a guy who just wants to do the right thing, but doesnt have Spocks weird philosophy and science skills or Kirks cleverness, charisma, and punching everything skills, and thats what McCoy brings.

Too bad about Mirror McCoy, though. Mirror Spock gets a ton of attention, Mirror Sulu and Chekov get a little, Mirror Kirk gets enough that we can tell hes just insane, and the rest get nothing. Its bad when youre relegated to the Uhura Pile.

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Not changing this sig until I decide to change this sig.
Started: July 6, 2005