I was driving and listening to the radio and they were talking about Dr. Spock (the parenting guy) and then the conversation got into Nimoy and they did this little bit about calling him from beyond the grave.. at first I thought it was offensive, and then I was like "no, this is probably exactly what Nimoy would've wanted: some world where he gets confused with the other Spock and gets that space funeral from Wrath of Khan." And then I watched this. He's not here anymore, but like Oderus Urungus, it's not something to mourn but to celebrate. With space drinks. Sorry, never really watched Star Trek that much. LLP Mr. Spock!

whoops! Not necessarily meant as a reply to you ROUS. :)

The one episode of BBT I saw had a Data cameo.. maybe it was this same episode? And I did chuckle a bit. But I don't remember this. It's pretty classic "Comic Book Guy" humor. I have an *cough cough* Theory about BBT that I've shared on here before, I think, and it's that Silicon Valley and BBT aren't really far removed from each other. Nerds? Check. Terminology that target audience doesn't really get but pretends they do? Check. Getting caught in awkward sitcom situations? Check.

Example: First episode of Silicon Valley has everyone working on their own apps, including that Erect Nipple Alert app. It's a little more R-rated than BBT could be on CBS but it's basically the same joke that I assume happens all the time. And, well, coming from Mike Judge, it was pretty funny, stupid as it was. As the show goes on and gets into Metric Compression and stuff I'm like "ok now I like this" but it started off pretty much like I assume BBT did, just a bunch of friends nerding out, just with a lot more "fucks" and occasional nudity.

err.. Compression Metrics, like making a file as small as possible without compromising quality. See? I love the show and I still don't get it right. I'm not defending a show I haven't (and won't) see, but it seems like it's more a case of good writers being stuck and making the most of it, like an episode of Iron Chef. If it all makes me sleep a little better, one shit script probably makes them more money than I'll see in the next 5 years. Oh wait..

I can't watch Silicon Valley because it reminds me too much of all the reasons I left Silicon Valley.

Nimoy went through a phase where he didn't like his tie to scifi, but thankfully grew to accept it and seemingly embrace it.

The classic example of that, of course, is the publication of his first memoir, "I AM NOT SPOCK", in 1975, followed 20 years later with "I AM SPOCK".

I've talked about Spock's long jpurney to embrace his human half, culminating in Abram's 2009 movie, with the elderly Spock advising his younger, more dogmatically logical self to "put aside logic", and "do what feels right".

I guess that mirrors Leonard Nimoy's struggle to embrace his Vulcan half. It's not hard to imagine how, in the early seventies, when, cult following or no, Star Trek was just another failed TV show, the role of Spock must have seemed like a potential career-killer. How could have he known that he was only 8 or 9 years into a fifty year gig?

gig? he's immortal.

there are winners of multiple academy awards that wont be remembered half as long as Nimoy

The scene where old Spock tells young Spock to transcend logic, that was the perfect capstone to Spock's character. Now that Nimoy is gone, I think e should all be kissing Abram's ass for that scene.

Also that scene in the ice cave, holy shit I did not see that coming. There's nothing that I love more in a movie than a good solid surprise, and the best kind of surprise is to be surprised by the familiar, to have neurons from 20 years ago light up. I won't drop a spoiler here, but it blew my mind when the identity of the Winter Soldier was revealed, and it was even more of a surprise because I didn't see the first Captain Aamerica movie. But I knew who he was, even though I hadn't seen or read anything about him since I was maybe 12. But that was nothing compared to the ice caves and holy fucking shit that's Leonard Nimoy! It was a great suprise,

Abrams Star Trek movies don't have Nimoy and Shatner, so those characters are never going to have that kind of relaxed, low-key gravitas. Nothing to be done for that, really. You could have Roibert De Niro play Kirk and Johnny Depp play Spock, and they're not going to make you forget who created those roles. So the action driven model that Abrams adopted for the reboot is simply necessary. They're good solid action movies, and I love the way they refer back the original. In the second movie we have Kirk and Spock trading places, with Kirk sacrificing himself instead of Spock. Are we going to see this kind of mirroring in the new timeline? Is there some kind of mathematical theory that explains it? I'll shut up now.

The best part was his sense of humor about it. With the George Takei video that was also posted above, I had no idea he was an actor on Broadway, just like most people probably didn't know Bryan Cranston portrayed Lyndon B Johnson this past year. I mentioned it before, but I wasn't a Star Trek fan. I just watched it to bond with my dad mostly. My dad and I met half-way on The Simpsons. So his appearance on The Simpsons was pretty much my first exposure to "meta" humor: I can't remember it exactly but when he's in Springfield for some reason on the monorail and waxing philosophical about The Cosmos and stuff and the guy next to him is like "does anyone want to trade seats"? was so perfect but for my dad it was like "how could they treat Leonard Nimoy like that?" It's because he thought it was funny.