Star Trek: 10 Things You Didn't Know About Dr Leonard 'Bones' McCoy
He's not a bricklayer, an engineer, or a coal miner. He's a doctor and his name is McCoy.
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00:00 He's not a bricklayer, an engineer, or a coal miner.
00:03 He's a doctor, and his name is McCoy.
00:06 Leonard Bones McCoy was one of the most celebrated doctors
00:09 in Starfleet history.
00:10 He was skilled in both surgery and psychology,
00:12 and during his time on the Enterprise,
00:14 invented several new medical techniques
00:16 that saved the ship on many occasions.
00:19 He also had a unique no-nonsense attitude
00:21 that mixed well with Kirk and Spock's personalities.
00:24 The three of them had a very interesting dynamic,
00:27 but the other two got most of the attention.
00:29 Sadly, McCoy never really got a lot of time
00:32 focused on him specifically.
00:34 His backstory was mostly told in small parts,
00:37 scattered across different episodes and films.
00:39 In this list, we're gonna look at 10 things
00:41 that you might not know about Dr. McCoy's history,
00:44 family, and personal life.
00:46 Bones was far more than just the guy they hired to say,
00:49 "He's dead, Jim," every episode.
00:51 He was actually a very deep and complex character
00:54 with a dark history.
00:55 With all that being said, I'm Bri from Trek Culture,
00:58 and here are 10 things that you didn't know
01:00 about Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy.
01:02 Number 10, he didn't attend the Academy.
01:05 A lot of confusion here comes from the 2009 Star Trek film
01:08 in which McCoy joined Starfleet Academy
01:10 right at the same time as Kirk.
01:12 In the prime timeline, McCoy never attended the Academy.
01:16 Instead, he got a medical degree
01:17 from the University of Mississippi
01:19 and was commissioned to join the Starfleet ranks
01:21 and later the Enterprise
01:22 because of his talents in that field.
01:25 Many don't realize that the Academy
01:26 is not the only path towards serving
01:28 on a Federation starship.
01:30 McCoy always saw himself as more of a doctor
01:32 than a Starfleet officer,
01:34 so for him, medical school was the way to go.
01:36 Why he decided to attend the Academy
01:38 in the alternate universe is unknown,
01:40 but it could have something to do
01:41 with how much more militarized Starfleet had become
01:44 after the USS Kelvin was destroyed by the Romulans.
01:47 Maybe this caused Starfleet to be more picky
01:49 about who they'll let on their ships.
01:51 Number nine, McCoy didn't invent
01:53 his most iconic catchphrase.
01:55 Don't get mistaken, "Bones was a doctor"
01:57 and absolutely nothing else.
01:59 McCoy's iconic catchphrase, "I'm a doctor, not a,"
02:02 followed by literally any other job title,
02:04 has been used by McCoy a staggering number of times.
02:08 If you're interested in looking
02:09 through all the examples of this,
02:11 there is a memory alpha page
02:12 that has compiled them all together.
02:14 Among other things, McCoy is confirmed
02:16 to not be a bricklayer, a physicist,
02:19 a mechanic, an engineer, a coal miner, or an escalator.
02:22 This line has also been repeated
02:24 by plenty of other characters throughout "Trek,"
02:26 most frequently by Julian Bashir on "Deep Space Nine"
02:29 and the holographic doctor from "Voyager."
02:32 What's surprising is that "I'm a blank, not a blank"
02:35 was used years before McCoy was even born by Phlox.
02:39 So McCoy himself didn't invent the expression,
02:42 though he certainly popularized it in "Trek."
02:44 It's the perfect way for folks in Starfleet
02:46 to passive-aggressively tell their superiors
02:48 that something is totally outside
02:50 of their area of expertise.
02:52 Number eight, his first appearance.
02:54 It's well-known that most of the cast
02:56 from the original series were replaced
02:57 after the first pilot episode, "The Cage."
03:00 The ship's chief medical officer at the time
03:02 was Dr. Philip Boyce, who served under Captain Pike
03:05 before M'Benga in "Strange New Worlds."
03:07 Kirk replaced Pike in the second pilot episode
03:10 where "No Man Has Gone Before,"
03:11 and we also got the first appearance of Scotty and Sulu,
03:14 but McCoy was still nowhere to be seen.
03:17 In this episode, Kirk's chief medical officer
03:19 was Dr. Mark Piper.
03:21 It wasn't until the series got picked up by a network
03:23 that we finally saw Bones for the first time.
03:26 Gene Roddenberry and others decided to replace Dr. Piper
03:29 with McCoy because they felt that the role
03:31 needed a somewhat younger actor.
03:33 The first appearance of McCoy,
03:35 along with Ohura and Janice Rand,
03:37 was in the episode "The Corbomite Maneuver,"
03:39 and he continued to serve aboard the Enterprise
03:41 until the end of its five-year mission,
03:42 at which point he took a hiatus
03:44 before jumping back into service in the motion picture.
03:47 Interestingly, DeForest Kelly was actually one
03:49 of Gene Roddenberry's top picks
03:51 to play the doctor in "The Cage,"
03:53 but director Robert Butler suggested
03:55 to go with John Hoyt instead.
03:57 Number seven, he nearly stood up to Khan.
04:00 In 2020, a deleted scene
04:02 from the original series episode "Space Seed"
04:04 went viral on YouTube.
04:05 It showed McCoy standing up to Khan
04:07 after he overpowered the crew
04:09 and demanded control of the Enterprise.
04:11 In the scene, McCoy approached Khan
04:13 with phasers pointed at him from every angle and told him,
04:16 "I never thought I'd say this to a patient,
04:18 "but you owe me something.
04:20 "In case you've forgotten, I saved your life."
04:23 In his frustration, he grabbed ahold of Khan's arm
04:26 and was shot to the ground by one of the other Augments.
04:29 Khan explained to Spock that McCoy was simply stunned
04:32 and that he tried to avoid bloodshed if possible.
04:35 It's not really known why this scene was cut,
04:38 but it might have been to make Khan seem more threatening.
04:41 After all, we know that in the final cut of the episode,
04:43 Khan actually tries to kill Kirk in a decompression chamber,
04:47 which made him seem much more insane
04:49 while keeping it nonviolent enough
04:50 for television standards at the time.
04:53 Still, this deleted scene is a rare showcase
04:55 of McCoy's bravery under pressure,
04:57 even if it's not technically canon.
05:00 Number six, McCoy and Spock, Kirk's angel and devil.
05:04 Star Trek Beyond was praised by a lot of fans
05:06 for nailing the chemistry
05:07 between the original series characters,
05:09 specifically Spock and Bones.
05:11 In issue 184 of Star Trek Magazine,
05:14 the film's writers, Simon Pegg and Doug Young,
05:16 explained that they had a lot of fun
05:18 writing scenes for these two in Beyond.
05:20 Specifically, Young liked the idea
05:22 of having the emotional represented through McCoy
05:25 and the logical represented through Spock,
05:28 so the two of them could serve
05:29 as kind of an angel-devil on Kirk's shoulder,
05:32 guiding him through his decisions.
05:34 And you know, this is a very interesting way
05:36 to look at their relationship.
05:37 It was always fun to watch Spock and Bones
05:39 argue in the original series,
05:41 and the scenes between the two of them in Beyond
05:43 definitely call back to that old dynamic.
05:45 They could get pretty heated at times,
05:47 but it was always clear
05:48 that they actually cared about each other very much.
05:51 Number five, his daughter.
05:53 It's easy to miss because it was only mentioned
05:55 in one episode, but Bones actually had a daughter
05:58 named Joanna McCoy.
06:00 She was originally going to pop up
06:02 as a love interest for Kirk
06:03 in the original series episode, "The Way to Eden,"
06:06 which definitely would have shook things up a bit
06:09 between him and McCoy,
06:10 but the character ended up being replaced with Irina.
06:13 The only time she was ever actually mentioned
06:15 was in the animated series episode, "The Survivor."
06:18 A Vendorian shapeshifter came aboard the Enterprise
06:21 disguised as the famed space philanthropist,
06:23 Carter Winston, and McCoy thanked the imposter
06:26 for saving his daughter, Joanna, 10 years prior.
06:30 Carter Winston was one of the wealthiest
06:32 private traders of the time.
06:33 He was a generous guy, so he used his private fortune
06:36 to go around the galaxy helping needy people.
06:39 The people of the planet Cerberus
06:40 went through a catastrophic crop failure in 2259
06:44 that left them at risk of starvation.
06:46 Luckily, Winston came along and used his wealth
06:48 to feed the population, saving everyone on the planet,
06:51 including Joanna McCoy.
06:53 Soon afterwards, though, Winston mysteriously went missing.
06:57 The Vendorian imposter revealed that Winston's ship
07:00 had crashed on the planet Vendor
07:02 and that he had died shortly after.
07:04 However, the Vendorian became more and more
07:06 like Winston every day, so it's possible
07:09 that he went on to continue Winston's good deeds
07:11 after being taken away by the authorities
07:13 at the end of the episode.
07:15 Number four, McCoy's adventures
07:17 while trapped in Earth's past.
07:19 There have been countless non-canon depictions
07:21 of McCoy in video games, books, and more,
07:24 but the most compelling was a novel
07:26 by David R. George III that was tied to the original series,
07:30 Crucible, McCoy, Provenance of Shadows.
07:33 David had previously worked as a writer
07:34 for Star Trek magazine and the Voyager episode,
07:37 Prime Factors.
07:38 He created the Crucible series
07:40 to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the original series.
07:43 It was a trilogy that focused on the original series episode
07:46 The City on the Edge of Forever
07:47 from the perspectives of the three main characters
07:50 from the episode.
07:51 McCoy's novel in the series explored the episode's
07:53 two different timelines,
07:55 one in which Kirk's love interest, Edith Keeler,
07:57 was killed in front of him,
07:58 just like what happened in the original episode,
08:00 and one where McCoy saved her,
08:02 causing a butterfly effect
08:04 that removed the Federation from history.
08:06 The alternate universe segments of the book
08:08 give us a rare look at McCoy's character on his own.
08:11 At first, he tried desperately to contact the future
08:13 for help, but over time,
08:15 gradually started to accept that he was alone.
08:18 Eventually, he settles down
08:19 after working through some of his past regrets.
08:22 The story was non-canon,
08:23 but it gave some interesting context for McCoy's life
08:26 in the alternate reality from the original episode.
08:29 Number three, his thoughts on technology.
08:32 Dr. McCoy had a very complicated relationship
08:34 with technology.
08:35 He considered the 20th century hospital
08:37 from "The Voyage Home" medieval
08:39 in comparison to 23rd century medicine,
08:42 but he was slightly distrustful of technology
08:45 and didn't want to rely on it too much in his work.
08:48 He was skeptical of everyday Starfleet devices
08:50 like the transporter and even shuttle crafts
08:53 in the alternate universe films.
08:55 He also tried to take advantage
08:56 of the body's natural healing ability
08:58 as much as possible when treating his patients.
09:00 In "The Corbomite Maneuver," Kirk asked McCoy,
09:03 "Aren't you the one that always says
09:05 "a little suffering is good for the soul?"
09:07 This isn't to say that he wanted his patients to suffer,
09:10 just that he believed the easy fix
09:12 wasn't always the best fix.
09:14 First and foremost, he thought people
09:16 shouldn't allow technology to coddle and replace humanity.
09:19 After seeing Dr. T'Ana's medical chainsaw from "Lower Decks,"
09:23 it's hard not to be a bit weary
09:25 of accepted Starfleet medical technology.
09:28 Number two, McCoy's pain.
09:31 In "The Final Frontier," Spock's brother, Cyborg,
09:33 used his unique ability to tap into people's deepest pain
09:37 to force McCoy to relive the death
09:39 of his father, David McCoy.
09:41 David was diagnosed with an incurable disease,
09:43 and after living for too long in constant pain,
09:46 pleaded with his son, Leonard,
09:48 to take him off of life support.
09:49 Leonard didn't want to watch his father die
09:51 slowly and painfully, so he disconnected
09:54 the life support system to preserve his dignity.
09:56 Leonard had regrets about his decision,
09:59 but the worst pain came when, shortly after David's death,
10:02 a cure was discovered for the disease.
10:05 If Leonard had not deactivated the life support,
10:07 then his father may have lived much longer.
10:09 He continued to regret this decision for years.
10:12 Cyborg's intervention seemed to help McCoy
10:15 move past his pain.
10:16 If nothing else, it helped him realize
10:18 that his father's death was not entirely his fault.
10:21 Number one, the origin of the nickname Bones.
10:25 It's been assumed for ages that McCoy's nickname Bones
10:28 was evolved from sawbones, a term used for military doctors
10:31 in the American Civil War because of the saws
10:34 that they had to use to perform amputations.
10:37 This was never stated outright in canon,
10:39 and to complicate matters further,
10:41 the 2009 alternate universe films implied
10:44 that the nickname's origin was something entirely different.
10:48 Right after first meeting Kirk
10:49 aboard the Starfleet Recruit shuttle
10:51 and complaining about the horrors of outer space,
10:54 McCoy grumpily explained that he and his wife
10:56 had just recently divorced and said,
10:58 "All I got left is my bones."
11:00 The camera then cuts to Kirk,
11:02 and it's pretty clear what's being implied.
11:04 J.J. Abrams explained in his DVD commentary of the film
11:08 that this reveal was actually not scripted.
11:10 Karl Urban was a Star Trek fan
11:12 and thought the nickname could use an explanation,
11:14 and thought of the line while filming.
11:17 Fans can debate which origin is canon to the prime timeline,
11:20 but the term coming from the American Civil War
11:22 seems to be much more realistic,
11:24 given that many terms in Starfleet
11:26 were borrowed from the United States military,
11:29 and that Kirk in particular
11:30 was a big American history buff.
11:32 The explanation in the Star Trek 2009 film
11:35 feels unnecessary and kind of silly,
11:38 much like the origin story given to Han Solo's name
11:40 in the Solo movie.
11:42 And there you have it.
11:43 Those were 10 things that you didn't know
11:45 about Dr. Leonard Bones McCoy.
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