It’s Spock, But Not As We Know Him: Zachary Quinto Reprises Star Trek Role for Halloween Special

Zachary Quinto got back into the Vulcan spirit during a Halloween episode of Brilliant Minds last night. The actor, who portrayed half-human, half-Vulcan Spock in the 2009 Star Trek reboot and its sequels, managed to bring his spin on sci-fi’s most beloved science officer back to life for the special installment of the NBC medical drama, if only for a short while.

In “The Doctor’s Graveyard,” Quinto’s character, Dr. Oliver Wolf, dressed as Spock, while co-star Tamberla Perry’s Dr. Carol Pierce got into costume as Uhura. The duo had debuted their looks with a playful Vulcan salute over on Instagram earlier in the day.

Showrunner Michael Grassi revealed to TV Insider that Quinto had enthusiastically embraced the idea for the costumes. “We came up with the idea in the room, and when we brought it to Zachary, he was so excited to include this easter egg.” Grassi also asked fans to be on the lookout for other fun Star Trek references in the episode, like altered elevator sounds.

Quinto has often expressed appreciation for his time as Spock. In a 2020 interview with NPR, he revealed he’d held onto “in the ballpark of a dozen” prosthetic ears from his Star Trek era. Since every day of shooting required creating a new pair, he’d decided to keep some as mementoes, saying he even had ears from a scene in which Spock was bleeding, “speckled with green blood.”

There are probably fewer prosthetic body parts to collect over on Brilliant Minds. The hit series, inspired by the Oliver Sacks books The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars, follows Quinto’s Dr. Wolf as he navigates the complexities of neurology while grappling with his own mental health challenges. Critics have noted that Quinto’s sharp performance has benefited the show, though ratings have declined slightly in season 2.

As for Star Trek, various big-budget films have been touted since the release of Beyond in 2016, including a fourth movie that would bring back Quinto, Pine and co. Though a new franchise entry seems to have stayed just out of reach for the development team at Paramount, it was nice to see Quinto back as Spock this week.