"One of Our Planets is Missing" is the kind of episode (think Next Generation's "Galaxy's Child") where the ship comes across a space creature that turns out to be more complicated than the simple menace it at first appears to be (see also: "The Devil in the Dark").
During the course of the crisis, Kirk and Spock are forced to go beyond their typical Animated Series restraints and either insert their own views (Kirk's concerns about doing the right thing) or familiar behavior (Spock mind-melding with something other than a humanoid, such as in the aforementioned "Devil in the Dark" or The Motion Picture and The Voyage Home).
via John Kenneth Muir
It's an example of the series blending the best of its own instincts with what had been done before and what would be more typical of the emerging franchise, and as such is a nice bridge experience for those who don't want to rely on the more famous (justifiably so) "Yesteryear." Not a major standout by any means, but an episode that doesn't rely on some of the more cartoonish elements that could sometimes dominate this cartoon series.
"...Planets is Missing" also features the speaking debut for series-specific element crewman Arex (voiced by Jimmy Doohan), one of those elements the Animated Series could pull off but would otherwise be difficult even now to feature in an ongoing capacity (although he could probably be an interesting addition to the movies).
via Daily Motion. Arex on the left, third arm sticking out of his chest.
A lot of fans don't consider The Animated Series to be part of official canon, but then, a lot fans also acknowledge the significance of "Yesteryear" itself, the most routinely-praised episode of the series.
It's significant in a number of ways, actually. The least significant element is the return of the Guardian of Forever from "City on the Edge of Forever," which has apparently become a routine tool for studying history.
The episode is better known for Spock's journey to his own past. The framing story deals with altered history (due to his trip, Spock is actually erased from history, and he's replaced by an Andorian among the Enterprise crew), but that's just more window-dressing. This visit to Vulcan involves the return of his parents Sarek and Amanda, last seen in "Journey to Babel" and an examination of Spock's inner turmoil concerning his dual Vulcan-human lineage. It also features a Vulcan rite-of-passage ritual and Spock's pet! Established plenty that later ended up in other episodes, thereby solidifying it as part of the canon.
Lots of details. They're all good. It's the most fascinating episode of the series.
Star Trek (the 2009 reboot) even has conscious echoes of "Yesteryear," from a conversation Spock and Sarek have to the bullying the young Spock faces from his peers.
via John Kenneth Muir
It's one of the earliest direct character studies of the franchise and on that score alone stands out from the rest of the series, which more ordinarily used its time constraints to feature the story first and the characters as a distant second.
The Animated Series might be exactly what you'd expect: the original series, shorter, with greater control over the visuals.
There may be no greater example of that than its premiere episode, "Beyond the Farthest Star" (a title not to be confused with the far different Deep Space Nine "Far Beyond the Stars"). When you strip Star Trek as it was originally known to its essentials, this is what you get. The crew exploring a sci-fi mystery, in this instance an ancient ship of bizarre design. Attached to this curiosity is also a fairly standard menace the crew must overcome.
Nothing outstanding, but it's not bad, and as I said, a pretty good way to introduce the series.
Notable is the debut of the life-support belt that gives characters a glowing outline but otherwise keeps them unobscured, unlike the outfits from the live action series, another thing the animation could get away with.
via Star Trek
Also of note is Jimmy Doohan, better known as Scotty, being the first among the supporting cast to provide vocals for guest characters. This was a standard for the series. Surprisingly, given that Doohan was known for his ability to play around with his voice, it will always be obvious that it's Doohan voicing the given character (although he does a better job of it than Nichelle Nichols and Majel Roddenberry in other episodes).
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
James Doohan
And as it turns out, the third season saved its dirtiest trick for last. Throughout the season, the creators seemed to take every opportunity to challenge fans by flipping the script, or by simply seeing how far they could push things. "Turnabout Intruder," in fact, plays almost like the Kirk version of "Spock's Brain." Take that for what you will, but as with "Brain" this is not necessarily a bad thing.
In some ways, it's a very good thing. It's our opportunity to view the captain long stereotyped as a ladies man from the other side, quite literally, as a woman who felt betrayed by him in the past assumes control of his body.
In a lot of ways, it's a pretty standard episode, and by modern standards hardly fitting for a series finale, but there was no more way to know then that it was going to be the last one than it would've been after the second season, or first, whenever the series seemed in mortal danger.
To put Kirk to the test like this, though, is in hindsight clever and entirely appropriate. In the movies we would meet another defining love interest from Kirk's past, Carol Marcus. It's still weird to think that everyone Kirk knew before the Enterprise was basically an obstacle in his life. Most of the time he knew it. This time he didn't. In fact, he's the one who was the jerk.
Probably tough to see something like that explored about a character who is traditionally considered ideally heroic, and from the vantage point of someone obviously unbalanced (read: insane). But there you go.
via Fanpop
And there the series goes!
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
In Deep Space Nine, Dax finds herself in a situation where she can't join a civilization in a remarkable transition ("Meridian"). In Voyager, Tuvok undergoes a personality change ("Riddles"). Combine these and toss in time travel, and you have the ingredients for the last classic episode of the series.
By the end, the series had begun to spin its wheels. Like the second season before it, the third season had lost much of what it had originally set out to do. Creatively, it had been on autopilot. "The Savage Curtain" was a chance to seize the kinds of opportunities the season had been exploring early on. "All Our Yesterdays" was the last time it let loose.
It's an episode that revolves squarely on the familiar three leads, Kirk, Spock and McCoy. Curiously, Kirk quickly goes on in a fairly classic, dull Kirk tangent. It's much better understood to be a Spock and McCoy episode (in the tradition of DS9's "The Ascent" or Voyager's "Rise"), an opportunity to finally put them at odds, something that seemed inevitable from the moment they first shared a scene together.
All three have visited a world about to be destroyed by its star going supernova. Its citizens have devised a brilliant solution to their dilemma: relocating to the world's past. It's a concept the episode exploits well, although curiously, where Kirk's elements otherwise squander it with typical trivial danger, these scenes still make clear that integration and memory were very much on the survivors' minds and as such are still worthwhile to the whole experience.
Still, it's Spock behaving atypically that proves the best incentive to watch this one.
via Star Trek
Unlike the random romance of "The Cloud Minders," there's great care to explain everything that happens to Spock in "Yesterdays," its relevance to the character, and significance. That alone makes the episode special, but it's overall a great concept executed dynamically, exactly what you expect from Star Trek at its best. With time travel such an important motif of the franchise, to stand out any one such story has to do something unique. "Yesterdays" certainly does that. It's an episode that could easily be revisited as a movie, even. Just saying.
In one of the final episodes of the series, a couple of Star Trek icons debut. That's about as much as you need to know about "The Savage Curtain."
Both of them are historical figures, Surak of Vulcan and Kahless the Unforgettable (a Klingon). A third, Colonel Green, is less significant but also important.
Historical figures, history lesson: Surak was the founder of Vulcan logic. His legacy is later explored in the Enterprise episodes "The Forge," "Awakening," and "Kir'Shara." Kahless was likewise the founder of the Klingon code of honor. His clone appears in the Next Generation episode "Rightful Heir," while Deep Space Nine features the rediscovery of "The Sword of Kahless." Green is from Earth's past, a figure from the WWIII era prior to First Contact, who also serves as the inspiration for xenophobic madman John Frederick Paxton in the Enterprise episodes "Demons" and "Terra Prime."
All of which makes "Savage Curtain" itself historic.
Curiously, all of the reasons to recommend the episode don't necessarily reflect on the series itself. (When I say that, it may indicate that at base, it may just not be that awesome an episode. Even when there are very good reasons to watch one, there may be some others that mean you have to have a good excuse to care.) At the start of the story, it's basically an Abraham Lincoln episode, which means the series has reverted back to the second season trend of basically trying to do every general story type available at the time. Lincoln has an enduring cultural appeal. That's basically all he's here to do, blatantly. If it had just been Lincoln, "Savage Curtain" might end up representing everything you've always believed about the third season (assuming you had any preconceptions). There's nothing wrong with Lincoln, using Lincoln, or trying to make a point with Lincoln, but that smacks of egregious gimmickry in a series that sometimes smacked very badly of such offenses.
So it's good to have Surak. Outside of Spock's dad Sarek, he counts as only the third notable Vulcan in the whole series. Any episode (that's another reason why "Amok Time" has always endured in the minds of fans) that spends time with another Vulcan will always have to be considered notable. Even though Kahless ultimately emerges as a better character to explore, once the franchise takes a more nuanced view of Klingons in general (though the characteristic lighthearted approach of the original series will always be something worth revisiting), it's Surak who's the winner in their mutual debut. It's basically a Surak episode disguised as a Lincoln episode disguised in what basically seems like a fairly throwaway episode. Series fatigue. But unknowingly at the time, a very fruitful case of it.
via Star Trek
The other notable thing about the episode is that the aliens who create this somewhat nonsensical situation are rock creatures. William Shatner later wanted rock creatures in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (didn't get them, obviously). Galaxy Quest featured rock creatures. Clearly a compelling idea. The rock creatures' idea in the episode is to test humanity's sense of good and evil. Q tested humanity throughout Next Generation (at least in the first and last episodes, and everyone's patience, including the casts of DS9 and Voyager). Anyway, another link if you want. More if you want to look. That sort of thing.
"The Cloud Minders" is another of the episodes that saw the series tackle the racial issues of the day, although this time it might also be considered a general social commentary of a stratified culture. In its study of class inequality, "Minders" might be considered comparable to the later "Dear Doctor" (Enterprise), which generally is a better version of the story.
It deals with terrorism (certainly a considerable portion of the Deep Space Nine legacy), too. And it has Kirk as well as Spock involved in romances. It's Spock who bags the major beauty, Kirk who's interested in the one who represents the crux of the problem. But Spock's wears considerably less.
via Trek Core
Next Generation and of course the series itself dealt with worlds deluded into believing themselves utopias ("The Masterpiece Society," "Plato's Stepchildren"). "Minders" features a cloud city about a decade before The Empire Strikes Back. Less carbon freezing, about the same amount of torture.
Admirable for what it wants to say, but it's the series kind of spinning its wheels at this point. Kirk and Spock both taking arrows from Cupid is a little on the nose, clearly pandering to the fans and less the demands of the story. Spock being fascinated by physical beauty is pretty out of character.
Most often contended to be the "hippie episode" (although the earlier "This Side of Paradise" more accurately represents that description; perhaps the benefit of hindsight holds the difference, where one depicts how they're remembered now while the other how they considered themselves at the time), "The Way to Eden" is something of the Charles Manson story in space.
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier later paralleled much of the same story, while Deep Space Nine explored the back-to-nature idea in "Paradise," and there's Star Trek: Insurrection to consider as well, plus similarities to "Fusion" (the start of a whole character arc) in Enterprise. That adds up to something of a considerable legacy for the episode.
via Pinterest
It's also a Chekov episode, continuing the third season trend of coming up with stories for the supporting cast a little more frequently. It's his lady friend (in the original version it was actually McCoy's daughter, and the other half of the equation was Kirk...which would certainly have made things far more interesting...!) who's caught up in the would-be Manson's plot to rediscover Eden (in this case, the title of the episode is actually pretty straightforward for a change). Eventually Chekov's spotlight gives way to Spock, and has the benefit of giving new insights into both characters, contrasting with what we previously thought we knew.
All that adds up to plenty going on in the episode. "Way to Eden" is one of those episodes that's probably better now then it seemed at the time.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character
notable guest-stars
Majel Roddenberry
Charles Napier
"Requiem for Methuselah" is a classic, but it's a different kind of classic. It tackles some of the essential questions of the series and reflects on later elements of the franchise as well, but in ways that may still be surprising.
Whether "What Are Little Girls Made Of?" or Harry Mudd is your fancy, artificial life was a running theme of the series well before Data in Next Generation or The Doctor in Voyager. The android in 'Methuselah" isn't necessarily the central figure (that would be long-lived Flint), but is at least another familiar type: a love interest for Kirk.
And perhaps this is the rival "City on the Edge of Forever" always needed. In "City," Kirk has to watch a love interest die. In "Methuselah," the love interest literally falls apart rather than choose between Kirk and the life she's previously known with Flint. Kirk falls hard for her, and at the end of the episode, Spock performs a kind of miracle for him, erasing his memory of the whole incident (a rare, organic reset button), an act of mercy that adds yet another layer of significance to the proceedings.
via Fanpop
The title itself is iconic, one of the most poetically evocative of the whole series (a running theme that is one of its many distinctive features). Methuselah is a biblical figure, mostly significant for being long-lived, so it's a clear enough metaphor. Chances are if you can't immediately identify the episode's contents with its title, you remember a title like that anyway.
Yet the episode itself is an instance of the third season betraying its reputation for mediocrity, for failing to leave a good enough impression for the final run of the series. It's perhaps one of the best examples of the season being a reward for the fans, certainly for that closing scene with Spock, and for closure on a theme the show had attempted to explore multiple times already. And when you know the franchise would later finally tap this theme with main characters, "Methuselah" ends up becoming a preview (Voyager's excellent "Latent Image") of greater things still to come.
In a lot of ways, you can overlook the episode's significance all too easily because so much of it seems like so much you've seen before. But not like this. It's an experience of subtle pleasures and resonance. And none the less for it. It's a moment that catches everything the series tried to be all along, a profound examination of the human condition, and manages to do so with the fine touch seldom previously managed.
There are twelve-hundred million episodes throughout the franchise featuring aliens attempting to take over the bodies of the regular crew. This is an early one. In that regard, it's so completely average that you hardly have to watch this one in particular to know and/or care about the proceedings. However, it's a precedent, part of a Star Trek trope, whatever way of saying it that makes you think it's worth watching in some way, at least in that regard.
I know, even though it technically happens several times throughout the series, it's basically a surprise every time. Scotty was always the fourth lead of the series, after Kirk, Spock and McCoy, memorable for any number of reasons, whether his reputation as a "miracle worker" or that distinctive accent or general rank of importance among the crew. Still, the fourth lead was about as thankless a positioning as the three below him (Uhura, Chekov, Sulu) in most respects. Scotty episodes, not considering how rare they were, just weren't to par with the ones featuring those above him.
But this one's a romance. Unlike "Wolf in the Fold," this is a good thing for the chief engineer. It's about as shocking to have a romance feature someone other than Kirk as it is to discover you're watching a Scotty episode, so for combining the two, it should be considered a landmark of some kind.
The last and perhaps most significant contribution of "Zetar" (the title evokes classic science fiction if not Star Trek in general, one of those titles that leaves no real impression of the story it represents) is the debut of Memory Alpha, the Federation library that was subsequently adopted by the fans, as you may have noticed a time or two.
In that regard, you wish, once again, that the series were less pedantic in the types of stories it was willing to do, not merely yet another harrowing alien encounter, but a simple Starfleet visit to the library. Sounds crazy, I guess, but even adding in Scotty's romance, that could've sufficed, couldn't it?
So, "That Which Survives" is later echoed in "Arsenal of Freedom" (Next Generation), "Civil Defense" (Deep Space Nine), "Prototype" (Voyager). It's basically an episode about a defense mechanism that outlasts both its civilization and its need.
Because it's this series, it takes the form of a hot chick, naturally.
But perhaps more interestingly, a lot of other standard elements take different shape in the episode. For a change, when characters and/or ships go missing, that's not even the end of the crisis. Which leads to this being a kind of Scotty episode, as he works feverishly to get the Enterprise back under control. If all you care about Scotty is how awesome an engineer he is (and let's face it, in the series itself, what else is there?), this may be the ultimate episode for you.
And to a certain point, it even seems as if it's a Sulu episode, too. (How often does that happen? How about...never?) He's part of the landing party, and when it seems the Enterprise has been lost he begins offering suggestions. Sure, Kirk dismisses them. But Sulu's making them. It's another small step toward that captaincy waiting in his distant future. It's him being almost taken seriously! And then later, the hot chick seems like she's choosing him rather than Kirk! That definitely never happens! Weird circumstances, sure, but that's one of the story beats. So if you're a fan of Sulu, this an episode to catch in that regard as well.
Wonders never cease, right? And, and that title? It's Kirk's summation of the whole experience. Naturally. Beauty survives. All he'll remember is the hot chick.
"Mark of Gideon" is a Federation episode, explaining what goes wrong horribly after a planet petitions for membership and Kirk visits to check out what it's like. That's all well and good. In some ways, that's all you need to know about Deep Space Nine as a series (the Bajor problem is easy to forget after the long Dominion War years).
Aside from that relevance, "Gideon" is also a lot like a lot of other episodes, in that it's basically Kirk running up against a planet with a particular problem, this one being overpopulation. As usually happens in these cases, the planet has elected for an extreme solution. Happened before, would happen again, across multiple series, usually in one-off episodes.
When you're a Simpsons episode you can change the story you're telling whenever you want. When you're not, vacillating isn't always such a good thing. The idea of overpopulation is introduced but isn't really important until the end of the episode, when an explanation for why Kirk goes missing and the planet proves so uncooperative must be made. But by that point it could have been anything. It's arbitrary, and is a clear example of the limits of the kind of storytelling the series favored.
Better to remember that it was an effort at exploring not just strange new worlds but those who attempting to join the existing framework. The fact that it's a story template later revisited, and with equally spotty results, is an indication that it's a tough idea that was never truly solved. Even DS9 walked away from it. A challenge to be tackled more directly next time? Although it might be argued that Enterprise did exactly that, as it explored the founding of the Federation. And so perhaps another reason to reconsider that series...
Okay, let me rephrase the third season again. I think I'll get it right this time. I think it was a last ditch effort to make the series iconic in the minds of viewers. Not just good or challenging or memorable, but so they couldn't ignore what it tried to do during its run. And that's what "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield" is all about. This is the episode that has these guys:
It's that moment where subtlety goes out the window. "Hey! We're all human! To quote Michael Jackson, 'It doesn't matter if you're black or white!' Because we happen to be BOTH!" But of course these two knuckleheads don't get that. An Enterprise episode, "Chosen Realm," borrowed the whole concept of its ending: if you don't learn to get along with each other, you wipe each other out.
It's probably the most famous episode of the third season, the epitome of the go-for-broke attitude that happened to also add important bits of material to the canon, like Tholians, Surak, Kahless the Unforgettable, Memory Alpha. And aliens whose skin pigmentation has this slight variation outsiders would never even notice, but to them is of vital, deadly importance. Sound like any struggles you might have heard about in our own times?
Take it for what you will. Commendable, courageous, but...Great historic significance, maybe not the greatest of episodes.
This is the cautionary tale for Starfleet captains. Garth was a legend who went mad, and subsequently becomes a problem for Kirk to handle. That's the gist of "Whom Gods Destroy."
via Dude Rocket. On the plus side, Green Yvonne Craig!
Or, to put it another way, this is how Kirk could have ended up after any number of his own crazy adventures. It's also an episode that helps foster the idea that, much as how a lot of his costars came to consider William Shatner, Kirk was basically the only game in town. I get that the star of a show is prone to having a lot of Big Dramatic Things fall in his lap, and saving the galaxy becomes the prerequisite for a sci-fi hero, but it's easy to assume that Kirk's era is somehow completely dominated by him. He's the only competent captain, the only hero...you get the picture. When some other Starfleet or Federation figure comes along, it's Kirk who's got to rescue them from their foibles.
"Gods Destroy" is a quintessential third season episode. Unlike the relative world-building of the second season or the iconic development of the first, it's a season replete with ideas that leave a considerable impression on the franchise without seeming to. That's Garth in a nutshell. It's not that, like Commodore Decker in "The Doomsday Machine" where he's faced with a threat that's arguably more significant than he is. Leonard Nimoy apparently had a ton of problems with the episode, and there are endless parallels to be made with "Dagger of the Mind." Yet "Gods Destroy" is distinctive from "Dagger" thanks to Garth. "Dagger" has no Garth. His presence alone makes this an episode that could have been Kirk's, or directly significant to Kirk himself, but in the end is, as I said, a story of what could have been, a worst case scenario.
There are Andorians, Tellarites, and Orions running around. This whole season was a last-ditch effort to remind viewers what made the series memorable in the first place. If few people argue that it was the best season or had the best episodes, then at least it can be said that it was an effort to blend the instincts of the two preceding seasons.
The episode also features the familiar trope of someone impersonating a main character. As usual, it's Kirk. (It's more memorable in The Undiscovered Country.)
Like the later Next Generation ("The Perfect Mate") and Enterprise ("Precious Cargo") episodes, "Elaan of Troyius" is about a bride on the way to a politically-motivated wedding whose journey is complicated by her encounter with a formidable Starfleet officer.
via Trek Core. Looks Egyptian but she's Greek to Kirk!
As the title certainly evokes for me, this is another of the many episodes drawing from classical history, specifically Greek or Roman figures. "Troyius" owes its origins to The Iliad, the story of the Trojan War, and Elaan is a kind of Helen of Troy figure, a problematic bride if there ever was one.
via Trek Core. From the little-known Greek Green Goblin myth.
The most intriguing element element of the episode is that it seems to be the quintessential setup for Kirk Is A Cad storytelling, but he in fact resists the easy romance the whole time. Elaan is kind of like an Orion Slave Girl (less dancing, more like how they were explained in Enterprise), irresistible. Yet Kirk does resist her. Picard had a far less easy time of it (though, in fairness, he was matched up against Famke Janssen, while Trip's impossible scenario pitted him against the equally alluring Padma Lakshmi).
Interestingly, this is also a Klingon episode, certainly not famously so, but it does present, if not in broadcast than at least production order (meaning it was created for "Elaan"), the iconic first Klingon starship of the franchise:
via RPF. I had a model of it. Glued it badly together myself!
I won't overstate how much you need to see "Elaan of Troyius," but there are reasons to consider it fairly significant in a minor kind of way. (Such glowing praise!) And if you're looking for near-Uhura episodes, this is another one to catch in that regard. We see her quarters. That sort of thing.
Like Q in The Next Generation, an entire aliens species is tested, although in "The Empath" it's with a single individual. The results probably would have been better with a better choice as to how to represent that individual.
As the title suggests, the individual is an empath, like Troi in Next Generation (it's easy to assume the episode was considered somewhat heavily in the formative development of the second series, kind of merged with The Motion Picture and Gene Roddenberry's attempts at launching a TV show with a robotic lead character). But she's also a mute, and therein lies the rub. The performance falls flat for anyone who doesn't particularly want melodrama inserted into the mix, but there it is and there's very little else to be said about it.
It's the kind of episode that's just kind of there, reminiscent of "The Cage," the original pilot in concept and execution. If so much of it hadn't apparently been duplicated to much greater effect, I'd say it should otherwise very easily be stricken from the record, a contender for the distinction of worst episodes in the way "Spock's Brain" is usually much more easily considered.
There are some episodes that are neither good nor bad, are just adventures you take in if you generally like what you've been watching. I have four distinctions every episode is measured by. I begin with the premise if it's worth watching at all, it gets at least one of them, whether for a viewer who happens to be a fan of the series, the franchise in general, or if there's a reason to watch for a specific character, and the fourth one as to whether it's essential for any one of the three. (I always rank character last because for me it's the mark of the best stories regardless of any other factor.)
I begin with all that because there's...really nothing else worth talking about with "Wink of an Eye." There are countless examples of other episodes throughout the franchise where the ship is hijacked by aliens. This one happens to feature a particular gimmick in order to achieve it (as in fact they all do), which is that the aliens move faster than our crew (hence the title).
It's the kind of episode that's a reminder that Star Trek at its heart is a science fiction vehicle. So often the gimmick isn't necessarily geared toward the genre so much as traditional elements either from it or the Star Trek template as it slowly emerged. So that's all you really need to know.
That would be Uhura kissing Kirk, the first interracial kiss seen on television (the Memory Alpha link provides some clarification, but the point stands), an historic event for which this episode, and indeed the whole series, will forever be known. Sucks that it has to be under the auspices of alien control and all that, but there it is. It happened. Glad Star Trek made history like that.
That alone makes the episode must-see for its cultural significance, but there are other reasons, too. There are franchise-specific reasons, parallels to be accounted for, trends to follow (eugenics, as in Khan; emotional transference, as in Lwaxana Troi in Deep Space Nine's "Fascination").
There's also the plight of Alexander, which becomes the crux of the story. Alexander is one of the guest aliens, only he's considered inferior to the others. Our characters end up spending their time not so much fixing the society as fighting for Alexander's rights. If you like, this might be considered another level of the general Civil Rights push of the episode along with the kiss.
The good, in the case of this episode, easily outweighs the bad. A real argument could be made for "Plato's Stepchildren" representing not only the third season but the series as a whole, the reason why something that seemed doomed to be lost and forgotten instead became a global phenomenon.
Perhaps the single most important episode of the season, the most iconic one, the one that added the most to later franchise lore (which is surprisingly saying something), "The Tholian Web" boasts iconic visuals (the eponymous web), the debut of important new aliens, another of those lost starships but perhaps the most important one, and Kirk in peril while Spock and McCoy once again try to fill his void.
Like the Andorians and Tellarites, the Tholians would be essentially one-off aliens for virtually the entire run of the franchise until, some four decades later, Enterprise shows up to bring them back. But, like the Andorians, it would prove well-worth the wait. First there were the Tholian ships in "Future Tense," then the debut of the Tholians themselves in "In A Mirror, Darkly, Part I" (a true highlight of that episode, especially when Mirror Phlox tortures the hapless specimen!).
The idea and look of the web was echoed in Next Generation for its pilot episode, "Encounter at Farpoint," by Q.
The missing starship Defiant, also featured in the Enterprise outing "Mirror, Darkly," became a true legacy of Star Trek lore when Deep Space Nine introduced a warship identically named, proving once and for all that the Enterprise wasn't the only ship capable of creating a lineage.
All of that is window-dressing if the story doesn't carry dramatic weight, though, which comes in the form of Kirk apparently being lost bringing the ever-present personality conflict between Spock and McCoy dramatically to the surface. It's an important moment for the series to see this played out, which is echoed in Star Trek.
All in all, an episode that becomes timeless but worth viewing in its own right, the definition of a classic.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Among the distinctive features of the series that the later franchise never quite managed to live up to are the episode titles, poetic and elaborate. There was never more poetic or elaborate a title than this one. Kind of instantly iconic.
But more importantly, "Touched the Sky" is a McCoy episode. This happened surprisingly rarely, and that's too bad. McCoy was one of the Big Three, of course, along with Kirk and Spock, and so never hurt for attention, but as far as stories built entirely around him, he was hardly their equal. Similar to "City on the Edge of Forever," it's a story based on the good doctor developing a medical condition. Being a doctor, it's too bad that "physician, heal thyself" would need to apply to him at all, but there you go. It's really a matter of his basic humanity coming to the surface. McCoy was always considered the most human of the characters, and of course Spock the most alien, with Kirk bridging the gap between them, so there's that.
Like Voyager's "Resolutions," McCoy finds safe haven, but that thrusts him into a whole, fairly typical drama. Long story short, he helps a civilization heal itself, and is in return granted a cure for his own condition.
There's a lost episode concerning McCoy's origins, which is addressed directly in Star Trek for the first time, and that would have been nice to see. Maybe in the future his full story will be explored more fully. In the meantime we have what we have, which is material like this, which is common for the series.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Following Kor ("Errand of Mercy") and Koloth ("The Trouble with Tribbles"), the appearance of Kang in this episode completes the debuts of the big three Klingons featured in the series who would later appear in the Deep Space Nine episode "Blood Oath."
Like "Errand," "Day of the Dove" is about a conflict between Klingons and Kirk that revolves on weirdo manipulative aliens. Being that as it may, it's a true highlight of the oft-maligned third season, showing a real flair for the budding Star Trek landscape, something the season did surprisingly often.
By this point, Klingons had appeared often enough that they weren't just familiar but a key component of series lore. What's interesting is that it seems to anticipate the more nuanced role these traditional foes would develop over the course of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, Next Generation, and DS9, where they weren't just the enemy and in fact could even cooperate with Kirk when necessary.
via Danger Mouse. Leading to this improbable image.
Where fans tend to associate diminished quality with the season and diluted concepts, an episode like "Day" suggests, rather, how the creators began to loosen up a little, in a good way. Far too often you'll see a critic dismiss genre entertainment for taking itself too seriously. I have no idea what that means. But I remember that some of the best material from the second season ("Tribbles," "A Piece of the Action") had exactly this attitude of letting the concept breathe a little. I do think as the season progressed, it became a little more utilitarian and thus didn't really capitalize on its best instincts, but such a trend suggests that if there had been a fourth season, arguably the best material of the series had been yet to come. A thought.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Michael Ansara
Would you believe that this was actually the first episode produced for the season? Yeah.
Clearly another attempt to cover all the given genres of the day, and an especially popular one of TV (Gene Roddenberry even famously pitched the series originally as Wagon Train to the Stars), "Spectre of the Gun," which improbably thrusts Kirk and crew into an alien reenactment of the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral featuring the Earps, Doc Holliday and others, actually ended up setting a franchise precedent.
I love making references to other episodes.
Next Generation visited Westerns in "A Fistful of Datas," one of its many holodeck-run-amok episodes, while Enterprise ran across cowboys during its Xindi-infested third season in "North Star."
via The Viewscreen. When you put it like that it makes perfect sense!
Otherwise, do you really need to know much more? Apparently it was conceived as a spotlight for Chekov. Presumably because Wyatt Earp was a Russian hero. Nonsense fun, Star Trek style!
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character
A classic by any other name, "Is There In Truth No Beauty?" is in a lot of ways an inversion of the series, a beautiful woman who ends up being associated with Spock, not romantically but intellectually.
This is what most of the series strove for. There are points in the story that are about as generic as possible, developments that occur all the time, just to provide conflict, but the overriding arc of the guest character, portrayed by Diana Muldaur in arguably her best franchise appearance, is a perfect encapsulation of what the whole season had set out as a goal, putting a strong focus on Spock as the acknowledged best character of the series.
Muldaur had previously appeared in "Return to Tomorrow" the previous season in an unrelated role, and spent the whole of Next Generation's second season as Dr. Pulaski, who might be viewed as a cynical version of the hopeful Miranda Jones. Jones is the rare guest character who is allowed to remain strong and even heroic throughout their appearance. She's a stark contrast to Spock, having studied on Vulcan to master her telepathic abilities, and their dynamic drives "Beauty."
The title alludes to the concept of beautiful women, certainly a running theme in the franchise, and also the alien species Jones is attempting to understand better so that they can become productive partners in the Federation, a little like Picard's experience in Next Generation's "Darmok" or Archer's in Enterprise's "A Night in Sickbay." It's a philosophical matter in the way Star Trek has often attempted although seldom appreciated by its observers, looking beyond the surface.
It's got a a mouthful of a title, which doubtless has hindered "Beauty"'s reputation over the years, but it deserves greater recognition, and another good argument to give the whole third season another look. Often the argument was that the series became fatally compromised in its final season, and that ending it was an act of mercy. But in truth there is greatness to be found within it. When they really wanted to, the creators could perform real magic. Such as this episode.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Diana Muldaur
Like an uncomfortable echo of the first season child actors episode "Miri" (which at least had the good sense to cast a really young Phil Morris), the third season drops its first real turkey (okay, okay; "Spock's Brain" is usually afforded the "honor," but this is my reckoning).
In short, a bunch of bratty kids are manipulated by an evil alien to do naughty things. A later echo-of-a-kind can be found in Deep Space Nine's "Move Along Home" as far as chanting goes. Otherwise, you can easily skip this otherwise uncomfortable reminder that the series had some unfortunate tendencies. Note that I said tendencies, as in "Children" isn't even so much an example of the routinely-stated poor quality of the third season, but representative of the whole series in some regards. The best of the series had competition from its worst, and for too many viewers, lost out. (Then again, genre programming tended to have brief lifespans, then as now, anyway, so there's always that, too.)
The thing that's usually referenced about this episode is that the dude who plays the evil alien was a famous lawyer of the day. If I bother to mention his name now, it'll be meaningless, except to say he's the rube who defended Jack Ruby. That's a name you'll know. John Adams post-Boston Massacre this guy was not.
Move along!
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
So, unlike the tepid "Omega Glory" effort late in the second season, "The Paradise Syndrome" is a full-blown Star Trek version of Native Americans In Space. It's the episode where Kirk loses his memory, is adopted into the tribe, and has an honest-to-Gene wife.
All that's fine. It's not a fantastic episode. Other than the typical trying-to-do-every-story-type nature of the experience that the series by this point had made a well-known trope (and wasn't finished exploring yet!), there's a franchise precedent for a couple later episodes in a prophecy seemingly being fulfilled and a character being mistaken as a god. Prophecies were a major part of Deep Space Nine, and the idea was also exploited by a couple of Ferengi in Voyager's "False Profits." Picard was mistaken for a god in Next Generation's "Who Watches the Watchers?"
There's all that. Native Americans were featured perhaps more flatteringly in Next Generation's "Journey's End" and Voyager's first officer Chakotay.
It's an episode that you take for what it is. Kirk had to lose his memory to make a lasting commitment to someone, although the bride's dead by the end of the story, not to mention the groom having his memory back. All the same, it's basically similar to any number of other series episodes, including Spock's experiences in "This Side of Paradise" (another episode that, like "Omega Glory," serves as an archetype for a much more overt exploration of a cultural topic, which in that case is hippies, a topic better known from "The Way to Eden" late in the third season).
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
It took a long time to revisit the Romulans after their classic debut in the first season episode "Balance of Terror," but it was worth the wait. This follow-up sees Kirk on a secret mission to steal a cloaking device, and in the process Spock is forced to confront the nature of the Vulcan kinship to Romulans. It's a rare outright romantic scenario for him, too. And it's another Spock spotlight, second in a row, two for two, in the third season. For a series that desperately needed to recalculate, whatever you might have thought of "Spock's Brain," you can't deny that the second time was the charm.
While far less subtle than "Balance," "The Enterprise Incident" is a clear evolution from its predecessor, nearly a sequel. Now that Starfleet knows what Romulans look like, it changes the dynamic entirely. The same is true for Spock. In "Balance," you'll remember, he faced immediate bigotry from some of his colleagues once it was clear Romulans were descended from Vulcans. Do he take the choice to form a new professional association, change his allegiance?
Well, of course not, just as Kirk's part of the story isn't what it seems, either. Misdirection. Kirk's arc has parallels in other franchise episodes, such as Next Generation's "Clues," Voyager's "The Omega Directive," Enterprise's "Affliction," instances where an officer is forced to hide crucial information for various reasons from the rest of the crew.
Like a surprising number of episodes from the season, "Incident" laid a lot of foundation for further franchise lore. Even the title itself calls to mind the later "Andorian Incident" from Enterprise. Last but certainly not least, the female Romulan commander is the earliest instance of a woman in a leadership role in Star Trek. That's who you thank, Janeway.
Plenty of reasons to consider it a classic.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
Frequently cited as one of the worst if not the worst episodes in the whole franchise, "Spock's Brain" has infamy for certain. Does it deserve it?
Actually, probably not, if subsequent Star Trek history has anything to say about it. People attempted to "collect" Data no less than three times in The Next Generation ("The Measure of a Man," "The Most Toys," "A Matter of Time"), while Voyager featured similar scenarios multiple times as well (medical theft in "Phage," for instance, or "Think Tank," which sees Seven receive the Data treatment). That's a considerable legacy.
But "Spock's Brain" is also synonymous with the phrase "jumping the shark" (originated from Happy Days, with the Fonz pulling off the questionable move), and finds a latter-day comparison in the Voyager episode "Threshold," which suggests human evolution may lead to...lizards. It's the idea of Spock's brain being stolen that's considered ludicrous, Spock walking around without his brain.
via Trek Core. On the other hand, NBC finally made a monster out of him.
Sometimes the fans have trouble being open-minded. Which can be peculiar. They'll accept far more insane things than this, but call "Spock's Brain" terrible, the worst of the worst, presumably because it appears to be so humiliating to an otherwise perfectly dignified character. I guess. That's as much as I can make of the episode's reputation.
Except the franchise, like I said, seemed on the whole to think it was a pretty good idea. Granted, the later episodes unquestionably did much better stories with the concept, which in the end in, this incarnation, degenerates into a fairly standard and as a result generic and otherwise unmemorable story in the series. But the idea of it is not terrible. Most of it addresses very directly, as most of the best episodes of the series do, that it's Spock who's the real star. For a season that was basically one long Hail Mary for something that at that point wouldn't even dare dream of its later wide success as a franchise, that's shrewd thinking. Certainly not "Amok Time," but logical all the same.
It's time to let go of the stigma, folks. It's just another episode, and in some ways more than just another one, in a good way.
four quarter analysis franchise * series * essential * character notable guest-stars:
Majel Roddenberry
