By Samuel Stone

Copyright slashfilm

Throughout the first season, in particular, of “Star Trek: The Original Series,” it was clear that the show was still figuring out the nuances of Vulcan culture. This extended to how Vulcans incapacitated any hostile figures, with their signature nerve pinch administered to the shoulder to render a target unconscious. The technique debuted in the first season episode “The Enemy Within,” which had Spock (Leonard Nimoy) neutralize a violent manifestation of Captain Kirk (William Shatner) created by a transporter malfunction. However, the nerve pinch wasn’t originally included in the episode’s script, with Nimoy suggesting the change himself.

The script described Spock knocking out the malevolent Kirk with a swift hit from the butt of his phaser pistol to the back of his head. Nimoy felt this approach was too archaic and violent for the sophisticated Vulcan and his heightened intelligence, offering an alternative as long as the end result was the same. Nimoy came up with Spock’s Vulcan nerve pinch hinting at more esoteric Vulcan abilities while opting for a relatively more peaceful solution to the rampaging Kirk. Embraced by the show’s producers, the nerve pinch became a staple for the franchise moving forward, with other Vulcan and Vulcan-adjacent characters replicating the technique.