So Long Mr. Spock

 

As the characters picked as TV Guide's Most Memorable Characters continue to leave us, each one, upon passing, will seem like the most memorable of the list.  Still, Leonard Nimoy's "Mr Spock" will be amongst the most missed, maybe because it seemed to me like he was always there. The show started in the mid 60s, when astronauts were American heroes. The show seemed like the continuation of something that was already taking place.  Space travel was our view of the future.  Popular shows of the time were The Jetsons and My Favorite Martian.
Star Trek was different, it was serious, with an underlying twinge of humor, it had philosophy, and it had a multi-ethnic crew, something very rare at the time. 
Spock (known also as Mr. Spock)  was an alien, but as he probably had the least human appearance of TV's interplanetary visitors, he also had maybe the most human qualities.  The idea of a character that was half earthling and half human was indeed a heavy concept for the time and may have caused Star Trek to be put in some of the worst time slots, perhaps forcing an earlier cancellation. 
The fact that Nimoy, who did not use a catchy stage name like many actors have, was able to imprint that character for life was a real tribute to his ability. 
It seems like throughout my life, Mr Spock was a character to talk about, to argue about and to analyze.   His death comes as a complete shock.  I feel a little older.