Ahaha oh god, I'll never be able to unread his name as Mrs Pock now.

these are for you, brain

"This is an episode where an entire civilization is about to die because they rely on machines to boost their intelligence temporarily for specific job skills while spending their day to day lives as complete dumbasses."

Their biggest mistake was putting the women in charge; don't forget that none-too-subtle message.

KIRK: We might be able to locate you, if you gave us some idea of what they were using you for. Is it medical?

SPOCK: I am not certain. I seem to have a body which stretches into infinity.

SCOTT: Body? Why, you have none.

SPOCK: Then what am l?

MCCOY: You are a disembodied brain.

SPOCK: Fascinating. It could explain much, Doctor. My medulla oblongata is hard at work apparently breathing, apparently pumping blood, apparently maintaining a normal physiologic temperature.

KIRK: You say you're breathing, pumping blood, maintaining temperature? Is it possible that you're re-circulating air, running heating plants, purifying water?

I've only sat through this awful episode once, but that bit of dialogue stood out as cool sci-fi.

I like to think "The Cloud Minders" is the closest match to our world today.

Yeah, sexism is a worse mark than the SFX on ToS. It sucks. This episode would have made a great A game episode if it had more love put into it. There is a great moment, and I think the only moment, that McCoy loses his professional nerve while trying to do surgery and it could have been a serious character developer. Other things that could have helped it would have been Spock making little improvements to their society here and there unconsciously, like his Vulcan id opening a series of planetary learning academies without realizing it. "It wasn't me, Captain" could have been a great running joke as things improve without the crew's direct intervention. Maybe McCoy could finally give Spock a proper psycho-diagnosis by watching the world transform around him. Hell, he might event not want to leave in the end.

The untold possibilities is also a great treasure of Star Trek.

Mm, good call.