LEONARD MCCOY

Dr. 'Leonard H. McCoy' (nicknamed "Bones"), played by DeForest Kelley, is a character in the original '' series, and the first six ''Star Trek'' films. The character does not appear in the two pilots for the series, ''The Cage (TOS episode)'' and ''Where No Man Has Gone Before.'' (Mark Piper is the chief medical officer in ''Where No Man Has Gone Before.'')

Contents

Overview

Catch phrases

"He's dead, Jim."

"I'm a doctor, not a(n)..."

Popular culture

References

External links

Overview

Leonard McCoy was born in 2227 according to '' episode: "Encounter at Farpoint". He attended the University of Mississippi, where he once met Emony Dax, a female Trill athlete with whom it is implied he had a "brief involvement" ('' episode: "Trials and Tribble-ations")^[1].
By 2265, McCoy had been promoted to lieutenant commander and was assigned as a medical observer to the planet Capella. The assignment was unfruitful, as the Capellans found little need for medical arts and existed under a tribal society where only the strong survived ("Friday's Child").
He is suspicious of advanced technology, especially the transporter, which he regards with distrust and outright dismay (often expressing a suspicion that the device will irretrievably scatter his atoms), and occasionally is bigoted with regard to Spock's half-Vulcan ancestry. A divorceé, he often showed a flirtatious side to female members of the ''Enterprise'' crew ^[2]. He is the only American Southerner depicted among the racially and ethnically diverse crew of the USS ''Enterprise''.
McCoy is a physician of considerable skill, capable of successfully treating creatures whose physiologies he is unfamiliar with, such as the Horta ("The Devil in the Dark"), though he often hesitates at operating on Vulcans due to his relative unfamiliarity with their anatomy^[3] and has no practical knowledge of Klingon anatomy ^[4]. As a doctor, McCoy prefers old-fashioned, personalized or less-intrusive remedies to cutting-edge treatments and computerized medicine, once complaining that the refit ''Enterprise's'' sickbay was more a computer center than a medical office.^[5] He also is a great believer in the body's own recuperative powers, though he also realizes that medicine as it exists in the 23rd Century has to help along the process.
In 2266, McCoy was posted as chief medical officer of the USS ''Enterprise'' under Captain James T. Kirk, replacing Doctor Mark Piper.^[6] McCoy and Kirk became good friends, but the passionate, sometimes cantankerous McCoy frequently argued with Kirk's other close friend and confidante, Spock. In 2268, he was diagnosed with Xenopolycythemia, a normally incurable and fatal blood disease. After an encounter with the Fabrini civilization travelling inside the asteroid colony ship ''Yonada,'' McCoy was able to discover a cure for the disease.^[7] He served on board ''Enterprise'' until 2270, when the ship's five-year mission was completed. He resigned his commission or was placed on inactive reserve.
During the 2271 V'Ger Crisis, Admiral Kirk requested McCoy specifically as a member of ''Enterprise's'' crew for the investigation of the V'ger entity. At Kirk's request, Nogura employed what McCoy described as a "little-known, seldom-used reserve activation clause," which McCoy likend to being drafted, to reactivate McCoy's commission as a commander and chief medical officer aboard the refit ''Enterprise'' ('').
By 2285, McCoy served as an instructor at Starfleet Academy. He was on board ''Enterprise'' when Admiral Kirk was required to take command during the events surrounding the escape of Khan and his subsequent seizure of the Genesis Device. During this action, Spock was killed in a successful attempt to repair the stricken ship's warp engines. Before attempting this, he nerve-pinched McCoy and performed a mind-meld on the unconscious doctor, placing his ''katra'' or mental essence into the doctor's psyche. This proved key to Spock's eventual return from death, although the process was traumatic for both. During the return from the Mutara Sector, McCoy began to exhibit erratic behaviors, and even began at times speaking and acting as if he were Spock. After trying to charter a ship to the by-then-embargoed Genesis Planet, McCoy was arrested by Federation Security and was to undergo psychological testing to determine his sanity. At the same time, Kirk finally realized (with the aid of Sarek) what had transpired. He rescued McCoy and with the aid of the other main officers of ''Enterprise'', stole ''Enterprise'' in a bid to rescue Spock's body from the Genesis Planet and re-unite it with the katra within McCoy.
During the ''Enterprise'' crew's three-month stay on Vulcan, McCoy fully recovered. While in action on and over the Genesis Planet, the ''Enterprise'' crew had captured a Klingon Bird of Prey, which McCoy's "fine sense of historical irony" led to him to christen the HMS ''Bounty''. After leaving Vulcan in ''Bounty'', the crew returned to the year 1986 to retrieve a pair of humpback whales to placate an alien probe set to eradicate all life on Earth. While there, McCoy found himself in the position of aiding an elderly woman with kidney dialysis problems in regenerating her kidneys. McCoy, along with the rest of Kirk's crew, were prosecuted for their illegal actions regarding the theft of the ''Enterprise'' and travel to Genesis. The charges, however, were dropped, with the exception of one charge solely directed at Kirk, who was demoted to Captain. In gratitude for the crew's actions in saving Earth from the alien probe, Starfleet Command gave him command of a new starship, the USS ''Enterprise''-A ('').
McCoy remained with Kirk and the rest of the crew of the old ''Enterprise'',serving in his capacity as chief medical officer (''). During the Khitomer Crisis of 2293, McCoy was tried and convicted along with Kirk at a Klingon tribunal on the charges of aiding and abetting the assassination of Chancellor Gorkon. The charges were false, and the evidence that seemingly pointed to ''Enterprise'' had been engineered by both General Chang of the Klingons and Admiral Cartwright of Starfleet in an attempt to scrap a proposed peace treaty between the Federation and the Klingon Empire. As part of the plot, the Federation was going to mount a large-scale military action to the Klingon penal asteroid Rura Penthe to rescue McCoy and Kirk. Instead, ''Enterprise'' (with the aid of Captain Sulu and ''Excelsior'') were able to effect the rescue while still preventing a military breach between the two powers. McCoy was instrumental in exposing Chang and Cartwright's plot, as he and Spock rigged a photon torpedo to find Chang's cloaked ship.
Between 2295 and 2363, McCoy's life and activities are not accounted for. In 2363, a now elderly Admiral McCoy was briefly aboard the recently-commissioned USS ''Enterprise''-D, and compared Data's mannerisms and speech to that of Vulcans and was as cranky and cantankerous as ever ('' episode: "Encounter at Farpoint").
McCoy appears in several non-canon novels, several of which revolve around him. In William Shatner's novels, McCoy is over 150 years old, thanks in large part to synthetic body parts (heart, lungs, digestive system, legs, etc.). DeForest Kelley's death in 1999 led to a DC Comics story chronicling McCoy's death, in which Spock and Scott visit McCoy on his death bed.

Catch phrases

McCoy is also known for using sayings which came to be considered catch phrases for the character, the most popular of which include the following.

"He's dead, Jim."

McCoy frequently declares someone or something deceased with the line, "He's dead", "He's dead, Jim", or something similar. He makes such pronouncements on several of his patients, including:

★ Crewman Green ("The Man Trap")

★ A canine beast from planet Alfa 177 (''The Enemy Within'')

★ Doctor Adams ("Dagger of the Mind")

★ Captain Kirk ("Amok Time", "Return to Tomorrow")

★ Scotty ("The Changeling", "I, Mudd")

★ Crewman Jackson ("Catspaw")

★ Lieutenant Galway ("The Deadly Years")

★ Lieutenant Tracey ("Wolf in the Fold")

★ Commissioner Hengist ("Wolf in the Fold")

★ Priestess Nona ("A Private Little War")

★ Professor Starnes ("And the Children Shall Lead")

★ Marvick ("Is There in Truth No Beauty?")

★ Ensign Chekov ("Spectre of the Gun")

★ Murdered scientist ("The Lights of Zetar")

"I'm a doctor, not a(n)..."

When McCoy is pressed to perform or give an opinion as something other than a doctor, he often remarks "I'm a doctor, not a(n)...", concluding with whatever profession he's asked to perform. Popular culture often precedes the saying with "Dammit, Jim!"
Examples of this include:

★ Moon shuttle conductor ("The Corbomite Maneuver")

★ Bricklayer ("The Devil in the Dark")

★ Mechanic ("The Doomsday Machine", "The Empath")

★ Engineer ("Mirror, Mirror")

★ Physicist ("Metamorphosis")

★ Escalator ("Friday's Child")

★ Miracle worker ("The Deadly Years")

★ Coal miner ("The Empath")

★ Psychiatrist ("The City on the Edge of Forever")

Popular culture

★ In an episode on the Simpsons after Homer had temporarily become a hippie and faced off with SWAT officers telling them they should be peaceful while he put flowers in the barrels of their guns, Homer got shot in the head. Instead of being killed he was shown in the hospital with a flower sticking out of the front of his head, when Doctor Hibert was asked if he could take it out he replied "I'm a doctor, not a botanist."

★ The Doctor from '' sometimes uses the "I'm a Doctor..." phrase. Another model of the Emergency Medical Hologram, the EMH Mark 2, was also featured in one episode aboard a ship that had been taken over by Romulans. When the Doctor requested his help, he replied "I'm a doctor, not a commando!" (During his audition for the role of the Doctor, Robert Picado was asked to merely say, "Somebody forgot to turn off my program." However, he then added the line, "I'm a doctor, not a nightlight". He then got the part.[1])

★ In the movie '', the hologram doctor says: "I'm a doctor, not a doorstop."

★ In the '' episode Trials and Tribble-ations, when asked about events of the 23rd Century Doctor Bashir responds with "I'm a Doctor, not an historian."

★ In the video game '', if engineer Brex is spoken to repeatedly he will eventually respond with "Damnitt Jim! I'm an Engineer, not a conversationalist."

★ In the movie '', Ace says, "For God sake, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a pool man."

★ In an episode of ''The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air'' in which William Shatner guest stars, Will Smith parodies the line by saying, "Dammit, Jim, I'm a black boy from Philly, not a doctor!"

★ In a late 1980s episode of ''Saturday Night Live'' hosted by William Shatner, a skit involving the ''Enterprise'' as a rotating restaurant has Kirk turning to McCoy for help after a patron starts to choke. McCoy (played by Phil Hartman) responds with "Dammit, I'm a Doctor, not a... ''Oh''! Oh, sure!" and proceeds to administer the Heimlich maneuver.

★ In an episode of ''Family Guy'', Peter Griffin, looking for someone to give him a prostate exam, comes across McCoy. McCoy then responds with, "Forget it. I'm a doctor, not a patsy."

★ In a commercial for the game Trivial Pursuit, DeForest Kelley is asked a medical question. He responds, "How should I know? I'm an actor, not a doctor."

★ A version of McCoy appears in the ''Futurama'' episode Kif Gets Knocked Up A Notch, in which he responds to Zapp Branigann's question of whether he will make it with Leela by saying "Dammit, Zapp, I'm a doctor, not a miracle worker!". Also, in the Futurama episode Where No Fan Has Gone Before, during the scene where the Star Trek fans are executed, the soldier pushing the fans into a volcano repeatedly says, "He's Dead, Jim" to the other soldier.

★ Swedish synth-pop band S.P.O.C.K released a song titled "Dr. McCoy" in 1998.

★ In Final Fantasy IX, an NPC involved with the reconstruction with Lindblum uses the line 'damnit Jim, i'm a doctor, not a miracle worker'

★ In the original Transformers cartoon series, the episode ''Return of Optimus Prime: Part 1'' depicted Rodimus Prime going to Wreck-Gar, the leader of the Junkions, in hopes that he could repair him. Wreck-Gar replied "I'm a doctor, not a fork lift. His engines, they cannot take the strain! He's dead, Jim."

★ In if you repeatedly click on a Terran Medic, the last comical line she says is "He's dead, Jim."

References

1. http://www.startrek.com/startrek/view/library/character/bio/1115128.html
2. "Shore Leave". The information on his divorce, while not strictly canon, comes from early script treatments for "The Way to Eden" written by Dorothy Fontana.
3. "Journey to Babel"
4. ''Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country''
5. ''Star Trek: The Motion Picture''
6. "The Corbomite Maneuver"
7. "For the World is Hollow, and I Have Touched the Sky"

External links

★ StarTrek.com: Leonard McCoy