Star Trek 3x9 "The Tholian Web"

rating: ****

Memory Alpha summary

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.

via Star Trek

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

Star Trek 3x8 "For the World Is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky"

rating: *

Memory Alpha summary

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.

via Trek Core

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

Star Trek 3x7 "Day of the Dove"

rating: ****

Memory Alpha summary

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

Star Trek 3x6 "Spectre of the Gun"

rating: *

Memory Alpha summary

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

Star Trek 3x5 "Is There In Truth No Beauty?"

rating: ****

Memory Alpha summary

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.

via Trek Movie

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

Star Trek 3x4 "And the Children Shall Lead"

rating: *

Memory Alpha summary

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.)

via John Kenneth Muir.  No, that's not Wesley.

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

Star Trek 3x3 "The Paradise Syndrome"

rating: **

Memory Alpha summary

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.

via Trek Core

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

Star Trek 3x2 "The Enterprise Incident"

rating: ****

Memory Alpha summary

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.

via John Kenneth Muir

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

Star Trek 3x1 "Spock's Brain"

rating: **

Memory Alpha summary

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

Star Trek 2x26 "Assignment: Earth"

rating: ***

Memory Alpha summary

"Assignment: Earth" may be the most interesting piece of Star Trek trivia ever.  If it had succeeded in what it set out to do, Star Trek as we know it wouldn't exist.

By the end of the second season, the series was on the brink of cancellation.  It seemed even Gene Roddenberry was resigned to that fact.  He originally pitched this episode as the pilot of a completely new series.  Instead it became the season finale.  That's why it seems to be such a dramatic departure from virtually every other episode ever.  It's about as standalone as you can get, but it's of significantly higher quality than usual, because of course at that point being a standalone episode was par for the course.

Enter: Gary Seven.  Basically a human drafted into being an agent of an alien species, Central Intelligence Aliens if you will.  "Assignment: Earth" is very blatantly far more his story than our crew's.  The first and last time that ever happened.  If he'd ever appeared again, I might have been given the excuse to recommend it on all four of my qualifiers and therefore certify it as a classic.  I contend that the episode could very easily inspire more onscreen material.  If and when that happens, consider the upgrade immediate.

via Trek Core.  And he kind of looks like Gene, too.

Gary's mission was to stop humans from crossing the brink of nuclear war.  He succeeds, by the way.

Our crew does factor into the episode.  The other great distinction of "Assignment: Earth" is that it's the only casual instance of time travel in franchise history.  The crew visits 1968 in order to resolve a riddle in the records.  Later franchise lore would establish Starfleet having, y'know, rules about time travel, but that doesn't exist yet.

All around, this is a fascinating episode.  If this is the first time you hear about it, then consider yourself initiated.  There are comic books and prose books that feature Gary Seven, but of course he never again appeared onscreen.  If Star Trek had turned into a Gary Seven experience, we certainly wouldn't have anything that we know today.  The third season, although routinely creatively maligned, gave fans probably a better experience than they'd had in the latter third of the second season, but more importantly a full extra season to remind them of why they loved the series to begin with, and it looked nothing like Gary Seven.

But watch this episode and ask yourself, this guy could have developed into a cult phenomenon, too, couldn't he?  And chances are if he'd stuck around, Kirk would have come back eventually too, right?

Anyway, that's speculation.  Take it for what it's worth.  Bottom line is, even if you know none of what might have happened, "Assignment: Earth" is a unique experience, a standout episode, one that turned around the fortunes of the late second season at the very last moment, and even on that note probably helped invigorate the creators for the final season.  And that's worth celebrating, too.

four quarter analysis
franchise * series * essential * character

notable guest-stars:
Terri Garr
Barbara Babcock

Star Trek 2x25 "Bread and Circuses"

rating: *

Memory Alpha summary

Just through the sheer repetition of Kirk being forced to literally fight for his survival, this is either one too many or perhaps the tipping point in making it a legitimate trope in the series (and franchise, as in Voyager's "The Fight" and "Tsunkatse" and Deep Space Nine's "In Purgatory's Shadow"/"By Inferno's Light").

Anyway, "Bread and Circuses" also continues the gimmick of doing every story type in existence, this time the Roman Empire, just because.

via Star Trek

I don't have a ton to say about this one.  It is what it is.  Take it or leave it.  As I've been saying, clearly the writers had become exhausted by the end of the season.  They were just throwing whatever they wanted at the screen, the total reverse of how it had begun, richly exploring the bugging mythology.  This is the opposite.  The complete opposite, especially as compared to "A Piece of the Action."

An oblique reference to Christianity, extremely rare in any Star Trek incarnation, may be the one notable element of the episode.  Until DS9 faith and/or religion never got much positive press, as it were, in the franchise.  That was a decision Gene Roddenberry made about humanity's future.  (Now if this had been the whole point of the episode, we'd be having a different discussion.  Incidentally, original Pike actor and series lead Jeffrey Hunter played Jesus in King of Kings.)

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character

Star Trek 2x24 "The Ultimate Computer"

rating: **

Memory Alpha summary

An episode that bucks the late second season trend, "The Ultimate Computer" ended up creating a franchise legend in Richard Daystrom thanks to the later Daystrom Institute from Next Generation.  It might be argued that the same series benefited more directly from the events of this episode, which explored the upper reaches of artificial intelligence.

via The Viewscreen.  You're... -A legend.  Yes I am.

Although Daystrom fares poorly in the episode (this is basically the worst experience of his life), which is basically how we meet everyone who isn't named James T. Kirk, his reputation and legacy prior to these events serve as an important building block.  He also happens to represent our continuing fears about what advanced technology will do if left unchecked (apocalypse! so sayeth Terminator!  The Matrix!  Johnny Depp!).

This is the guy who dares suggest a computer can do a better job than Kirk.  Clearly not!  But then later we have Data.  Sure, and the Borg.  It just goes to show that even in the future, humans have the same fears.  It's pretty interesting stuff.

four quarter analysis

franchise * series * essential * character