Every once in a while a character and and actor blend together to be bigger than the two alone. Spock, as played by Leonard Nimoy, was just such a character. We didn’t know it before Star Trek, but we needed a role to explain to us what a “person” (he couldn’t be fully human) who favored logic over intuition would be like.
As played by Nimoy we learned he had ethics., loyalty, affection and even humor.
No one did more for nerds growing up in the 70s and 80s than Nimoy and Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. Together they showed us what technological optimism is like. In a landscape of post-apocalyptic storytelling where humanity had just given the fuck up on itself, Star Trek stood alone to say “We’re going to get through this.”
I still believe. Because of them, I still do.
Live long, Prosper.
Well said, James. Well said. My mom used to get pissed that we always wanted to watch “Star Trek” at dinner time. Well, I mean, wtf were “TV Trays” for anyway, if not to watch Star Trek? Seriously, it taught me to believe that “science” wasn’t really bad, and therefore influenced the course of my life.