Leonard “Bones” McCoy is presented as an essential part of Star Trek: The Original Series, complementing Kirk and Spock with humour, compassion and emotional honesty. His best quote comes from “The Omega Glory”, an episode often regarded as one of the series’ weakest, yet the line highlights McCoy’s insistence that individual lives matter and gives the flawed story a moment of genuine feeling.

In the episode, Kirk, Spock and McCoy find the abandoned Starship Exeter orbiting Omega IV, where Captain Ronald Tracey has survived a deadly disease and violated the Prime Directive by supplying phasers to rival groups. The episode’s Cold War allegory, linking the Kohms and Yangs to Communists and Yankees, is described as potentially interesting but undermined by its disjointed ideas, heavy-handed nationalism and racist stereotyping; DeForest Kelley’s performance nevertheless helps make the material emotionally effective.