1) “I, Robot” – The Outer Limits (1964)
Leonard Nimoy had been a hard working actor in Hollywood for over a decade when he stepped onto the set of the sci-fi anthology series, The Outer Limits. Every week, the show told a new story featuring aliens, robots or some other instance of science run amok, usually told as some kind of morality play or fable.
“I, Robot” is one of the most well-known of the bunch. In the story, a robot named Adam is charged with the murder of his creator, and a trial plays out to not only determine if the robot’s guilty, but whether or not robots can even be charged with murder in the first place. Nimoy played newspaper reporter Judson Ellis in the episode, who serves as an ally and confidant for lawyer Thurman Cutler, played by Howard de Silva.
Thirty years later, Nimoy would return to the then-newly rebooted Outer Limits, this time to play Cutler in a remake of the “I, Robot” episode.
2) “Amok Time” – Star Trek (1967)
There was no Star Trek without Leonard Nimoy. By the time the show premiered in 1966, it had already been though a number of changes, but the one constant presence was Nimoy’s soon-to-be seminal role of Mr. Spock.
Network execs, at first, didn’t know what to make of “the guy with the pointy ears,” but Spock quickly proved to be the voice and face of Star Trek, as an alien struggling to abide by his society’s rigorous dedication to logic, even while his human-half churns up emotion that his Vulcan-half yearns to suppress.
It was Nimoy who came up with the iconic hand gesture which millions of Trekkies now share around the world, and it was the second influential bit of Trek lore that he added to the canon, his first being the Vulcan nerve pitch. Despite his impact on the show though, Nimoy had a contentious relationship with Spock in the years after Star Trek‘s cancellation. A memoir called I Am Not Spock aimed to separate actor from role just as Trek fandom was hitting a fever pitch in the 1970s. Not only that, but Nimoy was also dubious of exploring further adventures as the character.
In the end, however, it was only logical that he would embrace his most-identifiable role, traveling to conventions, telling the same stories, and thrilling fans with every “Live long and prosper.”
