Over the last few weeks, I’ve really enjoyed watching the digitally remastered three seasons of the original Star Trek Series. If you’re a fan and haven’t experienced the cleaned, effects-enhanced episodes, I recommend them. For die-hards, just go ahead and buy the seasons; for everyone else, rent or stream them from Netflix.
One of the joys of revisiting that wonderful old world is being re-introduced to some of the pillars of the Star Trek universe. Majel Barrett originally played a human version of the Spock character in a discarded pilot of Star Trek. When Gene Roddenberry and NBC re-jiggered their concept, Barrett’s character disappeared, to be replaced by the now timeless character of Spock. But Barrett, being Roddenberry’s paramour, took on a new role as Dr. McCoy’s hopelessly romantic assistant, Nurse Chapel. She was long-legged, a little New England, blue-eyed and blond, too practical to be sexy, too pretty to be ignored. Chapel’s unrequited passion for Spock was both ironic and legendary: the expression on her face in Amok Time when Spock asks her to bring him some soup is a beautiful pop-culture moment.
Barrett became even cooler to us fans when she became the de facto voice for Star Trek computers and then, in a casting coup, the mother of Deanna Troi on Next Generation. She even appeared as a character on Babylon 5, the show where secondary and tertiary Star Trek characters went to give their last sci-fi performances.
For Trek fans, she was a huge part of the universe, lending her gentle femininity and, later, her sardonic wit to a mythos that generally rewards interesting characters and long-legged icons. I’m sad to see her go.