In music, repetition legitimizes; in Star Trek, Spock legitimizes.
(Full disclosure, Iāve watched many Adam Neely videos but havenāt actually watched the one above.)
Spock has been deployed again and again when Star Trek has āpushed the envelopeā. When JJ Abrams wanted to launch a new Star Trek film franchise, he brought in Leonard Nimoy to have Spock pass the torch. When Alex Kurtzman wanted to launch a new serialized streaming Star Trek series, he wrote it about Spockās sister (with Spockās father appearing from the first episode), and brought in Spock himself in the second season.
And when they needed to make the big swing for the fences and literally do a Star Trek episode where everyone is singing as if in a musical, who is the very first character to sing? Yes, of course, itās Spock.
The first Very Short Trek episode, āSkin A Catā, continues this trend. In this, Paramountās first officially non-canon official production (and debatably their silliest slice of Star Trek yet), the only character voiced by their ānormalā actor is ā yes, you guessed it ā Mr. Spock.
Whenever the in-universe era permits, Spock is consistently invoked whenever Star Trek breaks new ground.
We can even extend this analysis retroactively all the way back to the beginning: when Star Trek was ārebootedā for the very first time ā after āThe Cageā was rejected, and the premise reworked into āWhere No Man Has Gone Beforeā ā only Mr. Spock and the Starship Enterprise herself were carried through into the new version, creating a lineage that indelibly legitimizes āThe Cageā as Star Trek, even in spite of massive changes otherwise.
(And indeed, the Starships Enterprise play a similar legitimizing role across the franchise ā if an Enterprise appears, itās Star Trek.)
So, here is the question for us: why does Spock enjoy this particular ability to reify something into being Star Trek? Why is it he ā not Kirk, not McCoy ā that gets called on when the showrunners want to ābulk upā on their Star Trek bona fides? Why is it that, if Spock does it, itās Star Trek?
I think itās because Kirk, McCoy etc are humans; when we think of Star Trek, we think of alien races, alien planets, exploration of new civilisations. The captains / staff change but Spock remains, because heās an excellent bridge between the human and the alien; also, his insistence on logic which is tinged with human emotions makes for a rich potential pallete of storylines / comedy. Not to mention the iconic look which combines alien and human features. Itās familiar and alien all at once which makes it memorable.
IMO :)